This is a smart move, and maybe something we will see on a wider scale in other games (not that many games have this kind of feature yet)
As for WoW loosing players... Show me any game that is as old as WoW that have not lost players... The only one i can think of is Eve.. But they are sort of the exception to the norm. It is also worth noting that WoW might have lost players... In fact they have by now lost a amount of players equal to most other non-f2p games entire player base... And they are still not really hurting for players.
Considering that WoW has lost about 4 million subs since the end of WotLK, arguably the time that Blizz really started nerfing raid difficulty to appease players, I stand by my statement.
There is no proof made that the harmful events are caused by the first event.
Of course, a subscription decline can also be attributed to several dozen other possible factors, or combination of many factors, with no outstanding evidence that any single one of them "caused" the decline.
It's a pretty safe argument, if you ignore that all virtually all veteran games begin declining beyond (some point X), regardless of developer efforts, regardless of further expansions, and regardless of "classic" reboots.
Complex questions, simple answers.
Nerfing content is not even really on the list of why myself and many of my friends left wow.
The reasons why we left goes as follows.
#1 Age of the game - we all been playing since either Vanilla like myself or BC like a handful of others. The game just does not appeal to us anymore
#2 Every class is just like another * for example making my Pali Active defensive like the DK. If I wanted to play a DK I would. Druids in BC were good with hots, Palis single target healer, Priest with everything. Today one class is just as good as another
#3 LFR tool and LFG tool - Yes as a casual player today who once was a hardcore player the community side of WOW has gone to the shitter. People who once would put in a little effort into being apart of a guild today will sit there and tell you go use the LFG tools. Too many people become apart of the lobby game crowd that should have stayed in Diablo type games
#4 Reuses of the same old content. Not going to rehash this old deal
#5 making all the 5 man instances AOE friendly to no end. BC Normal instances were some what of a challenge and you could get gear from these instances to cobble together gear for raiding. Heroics were better to get gear from however it was not necessary so the gear treadmill was not as pronounced. People also had to learn to use CC and had to learn to work as a team. Today you dont like a person call them names and kick them no need for helping people
#6 the game has become a gear grind, yes WoW was always somewhat of a gear grind however in Vanilla and BC people cobbled together gear from instances vs todays path. Quest and leveling instances to get to normal end game instances to get to heroic instances to get into LFR, LFR for normals. And yea that treadmill is done and over with.
expect another ~5 million people quitting this year.
do they all go to vanilla servers ?
really wish they would just release a classic server of some sort. I want to play this game in the state that everyone speaks so highly of without going private
Making content easier and more accessible has not worked out well for WoW in terms of player retention.
Ever since Blizz shifted to this mindset of giving everyone a taste of the high-end content, the sub numbers have been moving in the wrong direction.
So by limiting the content in the game by just allowing the "hardcore, hey I put my time in" gamers, THAT would have kept the sub numbers where they were?
I play the game quite a bit but do not consider myself a "hardcore" gamer anymore. Real life has a way of doing that but I have put in my time since beta. So by your reasoning I shouldn't be allowed access to content because of that. You tell me how that keeps Blizzard from losing my money. Also, Blizzard gets my money, why should I not get access to everything I am paying for?
Considering that WoW has lost about 4 million subs since the end of WotLK, arguably the time that Blizz really started nerfing raid difficulty to appease players, I stand by my statement.
WoW was at it's peak in terms of popularity when not everyone could do raids and when earning an epic piece of gear actually meant something.
As soon as the entitlement mentality (which you clearly feel as stated in your post) started to become prevalent and Blizz started catering to it, sub numbers began dropping signifcantly. It's not me wanting to prevent you from seeing content, it's a simple fact in the timeline of WoW.
I could just as easily claim that the decline of the economy is the cause of the decline.
Or that the decline in subs correlates with the accessibility to more free online games in general.
Or maybe it's due to the decline in gun homicide rates.
These are all CORRELATION, not causation. Picking and choosing the cause of something without proper data is just a poor and shallow argument.
If anything I would bet that the only reason they're retaining as many players as they are is due to the fact of making things more accessible, which has ALWAYS been their way.
Raids weren't challenging in Wrath....at all and with the introduction of the raid finder the only people that actually think that they got easier are those that never did the real raids because the raid finder gear was "good enough". You show, very easily, which group you fit into, and that's ok. The raids were always on par with everything they've released previously, if you actually did them. As already said, though, most didn't. They did raid finder because it was easier than waiting for a raid spot or they didn't have to coordinate it...or whatever the reason, and these fights were VERY tuned for the masses.
But...
Good talk.
Just because every car has similar features doesn't mean that Ferraris are copies of Model Ts. Progress requires failure and refining.
Originally posted by pmiles It's not the size of the group that is the issue... it's the fact that there is a raid lock out. They've essentially added 3 more copies of the same raid for people to do each week... when all they really wanted was a no-lockout system. *If* end game is where it is at, shouldn't players be able to *end game* 24/7? WotLK is the closest thing to a no lockout system, and damn if it wasn't extremely popular and alt-o-holic friendly. They didn't need something somewhere between 10 and 25 to make players happy and the content was already stupified to the extent that anyone could do it. "Hey, let's make 3 new modes of the same dungeons and call it flex. They'll get lesser gear than what they are already getting, but hey, no one cares about the gear, they just love the raids so much that they'll do endless flavors of the same thing! We've got 8 months to burn and little to give them. This is pure gold!"
I thought it would be pretty apparent why they have weekly lockouts..
If they gave players free reign to farm raids then they would be geared up in no time, Ready to unsubscribe. having a weekly lockout insures players then pay for another month.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
Those that have a full time job 8 hours a day 7 days a week and with a family do.
Time to get a better paying job imo.
Anything beyond 40 hours/week isn't worth it. That's not called a life that's just working yourself to the bone just to get by. Good luck to ya.
You will learn that the people who want the 9 - 5 job will not make more than people who work more than 40 hours a week period. Them 9 to 5ers will complain that they are not making than 40K a year and how hard it is to live on 40K a year and why is someone in IT that works 24/7 getting double or triple they make. Fact its you think not working more than 40 is not worth it however it is for most people because that do and make a lot more than you have more in life than you do. Then people like you will envy.
How many of you actually read about the feature before posting your crap? this feature has nothing to do with casual or hardcore or money grabbing, it is simply a most wanted feature that players had been asking since classic days. if i have a 10 man group i can most definitely do 10 man raid but what if i have 12? then i will have to remove 2 players or keep looking for more until i can find someone which is about 15 mins and then kick 2 players from group to do 10 man. but this new feature will allow me to do any raid even if i have more than 10 players but less than current maximum 25, meaning i can do raid with 11 to 24 players and the difficulty of raid will go up with each player i invite to raid or go down with each leaver. it is as simple as that.
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
Originally posted by nerovipus32 Or maybe blizzard should stop putting all their focus into new raids and add something different to the game for a change.
You mean like farming, pet battles and Scenarios?
Yeah, Blizzard definitely didnt add anything new with MoP.
Originally posted by nerovipus32 Or maybe blizzard should stop putting all their focus into new raids and add something different to the game for a change.
You mean like farming, pet battles and Scenarios?
Yeah, Blizzard definitely didnt add anything new with MoP.
I think he meant some actual content. Pet battles, farmville and other mini-games you can play in facebook for free.
I cant prove numbers.... but i quit WoW because they got rid of 40 man difficult team oriented content.
I loved how painful AQ40 was. I loved getting my resist gear together. I loved running around in my pink robes in pvp and breaking out my old Anathama staff just to face melt despite its then lack luster dps... it was just cool to use.
I LOVED having to maintain my rank 13 status. I loved fighting TM and SS all day before the guards were given god mode.
I loved 12 hour AV's.
fuck casual WoW
edit: though i would have loved some minor scale to raids so on nights we had 48 people logged we could bring 48 people.
I call WoW out for things I don't like. So it's only fair that I give them credit for this feature. It's always a good thing when you give people more options on how they play.
So this is comparable to GW2 "event scaling", where the difficulty changes based on the number of participants? Sounds like a good idea to me so long as they're careful with their balancing. If the scale is off a bit it'll make certain numbers either too easy or too hard.
you cant balance a game that has gear inflation + trinity + wants to hook the full playe base - ie lowest common denominator. to balance all that you do one thing, you scale down the difficulty to the point where these factors are not an influence. Hence why the gear level is below raiding.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Making content easier and more accessible has not worked out well for WoW in terms of player retention.
Ever since Blizz shifted to this mindset of giving everyone a taste of the high-end content, the sub numbers have been moving in the wrong direction.
So by limiting the content in the game by just allowing the "hardcore, hey I put my time in" gamers, THAT would have kept the sub numbers where they were?
I play the game quite a bit but do not consider myself a "hardcore" gamer anymore. Real life has a way of doing that but I have put in my time since beta. So by your reasoning I shouldn't be allowed access to content because of that. You tell me how that keeps Blizzard from losing my money. Also, Blizzard gets my money, why should I not get access to everything I am paying for?
Considering that WoW has lost about 4 million subs since the end of WotLK, arguably the time that Blizz really started nerfing raid difficulty to appease players, I stand by my statement.
WoW was at it's peak in terms of popularity when not everyone could do raids and when earning an epic piece of gear actually meant something.
As soon as the entitlement mentality (which you clearly feel as stated in your post) started to become prevalent and Blizz started catering to it, sub numbers began dropping signifcantly. It's not me wanting to prevent you from seeing content, it's a simple fact in the timeline of WoW.
Have you heard of two things causality and correlation? I'm going to assume you haven't because you haven't learnt that correlation does not equal causality!
Yes since about the time cataclysm was released people have been leaving, and you could state a whole array of things as the reason for this, you could say that this was the first expansion where you could play worgen and goblins, however it is highly unlikely that this is the reason for people leaving. The same applies to blizzard 'nerfing raids', sure there's a correlation between them 'nerfing raids' and people leaving, however this doesn't mean that there is any causality there whatsoever. Personally I think the reason people have started leaving is much more simple; Wow is getting old and people are moving on.
Well Group versus large Groups. Imo the loot should be better the smaller the Group is,obviously since mobs are harder to kill in small Groups than large.
you can also say that wow is fundementally about raiding, and if millions are leaving then raiding is no longer keeping people hooked. Next measurements focus on the correlation between raiding format and retention.....
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Making content easier and more accessible has not worked out well for WoW in terms of player retention.
Ever since Blizz shifted to this mindset of giving everyone a taste of the high-end content, the sub numbers have been moving in the wrong direction.
So by limiting the content in the game by just allowing the "hardcore, hey I put my time in" gamers, THAT would have kept the sub numbers where they were?
I play the game quite a bit but do not consider myself a "hardcore" gamer anymore. Real life has a way of doing that but I have put in my time since beta. So by your reasoning I shouldn't be allowed access to content because of that. You tell me how that keeps Blizzard from losing my money. Also, Blizzard gets my money, why should I not get access to everything I am paying for?
Considering that WoW has lost about 4 million subs since the end of WotLK, arguably the time that Blizz really started nerfing raid difficulty to appease players, I stand by my statement.
WoW was at it's peak in terms of popularity when not everyone could do raids and when earning an epic piece of gear actually meant something.
As soon as the entitlement mentality (which you clearly feel as stated in your post) started to become prevalent and Blizz started catering to it, sub numbers began dropping signifcantly. It's not me wanting to prevent you from seeing content, it's a simple fact in the timeline of WoW.
Have you heard of two things causality and correlation? I'm going to assume you haven't because you haven't learnt that correlation does not equal causality!
Yes since about the time cataclysm was released people have been leaving, and you could state a whole array of things as the reason for this, you could say that this was the first expansion where you could play worgen and goblins, however it is highly unlikely that this is the reason for people leaving. The same applies to blizzard 'nerfing raids', sure there's a correlation between them 'nerfing raids' and people leaving, however this doesn't mean that there is any causality there whatsoever. Personally I think the reason people have started leaving is much more simple; Wow is getting old and people are moving on.
Its like saying everyone left Everquest because of the Dragons of Norrath expansion
It must be true, they had 500k after its release and less than 200k two years later!
Comments
This is a smart move, and maybe something we will see on a wider scale in other games (not that many games have this kind of feature yet)
As for WoW loosing players... Show me any game that is as old as WoW that have not lost players... The only one i can think of is Eve.. But they are sort of the exception to the norm. It is also worth noting that WoW might have lost players... In fact they have by now lost a amount of players equal to most other non-f2p games entire player base... And they are still not really hurting for players.
This have been a good conversation
Nerfing content is not even really on the list of why myself and many of my friends left wow.
The reasons why we left goes as follows.
#1 Age of the game - we all been playing since either Vanilla like myself or BC like a handful of others. The game just does not appeal to us anymore
#2 Every class is just like another * for example making my Pali Active defensive like the DK. If I wanted to play a DK I would. Druids in BC were good with hots, Palis single target healer, Priest with everything. Today one class is just as good as another
#3 LFR tool and LFG tool - Yes as a casual player today who once was a hardcore player the community side of WOW has gone to the shitter. People who once would put in a little effort into being apart of a guild today will sit there and tell you go use the LFG tools. Too many people become apart of the lobby game crowd that should have stayed in Diablo type games
#4 Reuses of the same old content. Not going to rehash this old deal
#5 making all the 5 man instances AOE friendly to no end. BC Normal instances were some what of a challenge and you could get gear from these instances to cobble together gear for raiding. Heroics were better to get gear from however it was not necessary so the gear treadmill was not as pronounced. People also had to learn to use CC and had to learn to work as a team. Today you dont like a person call them names and kick them no need for helping people
#6 the game has become a gear grind, yes WoW was always somewhat of a gear grind however in Vanilla and BC people cobbled together gear from instances vs todays path. Quest and leveling instances to get to normal end game instances to get to heroic instances to get into LFR, LFR for normals. And yea that treadmill is done and over with.
News & Features Discussion » World of Warcraft: Flexible Raids to Cater to Smaller Groups
well thats true.
expect another ~5 million people quitting this year.
do they all go to vanilla servers ?
So, did ESO have a successful launch? Yes, yes it did.By Ryan Getchell on April 02, 2014.
**On the radar: http://www.cyberpunk.net/ **
really wish they would just release a classic server of some sort. I want to play this game in the state that everyone speaks so highly of without going private
my thought exactly
Those that have a full time job 8 hours a day 7 days a week and with a family do.
I could just as easily claim that the decline of the economy is the cause of the decline.
Or that the decline in subs correlates with the accessibility to more free online games in general.
Or maybe it's due to the decline in gun homicide rates.
These are all CORRELATION, not causation. Picking and choosing the cause of something without proper data is just a poor and shallow argument.
If anything I would bet that the only reason they're retaining as many players as they are is due to the fact of making things more accessible, which has ALWAYS been their way.
Raids weren't challenging in Wrath....at all and with the introduction of the raid finder the only people that actually think that they got easier are those that never did the real raids because the raid finder gear was "good enough". You show, very easily, which group you fit into, and that's ok. The raids were always on par with everything they've released previously, if you actually did them. As already said, though, most didn't. They did raid finder because it was easier than waiting for a raid spot or they didn't have to coordinate it...or whatever the reason, and these fights were VERY tuned for the masses.
But...
Good talk.
Just because every car has similar features doesn't mean that Ferraris are copies of Model Ts. Progress requires failure and refining.
Time to get a better paying job imo.
Anything beyond 40 hours/week isn't worth it. That's not called a life that's just working yourself to the bone just to get by. Good luck to ya.
Just because every car has similar features doesn't mean that Ferraris are copies of Model Ts. Progress requires failure and refining.
I thought it would be pretty apparent why they have weekly lockouts..
If they gave players free reign to farm raids then they would be geared up in no time, Ready to unsubscribe. having a weekly lockout insures players then pay for another month.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
You will learn that the people who want the 9 - 5 job will not make more than people who work more than 40 hours a week period. Them 9 to 5ers will complain that they are not making than 40K a year and how hard it is to live on 40K a year and why is someone in IT that works 24/7 getting double or triple they make. Fact its you think not working more than 40 is not worth it however it is for most people because that do and make a lot more than you have more in life than you do. Then people like you will envy.
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
I don't give a damn about WoW, but this feature is something I've wanted for a long time.
Time for everyone else to step up.
Yeah, Blizzard definitely didnt add anything new with MoP.
I think he meant some actual content. Pet battles, farmville and other mini-games you can play in facebook for free.
I cant prove numbers.... but i quit WoW because they got rid of 40 man difficult team oriented content.
I loved how painful AQ40 was. I loved getting my resist gear together. I loved running around in my pink robes in pvp and breaking out my old Anathama staff just to face melt despite its then lack luster dps... it was just cool to use.
I LOVED having to maintain my rank 13 status. I loved fighting TM and SS all day before the guards were given god mode.
I loved 12 hour AV's.
fuck casual WoW
edit: though i would have loved some minor scale to raids so on nights we had 48 people logged we could bring 48 people.
Oderint, dum metuant.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
gameplay > graphics
Have you heard of two things causality and correlation? I'm going to assume you haven't because you haven't learnt that correlation does not equal causality!
Yes since about the time cataclysm was released people have been leaving, and you could state a whole array of things as the reason for this, you could say that this was the first expansion where you could play worgen and goblins, however it is highly unlikely that this is the reason for people leaving. The same applies to blizzard 'nerfing raids', sure there's a correlation between them 'nerfing raids' and people leaving, however this doesn't mean that there is any causality there whatsoever. Personally I think the reason people have started leaving is much more simple; Wow is getting old and people are moving on.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Its like saying everyone left Everquest because of the Dragons of Norrath expansion
It must be true, they had 500k after its release and less than 200k two years later!