The Weekly Marmot - Is WoW the Last Big MMO?

[Lore]

[gamewizardx]

Lore, I starting watching your videos because I agree with you alot on many topics...but I think the LAST BIG MMO concept may not be accurate.

You mentioned how games will focus on a specific "aspect" like pvp, pve etc and have only ~200,000 players or whatever...but from what precedent has shown and history I dont think so. There may be some like that... but the NEXT BIG MMO will not be a SMALL MMO.

Look at the history of MMOs. FIrst we know FANTASY as a genre has dominated generally. UO, EQ, DAOC, ASHERONS CALL, WOW... generally the BIG MMO of the era has always been a fantasy themed one. Not to say others didnt exist like ANARCHY, STAR WARS, etc but the KING was a BIG FANTASY MMO.

I think the "decline" of WOW to a casual game for $$$ (AND yes thats exactly what it is lets not be PC here Activision is involved) has caused people to even think of MMOs in the way you are now. Blizzard...probably forced by Activision are going for $$$$ -- not coolness anymore....not quality.... they want MAX $$$ for the littlest effort *cough* rehashed content. There is a DIFFERENCE between the Blizzard of 2012 and the Blizzard of 2003. Anyone whose been a real fan (not a casual fair day fan) since 1990s knows this.

The next BIG MMO will GET back to the basics...and start making the game for what its supposed to be... a challenge. Its not a "log on and play it however you want get purples". That is NOT what WOW was when it made people RUSH home to log on in 2004-2005.

People THESE days are actually saying "man i cant wait to log off" THATS A HUGE DIFFERENCE.

It was the raiders who drew in the casuals for WOW...sorry to say that but thats how it works...you should know this.

Blizzard made the game RAID hard....end game HARD to beat...hard to play... and accomplishments felt epic.

The horsepoopoo of coddle the casuals has brought the game down to a sily hello kitty level almost....AND thats why WOW is declining....

Its like a MOVIE: it gets HYPED before release....HAS A RECORD OPENING WEEKEND.. then the next weekend is horrid.....happens all the time ... why SUBSTANCE is lacking...and the "casual" audience isnt there because the hard core fans arent hyping it anymore.

Same happens in WOW...when they dont ENSURE RAIDING is FUN and a challenge and interesting(NOT JUST HEALTH being 5 million more) it declines.

So I dont agree WOW is last BIG MMO... someone has to step up and do it RIGHT. AND BY THE WAY... alot of companies have been EDGING closer to making WOW killers.... if I was blizzard Id be really evaluating their future moves it seems to be they have the ARROGANCE factor going on... REMEMBER when EQ devs used to be SMUG and think they were untouchable... yea.....

The next BIG MMO will be a BIG MMO...it will need to focus on RAIDERS....to draw in the large casual crowds. Give the casual crowds ALOT to do fine.....but dont diss raiding... causals dont NEED TO BE ABLE to kill the end boss.....if they dotn have the skill or time to do so...

Doing so is fallign prey to the "everyone gets a gold star" syndrome everyone is hearing about...

peace

[Garen]

Just a heads up, that $500 million mark you're quoting was from an analyst who pretty much completely pulled the number out of his ass. Massively ran a story on it, and the "analysts" claims were pretty baseless, and he pretty much arrived at that number for sensationalism.

Just about every other video game analyst, and based on comments here and there from EA/Bioware, that number is probably closed to $200-300 million. Still a rather large budget compared to other MMOs that have been developed, but not half a billion.

[joshvolt]

I hope that games will start focusing on a specific aspect instead of trying to be everything, I'm not sure that will be the case though. I think the problem is that Wow's model has been very successful and games have just tried to use their model and offer everything. Look at all the games that have come out as the "Wow killer" and failed. Competing with Wow head on just has not worked because like Lore mentioned people pretty much have to be driven away from the game, they aren't just going to jump ship for a new flavor of a game for no other reason. I think there will be an everything mmo that takes over once Wow dies.

[truculent]

Just to clear something up, ATVI had 1 billion in cash working capital last quarter. That's after all their bills are paid. So in theory, yes.. they could easily increase wows operating expense and it wouldn't even scratch the surface of what they potentially COULD spend.

That's said - I think lore hit it right on the head to be honest. Every single article Ive read points to the MMO genre growing by a staggering amount in the years to come.

As the "sub cultures" in the MMO genre start to grow to the capacity where they each can sustain an ENTIRE game by themselves (with 1-2 or even 3 million subscribers) focusing on very specific aspects of game play, chances are you will see smaller studios start to release high quality games in those specific areas.

If there is anything blizzard should have learned for wow, its that trying to cater to 10 million people equally is damn near impossible. I think anyone interested in creating a new MMO knows that.

[Slyvar]

IMO, there will certainly be another big MMO. It will most likely be the next fantasy MMO that comes out, with balance similar to TBC WoW (difficulty wise) but with more modern MMO features like the LFD/LFR tools, etc.

gamewizardx is correct, WoW is on the decline because of the casual focus. Everyone tries to say that is what draws the players in. But WoW became huge on the older model of hard, challenging content that only 1-5% of players saw. Now, with content that everyone can see and clear, it's struggling to maintain those numbers it built up to.

[Leucifer]

I think the "decline" of WOW to a casual game for $$$ (AND yes thats exactly what it is lets not be PC here Activision is involved) has caused people to even think of MMOs in the way you are now. Blizzard...probably forced by Activision are going for $$$$ -- not coolness anymore....not quality.... they want MAX $$$ for the littlest effort *cough* rehashed content. There is a DIFFERENCE between the Blizzard of 2012 and the Blizzard of 2003. Anyone whose been a real fan (not a casual fair day fan) since 1990s knows this.

I'll agree with this. Blizzard is just not the same. I really do agree that Activision's influence is greater than we'd probably care to admit.

[/QUOTE]

The next BIG MMO will GET back to the basics...and start making the game for what its supposed to be... a challenge. Its not a "log on and play it however you want get purples". That is NOT what WOW was when it made people RUSH home to log on in 2004-2005.

People THESE days are actually saying "man i cant wait to log off" THATS A HUGE DIFFERENCE.

It was the raiders who drew in the casuals for WOW...sorry to say that but thats how it works...you should know this.

Blizzard made the game RAID hard....end game HARD to beat...hard to play... and accomplishments felt epic.

The horsepoopoo of coddle the casuals has brought the game down to a sily hello kitty level almost....AND thats why WOW is declining....

This I have to respond to. This is like listening to my grandpa rage on about how back in the old days he had to walk uphill in the snow to school while flying monkeys chased him.

When I first signed up to play WoW, it was because it looked FUN. Raiding looked neat, and the fights were challenging and just something really neat to do. At the same time.... RAIDING WASN'T EVERYTHING.

The real heart of the problem.... so far as I can tell.... is that raiding has become the end all, be all to this f'ing game.

It took quite a bit of thought for me to wrap my head around that concept, but really... that IS the problem. Raiding used to be just another interesting thing to do in WoW. A good challenge. It wasn't required to make the game interesting. It's become this thing that "Omg you're so freakin fail if you haven't killed heroic mode Dufus in Something Something Evil Lair. You're totally worthless. Go away and DIAF nOOb".

You want to know who killed the community in WoW?

WE DID.

Raiding USED to be something epic. It USED to be something that was optional. It was just another challenge out there. It was something that was cool to do if you could get the people together to do it.

Now.... it's the heart and soul of the game. It has been pushed like that and prodded forward. You want to know why "casuals" want to raid? It's because it's ALL THERE IS TO FREAKIN DO IN THE F'ING GAME THAT'S EVEN REMOTELY INTERESTING ANYMORE.

Oh.... and by the way ..... the hordes of casuals who subscribe to the game are the ones who are fronting the money for the devs to spend so much time and energy into developing YOUR precious raids.

So quit b*tching about how the "casuals ruined the game". The people who ruined the game were those people who

The next BIG MMO will be a BIG MMO...it will need to focus on RAIDERS....to draw in the large casual crowds. Give the casual crowds ALOT to do fine.....but dont diss raiding... causals dont NEED TO BE ABLE to kill the end boss.....if they dotn have the skill or time to do so...

Doing so is fallign prey to the "everyone gets a gold star" syndrome everyone is hearing about...

peace

Bullsh!t. "It will need to focus on raiders.... to draw in the large casual crowds."

THAT'S WHAT F*CKED THINGS UP.

LOOK!!!! LOOK AT THE AWESOMENESS OF RAIDING!!!!!! COME PLAY WOW!!!!!........ and now that we have you, sorry... you can't raid. You're not good enough or geared well enough or can find enough willing people who will either help you learn how to play better or help you gear up so that you can be a part of the game. Even if you do get starter gear and work your way up.... you're an outsider.

THAT.... is what got things to their current state.

I'll agree with you on giving casuals something to do. Give the casuals a LOT of interesting things to do. Honestly.... this is where you could genuinely leverage PvP play if you wanted.

But put raiding back into the place where it was. An interesting and optional thing to do..... not the heart and soul and core of the game. Because when you make it the core of the game.... the heart and soul of what the game is about.... then it will HAVE to be somewhat inclusive in order to draw people in and keep them engaged. Otherwise, it's just a tease.... "oh look.... see all this awesome stuff that you can't have or get to be a part of."

The next big and highly successful MMO will play to psychology.... and will not engage in a self-defeating vicious circle of crap that Blizzard has fallen into. The next big MMO will devote it's core attention and resources on something that CAN and WILL be able to keep the casual player engaged and interested...... but will create quality things like raids that smaller sub-populations can engage in. They will create things that will be "status symbols" to both communities, that have value in those aspects, and are meaningful AND useful to them.

My prediction? The next BIG MMO will feature PvP as the core of the game and dedicate significant time and effort into making sure that it balances out in a way that can keep people engaged. At the same time, it will make something like raiding a fun and interesting side note that you can engage in.

Do I hate raiders? Do I hate the hard core raider? No. I'll say it again.... give those guys their ultra mega competitive heroic mode. Give them the ball busting challenge they crave. Do not coddle them. If they can't kill the end boss.... hey.... you don't NEED to kill the end boss. Get better. The hard core raider want to make this a thing of merit?..... Fine! Killing the end-boss IS AN ACHIEVEMENT. An accomplishment. YOU DO NOT NEED TO GET IT. You need to go EARN it.

That is part of the "double talk" that I see on here so often that really ticks me off.
The raider that complains that the "casual" doesn't "need" to kill the end boss.... but at the same time assumes that they themselves are somehow entitled to it. Hypocrisy at its finest.

Just a heads up, that $500 million mark you're quoting was from an analyst who pretty much completely pulled the number out of his ass. Massively ran a story on it, and the "analysts" claims were pretty baseless, and he pretty much arrived at that number for sensationalism.

Just about every other video game analyst, and based on comments here and there from EA/Bioware, that number is probably closed to $200-300 million. Still a rather large budget compared to other MMOs that have been developed, but not half a billion.

SWTOR cost between $200-$300 mil. They figured at least $100 mil for dev.... and EA/Bioware planned on a $100 mil ad campaign. So.... $200 mil was the baseline. There are reliable sources for that information other than what some dude said on some other gaming site. Try Ars Technica for example.

[Leucifer]

gamewizardx is correct, WoW is on the decline because of the casual focus. Everyone tries to say that is what draws the players in. But WoW became huge on the older model of hard, challenging content that only 1-5% of players saw. Now, with content that everyone can see and clear, it's struggling to maintain those numbers it built up to.

You're wrong and right Sly.

The casual focus on raiding is what screwed things up. Instead of giving the casuals something worthwhile to do, they took something that was intended for a smaller audience and tried to "give" it to everyone.

WoW became huge NOT because of the older model of hard, challenging content. Correlation does not imply causation.

[Theotherone]

The horsepoopoo of coddle the casuals has brought the game down to a sily hello kitty level almost....AND thats why WOW is declining....

Unfortunately, Blizzard listened to this type of silliness and lost 1.2. million subscribers. Having different raid levels of difficulty, including one that caters to the non-raiding types is the smart business move. Casuals pay the bills just like everyone else. Raid Heroics for challenge and don't worry about what other people get or do. Hopefully, Blizzard never, ever, ever listens to the wanna be hardcores again.

I think the challenge modes in MoP will prove a nice way to take some of the epeen out of raiding i.e. even playing field and transmorg gear. Blizz is looking to give everyone more stuff to do, to keep you logging back in; I'm looking forward to seeing what comes along.

[gamewizardx]

Uh no Blizzard is losing people because the game has become a revolving door...too easy.... and as someone said took away from raiders to give to the casuals.

AS blizzard gives into the people who want to log on, put little effort in yet have all the shinny purples raiders have, the more numbers of subs Blizz will lose.

Giving people free stuff isnt a new tactic....thats how dictators work in 3rd world countries... give the fools some bread crumbs and theyll vote for you right or wrong.

Blizz is doing that...and thats why SERIOUS hard core players are BORED and actually if you ask them directly i bet outright DISGUSTED with the state of WOW and raiding....

Again Blizzard is trying the coddling "Give every one a gold star" "Give every class everything" "Welfare epics" i could go on but no need....this says it all.

I remember when Blizzard was an AWESOME game company that had INTEGRITY....listening to them talk now is like listening to a ultra politically correct person yabber on and on.

IT doesnt work in a successful MMO.... and the decline is proving it.

if they FIXED the game ------ AKA got it back to being hard but satisfying again..... they could go on for another 10 years.

But they wont. I started day one release... I know that WOW was a cool good game once.

I dont like how itd devolved into WHACKAMOLE.


Sorry......watch the numbers keep falling just like SWTOR. SWTOR did the same CASUAL your way to 50.....heroics not necessary....see how good thats turned out for em? Hard core players quitting.

[Theotherone]

Unfortunately, the facts have an very anti-hardcore agenda. Let's assume that Blizzard a billion dollar a year subsidiary of a major corporation, just might know what they're doing and they might have data to support them, the fact that they went back to zergfest heroics, an easy mode lfr, and a paradigm that says normal raids should be about Naxx (i.e. WoLK days) difficulty leads to the conclusion that it's the casual, the pug, call it whatever you want that keeps the game growing.

The different tiers of raiding difficulty really should keep everyone happy - I see no reason why "hard cores" can't be happy with heroic raids; the whole "I'm better than you cause I 'earned' my purples so I'mma sit around in Org or SW to show off" is a 15 year old mentality that had no place the planning of a billion dollar a year corporation.

[joshvolt]

I don't agree that going hardcore is going to stop the declining numbers. They want to make as much money as possible and you need casuals to continue to play for that to happen. They are losing numbers because Cata has sucked, the raiding philosophy hasn't changed since Ice Crown. They want everyone to see all the content.

[Aggathon]

Okay, I have a bit of a tirade to the posters here posting on the "raiding vs. casual" feel. I haven't watched Lore's video yet though, so please know my comments come not knowing what he's said.

First off: gamewizardx's comment, " It was the raiders who drew in the casuals for WOW...sorry to say that but thats how it works...you should know this," is (was?) correct when WoW came out. There were challenging aspects of the game, and players have become much better at the game since it was released, so things that were very challenging in vanilla and TBC aren't as challenging now.

But that's not even really the point, there was things for casuals to do and yes there was a certain skillcap you needed to raid, but some raids were just harder than others. In Vanilla and TBC there really WAS progression, and not just per tier. In TBC if you made a brand new guild from scratch, you didn't start in Sunwell. You started in Kara, you worked your way into tier 5, then tier 6, THEN sunwell. It went Kara -> Gruul's/Mags -> SSC/TK -> Hyjal/BT -> SWP. There wasn't this "everyone has to play every tier shenanigans" and the bottom tier was fun enough that a lot of people didn't care if they never got to Hyjal/BT. What happened is that the casuals got the "lower" tier raids that were still fun and you could do with just a few friends and some PuGs, you could do ZA and however good you were determined your level of reward. There was no "heroic" and multiple version of the same instance.

THIS was the best model, because it made it so that raiding was only as difficult as you made it. It was actual progression through various tiers, not just beating the same level over and over again. All of the problems of "casuals getting to content" in WotLK and Cata have been because they deviated from this model. WHO CARES IF ONLY 1% of raiders killed Kil'Jaedon. Business was-a-boomin' and people were having fun.

What's not a good model is what gamewizardx says, "needs to go back to basics and needs to be hard again."
That's like saying, "days were better when our quality of life was lower, take away all cell phones because they make people brats." Aion proved this by making a "hardcore" game that promptly died. Lore did a great marmot about this once (or maybe it was a legendary episode, that hair just makes things blur together sometimes).

It's just JUST raiding, or difficulty of raiding. It's how it's structured, and I think the current wow structure is bad.

[Leucifer]

Uh no Blizzard is losing people because the game has become a revolving door...too easy.... and as someone said took away from raiders to give to the casuals.

That is about the only thing there I can agree with. Taking AWAY from the raiders was a bad move. I will agree to that. The problem is... Blizzard built raiding so closely into the storyline that.... well, heck.... there is NOTHING for the casual. Think about that. If we took raiding out of the game right now, the game would have next to nothing left to it except PvP.

You need to give the casuals SOMETHING to do as they subsidize the game for you hardcore types. Hell... if I don't bring that into the equation... even if I made the game all about raiding and progressing through multiple raids to an end boss, a la Burning Crusade.... what do you think is going to happen?

LFR was a good idea, poorly implemented. The IDEA of creating a way for ALL to be able to see the full storyline..... GOOD!
How they went about it? In my view.... it was lazy. They took away from the raiders, made them feel less-special, and just duplicated it for the casual.

If you're honest about this, that's what your real problem is. YOU don't feel special now. That's a huge part of this argument is the poor little bruised egos of the raiders everywhere. What you guys fail to realize is this......

Harcore raider doesn't feel special - Whine, moan, and be angry.

Casual player doesn't feel like part of the experience - takes their $$$ elsewhere.

You as the hardcore NEED the casual to subsidize your specialness.

Unfortunately, the facts have an very anti-hardcore agenda. Let's assume that Blizzard a billion dollar a year subsidiary of a major corporation, just might know what they're doing and they might have data to support them, the fact that they went back to zergfest heroics, an easy mode lfr, and a paradigm that says normal raids should be about Naxx (i.e. WoLK days) difficulty leads to the conclusion that it's the casual, the pug, call it whatever you want that keeps the game growing.

The different tiers of raiding difficulty really should keep everyone happy - I see no reason why "hard cores" can't be happy with heroic raids; the whole "I'm better than you cause I 'earned' my purples so I'mma sit around in Org or SW to show off" is a 15 year old mentality that had no place the planning of a billion dollar a year corporation.

Yeah. I agree with most of what you say Theo. The only issue is that the gear, between LFR, normal, and heroic just looks the same. It's that rapid visual differentiation that matters. You tap at the heart of the matter..... it's a 15 yr old mentality..... it's an ego issue. However... you DO have to play into that because if you don't, people get unhappy and quit. I would argue that LFR should have gotten blues that would set them up for normal. The problem there is gearing is so out of whack. "The upgrade needs to be meaningful." That was an argument Lore leveraged a while back. Well... maybe it needs to be less meaningful. We always TALK about how much skill is important in this game... maybe gear improvements need to be smaller so that the issue isn't "moar gear" but "moar skill"..... and a little improvement on gear becomes satisfying but leaving you hungry for more.

I don't agree that going hardcore is going to stop the declining numbers. They want to make as much money as possible and you need casuals to continue to play for that to happen. They are losing numbers because Cata has sucked, the raiding philosophy hasn't changed since Ice Crown. They want everyone to see all the content.

This.....
Cata sucked.
And raiding philosophy has not changed. Fights are merely mixes of things that were all done before. And the final dollop on top of it was using "rehashed" boss models for the end expansion fights.

I think people are walking away from WoW honestly because of something they perceive but cannot verbalize..... that it is apparent to the user that Blizzard is no longer as invested in the quality of their product as they were before.

We can't point a finger at it and say, "It's this specific thing". Just as many things are more than a sum of their parts, so is WoW. You.... me.... all of us here... are arguing over these specific points, nibbling at them and fighting at them because they are the closest things to the tangible problem we can chew on.... but in reality.... it's all of these pieces together.

It's like an orchestra trying to perform a piece without tuning up prior to performance. Yeah, you just played the piece of music..... but it sounded like crap. At the end, it's the director's fault because it's their job to ensure things are prepared before starting.

[Leucifer]

THIS was the best model, because it made it so that raiding was only as difficult as you made it. It was actual progression through various tiers, not just beating the same level over and over again. All of the problems of "casuals getting to content" in WotLK and Cata have been because they deviated from this model. WHO CARES IF ONLY 1% of raiders killed Kil'Jaedon. Business was-a-boomin' and people were having fun.

What's not a good model is what gamewizardx says, "needs to go back to basics and needs to be hard again."
That's like saying, "days were better when our quality of life was lower, take away all cell phones because they make people brats." Aion proved this by making a "hardcore" game that promptly died. Lore did a great marmot about this once (or maybe it was a legendary episode, that hair just makes things blur together sometimes).

It's just JUST raiding, or difficulty of raiding. It's how it's structured, and I think the current wow structure is bad.

Good points. Excerpted this section to highlight.

[tawnos]

The vast majority of the reason that Blizzard is losing players is that WoW is now an aging MMO. Any of the rest of the reason has nothing to do with what segment of the playerbase they are focusing on and is much more related to the fact that they are starving WoW resource development probably to shift it to Titan. A 12-event DragonSoul would have fixed a lot of the problems and now that extra 50% of the development team are probably dedicated to Titan.

Any game is always going to eventually decline - why would WoW be any different? If anything I would think that WoW has held on quite a bit longer than would otherwise have been expected. They are adapting their game to their existing playerbase which seems like a smart move rather than trying to chase the new generation of gamers who are obviously going to be drawn to newer games. The kids of 2004 are now at least starting to look at family lives and real jobs and even the really little kids are done with school and getting training wheels jobs at this point - the standards of the college kiddy gamer can't be expected to apply anymore and thats what hardcore raiding always was tuned around.

[Lore]

Wrath of the Lich King was, by far, when the game was at its "easiest." It's also when it had the most subscribers. When Cataclysm released, they made a hard push toward making the game more hardcore... and lost 2 million subs.

Sorry, "the game is dying because it's not hardcore enough" or "the game is dying because they're trying to make money" are pretty ignorant claims to make. That may be why you dislike the game, but it's certainly not why they've been losing subs.

[Aggathon]

To be fair, WotLK had the most subs up until 3.2 (ToGC). Ever since then there's been a decline. Ulduar was awesome and still had the experience of "leveled progression through the tiers." It wasn't until they revamped HMs and tokens and gear in ToGC, basically making ToGC (and subsequently whatever tier was the most recent in every patch after 3.2) the only relevant content and destroying tiered progression, that subs started falling off.

[Slyvar]

Wrath of the Lich King was, by far, when the game was at its "easiest." It's also when it had the most subscribers. When Cataclysm released, they made a hard push toward making the game more hardcore... and lost 2 million subs.

Sorry, "the game is dying because it's not hardcore enough" or "the game is dying because they're trying to make money" are pretty ignorant claims to make. That may be why you dislike the game, but it's certainly not why they've been losing subs.

Actually WoW was at it's peak when WotLK released, and then slowly declined throughout the duration of that expansion. The game had more subscribers at the end of TBC than it did at any point of the duration of WotLK, other than right before the release of Cataclysm. But we all know that peaks hit before expansions. WotLK was the first LOSS of subs the game ever saw, in fact. It saw nothing but growth during Vanilla and TBC (the time when the game was probably the most "hardcore") -- I'm sure accounts fluctuated up and down but quarterly reports were always positive numbers.

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

http://www.mmodata.net/

As someone pointed out, this is correlation and not causation, though. I don't think the answer to the problem is to just go back to the way it was, for raiding. I do, however, think that heroic mode should mimic the raiding of the past a bit more -- Attunements, bosses that are so hard that not everyone can kill them, no nerfs unless a boss is just flat-out unkillable, etc. Leave normal and LFR the way it is for the more casual among us (I would fall into this category at the given moment), make heroic the level that the really hardcore players are looking for.

[Leucifer]

Wrath of the Lich King was, by far, when the game was at its "easiest." It's also when it had the most subscribers. When Cataclysm released, they made a hard push toward making the game more hardcore... and lost 2 million subs.

Sorry, "the game is dying because it's not hardcore enough" or "the game is dying because they're trying to make money" are pretty ignorant claims to make. That may be why you dislike the game, but it's certainly not why they've been losing subs.

How do you figure? The "easiest" is right now. LFR being a big part of that. One... I'm getting to experience the fights on a more forgiving level. Two.... I'm getting gear improvements while getting exposure. Also, the current set of vp/jp gear available also.... and the ease of acquisition of competitive gear for raiding is at an all time easy-cheesy. I can get points from LFR, from Normal, and from dungeons. A player can assemble a fair amount of reasonably competitive gear very quickly.

Wrath of the Lich King was, by far, when the game was at its "easiest."

..... is a fairly ignorant claim also. Are you talking about fresh out the gate? Are you including Ulduar? Or are you just referring to ICC when you had tier 9 and tier 10 gear both more readily accessible than previous tier gear. Or is this just "according to the holy gospel of Lore"?

Sorry, "the game is dying because it's not hardcore enough" or "the game is dying because they're trying to make money" are pretty ignorant claims to make. That may be why you dislike the game, but it's certainly not why they've been losing subs.

.....They are why we dislike the game, and are contributing to why they are losing subs.