I think there is a pretty important assumption in your post, which I’m going to counter-assume.
The vast majority interested in games like WoW, both from the commitment perspective as well as the continuous investment, can and did afford their own gaming PC. I also wouldn’t feel comfortable playing in public locations, even though I’m sure security is their pride point, and Blizzard has the authenticator. In general I’m not happy that my phone always requires me to type my password (fingerprint isn’t good enough) when I sit under some security camera.
New players must feel totally swamped in content and they musn’t finish areas while levelling. For us it’s ok we have Garrisons etc and expansion features that make our present game lives much easier. Heirlooms and money.
If I was a new player I would give it a go but would most likely give up because none of my RL Mates plat any more. So many did in 2008 when I began my journey.
Plus new players get laughed at and bullied sometimes for being new. I like to help these guys if I can by giving gold , items and elixirs.
I think it used to be the RPG aspect of the game that drew people in. Usually that’s why people play fantasy games. But it doesn’t exist anymore. It can’t return either, because Blizzard’s add-on strategy (bring the new, scrap the old) was so outright stupid that I’m at a loss for words.
When I joined wow it was very popular in my country. The popularity of wow here was at a all time high during vanilla, TBC, and WOTLK. Even 12 year olds played during that time. You could play for free using starter edition and still have lots of fun as there are lots of people playing this way.
After WOTLK the hype fell and slowly with the years it fell more and more and now only a few nostalgic and sentimental gamers stay. The majority are between 30-60 and a few in their 20’s.
I met a total of 3 people so far in my country who still plays wow. Only 3.
2 women and 1 guy.
The guy is in his late 20’s. One of the women in her early 20’s she plays with her father. And another women in her 40’s who is a busy mom.
I guess people move on, or maybe newer games are more hyped.
Its totally safe to play from the gaming caffes nowadays, not sure when or if you used one. But now they store your profile into their servers and when you log in the computer, its absolutely the same way you left it when you logged out
Also, when you restart the computer, everything resets to default settings and unless you log in your profile, it stays default without any history or passwords etc
I have my own PC at home but I love their 3-4k euros built gaming machines , its cool with friends especially
I never seen anyone playing WoW and whenever I ask the guy in charge, he says im the only one
Im not generalizing , was just curious about what other people think/say about this.
The devs WANT to attract new players, but they are so inside their California bubble and out of touch wit the rest of the world that they think the way to attract new players is to have furry and scaley races added to the game, and other similarly ineffective things.
The average player used to be different back in the olden days. More communal. If you misbehaved, your carreer was over on that realm. People worked harder too. We didn’t look at itemlevel requirements or achievements. PuG raiding was fun back in the day. Even if we failed, we had a laugh.
im 32 ( played since vanilla )
and ill chip in here
This Game was a lifestyle choice pre WoD, you would put in 50-60 hours a week, the game was growing in size and population, you could see local Realm names and get to know people pre sharding
… Fast forward to today
the game has too much requirements on Addons ( so much so that the Devs have introduced some like UI edit ) the appeal to spend 50-60 hours a week to be endgame ready and the knowledge needed for entry level raids and mythics is too high and off putting for new players. LFR is boring and not incentivised, Rewards are too slow and lack luster
Solutions :
make it competitive on controller , playable on console ps5, xbox
increase rewards,
implement more addons into the base game ( damage meters, DBM )
make more world events, ( invasions, world boss encounters )
Last Thoughts:
Devs take too long to make drastic game changes
devs hold onto veteran players instead of thinking of the longevity of the game
no real focus on new players ( other than reducing the cost to play for the first month )
new players play differently, loyalty to a game is passing, new players ( zoomers ) will jump game to game, MMO genre takes a hit as it needs loyal reoccurring logged in players to stay healthy
The idea of WoW on console is appealing and more accessible for many but knowing that Microsoft own Activision they would probably only release on Xbox
Genuine opinion is attracting new players is hard, there’s so much going on everywhere. Addons are normal for seasoned players but, explain to a friend ‘hey let’s play WoW!! But before you get set up, pick a good class that’s meta at the moment to get invites once you’re levelled! Next you need to fix your UI, lots of ways to do that using add one you get from another system and then you can get more add ons for this that etc etc!’
Personally I find it great still, I work 40-50 hours, have 3 kids, dog a house etc etc. logging in 2-3 times a week to play m+, maybe raid or just gather between is perfect
Silly me thinking WoW was a Millenials game created by the 70s gen and most played by people born between 80s and mid 90s then… But yeah, Blizzard’s strange new habit to appeal to Twitch users and awkward Social Media vibes indicate they’re trying to hook Gen Z.
the new Genre of popular games are BATTLE ROYALES
unfortunately this means MMORPGs arent played by zoomers or the newer generations
these type of games are easy to pick up and quick to jump in to play, its built a lack of tolerance for " gearing and looting games " . these young kids find it boring to spend 100hours to gear up , to level . they want everything straight away, instant gratification
id argue MMO’s might come back round again in the future but for now, its Fortnite and Warzone
I disagree, as a Zoomer myself (started playing just after BfA launch) it has nothing to do with that. What irks me is that my efforts are wasted so very often. I work hard learning every new dungeon as in depth as I can, learning my class of choice, go through the RNG gauntlet that is gearing, only for the new patch to strip away all of my gear just when I was finally approaching a great iLvL, and all my knowledge of the dungeons is useless now, and every expansion makes me have to relearn my class as well. It’s frustrating and demotivating to have all of the time invested in the game turned to nothing so often.
Of course there are so many casual players, cosmetics and mounts are forever, gear lasts for a few months during which you have to continuously grind and pray to the RNG gods that you get something good. In FF for example I’m nowhere near as attached to gear because it has strong bad luck protection, I don’t need to constantly grind and hope, I can definitively say “on this date/after doing this raid this many times I will get that piece”, giving a sense of accomplishment that you earned the piece and something to look forward to, instead of this “oh hey it finally dropped, welp on to the next slot” that WoW forces.
The community can be an issue as well but it wasn’t for me, I was coming from LoL so extreme toxicity was the norm, and WoW is/was far better. Add-ons, however… those are a massive pain point for me personally, and even now I refuse to play with WeakAuras and DBM, I just learn the fights and mechanics. I find it ludicrous to need so many external help add-ons to play the game, the 8 add-ons I have are QoL stuff and Details, that’s it.
As a final note, there are many new players in WoW, I’m a guide and I can see a lot of complete newbies running around and asking questions. Some changes would certainly be massively beneficial towards attracting new players, but overall I think the game is doing fine.
This, it’s actually much better for teaching the ropes even if it works entirely differently.
If I began at Retail I’d still not know how valuable a good kick is against those Defias Pillagers that casually chain fireballs for 1/3 of your total HP.
Not mentioning simpler rotations that aren’t all about mashing 2 buttons at the same time like mad. Compare Wrath Fury and Retail Fury’s rage generation and usage.
In the former, when every ability and their mother costs 10 rage and you barely get 5 per second (unless you’re a tank), you think twice before using yet another Heroic Strike because you need that rage to yeah, interrupt, or refresh shout, or just wait one more second so you get to Whirlwind because 2 mobs pound on you.
But in the latter you’d cap rage in 2 seconds so you madly bash Rampage over and over. Interrupt… what’s that? The mob didn’t even get to throw a single frostbolt on me.
Pretty much, you could watch the descriptions of the new xpac and a new player wouldn’t know what the hell the new Mythic affix is or how good/bad the ilvl of the new raid would be.
They’d also have to look up a guide on WoWhead to find the new outdoors zone Forbidden Reach/Korthia/Nazjatar or whatever.
This too, if there’s one thing I dislike is how you have to get 24 other willing ppl together for the raids in Classic awarding the top gear. Then get frustrated because 10 other people are rolling against you on that trinket you’ve been wanting for so long, not mentioning the long wait times till you fill the spots.
FF has 8 man raids except for their version of LFR with 24, and that former number is super nice imo.
Also for the raid duration… they rarely if drop anything worthwhile. You’re wasting countless minutes killing small trash mobs that drop greys worth 1 or 2g at best as BoE’s are so bloody rare.
You could have killed some extra bosses instead, really.
If there was at least a valor reward or something from at least the named elites inside…
