Any connection to LOTRO, I wonder.

Not enough to cause that drop, I'd wager.

And don't forget the crack down on gold farmers.

The only thing that can really kill WoW is another hot mmo, and I don't think Warhammer Online is that mmo.

Maybe Hellgate London. I could see that game drawing away WoW players.
 

I wonder.... How quickly did they make their add-on work in post BC, and when did the armory come out?

It's possible that folks simply aren't using their addon.

Also, the new /who limits may have effected their scanning.
 

I find it still inconclusive but it's an interesting source. I've been wondering about this very point for a while simply because of personal observation. At least in on my circles and in my social space in WoW I saw unprecidented numbers of leavers. I tried to find evidence in hard numbers but the new mmogdata.com and also the realm census polls that I had found weren't conclusive either. mmogdata shows a flat distribution, which can't be right, hence indicates that Blizzard just hasn't released new subscription numbers.

I got some doubt recently because I saw this report about guild churn on Moroagh's blog. There it said that guild churn is 25% per month, which is way higher than we had it pre-TBC and now I'd say 25% per month sounds roughly right.

I guess Blizz is the only one who can clarify this. My gut feeling is though that 2.1 may have reversed some of this, but again, it's all gut and no numbers.

If there indeed is this decline, my gut would credit the expansion end-game :P.
 

You now have the usual summer holiday effect, for a 2.5 year old game, with a very slow patch cycle. If anyone is suprised that the numbers do not increase now, than someone forgot to watch subscriber numbers for MMOs in the last 8 years. Almost every game could not increase their numbers within the summer period.

Let's take it this way. How many years of this decrease does in take, for WoW to lose market dominance.? A lot.
 

You now have the usual summer holiday effect, for a 2.5 year old game, with a very slow patch cycle. If anyone is suprised that the numbers do not increase now, than someone forgot to watch subscriber numbers for MMOs in the last 8 years. Almost every game could not increase their numbers within the summer period.

Except that the decline started in february/march. If it had been like you are saying we should probably have started seeing a change right now and not that early.
 

Hey Tobold, the latest rumor is that Vivendi will announce both D3, and the next WoW expansion, at Blizzcon.

I'm shocked that Blizzard isn't announcing a new mmo, yet.
 

i would just like to point out to wow fanbois out there that the decline occured after the release of BC. Before the release and up to the release of the expansion wow has been growing and growing. After BC people have been leaving and leaving. I seriously doubt summer and "this game is 2.5 years old it has to be boring now." Considering that for 2 years the game has grown every month even through the past 2 summers.

BC is a reverse gear to WoW, simple as that. Fanbois, sorry to say but blizzard screwed up.
 

As it is WoW is dead!

The fan boys and 'Raid or Quit' brigade dont keep this game floating. The casual player does... and a linear, rep grinding, raid orientated, time sink killed it for the the casual player.

The issue is this for me... how long can Bliz keep casual player on board? I would guesstimate that 50% of the playing population would fit into the casual bucket... how long before we see a sizable percentage of those players quit without a real change in the mechanics first?

I am 100% positive that Bliz know this... and at this moment are hashing things up for a major patch at the end of the summer. A patch that will attempt to rectify the faux-pas we call 2.1 and the Burning Crusade.

Tobald. Let's see an article on what it means to be casual. I really think the word needs to defined for the purposes of many arguments like this and MMO's in general. Perhaps even a scale. You have a way with words and would be an interesting discussion point.
 

Another problem is that WoW needs more classes and races.

But then the raiders would whine about class politics.

BTW, just logged into WoW for the first time in 18 months. I was bored within 10 min. The new races do nothing for me.

Where are the playable goblins?
Where are the playable monks?
Where are the playable rangers?
 

I think GG is absolutely correct, but success breeds caution, and as far as Blizzard was concerned the formula was working so why change it?

Personally, I'm done with any form of hard core grouping. I just don't have the time nor inclination to revolve my free time around a game. There are millions like me, I'm certain. We don't 'demand' anything, but there's certainly an opportunity to be had by providing a very casual friendly experience that WoW used to offer but seems to be steering away from.
 

Personally, I'm done with any form of hard core grouping. I just don't have the time nor inclination to revolve my free time around a game.
Sign! I will hopefully never do this again. ;-)

The grouping and accomplishments in LOTRO seem more casual friendly and so far, I am enjoying the more casual approach. Even when LOTRO is not perfect and is not the suggest WoW killer.

LOTRO is not that addictive like WoW (at least for me!) and I don't mind not playing it for a couple of days.
 

Just my 2 cents but...

For every person I know who got tired of the game after BC, I know a lot more who still enjoy playing it every bit as much as before. Granted, most of these people (including myself) enjoy the raid dungeons... but not in the 8-hour-a-night, 7-days-a-week way.

And unless a major overhaul of the genre takes place, that's the sort of content you'll be seeing in pretty much any game. People go through it much, much faster than people make it. Excluding PVP of course, but.... that's PVP. *ick*
 

Player Housing (done right) would help satisfy a large portion of casuals.
 

I cancelled 2 of 3 accounts this month. One more to go in the next few weeks I'm sure. :)

Blizz: You let the EQ guys in and ruined it.
 

If there is one item that exemplifies the screwing over of the casual player in TBC, it is the Primal Nether. To have any success in a crafting profession, you have to spend most of your time farming heroics, no small feat without decent gear and a decent guild of teammates to run said instances.

My guild has 2 teams clearing Karazhan every week and we've taken down Gruul. I wonder what a server will look like if all the casuals disappeared, and all we had were raiders jumpin around in Orgrimmar yelling "Look at mah leet epix WTFBBQ".

I haven't quit because I love my guild, but I can assure you we are just biding our time until a game we all can enjoy comes along.