It’s hilarious how part of what’s killing WoW is how toxic people can be doing content.
Ever been to dungeons with people with no patience if it was your first time with mechanic?
Do this in mass, it makes new players just leave and only old farts that know the mechanics stay.
Let me ask you this: When was the last time you genuinely met someone at end game that was truly a new player?
For me it was something like a year and a half ago.
They arent all new players. I am lvling some alts without heirlooms also now and running everywhere instead of using my heirloom mount 
It seems that MMO overall are a lot more bouncy than before.
I haven’t been active for a while in WoW or on the forums but I’m the guy who always references one of the major “competitors” FFXIV, for your information. Let’s do this comparison with WoW again:
FFXIV 1.0 was one of the biggest failures in MMO history rivaled by games such as the recent Bless Online in the scope of its failure.
WoW was low during WoD but recovered miraculously during Legion.
BfA is historically low but Classic shocked the franchise back to life quite dramatically for now.
FFXIV plummeted during the Stormblood expansion and over the course of a couple of months lost 75% of its active playerbase. For the last major content patch the game was effectively dead and people didn’t even resub for the last raid.
Shadowbringers is released and boosted by “WoW-refugees”. it reaches new record numbers for a few months and kind of crushed WoW 8.2 in competition. Now it has started to normalize again with numbers of active players plummeting again. People unsubbing for months until next raid cycle possibly next year.
If Blizzard release a good expansion they will no doubt have a healthy retail WoW again. For now they are riding on Classic.
To me Classic and retail are intertwined despite being two separate games. Classic does draw people back into retail. This player here is a prime example of someone resubbing for Classic but soon peeking at the future of retail instead (I grew bored of Classic in two days since it’s been there done that for me).
My conclusion is NO, WoW is not dead or dying. Certainly not economically (micro transactions), as a franchise (Classic) and for the future not necessarily as a community and good retail version MMO either. Anything goes for next expansion.
What is your source of the data behind this claim? Few angry streamers and the hordes of their followers doesn’t constitute as majority of player base.
I think BfA could be better, sure. I believe they have a lot to learn from why Classic is so popular, yes. But I love BfA and know loads of others who do too.
To have a random person complaining about the gmae being dead is sign of a healthy community. As long as these salty posts are coming, game is fine. It is when these stop when we should be concerned.
Im finding the opposite, You obviously dont have to wait for a tank and heal in LFG. xD Can take AGGEGEEESS.
This was a discussion back in August that someone dug out before it got locked (30 days).
At the moment Classic is out, when this discussion was current Classic had not yet been released. I have no idea of the impact on Retail atm with Classic being the new hype. I’m playing Classic myself, I’ve not touched Retail since and although I wont be giving up on Retail, it’s just on hold for me.
I’m sorry if you are struggling to find others to play with.
Well that just isn’t true, now is it? I’m constantly meeting new people out and about in the game world.
That is OK, you are not the bearer of bad news, news generally has an element of fact or truth to it, which is something your claim does not have…
Lets be honest, do you think this, or did a Streamer tell you you should think this?
Source?! Numbers?!
Any kind of validation/prof and not only “if I enjoy everyone enjoys, or other way around”.
need some glasses?
Nope, it died with the end of Cataclysm. MOP killed it.
WoW died even before the release of Cata
ooops. but it is still relevant though… …
and thats why
For me WoW died 3 months ago (although i still have 1 year of subscription left). And it will stay dead untill they don’t “update” the game to the current trend:
…
I know its a dream, but is not impossible. The most annoying “part” that WoW has is the “reset” thing, when they release new patches or expansions. Its so frustrating to see how your 1-2 years of “work” into this game gets deleted in a second and the only thing left is a text in a pop-up window that recognizes your achievement.
The patch will hit people will be back for stuff, many are still levelling/playing Classic, others are just bored and playing other games.
Personally I took a break in 8.1.5 for 2 months and turned back 1 month after 8.2 launch.
I got bored because there were nothing to do in game. Cruicible of Storms were added but it was not appealing at all. Now we get better gear from world quests compared to Cruicible gear, so it was not worthy.
BoD was also getting old and boring.Then there were assaults and world quests only, not gonna even mention PvP…because of reasons.
But now 8.2 feels much better compared to 8.1.5 I still don’t raid and only do mythic once per week with my 3 characters. Now I’m progressing slowly and there are many things to do and enjoy. When noobs farm and learn Eternal Palace I will start raiding and collect them easy drops as well for cosmetic.
The game is not in a bad state anymore neither perfect. I would rate it 6.5/10 right now.
Same for me, i played back in February for a month and i found the game to be in a bad state. There was practically nothing to do apart from raids and mythic+ dungeons. No flying turned made everything else feel like not worth the time or the effort.
After taking a long break, i came back in July and unlocked flying. This was a game changer for me, actually I truly enjoy the game right now. I find the benthic gearing system pretty good and gives you something to go after (at least for someone like me who doesn’t do raiding or mythic+). All in all, I find 8.2 to be a huge improvement compared to previous patches, actually BfA feels more like Legion at this point.
new content comes, people come they go the cycle goes on just like your digestive tract!
And they said 2012 was the year the world was gunna end
the real ones dying is us… slowly that is every second that passes is that that much closer to our demise remember that.
not idea, from what I have noticed now, is that more and more are comming comming back to retail atleast.
Sorry what is the benthic gearing system? I’ve just tried googling it but i’m not really any wiser 