That would be nice of them, Maverick. But sadly I don't see that happening.
The thing is, they can afford to be generous, they make more profit from WoW in 1 month than most MMO companies do in a year. They can afford to generate more content of all kinds and research MMO services and features in a more heightened state of activity than any other of their competitors.
If they put on a charm offensive, provide all kinds of added services freely or put in some events and other content, then they could blow away their competition pretty easily. Just like you see with other large companies, where you see them dive into a price war and where the largest companies can afford to have a longer breath and thus coming out on top.
The fact that (Activision) Blizzard isn't doing things like that is worrying and reason for frowning. Instead you see them take measures to boost their profit and revenues in any way possible, as if that short-term goal, boosting their financial figures and quarterly revenues via any possible method is the primary goal instead of keeping your subscribing player base satisfied and loyal. They could easily afford throwing some extras in for free and it would certainly generate more goodwill and a good vibe among WoW players and even beyond, but they don't, and that is interesting to note.
If this is the kind of mindset and policy that they intend to uphold when the big hitters like SWTOR and GW2 come around followed with some solid potential successes like ArcheAge, TERA and TSW to add in even more choice and variety, then I'm curious how much their playerbase will remain.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Ya.. I as well failed to like the latest expansion. Cancelled 3 months ago.
However.. in those 3 months I've still yet to find a game that's really as fun as wow was.. so it's got me thinking just rerolling on a new server, new toons, new guild, fresh start. *shrug*
Summer is here and I don't plan on playing much, but really until the GW2's, Star Wars, Secret World or whatever comes out, I don't feel there's anything mmo wise left to play.
He pretty much nails it on the head at the end of his rant. It comes down tohow Blizzard treats raiding, and it's all about numbers.
It's also the reason I left. Cata raiding was boring. Cata dungeons were boring. Cata content was... meh. The only thing that excited me in Cata was the new races, and even that wasn't enough to keep me around. I got my Worgen Warrior to 85, geared him for raiding in heroics, and then quit. Maxed BS/Mining, top end gear, tanking spec, and no desire to care about the game anymore. So I just... left.
Half my guild went to Rift, so I joined them there. It's a bit like WoW so the withdrawal isn't too hard, but it's shiny and new enough to be exciting. Some of the content isn't terribly polished, unlike Blizzard, but the game has been out for about two months, and each month the release a new content patch, including new rifts, new encounters, new loot, and new dailies, so it keeps things fresh and new. I like.
Really waiting on GW2. It has me really excited. I'm hopingto get into the Beta, because I love testing games and trying to help make them better. I think that might be a reason I wasn't so excited for Cata. I wasn't tapped for the Beta. They invited me to the SC2 beta instead and god, what a dog. I hate RTS multiplayer, and that's all they wanted tested. BARF! Talk about scripted encounters. Everyone plays exactly the same way, but it's zealot rush instead of zergling rush. B-O-R-I-N-G!
WoW has become a parady of itself. The players and community are pretty much crap, and even if your guild is good, the desire among top level players tro raid means that sooner or later they will leave the lowbies players in the dust, creating a gap that none of them will be interested in filling. As Blizzard SLOWLY adds more raiding content, that gap will get wider because the end-game players will spend all their time in the raids, leaving no time to help the lowbies, not that they would, because they have 25 dailies to do and the lowbies aren't part of those dailies.
Here's a few ideas, Blizzard, free of charge and yours to use if you like:
MAKE LEVELING A LOWBIE IN YOUR GUILD A DAILY! Yes, reward players for helping other lower-level players in their guild to gain levels, complete quest chains, etc. Group with said lowbie, power them through 20 quests, and after the last turn-in is complete, you can call it a day. Newbie has to be above level 30. No powering a fresh alt that's going to be deleted for tomorrow. Sorry.
GEAR YOUR BUDDIES! Group up with guildies and run a dungeon with them. You have to complete the dungeon, and it must be one for which they would normally get experience (so no running Wailing Caverns on your level 80+'s...). You get credit for the run if they get and upgrade to their gear (even if they can't use it, yet). BoE's count (gotta be fair). *This requires Blizzard to adjust their loot tables so that at least one class-appropriate loot item drops for each the people in the group, and not just completely random trash. The item can be random, but it should be class-appropriate. If there's no Druid, then the leather drops should not all be caster types, etc.*
Bleh. I hate writing these things. They get long-winded and lose focus. I'm going to go play more Rift...
That would be nice of them, Maverick. But sadly I don't see that happening.
The thing is, they can afford to be generous, they make more profit from WoW in 1 month than most MMO companies do in a year. They can afford to generate more content of all kinds and research MMO services and features in a more heightened state of activity than any other of their competitors.
If they put on a charm offensive, provide all kinds of added services freely or put in some events and other content, then they could blow away their competition pretty easily. Just like you see with other large companies, where you see them dive into a price war and where the largest companies can afford to have a longer breath and thus coming out on top.
The fact that (Activision) Blizzard isn't doing things like that is worrying and reason for frowning. Instead you see them take measures to boost their profit and revenues in any way possible, as if that short-term goal, boosting their financial figures and quarterly revenues via any possible method is the primary goal instead of keeping your subscribing player base satisfied and loyal. They could easily afford throwing some extras in for free and it would certainly generate more goodwill and a good vibe among WoW players and even beyond, but they don't, and that is interesting to note.
If this is the kind of mindset and policy that they intend to uphold when the big hitters like SWTOR and GW2 come around followed with some solid potential successes like ArcheAge, TERA and TSW to add in even more choice and variety, then I'm curious how much their playerbase will remain.
I agree with you whole-heartedly Maverick. This is me not disagreeing with you. I wish I had the link or could remember who posted it (it was a while ago now. A year or so back.) when it was...the CEO (?) of Blizzard who basically stated (and I'm paraphrasing here): "We don't care what our players think." I do remember in which that notion sent the WoW forums into an uproar of anger.
But I do agree with you on this Maverick. And it is frightening that this is happening.
Reason I quit was the letter from the devs about people saying the raids were to difficult, I for one am a casual player and not at all hardcore; Blizzards letter in a round about way stated they understood but would not change the current raid system and that it would "encourage" teamwork
I though that was bull; and yea if someone here says "well you need to stop complaining and join a good guild or leave troll"
I have to say that, as unfortunate as it is. This article strikes a sharp point into Blizzard's side. I have yet to totally figure out in my own mind, how an expansion that gave me so many things from my 'want' list for WoW could turn out to be such a disappointment.
Playable Goblins? Check.
Competitive PvP Gear without having to do Arenas? Check.
Rebuilding the original Azeroth into a more dynamic and interesting world with better scripted quests from 1-60? Check that too.
So what happened? Well for one, the new starting race had me replaying a class I already had a 70+ character of. Same with the new 1-60 content, I was effectively retiring my old character for a nice shiny goblin version. 1-60 content isn't as hepful in keeping subscriptions if most users only plan to play it once (I have 70+ of every class, why play it over and over?)
Also look at Rated Battlegrounds. Why did people dislike Arenas? It wasnt because the game mode wasn't fun, it was because it felt like a chore that you HAD to organize a team and HAD to all play together every time to get anywhere. So you take that problem and compound it by making the rated battleground teams require even MORE people? What about that makes sense?
I really hate to say it but Cataclysm was the nail in the coffin for me. My WoW career is finally over. Here's to hoping SWTOR, GW2 or TSW have some staying power.
I think what is funny is that people complained how bad the WoW community is and now that they are losing their community it is a bad thing too. I guess it seems that it is better to have a bad community than no community at all ? When Blizzard chose to dumb down their content and cater to soloers that is when the community started to shrink not to mention Cataclysm was the worst expansion they ever put out.
Also, if they really had 11.4 million subscribers why do you need to dumb down content ? The answer is that you don't need to but the only reason they did it was because they knew so many was already leaving they figured by making it easier for people to come back. Well the opposite happened because the content is not challenging anymore. People are just moving on to better things.
Unless The Old Republic and Guild Wars 2 fail hard, these games will put the final nail into World of Warcraft's coffin. It was a good run but even WoW does not last forever.
....but once BC came out their game went all down hill for me I mean they threw in stuff that didnt even belong in the WOW Story line like Draeni, and Blood Eleves, finally I was like Okay I will add this to my RP, and Lich king brought a death knight never fit into the story....goblins...
Slightly OT, but if you go play Warcraft 3 you will see how those are all part of the WoW universe. WC3 has Draenei, Blood Elves, and Death Knights. Also goblins were in all the Warcraft games I believe.
I agree with most of your points. For me the game went downhill with Wotlk. I was a big WoW fan. I began playing at launch and I don't think I ever cancelled my subscription even for a single month during the entire Vanilla and TBC period.
I was really excited about WotlK and I played about a month after it launched. Got my druid and dk to level 80 but for some reason I stopped playing. I didn't like Wotlk for some reason. Maybe it was the changes to my druid or dungeons or maybe something entirely different. I dunno. Went back to WOTLK to give it another try but was disgusted at what the game hadbecome. Instant teleportation to dungeons/battlegrounds, super easy content and gear score. It took me quite a while to figure out what everyone meant by GS.
I never bought Cataclysm. Cataclysm is just as bad as WOTLK in my opinion. I don't see why people say that Cata is much worse than Wotlk. Wotlk was so crappy I can't even put it into words. But this time people consumed content faster you correctly noted
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
You seem to have neglected one of the main things cataclysm did. It made all of pre 85 WoW a ton more fun. The way questing works, and feels, in cataclysm is something that even TOR will have a hard time matching I'll wager right now.
I can't comment on why 600k people left, (well a lot more than that left, that's the net loss). I don't understand why so many continue to play it for so long doing the same things. I guess they could just be losers with no real life friends, but so am I and I can't stand logging in after I've grown bored. Repetition is not my thing, I need new things to do. Apparently I'm not typical in this way, as even after they introduced dailies (the very definition of repetitive tedium), the population continued to grow.
I will say this however, cataclysm end game is garbage. It's run by elitist aholes and dps meters. That crap shouldn't be allowed, it not only alienates a significant number of casual players, it pigeonholes everyone into very narrow roles, and makes it very hard for blizzard to develop fun end game encounters and makes the game so mechanical and cold.
I think what is funny is that people complained how bad the WoW community is and now that they are losing their community it is a bad thing too. I guess it seems that it is better to have a bad community than no community at all ? When Blizzard chose to dumb down their content and cater to soloers that is when the community started to shrink not to mention Cataclysm was the worst expansion they ever put out.
Also, if they really had 11.4 million subscribers why do you need to dumb down content ? The answer is that you don't need to but the only reason they did it was because they knew so many was already leaving they figured by making it easier for people to come back. Well the opposite happened because the content is not challenging anymore. People are just moving on to better things.
Unless The Old Republic and Guild Wars 2 fail hard, these games will put the final nail into World of Warcraft's coffin. It was a good run but even WoW does not last forever.
They "dumbed" things down because thats what a majority of the community wanted. The community is starting to shrink because the game is like 7 freaking years old. I feel like generally most people that play WoW for a while and quit won't be picking up another mmo (I know I won't anyways).
I guarantee I won't be playing either SWTOR or GW2, but hey thats me. After I stopped playing counter strike I didn't play another FPS for a long time, I feel like you get sick of a genre not necessarily a game.
They "dumbed" things down because thats what a majority of the community wanted. The community is starting to shrink because the game is like 7 freaking years old. I feel like generally most people that play WoW for a while and quit won't be picking up another mmo (I know I won't anyways).
I never picked another MMO. The whole genre is boring and repetitive not just WoW.
Originally posted by adam_nox
Repetition is not my thing, I need new things to do. Apparently I'm not typical in this way, as even after they introduced dailies (the very definition of repetitive tedium), the population continued to grow.
But repetition is all MMOs have been giving us for a very looooong time
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Blizzard like many other MMO companies seem to think its fine to charge for more than the subscription fee for things now, cash shops are awful and have not improved the genre at all but rather the opposite - a chunk of the playerbase embrace it and they are the ones to blame for this move, which ultimately puts others off the genre as a whole
Why they made WoW even easier than it was already is anyones guess, maybe they think the end game gear grind is all people really want to do
Blizzard are a long way from having to worry about their sub numbers, and really with the age of the game and things like the graphics level of the game now being pretty out of date too its not really surprising subs are going down and not up - while its not game over for WoW by a long shot - I think the days of their higest revenue for the game may well be over
star wars may make wow lost more subs- maybe initially, but it wont last, because of the character animation ( be it combat, running, etc, unless they drastically improve it before launch), boring pvp.
tera? nope, you need 5 man to kill a rabbit, few ppl will play this kind of game
gw2, most likely
Blizz cater to soloist, nope, alot of soloist dont see icc content, till you have solo icc instance like eq2 ( pls corrrect me if im wrong ), than its a soloist game.
Till now my stance is still this, only Blizz will kill WoW. If they go too much into the same model as that of a F2P game, than they will sure lost alot of P2P crowd
Which i personally is starting to see...
*side note: pls dont say that a new mmo needs time to improve its contents, as compare to wow which is already release 6 years. A game being release in 2011 have to complete with games thats in 2011.....
Just let the damn game die. Honestly. I have nothing against WoW, but if it died tomorrow it would be the best thing for the industry.
It would show developers people are tired of the same crap, and force them to be original. It would spread out the population so some of these others games are less empty and hopefully revitalized (ones people constantly talk about missing, like Vanguard and SG). It would kill of a lot of the gamers that are a bane in the community (no one trolls like a WoW Troll) and finally, it would force Blizzard to work on something else. Hopefully, something more interesting than WoW.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
They already lost their community a long time ago.
Now it's just a bunch of people playing the same game.
I agree. "Community" and "Players" are two different things, to me. WoW has always had a lot of players, but the community has been largely absent since before Burning Crusade launched, in my opinion. The game mechanics encouraged players to build the biggest gap they could between themselves and the rest of the community. And the players ate it up.
The thing is, they can afford to be generous, they make more profit from WoW in 1 month than most MMO companies do in a year. They can afford to generate more content of all kinds and research MMO services and features in a more heightened state of activity than any other of their competitors.
I think perhaps you underestimate the extravigant tastes and lifestyles of the higher-ups.
(WoW dying) would show developers people are tired of the same crap, and force them to be original. It would spread out the population so some of these others games are less empty and hopefully revitalized (ones people constantly talk about missing, like Vanguard and SG). It would kill of a lot of the gamers that are a bane in the community (no one trolls like a WoW Troll) and finally, it would force Blizzard to work on something else. Hopefully, something more interesting than WoW.
It would be just as likely to discourage investors and developers from making MMORPGs at all. Which would in turn leave it to those who really care about these games and not just making money, like Verant.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
One other thing. I know some people who are just playing WoW right now because there is nothing out there to play. I, myself, might log into WoW once or twice a week now. It was a total waste to re up this last time. I got the 7 day reup thing in my email and decided to give it another month after that. The game is just boring. I have been ready to move on for months now.
Reason I quit was the letter from the devs about people saying the raids were to difficult, I for one am a casual player and not at all hardcore; Blizzards letter in a round about way stated they understood but would not change the current raid system and that it would "encourage" teamwork
I though that was bull; and yea if someone here says "well you need to stop complaining and join a good guild or leave troll"
I left...........
No...I wouldn't say that....I would say, "Play single player RPGs."
OMG WoW losing their community! Please god/allah/buddha dont let them near the MMO's im playing.
*BIG GRIN*
Ken Fisher - Semi retired old fart Network Administrator, now working in Network Security. I don't Forum PVP. If you feel I've attacked you, it was probably by accident. When I don't understand, I ask. Such is not intended as criticism.
....but once BC came out their game went all down hill for me I mean they threw in stuff that didnt even belong in the WOW Story line like Draeni, and Blood Eleves, finally I was like Okay I will add this to my RP, and Lich king brought a death knight never fit into the story....goblins...
Slightly OT, but if you go play Warcraft 3 you will see how those are all part of the WoW universe. WC3 has Draenei, Blood Elves, and Death Knights. Also goblins were in all the Warcraft games I believe.
In WC3 only the broken existed. The entire concept of the Draenei in the way they are represented in the playable race in WoW never existed until Metzen suddenly retconned them into existence midway through the design phase of BC.
As per Blood Elves, they existed as a sub-faction of High-Elves in WC3. The concept of them suddenly taking over the entire High Elf Kingdom, and then seceeding from the Alliance is unplausible. What's outright nonsense is them then turning around and allying with the Horde.
Death Knights existed in WC3, but they were elite agents of the Lich King. Without the Lich king they would be powerless, yet they openly defy him and break off, and yet somehow manage to convince their original factions they they're trustworthy.
The forsaken joined the Horde because they were supposidly being persecuted by the Alliance factions for being undead... But death knights? No problem. Plothole much?
Then again, the forsaken being allied with the Horde at all is unplausible as well...
Anyways, the point is that the lore has been getting worse and worse with each expansion. For some players, lore matters, it gives context to gameplay and achievements within the game. And when that lore starts to get weak, then the meaning of gameplay is also weakened.
The thing is, they can afford to be generous, they make more profit from WoW in 1 month than most MMO companies do in a year. They can afford to generate more content of all kinds and research MMO services and features in a more heightened state of activity than any other of their competitors.
I think perhaps you underestimate the extravigant tastes and lifestyles of the higher-ups.
$10 million bonuses each for Kotick and Morhaime in 2009 I believe.
It's nice to know that all of those additional 'premium' content and service charges are going to good use... oh wait.
Too many walls of text here to read it all but the strongest sense of community I ever felt was the Tanking forum. Yes, it included a lot of telling players how to spec best blah-blah-blah, but players came there on their own for advice.
I was one of the most common posters there and had a lot of fun on PTRs as the Tanking community would group together and have some fun.
Around August of last year, I was spending more time on the forums than in-game and by January wasn't even logging into the game. I finally called it quits by March.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug. 12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
Comments
The thing is, they can afford to be generous, they make more profit from WoW in 1 month than most MMO companies do in a year. They can afford to generate more content of all kinds and research MMO services and features in a more heightened state of activity than any other of their competitors.
If they put on a charm offensive, provide all kinds of added services freely or put in some events and other content, then they could blow away their competition pretty easily. Just like you see with other large companies, where you see them dive into a price war and where the largest companies can afford to have a longer breath and thus coming out on top.
The fact that (Activision) Blizzard isn't doing things like that is worrying and reason for frowning. Instead you see them take measures to boost their profit and revenues in any way possible, as if that short-term goal, boosting their financial figures and quarterly revenues via any possible method is the primary goal instead of keeping your subscribing player base satisfied and loyal. They could easily afford throwing some extras in for free and it would certainly generate more goodwill and a good vibe among WoW players and even beyond, but they don't, and that is interesting to note.
If this is the kind of mindset and policy that they intend to uphold when the big hitters like SWTOR and GW2 come around followed with some solid potential successes like ArcheAge, TERA and TSW to add in even more choice and variety, then I'm curious how much their playerbase will remain.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
yep, i think since WOTLK, they lost a hell lot of a community
with all these new players coming in, it's just different, not what we, the pre BC players felt, those were the good days
So What Now?
Ya.. I as well failed to like the latest expansion. Cancelled 3 months ago.
However.. in those 3 months I've still yet to find a game that's really as fun as wow was.. so it's got me thinking just rerolling on a new server, new toons, new guild, fresh start. *shrug*
Summer is here and I don't plan on playing much, but really until the GW2's, Star Wars, Secret World or whatever comes out, I don't feel there's anything mmo wise left to play.
Go here.
He pretty much nails it on the head at the end of his rant. It comes down tohow Blizzard treats raiding, and it's all about numbers.
It's also the reason I left. Cata raiding was boring. Cata dungeons were boring. Cata content was... meh. The only thing that excited me in Cata was the new races, and even that wasn't enough to keep me around. I got my Worgen Warrior to 85, geared him for raiding in heroics, and then quit. Maxed BS/Mining, top end gear, tanking spec, and no desire to care about the game anymore. So I just... left.
Half my guild went to Rift, so I joined them there. It's a bit like WoW so the withdrawal isn't too hard, but it's shiny and new enough to be exciting. Some of the content isn't terribly polished, unlike Blizzard, but the game has been out for about two months, and each month the release a new content patch, including new rifts, new encounters, new loot, and new dailies, so it keeps things fresh and new. I like.
Really waiting on GW2. It has me really excited. I'm hopingto get into the Beta, because I love testing games and trying to help make them better. I think that might be a reason I wasn't so excited for Cata. I wasn't tapped for the Beta. They invited me to the SC2 beta instead and god, what a dog. I hate RTS multiplayer, and that's all they wanted tested. BARF! Talk about scripted encounters. Everyone plays exactly the same way, but it's zealot rush instead of zergling rush. B-O-R-I-N-G!
WoW has become a parady of itself. The players and community are pretty much crap, and even if your guild is good, the desire among top level players tro raid means that sooner or later they will leave the lowbies players in the dust, creating a gap that none of them will be interested in filling. As Blizzard SLOWLY adds more raiding content, that gap will get wider because the end-game players will spend all their time in the raids, leaving no time to help the lowbies, not that they would, because they have 25 dailies to do and the lowbies aren't part of those dailies.
Here's a few ideas, Blizzard, free of charge and yours to use if you like:
MAKE LEVELING A LOWBIE IN YOUR GUILD A DAILY! Yes, reward players for helping other lower-level players in their guild to gain levels, complete quest chains, etc. Group with said lowbie, power them through 20 quests, and after the last turn-in is complete, you can call it a day. Newbie has to be above level 30. No powering a fresh alt that's going to be deleted for tomorrow. Sorry.
GEAR YOUR BUDDIES! Group up with guildies and run a dungeon with them. You have to complete the dungeon, and it must be one for which they would normally get experience (so no running Wailing Caverns on your level 80+'s...). You get credit for the run if they get and upgrade to their gear (even if they can't use it, yet). BoE's count (gotta be fair). *This requires Blizzard to adjust their loot tables so that at least one class-appropriate loot item drops for each the people in the group, and not just completely random trash. The item can be random, but it should be class-appropriate. If there's no Druid, then the leather drops should not all be caster types, etc.*
Bleh. I hate writing these things. They get long-winded and lose focus. I'm going to go play more Rift...
I agree with you whole-heartedly Maverick. This is me not disagreeing with you. I wish I had the link or could remember who posted it (it was a while ago now. A year or so back.) when it was...the CEO (?) of Blizzard who basically stated (and I'm paraphrasing here): "We don't care what our players think." I do remember in which that notion sent the WoW forums into an uproar of anger.
But I do agree with you on this Maverick. And it is frightening that this is happening.
Reason I quit was the letter from the devs about people saying the raids were to difficult, I for one am a casual player and not at all hardcore; Blizzards letter in a round about way stated they understood but would not change the current raid system and that it would "encourage" teamwork
I though that was bull; and yea if someone here says "well you need to stop complaining and join a good guild or leave troll"
I left...........
I have to say that, as unfortunate as it is. This article strikes a sharp point into Blizzard's side. I have yet to totally figure out in my own mind, how an expansion that gave me so many things from my 'want' list for WoW could turn out to be such a disappointment.
Playable Goblins? Check.
Competitive PvP Gear without having to do Arenas? Check.
Rebuilding the original Azeroth into a more dynamic and interesting world with better scripted quests from 1-60? Check that too.
So what happened? Well for one, the new starting race had me replaying a class I already had a 70+ character of. Same with the new 1-60 content, I was effectively retiring my old character for a nice shiny goblin version. 1-60 content isn't as hepful in keeping subscriptions if most users only plan to play it once (I have 70+ of every class, why play it over and over?)
Also look at Rated Battlegrounds. Why did people dislike Arenas? It wasnt because the game mode wasn't fun, it was because it felt like a chore that you HAD to organize a team and HAD to all play together every time to get anywhere. So you take that problem and compound it by making the rated battleground teams require even MORE people? What about that makes sense?
I really hate to say it but Cataclysm was the nail in the coffin for me. My WoW career is finally over. Here's to hoping SWTOR, GW2 or TSW have some staying power.
I think the question should be, "Where did the WoW community go?"
I think what is funny is that people complained how bad the WoW community is and now that they are losing their community it is a bad thing too. I guess it seems that it is better to have a bad community than no community at all ? When Blizzard chose to dumb down their content and cater to soloers that is when the community started to shrink not to mention Cataclysm was the worst expansion they ever put out.
Also, if they really had 11.4 million subscribers why do you need to dumb down content ? The answer is that you don't need to but the only reason they did it was because they knew so many was already leaving they figured by making it easier for people to come back. Well the opposite happened because the content is not challenging anymore. People are just moving on to better things.
Unless The Old Republic and Guild Wars 2 fail hard, these games will put the final nail into World of Warcraft's coffin. It was a good run but even WoW does not last forever.
Slightly OT, but if you go play Warcraft 3 you will see how those are all part of the WoW universe. WC3 has Draenei, Blood Elves, and Death Knights. Also goblins were in all the Warcraft games I believe.
Steam: Neph
I agree with most of your points. For me the game went downhill with Wotlk. I was a big WoW fan. I began playing at launch and I don't think I ever cancelled my subscription even for a single month during the entire Vanilla and TBC period.
I was really excited about WotlK and I played about a month after it launched. Got my druid and dk to level 80 but for some reason I stopped playing. I didn't like Wotlk for some reason. Maybe it was the changes to my druid or dungeons or maybe something entirely different. I dunno. Went back to WOTLK to give it another try but was disgusted at what the game hadbecome. Instant teleportation to dungeons/battlegrounds, super easy content and gear score. It took me quite a while to figure out what everyone meant by GS.
I never bought Cataclysm. Cataclysm is just as bad as WOTLK in my opinion. I don't see why people say that Cata is much worse than Wotlk. Wotlk was so crappy I can't even put it into words. But this time people consumed content faster you correctly noted
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
You seem to have neglected one of the main things cataclysm did. It made all of pre 85 WoW a ton more fun. The way questing works, and feels, in cataclysm is something that even TOR will have a hard time matching I'll wager right now.
I can't comment on why 600k people left, (well a lot more than that left, that's the net loss). I don't understand why so many continue to play it for so long doing the same things. I guess they could just be losers with no real life friends, but so am I and I can't stand logging in after I've grown bored. Repetition is not my thing, I need new things to do. Apparently I'm not typical in this way, as even after they introduced dailies (the very definition of repetitive tedium), the population continued to grow.
I will say this however, cataclysm end game is garbage. It's run by elitist aholes and dps meters. That crap shouldn't be allowed, it not only alienates a significant number of casual players, it pigeonholes everyone into very narrow roles, and makes it very hard for blizzard to develop fun end game encounters and makes the game so mechanical and cold.
They "dumbed" things down because thats what a majority of the community wanted. The community is starting to shrink because the game is like 7 freaking years old. I feel like generally most people that play WoW for a while and quit won't be picking up another mmo (I know I won't anyways).
I guarantee I won't be playing either SWTOR or GW2, but hey thats me. After I stopped playing counter strike I didn't play another FPS for a long time, I feel like you get sick of a genre not necessarily a game.
I never picked another MMO. The whole genre is boring and repetitive not just WoW.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Blizzard like many other MMO companies seem to think its fine to charge for more than the subscription fee for things now, cash shops are awful and have not improved the genre at all but rather the opposite - a chunk of the playerbase embrace it and they are the ones to blame for this move, which ultimately puts others off the genre as a whole
Why they made WoW even easier than it was already is anyones guess, maybe they think the end game gear grind is all people really want to do
Blizzard are a long way from having to worry about their sub numbers, and really with the age of the game and things like the graphics level of the game now being pretty out of date too its not really surprising subs are going down and not up - while its not game over for WoW by a long shot - I think the days of their higest revenue for the game may well be over
Purely personal opinion.
A few ppl here posted that:
star wars may make wow lost more subs- maybe initially, but it wont last, because of the character animation ( be it combat, running, etc, unless they drastically improve it before launch), boring pvp.
tera? nope, you need 5 man to kill a rabbit, few ppl will play this kind of game
gw2, most likely
Blizz cater to soloist, nope, alot of soloist dont see icc content, till you have solo icc instance like eq2 ( pls corrrect me if im wrong ), than its a soloist game.
Till now my stance is still this, only Blizz will kill WoW. If they go too much into the same model as that of a F2P game, than they will sure lost alot of P2P crowd
Which i personally is starting to see...
*side note: pls dont say that a new mmo needs time to improve its contents, as compare to wow which is already release 6 years. A game being release in 2011 have to complete with games thats in 2011.....
RIP Orc Choppa
It's kinda like this community. Disfunctional. WoW lost it's community a long time ago.
Just let the damn game die. Honestly. I have nothing against WoW, but if it died tomorrow it would be the best thing for the industry.
It would show developers people are tired of the same crap, and force them to be original. It would spread out the population so some of these others games are less empty and hopefully revitalized (ones people constantly talk about missing, like Vanguard and SG). It would kill of a lot of the gamers that are a bane in the community (no one trolls like a WoW Troll) and finally, it would force Blizzard to work on something else. Hopefully, something more interesting than WoW.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
I agree. "Community" and "Players" are two different things, to me. WoW has always had a lot of players, but the community has been largely absent since before Burning Crusade launched, in my opinion. The game mechanics encouraged players to build the biggest gap they could between themselves and the rest of the community. And the players ate it up.
I think perhaps you underestimate the extravigant tastes and lifestyles of the higher-ups.
It would be just as likely to discourage investors and developers from making MMORPGs at all. Which would in turn leave it to those who really care about these games and not just making money, like Verant.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
One other thing. I know some people who are just playing WoW right now because there is nothing out there to play. I, myself, might log into WoW once or twice a week now. It was a total waste to re up this last time. I got the 7 day reup thing in my email and decided to give it another month after that. The game is just boring. I have been ready to move on for months now.
Bring on ToR. Sick of waiting for it.
No...I wouldn't say that....I would say, "Play single player RPGs."
*BIG GRIN*
In WC3 only the broken existed. The entire concept of the Draenei in the way they are represented in the playable race in WoW never existed until Metzen suddenly retconned them into existence midway through the design phase of BC.
As per Blood Elves, they existed as a sub-faction of High-Elves in WC3. The concept of them suddenly taking over the entire High Elf Kingdom, and then seceeding from the Alliance is unplausible. What's outright nonsense is them then turning around and allying with the Horde.
Death Knights existed in WC3, but they were elite agents of the Lich King. Without the Lich king they would be powerless, yet they openly defy him and break off, and yet somehow manage to convince their original factions they they're trustworthy.
The forsaken joined the Horde because they were supposidly being persecuted by the Alliance factions for being undead... But death knights? No problem. Plothole much?
Then again, the forsaken being allied with the Horde at all is unplausible as well...
Anyways, the point is that the lore has been getting worse and worse with each expansion. For some players, lore matters, it gives context to gameplay and achievements within the game. And when that lore starts to get weak, then the meaning of gameplay is also weakened.
$10 million bonuses each for Kotick and Morhaime in 2009 I believe.
It's nice to know that all of those additional 'premium' content and service charges are going to good use... oh wait.
Too many walls of text here to read it all but the strongest sense of community I ever felt was the Tanking forum. Yes, it included a lot of telling players how to spec best blah-blah-blah, but players came there on their own for advice.
I was one of the most common posters there and had a lot of fun on PTRs as the Tanking community would group together and have some fun.
Around August of last year, I was spending more time on the forums than in-game and by January wasn't even logging into the game. I finally called it quits by March.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.