World of Warcraft: Redemption

Will patch 5.3 be enough to keep us playing?

With the recent news that World of Warcraft has lost 1.3 million subscribers in the last 3 months, the imminent patch 5.3 suddenly carries a lot of importance. Bear in mind that, although the patch brings a lot of changes and fixes as well as some new content, 5.3 isn’t a major content patch, so will it be enough to keep players interested? Let’s take a look at why we should stick around for patch 5.3.

One of the major gripes I’ve seen recurring on the official WoW forums is that the game just isn’t alt-friendly any more, and I agree. Levelling takes time and gearing takes even longer. Blizzard’s response:

  • Reduced the amount of XP required to level from 85-90 by 33%
  • New heirlooms with reduced costs
  • Removal of pre-requisite reputation requirements
  • New loot system to reduce ‘bad luck’ streaks in LFR/world bosses/bonus rolls along with the ability to choose your ‘loot spec’
  • Returned the item upgrade NPCs with reduced costs

For those who want more content, patch 5.3 adds new and heroic scenarios, a new battleground and arena and an exciting transformation of The Barrens into a hub of activity with a series of dynamic events for both Alliance and Horde (and open world PvP?). This also moves along the lore, furthering the key story of Mists of Pandaria: the fall of Garrosh Hellscream. 

PvP has something of an overhaul, too, with all players receiving a base 65% resilience, battle fatigue and increased damage to tank-specced flag carriers to name just a few. Blizzard hope that, with all of the changes it has made to PvP, player skill will be of more importance than gear, making the cross over from PvE easier. 

I said it before and I’ll say it again: Patch 5.3 is not a major content patch, but it sure is doing its best to make the changes we as players have been asking for. Unfortunately Blizzard can’t please all of the players, all of the time, only some of the players, some of the time.

Penny for your thoughts. 

Qelric

Also, be sure to check out these newly updated reputation guides over on Wowhead.

Comments

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stick around / come back to wow
# Jun 05 2013 at 4:00 AM Rating: Decent
Why come back or stick around when i have a much better and free game like GW2 to play instead.


just came past the forum after getting spam from wow offering 7 days free game play,
(even though i did request no such spam from blizzard when i cancelled my account)
guess i will have to ask gmail to block it.
A return view
# May 19 2013 at 8:37 AM Rating: Decent
On the flip side I just returned after a 4 year absence because of WOWs allure and I've never found anything that matches it style and sheer addictive quality. I started fresh and went 1 - 90, not a huge raider so that leaves quests and dailies. It certainly takes it's toll and the reward system is SLOW, Completing A huge quest chain to receive some piece crap is beyond frustrating. And there lies the answer. Frustration and the feeling the games not giving back enough for your efforts. At least thats how I see things.
The econamy is bad, so where are players going to play?
# May 18 2013 at 4:34 AM Rating: Decent
They go to the FTP games, maybe it's time WoW implamented FTP into the game and not just the limited to level 20 bs.
The econamy is bad, so where are players going to play?
# May 18 2013 at 8:20 AM Rating: Decent
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41 posts
Most games that go F2P are somewhere under 1 million subscribers. In most standards having roughly 8 million subscribers is a huge success I think the loss in subscribers isn't anything blizzard can really control. There are so many options out there, the days where you only had 2 or 3 MMO's in the market to chose from is long since over.
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Simply put...
# May 17 2013 at 10:41 PM Rating: Decent
Nope
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