Season of Discovery: Cata Vs SoD Numbers Update #9

First

There are people in org hooray

I don't expect to see SoD keep growing statically based off of how it was treated through its lifespan. Anyone that already quit isn't as likely to come back now that we're in endgame content. The only way we may see an drastic increase is with new content that people want to come try out. But even then they'd need to level to 60, and gear up in the current content to be able to do that new content if it's scaled to current raid difficulty. So because of that I see this downward trend continuing unfortunately.

I think a lot of people who are playing are not logging as well. In my experience there isn’t as big of a parse culture in SoD.

The company I used to work for had a huge business increase during covid due to all the remote work for IT, now is like SoD just hanging there.

Two promo MoP mounts were datamined for retail offer, maybe coming soon. If legit, folks think one mount is for retail and the other for MoP Classic.

The Covid years were a renaissance for the video game industry. And the streamer/opinion industry.

Now it's all about survival and market share in the ever expanding opinion industry.

@kaghoeGaming you gotta double the numbers also for the 20 man phase because first 2 phases were 10 man vs 20 man so the numbers are still comparable 88kx2=176k 10 man raids

Between te first partial week of P5(Sept24 to Sept 30) and it's first full week(Oct 1 to Oct 7)...

CS NA - horde down about 800 toons, alliance up bout 250 toons for a net loss of about 550 toons.
WG NA - horde no change, alliance down about 200 toons for a net loss of 200 toons.
LF EU - horde up about 100 toons, alliance up about 25 toons for a net gain of 125 toons.
WG EU - horde down about 50 toons, alliance don about 350 toons for a net loss of 400 toons.

Overall SoD is down 1025 players the first full week of P5.

So cannibalizing the realms to prop up 4 servers for Naxx resulted in a loss the first week of P5.

And if Classic Progressive is any indicator. The numbers drop drastically in the end phase of classic wow.

So the questions are...

Does week 1 of P5 follow classic history and result in a major drop off on the journey to Naxx?

Or has TWW just temporarily siphoned off SoD's numbers and they will return sooner or later?

so basically, what you're saying is that CATA at its all-time low (phase has been out for 4 months----2 months too long) Yet STILL has more players than sod. This seems like a major fail to me on SODs part. AND P5 SOD IS ALREADY losing players. My guess would be by the end of p5 around 50/60k raiders will be left if we're lucky. However, CATA Firelands will probably bring back around 25-50k players as its noted to be one of the best classic raids of all time. It's not looking good for sod at all. Hopefully they still look to do classic plus even with sods short-comings.

Brilliant clickbait thumbnail hahaha keep it up! Get them clicks son.

Bring back GDKP us 30 year olds have jobs 😂

cata suuuuuucks😂

And keep in mind- Cata is much more alt-friendly so since those numbers are not real players but logs, there more duplicates in Cata than in sod
So I would say SOD is okish. But could be much better

bro cata is TANKING

Think is not accurate for multiple reasons. Firstly because not many people are raiding (Issues with BWL being ruined by anyone at anytime because anyone can turn off the affix and ruin your raid) and guessing the population is based on number of clears from logs. Then there are players that don't log their runs for multiple characters and there are those that already got geared super easily and got no reason to raid anymore. I would still blame it on the developers though, if they would design systems that could not be abused, it would be more attractive to more players. As is, you risk clearing 90% of bosses with 3 affix and at the last boss you get one guy turning them off and you are done, your save is ruined for the week. The rewards are not worth the risk.

The drought after incs was the nail in SoD's coffin. First weekend of P3 with 90% of every realm doing nonstop incs.

I felt the season die then and there. And nothing's occurred since that's proven me wrong.

Blizz had to make a choice. All in on CATA, or SoD. And as per the blizz experience they chose wrong.

All the streamers on the internet. Couldn't convince anyone. CATA is, was, and has always been, shit. What next....a CATA remix?

Life is great. I’m off this weekend. Chollen eating pumpkin pie . Some tacos . Playing sod and watching my boy Kagoe gaming … big chillen

I am a scrub, I still think raids are hard to pug. Two ticks of Thunderaan's nature spell destroys me and Onyxia's cleave mixed with a breath and I am dead within 4 seconds. Just tough, I miss classic raids, they would just fall over and we got loot. I know people think that was bad, but I believe a big portion of the player base plays classic for reasons like that.

i believe that cosmetics skins and mounts should be rewarded as u do the hard mode raids while gear and items is the same.

in my mind - classic only goes to the end of the Wc3 story, anything beyond that is no longer classic, I dont think anyone has been asking for cata/mop classic, but I'd be interested if others are looking forward to later expansions. At that point though, i wouldnt consider it a "Classic" experience

Edit: Also, well informed video, I enjoy the coverage of the numbers, I'm personally loving SoD and going through the classic experience

Hey man, thanks for all you do, I appreciate the regular updates and info! :)

I think another thing to think about is leveling and the world environment... Phase 5 and beyond we are stuck at 60, so I think some people (myself included) who started SoD with "The World is the main character" in mind don't really have much incentive to play or raid often once we reach max level. :P

If u look at the numbers sod started on and what they ended with ... sod was a succes untill blizzard themselves killed it? People fled when you could lvl to 50 in a day with incursion and then Sunken Temple wasnt fun for a lot( i also didnt do it untill the next phase). But I think anyone that tries sod likes it for the most part. The gameplay differences with runes has made classic so much fun to play. New class specific gear. Gear sets for alternate specs that are viable! There sooooo many wins in sod. The only problem to me seems trying to get players back that said this game farewell whenphase 3 dropped.
I also dont really get classic+. How do you want to reinvent wow? Sod already does that for vanilla. All I really want is sod TBC. And everyone I hear talking about it also wants TBC. The biggest problem now with SoD is that its seasonal. People just want it to go on. And that to me sounds like nothing but success. The people that are actively playing sod dont want it to stop.

'If cata fails it could be end of the classic experience' .... 😢