World of Warcraft Subscription Numbers Are Higher Now Than at Expansion Launch in a Franchise First
World of Warcraft Subscription Numbers Are Higher Now Than at Expansion Launch in a Franchise First
20-year-old World of Warcraft still seems to have plenty of spring in its step, according to Warcraft general manager John Hight. Its latest expansion, Dragonflight, has more subscribers now than it did at launch, and one intrepid content creator thinks they may have extrapolated roughly how many: o...
Woah. I didn't realize WoW was still this popular.
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First time I played WoW I liked that you were given a guided tour of your races homeland as it explained the world. The last time I played WoW I had to to a tutorial island that explained nothing about the world and then dumped me in an expansion with characters I had no fucking idea who they were and why I should care about them. Even ESO doesn't prevent new players from playing the base storyline and FFXIV still requires you to complete ARR before moving to the first expansion. I dropped WoW pretty quickly again because I felt too lost.
I started playing recently ish having never played WoW before, and good god the intro feels practically designed to drive new players away. The tutorial was so tedious and boring and taught me so little about how to actually play that I’m still not even entirely sure what I’m really supposed to do or how to even begin to understand the story/timeline. The game as a whole just feels so needlessly difficult and obtuse, I’ve ended up really just logging on every once in awhile for events to grab any cute pets or whatever mounts the game will graciously allow me to get without buying a sub
Wait, they just give you mounts now? You used to have to wait until level 20 to buy a mount. Level 20 took forever, and then you could only buy the slow mount for your race. You didn't get a fast mount until level 40, which took a very long time. Then you had to grind reputation for different factions to buy their expensive mounts. Some rare mounts could be found through seasonal events or in raids. I ran Tempest Keep every week for 2.5 years before I finally got Ashes of Al'ar to drop for me.
You used to have to wait until level 20 to buy a mount. Level 20 took forever, and then you could only buy the slow mount for your race. You didn't get a fast mount until level 40, which took a very long time.
Ha, rookie numbers. In my time you had to wait for level 40 to buy your slow mount. Fast mounts were bound to level 60 I believe and were insanely expensive (I sold so much stuff in the auction house to get the money together in those days). Around level 20 or 30 Hunters got an aspect which increased their running speed and druids could shapeshift to travel form.
Yeah, I started playing at the beginning of Lich King. I started with a mage, but my first level capped player was a hunter.
Holidays and events have mounts available as rewards and have for quite a long time. The headless horseman mount for example.
It's not a game for people that care about story or even the setting past the visuals and superficial vibes.
Same for me, I wanted to introduce someone into WoW during COVID and for nostalgia reasons, only to see that they took away the adventure and exploration and transformed it into a soulless husk. I dropped it immediately.
You seem to be knowledgeable about FF so I ask, is it a good time to start playing? I feel like there's a lot to get through before I can get current in time for the new expansion. Is there something I can boost like in wow to get current. Without that then while I can afford it, it still feels bad to pay a sub for old content ya know.
No. No way to skip the story as far as I'm aware and it'd be a bad idea honestly as the story continues right from ARR to all the expansions, endwalker has a lot of callbacks to everything before it as it's a swansong of something like 8 years. Dawntrail is the first new major story arc since FFXIV's release. Leveling isn't so bad currently because it's boosted to get as many people to 90 as much as possible but there's no max level item either as far as I'm aware as you pick a class then that class becomes a specialisation so you're constantly getting new abilities to learn for your rotation. It would defeat the point of learning your specialisation if you skipped the leveling and quests of it to max level and had everything unlocked.
You can definitely skip the story and reach level cap instantly. https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/tales_of_adventure/
However, you will have no idea how mechanics work, and you will frustrate both yourself and team mates. This could even get you reported as trolling in extreme cases.
Edit: it also only skips one expansion at a time, and at $11 USD per expansion, that's $44 and you STILL only get to Endwalker. No skip for that yet, although I bet there will be when Dawntrail drops. Still, why pay $55 to skip the game? That's insane.