World of Warcraft has been dying for almost two decades. At least that’s what many people claim. But isn’t that getting boring?
“World of Warcraft is dead” – a saying that active players of Blizzard’s MMORPG can only smile wearily at. Because the sentence is not a new invention. Basically, we’ve been hearing it since the vanilla version of World of Warcraft. Every major patch, every innovation and every announcement has ensured that World of Warcraft is dying for almost two decades.
A common thought process seems to be: “I don’t enjoy World of Warcraft anymore. That means the game has become bad. That in turn means that WoW is basically dead.”
Of course, one can argue that World of Warcraft is no longer at its peak – it will probably never be able to achieve that again. But if you follow various discussions, there are basically only two states WoW has ever been in: the best MMORPG of all time and dead.
That’s a bit silly, isn’t it?
Community discusses: Why do people say WoW is always dead?
In the World of Warcraft subreddit there is also a constant discussion about why people constantly claim that “World of Warcraft is dead”.
In one of the recent posts, AlarmedBrush7045 asks:
Why do people say retail WoW is dead?
[…] Is this an inside joke on Reddit or something?
I’m on a “recommended” server and I always see people in the open world completing world events, I always find people for dungeons and raids and randomly see people fishing or something.
The discussion has received numerous comments trying to explain why many people keep calling World of Warcraft dead.
The evilwomanenjoyser receives a lot of support, stating: “People say ‘dead’ when they mean: ‘I, as the main character of life, no longer play. So nobody does that anymore.’”
AmyDeffered commented: “It’s the same energy as, ‘Nobody goes to this restaurant anymore because it’s always crowded.'”
At the same time, the recurring discussion of “WoW killers” is also discussed, even if they have become less common in recent years. This is how centcentcent writes:
People unironically claim that Final Fantasy XIV killed World of Warcraft. As if it were unimaginable that both games would be doing well at the same time.
Public_Radio- believes that bitter ex-players are behind this:
People who say the game is dead are just bitter ex-players looking for external approval for quitting. In their eyes the game will never be good again just so they can justify the reason for quitting.
WoW players make WoW worse
The conflict that takes place between the individual WoW groups is particularly absurd. Because World of Warcraft (Retail) is not only treated harshly by former players, but also by those who are currently playing the various classic versions.
Anyone who plays one of the different Classic variants (WoW Classic Era, Season of Discovery, WotLK Classic) and spends time in general chat channels or makes a mistake in dungeons already knows this. Every minute, players who have a different opinion or don’t play optimally are insulted as “retail idiots”, “retail kiddies” or something similar – with the clear intention of making it clear: “Anyone who plays WoW Dragonflight is an idiot , because the game sucks.”
In Dragonflight there is also the occasional saying, “Then go to Classic if you don’t like it here,” but calling someone a “Classic player” and seeing that as an insult is much rarer here.
This is certainly partly due to the fact that some of the current Classic players now consist of those who previously criticized modern WoW for years and called it “dead”. And because you can no longer complain about WoW in general (which you are playing again), you have to choose a subgroup: the “stupid retail players”. Ah yes. Very mature.
Both groups seem to tend to forget that the two games support each other and are good for each other. WoW Classic helps bring a few old virtues back into focus – like the old talent system. WoW Retail, on the other hand, has clever and sensible innovations that have also been adopted in Classic – such as the trading time when looting from bosses or sharding when areas are too full.
World of Warcraft has problems that no one denies
None of this precludes the fact that World of Warcraft actually has objective problems. Of course, you no longer have the same number of subscribers as you did with Wrath of the Lich King. There are many reasons for that.
The three biggest are probably:
There are also a lot of problems in the game that make World of Warcraft less attractive or difficult to access, especially for newcomers:
How is World of Warcraft doing right now?
The fact that World of Warcraft is doing pretty well right now can be proven with numbers – even if there haven’t been official player numbers from Blizzard for a long time. Because you can get other numbers.
Even though World of Warcraft is of course much more than just “Mythic+” or raids, these activities are still a good indicator of how the game is doing at the moment. After all, this is the endgame content that a lot of people are concerned with.
It is usually the case that the first season of an expansion is quite successful, as most players are still playing there. As the patches progress, this number steadily decreases, meaning that later seasons will see significantly fewer players:
This is not the case with the current, third season of Dragonflight. Even though Season 3 is already in week 11, it is still going much stronger than Season 2.
Participation in M+ is slowly decreasing, but that’s normal as a season progresses – after all, many people are slowly getting their “best in slot” gear and the dungeons are becoming less attractive as a result. The fact that participation in week 11 is still greater than in week 4 of the previous season is a clear indication that at least the endgame of WoW is doing really well.
Finally, the state of World of Warcraft can be determined by a very simple fact: If World of Warcraft or even just the retail version were really as “dead” as many claim, a company would really say that there were already 3 new expansions are in development and are additional expansions planned?
You can see the trailer for the next expansion “The War Within” here:
World of Warcraft: The War Within – Cinematic Trailer
More videos
Would you invest millions in developing new expansions for a “dead” game at a time when there are many layoffs and other games at Blizzard are even being shut down completely?
World of Warcraft is not dead. And if you continue to say that after 5, 10 or 15 years, you are, above all, making a fool of yourself.
World of Warcraft first “died” when Paladins came for the Horde and Shamans for the Alliance. Then it supposedly died with the introduction of a hero class – and in every subsequent patch after that. Through group finder, through LFR, through the level squish, through the new character models and every other detail that has changed.
World of Warcraft has changed and for some it is no longer the game they once loved – but for many others it is exactly what they like. And at some point you should be able to accept that without foaming at the mouth and then perhaps turn to more pleasant activities.
World of Warcraft is many things. It is different. It’s not like it was back then. It has evolved. In some respects for the better. In other respects for the worse. But one thing it definitely isn’t, no matter how many people keep saying it: dead.
We have introduced you to the 10 phases of every WoW player here.