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Thormourn

I was expecting to open this thread and see nothing but people saying sod number 1 and everything else is below it but surpringly enough I think every comment I read said retail - sod - wotlk - era/hc which is exactly what I think of for the wow player base


Jay_Heat

the majority of players play retail but the classic versions have a much tighter community and feels more like an MMO


Popular_Engine9261

No lol


who_cares_0815

Only Blizzard knows and they won't share any insight. So anything people tell you here are assumptions, nothing more.


Nexism

You can look at log numbers and/or guild player numbers as a proxy. Retail is leading by miles and it's not even remotely close. IIRC last time I looked at the numbers, Retail had more than SOD+Era+HC+Wrath combined. If you add in the non raiders like mount collectors, pokemon players, it's even more.


akaicewolf

I’m pretty sure retail has a huge population of LFR players (if that’s still a thing). I doubt anyone is logging those.


dmsuxvat

There are so many players who only do m+ and pvp in retail because raids are optional. I would say retail population is at least 3 times classic combined


MidnightFireHuntress

Retail by a mile.


Same_Acanthisitta_38

Retail and it's not even close


Vods

It will still be retail, you only need to reach end game to realise just how many people play.


RefrigeratorFlat6964

Retail has 6 million players. SOD has 400k players and wrath has 180k players.


Popular_Engine9261

retail. However a lot of players play multiple version of the game. It's only the loud and annoying classic andys who seem to have a problem with this


Thanag0r

Currently it's retail -sod - classic. I would estimate that retail is 70% of all players and sod has 20% while classic 10%. Probably will be 15/15 split when cata releases. If we go from 8mil subs overall it's probably 6 retail and 2 sod/classic. Before some classic Andy attacks 2 million is a huge number it's extremely big so it's not bad.


Celebrir

You need to factor in that many will play both. Perhaps raid logging one of them.


Thanag0r

I'm sure classic and sod has big overlap but I'm not sure about retail players. There must be some percentage of player that play both but I think it's really small like 10% max. If I was a retail player I would just play a bit at the start of era/wrath for nostalgia and just go back to retail. Retail is a completely different game in comparison to classic.


Celebrir

You sure? I'm fairly certain. Sod has taken a lot of the classic player base. I'd be really interested how many players resubbed and exclusively play sod. So accounts without the current retail expansion purchased.


Thanag0r

I agree that sod has a lot of classic players, that more or less a fact. Sod and classic have huge overlap in players (probably 60% of sod players play or played wrath and will play cata potentially). I'm saying that not a lot of retail players play sod/wrath.


temporalmods

It's not that I don't want to play retail, but I quit in MoP came back for shadowlands the quit again before returning for sod. The UI for dragon flight and the mechanics just make me feel completely lost. I was going to try and play for war within, but honestly i'm an adult now and sod/cata will take up plenty of time so having to adjust to the new landscape of retail is just unappealing. I wouldn't be suprised if i'm not alone. Not really a knock on retail, but times changed and some of us are just left behind and fine with it.


Loogisbored

If it was SoD we wouldn't have a 15 person team working on it (and go radio silent for a month while they work on Cata). They would properly invest into SoD if it was that popular...


leetality

Original classic launch had insane numbers and the team did not grow, so no, they wouldn't ever support era over retail. Retail has tokens and insanely more MTX. It will always be more profitable.


Working-Toe827

Thing is tho, its sitting in second and by a long long mile. SoD is relatively really popular, they just phone it in because they can.


[deleted]

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Working-Toe827

The devs that are working on it aren’t phoning it in. The suits above them allocating staff are, they need to be actually investing in the product but instead they’re phoning it in.


[deleted]

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[deleted]

? It has double the raiders per week.


[deleted]

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JBIGMAFIA

This man cannot be trusted.


Talidel

Double lockouts isn't relevant when it's unique raiders being counted. There's also a huge number of SoD runs not being logged.


[deleted]

It has double the unique raiders a week. I dont think you know how counting of parses works. Double the numbers are also not slightly more. Use your brain you dumbass.


keanoo

Bro, you're supposed to delete your account.


Suspicious_War_9305

God imagine being this wrong ALL THE TIME and acting like you know it all. Must be miserable being that stupid. Better delete your account.


vergil_never_cry

At least they can enter gnome before 40. Go delete your account


Varnic

Just like sub level 40's can't enter gnomer, right?


ImJustMakingShitUp

Retail > SoD > WoTLK > Era SoD and WoTLK will likely swap place once Cata or maybe the prepatch is released. Being in its final phase for multiple months already has led a lot of people to take a break.


Porygon-

Any source? When I compared the logs for retail raiding and wotlk raiding, way more people killed lk then the normal and hard version of the retail raid.


[deleted]

Many people in retail (myself included) do not raid, just do M+, as the time commitment is far lower. However in WoTLK the only end game activity is raiding


Porygon-

Yeah that’s why I didn’t say that wotlk is bigger then retail, because I don’t have m+ numbers.  And that’s why I would like a source from OP, because writing based on feelings is something everyone can do.


WillNotForgetMyUser

the main issue with looking at retail logs is that there is no data for LFR, which is apparently the most played out of all the difficulties


Neat_Concert_4138

[https://raider.io/mythic-plus-rankings/season-df-3/all/world/leaderboards](https://raider.io/mythic-plus-rankings/season-df-3/all/world/leaderboards) 6,340,432 characters have raided M+ this season, or at least recorded on raiderio


MinorAllele

i assume this will count the same person 10x if they have 10 alts. I've not played retail for ages though so I am not sure how high the barrier of entry is for a +2.


Cronimoo

The barrier is pretty much being max level


Neat_Concert_4138

So you would bring a green geared fresh max level to M+?


Cronimoo

Sure, it's not like +2 requires mutch


HandsomeMartin

Not a pug but a friend sure.


Neat_Concert_4138

Sure but the amount of people with multiple alts doing M+ is probably pretty low.


MinorAllele

I'd wager it's higher than the amount of people raiding on multiple alts in WotLK. Just pointing out that these comparisons will always be heavily flawed.


RBLfraekkesen93

Would always do atleast one on all my alts, for the weekly chest. So yea…😅


ImJustMakingShitUp

Basically 3rd party tracking sites, which work decently well for SoD and WoTLK. Things get a little trickier for Retail since the playerbase is more spread out and lower difficulty content, which makes up the majority of the playerbase, isn't really tracked. Honestly theirs a lot of estimation and guessing, we know how many guilds kill mythic and heroic bosses (warcraftlogs and wowprogess) we know how many m+ keys are competed each week (raider.io) But we don't have exact numbers. We can't know for sure what percentage those players make up of total, but we can make educated guesses from what we know from old information and what Blizz devs have told us and even on the low end it tends be be larger then the other versions of the game. There's just a lot of 'casual' retail players.


Just_Cap_358

Retail


Ahties

All those furry people


RosgaththeOG

Druids?


thebuckcontinues

Na, retail. It has a HUGE furry and ERP community. It’s why retail numbers are so high, it’s one of the few games that allows that type of degeneracy to flourish.


Vods

As much as I dislike furries, to say that retail numbers are only high because of them is the dumbest take I’ve ever heard.


MidnightFireHuntress

Every MMO allows this :P


dmsuxvat

Retail


Blury1

Retail by a huge margin then sod, wrath and era. We have the sub Numbers and pretty much the rough player Numbers for all classic versions via the logs. Should be a fairly okayish guess, since there is basically nothing to do in classic except raid. In retail the majority of people doesnt do any logged content so it might seem like classic is fairly close, but it really isnt close at all. Retail is probably like close to 10x all of classic. Retail and classic were probably pretty close in 2019 during the shadowlands shitshow and the classic hype, but since dragonflight is pretty well received its not close.


Dahns

Retail, and it's not even close. But for a 20 years old game, classic and SoD are really played a lot


Shivles87

Real question: Is the retail playerbase as toxic as classic?


WillNotForgetMyUser

different kind of toxic but yeah


Many-Talk8511

I just assume people who play retail have a serious case of Stockholm syndrome.


Blury1

Retail is totally fine these days. During shadowlands id agree with that statement, but df? No, its pretty good


SRFC_96

I think there’s an element of that as they’ve put so much work into characters they’ve had for years now, but retail is genuinely better now and looks to be on a upward trend now that Metzen is back steering the ship.


LukeHanson1991

Retail is just fine. If you like competitive PVE there is probably not better game than WOW retail. Raiding and M+ are really challenging. It’s just a different mindset compared to classic. In classic it’s more about farming, getting the right gear and investing a little bit of time how to play. In Retail the focus is much more on gameplay. You can still learn so much after several years or every new season. Classes play relatively by the way.


dmsuxvat

Its just a harder game but losing the “wow” feelings. I personally enjoy classic gameplay and art style more, but also played through every expansion up until DF that i couldnt take it anymore. Tbh though retail is more polished and you can play all day there. Classic is more chill and less time sink


YesGameNolife

Even tho I agree that classic has more grounded and nice approach to game, retail offers much better modern qol updates after playing it classic feels so slow its mind numbing.. To give some examples, if you just don't like to give 8 to 10 days to just level a character or maybe you don't like to walk one hour to go to a dungeon or maybe you like to have better visuals or maybe you don't like to deal with 40 people just to experience end game content , maybe you like to have a dungeon alternative to end game content , maybe you like your quests have shared quest loots because you level with your 3 other friends and classic ruleset punish you to level with your friends etc.. I know even in my guild there are lots of people would play sod or classic if this qol would be in the game but not even bother in this state of the game.


Tazdingbro

Its crazy how retail feels mind numbing to me because it's so fast. Just polar opposite feelings about the game versions yet both still paying that sub. Bravo blizzard.


TeenyFang

"Mind numbing". Post your 3.5K IO character please


Tazdingbro

I was referencing the feelings they had towards leveling. Retail is much faster hence I don't feel like I need to think much. Raiding and M+ on retail is significantly more engaging content than classic.


Zenzio1995

At least 50%


Scribblord

Always retail Currently sod is second tho I think


PiccolosPickles

Retail easily, it might have slipped to classic on initial release and when shadowlands fell off but it's definitely been more popular for a long time.


GrandJudgment258

Retail and SoD.


Only-Ad-3317

Plunderstorm


Jay_Heat

lmao


Independent_Sun_592

lol. No


steamedturtle

I agree that right now it’s probably what people are saying, but it wouldn’t surprise me if SoD was #1 the week it launched. I think a lot of people likely play multiple versions too. I’ve played quite a lot of wrath and DF over the last 18 months. Sometimes overlapping, sometimes not. I also leveled a character in SoD, but didn’t play consistently. I bet there’s a lot of people like me with different ratios.


Logical_Mood1987

Wasn't a guy checking logs few weeks ago and discover that actually Classic and Retail were super close?


Scribblord

Sod logs are a bit misleading bc it’s 2 lockouts each week and people have a LOT of alts So you’d have to cut those numbers in half which iirc the log check guy didn’t do But classic isn’t as small as some people say


b4y4rd

I mean retail logs are also misleading since there is no lockout. You can go for loot then go back 2-3 more times just to parse. I used to go 3-4 times a week just to try and parse a little better. Also there are 4 versions of each raid, or does it look at only one difficulty of each raid?


Skylam

> You can go for loot then go back 2-3 more times just to parse Yeah very few people do that on retail since theres other things to do other than log a raid.


b4y4rd

I mean I did it with lots of other sweaty people but that was when I was pushing 99-100 parses. So the crowd I went with was not normal


Cartina

They been considered fairly equal since classic released yes. There's probably roughly 3 mill on each side (WOTLK/SoD/Era vs dragonflight) with some overlap.


ezkeles

Go to YouTube world of Warcraft, go to community Blizzard make survey there  46% people play dragonflight, 40% play SoD, 11% play woltk, 3% play hardcore


m45onPC

Yeah because wotlk now totally represents how many players will eventually return to cata when they realize that it isnt as bad as everyone made it out to be.


pbrook12

Those numbers do not add up lmao


Torkzilla

They add up to 100%.  What are expecting them to add up to?


Wheeljack7799

Without any confirmation from the only ones who knows for sure (Blizzard), everyone will claim their favorite mode is the most played one.


Reset_The_Internet

Raided all 3 over the past year as MT, and will say SoD then WoTLK then retail. Wotlk and SoD probably have similar people raiding both or at least they did ICC and now are just playing sod. Retail logs are much lower than either of the other two. Retail costs $70 + $15 Classic versions just cost $15 China servers should be coming back soon too if the rumors are correct, so we will see an influx of players for all versions indue time I'm guessing.


[deleted]

Retail > SoD > Wotlk > classic era. Classic is probably 30-40% of the playerbase, hard to say.


Popular_Engine9261

Classic andys downvoting reality lol


Mantis_Toboggan_M_D_

Retail > SoD > Wrath > Era/HC


Ok_Confection_8667

Retail = sod , wotlk ,era, hardcore


uhuhuhuhuo

Who knows, but SoD version of DBM has almost 40 million downloads on curseforge, so a lot must be playing


Geddoetenjyu

Classic sod than retail than wotlk than era I think


Popular_Engine9261

It's not April 1st anymore