The Population has decreased by almost half.......

[eshon1]

There is a reason why Icecrown remains the defecto server, and remains capped always. the server model works.

"Hey bro, lets go to warmane, I hear they have the best cash shop system ever!" - conversation that will likely never, ever exist.

Warmanes popularity is largely due to is being the only quality server that you can be sure wont spontaneously shut down, it has absolutely nothing to do with any cash shop system.
People already dislike the cash shop, just leave it how it is, any further tampering is just going to annoy and drive people away further.

You know what would be superior to insta boosts and character trades and would boost population and help drive the ecnomy and classic zones???
Making it so people actually level their damn character as intended in the original game instead of multiboxers boxing 20 accounts to sell at max level.

Seriously, for real, if i wanted character boost, ez mode, gg playstyle, id play retail, I came to outland to avoid crappy retail mechanics and cash shop systems, not to encourage it.

[Selaya]

[ .. ]
People already dislike the cash shop, just leave it how it is, any further tampering is just going to annoy and drive people away further.

[ .. ]

and yet ic's pop isn't lowering at all, quite on the contrary

[Deathsmaster]

"Hey bro, lets go to warmane, I hear they have the best cash shop system ever!" - conversation that will likely never, ever exist.

Warmanes popularity is largely due to is being the only quality server that you can be sure wont spontaneously shut down, it has absolutely nothing to do with any cash shop system.
People already dislike the cash shop, just leave it how it is, any further tampering is just going to annoy and drive people away further.

You know what would be superior to insta boosts and character trades and would boost population and help drive the ecnomy and classic zones???
Making it so people actually level their damn character as intended in the original game instead of multiboxers boxing 20 accounts to sell at max level.

Seriously, for real, if i wanted character boost, ez mode, gg playstyle, id play retail, I came to outland to avoid crappy retail mechanics and cash shop systems, not to encourage it.

Well, I never sell any characters, and I doubt there are many boxers that do that to extent, soooo, no lol.

If you want to play the original game as intended, then play Medivh... I really shouldn't have to point that out to you.

And I really don't care why you came here, it's popular because of quality yes, but's here because of the cash shop, servers don't run on bitter hard-cores tears now do they.....and just to be honest, I said best server model, which is an overall system, not JUST the cash shop.....

lol why are you guys quoting cash shop, I said, point shop and toon boosts, learn to read for Christs sake....

[Hillnor]

Well, I never sell any characters, and I doubt there are many boxers that do that to extent, soooo, no lol.

You're wrong here, there are many multiboxers, but that happens also in icecrown.

Also, you can't implement a point shop based on achievements in a version where there are no achievements, unless you intend to make a shop in tbc where only players with achievements in wotlk can buy...

[Deathsmaster]

LOL, have even you tried selling a character? It is not easy....I've never tried to sell one. But I HAVE listened to my friends that have tried. It's NOT easy.

Now with that being said, I can only speak about Icecrown. But I'd wager that the only reason people buy them on Outland at any increased rate, is because there are no paid level boosts.

And to the point shop, please read, like i said in the post before yours..... I've already addressed this. You're telling me that if they put it in, and you only had to play that expansion for 1K Achievement points, you wouldn't do it? Of course you would.

[Sherkkan]

Some QoL things could be done in my opinion. Our guild is doing fine so this isnt me complaining however i must admit i am somewhat worried.
Guilds are crumbling left and right because its very hard to keep a healthy roster with the attunes. I love the attunes they are a fun thing, however blizzard did nerf/remove them for a reason when many many of guilds requested because having roster problems. We are facing same thing here.
Also the 'pre-nerf' 45 min respawn timer on trash is very very stressing for guilds that raid a very limited amount , like 6h whole week. I dont see absolutely no value by keeping this silly timer to be honest, the 2h ones makes so much better sense.

[SegaRally]

As soon as the cash shop arrived you started seeing people not even attuned to karazhan running around with Spiteblades and Phoenix bows, suddenly that pre-raid gear grind is no longer relevant to a lot of players, it destroyed the dungeon scene and so now people as has been said only have to log in to do their weekly raids or Arenas, or many stopped playing altogether.

How you can equate "less people are playing, shop needs more ****" I have no idea.. The dungeon scene was booming, now you barely see anyone looking for groups by comparison, people can buy their way into geared enough to clear SSC/TK and that affects everyone, especially the ones who don't want to use the shop. The only thing really keeping dungeons going at the moment is attunements. The only thing that can fix the dungeon scene is Zul Aman + the new badge vendor (which comes after BT), and keeping those items off the shop until Sunwell.

Losing players after a new server launch is normal, and a lot of the TBC crowd were here because other TBC projects fell through, it's rather a different audience to Icecrown, but even still the actual population is pretty much even with Icecrown so Outland at least is doing well.. Medivh has issues.

Some QoL things could be done in my opinion. Our guild is doing fine so this isnt me complaining however i must admit i am somewhat worried.
Guilds are crumbling left and right because its very hard to keep a healthy roster with the attunes. I love the attunes they are a fun thing, however blizzard did nerf/remove them for a reason when many many of guilds requested because having roster problems. We are facing same thing here.
Also the 'pre-nerf' 45 min respawn timer on trash is very very stressing for guilds that raid a very limited amount , like 6h whole week. I dont see absolutely no value by keeping this silly timer to be honest, the 2h ones makes so much better sense.

A lot of guilds are crumbling but there isn't a big shortage on attuned players, we've had top guilds poaching our players and a few people quit but managed to keep going due to pugging. If you removed attunements it would be the wild west trying to pug quality, people who put in the effort to get attuned have real value to guilds.

45min trash timer is a bit much, but honestly it's not even a real issue. Our guild raids 2 nights a week and this week we cleared 5/6 SSC and 1/4 TK in a night, so long as you're efficient with trash and with wipe recovery it's completely fine. SSC really doesn't need to be any easier.

[zagnol]

Somehow it's taken me this long to realise that the population is currently 6500 online players, where has everyone gone?

[vertex1]

I love how there is always people that see the boat sinking and say: dude, why are you worrying? don't you see water only gets up to our hips! we can perfectly breathe this way! there is no reason to worry! every other private boat I been to before had water up to my neck, nothing should be done to address this.

People always find a way to justify player loss, in summer its normal to lose players because people are in vacation and have free time to do other stuff, player number will grow up when summer ends. Then summer ends and players continue leaving but it's ok! people are back to work! they don't have time to play! they will come back in some months! after some months players continue to leave but dude! why you worry?? Retail launched a new expansion and people wanna try it! it's ok, they will come back eventually!

I don't really care if this boat sinks, I don't play in outland, I learnt my lesson when I drowned trying to avoid the sinking of Lordaeron. But you should know that problems should be addressed when people start leaving, not when everyone has already left. You can avoid more people from leaving by making changes, thinking you can make people come back when 70% of the population already left is unrealistic.

I'm with @Selaya on this one. As hard as it is for me to admit, because I really hate shops, icecrown model seems to work. I can't understand it either, why people prefer to play in a p2w realm is beyond me, but it seems like this...

[vertex1]

It's fun how Lordaeron population went from 16k to 3k and you can still find people in the forums saying eveything it's ok, anyone who says otherwise is just a hater! I don't know why you say Lordaeron pvp is dead! you can totally play bgs in less than 30min queues during the 1 hour population peak time! 2v2 doesn't even take 10 minutes to pop during peak times! just stop hating and enjoy this perfectly alive realm!

[OneOfAKind]

1. Not at all, I can see the numbers day by day, by looking in the info tab. the hype was going to die down, your right, but who wants to grind out over and over to get more toon to do more raids with, not many I'd wager.

2. This is incorrect sir.

Grind out over and over? A 5 x rated server is not to grind. It is spending a short time to get to top level.

By removing the leveling part more, you will kill the living world. People won't take a foot in westfall and other leveling zones if it is not needed. I really hope they keep it so everyone needs to level. It is not a grind, it is more to keep the world alive. Also there is the option to do lower level dungeons.

Also, you are saying at #2 that it is incorrect. Care to explain?

[schaka]

I love people in this thread (including OP) thinking that you can actually compare an endgame WotLK realm to a TBC realm with just T5 out.
It's in NO WAY possible. There are no attunements on Icecrown. Getting that PvE gear actually properly benefits you in PvP too.

On Outland, you have S1 gear mixed with T5. It's the worst possible combination, worse than SWP gear in S4.
S1 has no real itemization, making paladins (especially holy) essentially useless in PvP altogether. Set items after a LONG (not nearly as easy as in Wrath) honor grind are basically worthless and they will become even more worthless in S2 (and already did after T5 was released).
TBC PvP only becomes good in S3 and we're a long way off from that. There's no real info on S2, just when S1 ends - and even so, apparently in a place nobody can find judging by everyone asking ingame, on Twitch and even on the forums about info on whether we'll keep points, how titles are awarded etc.

The only ones benefitting from the coin store are currently raid loggers. They get their pre-T5-BiS and don't log in for a while. PvPers are trying to keep everything saved to buy gear that's actually worth it. Guilds are already decking in T5 while people desperately avoid buying that garbage S1 gear and are trying to save everything for when S2 comes out (again, not clearly communicated when that will be).

If you wanted to cause another peak on Outland, starting to push the Icecrown model would have the opposite effect. Instead, communicate more clearly and use that to hype up season 2. I know people are looking forward to it, because it finally balances out the melee dominance a little (especially Stormherald on every second warrior in S1) and has proper healing itemization.

[Selaya]

[Popcorn]
This item is currently sold out.
****

[Jaixx]

This whole thread is a big lol. I play mostly on medivh, and with a MAX peak of about 4k, its still quite lively. I get ganked often. I myself gank quite often. I see players almost everywhere where i go questing. Finding groups are fairly easy.

The x5 rate has spoiled you outland babies. 11k is a crap ton. I dont know what you guys are crying about.

[Deathsmaster]

How you can equate "less people are playing, shop needs more ****" I have no idea..

This may be true, however it cannot last on a static server. Given time most people hit max level and only do endgame, now that’s not to say if they put the level boost in, EVERYONE is going to use it, but some will.

The dungeon scene was booming……. Losing players….. there isn't a big shortage on attuned players…… real value to guilds. .

I’ll address these so they don’t make my post longer then it has to be, This is simply a case of pick your poison sir, sure nm dungeon scene will decline but again inevitable, the HC scene will not. Badges still retain the value. Next point, you may see the overall quality go down, but that is negated with most (not all) people improve with time, and the gear they seek shortens the learning curve. I’d rather have a player with some gear that is learning then elitist that get huge egos and I deal must deal with them day in and day out. In some cases they don’t get their way and leave, put raid progression on hold, and then you start over gearing another to take that players place. It’s a long process and would be shorten with the shop, and player boosts.

You should know that problems should be addressed when people start leaving, not when everyone has already left. You can avoid more people from leaving by making changes, thinking you can make people come back when 70% of the population already left is unrealistic....

This to me is just common sense.

Grind out over and over? A 5 x rated server is not to grind. It is spending a short time to get to top level.

You are right in one aspect here, and that it’s not a grind to do it once, but 10, 20, 30 times yes, and I can only speak for me on this, but I know others are like me when I say, I’ve grinded out hundreds of time, I don’t want to do it anymore, and am willing to pay for that option.

Also, you are saying at #2 that it is incorrect. Care to explain?

Absolutely sir. The world may be smaller, at end game, but it’s still just 11k, so it’s less any way you slice it, it may FEEL more alive, but that’s just because it’s a smaller sand box, and the number show a decline, so in time, the smaller world won’t matter.

It's in NO WAY possible. There are no attunements on Icecrown. Getting that PvE gear actually properly benefits you in PvP too. .

I wanted to respond to this comment the most :), thank you for giving a insightful response. Although it is true, that the endgame is different, and to be honest these 2 expansions are apples and oranges, but you have to look at the staying power of the server, THAT’S the issue I’m talking about, and the fact is, is that the server must balance at the static level, so that after your main toon ha been through it all, and it’s a year later, it won’t take another year to get your second toon to you’re first, people play on a p2w server, as it’s be suggested earlier, so they can by pass some of what they deem a waste of time. And that’s what this is.

If you wanted to cause another peak on Outland, starting to push the Icecrown model would have the opposite effect. Instead, communicate more clearly and use that to hype up season 2. I know people are looking forward to it, because it finally balances out the melee dominance a little (especially Stormherald on every second warrior in S1) and has proper healing itemization.

I’m not sure you get the big picture sir, its been proven over and over and over, I’m not pulling this outta mah butt bud lol. This was proven back in the molten days, when the 1x server came out and died there, it was proven again when Lord came out and has decline, and it will be proven here, people have fun doing the hardcore thing ONCE, but most only want to do it once, most people just look at it as a waste of time to do it over and over ( there are some that don’t I have to admit that) but most don’t and that’s why Icecrown continues to stay capped, The option to skip parts of the game if deemed a waste of time, is a necessity. Given there is a place for the truly hardcore people to go (Medivh) it only makes sense.