Originally posted by Adoni I've quit and came back to this game so many times, I am hoping I can stick to my guns and the next exp pack is the one I don't get.
Left in MoP, planned on coming back for the end of the expack. Nothing got me excited at all, came back for a free week, did everything I wanted to easily within that 1 week, which further convinced me that I wasn't coming back.
When they announced WoD initially I was excited, the more I heard the more disappointed I got. While I had initially planned on buying it, when the price was announced I was pretty put off by the whole less content for money pitch. Considering how little content there is I couldn't come to terms with getting ripped off like that. Even with the 50% off they are running when you add in the subscription, sub + box isn't worth the tiny bit of content. If the box came with a free month, at 50% off I'd probably come back because the value proposition would be worth it.(for me)
If they wanted to show people they aren't just all about the money, WoD was the perfect time to do that. They could have said
" the expack has taken longer to release than we like, so anyone who stayed subscribed will get the expack for free, as we believe you have more than paid for it with your loyal continued subscription."
They would have still gotten tons of free $(considering monthly subs easily paid for the expack development during the no content stretch) from all the people who bailed in the interim.
As many said here, Blizzard isnt about making a solid game anymore, its all about the $$ which is fine..they are a company and $$ is what they need but quality brings $$ which has worked for them for years until recently. They have lost/changes their strategy and dont seem to care anymore about the game or players which is unfortunate.
FFXIV however is all about the players and the game, they are producing high quality patches and quickly...all without a public test realm. Yoshi, the producer/director is clearly focused on this game and making it the best out there. 15 years of MMO gaming and this is now my favorite of everyone I have played. FFXIV has great graphics, music, story and raid content. Id suggest to anyone tired of WOW and their current direction to try FFXIV.
Nice plug. FFXIV is a sleep inducing game at best, couldn t stomach it for more then 2 weeks. I don t necessarily suggest WoW, FFXIV I don t either.
FFXIV certainly has some issues, but no one is in better position tot take advantage of the decline of WoW.
Interesting how Western developers spent the last 10 years almost exclusively copying WoW in the hopes of killing WoW and taking its place but as WoW starts to decline it is an Asian developer that is in the best position to cash in on it.
Used to be, for me at least, up to and including Wrath of the Lich King, I would occasionally unsub when I hit cap and ran out of the things I liked to do, mostly quest and explore. I would resub when they would have a major patch, play with the new shiny stuff for awhile, probably roll a new alt and take him to cap and then unsub again. That would usually net me about 1 to 3 months of WoW playing time.
Fast forward to today and I resub for the new patches and unsub within a week. Playing alts isn't fun anymore thanks to homegenized class system changes and most new content is raid based which I just don't persue due to time and not liking pushy people. So...yeah, to me, it's an obvious steady decline from Blizzard on quality and quantity with WoW.
People seem to forget what an MMORPG is supposed to be. Specially the Massive Multiplayer part. Wow has become something similar to an Online ARPG game. The only difference is that you can't solo 100% of the content, unlike in Diablo 3 for example.
I can't see anything that makes me think WoW is an MMO. And not only just for WoD, but MoP and Cataclysm also. Do you guys really consider MMO gaming doing a 20-man raid? Do you think how the Garrison works is something that an MMO needs?
WoW has become what casual players have always asked for. I still remember all those posts regarding Vanilla/TBC where people kept complaining of "how many hours you need to invest to be competitive" and so on. CONGRATULATIONS! Now you can be competitive by playing 15 minutes/day! That's exactly what you asked for!
Not enjoying the game anymore? Feeling you have nothing to do? Bored most part of the contest is some useless copy of Pókemon? It's YOUR OWN FAULT for not knowing what you really want. Blizzard served what casual players asked: a game in which you don't need to spend 8 hours a day to be able to do all the content, a game where there is a sh**ton of content (most of it being optional, of course, so that people are not obliged to play for more than 20 minutes) a game where you can easily get to the top if you give a little effort. Don't blame them for hearing you.
I've been playing FFXIV for a while now. FFXIV is neither an MMORPG for me, but since you can't find MMOs anymore, I'd be playing some good Multiplayer Online Action Role Playing Game that is focused on being that genre, than playing some sort of game that tries to be something it isn't.
And you know what? I'd be totally fine with that (online arpg) . The problem is lack of deep character customization and choice. They have a beautiful world but encourage you to explore the latest content only. Throw love on the old zones, make lore based quests, and let the players make their own fun.
I don't know why they don't re-invest in what they have.
FFXIV is definitely doing things right. WoW is not. Both are great games, WoW is probably more fun to actually PLAY, but FFXIV is now better in anything PvE/Crafting-wise. PvP is still WoW, but they are quickly mucking that up with each expansion.
And for some reason I don't like FFXIV and I'm subbed. I'm open to it being me not playing long enough (I haven't gotten past level 7 or 8). I can't deal with the strict multi classing. I like being an archer but to become bard I have to level a dragoon or whatever? I don't want to waste my time doing that. I'd much prefer to be able to select the class I want.
Had a blast the other day with my woman trying the new raids. We have every other popular MMO downloaded, and I7 huge gpu/psu computers, and WoW is underrated in every way... Blizzard could do better, yes, but so could every other game company... Final Fantasy, where's the english voice? Where's the friend quest system? Why can't I jump off this ledge? Fake backround? Looking forward to WoW movie, WoW VR, Warcraft 4, & WoW's next expansion...
I played vanilla wow for like a year or a few months before TBC came out, wasnt into raiding attunement was shit. Loved world pvp, world bosses, and dungeons. Came back for 2 days for cata, hated it. Came back for MoP, stayed for 6 months read up on some of the content i missed and loved the lore and story of pandaria, garrosh fall, and the old gods. Came back for WoD after seeing the intro cinematic after it already launched, kind of liked the story but got confused by its pacing since to actually get the story in a linear matter i was doing quests that gave no xp (this is with no bonuses at all and never setting foot in a dungeon, pure questing put me out of lvl with the quests)
Garrisons were already a dumb idea i was supposed to be grinding stuff in isolation, the farm was bad enough but on there It took me about 1 min to plant the seeds and do the mini games for any weeds and I was back to interacting at the shrine. Garrisons I was grinding all over it except i was looking at mostly menus. Mission menus, crafting que menus, etc. At least with the farm I was actually during interactive game play.
I would probably play wow today except for cool things that were april fool jokes (2 player character of the two headed ogres) became real life fool jokes twitter integration/selfie cams asMAJOR features? Twitter integration does nothing except for streamers and wtf a selfie cam? Screenshot is too mainstream we need a selfie cam? I hope they move away from this shit time travel'/alternate universe crap so I can appreciate the old lore/new lore in game and rely less on nobble for my wow fix.
Originally posted by Wicasa Had a blast the other day with my woman trying the new raids. We have every other popular MMO downloaded, and I7 huge gpu/psu computers, and WoW is underrated in every way... Blizzard could do better, yes, but so could every other game company... Final Fantasy, where's the english voice? Where's the friend quest system? Why can't I jump off this ledge? Fake backround? Looking forward to WoW movie, WoW VR, Warcraft 4, & WoW's next expansion...
Interesting that you mention that considering the FFXIV expansion likely has far more English voice acting than WoD.
I prefer having great expansion every 2 or 3 years then to have another WOD. Wotlk is still my best expansion, closely followed (and surpassing in some ways) by MOP. But there were NO bad expansions. Still fact is after MOP I had full set of 22 alts. I have enjoyed a lot WOD then completely lost interest to login back after barely 1 month instead of usual 6-7 with any new expansion. As it looks now I will never ever have again 22 alts. Starting with Wod they got only for 1 month sub money from me. Between expansions of i.e. 2 years, they would receiving for 1 year. 12 times more. It could be my current 5-6 maxed out alts will be only one to continue path with new expansions. And have leveled all this alts in this 1 month. Usually in half year I have developed exclusively via questing about 10-11. This spells to me there are significantly less quests in WoD or they have increased XP gain disproportionately. To me after all this years Wow is no longer my No1 game. Fortunately Swtor is still fun as hell and have been playing after Wod for about half year, now soon now expansion coming, in mean time Gw2. Once i was dreaming about returning to play Wow :-), not any longer. It barely crosses my mind now from time to time.
Sooo it's now July. If they want to keep their fans from getting bored, they will have to release in December. This means a yearly update. Is activison turning WoW into CoD with yearly releases? Paying £10 a month, £120 a year + £40 for an expansion = £160 a year. This does sound like a trend that activison would be behind.
Sooo it's now July. If they want to keep their fans from getting bored, they will have to release in December. This means a yearly update. Is activison turning WoW into CoD with yearly releases? Paying £10 a month, £120 a year + £40 for an expansion = £160 a year. This does sound like a trend that activison would be behind.
Create 2 less patches per expansion and instead use the dev time to crest an expansion so now customers pay for those patches. I don't think that's what customers meant by faster expansions - they wanted more content. blizz/activision have went too far this time I suspect, we could see a collapse of subs and move to FTP in the next year and a half I think.
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
release WoD , do nothing for months....release a Twitter and selfiepatch with lot of hotfixes because expansion sucks and is bugged
months after release a pice of land with dailies quests , and the final raid
go on vacation because its summer time !!! and laugh at your playerbase from that tropical island
FFXIV
release HW , that adds flying mounts
not even patch .1 , we are atm at 3.01 and alexander normal has been released (is the LFR of alexander)
in 2 weeks alexander raid mode , with esoterics sets (valor gear )
in 3.1 we for sure get another primal ,Main story chain of quests, 2 dungeons , relic weapon quest and the "crystal tower for 3.0" (24 man raid ) with its own Main story, crafting ,oh and minions , set of gear for that new dungeons and whatever SE adds because they usually adds something more.
i feel sorry for WoW fans...they are treated like garbage.
Originally posted by donger56 Why should they even care? The same 3-4 million sheep that came back for WoD will come back for the next one too. They have no competition. What Blade and Soul and Black Desert? More Asian F2P grindtastic junk that always flops in the west. Everquest Next? LOL vapoware. The shitfest of 3rd rate kickstarter games? None of that is any concern to them plus they have Overwatch in the works too. Unless someone steps up to actually challenge the status quo, Blizzard can just keep marching along in mediocrity for the next few years. I don't see anyone even trying to make something different and innovative.
All those MMOs add up though. It doesn't have to be a single MMO to give them competition. They are also competing with mobas.
Eventually enough pieces will have been chipped away from WoW, and they'll announce their change to F2P and it'll start all over again. That is, if their greedy minds can be stopped from going too far.
This may have already been covered, but I give credence to the line of though that Blizzard doesn't need WoW anymore. Smaller games that are cheaper to make are what they want to do. Like The MOBA and card games. Titan was canned, WoW's last two xpacs feel like a ripoff, bare minimum acceptable content patches in between xpacs...I mean, someone tell me I'm wrong. If there's a place that will, it is this site.
But I will add that like most users on this site you telling me I am wrong will probably not change my mind. :-)
Well .... nothing wrong with the premise that for the future "are Blizzard moving to make smaller cheaper games"
However for the "now" from a revenue point of view (and by inference profit) WoW is a huge chunk of Activision Blizzard. The numbers and percentages vary by quarter but in their last results
Blizzard's accounted for over half of Activision Blizzard's revenue (down from previous quarter)
WoW accounted for 77% of Blizzard's revenue (up from previous quarter)
So WoW - last quarter - was about 40% of Activision Blizzard's revenue
As I said it varies by quarter - depending what big launches are taking place etc. - but I reckon that c. 40% is none trivial.
Quit worrying about the timing of your new releases and try focussing on the quality. It was not the timing that killed 6.1 and 6.2 it was the lack of any inspiration by your designers.
As many said here, Blizzard isnt about making a solid game anymore, its all about the $$ which is fine..they are a company and $$ is what they need but quality brings $$ which has worked for them for years until recently. They have lost/changes their strategy and dont seem to care anymore about the game or players which is unfortunate.
FFXIV however is all about the players and the game, they are producing high quality patches and quickly...all without a public test realm. Yoshi, the producer/director is clearly focused on this game and making it the best out there. 15 years of MMO gaming and this is now my favorite of everyone I have played. FFXIV has great graphics, music, story and raid content. Id suggest to anyone tired of WOW and their current direction to try FFXIV.
Nice plug. FFXIV is a sleep inducing game at best, couldn t stomach it for more then 2 weeks. I don t necessarily suggest WoW, FFXIV I don t either.
FFXIV certainly has some issues, but no one is in better position tot take advantage of the decline of WoW.
Interesting how Western developers spent the last 10 years almost exclusively copying WoW in the hopes of killing WoW and taking its place but as WoW starts to decline it is an Asian developer that is in the best position to cash in on it.
FFXIV is a decent game but nowhere near what WoW has been. and it's anime styled graphics will probably not appeal to as many people either.
wow will not be releaseing another expantion they have allready anounced wow 2 and said 100 will be the max lvl for good wow died over 5 years ago with cata after they took all the good class skills away they lost 50% of the player base wow now only has 2million subscribers down from the 10 million they had over 6 years ago and final fantasy XIV needs to update its graphics more or it will also die out just like FFXI it died within 3 months do to there constent fails on launch days with all the good games like blade and soul echo of souls and new games with far better graphics comeing out even in 3d no subscriber online game will last anymore none of them are good enough
New expansion will certainly come, as as a lot of people said, it will be announced or released close to their competition. Who would be that competition be, according to Blizzard, I don't know. My guess would be GW2 HoT or even Wildstar F2P. But, who knows.
The real question is, what could they possibly offer in this new xpac, so that people who left for good during WoTLK/Cata or unsubbed during WoD, would be willing to come back?
WoD is a joke of an expansion, most expensive to date with the least ammount of content.
6.1 patch brought us Twitter integration and selfies, you have 1 dev saying it wasn't a major patch then a week later another saying it was.
Then 6.2 brought HFC which apparently is decent and what's touted as a new zone that should've been in at launch oh yeah and timewalking great I can go do some dungeons that i did nearly a decade ago, great.
The game has been going downhill since the end of WoTLK and people who think it's going to miraculously change in the next expansion I think are in for a rude awakening, how can they make the next expansion with more content when they said they wanna push out expansions faster?
Comments
Left in MoP, planned on coming back for the end of the expack. Nothing got me excited at all, came back for a free week, did everything I wanted to easily within that 1 week, which further convinced me that I wasn't coming back.
When they announced WoD initially I was excited, the more I heard the more disappointed I got. While I had initially planned on buying it, when the price was announced I was pretty put off by the whole less content for money pitch. Considering how little content there is I couldn't come to terms with getting ripped off like that. Even with the 50% off they are running when you add in the subscription, sub + box isn't worth the tiny bit of content. If the box came with a free month, at 50% off I'd probably come back because the value proposition would be worth it.(for me)
If they wanted to show people they aren't just all about the money, WoD was the perfect time to do that. They could have said
" the expack has taken longer to release than we like, so anyone who stayed subscribed will get the expack for free, as we believe you have more than paid for it with your loyal continued subscription."
They would have still gotten tons of free $(considering monthly subs easily paid for the expack development during the no content stretch) from all the people who bailed in the interim.
FFXIV certainly has some issues, but no one is in better position tot take advantage of the decline of WoW.
Interesting how Western developers spent the last 10 years almost exclusively copying WoW in the hopes of killing WoW and taking its place but as WoW starts to decline it is an Asian developer that is in the best position to cash in on it.
GW2 HoT... And SWTOR...
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Used to be, for me at least, up to and including Wrath of the Lich King, I would occasionally unsub when I hit cap and ran out of the things I liked to do, mostly quest and explore. I would resub when they would have a major patch, play with the new shiny stuff for awhile, probably roll a new alt and take him to cap and then unsub again. That would usually net me about 1 to 3 months of WoW playing time.
Fast forward to today and I resub for the new patches and unsub within a week. Playing alts isn't fun anymore thanks to homegenized class system changes and most new content is raid based which I just don't persue due to time and not liking pushy people. So...yeah, to me, it's an obvious steady decline from Blizzard on quality and quantity with WoW.
And you know what? I'd be totally fine with that (online arpg) . The problem is lack of deep character customization and choice. They have a beautiful world but encourage you to explore the latest content only. Throw love on the old zones, make lore based quests, and let the players make their own fun.
I don't know why they don't re-invest in what they have.
And for some reason I don't like FFXIV and I'm subbed. I'm open to it being me not playing long enough (I haven't gotten past level 7 or 8). I can't deal with the strict multi classing. I like being an archer but to become bard I have to level a dragoon or whatever? I don't want to waste my time doing that. I'd much prefer to be able to select the class I want.
I played vanilla wow for like a year or a few months before TBC came out, wasnt into raiding attunement was shit. Loved world pvp, world bosses, and dungeons. Came back for 2 days for cata, hated it. Came back for MoP, stayed for 6 months read up on some of the content i missed and loved the lore and story of pandaria, garrosh fall, and the old gods. Came back for WoD after seeing the intro cinematic after it already launched, kind of liked the story but got confused by its pacing since to actually get the story in a linear matter i was doing quests that gave no xp (this is with no bonuses at all and never setting foot in a dungeon, pure questing put me out of lvl with the quests)
Garrisons were already a dumb idea i was supposed to be grinding stuff in isolation, the farm was bad enough but on there It took me about 1 min to plant the seeds and do the mini games for any weeds and I was back to interacting at the shrine. Garrisons I was grinding all over it except i was looking at mostly menus. Mission menus, crafting que menus, etc. At least with the farm I was actually during interactive game play.
I would probably play wow today except for cool things that were april fool jokes (2 player character of the two headed ogres) became real life fool jokes twitter integration/selfie cams asMAJOR features? Twitter integration does nothing except for streamers and wtf a selfie cam? Screenshot is too mainstream we need a selfie cam? I hope they move away from this shit time travel'/alternate universe crap so I can appreciate the old lore/new lore in game and rely less on nobble for my wow fix.
Interesting that you mention that considering the FFXIV expansion likely has far more English voice acting than WoD.
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
what?????? are u kidding me?
release WoD , do nothing for months....release a Twitter and selfiepatch with lot of hotfixes because expansion sucks and is bugged
months after release a pice of land with dailies quests , and the final raid
go on vacation because its summer time !!! and laugh at your playerbase from that tropical island
FFXIV
release HW , that adds flying mounts
not even patch .1 , we are atm at 3.01 and alexander normal has been released (is the LFR of alexander)
in 2 weeks alexander raid mode , with esoterics sets (valor gear )
in 3.1 we for sure get another primal ,Main story chain of quests, 2 dungeons , relic weapon quest and the "crystal tower for 3.0" (24 man raid ) with its own Main story, crafting ,oh and minions , set of gear for that new dungeons and whatever SE adds because they usually adds something more.
i feel sorry for WoW fans...they are treated like garbage.
To me 1 disappointing expansion is forgivable.
The next one is sink or swim time and I look forward to seeing what they'll do.
All those MMOs add up though. It doesn't have to be a single MMO to give them competition. They are also competing with mobas.
Well .... nothing wrong with the premise that for the future "are Blizzard moving to make smaller cheaper games"
However for the "now" from a revenue point of view (and by inference profit) WoW is a huge chunk of Activision Blizzard. The numbers and percentages vary by quarter but in their last results
FFXIV is a decent game but nowhere near what WoW has been. and it's anime styled graphics will probably not appeal to as many people either.
I had fun once, it was terrible.
Demon King
New expansion will certainly come, as as a lot of people said, it will be announced or released close to their competition. Who would be that competition be, according to Blizzard, I don't know. My guess would be GW2 HoT or even Wildstar F2P. But, who knows.
The real question is, what could they possibly offer in this new xpac, so that people who left for good during WoTLK/Cata or unsubbed during WoD, would be willing to come back?
WoD is a joke of an expansion, most expensive to date with the least ammount of content.
6.1 patch brought us Twitter integration and selfies, you have 1 dev saying it wasn't a major patch then a week later another saying it was.
Then 6.2 brought HFC which apparently is decent and what's touted as a new zone that should've been in at launch oh yeah and timewalking great I can go do some dungeons that i did nearly a decade ago, great.
The game has been going downhill since the end of WoTLK and people who think it's going to miraculously change in the next expansion I think are in for a rude awakening, how can they make the next expansion with more content when they said they wanna push out expansions faster?