Has World of Warcraft regained the players’ trust? A large part says yes – but there are also many critics.
World of Warcraft: Dragonflight has been released for a few months now. Many players were skeptical whether Blizzard could deliver again after the long-term rather failed Shadowlands. Several large corporate scandals around sexism and discrimination also took a toll on Blizzard.
In other words: The trust of even long-time fans was more than just shaken. Many turned their backs on World of Warcraft or Blizzard in general. Even major streamers like Preach took a break until WoW and Blizzard improved.
That’s precisely why we launched a survey a few days ago to see if Dragonflight has restored your trust in World of Warcraft and Blizzard. More than 1,600 of you participated and came to an interesting conclusion.
The majority is satisfied
At the time of evaluation, a significant 45% (728 votes) of you stated that World of Warcraft and Blizzard are on the right track and that they can be trusted again. That’s just under half, but given the outcry beforehand and how drastic the scandals were, it’s a positively inclined majority.
Especially the fact that Dragonflight now has few mandatory tasks and allows players more freedom is well received. For example, Slix writes in our comments:
Definitely yes, for me the best addon in a long time. Legion was not a good addon in my opinion, too grindy. The fact that there is no mandatory grind is so nice in Dragonflight. No reputation farming, no boring grinding for any bonuses.
No, I log in, do a few keys [Mythic+] and I’m done. I don’t have to do anything else. And on top of that, there’s no real meta. So I don’t have to pay attention to play the right class anymore.
One third needs more time
Almost one in three (31%, 507 votes) is still not quite sure and would rather let more time pass. Comments reveal that most are “cautiously optimistic” but need to check whether it’s not a case of “even a blind chicken finds a grain”.
Blizzard and World of Warcraft must prove in the coming months that they can maintain their level and not lose momentum immediately after a strong start of Dragonflight. Given the previous issues with Shadowlands, which also started strongly but quickly declined, concerns remain:
Huehuehue writes:
I played Shadowlands very intensively at the beginning, but since patch 9.1 I’ve only logged in counted 4 times for a few minutes. Let’s see how this will be. Whether Dragonflight can keep me engaged longer will show.
One in four could not be convinced
With 24% (399 votes), there is also a fairly large part that was not convinced by Dragonflight. Trust in WoW or Blizzard in general could not be restored. There are many reasons for this, and most are individual.
While some do not want to support a company that allowed sexism and discrimination in its ranks for so long, others simply do not find Dragonflight enjoyable. They dislike the dragon flying feature or cannot warm up to the theme of the expansion or the absence of a major core feature.
Semmelknödel writes:
Honestly, Dragonflight is, in comparison to Legion, Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands, incredibly boring.
Aside from PvE and PvP, there’s no long-term engagement and you can finish all the reputation, mounts, and co. in a few hours.
It feels like Classic, boring mats and gold farming outside of group content.
The survey result is, by the way, not just a phenomenon on MeinMMO, but was also indirectly confirmed by Blizzard. In Activision Blizzard’s latest financial report, it’s mentioned that while Dragonflight has not sold as well as Shadowlands, it has been able to retain players in the long term. The values for ongoing subscriptions are as good as they have been for many expansions.
However, one should not overlook that Blizzard also recently advertised a “yearly subscription” – those who signed up for that logically count as active subscribers for a whole year.
Currently, one can conclude that Dragonflight has been received rather positively, even if some fans – mostly due to incidents that occurred before Dragonflight – have long since disappeared.
Did you expect this result? Or are you surprised that most are satisfied?
