We lost 70% of our player base half a year in

[hunkygladiator]

Those are wrong numbers, they are from Steam. Most players play with the official launcher. The game is as active as ever and this doomsaying has got to stop.

Why yes, I can log in and play the game without a stupid long queue.
Certanly, the numbers have dipped after a few months and will fluctuate between patches, and when the next expansion comes there will be a HUGE flux of players for 2 months before the dip and flux again...the same as it always has for the past 6 years.

Game is doing fine.
Stop with the Doomsaying

All white knights can do is describe real facts and statistics as "doomsaying".

[Illmaeran]

All white knights can do is describe real facts and statistics as "doomsaying".

Context is very important.

Fact 1- We had a huge influx of people between 2020 and 2022.

Fact 2- Endwalker dropped in December of 2021

Fact 3- If the Steam population is large enough, it could potentially be considered as a viable proxy for the population as a whole.

Fact 4- The game has a proven cycle of boom-and-bust regarding player activity.

Fact 5- Relative to the large spikes in active players, the game has traditionally had a fairly small percentage of people who consistently sub and play the game between major patches.

Fact 6- The overall number of players has steadily increased since launch.






Taking all of this in context. If you compare the number of players at Endwalker's launch vs the number of people playing now; absolutely, there's been a massive loss of active players. However, it's not the best example to use for one major reason: the anomalously high number of people starting the game due to the WoW exodus. However, if you look at the number of current players now vs. the number of players in 2015, you'll see that there's been a slow, but steady, increase of people playing the game regularly (daily/weekly), so no, the game's not losing massive numbers of regular players. It may very well be losing WoW Refugees as they return to WoW or find other games that are more appealing, but they were outliers any way so a loss of a high percent of them doesn't really factor into discussions of player base decline. What will be telling is how many of those people stay with the game and how the population of regular players increases over the course of the rest of the 6.X cycle.

It's not White Knighting to say the game's not dying and any assertions to the contrary are Doomsaying. If the Steam numbers are a valid reflection of the general player base (given the trends, it looks like they are), then the game is in no way dying even if recent player numbers of the anomalously large player base at Endwalker's launch show a dramatic decline.

[hunkygladiator]

Context is very important.

Fact 1- We had a huge influx of people between 2020 and 2022.

Fact 2- Endwalker dropped in December of 2021

Fact 3- If the Steam population is large enough, it could potentially be considered as a viable proxy for the population as a whole.

Fact 4- The game has a proven cycle of boom-and-bust regarding player activity.

Fact 5- Relative to the large spikes in active players, the game has traditionally had a fairly small percentage of people who consistently sub and play the game between major patches.

Fact 6- The overall number of players has steadily increased since launch.






Taking all of this in context. If you compare the number of players at Endwalker's launch vs the number of people playing now; absolutely, there's been a massive loss of active players. However, it's not the best example to use for one major reason: the anomalously high number of people starting the game due to the WoW exodus. However, if you look at the number of current players now vs. the number of players in 2015, you'll see that there's been a slow, but steady, increase of people playing the game regularly (daily/weekly), so no, the game's not losing massive numbers of regular players. It may very well be losing WoW Refugees as they return to WoW or find other games that are more appealing, but they were outliers any way so a loss of a high percent of them doesn't really factor into discussions of player base decline. What will be telling is how many of those people stay with the game and how the population of regular players increases over the course of the rest of the 6.X cycle.

It's not White Knighting to say the game's not dying and any assertions to the contrary are Doomsaying. If the Steam numbers are a valid reflection of the general player base (given the trends, it looks like they are), then the game is in no way dying even if recent player numbers of the anomalously large player base at Endwalker's launch show a dramatic decline.

Funny, because that graph shows that there are fewer people in 6.1 than in early 2021 before the WoW influx.

[Illmaeran]

Funny, because that graph shows that there are fewer people in 6.1 than in early 2021 before the WoW influx.

I'm not seeing where you're getting that. Looking at the top graph, the farthest right (most recent) point is higher than in January of 2021, and is higher than May of 2019. Looking at the bottom graph, we have a substantial increase in players in 2019 with the lead up to Shadowbringers and a much higher concurrent player count going forward from ShB release.

[Kolsykol]

The WoW influx is a complete fluke. The population is going to start declining as the WoW players slowly get bored and move on.

What do you base this on?
Nothing.

And ofc you're going to get people who try the game and don't like it and leave.
You're trying very hard to be negative for no real reason.

All white knights can do is describe real facts and statistics as "doomsaying".

This is like people going on about '' virtue-signaling '' but then they sit around circlejerking and virtue-signaling to each other about how bad the game is lol.
Labelling and calling people names for disagreeing with you doesn't make you right.

Why does it make people a '' white knight '' for using common sense and not shitting on the game for no reason, but it's not okay to call you a doomsayer?

Tbh I don't even know a single person who plays through Steam, I even forget the game is even on Steam altogether.

Edit: Also the game has increased in players with every expansion long before the '' WoW refugees ''.
Yes if a lot of people leave a game there's going to be a certain influx of new players in other games and not all of them are going to stick around.

But this is like some crap like people saying '' Asmongold made FFXIV popular '' or whatever which just completely ignores all of the time before he so much as thought about playing the game.

So many trolls. Last I checked the game was healthy enough that I'm still getting at least a tiny queue whenever I log in(although no where nearly as big as back when EW released).

I run into a queue every day too, and the game is supposedly more popular in the US than in the EU I think.
So I am assuming they get longer queues.
If the game servers are perpetually full then I dunno how this equates to '' game is dying '' according to some people.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

All white knights can do is describe real facts and statistics as "doomsaying".

Calls me a White Knight for saying the Game is doing fine....an Objective Fact that Contradicts your Statistics and Proves your Facts Wrong.
Try pulling Global Numbers next time, and not Steam Numbers. You might have a better argument Doomsayer.