Misleading Numbers Are Misleading

Recently Blizzard announced a subscription base of 11.5 million subscribers.  It appears that 70% of them never make it past level 10.  Does anyone else have a hard time believing this?  Are they saying 70% of the characters don’t make it past level 10 or 70% of subscribers don’t level past 10?  The former I can understand but the latter is just unbelievable…simply unbelievable.  If you head to every city or zone and “/who 1-80″ and count how many sub-level 10 players you find (total) and compare it to how many 11-80 players you find (total) I highly doubt you’d ever find more than twice as many sub-level 10 than 11-80.

Maybe the sub-level 10 accounts just never get on anymore?  Are you suggesting that people pay $15 per month, consistently, and not play at all?  I have a hard time believing that.  Perhaps it does happen but these numbers suggest over 8 million people pay $15 per month and do nothing.  Bullshit.

It is very common for people with one or more 80-level toon to have a lowbie character or two used primarily for banking purposes.  So, it’s understandable that it might be the case that 70% of the characters don’t make it past level 10 but not 70% of the players.

People are also criticizing the subscriber base for “not having any growth since 2008″.  Apparently there were 11.5 million subscribers in late 2008, which is how many there are now.  Does that mean WoW has hit a plateau?  I don’t think so.  Why?  Did everyone forget the huge China fiasco that recently occurred?  I’m sure there are millions of subscribers there who are now unable to play.   Once the China situation gets fixed I’m sure we will see a sky-rocket in the numbers.  Maybe as high as 15 million?  Speculation…

What Does A Tank Miss?

The question is quite cryptic but the answer I’m looking for is:  The LFG wait time.  As most of you are aware the new LFG tool, which groups you with characters across realms, is in full use by almost everyone who plays – from level 13 up to 80.  As you would expect DPS players typically have the longest wait.  When I queue up on my mage or warrior (as dps) I’m usually farming eternals for about 15 minutes before I get a group.  For healers that time is significantly reduced.  When I queue on my paladin or priest (as healing) I’ll usually wait about 2 minutes before I get a group – occasionally I’ll get a group instantly.

This all pales in comparison to the tank.  When I queue as my druid (as tank) I’ve never (seriously, never) waited longer than 30 seconds for a group.  That means, as a tank, when I queue for a dungeon I better be ready to go right then.  No finishing up this auction or getting that enchanted really quick.  No, no, no…it’s go time.

Being the selfish, greedy pricks that people are it’s becoming more and more common to see the following advertisements in trade chat:

“Geared tank queueing for randoms.  Join me for 15g per dungeon to get the fast queues.”

People will do anything to take advantage of others.  It’s sickening.  When I queue with my druid I always spam the following in trade chat:

“Better geared tank queueing for randoms.  Since I’m not a douche I offer the quick queue for free.  PST with role.”

I’ll typically wait about 30 seconds for people to contact me then I queue up.  There are usually 2 or 3 people who take me up on the offer.  We always get an instant queue and have yet to have a run last much more than 25 minutes.  I’ve got Nexus down to a 17 minute run and OK down to 12 minutes (if you skip a few bosses).

How can people stand themselves being so selfish as to charge people for fast queues?  The greed…the disgusting greed.