Why Blizzard is alienating their playerbase?

[mrcoolguyry]

Even though I'm impartial and try to ignore the constant rage of WoW's evolving cesspoolish and rabid community, I think that the OP brings up some pretty damn decent points; who's points only seem to further point the rapid decline of WoW's community of players and Blizzard's increasingly erratic and distanced behavior from the playerbase. In other words, if this keeps going on I hate to say this: but the WoW we used to know and love could really die.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Uhh are you serious?
Because 90 percent of the community isn't fit to give feedback whatsoever.
Most people who complain about the game don't even half anything worth discussing on their character sheet.

They APPEAL to casuals, it doesn't mean they listen to them when they say there is nothing to do.
Blizzard knows just what was put in the game.
They just struggle to get said casuals to play the game the way it was meant to be played.

[xenogear3]

There are some laziness in Cata and MoP, but the amount content is competitive compare to other MMO.

WoD is just highway robbery.

[Magemaer]

There are some laziness in Cata and MoP, but the amount content is competitive compare to other MMO.

WoD is just highway robbery.

Haha pretty much :P
Specially considering the obvious money and resource they have.

It's really a pity that with such a great franchise in hands, and a game that still hooks millions of people worldwide, they decide to go full retarded like this. They're pretty much killing their own phenomena. It's taking them many years and A LOT of bad decisions.

[Sliske]

Why is Blizzard alienating their player base repeatedly, with every patch and expansion?

One of two reasons, in my mind.

1. They are extremely out of touch. They some how miss the enormous amount of feedback they are given, daily and interperator yes to mean no and no to mean yes. This assumes an entire company is completely retarded. I doubt this is the case, but then again, nothing really surprises me anymore.

2. They recognize their game is dying, so they're cash grabbing and using low cost high profit tactics to milk it dry rather than just letting the game naturally die in its more dignified state. Ironically, it is their own wrongdoing that is causing it to die. People don't just stop using a product that is good unless its outperformed by another game (none right now, arguments for FF14 which is recent) or if it lowers its own quality or becomes too expensive. Blizzard is doing the latter two right now. They have been doing so since Cata.

[bryroo]

It's all speculation but I can definitely feel that the love has gone out of the game.

WoD doesn't seem to have any real direction. Grom is forgiven for his transgressions instead of being the final boss because the thought it was cool? Farahlon fit in story wise at Blizzcon but now it's out?

The way WoD has played out is like an old school Blizzard set up the outline and then left and the team that got it has just been doing the absolute minimum of that outline.

Considering the amazing rebound that Diablo 3 made I haven't lost complete faith in Blizzard but I do think that WoW has a super shitty dev team right now. I don't think they're meaning to alienate anyone on purpose, they're just giant dipshits.

[Deleted]

Because 90 percent of the community isn't fit to give feedback whatsoever.

This is total bullshit. Incredibly patronizing to say that paying customers don't know what's good for them. You're essentially saying nobody has any idea of what a good game is to them, and that they should just take daddy Blizzard's advice and fall for the PR tripe, and buy an incredibly underwhelming product just because they're "too stupid to question them".

You've talked a lot of trash recently, but this is just above and beyond.

[The Penguin]

Part of the reason for this is due to the state things were left in by Ghostcrawler. It's more than a little pathetic that everyone including this site still seeks out his opinions on WoW. He may claim he resigned, but in reality he was told "retire or be fired". You don't tell people that publicly. Ask Xelnath sometime. I'm sure he's got much to say on that subject.

If Blizzard really wants to save WoW, undo EVERYTHING Ghostcrawler did, including perhaps the Talent Tree mess. After that, apologize for taking so long to do it. CRZ, Healing Mana crap, the whole thing that deviated from Wrath to WoD. It's been enough time now that the next expansion will be one that he had no development time on, but still the Devs need to get their shit together.

They also need to stop letting Holinka drive PVE content into the ground. No one LIKES PVP except a small die-hard crowd. Most servers are like "Pain in the ass griefer" when they see someone doing it. Ashran is trash and if the next expansion has more of it, and implausible lore? I won't resub or buy it.


Also building off what Zolascius said, another good step would be to censor the living hell out of Ghostcrawler's last remaining acolyte, Bashiok. That son of a bitch did so much crap to people during the CRZ Feedback threads, that it's a wonder that he's still employed. The way he excessively moderates on those forums is beyond ridiculous, in that I see lots of good and valid posts shut down; not because the thread went to pot; but because Bashiok was playing good little kiss-ass and hiding the feedback from being highly rated.

Celestalon would do well to be wary of such people and do what his crew more recently did. Make votes.

[El_Diabl0]

This is total bullshit. Incredibly patronizing to say that paying customers don't know what's good for them. You're essentially saying nobody has any idea of what a good game is to them, and that they should just take daddy Blizzard's advice and fall for the PR tripe, and buy an incredibly underwhelming product just because they're "too stupid to question them".

You've talked a lot of trash recently, but this is just above and beyond.

Most players only give feedback because they want something and because they'll benefit from it. But what they want may not be good for the game in the long run.

[Mission]

Part of the reason for this is due to the state things were left in by Ghostcrawler. It's more than a little pathetic that everyone including this site still seeks out his opinions on WoW. He may claim he resigned, but in reality he was told "retire or be fired". You don't tell people that publicly. Ask Xelnath sometime. I'm sure he's got much to say on that subject.

If Blizzard really wants to save WoW, undo EVERYTHING Ghostcrawler did, including perhaps the Talent Tree mess. After that, apologize for taking so long to do it. CRZ, Healing Mana crap, the whole thing that deviated from Wrath to WoD. It's been enough time now that the next expansion will be one that he had no development time on, but still the Devs need to get their shit together.

They also need to stop letting Holinka drive PVE content into the ground. No one LIKES PVP except a small die-hard crowd. Most servers are like "Pain in the ass griefer" when they see someone doing it. Ashran is trash and if the next expansion has more of it, and implausible lore? I won't resub or buy it.


Also building off what Zolascius said, another good step would be to censor the living hell out of Ghostcrawler's last remaining acolyte, Bashiok. That son of a bitch did so much crap to people during the CRZ Feedback threads, that it's a wonder that he's still employed. The way he excessively moderates on those forums is beyond ridiculous, in that I see lots of good and valid posts shut down; not because the thread went to pot; but because Bashiok was playing good little kiss-ass and hiding the feedback from being highly rated.

Celestalon would do well to be wary of such people and do what his crew more recently did. Make votes.

Said it all spot on.

[fixx]

This is total bullshit. Incredibly patronizing to say that paying customers don't know what's good for them. You're essentially saying nobody has any idea of what a good game is to them, and that they should just take daddy Blizzard's advice and fall for the PR tripe, and buy an incredibly underwhelming product just because they're "too stupid to question them".

The above is total bullshit.

People think they know what's good for them and ignore the needs of the other 7M players totally lacking long term planning or any semblance of empathy. That is why 90% of community isn't fit to give feedback.

Devs on the other hand are forced to give a shit about all of their players, not just the vocal minority special snowflakes who think they're being ignored if their whims aren't catered.

[Fullmetal89]

It's all a big conspiracy to get all the fanbase to drop WoW for WoW 2.0.

[Binko]

The community is absolutely fit to give feedback, and should. It is Blizzard's role to correctly interpret the feedback and act wisely according to what people ask for.

Actually, according to standard accepted corporate business practices Blizzard's role is to maximize value for shareholders.

This means they have to determine how to maximize income while minimizing expenses. If half their playerbase quits and the other half are discontented but they make big profits then, by corporate mentality, they are succeeding better than if all the players were happy but profits were low.

Ten or Fifteen years ago games were made primarily by gamers and successful game companies were often run by people who were gamers at heart. But now the game world has gone full corporate and is run like any other multi-billion dollar business.

[Demithio]

Agreed with OP. Blizzard has been very successful in getting people to pay more for less and even have a very large number of players hooked and excited about the next pile of expansion. Sad part is what little that is even produced is not even good quality (save for the art work), its a double whammy to consumers. Rabid consumerism combined with clever PR / marketing and corporate greed wins the day for Blizzard's revenue stream.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

Actually, according to standard accepted corporate business practices Blizzard's role is to maximize value for shareholders.

This means they have to determine how to maximize income while minimizing expenses. If half their playerbase quits and the other half are discontented but they make big profits then, by corporate mentality, they are succeeding better than if all the players were happy but profits were low.

Ten or Fifteen years ago games were made primarily by gamers and successful game companies were often run by people who were gamers at heart. But now the game world has gone full corporate and is run like any other multi-billion dollar business.

Unfortunately, that is the truth. Corporate will cut to the bone until there's an abrupt push back effect, either by consumers or laws on the books.

Ideally it's a team effort by all interests, so the product matches the needs of the consumers, who in turn will buy that product and the investors will profit.

But in reality, the ball drops a long the way, and the producers and consumers will be at odds on decisions.

The latest drama at Reddit is an example of it (and it shows the politics involved too ... Yo, Ghostcrawler, it does exist!).

[Spinster]

OH GOD stop pulling Paul Sams' words of out of context.

How low must a person go to start using such lame attacks.

You're pretty naive if you think Sams wasn't referring to issues at Blizzard. His walk-back/denial of any issues with Blizzard was VERY likely a response to old buddies calling him up and saying "Dude . . ."

Sams and Ghostcrawler have both tried hard to not fry old buddies while also telling the truth about Blizzard having some real issues.

[Paperfox]

Some businesses - ie: utilities and such - have a huge customer base who are only there because there isn't a good alternative. WoW has gone from being THE game in town, to one that is resting on its laurels.

It is up to the current dev team to fix this...unless of course they believe that they are right and that the players will come round to their way of thinking.

For myself, I was going to buy the new mount (the runesaber one???) and I decided against it because of the state of the game.

[Deleted]

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

basically

Blizzard became a bunch of sell-outs after Wrath was over, they just don't have the same passion they used to have, they're not the people anymore that brought us Vanilla-Wrath. Money talks, but in the case of WoW it backfired oh so hard. Then again they now sell shop mounts for 20 bucks each lol, so they got that going for them I guess.

[roahn the warlock]

If this were true Mythic raid mode would never have been added.

Thats.... not true at all. Mythic is there for a very good reason, also it takes like... no time to make. The reason is for kids to see the super cool gear, and stay subbed to try and get it

to the OP: Looks like a business major wrote that post. Well done, it pretty much sums it up.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

You're pretty naive if you think Sams wasn't referring to issues at Blizzard. His walk-back/denial of any issues with Blizzard was VERY likely a response to old buddies calling him up and saying "Dude . . ."

Sams and Ghostcrawler have both tried hard to not fry old buddies while also telling the truth about Blizzard having some real issues.

They can't just say what they want to say without burning bridges. That's the politics in the industry itself. If they still want to work they'll be cordial and stuff their CVs, they're not whistle blowers.