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WoW population is crashing big time

13

Comments

  • KanethKaneth Member RarePosts: 2,286

    Originally posted by jason_webb

    Originally posted by waynejr2


    Punks on this site need to understand that things don't have to be perfect before they have meaning.   If you have a better tool for the numbers that we can't access prove it.  Otherwise, this might be the best information out there.  Sampling is good enough AND IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE PERFECT.

    "Punks on this site" bit was a nice touch!

    I would agree that the figures don't have to be 'Perfect' but only 4% of servers with figures that the site itself regards as even close to accurate?!? C'mon, common sense says that you wouldn't take a punt on anything with only a 4% chance of it being accurate, would you?

    What's the chances of me surviving this jump across the roof top......about 4%.....sweet, let's go! Hmmmm!

    To be honest, the vast majority of players could care less about these things because as long as the game is still running and they can play it, that is all that matters. It just gets annoying when you have seen post after post after post claiming the demise of the game based on the figures from these sites claiming they accurately show the current state of the player population when they clearly don't.

    Agreed. Sorry, a 4% sample isn't indicitive of anything really. That's why things like general statistics aren't meant to be taken as gospel, because in a game of numbers, they can be skewed.

    From my personal observations, I would say WoW is still doing well. I don't see as many people as I used to while out leveling, but I still see plenty of folks participating in end game content. I still see the same faces trolling trade chat in org on a nightly basis.

    I have no doubt that the sub numbers are down, because of the age of the game, but I doubt things are quite as bleak as folks seem to think they are. I'm sure we'll play this game when MoP releases, and sub numbers go up and then back down.

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775

    Originally posted by Kaneth

     

    Agreed. Sorry, a 4% sample isn't indicitive of anything really. That's why things like general statistics aren't meant to be taken as gospel, because in a game of numbers, they can be skewed.

    From my personal observations, I would say WoW is still doing well. I don't see as many people as I used to while out leveling, but I still see plenty of folks participating in end game content. I still see the same faces trolling trade chat in org on a nightly basis.

    I have no doubt that the sub numbers are down, because of the age of the game, but I doubt things are quite as bleak as folks seem to think they are. I'm sure we'll play this game when MoP releases, and sub numbers go up and then back down.

    Sorry. You need to go read a stat book. A 4% PROPER sample can tell a lot. Every political poll in the world has less than a 4% sample but many correlate very well with actual voting patterns.

    There are LOTS of academic literature published on this. Go to scholar.google.com and search.

  • expressoexpresso Member UncommonPosts: 2,218

    I just posted this in a similar thread, seems apt to post it here too.

    WoW server status (For US and EU only) as of 20:00GMT (21:00 eu sever time) Jan 13th 2012 - towards the end of the EU peek time and no where near US peek time.

    Source: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/status & http://us.battle.net/wow/en/status

     



    Pop

    US

    %

     

    Europe

    %

    High

    23

    10.2%

     

    47

    17.9%

    Low

    41

    18.2%

     

    63

    24.0%

    Medium

    161

    71.6%

     

    153

    58.2%

    Total

    225

     

     

    263

     

     


    In short WoW is doing just fine, majority of servers are medium to high with less that 25% EU on low and less that 20% US on low (out of peek time).


     


    Out of the 488 servers 104 (21%) are low314 (64%) are medium and 70 (16%) are HighSpin this number any way you guys like but for a game that is 7 years old thats not bad, and clearly shows WoW is just fine (in west atleast).

  • Ambros123Ambros123 Member Posts: 877

    Originally posted by nariusseldon

    Originally posted by Kaneth


     

    Agreed. Sorry, a 4% sample isn't indicitive of anything really. That's why things like general statistics aren't meant to be taken as gospel, because in a game of numbers, they can be skewed.

    From my personal observations, I would say WoW is still doing well. I don't see as many people as I used to while out leveling, but I still see plenty of folks participating in end game content. I still see the same faces trolling trade chat in org on a nightly basis.

    I have no doubt that the sub numbers are down, because of the age of the game, but I doubt things are quite as bleak as folks seem to think they are. I'm sure we'll play this game when MoP releases, and sub numbers go up and then back down.

    Sorry. You need to go read a stat book. A 4% PROPER sample can tell a lot. Every political poll in the world has less than a 4% sample but many correlate very well with actual voting patterns.

    There are LOTS of academic literature published on this. Go to scholar.google.com and search.

    A  4% sample has a lot of Margin of Error...

  • evilakureievilakurei Member Posts: 4

    One thing you have to take into account is Swtor.. probably wow's biggest competition ever....   people will play Swtor for the first month or two  do what there is to do, think about how great wow use to be... and resub when the shiny wears off... it happens... look at rift

    wow isn't dieing.. it's pop goes up.. it goes down.. Cata has been bad for numbers thats a fact.. Bliz knows it... MoP beta will be here in a month or two and wow will have its shiny back ... on the other hand if they take much longer than that for Mop beta,  they are going to have a lot of annoyed Annual pass holders. and selling pets and mounts wont make up for all the people leaving for guild wars 2...just to get away from wow out of spite.... Anyway, as for the other stuff.. Wowcensus isn't perfect esspecially because half the player base has never heard of it.. but it can give you a general idea...  I would take this all with a grain of salt though... The only way Wow will ever die is if Bliz kills it on purpose... 

  • Cameo3Cameo3 Member Posts: 219


    Originally posted by evilakurei
    One thing you have to take into account is Swtor.. probably wow's biggest competition ever.... and you also  people will play Swtor for the first two months do what there is to do, think about how great wow use to be... and resub when the shiny wears off... it happens... look at rift
    wow isn't dieing.. it's pop goes up.. it goes down.. Cata has been bad for numbers thats a fact.. Bliz knows it... MoP beta will be here in a month or two and wow will have its shiny back ... on the other hand if they take much longer than that for Mop beta,  they are going to have a lot of annoyed Annual pass holders. and selling pets and mounts wont make up for all the people leaving for guild wars 2...just to get away from wow out of spite.... Anyway, as for the other stuff.. Wowcensus isn't perfect esspecially because half the player base has never heard of it.. but it can give you a general idea...  I would take this all with a grain of salt though... The only way Wow will ever die is if Bliz kills it on purpose... 

    And passively trying to push for a MOP beta sooner and sooner won't help none. ;-)

    Member of Talon | www.lakexeno.com
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  • evilakureievilakurei Member Posts: 4

    I doubt there are many bliz devs trolling through these forums esspecially on page 6... I'm just sayin... lol

  • TheLizardbonesTheLizardbones Member CommonPosts: 10,910

    WoW's population waxes and wains depending on the availability of content. WoW's population is crashing right now for a couple of reasons, but the main one is people have consumed the content of the last expansion, and unlike other expansions, people have other stuff they can do. Mists of Panderia will see yet another rise in WoW subs.

    I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.

  • Ambros123Ambros123 Member Posts: 877

    Originally posted by evilakurei

    One thing you have to take into account is Swtor.. probably wow's biggest competition ever.... and you also  people will play Swtor for the first two months do what there is to do, think about how great wow use to be... and resub when the shiny wears off... it happens... look at rift

    wow isn't dieing.. it's pop goes up.. it goes down.. Cata has been bad for numbers thats a fact.. Bliz knows it... MoP beta will be here in a month or two and wow will have its shiny back ... on the other hand if they take much longer than that for Mop beta,  they are going to have a lot of annoyed Annual pass holders. and selling pets and mounts wont make up for all the people leaving for guild wars 2...just to get away from wow out of spite.... Anyway, as for the other stuff.. Wowcensus isn't perfect esspecially because half the player base has never heard of it.. but it can give you a general idea...  I would take this all with a grain of salt though... The only way Wow will ever die is if Bliz kills it on purpose... 

    I disagree with SWTOR being it's biggest competition, my money is more on TSW being a bigger competitor for A.  so far it actually brings new things to the table based on the info released and B. 3 faction warfare, this will appeal to a lot of PvPers especially since from what I hear SWTOR PvP is a friggin joke (not much of a PvPer myself).

    Personally, and this is the fanboism on my part, I think that GW2 will be the biggest competitior as everything about GW2 I love, however it is a B2P so it's really not a direct competitor some will say.   For real challenging fights or large group fights people might keep their WoW account active as I am somewhat dubious that dungeons in GW2 will keep the attention of raiders.

  • BunksBunks Member Posts: 960

    Originally posted by Ambros123

    Originally posted by evilakurei

    One thing you have to take into account is Swtor.. probably wow's biggest competition ever.... and you also  people will play Swtor for the first two months do what there is to do, think about how great wow use to be... and resub when the shiny wears off... it happens... look at rift

    wow isn't dieing.. it's pop goes up.. it goes down.. Cata has been bad for numbers thats a fact.. Bliz knows it... MoP beta will be here in a month or two and wow will have its shiny back ... on the other hand if they take much longer than that for Mop beta,  they are going to have a lot of annoyed Annual pass holders. and selling pets and mounts wont make up for all the people leaving for guild wars 2...just to get away from wow out of spite.... Anyway, as for the other stuff.. Wowcensus isn't perfect esspecially because half the player base has never heard of it.. but it can give you a general idea...  I would take this all with a grain of salt though... The only way Wow will ever die is if Bliz kills it on purpose... 

    I disagree with SWTOR being it's biggest competition, my money is more on TSW being a bigger competitor for A.  so far it actually brings new things to the table based on the info released and B. 3 faction warfare, this will appeal to a lot of PvPers especially since from what I hear SWTOR PvP is a friggin joke (not much of a PvPer myself).

    Personally, and this is the fanboism on my part, I think that GW2 will be the biggest competitior as everything about GW2 I love, however it is a B2P so it's really not a direct competitor some will say.   For real challenging fights or large group fights people might keep their WoW account active as I am somewhat dubious that dungeons in GW2 will keep the attention of raiders.

    Yep, If GW2 sold 10 million copies and was the rage, SWTOR and WOW would lose very little. If TSW sold 2 million subs, SWTOR and WOW are in a big deal of hurt.

     

    GW2 is not going to compete with a subbed game. Because you don't have the pressure to "level" quickly in GW2 before your month expires. TSW on the other hand, may suck many of the subs from them only because it is so different. To at least try it for a month or two.

  • Loke666Loke666 Member EpicPosts: 21,441

    Originally posted by Khroniclez

    The population always goes up and down every year..People wanna try new games out so they unsub for a month or 2 than bam! Complain about the new game they are trying because its not WoW. Than go back to WoW.  Not saying any of the games are better than the other . WoW is a good game! It kept intrested for a long time. What i'm saying is old habits die hard.

    WoW population will be fine..it always is..

    Well, it is true that you shouldn't count out Wow just yet, but I must say that I think it looks darker now then ever, at least in EU and NA. I think some of those players are temporarily playing TOR and Skyrim but if they want to start gaining subs again instead of losing them they will have to do something really good, and sooner than later.

    The game is old and will soon be up against 2 games that have the potential of getting many of it's players, Diablo 3 and Guildwars 2. I think D3 will actually hit Wow hardest. Blizz will of course still have plenty of money, D3 will give them truckloads but I think Wow have reached the point where the numbers will continue to sink for the following years.

    8 years is a very long time for a game and Wow have had a spectacular ride but I don't think it will be the largest western MMO on it's 10th birtday. Not really because there is something wrong with it but it is just old.

    I think Blizzard already started to work on Wow 2, releasing it in 4 years or so would make sense.

  • smh_alotsmh_alot Member Posts: 976
    Originally posted by expresso

    I just posted this in a similar thread, seems apt to post it here too.
    WoW server status (For US and EU only) as of 20:00GMT (21:00 eu sever time) Jan 13th 2012 - towards the end of the EU peek time and no where near US peek time.
    Source: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/status & http://us.battle.net/wow/en/status
     







    Pop

    US

    %

     

    Europe

    %



    High

    23

    10.2%

     

    47

    17.9%



    Low

    41

    18.2%

     

    63

    24.0%



    Medium

    161

    71.6%

     

    153

    58.2%



    Total

    225

     

     

    263

     



     

    In short WoW is doing just fine, majority of servers are medium to high with less that 25% EU on low and less that 20% US on low (out of peek time).

     

    Out of the 488 servers 104 (21%) are low314 (64%) are medium and 70 (16%) are HighSpin this number any way you guys like but for a game that is 7 years old thats not bad, and clearly shows WoW is just fine (in west atleast).

     

    Is there any info what would be the normal peak concurrent users (ingame head counts)on servers that have high population, medium population and low population? Just curious.


    Regarding competition, I don't think it's just 1 MMORPG, but SWTOR, GW2, TSW, TERA and AA altogether, the new AAA MMO's that will become active during this year, that provide competition. Will certainly be interesting to see what happens.
  • Loke666Loke666 Member EpicPosts: 21,441

    Originally posted by Bunks

    Yep, If GW2 sold 10 million copies and was the rage, SWTOR and WOW would lose very little. If TSW sold 2 million subs, SWTOR and WOW are in a big deal of hurt.

    GW2 is not going to compete with a subbed game. Because you don't have the pressure to "level" quickly in GW2 before your month expires. TSW on the other hand, may suck many of the subs from them only because it is so different. To at least try it for a month or two.

    Many MMO players don't really have the time for more than one game even if they can afford to play a whole bunch of them.

    Some people might play Wow for PvE and GW2 for PvP though, but many will probably just think it is easier with one game.

    TSW, GW2 or D3, it doesn't really matter that much. Anyone with work or school can just spend so many hours gaming each day.

  • DredphyreDredphyre Member Posts: 601

    Being the WoW hipsters that they are, I believe they're all ironically playing SWTOR .

  • BunksBunks Member Posts: 960

    Originally posted by Loke666

    Originally posted by Bunks

    Yep, If GW2 sold 10 million copies and was the rage, SWTOR and WOW would lose very little. If TSW sold 2 million subs, SWTOR and WOW are in a big deal of hurt.

    GW2 is not going to compete with a subbed game. Because you don't have the pressure to "level" quickly in GW2 before your month expires. TSW on the other hand, may suck many of the subs from them only because it is so different. To at least try it for a month or two.

    Many MMO players don't really have the time for more than one game even if they can afford to play a whole bunch of them.

    Some people might play Wow for PvE and GW2 for PvP though, but many will probably just think it is easier with one game.

    TSW, GW2 or D3, it doesn't really matter that much. Anyone with work or school can just spend so many hours gaming each day.

    Perhaps, but over the course of a year, I can see people subbing on and off every month or just to mix it up. And I do suspect(nothing but a hunch) that Gw2 PvP is goingto be a cult like thing for hardcore players. Just a hunch :)

  • ShadoedShadoed Member UncommonPosts: 1,459

    Originally posted by nariusseldon

    Originally posted by Kaneth

     

    Agreed. Sorry, a 4% sample isn't indicitive of anything really. That's why things like general statistics aren't meant to be taken as gospel, because in a game of numbers, they can be skewed.

    From my personal observations, I would say WoW is still doing well. I don't see as many people as I used to while out leveling, but I still see plenty of folks participating in end game content. I still see the same faces trolling trade chat in org on a nightly basis.

    I have no doubt that the sub numbers are down, because of the age of the game, but I doubt things are quite as bleak as folks seem to think they are. I'm sure we'll play this game when MoP releases, and sub numbers go up and then back down.

    Sorry. You need to go read a stat book. A 4% PROPER sample can tell a lot. Every political poll in the world has less than a 4% sample but many correlate very well with actual voting patterns.

    There are LOTS of academic literature published on this. Go to scholar.google.com and search.

    Not the same thing at all i'm afraid as a 4% poll taken at polling stations in all constituencies during an election can be representative of the peoples will as a whole, but what we are talking about is like taking a 4% poll at only one or two polling stations in a single constituency which you can hardly call representative of the whole can you?

    It must be Thursday, i never could get the hang of Thursdays.

  • bobfishbobfish Member UncommonPosts: 1,679

    I don't know about how many people play WoW, but in 2011 WoW in China saw a growth in number of players, yet globally WoW saw a decline, large enough for them to announce it.

    So, whatever the ratio is, WoW lost more players from Europe and North America that even with growth in China the global figure went down.

    If we knew the growth figure for China we could probably take a good guess at how many they lost from EU/NA....

    And that was before SWTOR, which will have had an affect too, though probably not a big one.

  • BizkitNLBizkitNL Member RarePosts: 2,546

    Using Census as a means to provide statistics is just wrong. They're guesses and estimates at best, since there are multiple crucial factors involved, that aren't displayed in the data.

    10
  • oubersoubers Member UncommonPosts: 855

    Originally posted by Fendel84M

    Who cares? Everyone takes this stuff so personally. Unless you own stock in Blizzard or Bioware or anything other MMO company, why do you care? If you wanna play it, play it, if you dont, dont. Why does anyone care who else plays it?

    ^^this^^

     

    image
  • dreamsofwardreamsofwar Member Posts: 468

    Originally posted by oubers

    Originally posted by Fendel84M

    Who cares? Everyone takes this stuff so personally. Unless you own stock in Blizzard or Bioware or anything other MMO company, why do you care? If you wanna play it, play it, if you dont, dont. Why does anyone care who else plays it?

    ^^this^^

     

    This, and if everybody did what you suggested there would be no mmorpg.com, these forums thrive on the indulgence of complaining and dictating what people should and shouldn't play.

  • Recon48Recon48 Member UncommonPosts: 218

    Originally posted by OgreRaper

    The population will probably decline a bit for awhile. Until Mists of Pandaria is released, then it will be a huge increase in players coming back, and even new players too. I personally am taking a break from WoW and intend to go back when the expansion launches. I'm sure there are quite a few people who are doing the same.

    My guess is that with each expansion, fewer & fewer 'new' players join up.  If someone is pretty savvy at finding them cheap, thats still at a minimum $100+ worth of games to buy followed by $15/month. The startup cost doesn't seem very appealing, especially considering that over half of it would be spent on content thats mostly only relevant in catching up to the MoP portion.

  • dreamsofwardreamsofwar Member Posts: 468

    Originally posted by Recon48

    Originally posted by OgreRaper

    The population will probably decline a bit for awhile. Until Mists of Pandaria is released, then it will be a huge increase in players coming back, and even new players too. I personally am taking a break from WoW and intend to go back when the expansion launches. I'm sure there are quite a few people who are doing the same.

    My guess is that with each expansion, fewer & fewer 'new' players join up.  If someone is pretty savvy at finding them cheap, thats still at a minimum $100+ worth of games to buy followed by $15/month. The startup cost doesn't seem very appealing, especially considering that over half of it would be spent on content thats mostly only relevant in catching up to the MoP portion.

    Id actually say more new players pick up the game and less vets return.

    WoW is focussing more and more on catering to a casual audience and as it does that it attracts new, more casual players.

    A lot of WoWs original players and vets have already moved on im guessing.

  • VolkmarVolkmar Member UncommonPosts: 2,501

    Originally posted by bobfish

    I don't know about how many people play WoW, but in 2011 WoW in China saw a growth in number of players, yet globally WoW saw a decline, large enough for them to announce it.

    So, whatever the ratio is, WoW lost more players from Europe and North America that even with growth in China the global figure went down.

    If we knew the growth figure for China we could probably take a good guess at how many they lost from EU/NA....

    And that was before SWTOR, which will have had an affect too, though probably not a big one.

    Do you have any source for this?

    In the latest explanation of the dwindling Subs, It was exactly the opposite: China/Asia saw a great decline in subs to the point that they said the "majority" of the loss from 12 mils to 10 mils was from the Asian territories.

    Source:

    http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2546-WoW-Down-to-10.3M-Subscribers-PTR-Build-14966-Class-Balance-Q-A-TCG-Art

    "If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"



  • FmrOprtrFmrOprtr Member Posts: 57


    Originally posted by Dragonantis
    We have one of these threads at least once a week.
    But if those numbers are correct it would show a turn for the worse for WoW.
    BUT!
    Blizzard has a record of always releasing a patch or expansion everytime this happens to recover their numbers.
    BUT!
    That last patch didnt see alot of thrills and player returns even though it gave WoW players what they asked for for 5 years. Heck even me, Ive been a WoW player since vanilla and I quit a few times a year and comeback for patches but this is the first one I didnt even bother to return for.
    It will be interesting to see how the numbers pan out with the new games in 2012.
    that was alot of buts...
     

    Same with me, I started playing during vanilla and I actually took breaks during the years ( the longest one being about 9 months) but I always came back for every expansion whether I felt " ready" too or not.
    I came back when cataclysm released and stayed for a month or two but finally left for good. The population of an MMO is just like the ocean tides, it ebbs and flows but the WOW population is still healthy I would venture to say.
  • Zigzig13Zigzig13 Member Posts: 10

    So that's why there are 100 million-gazillion TOR hate threads as of late.

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