World of Warcraft Losing Subscribers, Blizzard Plans More Updates

It isn't just about new content, it's about screwing up content that was already in place. There isn't a single area of play for high end players that is pleasurable, not a grind, or sometimes, impossible. The level of frustration in game is palpable. Cataclysm was a failure in my book. From professions that you grind only to produce nothing useful, to heroic dungeons that can't be played unless you're in a big guild, to nerfed or OP characters. There is a small population that probably is having a good time, the rest of us, aren't.

No patch with more content will fix that, only by admitting that they made big mistakes and revamping some of the changed content will there be happier players.

/jmo

This game went down hill quickly. What killed it for me is how overpowered some classes become compared to others.

The game is way too hard.

In order to play end game content you have to make it your second job!

Blizzard forgot games are supposed to be FUN not work

I agree completely. If I wasn't willing to devote 3 nights of my week to raiding I would get nowhere. No thanks I enjoy my real life better.

I agree with the other comments, everything in the game is a grind, specifically designed to keep you paying your monthly fee, but actually extremely annoying. Played for 5 or 6 years, and finally got sick of the "second job" aspect. Now I play games on Steam like Killing Floor and Magicka...silly, simple games that are FUN!!! I haven't had fun playing WoW in years. So many games to play that have come out in the last 5 years I am just now learning about and playing, feel like a giddy lil girl :) Good bye WoW, forever. You can add some crappy new high end quest chain designed to keep you grinding away day after day for rep for some stupid mount or pet or useless item, I'll pass.

RIFT KILLED WOW. IF YOU ARE STILL PLAYING WOW, WHY??? TRY THE FREE TRIAL OF RIFT, ITS AMAZING!

Most of the comments are true to form and quite simply put...WoW tanked after the release of The Burning Crusade. They thought they could entice the game to a new and younger generation of gamers; which they succeeded in doing. But also changed the games tactics, tier/gear systems and raid styles which lost the appeal of some original players which certainly include myself. I indulged in a few more years leading through WOTLK and up to the release of Cataclysm hoping for a possibility that they might fix their errors but unfortunately they fell flat over and over again. It seemed after Wrath came out they just completely forgot what helped them draw such attention to the game in the first place. I have said farewell to WoW forever and must say that I am much more happy with my first person shooters and games that do not demand such time, effort and too much people nagging and complaining in trade chat, hehe.

It really is an awful grind. Daily quests become chores, eating at the hours. Raiding is a second job, with some of the more dedicated raiders putting in three to four hours a night, several nights a week. This story puts an awfully positive spin on what really is a severe fault in the game. This expansion is a cataclysmic failure. I hope more people leave as I have so Blizzard will wake up and change the game design to get away from the hamster wheel grindfest it has become.

First off, NO GAMES KILLED WOW PERIOD.

They lost SubScribers because of Cataclysm... Since they made things harder and the game was ment for *Simple* gamers, people have gave up on playing something that is more of a job and is repetitive. Now people are playing different games because those games are more simple then Warcraft and provide something new to the scene, its not because those games killed Warcraft, its cause Warcraft is as said no longer SIMPLE. If they want to Bring back people and get newer subscribers, they should go back to Lich King, why? because Lich King was a simple and lazy expansion you didn't have to put any effort in. FYI: content updates to cataclysm isn't why people are quiting, as said its cause its not simple to play anymore and is repetitive.

NERRRRRRDSSSSS!!!! What I want is a game based on the 1960's Batman tv show! THAT would rule!!!

i have been playing WoW since vanilla and i quit 2 weeks ago...not because it was boring or grindy or hard. and CERTAINLY not because we needed more content quicker. i simply HATED the changes they made to the classes. i started Rift last night and so far im loving it

i quit playing earlier this year as well. content was ok but changes to rotations made most classes not any more difficult to play but extremely awkward.

I started hating WOW after 5 years of play because of the tedium that Cataclysm brought. It wasn't necessarily that it was so much harder (though it was a lot harder), it required so much time to do anything, especially dungeons, that the second job analogy is absolutely true. I've been playing RIFT for about a month and I love it so far. It's about the right difficulty and length with a ton of flexibility in each class. If you're sick of WOW, give it a shot.

I started playing WoW when some of the 5 man vanillia instances were 10 man! Of all the expansions, I enjoyed TBC the most. But I must admit the ease and speed of Wrath made casual play very fun. After playing Cata for a couple of months, I'm ready to cancel and try something else. Cata took the "fun" factor out for casual play and small, close net guilds. The character changes were over the top and turned pugs into cussfests.

Umm Rift's dungeons take like 1-2 hr to complete and have like 8 bosses. You need a lot of strategy to complete each boss and have to work together. Warcraft dungeons maybe takes 15 minutes because some * wants some epic gear and leaves. That stuff won't fly in Rift..Good luck WoW fanboys coming to the Rift world!

I agree with birdfish, In order to play end game content (talking about PvE) must become your 2nd life or 'job' you have to spend so much time to do that.That's what makes you angry and the best thing to do it's just stop playing this game

Someone make a game that beats WoW.

For me, I loved WOW for the PUG PVP. But, I quit because because Blizzard hasn't been able to control the problems with honor bot's, farmers, and lazy PVP players who just AFK to get honor.
So, in a BG you might have a few bots, a few who just want honor and contribute little or nothing, and they receive near equal the honor of those legitimately working towards a team victory.
It's become more and more a joke.

Yea, i was in the BG Eye of The Storm (EOTS) a 10-player random, and two AFK'ers park themselves near the middle flag area, meanwhile I play defense, guarding FR (Fel Reaver), calling incoming's, playing the game properly. Meanwhile I keep trying to AFK the 2 AFK'ers all game but they're not booted. End of the game, we lose, i have less honor than the 2 AFK'ers!
Blizzard needs to fix a lot of things in WOW, they've been living too large on their briches with their riches.

Blizzard killed all of the smaller guilds in cataclysm by giving more incentive for the bigger guilds not to pug anymore....so the average player that doesn't have the time to spend 5 hours a day playing wow are not getting into any raids especially since they made the raids so hard. I mean the small guilds which usually have the average casual players relied on the bigger guilds to take empty spots on their raids...now with cat the raids have to have 8/10 from the same guild for the guild to get credit. The bigger guilds don't pug their raids anymore cause they lose their guild incentive,and the raids are so * hard that pug = fail (now more than ever). I mean come on I understand making the boss hard with strategy...but to make every trash pull like beating the liche king...really? Trash should be tank and spank. So the pugs left, and the veterans left too because of the grind. It's kind of ironic because rift is what wow used to be like....vanilla but this is not that turkey hill vanilla ...this is that sweet Ben and Jerrys vanilla!

My whole guild left wow to play rift...and there is grinding but not nearly the grind wow is...and it's a vanilla grind !

I played WOW on and off since launch. Shortly after Cata I quit for good. I'm far from being a hardcore gamer, and that's the type of player Blizzard wants playing their game. That's why I quit. Lack of content has nothing to do with me quitting. There's plenty of content in the game, too much content actually. It would take one years to do everything that's in the game right now, unless you play 16 hours a day of course.

More content is not going to help WOW get subscribers, or keep them. WOW has a lot of problems, and it's biggest is that the game is just getting stale.

Video games have come a long way since WOW first launched. WOW is almost 10 years old, and looking it. There are better games to play, and I think the people who are leaving WOW are just moving on to something better.

How long can Blizzard expect people to repetitively play their nearly 10yo game? New content just means more of the same. What makes WOW addictive will make it boring, in time.

fire ghostcrawler and hire someone that knows what to do..

I think people are starting realize how much they lose themselves playing WoW. Good for them for quitting. I did and I'm happy slappy!

Well, that wasn't much of a surprise to see that Blizz has a smug attitude about losing customers: "Blizzard isn't phased." That is one of the largest problems with WoW, Blizzard just doesn't care how we feel. All they want is our money. This article shed light on a few things for me. For that I thank you.

i did not like the last expansion cataclysm, I did not even finish leveling my guy to 85 and quit. It was terriable what they did to the game and the old places. Never will be playing this again, so frustrated to even think of playing it.

I think world of warcraft is a blood sucking nightmare. Im glad I quit. Since then I signed up to school for Psychology, got married, moved out and have a successful life. It was such a complete waste of time I spent 3 years on. It is 3 years of my life that went to waste and I will never get back.
Its not like I can go up to people and say I had a lvl 70 Warlock and it was #1 on my server because it did like 2600 dps because nobody gives a $h}t in the end. You will get made fun of and eventually fall into depression because you sold your character and quit playing. Thats why I recommend you stop playing it now, get laid, move out, get a real job (a career in most peoples opinions, including mine) and experience the world around you.

WoW Died for me because of the lack for new pvp content, every major patch they release new dungeons and raids while pvp content gets ignored, they need more pvp maps, I got tired of wsg, ab, wsg, ab, because these are the only two fun bgs to play which have been around forever.

Having been an avid player for years, and I stress, have been, Cata was a dissapointmnet, people were capping their toons in less than a week on avg. some did it in a day. To get the new gear you have to rely on guild members to grind out arenas while battle grounds gave miniscule points. I found the game has attracted too many very young people with no sense of team play. I'm just simply bored with it. It's been 2 months now since I last logged on, I don't miss it, not sure if I will ever go back. Macflattey

my last subscription was sept 2011 & the only time i went back was to check their timeless free trial, logged in, killed 1 wolf in the starting area then left, game just didnt have the appeal anymore. one reason why this is so is bec the game is already an open book, everything i need to know about what makes it mystifying, i can learn from the websites, its like watching a movie on utube, get too excited, cant w8 for the end, check wikipedia & stop watching. what may me play then despite it being an open book was the profession & auction house, the realization that i couldnt craft armor/weapon/enchant that would prevent me from getting killed in the game dawned on me & that killed profession for me, as for the auction house, the trolls & haters on chat killed that for me. all in all there's nothing pleasing in the game for me anymore.

wow is a great game but as per the news i feel activision or blizzard could put the game price up and remove the monthly bill or just remove the bill to a lower amount like £4-5 they would still make a huge profit margin and allow people to play the game without spending a huge amount on it

The most infuriating thing about Blizzard is that they don't seem to value their customers, ask anyone who's ever dealt with their customer service. In less than a month, Star Wars the Old Republic will be released, and crush this stinking turd once and for all.

I agree with all the negatives being said about WoW. The game takes way too much time out of people's personal life in order to enjoy. Not to mention all the potty mouths with bad tempers that make playing WoW not worth playing anymore. If I play a game is to enjoy myself and not too deal with potty mouths and the like. All the gear which you worked so hard to get is no good by the time the next expansion comes out. It becomes a level playing field again and everybody is on the same level which makes playing this game nothing worth paying $$ for. WoW is on a slippery slope to self destruction and I'm glad it is.

I would rather play a game which focuses on individual characters which advance through a real time world at the pace of the player without any pressures from guilds or dealing with 10 or 25 man raids. A game in which your toon is a 1 man raid team, but game play would have to be specific tailored for a one player game with some options to run with other peeps.

Ever since wrath of the Lich King this game has focused on the casual player. Hence the valor and justice point system in which casual players can get Tier gear. It use to take months to clear new content in the the beginning of this game. Now it takes a few weeks (if that) to clear new content. So all casual players have to do is wait for the video to be posted somewhere and clear that content and get better gear.

It use to be where one had to go into dungeons to get their blue sets to even step foot into the end game content. Epics are the new "blues" now and Blizzard thinks that by overpowering everyone it makes the game better. Terrible thought process on their part. Notice we still have only one "hero" class?
Blizzard has made this game so casual that it has made it easy for the casual player to quit a dungeon after a wipe and wait a few minutes to try it again. Even adding a Looking for Raid tab in which the fights basically become a zerg fest to kill the boss and get good loot.
It doesn't require any work anymore to get gear. Even the PvP gear is really easy to get. Resilience is a joke and ruined some of the PvP aspect. The game is becoming more boring and it seems as if Blizzard is running on empty at this point.
WoW is a fun game, but started dying for me as soon as WoTLK dropped.

WoW is by far the best game of its kind. The problem is that all we that started 7 years ago have grown up. Also don't forget that we came into WoW from playing the series of Warcraft. We knew everything about the story and lore of the game, since day 1. Killing Arthas was the end of our gaming generation. We didnt ming to grind and to raid before, because we had a 7 year story to end. Now that it has ended who wants to go on fighting? So Blizzard had to turn to the younger kids. Its their turn now to learn a new lore and to decide if they are willing to play for endless hours in order to hunt new evil bosses. Who in the right mind would want to take orders from the new leaders of Horde and Alliance? Who the heck are they? Where did they come from? Admit it guys, we grew old that why we dont want to grint, to raid, to PvP. I quit WoW 2 years ago and came back to trial Cata. My lord how disappointed I am from the lore and from the storyline. I'd rather spent my free time, watching tube videos of raid in XRoads and Undercity and Stormwind from 50 or 100 organised guys. How I miss the 10 hour battles of Alterac Valey. So much fun then. So much fun dying in front of Thrall and the Dark Lady trying to protect them from the raid. We grew up, that is why we stopped playing WoW. And now the game has to be easy for the new generation. Until they learn how to play it, and then its very hard for us.
* I miss defending X roads so much.....I miss defending X roads...

the problem with wow is that blizz is deliberately creating OP classes for the purpose of bringing back players i called "Power Nerds" the OP classes are a marketing gimmick AKA "Nerd Bait" to bring back those subscribers. i think players have had enough of blizzards deliberate imbalance in games and have quit for other better online games like star wars online. that kind of sleazy corporate marketing has turned off a lot of players.

Wow It really is an awful grind. Racist players, potty mouths, trolls and more trolls. Daily quests become chores. Raiding is a second job, with some of the more dedicated raiders putting in three to four hours a night, several nights a week. Little guilds that can't raid because right now some servers have low populations, Blizzard don't do a thing to stop people that use offensive fault lenguist on trade, Parents that have younger kids playing have to quit because Blizzard refuse to have some of their gm's patrolling the game, just like a community you must patrol this game. Its Hard to quit this game but I have my foot out of the door. I can't feel the end is coming, last player turn off the lights.

I can't play WoW anymore for the simple reason I can't stand people crap
I feel stupid to pay to play a game for then deal with * people attitude

I think WOW developers have made PVP and PVE merged too closely allowing traditional PVP players the ability to "cross over" creating havoc and ruining the PVE experience