Is WoW always going to be like this?

[Ghul]

I agree heartily with Preach's video, the system of LFR as it stands now is actively hurting the PVE side of the game. While it's great that there is content u can simply hop into and do anytime, it does indeed severely filter the influx of fresh blood into raiding - look at participation numbers dwindling in heroic and normal over the course of MoP. You'll always get veterans leaving or taking breaks, and there are hardly any viable new players stepping up - because the game doesn't challenge them or entice them to.

My guild has been growing into a veteran powerhouse over the course of MoP - why? Because my realm is small, and there are literally hardly any guilds around that have veteran or mature players still organizing raiding in the middle ground. There's a handful of bleeding edge progress groups, only one of them actually successful or good, and a ton of "ambitious" guilds that fall apart regularly as Preach mentioned. My guild has been constant and realistic, and grown to immense size with two raid groups running now - but when I look at recruiting, the pool is empty. There is hardly any player material out there, and we have to make do with what we have. New players either never enter the raiding cycle, or drop out immediately because they simply weren't prepared for the challenge of it and the schedule - unless they have a great raiding guild that nurtures them and motivates them, which is incredibly rare and not inherent in the game.

My guild is one of the few remaining that is continually growing on our realm, because we are constant and well-run - but mostly because there are few other options for experienced players, and LFR is a big contributor to that situation. As Preach rightly states, what reason is there to join a guild, follow rules and become better at the game if all you get is the seemingly same content only harder (too hard for many), and with recoloured items?

On the other hand, if you are "in the loop" and an experienced player, the community is still there. In fact, good raiding guilds will kill each other to recruit you in many cases if you're really that experienced and capable and most importantly - reliable and consistent. So if you're worried about WoW players only being like Preach described it - no, that's not the case. We'Re still here, and we're still looking for "normal" players. To a large extent, all LFR does is too drag the players that have always been there out into the light and showcase them to everyone - that is to say, player ability and participation has always been bad in the majority of the playerbase, it just wasn't that apparent. LFR does however reinforce that stance and does nothing to actually motivate players to change and grow, it does in fact actively deter them from it.

your guild is doing well, why do all the other things even matter to you? :>

"oh hey theres a house on fire in that foreign country, better moan about bad fire department-work in my town" :B

[Akka]

not even close, i can think of a few franchise more popular that WoW on the top of my head (the sims, mario, pokemon, even diablo 3...)

That being said, wow was popular way before wrath. By the end of TBC, wow had 11 millions subscribers already, it didn't go higher than that. In fact wow was the fatest growing in vanilla and TBC. Mid wrath is when the decline started. People stick around the first half of wrath, out of nostalgia for golden days or commitment for guild, and slowly began to move on.

Exactly. But fanboys are unable to accept such facts.

[Kethro]

This sounds like a "ME ME ME" post where, excuse me if this offends you, someone with an elitist mind wants to keep content from others (selfishly?).

But then again, that's just my opinion, and I couldn't read more than the first few pages of this discussion before getting annoyed by the crying.

Who cares what other people are doing for content?

Most people transmog their armor sets from what I see and even then, I rarely run around thinking, "Man, everyone looks the same."

At the same time there are still items that are only obtainable with top tier raiding (mounts, certain armor pieces, etc.)

You'd think after a few expansions that this issue would have been over with.

[Dormie]

This garbage has been repeated countless time, to the point of being thought as true, but it's still blatantly false.

1) Cata dungeons were not that hard (certainly less so than most TBC heroics), and still TBC had higher subscriptions.
2) Much more players left AFTER the nerf to Cata hero than BEFORE.
3) The amount of people isn't a the benchmark of a good community. Vanilla had a better community than WotLK, despite having less people. 24 drones in LFR are much less of a community than the four guys you had to actually interact and speak with during pre-WotLK dungeons.

And as an additionnal info, even if Cata dung were repelling people, it's mostly due to the huge dumbing down in WotLK that made people expect everything handed on a silver platter. It would never had been a problem if the game hadn't been destroyed in the first place.

So, well...

I was quite the average player during Vanilla and TBC - WoW was my very first MMO, and I was even more of a newb than people starting later, as there were less info available. The problem is about tailoring the game to the wrong crowd, but the "wrong crowd" is not the so-called "hardcore" (which are, 99 % of the time, not really "hardcore", and simply painted it by people who define as "hardcore" anyone who isn't striken with ADD and can stomach more than 20 mn of playing), the "wrong crowd" are the players who had absolutely no interest in MMO to begin with, and as such asked (and obtained) the removal of the entire "MMO" part in the game - making it an online faceroll-easy solo game in the end.

Hey, someone making sense!

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why do you care what some random scrub has?
if hes bad then gear wont do him any good anyways...

Because it shows that the effort you put in really isn't of any value. So why put in any?

This sounds like a "ME ME ME" post where, excuse me if this offends you, someone with an elitist mind wants to keep content from others (selfishly?).

Only people who say this have a lack of understanding of the situation. Noone wants to keep others out. What you see as exclusion is just a side affect of rewards being appropriate for effort put in. It's like an amateur golfer complaining that people in the PGA want to keep him from playing in their tournaments.

[Kelimbror]

It's like an amateur golfer complaining that people in the PGA want to keep him from playing in their tournaments.

It's actually like a pro golfer wanting to keep amateurs out of all tournaments because they can also wear spiffy looking golf shirts...relegating them to putt-putt and clothes from Wal-Mart in order to make their professional tournaments and duds seem 'more special'. It's silly.

[miffy23]

your guild is doing well, why do all the other things even matter to you? :>

"oh hey theres a house on fire in that foreign country, better moan about bad fire department-work in my town" :B

Because it's the state of the game and doesn'T bode well for the future development? It's stagnating, and not because it's old, it's because of the systematic changes, as I pointed out. Just because we're doing well in my guild doesn't mean I don't care about the state of my realm - plus you always need new players in a long term healthy guild.

[Thage]

Only people who say this have a lack of understanding of the situation. Noone wants to keep others out. What you see as exclusion is just a side affect of rewards being appropriate for effort put in. It's like an amateur golfer complaining that people in the PGA want to keep him from playing in their tournaments.

It's closer to NFL players bitching about backyard beer-league tournaments being bad for the sport.

[Dormie]

It's actually like a pro golfer wanting to keep amateurs out of all tournaments because they can also wear spiffy looking golf shirts...relegating them to putt-putt and clothes from Wal-Mart in order to make their professional tournaments and duds seem 'more special'. It's silly.

No. The pro golfers don't give a shit what the amateurs are doing. The amateurs just make everything about them, so when the pro golfers move on they think they're excluding the amateurs. If you don't put in the effort you shouldn't be able to see the content. It's that simple.
The amateurs think they should be able to play in Augusta when they've done nothing to make it to that point. It's like if they let any schlum play in the Masters. The pros have nicer equipment, but they wouldn't practice their whole lives if they could play in the Masters right off the bat.

[Thage]

No. The pro golfers don't give a shit what the amateurs are doing. The amateurs just make everything about them, so when the pro golfers move on they think they're excluding the amateurs. If you don't put in the effort you shouldn't be able to see the content. It's that simple.

So all these posts by the pro golfers demanding the amateur tournament be removed because it makes them feel less special (which they couch in every bullshit excuse under the sun) aren't happening?

Do we even come to the same forum?

[Kelimbror]

No. The pro golfers don't give a shit what the amateurs are doing. The amateurs just make everything about them, so when the pro golfers move on they think they're excluding the amateurs. If you don't put in the effort you shouldn't be able to see the content. It's that simple.

I don't think you're following the thread very closely if that's your take-away. Nothing of what you just said makes sense. Not in context of this thread nor of the principle in general.

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So all these posts by the pro golfers demanding the amateur tournament be removed because it makes them feel less special (which they couch in every bullshit excuse under the sun) aren't happening?

Do we even come to the same forum?

I think they are from another dimension. *shrug*

[Dormie]

So all these posts by the pro golfers demanding the amateur tournament be removed because it makes them feel less special (which they couch in every bullshit excuse under the sun) aren't happening?

Do we even come to the same forum?

The amateur tournament should be removed because it's not an amateur tournament, it's a pro tournament that the amateurs get to play in because THEY want to be special.

To stop with the example. LFR awards everyone with end game content regardless if they put in the effort to get to the 'end game'. Thus, destroying the 'end game' content. The so called 'elitists' don't care about you, they care about the game and what your desires do to it.
InB4 'LFR isn't end game'

[Thage]

No. The pro golfers don't give a shit what the amateurs are doing. The amateurs just make everything about them, so when the pro golfers move on they think they're excluding the amateurs. If you don't put in the effort you shouldn't be able to see the content. It's that simple.
The amateurs think they should be able to play in Augusta when they've done nothing to make it to that point. It's like if they let any schlum play in the Masters. The pros have nicer equipment, but they wouldn't practice their whole lives if they could play in the Masters right off the bat.

Except the amateurs aren't asking for the Masters. They're quite happy with their own golf course that's less challenging and isn't as prestigious. The narcissistic pro golfers who go bitching about the amateurs are the only ones making that horseshit false equivalency argument and using it to demand every course but the Masters be closed down.

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The amateur tournament should be removed because it's not an amateur tournament, it's a pro tournament that the amateurs get to play in because THEY want to be special.

Actually, it's a course given to the amateurs because the Masters was in danger of shutting down in favor of more putt-putt but thanks for playing.

[Dormie]

Except the amateurs aren't asking for the Masters. They're quite happy with their own golf course that's less challenging and isn't as prestigious. The narcissistic pro golfers who go bitching about the amateurs are the only ones making that horseshit false equivalency argument and using it to demand every course but the Masters be closed down.

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Actually, it's a course given to the amateurs because the Masters was in danger of shutting down in favor of more putt-putt but thanks for playing.

Ugh, delusional. Enter SoO LFR, look around. Enter Heroic SoO, look around. See anything different? No. / fucking thread.

[Thage]

Ugh, delusional.

Projection's an ugly trait to have. :c

[Kelimbror]

The amateur tournament should be removed because it's not an amateur tournament, it's a pro tournament that the amateurs get to play in because THEY want to be special.

Fact check: It's a tournament for different difficulties that are segregated by skill. They play the same courses, but they play with handicaps and different tees. And all of this is from the PGA's(blizzard) desire to provide for all players. So you are 100% wrong with everything you have said. Nice try though.

[Dormie]

Fact check: It's a tournament for different difficulties that are segregated by skill. They play the same courses, but they play with handicaps and different tees. And all of this is from the PGA's(blizzard) desire to provide for all players. So you are 100% wrong with everything you have said. Nice try though.

Nice try to you. Why would I want to play in the PGA if I can play Augusta as a weekend warrior? Anything past that would be purely about the competition, which not everyone cares about.

[Thage]

Ugh, delusional. Enter SoO LFR, look around. Enter Heroic SoO, look around. See anything different? No. / fucking thread.

You mean aside from the fights and the mechanics in Normal+, the gear, the cosmetic rewards, the challenge, the prestige accompanying.

You can /thread all you like and call me delusional all you like. I literally collect the tears of exclusionists to feed on later.

[Imnick]

I don't think anyone plays competitive sports just because they get to hang around inside better looking stadiums that way

[Dormie]

You mean aside from the fights and the mechanics in Normal+, the gear, the cosmetic rewards, the challenge, the prestige accompanying.

You can /thread all you like and call me delusional all you like. I literally collect the tears of exclusionists to feed on later.

lol, anyone who thinks it's about exclusion is vain themselves.

Get it through your head....LFR REMOVES INCENTIVE TO GO TO THE NEXT LEVEL.
Why?
Because what most people care about is SEEING THE RAID, which LFR offers. Not to mention that you can still get at least 1 mount and decent gear from LFR.

It is that simple. Why would I want to gear up to do the same raid I geared up from?

[Veritus7]

Allow me to enlighten this thread with something:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...ou-still-do-it

Notice this poll. If everyone did LFR just for the experience, this poll would be drastically different, but the data here suggests otherwise. People do LFR for the gear. Bottom line.