The theory of a massive 600K drop in World of Warcraft player population has been stewing around the Internet for the past two to three weeks. Now since I haven't played since about mid to late May (my subscription expired on May 24th) I can't really say what the current status of my realm population is.
But I know that before I stopped playing I noticed it seemed like the game didn't have as many players as it had in the past. The things I noticed; not as many people around the holiday quests, although it could be argued that most players have already completed the holiday quests and no longer care for them. I will say that measurement is inconclusive at best.
The next and perhaps more important sign is; the number of players at the action house at various times during the day. I've read on forums that when people say this they don't have a large enough sample size to actually make a determination, and I agree with that. But if more and more people are making this claim then I think it should get some consideration.
I actually hope there is a significant population decline. It will show Blizzard that their customers are growing tired of World of Warcraft's MMO mechanics, and they are looking for something different. I know my wife and I have; we've been long time players and both of our subscriptions have been frozen since May.
Blizzard is also offering a seven-day free pass to me, my wife, and I'm sure many other long time players who haven't had an active sub in a while. Is this perhaps the only evidence you need?
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Quitting MMO Games
I think it's time I moved on from MMO style games. They take too much time to play, and I get too addicted to them.
I really hate the leveling process in MMO games. It takes too long for my liking. I don't mind having to level up a character a few levels maybe to level twenty or thirty. But anymore than that and the game seems to bog down. In my opinion there doesn't need to be a leveling system at all. You can have a quest style that gives players new abilities and talent points. Kind of like the death knight quest. I'm sure not everyone would like this approach.
I feel like I get too addicted to MMO games is the other reason why I'm quitting. I seem to do okay the first couple weeks I am playing a new one, but after a while I start to spend more time each week playing until I am spending probably well over two hours a day playing a game. This is just too much of a time commitment. I'm not in college or high school anymore and I have responsibilities that I need to fulfill, and I believe cutting out MMO games will help me manage my time better. Although if I just replace the time I spent playing games with another leisure activity I won't be accomplishing my goals.
I really hate the leveling process in MMO games. It takes too long for my liking. I don't mind having to level up a character a few levels maybe to level twenty or thirty. But anymore than that and the game seems to bog down. In my opinion there doesn't need to be a leveling system at all. You can have a quest style that gives players new abilities and talent points. Kind of like the death knight quest. I'm sure not everyone would like this approach.
I feel like I get too addicted to MMO games is the other reason why I'm quitting. I seem to do okay the first couple weeks I am playing a new one, but after a while I start to spend more time each week playing until I am spending probably well over two hours a day playing a game. This is just too much of a time commitment. I'm not in college or high school anymore and I have responsibilities that I need to fulfill, and I believe cutting out MMO games will help me manage my time better. Although if I just replace the time I spent playing games with another leisure activity I won't be accomplishing my goals.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Drain Life Damage Nerfed
I was looking at the newest 4.2 patch notes and I saw that Blizzard lowered the damage of drain life spell by twenty-five percent. They claim that they wanted Warlocks to stop casting drain life in raids and dungeons and instead use shadow bolt as the main spell they use when there is free time in their key pressing.
I can see from their perspective that if they eliminate different spells that people use it can make the raid boss easier to balance and design. From the players side this just makes the game boring with bosses becoming more and more about memorizing which buttons you push in a specific order without any deviation.
I doubt this change will have much an effect in pvp. Most warlocks only cast drain life if they are low on health and are about to die. If they are casting it early in a fight they might get silenced out of the shadow spell school.
This probably doesn't seem like a big change on the surface, but it shows me that the developers are concerned with eliminating spells that people like to use just to make bosses and easier to balance. A side effect is the game becomes more repetitive than it already is.
I can see from their perspective that if they eliminate different spells that people use it can make the raid boss easier to balance and design. From the players side this just makes the game boring with bosses becoming more and more about memorizing which buttons you push in a specific order without any deviation.
I doubt this change will have much an effect in pvp. Most warlocks only cast drain life if they are low on health and are about to die. If they are casting it early in a fight they might get silenced out of the shadow spell school.
This probably doesn't seem like a big change on the surface, but it shows me that the developers are concerned with eliminating spells that people like to use just to make bosses and easier to balance. A side effect is the game becomes more repetitive than it already is.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Points Lowered for Arena Wins
The amount of arena points players receive for winning a match has been changed to one hundred thirty five points. It wasn't in the patch notes but after reading the forums there is a blue post that says they forgot to put this in the patch notes.
Of course the uproar on the forums was epic. I love reading how much people complain over a pretty major change like this. Although I will be hurting too. I only have one eighty-five at the moment, but I am leveling a warrior. My wife on the other hand has three level eighty-fives and she wants to cap her points for each one every week.
Before we were looking at fifteen wins a week now we are going to have to do twice that many, which is going to be a lot of time spent playing arenas. I will actually like this change for our paladin / warlock two vs. two, because I really enjoy those games, but playing with her other characters can be like pulling teeth for wins.
Especially her rogue, I'm not sure what the problem is, but we don't seem to do as well with her rogue. We probably need to work on our strategy with this team. I know sometimes we mix up focuses and that causes us to lose some games.
Of course the uproar on the forums was epic. I love reading how much people complain over a pretty major change like this. Although I will be hurting too. I only have one eighty-five at the moment, but I am leveling a warrior. My wife on the other hand has three level eighty-fives and she wants to cap her points for each one every week.
Before we were looking at fifteen wins a week now we are going to have to do twice that many, which is going to be a lot of time spent playing arenas. I will actually like this change for our paladin / warlock two vs. two, because I really enjoy those games, but playing with her other characters can be like pulling teeth for wins.
Especially her rogue, I'm not sure what the problem is, but we don't seem to do as well with her rogue. We probably need to work on our strategy with this team. I know sometimes we mix up focuses and that causes us to lose some games.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Leveling a Warrior for Arena
I've started leveling a gnome warrior for two vs two arena matches. I've always wanted to level a warrior ever since they were owning my warlocks face off in Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin.
I have a level 84 Paladin, but I've had a max level paladin before and I never really liked them in arena. They seem too reliant on procs, and you can feel like you don't have anything to do if you don't get a timely proc.
I really like being a melee character though, it is much more fun running after people then being a caster. A caster is constantly running away until they have enough distance to get a cast off. If you don't judge it properly the melee will catch up to you and run through you to line of sight your cast or interrupt it.
Warriors are some of the heaviest hitters in pvp, they seem to have some very good burst damage and can survive a lot of incoming damage. I've read that fury is more for double dps teams when you can time the cool-downs properly and burn an opponent down quickly. Arms is better for a healer when you can have constant damage and keep the pressure on the other teams healer.
I'm looking forward to getting my warrior leveled and in some pvp gear.
I have a level 84 Paladin, but I've had a max level paladin before and I never really liked them in arena. They seem too reliant on procs, and you can feel like you don't have anything to do if you don't get a timely proc.
I really like being a melee character though, it is much more fun running after people then being a caster. A caster is constantly running away until they have enough distance to get a cast off. If you don't judge it properly the melee will catch up to you and run through you to line of sight your cast or interrupt it.
Warriors are some of the heaviest hitters in pvp, they seem to have some very good burst damage and can survive a lot of incoming damage. I've read that fury is more for double dps teams when you can time the cool-downs properly and burn an opponent down quickly. Arms is better for a healer when you can have constant damage and keep the pressure on the other teams healer.
I'm looking forward to getting my warrior leveled and in some pvp gear.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Arena With Paladin
After a couple of weeks of playing with our two vs. two arena team as a rogue and warlock my wife finished leveling up her paladin and we tried some arena matches with her as a healer and I'm still on my warlock.
We did surprisingly well considering her paladin had less then one thousand resilience. We did especially good against double dps teams, but we had trouble with teams that had a healer, since I am affliction speced I have trouble bursting players down. I'm sure most of the teams we fought against out-geared us. I have roughly 2400 resilience with mostly the blue pvp gear and some arena pieces.
I think I will change to destruction spec when we play with her paladin, but I will stick with affliction when we play with her rogue. I'm hoping that destruction will give me more burst and we usually face off against melee so the added procs from Backlash should help my damage. Plus Nether Ward will really absorb a lot of damage when we fight casters.
I will still use the same pet the succubus as before. It gives us a huge advantage over the competition by being able to keep one player crowd controlled for a good chunk of time.
We did surprisingly well considering her paladin had less then one thousand resilience. We did especially good against double dps teams, but we had trouble with teams that had a healer, since I am affliction speced I have trouble bursting players down. I'm sure most of the teams we fought against out-geared us. I have roughly 2400 resilience with mostly the blue pvp gear and some arena pieces.
I think I will change to destruction spec when we play with her paladin, but I will stick with affliction when we play with her rogue. I'm hoping that destruction will give me more burst and we usually face off against melee so the added procs from Backlash should help my damage. Plus Nether Ward will really absorb a lot of damage when we fight casters.
I will still use the same pet the succubus as before. It gives us a huge advantage over the competition by being able to keep one player crowd controlled for a good chunk of time.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Arena With my Wife
My wife and I started playing arena matches again a couple weeks ago. The first time we tried this expansion. I am playing my warlock and she is playing her rogue. I think it is a pretty good 2v2 combo. It seems like double dps is much more easier to win with than a healer and one dps. Plus the matches go by quickly which is nice, but sometimes you're like what just happend, because the match is over too fast.
Our first few went terribly, and we only earned two wins in ten matches. I think the major problem was my spec is affliction, which is great for absorbing damage and slowly bringing your enemies down, but I didn't have much of the blue pvp gear set yet so my resilience was too low, and I would be blown up in 10 seconds if I am focused on.
After a good week of grinding battlegrounds and a few Tol Barads I now have most of the blue pvp gear. This time we did a lot better in ten matches we won five. I also switched my pet from felhunter to succubus. I think this is a big factor in our winning more contently, because although the felhunter helps against spell casters and increases my dot damage the succubus lets me seduce one opponent.
Our strategy is for me to keep one guy locked down with seduce and we nuke the other guy. This works out really well, and I think we will win a lot more games once we get better gear and work out some details in our strategy.
Our first few went terribly, and we only earned two wins in ten matches. I think the major problem was my spec is affliction, which is great for absorbing damage and slowly bringing your enemies down, but I didn't have much of the blue pvp gear set yet so my resilience was too low, and I would be blown up in 10 seconds if I am focused on.
After a good week of grinding battlegrounds and a few Tol Barads I now have most of the blue pvp gear. This time we did a lot better in ten matches we won five. I also switched my pet from felhunter to succubus. I think this is a big factor in our winning more contently, because although the felhunter helps against spell casters and increases my dot damage the succubus lets me seduce one opponent.
Our strategy is for me to keep one guy locked down with seduce and we nuke the other guy. This works out really well, and I think we will win a lot more games once we get better gear and work out some details in our strategy.
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