Honestly, they have to be more feature-complete for Legion than they are saying. I know they've said, "it's in development" or "we're not sure" and I truly hope that's not the case. If Warlords goes on another, say, 10 months until the movie releases, it will be something from which the game will never recover.
But once again: I haven't cared much about finding out about the features and systems since Gamescom. I just want to know they're there and hearing the pleading of a community that is discouraged. Little things would go a long, long way.
I'm betting on January - March for beta and release in late March, early April. Later than that would be a huge mistake.
Tbh this is what I am afraid will happen. First Warcraft in cinemas, then 2-3 months later expansion pack. The alternative would be to release it this winter (as in Christmas for obvious reasons) but then there is not enough info to be certain if that's the case. Anyway probably it's gonna be the best to wait for Blizzcon. I'ts not this far away and it should provide us with more info on both film and expansion pack.
There is also a possibility of April, true. However it is like 6-7 months from now and it's not like in the past we didn't know pretty much everything to know about upcoming expansions in that time.
Or ofc what Blizzard already provided is everything that is to know but then for me atleast it's far from convincing to go back to WoW.
Also that whole talk of the "BIGGEST TEAM EVAR" wont show any results for atleast a year or two, thats how development works.
They were brought on almost 2 years ago, getting them trained was one of the excuses for why WoD took so long to put out. So by now they should all be up to speed and chugging along, the whole, "They need to get integrated and familiar!" excuse was already used years ago, it doesn't fly anymore.
As i wrote on one of the previous articles, if they release later than end of this year, they will again back down from an announcement, they said with warlord of draenor we would see yearly expansion release, they will back away from that statement.
They already confirmed it won't release this year, we'll only see beta this year.
I am not defending them at all, I just think that the reality of it is the bigger dev team wont lead to them doing anything any quicker, if anything it might mean more systems in the expansions (and occasional patch) but it wont speed things up.
I personally think they are simply banking on the churn of a new expansion and milking what they can out of those that stick around, I dont like the tactic but it is there.
Believe me, I am not defending it, I am simply trying to look for reasons as to why they are doing what they are doing.
If you want my thoughts on wow, it has not moved on with the times, Blizzard up until late in Panda land lived in a world where the usual rules of MMOs did not apply to them. But when they lost a lot of people due to a content drought they may have learned from it, but they have not applied that learning.
WOD was overhyped, maybe this expansion they are going for a more slow burning marketing campaign, maybe they will hit it out of the park. But while wow isnt dead, and is still the market leader its no longer the "undisputed champion" of mmo's
Blizzard wont change their approach now, Blizzcon will see a slew of information alongside pre-orders it will sell lots, subs will spike (though not as much as with WOD) then decline again and the cycle will repeat its self.
In terms of what they are doing to their own player base, they know (like we do) that they will see a surge with each XPAC.
Bottom line is this, they have found out they CAN do this, their player base will tolerate it, so they are putting their resources into expansions rather than content patches. Unfortunately, they are still slow at putting out their Xpacs.
They need to rethink their entire content pipeline for the game - their ambitions/changes to the game are too grand for their own good. Keeping things fresh is a great thing to strive for...but at the cost of significant downtime has been and will continue to be a mistake that needs to be corrected. Balance is key - they have yet to even remotely achieve it since the ICC patch.
Blizzard's going back their uncommunicative roots. Why tell people anything when they just whine about everything?
Sounds close to the same reason Lucas sold off the Star Wars franchise. Now did that mean the fans were assholes or he just had a shitty rapport with said fan base?
we know nothing about legion outside , that DH class is coming , weapons , the map of the expansion, oh and class specific hubs (lolrogues on sewers) and that they are reusing trees , houses , and mobs :P , the screenshots are "meh" ...same trees , same houses , same towers.... same mobs....
blizzcon needs to be a "bomb" with new and fun features ...that make it live of course, we all remember how hyped garrison were , how awesome "ashran" will be .... yeah....
These long term gaps in content are pretty ridiculous when your competition have far less resources and still churn out quality content at a much faster pace. I mean take a look at FFXIV and its patch cycle plus they provided a full expansion with 3 classes and a race this year.
Sub numbers are going to dive if its a 10 month wait.
I have my suspicions that Blizzard will unveil more information at BlizzCon.. I mean the whole purpose of ordering the online ticket and/or going there is to hear new and exciting information about Blizzard games.
That being said, I think they are withholding information due to the fanatical people that demand changes based on early builds. Look at all the drama that surrounded beta WoD players and the changing of cities.. dear sweet Elune that was something else.
I don't know why everyone is in a rush to get Legion... I mean, their track record as of late pretty much ensures a lack luster expansion that doesn't last nearly as long as the price paid for it.
Remember this... they really don't give a rats ass what anyone else is doing because they have a significant fanbase that will happily pay a subscription to log in and chat in trade chat for a couple of minutes. All those people demanding more content aren't their bread and butter, they are merely those bonus subscriptions that last all of a few months whenever new content gets released. You're short timers. The long timers are the ones that stick around because a new pink bunny outfit has been put on the online store for them to get for their virtual pet.
Really... why do you do this to yourselves... there hasn't been a decent expansion since WotLK. Why on earth would you expect them to magically pull a rabbit out of their ass this time?
And this is why they continue to lose subs. They announce an expansion, then release an expansion for full retail price of a base game. People finally got tired of being burned by them, so subs dropped drastically within a quarter of WoD's launch. Legion will be the same old thing, with sparse updates and one major content update. No thanks, there's plenty of other things to do.
I never insinuated that I wanted to know everything. What I said, and what the gist of the article was, is that Blizzard has lost momentum and, frankly, the interest of many people. As @mnemic666 said, for $15/month, it would be nice to see snippets of information, a willingness to talk to the community or even a screenshot or two. That's not asking much.
so the community, according to you, just wants to hear the information. Not debate it or complain about it?
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
And this is why they continue to lose subs. They announce an expansion, then release an expansion for full retail price of a base game. People finally got tired of being burned by them, so subs dropped drastically within a quarter of WoD's launch. Legion will be the same old thing, with sparse updates and one major content update. No thanks, there's plenty of other things to do.
An alternative explanation for why subs have dropped is that WoW is over a decade old.
After vanilla there was a major content patch every 2 months for 2 years (12 patches). AND then they released BC.
Fast forward. From 5.4 to 6.2 was 20 or 21 months (the pre-WoD patch was system stuff, WoD was paid and as for selfie 6.1 even Blizzard said it wasn't). And what people got was, as Pepeq says, lacklustre in unexpected ways; bugs for example.
As for Legion being more feature complete than WoD - doesn't fit with their aim of "annual (by inference smaller) annual expansions with a single patch. Having to add flying - to WoD and Legion - may have hurt that timescale thouh.
SBFord's suggestion though is that they need to release some info to maintain interest; advertising basically.
However in one sense I think it is "to late"; we won't know until November - and we will need to look at both the subscriber number and the net revenue figure I suggest (due to tokens). How bleak will it be; EU looks very bleak but US seems to be in decline as well.
I think they announced it to slow/stop the exiting players. Now I believe they are reworking it to remove things that the fans hated (garrisons/shipyard, etc.) and maybe put some things back in that people liked. If not then 6 months after legion we could see pops down to 1 million or less.
I think they released it early because it was just before their quarterly results meeting with investors.
"it can be noted that the numbers are based on 2.1M players that have logged in since August 1st. That’s less than half of the published 5.6M subscribers listed in early August"
It can also be noted that the 5.6M is a global number whereas that 2.1M is probably only a US/EU one.
Which would still make it the #1 MMORPG of all time in those regions, 10 years old or not.
As far as I'm concerned with Legion, they can release it in 3 weeks, 3 months or 3 years - I couldn't care less. And they can be mum on Legion as long as they like: after all the bullshit they sold us on at Blizzcon 2013 about WoD, I don't believe a single word they say these days.
Blizzard, as a company, has lost its way. It used to be Legendary. It became a dynasty by knowing what we wanted to buy before we wanted it - now it's just another EA, pushing whatever crap will make them the fastest, guaranteed buck. Whether it's humping the back of Magic the Gathering, League of Legends, Team Fortress 2 or just rehashing Starcraft with better graphics and dumbed down versions of Diablo II, I've been officially off the fanboy train for 6 months.
Regardless, no matter what, I'll always be thankful for the 20-25+ years of awesome gaming, when Blizzard was truly a special company - it's sad to see them in the state they are, but hopefully, it'll pave the room for the next Generation of gaming companies to blow us away with stuff never before conceived of.
This feel like a rather aggressive post from MMORPG's side.
"Speaking of MMO-Champion - it says a lot when a site dedicated to World of Warcraft has so much nothing to report about its centerpiece game that both WildStar and Guild Wars 2 take top billing in the news"
Well that's the latest news, so it's normal to be on top. I'm not sure if you are aware, but while mmo-champion is mostly focused on WoW they do note important news like when other notable MMORPG's are coming out or are having some major update.
Also it's kinda strange how MMORPG is having this aggressive stance against a developer such as Blizzard which over the years has proven to be among the best, yet hasn't even written a single article on how Daybreak Games scams people constantly. I'm sure that you are aware that DBG have been banning people in h1z1 for no reason A LOT and they never neither give a reason nor proof. 7 friends of mine were banned(out of 10 that bought the game) for no reason. Most of them had like 1 hour of playtime. Thankfully I dodged the bullet by not bothering with alpha/beta games anymore. At least not with games that sell "founders packs".
And this is why they continue to lose subs. They announce an expansion, then release an expansion for full retail price of a base game. People finally got tired of being burned by them, so subs dropped drastically within a quarter of WoD's launch. Legion will be the same old thing, with sparse updates and one major content update. No thanks, there's plenty of other things to do.
An alternative explanation for why subs have dropped is that WoW is over a decade old.
That surely is part of it but keeping 10 mil after 10 years and then losing half of them in 6 months means there is something more going on. I think it have more to do with the fact that WoD sucked.
Legion needs to be very good if they want to still have the largest MMO. There are several games a bit below that want the position.
I think Blizzard is always doing a good job. They have the most successful IP in WoW of all time, their other games - Starcraft II, Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone are winners and widely attended tournaments. I for one, did take a few months off my subscription earlier this year after 10 years of playing....but recently renewed again. If you pay 6 months at a time, the sub is only $12.99 per month, even at $15, its still good entertainment value when you compare it to other forms of entertainment that people will throw money at.
Why the big deal of having to know what's next. It's like the younger generations have absolutely no patience. Everything has to happen yesterday. "I want it now" mentality. Blizzcon isn't that far off and we will know lots more at that time. So sit back, grab a favorite beverage and chill. Legions will be here when its ready. I like Blizzard because they take their time and release products when they are really ready. I wish all developers would take this same attitude with their games.
I mean look at pathetic games like Pathfinder Online...they are charging people to play in Alpha??!! Too many games have been shipped with tons of bugs and little apologies. Blizzard is a first class AAA company and they have my utmost respect for the hours of fun they have given us, all of these years.
I may be wrong in this assumption but given all the info we have I still think launch is much closer than everyone is saying, if Blizzard really wants to bring the customers back in, and their subs up, they won't wait. Players there aren't going to be happy with playing WoD much longer. I think they will announce a late December launch, maybe late January.
Universal has already pegged the movie as a problem child for them marketing wise, I really doubt they will try and use the movie to coincide with Legion launch, both will flop if they do that. As players won't want to wait, word of mouth will spread, and wow will be worse off than it is now. I have a feeling there will be Legion launch first in the next few months, then Blizzard will do something like a promotional movie ticket, where movie goers get some sort of code to redeem for in game swag. This seems much more likely to me with the current time line.
And this is why they continue to lose subs. They announce an expansion, then release an expansion for full retail price of a base game. People finally got tired of being burned by them, so subs dropped drastically within a quarter of WoD's launch. Legion will be the same old thing, with sparse updates and one major content update. No thanks, there's plenty of other things to do.
An alternative explanation for why subs have dropped is that WoW is over a decade old.
That surely is part of it but keeping 10 mil after 10 years and then losing half of them in 6 months means there is something more going on. I think it have more to do with the fact that WoD sucked.
Legion needs to be very good if they want to still have the largest MMO. There are several games a bit below that want the position.
WoW did not lose half it's subscribers in 6 months.
WoW has been in a slow decline since 2011 since shortly after the release of Cataclysm.
WoW had bumps with the releases of MoP and WoD but any MMO is going to have a bump with the release of an expansion.
A slow decline over the course of years would suggest that WoW is losing subscribers to attrition and not some other reason such as the quality of WoD like you suggest.
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Blizzard are diverting capital and resource from Wow into Overwatch. Developers get faster at what they do over time not slower - its pretty obvious what's going on and how blizzard don't give a crap about their loyal wow player base. Blizzard do what every shitty corp does, they think about their customers as statistics, in this case in sure they delude themeselves that Overwatch is for the wow players by virtue of the fact they play blizzard products.
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WoW did not lose half it's subscribers in 6 months.
WoW has been in a slow decline since 2011 since shortly after the release of Cataclysm.
WoW had bumps with the releases of MoP and WoD but any MMO is going to have a bump with the release of an expansion.
A slow decline over the course of years would suggest that WoW is losing subscribers to attrition and not some other reason such as the quality of WoD like you suggest.
Not half just 44%. Decline since 2011 - correct. Bumps - absolutely; called a product life cycle. Slow decline?
Subs post-WoD subs have "gone off a cliff" - even stripping out the WoD bump. Which is also consistent with product life cycles; at a certain age a product's decline goes from slow to fast. OK there is a chance that this us just a "bigger than normal dip" - but the "omens" suggest that November will see another "big" dip.
Which I attribute to Blizzard - for all intents and purposes - stopping content patches. All that time after 5.4 with no new content gave people all the time they needed to do everything they wanted; so after WoD no reason to stick around.
WoW did not lose half it's subscribers in 6 months.
WoW has been in a slow decline since 2011 since shortly after the release of Cataclysm.
WoW had bumps with the releases of MoP and WoD but any MMO is going to have a bump with the release of an expansion.
A slow decline over the course of years would suggest that WoW is losing subscribers to attrition and not some other reason such as the quality of WoD like you suggest.
Not half just 44%. Decline since 2011 - correct. Bumps - absolutely; called a product life cycle. Slow decline?
Subs post-WoD subs have "gone off a cliff" - even stripping out the WoD bump. Which is also consistent with product life cycles; at a certain age a product's decline goes from slow to fast. OK there is a chance that this us just a "bigger than normal dip" - but the "omens" suggest that November will see another "big" dip.
Which I attribute to Blizzard - for all intents and purposes - stopping content patches. All that time after 5.4 with no new content gave people all the time they needed to do everything they wanted; so after WoD no reason to stick around.
Yeah, 50% was rounding things up but it went from 10M to 5.6M in 2 quarters. If that isn't a reason for worry if you are a publisher I don't know what is.
And yes, any expansion would give a bump up but those bumps have been smaller the last 2 expansions.
I think the problem really is that they changed a lot of the focus on the gameplay itself by adding stuff like garrisons and shipyards. A few people do like that kind of gameplay but not a single one of my friends does, and in fact are most of them not playing at all at the moment, the only one of them who does is the leader of a raid guild and he isn't the type who enjoy stuff like that but is still very addictedto raiding.
Blizzard should put back the focus on PvE; open world, dungeons and raids instead. Some people enjoy crafting, PvP, garrisons and pet battles but the majority of Wows players have always been the PvEers.
I had the feeling that Activision used Wow as a milk cow and put less work into expansions the last few years. They also did move Kaplan to Titan which is clearly cancelled, they should if possible (he could have asked for it since he was tired of the game of course) get him back at the helm.
I just think Wows players deserve a really good expansion. Another WoD and the players could drop down enough to be beaten by someone else (like Eso, GW2, TOR or FF XIV who all really want to be number one*).
Comments
There is also a possibility of April, true. However it is like 6-7 months from now and it's not like in the past we didn't know pretty much everything to know about upcoming expansions in that time.
Or ofc what Blizzard already provided is everything that is to know but then for me atleast it's far from convincing to go back to WoW.
I am not defending them at all, I just think that the reality of it is the bigger dev team wont lead to them doing anything any quicker, if anything it might mean more systems in the expansions (and occasional patch) but it wont speed things up.
I personally think they are simply banking on the churn of a new expansion and milking what they can out of those that stick around, I dont like the tactic but it is there.
Believe me, I am not defending it, I am simply trying to look for reasons as to why they are doing what they are doing.
If you want my thoughts on wow, it has not moved on with the times, Blizzard up until late in Panda land lived in a world where the usual rules of MMOs did not apply to them. But when they lost a lot of people due to a content drought they may have learned from it, but they have not applied that learning.
WOD was overhyped, maybe this expansion they are going for a more slow burning marketing campaign, maybe they will hit it out of the park. But while wow isnt dead, and is still the market leader its no longer the "undisputed champion" of mmo's
Blizzard wont change their approach now, Blizzcon will see a slew of information alongside pre-orders it will sell lots, subs will spike (though not as much as with WOD) then decline again and the cycle will repeat its self.
In terms of what they are doing to their own player base, they know (like we do) that they will see a surge with each XPAC.
Bottom line is this, they have found out they CAN do this, their player base will tolerate it, so they are putting their resources into expansions rather than content patches. Unfortunately, they are still slow at putting out their Xpacs.
Well, the fans were/are assholes.
blizzcon needs to be a "bomb" with new and fun features ...that make it live of course, we all remember how hyped garrison were , how awesome "ashran" will be .... yeah....
Remember this... they really don't give a rats ass what anyone else is doing because they have a significant fanbase that will happily pay a subscription to log in and chat in trade chat for a couple of minutes. All those people demanding more content aren't their bread and butter, they are merely those bonus subscriptions that last all of a few months whenever new content gets released. You're short timers. The long timers are the ones that stick around because a new pink bunny outfit has been put on the online store for them to get for their virtual pet.
Really... why do you do this to yourselves... there hasn't been a decent expansion since WotLK. Why on earth would you expect them to magically pull a rabbit out of their ass this time?
so the community, according to you, just wants to hear the information. Not debate it or complain about it?
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Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Legion needs to be very good if they want to still have the largest MMO. There are several games a bit below that want the position.
Universal has already pegged the movie as a problem child for them marketing wise, I really doubt they will try and use the movie to coincide with Legion launch, both will flop if they do that. As players won't want to wait, word of mouth will spread, and wow will be worse off than it is now. I have a feeling there will be Legion launch first in the next few months, then Blizzard will do something like a promotional movie ticket, where movie goers get some sort of code to redeem for in game swag. This seems much more likely to me with the current time line.
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Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
And yes, any expansion would give a bump up but those bumps have been smaller the last 2 expansions.
I think the problem really is that they changed a lot of the focus on the gameplay itself by adding stuff like garrisons and shipyards. A few people do like that kind of gameplay but not a single one of my friends does, and in fact are most of them not playing at all at the moment, the only one of them who does is the leader of a raid guild and he isn't the type who enjoy stuff like that but is still very addictedto raiding.
Blizzard should put back the focus on PvE; open world, dungeons and raids instead. Some people enjoy crafting, PvP, garrisons and pet battles but the majority of Wows players have always been the PvEers.
I had the feeling that Activision used Wow as a milk cow and put less work into expansions the last few years. They also did move Kaplan to Titan which is clearly cancelled, they should if possible (he could have asked for it since he was tired of the game of course) get him back at the helm.
I just think Wows players deserve a really good expansion. Another WoD and the players could drop down enough to be beaten by someone else (like Eso, GW2, TOR or FF XIV who all really want to be number one*).