Ghostcrawler on why WoW became a game for casuals

[speirs]

Whocares what he says he is an awful game dev that needs to return to sea studies.

Dumbing down the game has done nothing but kill the game, not bring in new people, and if they try trial version it I bet very few of them make it to max level or even buy wow

If a game is good enough for 12 million ppl you don't go and rip its guts out because it makes more sense in theory

[Flutterguy]

I hope people realize that masochistic gaming can co-exist with casual gaming. It's not like it's one or the other. Some gamers out there aren't happy unless a game is stomping on their testicles with stilettos at all times and other gamers give up once they die a couple times.

It's a pretty broad spectrum to service.

[Anjerith]

I have really terrible news for this entire thread; the reason WoW was such a massive hit was that it offered streamlined and easier to understand content and mechanics than Everquest. Everyone that plays WoW is Casual to one extent or another.

[Radish Spirit]

The MASSIVE popularity difference between WoW and Dark Souls shows that, indeed, the time for challenging games is LARGELY over.

No, it didn't. That's a ridiculous argument. No hardcore game, especially not a single player one has ever had the widespread appeal of Wow. Comparing the two is meaningless and completely stupid (and you know this).

Comparing Dark Souls to similar products it was a massive success with tons of critical acclaim and financial success. It shows that the era of hardcore games is most definitely not over, even a little bit (let alone "LARGELY" so). Ninja Gaiden, Darksiders, Deadspace, Lost Planet, the list goes on - not even to mention all of the casual games that are incredibly hardcore on their highest difficulties (Gears of War for one).

There's also an enormous array of hugely successful hardcore PC games recently - DayZ moved over 2 million copies as a broken, buggy pre-alpha release. It's one of the most hardcore experiences to hit PC in the last decade and it made $40M+ before it was even in Beta.

Hardcore games aren't going anywhere any time soon. No evidence suggests otherwise.

Also, didn't the sequel(s) to Dark Souls tone down the difficulty?

Nope.

[diddle]

Not sure what the problem is. Heroic raids fill the hardcore niche.

I think this really comes down to many people still believing that seeing certain game content is an earned privilege and not a right, which is just not a sustainable business model.

[Osmeric]

People were unwilling/unable to play the game correctly. That's literally the only problem there was. And if they're unable it's because they're unwilling....or brain dead.. Not to mention that people complained before they were even semi geared for the dungeons.

Got that out of your system? Good. The cool thing about what you're whining about there is that it doesn't matter. The great bulk of players have veto power over what the game can be, and it doesn't matter if that grinds your gears and drives you to insult them.

[Dormie]

Got that out of your system? Good. The cool thing about what you're whining about there is that it doesn't matter. The great bulk of players have veto power over what the game can be, and it doesn't matter if that grinds your gears and drives you to insult them.

Not my fault the truth is insulting.

[Osmeric]

Not my fault the truth is insulting.

"Brain dead" was a truth, not an insult? One learns amazing new medical facts every day.

[Zagnut]

People were unwilling/unable to play the game correctly. That's literally the only problem there was.

So which do you want Blizzard to do: Cast a spell to change how people play their game, or just decide they hate money and martyr themselves for your cause?

[tristannarutofan]

People were unwilling/unable to play the game correctly. That's literally the only problem there was. And if they're unable it's because they're unwilling....or brain dead.. Not to mention that people complained before they were even semi geared for the dungeons.

I think what this conversation is missing is context.

In BC dungeons were end game content for individuals. After a long time u were geared for raids.

It was part of gated content.

It was similar with wrath but they added naxx so people could gear in easy parts of naxx while getting crafted and dungeon and rep gear.

In cats and mop the difference was that dungeons were not end game content. Before a heroic dungeon was individually an accomplishment.

But pug mode meant it was super easy to find a group. I've spent 3 hours in wrath looking for a group for a particular dungeon. Even with DPS que times I could do at least 6 dungeons in that time.

Point being in cats and mop heroic dungeons are and were something u grind for rep valor and class experience. They coulnd be super difficult.


So comparing difficulty level is fairly moot since they are different kinds of content.

[heartless8604]

Yeah know what wasn't casual for an MMO? Vanguard, remember how well that did? Bet most here forgot that name.

He ruined the game, lost 4 to 5 million subscribers and went on to a game with the most toxic community imaginable. A game so far beyond help most of the devs gave up. The only reason Riot still cares is because it's still a cash cow. For how long who knows? I still say he's just bitter because blizzard fired him for his piss poor handling of the game. Which is why they replaced the entire staff with the veteran devs who did TBC and Wrath, the two highest grossing points in blizzard's history. They're trying to undo the mistakes that GC made and bring the game back to a salvageable state. He's bitter because they're undoing his work.

[AVPaul]

*Putting tinfoil hat on my head* Don't you suspect, that Ghostcrawler may be an undercover Blizzard agent, sent to Riot to steal some insider information about their game, which then will be used to develop Blizzard's own game - HOS?

[Deleted]

The MASSIVE popularity difference between WoW and Dark Souls shows that, indeed, the time for challenging games is LARGELY over. Of course they can survive as niche games. That's why the word "largely" was in there.

First of all that it just a silly comparison. WoW is a decade old franchise with tons of people playing just because of addiction and sunk cost fallacy, comparing it to a recent release makes no sense at all. Second, you're acting like a game can only be one thing at a time. The strength of original WoW was that it had Naxx60 and tons of cool 5-mans ranging from short and simple to long and epic. You could be a casual and there was content designed specifically for you, or you could be hardcore and there was also content designed specifically for you. That gave the game depth and variety, and catalyzed the amazing community it used to have. Today's WoW has none of that. There is one small set of content that everyone must do at the same time, and any difficulty above the lowest is just grinding the same thing all over again.

[Daffan]

And yet LoL is the most played game in the world.

And they say challenge doesn't bring in and keep players. pfft

I'd have to admit challenge keeps players. When people can do all the relevant content in 1 day there is no reason to stay subscribed.

AKA. Hey, i really want to go To BT. GO through 3 raids. Instead of skip 2 and than LFR cleanse Garrosh. Remember folks, Casuals don't care about normal/heroic modes so as long as Garrosh dies on their screen they are done for the patch.

[Zagnut]

I'd have to admit challenge keeps players.

Based on what, the sonic boom of failure created when Wildstar flopped? I love this fucking fantasy that Blizzard would make more money if only they didn't cater to casuals so hard, and how desperately people like you cling to it. Reality check: There have now been at least two attempts at a "hardcore MMO" and both turned out to be horrible trainwrecks.

[Vulcanasm]

Yeah know what wasn't casual for an MMO? Vanguard, remember how well that did? Bet most here forgot that name.

He ruined the game, lost 4 to 5 million subscribers and went on to a game with the most toxic community imaginable. A game so far beyond help most of the devs gave up. The only reason Riot still cares is because it's still a cash cow. For how long who knows? I still say he's just bitter because blizzard fired him for his piss poor handling of the game. Which is why they replaced the entire staff with the veteran devs who did TBC and Wrath, the two highest grossing points in blizzard's history. They're trying to undo the mistakes that GC made and bring the game back to a salvageable state. He's bitter because they're undoing his work.

No, I mentioned earlier: Vanguard peaked < 80k subscribers and was so profoundly bad that Sony reassigned every single developer within 2 years of launch. I was in closed beta and everyone talked about how awesome it would be to have a "truly hardcore" game. I got bored and left. Launch day happened and the realms were ghost towns from the get-go. Sadly Vanguard had some of the best "concept" classes I've ever seen (Blood Mage, Monk, Psion).

As for GC, don't blame him. I suspect the bad ideas came from bean counters trying to make the game "more accessible" while having no clue what makes games good.

[Deleted]

My belief is that GC has issues with WoW design changes for some time, and that WoD had a lot that he disagreed with. To the point that he left Blizzard to joint Riot, but not to work on LoL but to work on a much bigger project.

Yeah. Or you know, like he said, he just fancied a change of pace after 8 years at the same job. Like normal people would.

[Vulcanasm]

Based on what, the sonic boom of failure created when Wildstar flopped? I love this fucking fantasy that Blizzard would make more money if only they didn't cater to casuals so hard, and how desperately people like you cling to it. Reality check: There have now been at least two attempts at a "hardcore MMO" and both turned out to be horrible trainwrecks.

There have been dozens. The problems is they're such complete train wrecks that everyone forgets about them, even hardcore players. Most go free to play, or start out that way, and I've seen no "hardcore MMO" since Everquest that broke 200k subscribers.

[Vash The Stampede]

I hope people realize that masochistic gaming can co-exist with casual gaming. It's not like it's one or the other. Some gamers out there aren't happy unless a game is stomping on their testicles with stilettos at all times and other gamers give up once they die a couple times.

It's a pretty broad spectrum to service.

In a multiplayer game it's nearly impossible to please a casual gamer that rage quits. If it's not from the games content then the players will do it. And no, they can't co-exist. Games are competitive in nature, so it's always going to be hard to have a challenging game without making someone feel inadequate as a player. Of course Blizzards approach to this is to have a lot of different content to please both sides, which sorta makes sense until the casuals want the content they paid for. Which takes the competitiveness out of the game when you just literally hand anyone epics.

Content like...

Pokemon
Market house
farming
daily quests
Dungeons
Scenarios
Dark Moon faire

These are all what I consider to be casual content, which is fine for those that want it. But the casuals weren't happy so LFR was born! They wanted it all and couldn't be bothered with silly things like skill. While the ilvl of the gear is lower, it's the same looking gear with recoloring. It's not enough to reward players who actual take the time to learn the games mechanics. A Heroic or soon to be Mythic raider doesn't stand out over LFR players. Anytime you have segregation of have and have not, the have not's will wants it. You could argue that 90% of the players are not experiencing the most important content in the game, but proper raiding is what this game was built on. Whatever LFR is, it's not a raid. Oddly though you don't see any casual version of PvP, but that's because you can't. Not unless Warlocks are considered the casual way of doing PvP in Blizzards design.

Also not many people would sit down and consider themselves casual or hardware. You'd be lucky if they consider themselves a gamer at all. They play a game for fun, but casual gaming is on the way out. Just ask Nintendo when the Wii fell apart around 2009ish. They can't get anyone to buy a Wii U. Is it ever a wonder why WoW's subscriptions are falling and not climbing as the game becomes more and more casual?

[Deleted]

Dude gc may have been (at one time) the lead developer

And as pointed out thousand times in this thread already: GC was never the Lead Developer of WoW. He was the lead of the systems/numbers team (think rotations, DPS balance, gameplay etc). WoW has many other teams (quests, raids, pvp, art, story - they all have their own leads: Kosak, Holinka, Watcher, Mumper, Chris Robertson etc). Many of them use the title " Lead Game Designer" just like GC did, but it just means they're team leads.

Tom Chilton has been the Game Director/Lead Designer since TBC. Rob Pardo was the Chief Creative Officer. Those two would be the guys you should be pointing fingers at.

GC did start the trend of direct communication with the playerbase, which is why he was very visible and people get confused.
But he was never in charge of WoW, so can we please just drop that already?