Yesterday Blizzard expanded their ‘Scroll of Resurrection’ program and by expand it I mean they buffed it to old Ret Pally proportions. What once was just a standard ‘Welcome Back’ type program, now gives the former player seven days of free playtime, one character boosted automagically to 80, free realm transfers, free faction transfers and a free copy of Cataclysm!
Say what?!?!
If this is not a desperation move by a company bleeding subs at an astounding rate, I don’t know what is. The first move, giving away a free copy of Diablo 3 for a year WoW sub, was bad enough but this is taking it to an entire new level. After two mediocre expansions and a design philosophy that has killed the old feeling of a living world, WoW is finally feeling the burn of bad decision after bad decision.
I don’t buy that SW:ToR, Rift or GW2 is killing WoW. Blizzard did this all by their lonesome. They are now reaping the consequences of killing ‘Vanilla’ WoW and changing it to what we see today; a game with no server community, no open world interaction, no server rivalries. A game that has become a virtual chat room while waiting for the next mini-game to pop.
I could not be happier and the MMO world will be much better off for it.
Corpse Run 
Yup fully agree, I think the overall problem with cataclysm was it was far too gated and linear. I would be telling lies if I said I didn’t enjoy the first run through however the way it was scripted made making alts boring.
I’m just awaiting the wow is free to play email……. With the addition of pandas however its unlikely I’ll ever return.
Still its all good, many interesting mmos on the horizon, and hopefully its onwards and upwards with regards to design. If I’m honest its all or nothing with gw 2, if I don’t click with it I can see me changing hobbies.
In a world where 99% of MMOs go into a tailspin after their first month, it’s a bit disingenuous to accuse Blizzard of “desperation” for an action they take to try to maintain numbers more than SEVEN YEARS after release..
Are they bleeding? Sure. But if they were in the same boat as every post-WoW MMO they would have been bleeding this bad in January 2005.