World of Warcraft’s player numbers have been a big unknown for years. Blizzard has not released official numbers for a long time now, so one can only speculate about the exact number of subscribers. However, resourceful community sites have found other ways to get at least a rough sense of the state of the game via some other statistics.

The streamer and analyst Bellular consults the numbers from the end-game content and explains why they look bleak, but are actually much better.

Who is Bellular?

Bellular is a long-time streamer and YouTuber who you might know for many reasons. Every now and then he collects a lot of information, for example to knit exciting lore theories or to dare a look into the future of World of Warcraft. But his content also includes talking about the development of MMORPGs – game mechanics, crises in the companies or even player numbers. His analyses are usually quite extensive and based on several sources.

What did Bellular explain?

In his latest video, Bellular compares some end-game activity numbers from current patches in World of Warcraft with different numbers from past patches and expansions.

One value here is the boss kills achieved after a certain time in the latest raid. So you can read out how many groups managed to kill for example the final boss “Dungeon Master” in the first four weeks after the opening of the raid and compare that with the final boss kills from the last raid, Sanctum of Domination. What’s also interesting here is the direct comparison with the numbers of players who killed at least the first boss – that provides a direct comparison. For the first 4 weeks in normal mode, this means:

• In the Sanctum of Domination, 18,675 groups had killed the 1st boss and 11,474 of them had killed the last boss – so a proud 61.44%.
• In the Mausoleum of the First, 12,382 groups still killed the 1st boss, but only 3,277 killed the final boss – so a low 26%.

Numbers look bad, but are actually quite okay

Even though the numbers look grim at first glance, Bellular puts it into perspective and gives a whole bunch of reasons why things aren’t so bad for World of Warcraft.

Probably one of the most important reasons is that the comparison between end boss kills is not entirely fair. This is partly because the last 3 bosses of the Mausoleum of the First were only accessible after a week delay, but also because the raid basically had “two final bosses” – because Anduin Wrynn, the 8th boss of the Mausoleum was so complex and difficult, as usually only final bosses were.

The second fact that comes into play, especially in Heroic mode, is the power gain within the patch. Players only gradually gain really powerful bonuses, like the double Legendarys or the 2s and 4s bonuses of their tier sets. These are basically much more powerful than the Domination Shards were and have a greater impact on progression.

Another argument is that the dungeon master doesn’t drop a tier set piece – and therefore is simply uninteresting to many players. The tier set is one of the best rewards available in the current patch, and the fact that the final boss can’t drop this reward makes it significantly less attractive. For comparison, Sylvanas was able to drop a legendary bow for hunters and very interesting daggers for rogues.

The dungeon master is also harder on heroic difficulty than the first bosses on mythic difficulty. If you wanted better loot, you’d rather try to beat the first few bosses on mythic difficulty with your guild instead of trying to beat the dungeon master on heroic difficulty.

One final point is that the raid was simply too difficult to begin with. Few other raids have been toned down as often as Mausoleum of the First in such a short period of time. Almost all of the bosses received minor or major nerfs. Some bosses, like the aforementioned Anduin, were even weakened 5 times in a row.

Good numbers compared to Battle for Azeroth

All these factors with different weights lead Bellular to find the direct comparison between the Dungeon Master and other final bosses unjustified. He thinks it is better to compare the numbers with another boss – Anduin Wrynn. That’s not 100% accurate either, he says, but it’s closer to the truth. So Bellular compares the raid results from week 3 after release and pretends that Anduin was the final boss.

So after 3 weeks, 9,447 groups had killed Sylvanas in the Sanctum of Domination and 8,851 groups had killed Anduin Wrynn in the Mausoleum of the First – both on normal difficulty. That’s a difference of 6.31% and, according to Bellular, makes it much clearer how many active players are still out in the endgame.

These values are also quite solid when compared to the previous expansions. In the Battle for Azeroth patches, the respective final bosses were killed with similar frequency after week 3. Jaina in the Battle for Dazar’alor lay there in the dirt 9,692 times, Queen Azshara in the Eternal Palace 8,282 times and N’Zoth in Ny’alotha even only had her life lights blown out 4,064 times.

If you apply similar standards to the heroic mode, the numbers are even downright positive. While there were only 1,195 groups that defeated Sylvanas in Heroic Mode in the first 3 weeks, there were a whopping 2,567 groups that defeated Anduin at the same time – an increase of almost 115%.

For Bellular, this makes it clear: Patch 9.2 has done a lot right. It’s not perfect, but it has helped curb player attrition and significantly mitigated the downward spiral of World of Warcraft – at least in terms of endgame.

The fact that player numbers decrease over the course of an expansion is perfectly normal. The particularly large “drop” between patch 9.0 and patch 9.1 was catastrophic, according to Bellular, but patch 9.2 did a good job of keeping existing players in World of Warcraft, and he himself enjoys the patch. It’s a good step in the right direction, he says, which gives hope for the next expansion.

Do you find Bellular’s analysis understandable and logical? Or is this just “window dressing” and World of Warcraft is doing really bad right now?

Follow us and check out our social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook & YouTube ►

● on Twitter ► esport.directory
● Facebook ► esport.directory
● Youtube ► esport.directory

WoW Classictips, WoW Classictricks, WoW Classiccheats, WoW Classichacks, WoW Classichacks2022, WoW Classictipspro, WoW Classicpaidcheats, WoW Classic, WoW Classictipsandtricks, WoW Classictipsandtricks2022, WoW Classictipsandtricksforbeginners, WoW Classictips, WoW Classictricks, WoW Classictrickshots, WoW Classichacks, WoW Classichacksfree, WoW Classichacksfree2022,