Originally posted by GameOvr

When the census showed full servers and populations that were reasonable for sub numbers I bet you had no problem with the data.

 

This data has been collected the same way for seven years, it does not need to be perfect to be informative.

Ah, spewing more lies - and checking your posting history, it seems you have a tendency to hate on big bad WoW (sadface)

"This data has been collected the same way for seven years, it does not need to be perfect to be informative".  Actually, BECAUSE the data has NOT been collected the same way for the past seven years, it shows how inaccurate it is.  Wink WInk, you are wrong...just stop posting before you make yourself look any worst then you already do.

yep you caught me I played for 6 1/2 years and have over a year of played time on one character because I hate wow.

Originally posted by GameOvr

yep you caught me I played for 6 1/2 years and have over a year of played time on one character because I hate wow.

you seem to be under the assumption that you cant dislike a game youve played, that assumption is wrong

Some are off testing out SWTOR which the 30 free days is still up.  Give a month or two time and you'll see a shift from SWTOR when they had their fill of the story quests and back to WoW.  This happens with every new AAA MMO.

Sometimes people just need a break from an MMO to recharge their batteries which SWTOR is a great distraction for a bit.

So much wow hate on this site it's unreal.  Even with SWTOR out, the wow hate continues!  An entire thread dedicated to "WoW is dying!"  every other day it seems.

I think people ignore everything WoW has done for the MMORPG world.  I bet if any of you loaded up the very first release version of DAOC, EQ2, or any other mainstream MMO you would hate it.  So many things have become "standard" for MMO's because of WoW.

Look at FPS games.  Some of you may remember back when you couldn't jump, climb, look up or down...  EVERY FPS comes standard with jumping, looking up and down... hell most of them use cover systems these days.  Someome came up with a good idea (let players jump) and it was such a good idea that any game w/o the feature is considered bad.

Anyway, I hate to come across as a WoW or Blizzard fanboy.  I like to comment that I was not a fan of Starcraft 2 (the story was fun to play once).  But I get really sick of the constant hate here.  Grow up, move on, find something that makes you happy, and stop the hate.

Originally posted by drbaltazar

Originally posted by TheHavok

Originally posted by GameOvr

Originally posted by TheHavok

 

This thread again...

When will people realize that warcraftrealms.com and MMOdata.net are very inaccurate websites? 

 

MMOData goes by blizzards numbers, you know earnings calls, what they tell investors and the press, MMOData numbers are blizzards numbers.

 

{mod edit}

 

Zero reporting realms, from memory, in the US 7 months ago there was 1, a year ago 0, there is nobody there to run the census anymore.

 

Internet archive keeps copies of websites in the past.

Data like this, that state WoW's subcription base at 10.3 million - the latest conference call of this year (Q3)? 

{mod edit}

3 quater?dam that was what 4 month ago 5 month ago? even in the artical you supply he does say wow is very succesfull mostly in asia!so the other poster isnt as off as you make it seem!it was 10.3 m 4 month ago but now ,with the various game gone f2p and swtor i bet thety arent more then 9 million and the only reason they arent lower is because swtor isnt avail in japan and china yet!

Ah, well my point of posting that is to showcase Blizzard's latest release of their sub numbers for WoW.  Which, based on MMOdata.net's means of gathering and reporting information, would mean that MMOdata.net is reporting WoW at 10.3 million.  HOWEVER, if you take a look at MMOdata.net's numbers, they showcase WoW subs at over 11 million - which is inaccurate.  So, again, the site he references, is proven inaccurate.  Additionally, he references warcraftrealms.com multiple times which never accurately showcased WoW's numbers for reasons ive previously mentioned in this thread.  Yeah, WoW's numbers have dropped, to what, I don't know exactly and we wont find out till February during the Q4 report.  But making a statement like "It looks like wow has lost 50% of subs in one year and one expansion" {mod edit}

Crashing? That's why I have to wait in 17 minute queues as DPS? Riiiight... 

Originally posted by Painlezz

So much wow hate on this site it's unreal.  Even with SWTOR out, the wow hate continues!  An entire thread dedicated to "WoW is dying!"  every other day it seems.

I think people ignore everything WoW has done for the MMORPG world.  I bet if any of you loaded up the very first release version of DAOC, EQ2, or any other mainstream MMO you would hate it.  So many things have become "standard" for MMO's because of WoW.

Look at FPS games.  Some of you may remember back when you couldn't jump, climb, look up or down...  EVERY FPS comes standard with jumping, looking up and down... hell most of them use cover systems these days.  Someome came up with a good idea (let players jump) and it was such a good idea that any game w/o the feature is considered bad.

Anyway, I hate to come across as a WoW or Blizzard fanboy.  I like to comment that I was not a fan of Starcraft 2 (the story was fun to play once).  But I get really sick of the constant hate here.  Grow up, move on, find something that makes you happy, and stop the hate.

the only reason a lot of people hate it more then before is because blizzard went in some direction player would hear none of it!this is why blizzard is losing lot of customer some will phrase it in, it is too old etc but the sad truth is blizzard sent the game on a path gamer didnt want!so now most just go chat dont progress ,it became another facebook,abnd lot are like wtf why should i use wow to chat ,when i got hangout ,facebook etc etc etc!

Originally posted by TheHavok

Originally posted by drbaltazar

Originally posted by TheHavok

Originally posted by GameOvr

Originally posted by TheHavok

 

This thread again...

When will people realize that warcraftrealms.com and MMOdata.net are very inaccurate websites? 

 

MMOData goes by blizzards numbers, you know earnings calls, what they tell investors and the press, MMOData numbers are blizzards numbers.

 

{mod edit}

Zero reporting realms, from memory, in the US 7 months ago there was 1, a year ago 0, there is nobody there to run the census anymore.

 

Internet archive keeps copies of websites in the past.

Data like this, that state WoW's subcription base at 10.3 million - the latest conference call of this year (Q3)? 

Try harder - please. Its making me laugh.

3 quater?dam that was what 4 month ago 5 month ago? even in the artical you supply he does say wow is very succesfull mostly in asia!so the other poster isnt as off as you make it seem!it was 10.3 m 4 month ago but now ,with the various game gone f2p and swtor i bet thety arent more then 9 million and the only reason they arent lower is because swtor isnt avail in japan and china yet!

Ah, well my point of posting that is to showcase Blizzard's latest release of their sub numbers for WoW.  Which, based on MMOdata.net's means of gathering and reporting information, would mean that MMOdata.net is reporting WoW at 10.3 million.  HOWEVER, if you take a look at MMOdata.net's numbers, they showcase WoW subs at over 11 million - which is inaccurate.  So, again, the site he references, is proven inaccurate.  Additionally, he references warcraftrealms.com multiple times which never accurately showcased WoW's numbers for reasons ive previously mentioned in this thread.  Yeah, WoW's numbers have dropped, to what, I don't know exactly and we wont find out till February during the Q4 report.  But making a statement like "It looks like wow has lost 50% of subs in one year and one expansion" just shows how retardedly inaccurate the OP is.

 There is a time line at the bottom and the number shown is the previous blizzard number prior to the 10.3 million reported number, so the site is accurate  {mod edit}

Originally posted by Fendel84M

Why does anyone care who else plays it?

Seems like you haven't got a grasp of the acronym "MMO" and what it means, so I'll lay it down for you in simple terms.

MMOs are only played because there are a lot of other people in the game to play it with. They are generally shallow, dumbed down and uninteresting compared to a similar themed single player game.

Take the other players out of WoW and all you're left with is a very boring, simple game.

Take the other players out of EVE and I'm not sure if it would even qualify as a game anymore.

ya warcraftrealm rely on us posting data so if you dont post what happen?flawed data

The numbers are definately wrong on this. But you can look at it as a microcosm of the bigger picture.

if the sky is falling...what will we see when we look up after it has fallen? also will we look UP to the skis or DOWN to the skies?

Appearently a number of people didnt get any memo saying population is "down" . But then again there are many that dont visit forum websites or use specific mods. ( or even xfire)

I recently logged into my toons on several realms after being gone from it for an extended time. the guilds my toons are in have flourished, and having a quick peek across a few cities as well as on the finder for guilds i see quite alot of activity on the realms i have toons on.

Only the companies with access to server numbers can really give an accurate count on most any game. Id probably say that the Opener's statement is not accurate.

Originally posted by smh_alot
Actually, I read somewhere that WoW player numbers and hours in Xfire and Raptr are now 50% of what they were last Spring in March/April, even if those numbers are not fully representative, they still show a huge downward trend. But I agree with others, let's just wait for the quarterly Blizzard meetings, they have the most accurate figures, also I assume that many people have locked themselves down for a year staying subbed to get D3. Besides, even if half or more subs are in China, it's still a few million in the west which is a huge enough population to play WoW with.

I've never used Xfire and I don't even know what Raptr is...  I played WoW for 7 years and still play on and off. Trust me... they're fine. 

Even if server merges are brought up, you're talking about a game that is 7 years old. I would be shocked if there weren't merges. Other games have merged servers in much shorter spans of time I'm sure. And before anyone labels me a fanboy, I'm currently playing TOR.

I play what I have fun playing at the time then move on. No need to bash games just because they're not you flavor this month/year.

Meh to be expected.

Every few months someone finds these sites and comes here to tell everyone how badly wow is doing and how these sites prove how it will soon be digging around in the dirt for players......................who gives a shit?!?

Wow is what it is, has the player base reduces, well yes it has, Blizzard have said so themselves as unlike many other MMO's over the years they have been pretty straight forward about their numbers because they have to be, being owned by shareholders.

Is it dead? No!

Is it dying? No!

I say these things purely from personal experience as my server is still packed at peak times, queue's are as long as they have been for a hell of a long time now and my auctions still sell like hot cakes. Our Guild numbers haven't changed much a all since a sharp rise in the months after the launch of Cataclysm, people join, people leave and we keep doing what we do.

If Blizzard release a disaster of a year end figure showing a drop of 6-7Mill subs i may get a little concerned, but until then, i enjoy playing the game and that is pretty much all that matters.

There are 12 million players in the world of warcraft. atleast thats what they say in the tv-comercials running in sweden atm.

Originally posted by GameOvr

According to data on WarcraftRealms, MMOData and using the Internet Archive...

7 months ago there were 4 US servers with less than 1000 characters observed by wow census in 30 days, now there are over 40 of these servers, EU is worse, with 60 of them. This is a tremendous downward momentum.

Servers support 25,000 accounts each, there are over 100 servers with less than 4% capacity (based on no characters are alts).

The high water mark of subscriptions, which includes cataclysm release was 12 million, 6 in NA/EU and 6 in Asia.

Total player population observed by wow census now  is 1.9 million characters in the US, the last time wow census saw those numbers was Aug 2005 (1.7 mil, next archive is next year with 2.3 mil), and there were 3 million NA/EU subs back then. It looks like wow has lost 50% of subs in one year and one expansion.

 

 

http://www.warcraftrealms.com/realmstats.php?sort=Total

http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-1.png

http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/WoW.png

http://www.archive.org/

 

Just for giggles i thought i would take a look over the Warcraft Realms data for the EU (my area) as you can't say something isn't reliable if you don' t at least take a look at it;

Counted 248 servers altogether

Out of the 248, only 11 had a 'green' colour coded ration on both sides meaning they had over 100 snapshots in 30 days on both sides.

So by their own standards, they only consider their own data to be approx 4% accurate in that regard.

60 have no data at all, 63 mixed red and 'other' and 114 all in the red.

Then let's consider what a 'snapshot' could mean. It is literally that, a snapshot of the players on the server in that area at the time the mod is used, so if someone was to even use the mod 3-4 tmes a day to give them the 100 snapshots they consider to be an 'accurate' representation of the population, how accurate is it really? If you use it at slow times you don't get a fair representation and if you use it at peak times you don't either and it is quite likely that whoever uses the snapshot mod will be playing at their own preferred times when using it which of course will not coincide with all other players preferred times. So basically you are going to mis-represent the figures either too high or too low in the vast majority of cases and that is not even factoring in whether you are standing in the middle of Elwynn Forest or in the middle of Stormwind!......oh and also factoring in that it only counts characters and not accounts, so in reality you have to pear down the figures it is giving you even more so in most cases ( I have 7 x L85's, 2 L80+ and 1 L70 that i rotate) which should give you an even lower figure in the subscription stakes....eek!

As for my main server, according to the records on there we have an imbalance of 98% Alliance and only 2% horde!?! My server has always been an alliance stronghold historically, but that is far from the reality i am sure.

So in answer to an earlier post as to why we would not believe these figures.....well the answer is simple, because the site that is providing them even says that they are not accurate!