Comments on: [WoW] How has class popularity changed since Jan 2010?

By: Killed in a Smiling Accident. » Blog Archive » Regulation 571.111

Killed in a Smiling Accident. » Blog Archive » Regulation 571.111 — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 09:38:39 +0000

[...] arrives with the new races that are being released in Cataclysm. It’s fun to see how populations at level eighty change with the various patches, but I’d also be interested to know if there are [...]

By: spinks

spinks — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 06:36:21 +0000

I think that’s a little unfair. Not every level 80 is on ‘the raiding treadmill’. They’re just classes that are played by people who were invested enough in the game to level to 80. Sure, it’d be interesting to look at lower level data, but this data wasn’t trivial to collect and is meaningful too, and includes a high proportion of the more active players.

With lower level characters, while it’s interesting to look at the numbers of different classes created, it is also really really hard to know how you’d get anything specific enough to make any conclusions about. I don’t think characters below level 10 are shown on the armoury anyway but even if they were, I’m not sure how much information that would really give you.

By: Tesh

Tesh — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 01:52:06 +0000

I’ll third the Nick Yee recommendation.

Also, I’ll second the point about this being “characters at the level cap”. Maybe it’s just because I’m not a raider, but the population at large is more interesting to me… especially that 70% or so of characters that never get past level 10. (Yeah, there are probably more than a few bank alts and trash characters there, but there are also players who never get a class to click quickly and give up on it when things get more grindy.)

What with CAT changing the leveling experience on top of the talent revamps (and the new race/class mix), I’m most interested in what that does to the game on the whole, not just the raiding treadmill.

By: spinks

spinks — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 12:56:23 +0000

Nick Yee has done some awesome work and I’d encourage anyone with an interest in MMO demographics to check out his site. But unfortunately, it is a few years old now.

It’s still very interesting, especially, as you say, to compare the classes in 2005.

By: spinks

spinks — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 12:54:43 +0000

That’s a cool summary, thanks for the links.

I should warn you that if the warrior experience is anything to go by, people will continue to hate your class solidly for at least the next two expansions

By: jeffo

jeffo — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 10:44:27 +0000

I suppose this would be a good place to drop a shameless plug for my own two-part piece on Paladins in Wrath: http://lkingformore.blogspot.com/2010/07/end-of-era.html and http://lkingformore.blogspot.com/2010/07/end-of-era-part-ii.html.

By: spinks

spinks — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 07:50:19 +0000

*hides her 3 dps death knights*

By: spinks

spinks — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 07:46:49 +0000

Thanks, Zardoz.

I’m mostly interested in trying to track changes in the population. I may well take you up on that offer of the raw data so as to make some better comparisons next time!

Also, you do an awesome job with this data collection!

By: Simon Jones who is blogless

Simon Jones who is blogless — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 05:43:30 +0000

Rogues haven’t done well at all in WotLK. Between the removal of the old hybrid tax, repeatedly losing their position as top melee DPS to Warriors, Ret and Druid Cats, having only a brief moment sun right near the end of the expansion when people have settled into their mains and the death of CC, they have not done well.

Warlocks top DPS spec just has the misfortune to be horribly complicated to play.

By: zardoz

zardoz — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 03:05:42 +0000

Oh I’m glad someone actually has the time to analyze my data. Sure wish I did… Well done.

I’d be a bit careful about reading anything into shifts of less than 1%. There is some sampling error in there.

To my eye the data suggests:
i) The era of “peak DK” has arrived
ii) Druids are still being “discovered” as a playable class
iii) Hunters have moved from hero to zero over the life of the game
iv) Blizz really does “hate my class”, if your class is Warlock or Rogue.

If you have a bit of time, have a look at my report on popularity of each of the three trees across the classes. I suspect some of the more interesting changes can be found in there.

Oh and if you’d like some of the raw data to play with in a spreadsheet or whatever, leave a comment on my blog and I’d be happy to oblige.