Why pay a subscription?

[Alhanelem]

40 man raids are epic and the casual players ruined it..

No, 40 man raids were not epic, they were a clusterpuff, for lack of a safe term to use on this forum. needing 40 people for several hours was overkill. You can make epic, challenging content without needing that many. It's nothing to do with being too hard, and everything to do with being simply unnecessary. Even 24 people is a lot, which is how big raids will be in this game, but it's a number I'm okay with.

Epicness does not directly correlate with number of players.

[Rikudou-Sennin]

No, 40 man raids were not epic, they were a clusterpuff, for lack of a safe term to use on this forum. needing 40 people for several hours was overkill. You can make epic, challenging content without needing that many. It's nothing to do with being too hard, and everything to do with being simply unnecessary. Even 24 people is a lot, which is how big raids will be in this game, but it's a number I'm okay with.

Epicness does not directly correlate with number of players.

Agreed, and ultimately this is why I quit WoW.

[Sidious]

No, 40 man raids were not epic

Yes they were.

Rolling in with an army of 40 people feels more epic than prancing in with 8. Period. I played completely casually in vanilla and I didn't have a problem finding a raiding guild. Even though the best guilds were doing Naxx40, we were having an absolute blast doing MC, BWL and AQ40.

Proof is not on your side. New WoW only loses subs. Why? Because Blizzard adopted an ideology similar to yours and applied it in almost all areas of the game.

[Rikudou-Sennin]

Yes they were.

Rolling in with an army of 40 people feels more epic than prancing in with 8. Period.

Apparently you're wrong... they started getting rid of them at one point. Contrary to what you hardcore players think -- most people aren't hardcore and won't spend their entire waking life trying to raid with 40 people and spending countless hours obtaining gear.

If you're a pro at wasting time there are other games out there that you can sink your life into with little to no reward. Then you can stand around the auction house in your Tier 16 gear like the game is some kind of cat-walk.

[Alcyon_Densetsu]

Why pay a sub? Why play continuously?

The experience itself. The journey. Hanging around with friends, having fun with them, on a regular basis after a hard day's work. MMORPG are a totally different experience than other "shoot and leave" online games, because of the very fact that the world is permanent, and so are its social structures. It's one of these regular things we do every week, if not every day: a bar you like, a friend's you enjoy. MMO players are creatures of habits, which is why it's a very human hobby, despite its being virtual —emotions experienced in an online setting are by no means less "real" than those experienced with a physical object, especially when they involve other people in a social setting.

It's the very notion of "bonding with others" that is at work here. Something that tends to vanish in the current "I want it now - don't care about others" mindset that many people tend to develop these days in most of their activities; but in the end, we all need others to enjoy life. MMO gaming, on a very basic and humble level, is a way to do that, especially for people that don't have the luxury of going out every night —be it because of tight schedules, long commuting times, or even social fears.

That's why you subscribe to a sports club, you pay regularly for drinks in a pub, or you hang on to some online games. The activity, itself, may be more of a pretext than an end; and besides, it's the journey that matters, not the destination.

[Vaer]

The activity, itself, may be more of a pretext than an end; and besides, it's the journey that matters, not the destination.

Unless it's Castrum Meri or Amdapor Keep.

[Alcyon_Densetsu]

Unless it's Castrum Meri or Amdapor Keep.

I'd wager that if doing them all over again to achieve a "grind" isn't an enjoyable experience, then there's no reason to do it the first place, because the "end", being fully geared, will sooner rather than later become null in terms of gameplay —no later than the next patch. So if you didn't enjoy it, then you've gained pretty much nothing.

What I said here, however a bit more extensively (parts in navy blue).

On a personal level, when I grinded Castrum, and soon will grind Amdapor, I do it with friends, and we have a blast on Mumble. It's just fun, because we like combat in this game (no matter what we gain by "winning") and we enjoy ourselves together.

[C-croft]

No, 40 man raids were not epic, they were a clusterpuff

Yes they were.

Rolling in with an army of 40 people feels more epic than prancing in with 8. Period.

Epic clusterpuff. 40 man raiding was epic awesome. The discipline required to complete a 40 man raid was the issue. The reason few guilds could accomplish something like that is that it requires an 'elite' group of 40 willing to coordinate and cooperate. When it is 8-16, it is much easier to work with because you spend less energy on babysitting. Not only that but the raid leader has to be ready to deal with 39 other players and getting the herd together. 39 people to lead is not easy unless you are that good, and the players are willing to put it all on the line for that one person.

[Vaer]

I'd wager that if doing them all over again to achieve a "grind" isn't an enjoyable experience, then there's no reason to do it the first place, because the "end", being fully geared, will sooner rather than later become null in terms of gameplay —no later than the next patch. So if you didn't enjoy it, then you've gained pretty much nothing.

What I said here, however a bit more extensively.

Except you need to do it to do the other enjoyable things up the ladder, which is the entire reason why people do it even if they don't want to. Game design stonewalls you at some point with gear checks.

[Sidious]

Contrary to what you hardcore players think -- most people aren't hardcore and won't spend their entire waking life trying to raid with 40 people and spending countless hours obtaining gear.

Yes they will. And the proof is in the pudding: People *did* stick around. Something that can't be said for your ultra-casualized iterations of the game.

Vanilla: +5 million subs
TBC: + 6 million (11 million total)
Wotlk: +1 million (12 million total)
Cata: -3 million (9 million total)
MoP: -2 million in less than a year (~7 million total).

These are all official numbers released during Blizzard's investor conference calls. It's all in their archives, feel free to double check.

By your logic, every new casual feature that WoW introduces would send subs skyrocketing. And yet they haven't been able to post a single positive quarter in years. At one point they were even giving D3 away for free if you agreed to sub to WoW, and they STILL had a net loss in subs.

Casual players don't actually want a casual game. They just lack the foresight to know otherwise.

That said, I work a full time job and I play casually. Always have, even in WoW. But I refuse to lump myself in with them because their ideas are cancerous.