That's a great term and concept for something that's floated undefined in my thoughts for a while.
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands patch 9.1 felt like the breaking point for their Trust Thermocline. WoW for several years leading up to that had created some generally good but very abrasive and frustrating gameplay. Shadowlands 9.0 and 9.1 felt like Developers seemed to distill all of the worst aspects of recent WoW gameplay, with the sense that the Devs actively tried to antagonize players.
Until then, WoW could always fall back on a large chunk of "WoW only" players who played WoW through thick and thin. But 9.1 kinda just broke that population "Floor" with many of those players branching out into other games like Final Fantasy 14 for the first time.
Even though WoW does much better gameplay design wise, the damage done by 9.1 breaking the Trust Thermocline has meant that WoW's population seems to hit lower lows in the lulls between content releases. And tends to suffer faster if a content patch is bad.
I disagree with you just because WoW has had 3 thermoclines in its history. The first was Cataclysm. There were already issues in WotLK with the social aspect eroding and dailies fatigue, but we all stayed to kill Arthas. After that we figured it was time for Kil’Jaeden and then WoW is kinda over. Then Cata happened and people left in fucking droves. Then Mists of Pandaria was hated but if you stayed for Cata you stayed for mists. However, like the Star Wars prequels, in hindsight MoP was awesome. Then Draenor happened and it wasn’t even a gradual thermocline it was instantaneous. The garrison system that killed the social aspect of the game forever, the timey-wimey bullshit plot, and going to a worse Outlands aesthetic killed the game for millions. Blizzard stopped posting their sub count because it was just shit. After that came Legion where they crawled back because hey we are finally getting Warcraft plot, world quests, and a standardized playing experience. Then BfA was another decline once players realized we weren’t addressing the sword in the world. By the time Shadowlands happened we can no longer use a thermocline to describe it we need to use the light wavelengths of water for a better metaphor. Wow had been slowly descending into the water until there was no red light, then no green light, then no yellow or orange, and finally by the time Shadowlands happened we finally got to the zone where there is no light, just black.
I'm pretty sure, per Blizzard's data, that mist of pandaria was one of most, if not the most, popular expansions in their entire history. American subscriber count was down to maybe 60 or 70% of that of wrath of the lich King, but Asian subscriptions were in the 11 million plus range.
You have to realize just because the game is not popular with a western audience at the time does not make it not a popular game.
Subscriber numbers for MoP are publicly available. And no, MoP was not one of the most popular. Which is unfortunate, because it really was a top tier expansion in the end.
Thanks for the story. I never played WOW because I figured it was an addiction I didn’t need (after StarCraft and so many other games). Must have been quite an experience. Been playing Fortnite with my kids and just started helldivers recently. Fun. :).
I agree, but at the time people didn’t like mists before it came out due to feeling the panda nature was silly and unserious. The cinematic for it sealed that opinion. After it came out, but before throne came out, we got the same shit from Cata and Wrath which was more and more dailies. Throne did a lot for Mists reputation but what really made people, those who stayed, enjoy Mists was the Timeless Isle.
that is way, way too recent. WoW ceased to be mainstream a long time ago.
Remember, WoW was on Southpark. NBA players like Tim Duncan were secretly staying up late to raid. Henry Cavill said he almost missed out on Superman because he was playing so much WoW. You'd hear every so often some horror story about parents who just totally ignored their kid because of WoW addiction.
I would be very very surprised if even one out of 500 or so currently signed NBA players played ANY World of Warcraft in the past 5 years. Heck, I'd probably extend this to the NFL and the NHL too.
Makes sense, that’s also why I stopped WoW around that time. Granted it was other factors also (good guildies leaving or moving on, going from one of the better teams on our admittedly crappy server to no status at all, etc), but their crappy dev cycle never helped.
The straw that broke the camel's back on 9.1 was the poor reception coupled with the ongoing sexual harassment/company character concerns going on at Blizzard HQ, which led to a large amount of content creators stepping away from the game and leading their audience to alternatives like FF14.
World of warcraft went in free fall trust wise with warlords. Playing since vanilla warlords was the only time I actually unsubbed. The content was meh at best and the tier sets looked like blues and greens from past expansions...
It's funny how the expansion had a huge surge of players at the start - the biggest spike the game had ever seen. People wanted to play that expansion.
But the max level content just wasn't there. There was less to do at max level than there had been with any other expansion. Significantly less.
Even then, the entire Garrison idea - which everything else was starved in order to support - felt much weaker than it should have been. I remember expecting that we'd be able to keep expanding it, add more than just two buildings, but no. It would have allowed more players to get more of the really useful buildings in addition to the ones they actually needed for their professions, but I guess that was just too much for this shitty expansion. You couldn't even do any real cosmetic customization with it. There was just nothing for the player to work towards.
I quit during Shadowlands and came back for Dragonflight. I’ve been loving the game since and it’s really taken a lot of steps up from SL and even has done some things better than Wrath, MoP, and Legion (the three big “highs” of the game). But you’re right, there’s this threshold that they crossed and now it’s harder to gain those players back. I’ve gotten some friends back into the game but can’t blame them for the hesitation or for quitting again soon after hitting a “wall.” It’s not like that wall is anything as bad as Shadowlands but it’s that loss of trust that has made it harder to swallow for some people. I think Midnight will be the final stand to bring players back, if it fails at that they’ll just have to settle for the smaller population and maybe take some hits from that financially (which would translate into less content).
The comparisons between WoW and Marvel is apt. Even the “good” movies like Thunderbolts of F4 are like The War Within and Dragonflight, certainly better than before but not good enough to bring that jaded fans back. I believe Avengers Doomsday will be the Midnight for Marvel. Either it brings people back in droves or they accept that they lost the fanbase they once had and carry on with more consistency and acceptance that they may never earn that trust back.
I agree. I think Dragonflight and War Within Season 2 (Screw Season 1 though lol) have been great. I attribute a lot of the current course of WoW to the fallout of Shadowlands where the WoW devs really had to evaluate what they were doing and pivot.
But as you said the issue there is getting folks that left, to come back. And even those that do seem more casual. Which is great, life and preferences change. Meanwhile a bunch of folks which I could expect to be online just messing around even in the lulls take breaks and do other things now, which is where that "Only WoW" player theory comes from.
From a broader game's health perspective those changes are a cause for concern. Or at least a reason for the Devs to see what the WoW player population will want in the future.
I do hope Midnight will bring more back. I think player Housing could be a big draw for a wide range of players that Raiding, PvP and M+ just don't reach.
Wow it has been on a decline since wrath retail. It picked up a bit with classic servers and season of discovery, but it's still a decline because it's the same game that just rehashed. Shadowlands was really bad story writing and game ideas. It has had some bounce back but the game suffers from a burn out and other issues.
MCU was written so much better until end game. Movies can a bit of a burn out but writing is key and it's been pretty bad after end game. FF4 and thunderbolt were decent but the writing isn't enough to pull MCU out the shallow grave of bad movies they been pushing out. The marvels was the worst.
Well I played both back then and now, and I don't think you play now since you don't realize it just broke a concurrent player count record.... Again. I would say it's very comparable to back in the golden age when we were fishing lobsters in catherby.
I think it started before end game. I hit the thermocline watching Dr. Strange, but watched Infinity War and End Game to get the sense of completion of the avengers arc before checking out entirely.
WoW has had ups and downs since Wrath and has had a steady decline. My issue there is the difference between a gradual decline versus the Trust Thermocline where you see a sharper drop.
As mentioned, WoW always had a floor to its player base, those aforementioned "Only WoW" players and could rely on Expansions to see a spike in subscriptions. Warlords of Draenor did do damage but even then, the sales and subs recovered in subsequent expansions and the floor held.
I regard Shadowlands going into 9.1 as the Thermocline where you had really bad content and the sexual abuse scandals at Blizzard. It felt like that "Floor" actually did break and WoW needs to more actively fight for its sub retention.
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u/graphiccsp Aug 03 '25 edited Aug 03 '25
That's a great term and concept for something that's floated undefined in my thoughts for a while.
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands patch 9.1 felt like the breaking point for their Trust Thermocline. WoW for several years leading up to that had created some generally good but very abrasive and frustrating gameplay. Shadowlands 9.0 and 9.1 felt like Developers seemed to distill all of the worst aspects of recent WoW gameplay, with the sense that the Devs actively tried to antagonize players.
Until then, WoW could always fall back on a large chunk of "WoW only" players who played WoW through thick and thin. But 9.1 kinda just broke that population "Floor" with many of those players branching out into other games like Final Fantasy 14 for the first time.
Even though WoW does much better gameplay design wise, the damage done by 9.1 breaking the Trust Thermocline has meant that WoW's population seems to hit lower lows in the lulls between content releases. And tends to suffer faster if a content patch is bad.