We wanted to know how long you have been playing World of Warcraft – and the answer is quite amusing. Because it is the purest cliché.
A few days ago, we jokingly asked whether the community of MeinMMO is more of a “Wrath baby” or a “Cataclysm kiddy” in relation to World of Warcraft. In other words: We wanted to know, which expansion you started with World of Warcraft. Over 1,600 of you answered the call and provided your responses.
The result is amusingly striking and exactly corresponds to what one might expect.
The majority are Vanilla veterans
The vast majority of you have been playing since the Vanilla version of World of Warcraft (or at least claim to). A solid 53% or 881 votes stated that they have played before the first expansion was released. This definitely counts as one of the early WoW players, being able to boast about spending time in the game when others were not even born yet. However, a look at the “/played” time might lead to a small existential crisis. Better not do it.
Our reader Koronus just experienced Burning Crusade:
I started on August 20, 2008. So I was still just within TBC, even though I really had my new player experience with WotLK.
T.M.P. wrote in the comments:
WoW Beta until Cataclysm, actually consistently as a progression raider.
Unfortunately, our server died slowly back then, and transferring all my chars would have cost a ridiculously high amount. That was the beginning of the end for me.
Then I played MoP and WoD for a while, even leveled a few new profession chars, but it just wasn’t the same for me anymore.
Burning Crusade takes second place
With a clear distance, many players found their way into World of Warcraft during the expansion “The Burning Crusade.” As the first addon ever, WoW still had real traction back then. The game was in its “upswing phase” and many found a starting point with the release of the expansion to dive into Azeroth (and the shattered world).
At that time, WoW had already evolved significantly and focused on popular characters like Kael’thas, Illidan, and Lady Vashj, which also excited many who remembered Warcraft III.
“Wrath babies” land in third place
In third place are the newcomers who started with Wrath of the Lich King. This is not surprising as Wrath of the Lich King represented the peak of the World of Warcraft player base. This was mainly due to the story bringing back Arthas, who ruled as the Lich King in Northrend – an open plot point since Warcraft III. Many found their entry into WoW with this expansion and simultaneously their conclusion with a storyline that had started many years ago in a strategy game.
Irxg writes:
I started with WotLK, but had the best time at the launch of Cataclysm when dungeons became hard again and mana was scarce. Blizzard lost me in the Firelands expansion. There was no loot in the raid for healing priests in the Firelands back then – and Blizzard thought that was a “great” idea.
The newer the addon, the fewer new players
And with that, everything interesting has actually been said, because from now on the “curve” develops exactly as it did in the first three expansions: the later the expansion was released, the fewer players found their way into World of Warcraft at that point. Therefore, let’s run through the remaining numbers quickly:
The answer reveals what problem WoW has: However, one must not forget that in this striking distribution of votes lies a rather large problem for WoW: It is becoming increasingly difficult for World of Warcraft to attract new players, and this problem only grows with each expansion.
However, other factors may also play a role. It might be the case that younger expansion WoW fans simply spend less time on news portals or get their information from other sources, which may explain their lower presence in the survey.
Nevertheless, it is quite astonishing that the curve follows exactly in the order of the release of the expansions. Or did you expect exactly that?
The next WoW expansion Dragonflight is the big hope – can it make an impact?
