http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-1.png
As soon as they introduced LFG feature the steady increase in subscriptions stopped. The primary reason being that the success of the game depended on users making friends in game. They came because of the game but they stayed because of the relationships they made along the way. If LFG had been there from the start I would have only ever played a couple months instead of 3-4 years. Now that I know no one playing wow I don't play anymore. I tried but it was boring and got old quickly and making friends in game now is much more difficult. The reason being is no one needs anyone else, everyone is easily replaceable. This guy hits the nail just off to the side of the head.
The main problem is the lack of forced interaction. That is the heart of the mmo experience when you boil it down. With LFG, realm trasnfer, even cross realm battle grounds the server communities died, and possibly even with raid size reduction from 40 to 25. Though LFG was the biggest contributor. There is no way back now except maybe with a wow 2. Hopefully they learn from this mistake.
Sure the game got older and maybe peaked but that still doesn't explain everything. Its still a fun game to play at its core but without the relationship building aspect there is nothing to keep people around. You play til you get bored and yes some of the boredom does come from the feeling of finishing content in lfr with no good reason to do it on a harder level. When you get the carrot to close to the horse it grabs it, it eats it and stops.
Back in classic we had our own lfg, it was a player made chat channel and comprised of the people on the server. It worked just as well as the LFG feature ever has. There are a few things introduced that I thought were beneficial like BGs and Arenas but if it ain't broke don't fix it. In every action there should have been a consideration of the effect on the individual players community and yes sometimes you have to give the people what they need and not what they want.
The guy is right and I agree with him fully. He states his opinion but doesnt bash them either.
@exriel: Thats the problem... there are less and less of proper raiders to recruit and more and more of LFRtards (dont get offended - LFR produces mindless peons who cant move from fire even and you know that) and this new Flex Raid will poach players from guilds.
One of the major problems is how Blizzard builds their content.
In EQ, a raid typically had a very loose, light story behind it. The dungeon was there for a reason. It had an overall place in the narrative. It was epic because of the size of the group and the challenges faced... not necessarily because it was the big-budget story-showcase.
In WoW, because the content tends to be very story-rich, the dungeons and raids became the narrative more and more. When an expansion launched, so much of the story, villains, and "good" content (i.e. the best architecture, cinematics, voice-overs and storytelling) was part of the raids. That meant that anyone who didn't raid missed out on seeing what they were paying for and wanting to see: the big-name heroes, the villains, the conflict and the storyline of it all.
So, no, I don't blame WoW's non-raiders for saying "hey, all the really great stuff in this game is locked behind a raid portal. I really want to see some of that, but I can't manage the commitment of raiding." Some of you would say "then screw them, they don't get to see it" -- and there you have your 'elitist' attitude. For one, you sound like a dick. Two, your attitude is not going to keep Blizzard in the black... because players will unsubscribe if they can't see and experience what they want.
Probably the best solution would have been to better separate the narrative from the gameplay, but then you'd have a whole mess of players saying "the raids are boring, not enough happens in them!" And we'd come full circle, with Blizzard being unable to please people no matter what they do.
Here's a fun exercise. If you're a dedicated raider, tell me this: would you feel great about having the best loot come from PVP? You probably don't PVP or only do so minimally... what would you say if the reward you wanted most was behind a gameplay format you simply could not abide? Imagine if the story was locked behind PVP brackets, too. How would you feel, with that much of the game's soul stuck behind a hurdle you are unable or unwilling to climb over?
A Farewell to Pre-Cataclysm Azeroth (video)
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdlhcVG2p7M
WCM: http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=168677
That big drop at the end of 2010 is Cata launch. Two major changes that were made for PVE at that point was shared 10/25man lock which destroyed raid pugging and harder five-man content which destroyed endgame for non-raiders. It basically removed all casual friendly PVE endgame content overnight.
All previous expansions managed to get more people during first half year, while Cataclysm caused subs to drop.
Never going to log into this garbage forum again as long as calling obvious troll obvious troll is the easiest way to get banned.
Trolling should be.
WoW's peak time was WotLK where raids were accessible to many, heroics were facepalm. am I missing something in his logic or is it flawed?
I'm not going to go into the merits and flaws of LoL's design, but I don't think you can say MOBAs in general have exclusiveness, specially the kind of exclusiveness Morello was talking about. There's no gating besides your rank/matchmaking level, and even if you're physically unable to rise in the ranks you're not barred from using certain heroes, items or skills, or playing certain maps, and you are certainly not barred from whatever lore the game presents.
In World of Warcraft, if you don't raid or can't progress for whatever reason you are truly missing out on both gameplay and lore elements. It's an entirely different concept.
Nothing ever bothers Juular.
There really isn't any content in LoL. It's just about designing the champions and maps for the masses to pvp with.
Why do we care about a LoL dev talking about WoW?
It's like if I cared what a CoD dev said about Neverwinter. Who the hell cares.
I have never often seen game developers speak common sense. I don't know who that person is besides Lead Content Designer, but he clearly speaks sense.
I was never around during TBC, but I totally agree MMOs as a genre needs exclusivity. Does it sense of elitism, which game or profession doesn't breed elitism. But that isn't really the problem. When content becomes freely available to everyone, there is often a drop in quality and content.
Blizzard works purely from a "greed" point of view. For them numbers make or break their game designs. Cataclysm proved everything what is wrong with Blizzard. They started of in one direction but didn't have the BALLS to stick to their guns. Once the loss of subscribers played its part, they nerfed content to the ground.
I don't consider myself a hardcore or an elite player by an means, but even I wouldn't want things to be handed to me with out any effort.
Its comparable to mounts and how much pride or excitement people get from rare drops. Its cause certain mounts are exclusive and not every one has access to them.
Let me ask the community, how much has the "Ashes of Alar" has lost its appeal? At one time only a few or 1 in hundreds had it. Now it seems the ratio is much much lower.
Probably because his job is to craft good games foremost not just a good MOBA or good MMO. Insight of this kind crosses genres, ignoring it because he isn't working on a MMO is just a weird ad hominem. If an intelligent articulate person makes a good point, its probably best to listen and address the point on its merits if you disagree rather than pulling out some kind of glorified non sequitor to (not) rebut it.
If Richard Garriott or John Carmack made the same points they would still be worth listening to. I mean if any other MMO game dev came in and criticized wow like this, I imagine the responses would be "Lol, look at your mmo numbers" (not, "oh this is a mmo designer, let us stop and take note"). The point being that you can find any grounds to dismiss someone's argument if that's what you're looking to do. Try engaging it instead.
Last edited by Sniperpally; 2013-06-07 at 10:02 PM.
Reminds me of when both SWTOR and Rift devs came out and flatly stated that they didn't include a matchmaking LFG system in their games because it was bad for the community. You know, the same arguments some people in this forum make all the time. Big talk from 2 developers who had never made a MMO. So what happened? The populations of their games plummeted and both games were forced to rush out a LFD-like system to slow the bleeding. For SWTOR it was too late as most of their servers had cratered. It helped stablize pops for Rift for a little while.
Common theme. Game developer with no experience in MMOs criticize WoW for doing something wrong. Then game developer discovers that when they tried to do something different from WoW it blew up in their face and ended up copying the same WoW mechanic they criticized before...
So is Wildstar going to have super exclusive PvE content exclusive to the top 1%? I'm looking forward to seeing how that works out for them.
How can a LoL "developer" be considered as one? LoL is a perfect copy of DotA without some things, they added next to nothing, how can be anything considered contents in that game? Moreover,how can a moba "content developer" talk about mmo contents?^^
Nothing ever bothers Juular.
Both Rift and SWTOR had other problems that caused it not to be as successful as WoW, which by your logic, if LFD was the culprit adding it in would have fixed things, but it didn't so...
SWTOR was especially already practically a single player game so a LFD feature just makes sense since they've already committed to a complete lack of server community with their totally instanced content and single player plot lines. Rift just failed to do anything except perhaps character building better than WoW, probably because they didn't have the years of iteration that WoW had behind it. In both cases, they weren't wrong about LFD, they just compromised on so many other fronts, that it didn't make sense for them to hold out on LFD. They were so far down the instant gratification rabbit hole with their other design choices of course their player base was going to demand a LFD feature. Their problem was they decided to hold out on a feature for all the wrong reasons and against the consistency of the rest of the game.
I agree on one point, that things like LFD primarily serve to "slow the bleeding" which is what happened here and also in WoW. Basically its symptomatic of the game already being on the decline. Which I think you can interpret most of blizzard's game design decisions through this lense. They've already given up on crafting an amazing game, they're simply trying to introduce features to slow the loss in revinue through smoke and mirrors and advertising gimmicks. Riot however still believes they can make an amazing game and is sticking to that, rather than simply cashing in on every quick way to make a buck.
I mean does anyone truly believe that flex raiding is going to be the feature that heralds the golden age of wow? We all know WoW is past its prime and no amount of "features" are going to return it to the position of prominence it had in the minds of gamers during the classic/tbc era. Yes, gaming has evolved since then, so its not like just returning to a pure classic experience would likewise return us to the golden age. But lets be honest, Blizzard is not even trying. All these introductions to the game are primarily selling points to slow the loss of revenue, not the honest attempt to craft the best game possible. It may even be a part of their official strategy to milk wow and then transition to the next game of its kind that does try to make a coherent enjoyable product (titan or whatever).
Last edited by Sniperpally; 2013-06-07 at 10:18 PM.