I think my account had bad RNG attached to it at creation.... Nothing ever drops for me, or if it does, it drops multiple times Hello Arathi Donkey Mount.
Hello World Boss gold drops...coins well spent...
The Headless Horseman mount will allude me for another year...... and another.....and another...
I see lots of peeps unhappy with Allied Races being locked behind grind of any kind. I'm not sure how I feel about it as I've kept up with it as they've been introduced so the 'grind wasn't that bad,' but IDK how I'd feel if I had to go back and grind old content for weeks to get it. I'm sure it would feel like busy work.
Personally, I think the game is completely dead and has taken this long for people to smell the festering corpse. Simply put, we have all invested so much time into this franchise, we all want it to do well, but we also refused (and some continue to refuse) to see that the writing is on the wall.
Interestingly, it was brought to my attention that the Activision-Blizzard merger began to occur halfway through the development of WotLK and the timing is peculiar because the following expansion, Cata, was where the highest overall (12 million) subs were recorded, but dropped off significantly afterward. Since, then it has been a general uptick due to hype, nostalgia, hope, etc. This is then followed by a dropoff, but the dropoff has been speculated to get subsequently larger each time it happens.
I think a major portion of the issues with WoW and it's slow, but systematic demise over the years are due to Activision slowly asserting its dominance over Blizzard. We've seen Metzen leave, Morhaime step down, and many more in the past. This only supports an argument that Activision is putting some type of pressure that either burns the visionarys out or forces the corporate administration to step down in favor of admins willing to micro-manage.
Many say, "WoW devs just need to go back to basics and listen to the community". However, it may not be that simple. Corporate may not allow it to be that simple.
I do not think WoW has any chance of coming back to it's former glory because the visionary people who achieved that glory are no longer there. I also believe that Activision is playing too much of a hands-on role than what Blizzard would have done on it's own. To put it simply, the new suits aka Activision don't let the devs be devs the way the Blizzard suits used to before the merger. Hence why you have many people leaving/retiring. Some put up with it for longer than others, but each departure has only allowed Activision to cement it's grip further.
Only time will tell, but I believe the next expansion will be the crossroads. Either they really listen and completely change the path that WoW has been on the past few years, or they continue to see the number of day one sales and sub retention continue to dissolve as more and more players choose to ignore the hype and not come back for subsequent expansions.
It boils down to the fact that WOW kept trying to make everyone happy. They wanted to make 15 minute weekend warriors happy with casual no effort content and hardcore raiders happy. In the end no one ended up happy and the game is ruined because of it. NO you cannot Save the game, the game itself is past its prime. Yes Classic will get Subscriptions back on blizzards books but it will not save Blizzards' MMORPG development at this time period.
Classic will have more subscriptions than Retail WOW will here after about a year. Why is that? Because Retail WOW while it was casual at the time back in 2004, it didnt try to make everyone happy and it was a TRUE MMORPG which required teamwork to see the content. MMORPGS CANNOT be for the casual I pick up the game for 20 minute then put it down crowd. You Either A dedicate time to the game and expect to see content over the course of months and years or B you dont play the game. The Current Treadmill of MMORPGS Proves the point I have been making for the last what 10 years. MMORPGS are never going to be successful being a casual place for everyone to play 3 to 5 hours a month and make money. Yes you can have a few games like this but no they are not going to be a strong subscription based game that makes a good profit. Games that are casual boxes have to sucker your stupid ass into slot machine games to be profitable and its only for a short period of time. Look at Trion and what happens when you make the games P2W and slot machines. Their are defunct now and out of business.
What Blizzard needs to do is go back to the drawing board. Come up with a new MMORPG IP and make that MMORPG that requires players to spend months leveling, and playing with other people NO LFD/LFR shit, have class that YES are in balanced some and yes some classes will be better at certain aspects of the game then others. Why do you think Games like Pantheon and Ashes of Creation have a lot of people focusing on them? Because they do not appeal nor should that appeal to EVERYONE. MMORPGs by design should ONLY appeal to people who enjoy the journey of leveling, making friends and playing with friends and YES content taking months to play. You cannot make a Single Player MMORPG and have it be successful. The last 10 years proved what I have been saying for a long time now.
Just watch videos from Asmongold, Bellular, Nixxiom and Tips about classic WOW and why MMORPGS fail. They prove the point I been saying for years and they are finally talking about how MMORPGS need to be a in-depth game that people want to waste their life in. Sorry people who want to play 1 hour a week and get everything as everyone else. MMORPGS do not work this way. How is it that a Divorced father of 2, who works 50 hours a week, workout another 6 hours a week has his kids near 50% of the time, goes fishing hangs out with friends and still can play games 5 to 10 hours a week when I feel like it? Because I make time and understand time management. So people who have lives cannot complain endlessly about not having time to play.
It boils down to the fact that WOW kept trying to make everyone happy. They wanted to make 15 minute weekend warriors happy with casual no effort content and hardcore raiders happy. In the end no one ended up happy and the game is ruined because of it. NO you cannot Save the game, the game itself is past its prime. Yes Classic will get Subscriptions back on blizzards books but it will not save Blizzards' MMORPG development at this time period.
Classic will have more subscriptions than Retail WOW will here after about a year. Why is that? Because Retail WOW while it was casual at the time back in 2004, it didnt try to make everyone happy and it was a TRUE MMORPG which required teamwork to see the content. MMORPGS CANNOT be for the casual I pick up the game for 20 minute then put it down crowd. You Either A dedicate time to the game and expect to see content over the course of months and years or B you dont play the game. The Current Treadmill of MMORPGS Proves the point I have been making for the last what 10 years. MMORPGS are never going to be successful being a casual place for everyone to play 3 to 5 hours a month and make money. Yes you can have a few games like this but no they are not going to be a strong subscription based game that makes a good profit. Games that are casual boxes have to sucker your stupid ass into slot machine games to be profitable and its only for a short period of time. Look at Trion and what happens when you make the games P2W and slot machines. Their are defunct now and out of business.
What Blizzard needs to do is go back to the drawing board. Come up with a new MMORPG IP and make that MMORPG that requires players to spend months leveling, and playing with other people NO LFD/LFR shit, have class that YES are in balanced some and yes some classes will be better at certain aspects of the game then others. Why do you think Games like Pantheon and Ashes of Creation have a lot of people focusing on them? Because they do not appeal nor should that appeal to EVERYONE. MMORPGs by design should ONLY appeal to people who enjoy the journey of leveling, making friends and playing with friends and YES content taking months to play. You cannot make a Single Player MMORPG and have it be successful. The last 10 years proved what I have been saying for a long time now.
Just watch videos from Asmongold, Bellular, Nixxiom and Tips about classic WOW and why MMORPGS fail. They prove the point I been saying for years and they are finally talking about how MMORPGS need to be a in-depth game that people want to waste their life in. Sorry people who want to play 1 hour a week and get everything as everyone else. MMORPGS do not work this way. How is it that a Divorced father of 2, who works 50 hours a week, workout another 6 hours a week has his kids near 50% of the time, goes fishing hangs out with friends and still can play games 5 to 10 hours a week when I feel like it? Because I make time and understand time management. So people who have lives cannot complain endlessly about not having time to play.
While I'm not sure how classic WoW will do relative to live, there's something to be said about the bait and switch that is the solo level/group endgame MMORPG trend.
It's not a good system to lull the player into thinking they can enjoy the full game's content when they absolutely won't unless they're prepared to substantially change the way they play the game at cap.
Devs have grown very very fearful of putting in "groups only" content anywhere but endgame. LFG dungeon queueing is merely a bid to make the group only content accessible enough for solo players to experience it without actually having to change anything about how they engage with the game, despite the devs knowing full well they have a wall waiting for that player once said player hits cap. LFG brought its own consequences, and I'm not convinced, as far as the quality of group content and experiences are concerned, that those group funders are a net gain.
just a little heads up, if you think the story of a MMO is what make people play it, you are as clueless as blizzard is
Let me correct that for you, "If you think the story of a MMO is what make[s] ME play it, you are clueless in my opinion".
Just because you don't care for it isn't "everyone". Even if just 5% of the population cares (and I think it's higher than that by a lot), that's enough to justify a better story than we've been given. Besides, Blizzard makes a point of catering to teeny player populations like raiders and hardcore PvPers.
and how well its going for you now? you do the story don't matter if you like it or not after you play it no one bothers to play the game again, if they concentrate on gameplay and make the game mechs good after the story is done you still keep playing, because you like the game not because you feel like you will finish the story so you will just play for it, you need to put lore and make a gameplay who can keep people around.
raids don't do that, only caters to min/max people who like to work like drones, pvp is a good way, but most people don't like the down time related to it, story after its done people quit (like the whole high and low on wow tells us and hence why they will never do a update without be paid, even though you pay the damn monthly fee)
and like I said as long mmos concentrate on story and not on they gameplay and world,lore, ways you interact with it, there is nothing will make this game going on, if everyone is the hero and chosen one things are not special, and considerating how most will just skip all cutscenes and quest writing just to go faster
on specific on wow the story will never get better then this, they just can't, how long they aretelling this tale? there is nothing else to do, and worse is nothing they do will ever stop the war, the game is stale on mechs, only change they can think of is simplify the game mechs, and see who they will try to add and kill so to keep things moving a little, nothing they do will stop the war, at the very least they will play a new enemy and then you end this new enemy then the normal war resume, the same thing over and over
The world and the mechanics are nothing without a story around them. Theme park MMOs need story. Sandboxes do not. Those who don't need or want a story, but instead want devs that focus more on things like combat and mechanics and the prettiness of the world can head to a sandbox game. There are plenty out there. But a theme park has to have a story that drives the game. Good mechanics, features and combat should be important too. *shrugs* Agree to disagree.
Cracks me up that people think they have any say in the expansion or the game itself. Play the game and stfu or go play something else. Either way, stfu, no one cares.
i would love for them to bring theorycrafting back. this was mentioned in the very well thought out article. I think WoW's downhill slide can be traced to their simplification and eventual gutting of the talent system. For a couple years I played RIFT just to get my theorycrafting fix in.
talents gave you something, even if minor, to look forward to every level. currently WoW lacks this.
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
The world and the mechanics are nothing without a story around them. Theme park MMOs need story. Sandboxes do not. Those who don't need or want a story, but instead want devs that focus more on things like combat and mechanics and the prettiness of the world can head to a sandbox game. There are plenty out there. But a theme park has to have a story that drives the game. Good mechanics, features and combat should be important too. *shrugs* Agree to disagree.
To your point: it's all about the design philosophy the devs are aiming for.
WoW very much aims to leverage its wildly popular IP. That includes lore and the narrative surrounding the well-known characters, factions, and places. If they hadn't put time into leveraging that, many Warcraft fans would've logged in and went "So where's the familiar faces that should be leading these groups of NPCs? Why are Tauren only available to the Horde?"
Wurm Online, on the other hand, is all about creating your own personal story. The world is merely a blank canvas in which you engage the game; nothing more. But the team did that intentionally.
We can all have an argument about which is better, but that's largely subjective unless you want to strictly frame "better" as "most popular," in which case I think it's clear that MMORPGs with centerpiece story elements have fared much better, on average, than those MMORPGs who don't include them.
In my opinion, there is no answer for how to fix WoW. Claiming the downfall is sharding, crossrealm, or LFG, story failing, catering to casuals, LFR, etc...are all just our opinions. None of us really know if or how to fix WoW. I hope Bliz comes up with some awesome ideas to make it better. It'd be great if they did take player feedback into consideration for future content. Maybe they'll get some ideas from Classic. I'm looking forward to trying Classic again for two reasons. 1. Was there something better about Classic Wow, be it the Talent Trees, sense of Community etc.? 2. What are people going to do when Method and the content locusts blow through all the content available in some other absurdly short amount of time? (other than realize the content is limited). I played Vanilla. I was there when the Gates opened. I remember the Mankirk quest in the Barrens. I have great memories of Vanilla, but I also have equally great memories of other expansions. Finally beating Lady Vash in Serpent Shrine. The race to be server first to clear Black Temple. Unholy Tanking Death Knights. Death Wing. Pandas. My Garrison. Demon Hunters and ARGUS! Either way, I've been playing WoW since 8/2005. My Wife plays WoW. My best friends play WoW too. I hope this game makes a comeback, because really, what else out there is better than WoW?
i would love for them to bring theorycrafting back. this was mentioned in the very well thought out article. I think WoW's downhill slide can be traced to their simplification and eventual gutting of the talent system. For a couple years I played RIFT just to get my theorycrafting fix in.
talents gave you something, even if minor, to look forward to every level. currently WoW lacks this.
Agreed; one of the most enjoyable things for me about Rift was the soul system and checking out the different ways I could build out my character.
Bring back WotLK. Probably the best expansion for all the games content.
BFA is failure and it is to be expected, at least i expected it. Legion was fail, WoD was fail, Pandaria fail.. Cataclysm was riding WotLK success. It is what it is.
And the people wanting Vanilla WoW only arent okay in the head, that is worse than current day WoW. TBC - WotLK - Cata are the only acceptable expansions WoW ever had and WotLK is the sweet middle ground.
Cracks me up that people think they have any say in the expansion or the game itself. Play the game and stfu or go play something else. Either way, stfu, no one cares.
Players only begin to matter after sub numbers start tanking deep and getting ugly. Decrasing WoW retail numbers is the reason Blizzard is coming with Classic servers.
It boils down to the fact that WOW kept trying to make everyone happy. They wanted to make 15 minute weekend warriors happy with casual no effort content and hardcore raiders happy. In the end no one ended up happy and the game is ruined because of it. NO you cannot Save the game, the game itself is past its prime. Yes Classic will get Subscriptions back on blizzards books but it will not save Blizzards' MMORPG development at this time period.
Classic will have more subscriptions than Retail WOW will here after about a year. Why is that? Because Retail WOW while it was casual at the time back in 2004, it didnt try to make everyone happy and it was a TRUE MMORPG which required teamwork to see the content. MMORPGS CANNOT be for the casual I pick up the game for 20 minute then put it down crowd. You Either A dedicate time to the game and expect to see content over the course of months and years or B you dont play the game. The Current Treadmill of MMORPGS Proves the point I have been making for the last what 10 years. MMORPGS are never going to be successful being a casual place for everyone to play 3 to 5 hours a month and make money. Yes you can have a few games like this but no they are not going to be a strong subscription based game that makes a good profit. Games that are casual boxes have to sucker your stupid ass into slot machine games to be profitable and its only for a short period of time. Look at Trion and what happens when you make the games P2W and slot machines. Their are defunct now and out of business.
What Blizzard needs to do is go back to the drawing board. Come up with a new MMORPG IP and make that MMORPG that requires players to spend months leveling, and playing with other people NO LFD/LFR shit, have class that YES are in balanced some and yes some classes will be better at certain aspects of the game then others. Why do you think Games like Pantheon and Ashes of Creation have a lot of people focusing on them? Because they do not appeal nor should that appeal to EVERYONE. MMORPGs by design should ONLY appeal to people who enjoy the journey of leveling, making friends and playing with friends and YES content taking months to play. You cannot make a Single Player MMORPG and have it be successful. The last 10 years proved what I have been saying for a long time now.
Just watch videos from Asmongold, Bellular, Nixxiom and Tips about classic WOW and why MMORPGS fail. They prove the point I been saying for years and they are finally talking about how MMORPGS need to be a in-depth game that people want to waste their life in. Sorry people who want to play 1 hour a week and get everything as everyone else. MMORPGS do not work this way. How is it that a Divorced father of 2, who works 50 hours a week, workout another 6 hours a week has his kids near 50% of the time, goes fishing hangs out with friends and still can play games 5 to 10 hours a week when I feel like it? Because I make time and understand time management. So people who have lives cannot complain endlessly about not having time to play.
This post nailed it! People that still play the game really have a hard time coming to grips with this. The fact that BFA stinks really laid bare how bad the game has become.
WoW was always a casual MMO, but their hellish focus on trying to cater to players that can't sink more than a few 30 min play sessions a week kind of killed the game for a lot of people.
They have deeply misplaced priorities. They could make a good game that appeals to their core demographic if they wanted to. If that was their priority. They have the ability and the resources. So you to ask yourself what is their priority and what is it going to take for them to change. If they can.
Coming from you, Torval, this perspective carries heavier weight. I've never known you to "hate" on a dev or publisher merely because you don't prefer their games.
I made a comment on the WoW forums awhile back. It was after the burning. I stated that for the horde the only true redemption would be Saurfang waking the Lich King and offering himself up for Cairne to be raised. Looks like they partially listened... Look up posts by Tsogra@Thrall.... Whether I guessed partially the story or they took it from me.... Neither one bodes well.
Edit: Looks like that post was removed. Makes me glad I'm hanging in FFXIV.
Mythic 10 would be great. The Heart of Azeroth should have featured one baseline new ability, similar to the powers that were unlocked by the Artifacts.
It's a bad practice for things like narrative to change at the whims of angry players when player choice in questing and narrative was never a design philosophy of this game. If this has signalled a move towards a new lore and narrative system that encouraged player agency, that would be great. It doesn't appear to be a paradigm shift, but simply weak-kneed devs or a product they lack faith in. Neither of those are good signs.
Adding those will not functionally change the story at the end. I think they do have an overarching story with a prescribed end.
Know what's funny? So many of the things that have happened that make literally NO sense whatsoever would have been more understandable had the Alliance attacked Undercity first, with Horde reacting that led to the burning of Teldrassil. Narratively, if you look at the story as it is now with a different start to the conflict, things are somewhat more palatable.
I honestly believe that that was the original narrative that the dev team "chickened out on" because they were afraid of backlash from the Allies community.
I also think that they really believed that the majority of the Horde would be totally down with the whole "muh honer" Saurfang narrative and that they are surprised that many simply are not. "We obviously know that hasn't been as easy a transition as they thought (or liked). So it feels like, in an attempt to make players turn against the current Horde, they've just submerged the entire narrative in a river of sh!t to try and dislodge Sylvanas loyalists."
nah the sylvanas being self serving narrative has been around since wc3 but has taken a back seat to more important plot lines because it was a pretty shallow narrative even in the beginning. Id say its more of dev team grasping a straws to justify the faction conflict when the world has almost ended like 4 times now.
the alliance couldn't have started the conflict because Anduin is too much of a mary sue and graymane would be trying to reclaim Glineas not Undercity. Everyone with any real connection to Lordaeron has been undeaded or dead at this point. That being said sylanas's reason for the burning of teldrassil doesn't make much sense either ..... because of the existence of portal magic.
also everyone likes Saurfang….even the alliance view him in a favorable light.
I agree on the Sylvanas take. It's Blizz fault that they never really portrayed her until now as she really is, at least in the books and lore. They also took one of the people the horde could point their finger at an say, "look at her, she isn't all that good" and I'm talking about Jaina. Blizz gave her an awesome story of redemption and forgiveness. Her story has some of the best in-game cinematics blizz has ever done (imo).
I would say that as far as story goes, it's early yet, give it a chance to unfold. I think a redemption is coming for Sylvanas and Genn Greymane will become the new Jaina for the Horde.
As far as everything else in BFA. It's probably the worst I have seen yet. I will come back to wow once 8.1 drops. At least long enough to play through the new story content.
I'm not an IT Specialist, Game Developer, or Clairvoyant in real life, but like others on here, I play one on the internet.
In my opinion, there is no answer for how to fix WoW. Claiming the downfall is sharding, crossrealm, or LFG, story failing, catering to casuals, LFR, etc...are all just our opinions.
Nope it is not an Opinion. Its the FACTS. MMORPGS NEVER were meant to cater to the Single Player 30 a minute a week gamer. They are too dam expensive and the ONLY way to make a profit off these games when they are not Time Sinks based around Group content is to turn the game into P2W or Slot machine type games. This is FACT the problem is Everyone who does not get this does not want to admit the truth. MMORPGS take a lot of money to make and keep running, casual play where players dont want to sink their life into the game end up shutting down because their is no money in casual play were people sub a few months a year or throw $15 to $30 at F2P games per year will not make a profit past a short period of time.
The Only way to make a Successful MMORPG that has very good and stable subscription numbers is by making people work for what they want in the game. YES Vanilla WOW did this. It took you 6 months to reach max level if you didnt power level for a month. It took you months to gear up, months to raid, get your mount, you didnt run Dungeons all the time. The games took time to get to where you wanted to go then.
Why do you think I maybe spent around $200 total in the last 5 years in MMORPG Subscriptions? Because they are not worth more than playing for a month or 2 at a time. This is because its made for Casual players that would be better spent playing a game like LOL or HOTS.
Devs have grown very very fearful of putting in "groups only" content anywhere but endgame. LFG dungeon queueing is merely a bid to make the group only content accessible enough for solo players to experience it without actually having to change anything about how they engage with the game, despite the devs knowing full well they have a wall waiting for that player once said player hits cap. LFG brought its own consequences, and I'm not convinced, as far as the quality of group content and experiences are concerned, that those group funders are a net gain.
No. Group Finders are not a Net Gain. Players today tend to stay away from grouping now at all cost because these Automated Group Finders end up being nothing more than a Toxic mess. Group Finders dont belong in MMORPGS period. Yea you can have a group finder tool so players can post what they are looking for, but automated tools do not belong.
It boils down to the fact that WOW kept trying to make everyone happy. They wanted to make 15 minute weekend warriors happy with casual no effort content and hardcore raiders happy. In the end no one ended up happy and the game is ruined because of it. NO you cannot Save the game, the game itself is past its prime. Yes Classic will get Subscriptions back on blizzards books but it will not save Blizzards' MMORPG development at this time period.
Classic will have more subscriptions than Retail WOW will here after about a year. Why is that? Because Retail WOW while it was casual at the time back in 2004, it didnt try to make everyone happy and it was a TRUE MMORPG which required teamwork to see the content. MMORPGS CANNOT be for the casual I pick up the game for 20 minute then put it down crowd. You Either A dedicate time to the game and expect to see content over the course of months and years or B you dont play the game. The Current Treadmill of MMORPGS Proves the point I have been making for the last what 10 years. MMORPGS are never going to be successful being a casual place for everyone to play 3 to 5 hours a month and make money. Yes you can have a few games like this but no they are not going to be a strong subscription based game that makes a good profit. Games that are casual boxes have to sucker your stupid ass into slot machine games to be profitable and its only for a short period of time. Look at Trion and what happens when you make the games P2W and slot machines. Their are defunct now and out of business.
What Blizzard needs to do is go back to the drawing board. Come up with a new MMORPG IP and make that MMORPG that requires players to spend months leveling, and playing with other people NO LFD/LFR shit, have class that YES are in balanced some and yes some classes will be better at certain aspects of the game then others. Why do you think Games like Pantheon and Ashes of Creation have a lot of people focusing on them? Because they do not appeal nor should that appeal to EVERYONE. MMORPGs by design should ONLY appeal to people who enjoy the journey of leveling, making friends and playing with friends and YES content taking months to play. You cannot make a Single Player MMORPG and have it be successful. The last 10 years proved what I have been saying for a long time now.
Just watch videos from Asmongold, Bellular, Nixxiom and Tips about classic WOW and why MMORPGS fail. They prove the point I been saying for years and they are finally talking about how MMORPGS need to be a in-depth game that people want to waste their life in. Sorry people who want to play 1 hour a week and get everything as everyone else. MMORPGS do not work this way. How is it that a Divorced father of 2, who works 50 hours a week, workout another 6 hours a week has his kids near 50% of the time, goes fishing hangs out with friends and still can play games 5 to 10 hours a week when I feel like it? Because I make time and understand time management. So people who have lives cannot complain endlessly about not having time to play.
This post nailed it! People that still play the game really have a hard time coming to grips with this. The fact that BFA stinks really laid bare how bad the game has become.
WoW was always a casual MMO, but their hellish focus on trying to cater to players that can't sink more than a few 30 min play sessions a week kind of killed the game for a lot of people.
Yep. Exactly. And I do feel for players that cant play but an hour or 2 a week. BUT that does not mean you ruin a game for these players. During TBC I couldnt play much for about 2 months. My best friend at the time his mother was dealing with cancer so when I was not working or doing my classwork for my 3 classes I was hanging out with him. I put WOW down for those 2 months and lived life. When I came back I picked right back where I left off and enjoyed the content I played. I didnt beg Blizzard to change the game for me because I paid $15 a month. No I went to take care of life.
Comments
Hello World Boss gold drops...coins well spent...
The Headless Horseman mount will allude me for another year...... and another.....and another...
I see lots of peeps unhappy with Allied Races being locked behind grind of any kind. I'm not sure how I feel about it as I've kept up with it as they've been introduced so the 'grind wasn't that bad,' but IDK how I'd feel if I had to go back and grind old content for weeks to get it. I'm sure it would feel like busy work.
Gut Out!
What, me worry?
Interestingly, it was brought to my attention that the Activision-Blizzard merger began to occur halfway through the development of WotLK and the timing is peculiar because the following expansion, Cata, was where the highest overall (12 million) subs were recorded, but dropped off significantly afterward. Since, then it has been a general uptick due to hype, nostalgia, hope, etc. This is then followed by a dropoff, but the dropoff has been speculated to get subsequently larger each time it happens.
I think a major portion of the issues with WoW and it's slow, but systematic demise over the years are due to Activision slowly asserting its dominance over Blizzard. We've seen Metzen leave, Morhaime step down, and many more in the past. This only supports an argument that Activision is putting some type of pressure that either burns the visionarys out or forces the corporate administration to step down in favor of admins willing to micro-manage.
Many say, "WoW devs just need to go back to basics and listen to the community". However, it may not be that simple. Corporate may not allow it to be that simple.
I do not think WoW has any chance of coming back to it's former glory because the visionary people who achieved that glory are no longer there. I also believe that Activision is playing too much of a hands-on role than what Blizzard would have done on it's own. To put it simply, the new suits aka Activision don't let the devs be devs the way the Blizzard suits used to before the merger. Hence why you have many people leaving/retiring. Some put up with it for longer than others, but each departure has only allowed Activision to cement it's grip further.
Only time will tell, but I believe the next expansion will be the crossroads. Either they really listen and completely change the path that WoW has been on the past few years, or they continue to see the number of day one sales and sub retention continue to dissolve as more and more players choose to ignore the hype and not come back for subsequent expansions.
Classic will have more subscriptions than Retail WOW will here after about a year. Why is that? Because Retail WOW while it was casual at the time back in 2004, it didnt try to make everyone happy and it was a TRUE MMORPG which required teamwork to see the content. MMORPGS CANNOT be for the casual I pick up the game for 20 minute then put it down crowd. You Either A dedicate time to the game and expect to see content over the course of months and years or B you dont play the game. The Current Treadmill of MMORPGS Proves the point I have been making for the last what 10 years. MMORPGS are never going to be successful being a casual place for everyone to play 3 to 5 hours a month and make money. Yes you can have a few games like this but no they are not going to be a strong subscription based game that makes a good profit. Games that are casual boxes have to sucker your stupid ass into slot machine games to be profitable and its only for a short period of time. Look at Trion and what happens when you make the games P2W and slot machines. Their are defunct now and out of business.
What Blizzard needs to do is go back to the drawing board. Come up with a new MMORPG IP and make that MMORPG that requires players to spend months leveling, and playing with other people NO LFD/LFR shit, have class that YES are in balanced some and yes some classes will be better at certain aspects of the game then others. Why do you think Games like Pantheon and Ashes of Creation have a lot of people focusing on them? Because they do not appeal nor should that appeal to EVERYONE. MMORPGs by design should ONLY appeal to people who enjoy the journey of leveling, making friends and playing with friends and YES content taking months to play. You cannot make a Single Player MMORPG and have it be successful. The last 10 years proved what I have been saying for a long time now.
Just watch videos from Asmongold, Bellular, Nixxiom and Tips about classic WOW and why MMORPGS fail. They prove the point I been saying for years and they are finally talking about how MMORPGS need to be a in-depth game that people want to waste their life in. Sorry people who want to play 1 hour a week and get everything as everyone else. MMORPGS do not work this way. How is it that a Divorced father of 2, who works 50 hours a week, workout another 6 hours a week has his kids near 50% of the time, goes fishing hangs out with friends and still can play games 5 to 10 hours a week when I feel like it? Because I make time and understand time management. So people who have lives cannot complain endlessly about not having time to play.
It's not a good system to lull the player into thinking they can enjoy the full game's content when they absolutely won't unless they're prepared to substantially change the way they play the game at cap.
Devs have grown very very fearful of putting in "groups only" content anywhere but endgame. LFG dungeon queueing is merely a bid to make the group only content accessible enough for solo players to experience it without actually having to change anything about how they engage with the game, despite the devs knowing full well they have a wall waiting for that player once said player hits cap. LFG brought its own consequences, and I'm not convinced, as far as the quality of group content and experiences are concerned, that those group funders are a net gain.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
talents gave you something, even if minor, to look forward to every level. currently WoW lacks this.
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
Dwight D Eisenhower
My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.
Henry Rollins
WoW very much aims to leverage its wildly popular IP. That includes lore and the narrative surrounding the well-known characters, factions, and places. If they hadn't put time into leveraging that, many Warcraft fans would've logged in and went "So where's the familiar faces that should be leading these groups of NPCs? Why are Tauren only available to the Horde?"
Wurm Online, on the other hand, is all about creating your own personal story. The world is merely a blank canvas in which you engage the game; nothing more. But the team did that intentionally.
We can all have an argument about which is better, but that's largely subjective unless you want to strictly frame "better" as "most popular," in which case I think it's clear that MMORPGs with centerpiece story elements have fared much better, on average, than those MMORPGs who don't include them.
BFA is failure and it is to be expected, at least i expected it. Legion was fail, WoD was fail, Pandaria fail.. Cataclysm was riding WotLK success. It is what it is.
And the people wanting Vanilla WoW only arent okay in the head, that is worse than current day WoW. TBC - WotLK - Cata are the only acceptable expansions WoW ever had and WotLK is the sweet middle ground.
WoW was always a casual MMO, but their hellish focus on trying to cater to players that can't sink more than a few 30 min play sessions a week kind of killed the game for a lot of people.
WoW is what it is.
Edit: Looks like that post was removed. Makes me glad I'm hanging in FFXIV.
I agree on the Sylvanas take. It's Blizz fault that they never really portrayed her until now as she really is, at least in the books and lore. They also took one of the people the horde could point their finger at an say, "look at her, she isn't all that good" and I'm talking about Jaina. Blizz gave her an awesome story of redemption and forgiveness. Her story has some of the best in-game cinematics blizz has ever done (imo).
I would say that as far as story goes, it's early yet, give it a chance to unfold. I think a redemption is coming for Sylvanas and Genn Greymane will become the new Jaina for the Horde. As far as everything else in BFA. It's probably the worst I have seen yet. I will come back to wow once 8.1 drops. At least long enough to play through the new story content.
I'm not an IT Specialist, Game Developer, or Clairvoyant in real life, but like others on here, I play one on the internet.
The Only way to make a Successful MMORPG that has very good and stable subscription numbers is by making people work for what they want in the game. YES Vanilla WOW did this. It took you 6 months to reach max level if you didnt power level for a month. It took you months to gear up, months to raid, get your mount, you didnt run Dungeons all the time. The games took time to get to where you wanted to go then.
Why do you think I maybe spent around $200 total in the last 5 years in MMORPG Subscriptions? Because they are not worth more than playing for a month or 2 at a time. This is because its made for Casual players that would be better spent playing a game like LOL or HOTS.