Quote Originally Posted by Vantol View Post
90% of people I know (and I know around hundred) were 60-all (combat, gathering, crafting) 2 months after expansion release.
Are you seriously bringing this as an argument? Even if we ignore the part aesteval already pointed out (a handful of endgame raiders you are friends with are not representative of the majority of people in the game), it is still ridiculous if you actually consider that to be the norm.
Even just playtime-wise. I can guarantee you that most players do NOT have that amount of playtime available every week to get every single available class to 60 in 8 weeks.
And that's not even considering that people have very varying interests. I actually AM interested in getting all classes to 60 and I've been playing since early 2011, and I still only have an average level of 49 over all the classes.
Now think of how common it is for people to NEVER level anything outside of the few classes they enjoy playing...

@Census:
Well I like by how much Ragnarok is winning over Shiva now
Last time it was still a race between Shiva and Ragnarok for the most densely populated EU server with the most people at 60 and with the most alex clears;
now I can tell the new players who come to my server and ask if they are on the right server that yes, we are the greatest! Muhahaha!

Ok, serious now:
In general, those numbers are in line with what I've been expecting.
  • We are nearly 3 months into 3.3,
  • and it's been 6(!) months since we last got a new raid.
  • 14 months since the last expansion.
It's natural for the active player numbers to drop that late in the cycle, and no, the 6 million cumulative players SE announced lately were never said to be "active"; the basic meaning of the word cumulative already means "added up", as in "all players who ever registered an account past the free trial".
So screaming "Eeh, where are your 6 million players now, SE? You lied!" just means you don't know how English works

All that said, I think the numbers on the Alex Clears are worrying.
Yes, it has always been normal for only a fracture of the playerbase to be interested in raiding, but not THAT few
I still think having a normal mode for Alex at all is killing any will to do Savage. Because why should you if you get the story, the glamours and everything from the Normal Mode just fine and Savage only gives you better stats which you won't need anywhere else but IN Savage?

To end on a lighter note:
Heh, so I was right when I thought nobody would bother with the freaking ugly Manjimutt, the boring Blizzaria weapon and the equally ugly Robonyan