Quote Originally Posted by MrSmiley View Post
The only successful sub "casual" mmo I can think of is WoW, and when it officially started its big turn into "casual" in wotlk was when it began its decline and has been in such ever since.

You want people to want to keep their sub and be playing every month, not sub a month every few months to try out the new stuff. A look at recent mmo's success or failure as well as WoW's sub history only proves this. If players don't feel the need for a long term investment in the game, they won't stay constantly subbed. Name me all the successful pay to play mmos you can think of that are casual, excluding wow (which I also addressed above, was at its peaks before it was over-casualized has declined ever since).

I will agree accessibility is important and bars should never be set too high or it will be forever niche, but over-doing the opposite side will result in a similar fall albeit in a slightly different way.
It actually had its sub peak in WotLK (which happens to be the most casual-friendly and accessible expansion they released). :-\ The subs didn't start to decline until the end (when ICC was out for a freaking year), and dropped even further when they tried to "go back to the good old days" with more punishing 5 man content. But revisionist history...