If I'm not mistaken in that same report they have record earnings and the stocks for Activision/Blizzard are still very much on the rise. You also realize that Blizzard most likely seen this coming, decade old game does not attracted new players nor does it keep existing ones.
I doubt investors are that concerned there stock value keeps going up, which is honestly all you can hope for on the open market. They also can look at Blizzards other successes this year number 1 and 2 PC gold sold, combined with how well CoD did vs Battlefield and you got a company still well on the rise and certainly not on the decline.
Well Kotick says they are trying to release new content quickly to keep players interested.IMO just making a new zone or instance is NOT content,that is part of the bare make up when designing a game.Content is when you get creative and give NEW ideas ,so that players have choice.
EQ2 is basically doing the exact same thing,it simply does not entice players to play or look forward to login.
I choose a game because i want or hope it will be fun.Now i do believe every game should have a trial or open beta so players can see what they are about to buy.Weather it has a subscription does not matter to me,it is all about the quality.
Blizzard started WOW copying the basic EQ template,then proceeded to tweak or change things a VERY small bit.They need to get out of that copy cat thinking and get creative.
What i believe is actually happening is the f2p market is opening eyes not because it is some what free.Gamers now are able to try many different games and soon realize,WOW is not really that good.So many players are now deciding that they might as well play the same old linear questing for free.You can actually get linear questing and instances in a plethora of games now for free.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Clearly they peaked. Their relentless marketing campaign earned them every potential customer. Don't think there is a person on earth that hasn't had WoW dangled in front of them hundreds of times in the last ten years. Everyone took the bait but now you are out of fish.
It was/is a *very* good run. Well done, Blizzard. Too bad for SOE that their head-scratchers couldn't think their way out of a paper bag, let alone reverse-engineer Blizzard's marketing brilliance.
Pretty much this. The game obviously can't continue forever. There is really only so much you can do to a game to keep it fresh before it becomes redundant. I'm amazed it actually lasted this long to be honest, but I guess I shouldn't be when you look at the MMORPG's released since wow's conception.
they will have to analyse whether it's due to the game design, the lack of appeal to returners. Or the growing trend of F2P and Guild Wars 2. Since Blizzard's next mmo it'll be key knowing that.
It's the dumbing down of the game, you only need 2-3 months after an expansion to gear out 2 of your characters with top gear, after that the game becomes rather dull, not even new content helps as you can afford to miss them, whether you want to wait for an expansion to come out, buy it, buy some gametime play for 2-3 mths and then you can leave again.
Add that problem with the fact that WoW is almost 10yrs old, which is old for a game (yet it is still the #1 out there), people want something new, something better, something worthwhile (like the old mmo's had) but tend to be dumbed down to only be good for a handful of months before getting bored.
It should take time to level up and to skill stats up as well as having the option of where one would like to place character stats (str, agil, stam, luck, int, wis). Maybe even gear that drops has an (M) for male item and (F) for female instead (like olden days).
Dungeons/caves/towers/castles etc should be earie, require torch's (or a spell from casters) to be able to see.
So much dumbiung down of games thesedays trying to pull in the casual or casual players, you don't need to be awake you can pretty much play when asleep (or so far that I have had with absolutely sloshed or high players), hell even 5yr olds could play and do well. Just as you think they cannot tone down any more, they do.
I actually don't think it is because of simplied or dumbing down anything.
It's just a case of "been there, done that"
While a particular raid or encounter may need to be figured out, the overall game doesn't. We've played it, we know how it works, there is no or very little to figure out, it's become old hat.
They need to change it significantly. However at this point that will likely do more dmg than good. They would be better off making a new game with new patterns to figure out... wait a minute.
Pretty much this.
They've put out more and more of the same and made it smoother and faster to the limit. But WoW has sofar really neglected to do something risky and new, even with their vast budget and tools. The cataclysm was the closest thing I guess, but even that wasn't truly new, it simply equalized older content with the new.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Originally posted by Razeekster It's because they never really add anything fun. It's just essentially a gear grind. They have also been dumbing it down pretty badly for some reason.
That too, and also Warcraft was a 'bit' cartoonish, all the graphical styles but come on, pandas?
It's too much an Asian style feature, and some like it, some don't.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
It's the dumbing down of the game, you only need 2-3 months after an expansion to gear out 2 of your characters with top gear, after that the game becomes rather dull, not even new content helps as you can afford to miss them, whether you want to wait for an expansion to come out, buy it, buy some gametime play for 2-3 mths and then you can leave again.
Add that problem with the fact that WoW is almost 10yrs old, which is old for a game (yet it is still the #1 out there), people want something new, something better, something worthwhile (like the old mmo's had) but tend to be dumbed down to only be good for a handful of months before getting bored.
It should take time to level up and to skill stats up as well as having the option of where one would like to place character stats (str, agil, stam, luck, int, wis). Maybe even gear that drops has an (M) for male item and (F) for female instead (like olden days).
Dungeons/caves/towers/castles etc should be earie, require torch's (or a spell from casters) to be able to see.
So much dumbiung down of games thesedays trying to pull in the casual or casual players, you don't need to be awake you can pretty much play when asleep (or so far that I have had with absolutely sloshed or high players), hell even 5yr olds could play and do well. Just as you think they cannot tone down any more, they do.
It is not the dumbing down of games, I think it is the attitude of gamers. It is the gamers themselves that wanted things a certain way, or so they said - as with GW2 there were plenty of polls, etc when the game was being developed - so now people are saying that is NOT what they wanted. It seems to me, gamers are a fickle lot and it is only about them and not the gaming community as a whole.
How long should it take to level up? People were complaining it was taking too long, so GW2 came up with a linear leveling system. Many people have played 2000+ hours already into GW2 and are complaining there is nothing to do. That is 8-10 hours a day, 7 days a week. That is a job not just gaming for fun, it is an obsession. I have a life outside games, It took me a while to get 3 characters to lvl 80 but I havent even explored all of the maps yet on any of them. That will take a while to do.
Even in vanilla WoW, players were constantly asking for ways to do dungeons faster,, to get stuff faster and to generally make things a lot more solo-oriented. The developers simply followed the player's wishes for a large part.
I also don't think convenience features and a levelled playing field for some areas of the game are always a bad thing.
I do think that the WoW devs should sort of disregard the constant moaning of their community and stop with just updating the same old content and focus on some exciting new visions for the future, just and only because they would be exciting.
Usually I don't support innovation for innovation's sake, but WoW has hit a point where even just polishing the content to the max won't cut it, imo, they need some new ideas, perhaps a few that connect the game back to its past as well.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Poor game design IS the reason people quit. I along with about half my server quit because of this reason. The game got far to easy, basic and the quality of new content dropped significantly after WOTLK. The community also became quite bad at some point. Also with everything being a couple of clicks away I wouldn't even call it an MMORPG any more tbh, everything is instant-action based.
But that's what happens when you involve Activision. Their greed is beyond belief and they don't listen to customers, then they blame something else (in this case F2P games) as the reason for the decline. Instead of realizing it's their own stupid mistakes that caused the problems.
The problem now is Activision/Kotick expect millions of subscriptions from wow, once it drops to much (even if it's still way above competitors) they will stop funding it and it will just shrink and die.
To many classes changes over the years. Now 1 class feels like another.
Raid content should be for raiding guilds not a Lobby system, its not that hard to get 10 people for raiding anymore I can see it being an issue.
The gear up to raiding curve is nothing but a treadmill that no one wants to get back on anymore. I remember in Vanilla and BC I cobbled together my gear just to start raiding. Then raiding became a process of down 2 to 4 bosses and gear up from them to the next set of bosses. Over time you would see the content. Now you see it in 2 months because your forced to run X amount of LFG instances and X amount of LFRs a week. Both tools also have caused major issues the community. People no longer have friends list and make friends. Now its click a button and join a run, treat people like shit.
I can see a server only LFG tool being useful anymore is a problem.
The same bosses are uses over and over again.
every class is like every other class, and there is little point to group content and playing with friends because you have a little button that does it for you.
Originally posted by Epicent I left because my warrior isn't even recognizable from who he used to be. Stop changing the damned classes with patches every two weeks so that any moron can play it. For christ sakes you dont even have to stance dance as a warrior anymore. To easy.
You and me both. My Troll warrior wasn't fun anymore. They total ruined berserker stance which I always loved since day one, now dps just runs arms always. Berserker stance just sound ragey, shouldn't it be the stance that generates the most rage? I ended up playing my Druid for the most part, and finally left because I don't have enough time to play WoW, Defiance, Rift, and now Neverwinter.
Originally posted by Epicent I left because my warrior isn't even recognizable from who he used to be. Stop changing the damned classes with patches every two weeks so that any moron can play it. For christ sakes you dont even have to stance dance as a warrior anymore. To easy.
You and me both. My Troll warrior wasn't fun anymore. They total ruined berserker stance which I always loved since day one, now dps just runs arms always. Berserker stance just sound ragey, shouldn't it be the stance that generates the most rage? I ended up playing my Druid for the most part, and finally left because I don't have enough time to play WoW, Defiance, Rift, and now Neverwinter.
Originally posted by Razeekster It's because they never really add anything fun. It's just essentially a gear grind. They have also been dumbing it down pretty badly for some reason.
every god forsaken online game needs to have grind in order to keep people playing them thats the little secret it tell you. adding new content everyday cause you dont wanna repeat , that aint gona happen ever.
i think wow is better than ever. mop is superior to any past expansion. either it concerns graphics, ui, options, casual play, pvp or whatever else is superior than it was.
BUT
i quit after 8 years of play, because it doesn't look like a mmo at all anymore. in my eyes its a single player game. farms, lfg, lfr, easy mode dungeons, single play content, single player daily quests etc etc
AND
i moved to RIFT. maybe its not superior compared to wow (it is in some aspects), but its a lot more ''mmo''. it has many options that makes ppl playing together, like rifts, events, world events, world bosses etc. i may get bored with them one day, but until then i play something that looks like much more mmo than wow and i m having much more fun too.
Originally posted by Epicent I left because my warrior isn't even recognizable from who he used to be. Stop changing the damned classes with patches every two weeks so that any moron can play it. For christ sakes you dont even have to stance dance as a warrior anymore. To easy. Also the fact that once you hit lvl cap you are completely unviable in pvp until you gear grind. No thanks. Also you have to log on week after week because of a stupid cap on the amount of conquest you can get per week or you remain unviable the whole season? No thanks.
Lol, we both know that no one stance danced manually, it was tied into macros..
Originally posted by Datastar I feel thier problem isnt the f2p/b2p games out there, its the dumbing down/lack of innovation across the board on all of blizzards games over the past few years. Thats just my personal opinion.
Well to point out, blizzard has NEVER been an innovator, particularly when it came to the MMO genre. I don't think there is a single feature WoW added that wasn't already done in another game in some form or another. That is not of course to say it was bad, I enjoyed it a lot at the time. The issue comes I feel that theres just so many options out there and WoW is just aging. They keep making bad design choice after bad design choice and its dragging the game down and their other games, attempting to appeal to 'casuals' which I feel does nothing for that and just makes more hardcore players disliking. Add in that technology has changed a lot, its a lot harder for them to take those features from other MMos and push them into WoW. Its not build to handle things like dynamic events very well among other things.
I agree to the above comments as game getting dumbed down every expansion. But I think another reason is they killed semi-hardcore guilds with promoting 10 man raiding to make raiding more accessible. They could have just add LFR and stop there but they had to kill those middle guilds and they succeeded.
Let me give you an example of a realm which is quite like many other middle range population realms. There is 1 leading guild that wants realm firsts also races for top 100 in world, and then there are 4-5 following semi-hardcore 25-man raiding guilds, and then 20-30 casual raiding (10-25 man) guilds following them. You can scale this up and down but for general case this is the case. In those semi-hardcore guilds there are generally 35-45 raiders depending on their attendance requirement. Those semi-hardcore guilds feeds the realm and generally hosts around 100-150 active players. When they started promoting 10 man raiding and made rewards equivalent to 25 man, those mid-range guilds started to shatter. Some raiders thought "Why carry 5-10 more idiots let's go 10 man". And they did and most of them get disbanded leaving remaining raiding squad quit the game over time because they see the same s.it everywhere. And then leading guild thought similar, screw 112th place, let's go 10 man and get in the first 10 of world since the difficulty is equivalent, prestige is same anyway. But they forget that, if that happens, promising raiders will stop coming to the realm. And exactly that happened, leading guild is dead over several months taking down the other semi hardcore guilds with it. Formed 10 man hardcore guilds or semi-hardcore guilds are also dead, because they couldn't find proper raiders to recruit due to influx of players is inadequate. Last time I see, the high population realm became a "new player" suggested realm.
I heard that above scenario happened in many realms. I know many of the people want to return and play the game but they can't anymore. I for one, one of them. I lost my guild, my friends that have the money transferred of, others quitted. I can start of elsewhere you say but I have like 6 characters in around max level, I do not want to pay that much to start elsewhere.
WoW shooted its own leg with killing social aspects of the game and by killing those semi-hardcore guilds. At least this is what my opinion is. Peace.
Originally posted by Datastar I feel thier problem isnt the f2p/b2p games out there, its the dumbing down/lack of innovation across the board on all of blizzards games over the past few years. Thats just my personal opinion.
Well to point out, blizzard has NEVER been an innovator, particularly when it came to the MMO genre. I don't think there is a single feature WoW added that wasn't already done in another game in some form or another. That is not of course to say it was bad, I enjoyed it a lot at the time. The issue comes I feel that theres just so many options out there and WoW is just aging. They keep making bad design choice after bad design choice and its dragging the game down and their other games, attempting to appeal to 'casuals' which I feel does nothing for that and just makes more hardcore players disliking. Add in that technology has changed a lot, its a lot harder for them to take those features from other MMos and push them into WoW. Its not build to handle things like dynamic events very well among other things.
Rest experience was new on day 1; their approach to graphics was also new with "big pixels"; their approach to marketing - running a (basically) unlimited beta for c. 9 months was also new. There is other stuff as well but, for sure, what they also did was to look at what had been done and - through a series of design choices - come up with something that means they still have 8.5M subscribers in their 9th year. You can't call that bad.
Dynamic events - they were around pre-WoW. Manpower intensive. Bliz opted to avoid them - saving money by doing so because they are and always have been expensive to run. They have the tech they need..
Certainly the landscape has and still is changing. Consoles came - and seem to be on their way out (why buy a PS4 or an Xbox 1 if all they become underpowered PCs with no monitor!) Can it survive tablets and phones which are bringing new ways to wile away the time. I say bringing because I don't believe their day is only just beginning.
MoP brought people back. Now some of those have left. Others as well I suspect. The challenge they face is to keep the servers active. If not they could implode big time. If they manage to do so - then maybe another debate can rage about WoW subs being down to 5M in their 10th year and how it is all due to them dumbing the game down from what it was today (its an old topic!).
Comments
If I'm not mistaken in that same report they have record earnings and the stocks for Activision/Blizzard are still very much on the rise. You also realize that Blizzard most likely seen this coming, decade old game does not attracted new players nor does it keep existing ones.
I doubt investors are that concerned there stock value keeps going up, which is honestly all you can hope for on the open market. They also can look at Blizzards other successes this year number 1 and 2 PC gold sold, combined with how well CoD did vs Battlefield and you got a company still well on the rise and certainly not on the decline.
Well Kotick says they are trying to release new content quickly to keep players interested.IMO just making a new zone or instance is NOT content,that is part of the bare make up when designing a game.Content is when you get creative and give NEW ideas ,so that players have choice.
EQ2 is basically doing the exact same thing,it simply does not entice players to play or look forward to login.
I choose a game because i want or hope it will be fun.Now i do believe every game should have a trial or open beta so players can see what they are about to buy.Weather it has a subscription does not matter to me,it is all about the quality.
Blizzard started WOW copying the basic EQ template,then proceeded to tweak or change things a VERY small bit.They need to get out of that copy cat thinking and get creative.
What i believe is actually happening is the f2p market is opening eyes not because it is some what free.Gamers now are able to try many different games and soon realize,WOW is not really that good.So many players are now deciding that they might as well play the same old linear questing for free.You can actually get linear questing and instances in a plethora of games now for free.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Pretty much this. The game obviously can't continue forever. There is really only so much you can do to a game to keep it fresh before it becomes redundant. I'm amazed it actually lasted this long to be honest, but I guess I shouldn't be when you look at the MMORPG's released since wow's conception.
they will have to analyse whether it's due to the game design, the lack of appeal to returners. Or the growing trend of F2P and Guild Wars 2.
Since Blizzard's next mmo it'll be key knowing that.
Its not the F2P games.
It's the dumbing down of the game, you only need 2-3 months after an expansion to gear out 2 of your characters with top gear, after that the game becomes rather dull, not even new content helps as you can afford to miss them, whether you want to wait for an expansion to come out, buy it, buy some gametime play for 2-3 mths and then you can leave again.
Add that problem with the fact that WoW is almost 10yrs old, which is old for a game (yet it is still the #1 out there), people want something new, something better, something worthwhile (like the old mmo's had) but tend to be dumbed down to only be good for a handful of months before getting bored.
It should take time to level up and to skill stats up as well as having the option of where one would like to place character stats (str, agil, stam, luck, int, wis). Maybe even gear that drops has an (M) for male item and (F) for female instead (like olden days).
Dungeons/caves/towers/castles etc should be earie, require torch's (or a spell from casters) to be able to see.
So much dumbiung down of games thesedays trying to pull in the casual or casual players, you don't need to be awake you can pretty much play when asleep (or so far that I have had with absolutely sloshed or high players), hell even 5yr olds could play and do well. Just as you think they cannot tone down any more, they do.
But there is (optional) grind in GW2, getting Legendary Weapon and Fractals.
Pretty much this.
They've put out more and more of the same and made it smoother and faster to the limit. But WoW has sofar really neglected to do something risky and new, even with their vast budget and tools. The cataclysm was the closest thing I guess, but even that wasn't truly new, it simply equalized older content with the new.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
That too, and also Warcraft was a 'bit' cartoonish, all the graphical styles but come on, pandas?
It's too much an Asian style feature, and some like it, some don't.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
I'm sure quite a few of those players were ones who bought the CE for Diablo III and their year of game time ran out.
But yeah, people have slowly been migrating away from WoW. I quit over 3 years ago.
agree about the diablo 3 comment.
i m not one of the 1.3 as i canceled my sub only a few days ago. so i guess that makes me 1.3+ leaver.
btw i took raptr reward and i m playing RIFT as a subscriber for a month. after 12-6 it goes free anyway. nice game, nice f2p model, bb blizz...
It is not the dumbing down of games, I think it is the attitude of gamers. It is the gamers themselves that wanted things a certain way, or so they said - as with GW2 there were plenty of polls, etc when the game was being developed - so now people are saying that is NOT what they wanted. It seems to me, gamers are a fickle lot and it is only about them and not the gaming community as a whole.
How long should it take to level up? People were complaining it was taking too long, so GW2 came up with a linear leveling system. Many people have played 2000+ hours already into GW2 and are complaining there is nothing to do. That is 8-10 hours a day, 7 days a week. That is a job not just gaming for fun, it is an obsession. I have a life outside games, It took me a while to get 3 characters to lvl 80 but I havent even explored all of the maps yet on any of them. That will take a while to do.
I think you have a point botrytis.
Even in vanilla WoW, players were constantly asking for ways to do dungeons faster,, to get stuff faster and to generally make things a lot more solo-oriented. The developers simply followed the player's wishes for a large part.
I also don't think convenience features and a levelled playing field for some areas of the game are always a bad thing.
I do think that the WoW devs should sort of disregard the constant moaning of their community and stop with just updating the same old content and focus on some exciting new visions for the future, just and only because they would be exciting.
Usually I don't support innovation for innovation's sake, but WoW has hit a point where even just polishing the content to the max won't cut it, imo, they need some new ideas, perhaps a few that connect the game back to its past as well.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
I was also one of the 14 percent, I left because they just keep dumbing the game down.
from changing 40 mans to dumbing down the talent trees and making almost every class like one another it has no end in site.
Poor game design IS the reason people quit. I along with about half my server quit because of this reason. The game got far to easy, basic and the quality of new content dropped significantly after WOTLK. The community also became quite bad at some point. Also with everything being a couple of clicks away I wouldn't even call it an MMORPG any more tbh, everything is instant-action based.
But that's what happens when you involve Activision. Their greed is beyond belief and they don't listen to customers, then they blame something else (in this case F2P games) as the reason for the decline. Instead of realizing it's their own stupid mistakes that caused the problems.
The problem now is Activision/Kotick expect millions of subscriptions from wow, once it drops to much (even if it's still way above competitors) they will stop funding it and it will just shrink and die.
To many classes changes over the years. Now 1 class feels like another.
Raid content should be for raiding guilds not a Lobby system, its not that hard to get 10 people for raiding anymore I can see it being an issue.
The gear up to raiding curve is nothing but a treadmill that no one wants to get back on anymore. I remember in Vanilla and BC I cobbled together my gear just to start raiding. Then raiding became a process of down 2 to 4 bosses and gear up from them to the next set of bosses. Over time you would see the content. Now you see it in 2 months because your forced to run X amount of LFG instances and X amount of LFRs a week. Both tools also have caused major issues the community. People no longer have friends list and make friends. Now its click a button and join a run, treat people like shit.
I can see a server only LFG tool being useful anymore is a problem.
The same bosses are uses over and over again.
every class is like every other class, and there is little point to group content and playing with friends because you have a little button that does it for you.
You and me both. My Troll warrior wasn't fun anymore. They total ruined berserker stance which I always loved since day one, now dps just runs arms always. Berserker stance just sound ragey, shouldn't it be the stance that generates the most rage? I ended up playing my Druid for the most part, and finally left because I don't have enough time to play WoW, Defiance, Rift, and now Neverwinter.
^^ pretty much this..
I retired my warrior and reincarnated him in GW2
gameplay > graphics
every god forsaken online game needs to have grind in order to keep people playing them thats the little secret it tell you. adding new content everyday cause you dont wanna repeat , that aint gona happen ever.
A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true...
i think wow is better than ever. mop is superior to any past expansion. either it concerns graphics, ui, options, casual play, pvp or whatever else is superior than it was.
BUT
i quit after 8 years of play, because it doesn't look like a mmo at all anymore. in my eyes its a single player game. farms, lfg, lfr, easy mode dungeons, single play content, single player daily quests etc etc
AND
i moved to RIFT. maybe its not superior compared to wow (it is in some aspects), but its a lot more ''mmo''. it has many options that makes ppl playing together, like rifts, events, world events, world bosses etc. i may get bored with them one day, but until then i play something that looks like much more mmo than wow and i m having much more fun too.
Lol, we both know that no one stance danced manually, it was tied into macros..
I agree with the rest of your post.
i think the best part of the report is where they talk about concurence from disney....
stopped reading right after that. thx 4 the laugh
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
Well to point out, blizzard has NEVER been an innovator, particularly when it came to the MMO genre. I don't think there is a single feature WoW added that wasn't already done in another game in some form or another. That is not of course to say it was bad, I enjoyed it a lot at the time. The issue comes I feel that theres just so many options out there and WoW is just aging. They keep making bad design choice after bad design choice and its dragging the game down and their other games, attempting to appeal to 'casuals' which I feel does nothing for that and just makes more hardcore players disliking. Add in that technology has changed a lot, its a lot harder for them to take those features from other MMos and push them into WoW. Its not build to handle things like dynamic events very well among other things.
I agree to the above comments as game getting dumbed down every expansion. But I think another reason is they killed semi-hardcore guilds with promoting 10 man raiding to make raiding more accessible. They could have just add LFR and stop there but they had to kill those middle guilds and they succeeded.
Let me give you an example of a realm which is quite like many other middle range population realms. There is 1 leading guild that wants realm firsts also races for top 100 in world, and then there are 4-5 following semi-hardcore 25-man raiding guilds, and then 20-30 casual raiding (10-25 man) guilds following them. You can scale this up and down but for general case this is the case. In those semi-hardcore guilds there are generally 35-45 raiders depending on their attendance requirement. Those semi-hardcore guilds feeds the realm and generally hosts around 100-150 active players. When they started promoting 10 man raiding and made rewards equivalent to 25 man, those mid-range guilds started to shatter. Some raiders thought "Why carry 5-10 more idiots let's go 10 man". And they did and most of them get disbanded leaving remaining raiding squad quit the game over time because they see the same s.it everywhere. And then leading guild thought similar, screw 112th place, let's go 10 man and get in the first 10 of world since the difficulty is equivalent, prestige is same anyway. But they forget that, if that happens, promising raiders will stop coming to the realm. And exactly that happened, leading guild is dead over several months taking down the other semi hardcore guilds with it. Formed 10 man hardcore guilds or semi-hardcore guilds are also dead, because they couldn't find proper raiders to recruit due to influx of players is inadequate. Last time I see, the high population realm became a "new player" suggested realm.
I heard that above scenario happened in many realms. I know many of the people want to return and play the game but they can't anymore. I for one, one of them. I lost my guild, my friends that have the money transferred of, others quitted. I can start of elsewhere you say but I have like 6 characters in around max level, I do not want to pay that much to start elsewhere.
WoW shooted its own leg with killing social aspects of the game and by killing those semi-hardcore guilds. At least this is what my opinion is. Peace.
Rest experience was new on day 1; their approach to graphics was also new with "big pixels"; their approach to marketing - running a (basically) unlimited beta for c. 9 months was also new. There is other stuff as well but, for sure, what they also did was to look at what had been done and - through a series of design choices - come up with something that means they still have 8.5M subscribers in their 9th year. You can't call that bad.
Dynamic events - they were around pre-WoW. Manpower intensive. Bliz opted to avoid them - saving money by doing so because they are and always have been expensive to run. They have the tech they need..
Certainly the landscape has and still is changing. Consoles came - and seem to be on their way out (why buy a PS4 or an Xbox 1 if all they become underpowered PCs with no monitor!) Can it survive tablets and phones which are bringing new ways to wile away the time. I say bringing because I don't believe their day is only just beginning.
MoP brought people back. Now some of those have left. Others as well I suspect. The challenge they face is to keep the servers active. If not they could implode big time. If they manage to do so - then maybe another debate can rage about WoW subs being down to 5M in their 10th year and how it is all due to them dumbing the game down from what it was today (its an old topic!).