How Far Has World of Warcraft Fallen?

We want to know exactly how deep Warcraft is compared to some of its competitors and we believe fans should know as well, at least to understand where the game is going and whether it is worth tagging along or not.

Now, from the start, it is fair to say that as long as anybody thinks that World of Warcraft is a game that can still draw their attention, it means it is a good game for them and it is also hard not to give Blizzard the credit they deserve for the work they have put into it all these years. The game has been a great experience for a lot of players and it still is.

At its peak, World of Warcraft had 14 million active subscribers. There were 14 million players every day who would log in and do something, which is huge and it was fantastic not only for Blizzard, but for players as well. There was a huge world to explore, so many things to do and so many people to meet that it was impossible not to waste a few dollars a month to go in and join in.

But now World of Warcraft has come down to 5.6 million active subscribers every month. Blizz are way under the half threshold they had under their good times. Still, we can say that it is not that bad since Blizz are still making a ton of money out of subscriptions alone without counting the money they get from mounts or extra game features.

So where did World of Warcraft go wrong? Too long a story? The game got robbed of its familiarity? Was is the quality of the game that dropped? It is pretty much a combination of all three of them.

There are a lot of players speculating about how the game died after Wrath of the Lich King. Cataclysm wasn’t that much of a great patch and it really brought a lot of ugly-looking textures in the game along with many zones that didn’t feel right across Azeroth. Some say that the story failed starting with Mists of Pandaria, which didn’t exactly give players what they wanted either.

So it gradually built up: weaker graphics, a rather uninteresting storyline and a world which not many people recognize anymore. Let’s not forget the boredom: you log in every day, probably go PvP a little, maybe craft, maybe gather some items, farm and then what? You might want to log in for good raids from time to time, but apart from that you keep doing the same 4 things over and over again.

This is how it all build up. Luckily, expansions bring a little more to the story every year. But in the end they just give you more of the same: some extra raids, some extra loot, you need to farm a little more and probably gather some more items to craft.

Photo Credits flickr.com