Retail WoW Outshines SoD in Player Count
Despite fans’ polar reception, Retail WoW is still the most played version of the MMORPG. It even surpasses Season of Discovery (SoD) in terms of player engagement.
Recently, on the World of Warcraft Twitter, Blizzard made a poll asking how players are playing WoW right now. The results revealed that Dragonflight holds the lead with an impressive 52.3% of the votes, securing the top spot. Despite hogging all the hype in recent times, Classic SoD is in the second position, with 33.9% of players favoring this version. WoW Classic garnered 8.9% of the votes. And Hardcore holds 4.9% of players opting for this challenging gameplay experience.
This comes as a surprise for many. After all, WoW Retail is still recovering from Shadowlands. The community warmly embraces Dragonflight. However, the opinions surrounding it are not outstandingly stellar. Criticisms include weak moments in the narrative. For instance, when Alexstraza accused Fyrakk of losing himself:
And to add, fans view Dragonflight as another Marvel’s Infinity War, only that it’s now set in Azeroth. All things considered, the enthusiasm for Dragonflight appears to be overshadowed by SoD. After all, the latter introduces a wealth of innovative elements. The developers’ proactive approach to actively addressing issues has also played a key role in capturing the hearts of many.
Nevertheless, this poll has sparked a significant shift in perspective regarding WoW Classic vs Retail. Players start questioning whether WoW Retail is truly as abandoned as previously believed. After all, Dragonflight has managed to avoid the pitfalls of Shadowlands. It also offers a host of exciting features, such as the dragonriding system, Trading Posts, engaging dungeons and raids, and more. The forthcoming Worldsoul saga also contributes significantly to its appeal. As anticipation builds up for The War Within, there’s no doubt that some gamers are dedicating time to gear up and prepare for the 10th expansion.
What do you think about Dragonflight? Any speculation on why WoW Retail is still so popular? And while you’re at it, let’s share which version of WoW you’re currently playing and why! We can’t wait to hear your thoughts.
Comments
The wife and I play the game. We have for years. I started during Beta. Things have changed over the years and while some X-Pax were better than others I submit the one point that determines we have a good feeling when we log-off the game at the end of the day is the people we group up with. Positive people that can take a loss and look forward to giving it another shot. Folks who help others understand the run and build a team rather than sift the logs for someone that can carry them to success. Yeah, itz the people. Regarding Dragonflight – We both felt it was FUN. Fun, that’s where the quests, the gear and the story is > the Grind of Rep, Lousy Drops and slow leveling. That said we both felt like it was a replay of Marvel Disneys attempt to force lifestyles we don’t want to experience down our throats. On a positive not those types of things were not “critical” elements of the game so one could just avoid them on subsequent passes through the game on an alt… mostly. All in all – Lots of fun and filled with enough challenges that after 6 alts you can still level and not do the same quests. The major like we had? That would be Follower Dungeons – Too many reasons to mention, but it was a great start for this concept and I should think that one day a solo player could do everything, perhaps not in WoW, but other similar genres, that a group can. It makes the mind race.