The State of WoW (my ranty opinion)

[Arkura]

I just saw the wall of text and when the title includes something thats a rant I cant be bothered to read, theres at least 10 new threads coming in on a daily basis people basing their opinion on whatever shit they saw on youtube.

Why not wait until release and make up ur own opinion based upon ur own experience of the game?

[Jibjub]

The long-term implications of driving away a devoted audience by deliberately appealing to a more fickle audience may not be as irrelevant as they seem when viewed through the lens of quarterly reports. The phrase 'jumping the shark' comes to mind.

I don't know if we can blame developers. Publishers, maybe? The Big Money.

The penultimate example of this, to me, is ArcheAge. This game had TONS of potential. It reached a market of MMOers that no other game did and had a lot of really cool ideas and they executed on many of them swimmingly. But, to use a terrible cliche, it was a veritable cash-grab. No long-term vision for the west (not sure what decisions were made in the east).

Long-term is risky. Why maybe get 1 billion dollars in 4 years when you can DEFINITELY get 250 million NOW.

[Deficineiron]

The long-term implications of driving away a devoted audience by deliberately appealing to a more fickle audience may not be as irrelevant as they seem when viewed through the lens of quarterly reports. The phrase 'jumping the shark' comes to mind.

I have argued on other threads the change in game tuning and direction after the merger for years. I don't disagree. I don't think bobby kotick (based on some of his own comments about when he heard of wow, etc) 'got' what hooked players into mmo's. I suspect that with the merger blizzard was encouraged to more broadly accessibilize their game for a broader possible market. From AB\s viewpoint, it had to seem like the most obvious strategy in the world, as it had worked wonderfully for them over time on other titles.

I would go so far as to say I bet kotick's team if not kotick himself thought blizzard was crazy to have willingly self-limited their market by accessibility barriers and intentionally refusing some types of value-added service transactions. I can just imagine the meeting where blizzard is explaining value-added service revenue

B - 'well we get xx$ quarterly from server transfers.'

AB - what is this about no pve to pvp servers I see here? Also is there really a 3-month cooldown on this service?

B - oh we don't allow those pve to pvp xfers, and yes we refuse the customer's money for more transfers for 3 months per characters

AB - puzzled look on face. B soon begins allowing the 'never to be allowed' pve to pvp server xfers, and server xfer cooldowns are quickly reduced more and more.

[Deleted]

Sadly I never had the chance to play WoW in it's Vanilla state, nor BC. I'm a Cata player, but even I feel that the current state of the game with how WoD turned out is a huge disappointment and I could be more immersed in the game, the zones, etc. I would probably play it again in a heartbeat. But it must be a case of I think I do, but I really don't.

[Gaexion Ramza Beoulve]

The game was so much better back when it sucked.

[Pieterman]

There's a lot of convenience stuff that was well thought out, served a purpose and didn't negatively impact gameplay. I was discussing earlier with a friend of mine that things like the changed settings menu, or the calendar, little things like that are undisputable improvements. It didn't change anything about your character or gameplay, yet made your gaming experience easier. I like a lot of those changes and functions that Blizzard thought of, designed and implemented.

All that being said, a large part of gameplay-related changes(dungeonfinder, raidfinder, properly itemized gear, attunements removed, heirlooms, ect.ect.ect.) all add up to make the game lose part of what makes it immersive. That's why it took so long and went by somewhat unnoticed for the game to become so different. Small incremental steps of well-intentioned improvements.

[Sabever]

I think it still comes down to lack of content in the open world. If you give people a reason to be out in the world they will go.

The problem is that you posted most people hated things so they made improvements. Many of the improvements no longer require people to interact with the environment. Thus no immersion. What sounds like a great idea, like LFG goes horribly wrong. Here is how:

I sit in LFG for an hour spamming: Lvl 80 Lock LFG MT pst. Finally I get into a group. One guy leaves. Ten minutes later we all make our way to the dungeon. Fight another group for use of the portal and have to kill the alliance players using it. Another group exits the instance and helps us kill them. We go into dungeon, it takes an hour to clear. We have to use CCs and avoid mob mechanics in order to clear. Along the way it takes so long one guy drops and we get a guidly to join. But they are coming out with LFG so it will all be improved.

Two years later. Got LFG, que popped in 20 minutes as I sat in Org doing nothing. The group was over tuned for the raid. We steam rolled it in 15 minutes. Nothing left to do for the day so I logged out (after getting six pieces of gear from the dungeon.

Or the old version is that I used to grind mob X for him to drop embers so I could build a good robe. Got in a few pvp fights. Some guidies helped me farm, then I went and helped them farm their stuff. Accidentally found a cool rare mob that we could not beat. Two blues dropped and I got enchanting mats for my chest piece.

New version... I logged in and grabbed my garrison resources. I traded them in for the mats I needed and logged out because there was nothing else to do.

Old version, although tedious, immersed you in the game and you loved it. You hated it but you loved it. The new version of the game is a shell of what it once was.

[Deleted]

Me? You are arguing that because it has talents and levels and skills, it can be described as a RPG.


Just because it has these 3 aspects, it doesn't mean that it is pure RPG.

I asked you then what the fuck is an RPG?

And i asked you to be specific. And i'm 100% sure you cant because all you do is spew bullshit

HERPDERP lol

[Daffan]

state of wow: too much catchup and skip. Content runs out too fast unless your running mythic because of it.

ezy pezy just diagnosed why people quit and complain about no content longevity.

[Sansnom]

WoW is not an MMORPG and hasn't been in years, the last time WoW was an MMORPG was in Wrath. Let me explain before you start in on the "it's got elves n' orcs n' shit course it's an RPG".

WoW is now an action\adventure MMO the RPG elements have slowly been removed in the name of accessibility, convenience and reducing "bloat". The talent trees are a good example sure there were cookie cutter builds and if you didn't use them you were doing nowhere near as much as you could but that very possibility of screwing things up created chances for community.

It always was an action\adventure. You never had any "roles". You follow orders to collect teeths, kill boards etc. What choice have you ever made? None.

Basically poor choices allowed for discussion between players, I had more than a few fairly heated arguments with a mage in my guild when I was stacking hit vs him stacking crit, fair enough it was vanilla now you'd just hit up Icy-Veins and go from there. Discussions between players is why the second M part of MMO exists.

You said so yourself. "Poor" choices. "Poor" choices made for players to be ridiculed. There never were any choices.

Another RPG element that is gone, class quests, people could miss them and some people claimed they didn't have the time to traipse all over the world to complete them, so they had to go to "streamline the experience" (I'll come back to this).

If it was "required" and mandatory, then the game either had to direct the players in such a way it could not be missed, or just remove it altogether. If player could choose not to do it, then it should not be "mandatory".

No flavour skills such as see invisibility, sense undead, sense treasure, none of that because it was confusing to people that they had skills that were not directly usable in their narrow little role, fuck the fact that those skills are the guts of an RPG that RPG's are all about the fucking flavour, they confuse little Jimmy SO THEY MUST GO, can't have little Jimmy actually needing to learn something.

No. I think you are confusing RPG with an Action\Adventure game. I never once considered WoW to be an RPG. I always considered to be a bigger version of Diablo.

[Drpizka]

I asked you then what the fuck is an RPG?

And i asked you to be specific. And i'm 100% sure you cant because all you do is spew bullshit

HERPDERP lol

Firstly, no you didn't ask.

Secondly, I have repeated it lots of times. WoW used to be a MMO-RPG. That means that it fulfilled all the requirements, and there are many of them so writing them down is a loss of time.

These that you mentioned are part of a RPG game, but these solely are not enough to define a game as RPG.

That attitude though, no wonder why WoW has declined.

[Niwes]

i agree with most points of the op. but it just tastes like "same BS different day".

[Bepples]

You have to admire how badly people miss the point when they try to diagnose what's wrong with WoW. Could it be the lack of content? The ever-increasing dependence on RNG? The time-gating? The decreasing quality of class design? Nah, it MUST be because we no longer have to use arrows or buff reagents!

[Drpizka]

You have to admire how badly people miss the point when they try to diagnose what's wrong with WoW. Could it be the lack of content? The ever-increasing dependence on RNG? The time-gating? The decreasing quality of class design? Nah, it MUST be because we no longer have to use arrows or buff reagents!

you miss the point here. You stick to words rather on ideas.

The point is that the game is so easy that it has lost its purpose. It has been transformed to another genre.

[Bepples]

you miss the point here. You stick to words rather on ideas.

The point is that the game is so easy that it has lost its purpose. It has been transformed to another genre.

More pointless buzzwords. Having to buy 1000 reagents from a vendor every couple weeks is not difficulty and adds NOTHING to the game. It is also totally irrelevant to why people are unsubscribing. You might think you are being really clever and sorting this all out but in reality you are just being pretentious.

[Drpizka]

More pointless buzzwords. Having to buy 1000 reagents from a vendor every couple weeks is not difficulty and adds NOTHING to the game. It is also totally irrelevant to why people are unsubscribing. You might think you are being really clever and sorting this all out but in reality you are just being pretentious.

It certainly adds a dificulty, when you are fighting a boss and you notice that you are running out of ammo.

Let alone that it is realistic.

But screw realism, lets remove durability too. Because all you crybabies spend too much precious gold on repairing your gear.

Remove that, remove the other... here you are. The game has changed so much, that is no longer a RPG.

I am just expressing my opinion. I don't claim to be more clever that anyone.

[Bepples]

It certainly adds a dificulty, when you are fighting a boss and you notice that you are running out of ammo.

Let alone that it is realistic.

But screw realism, lets remove durability too. Because all you crybabies spend too much precious gold on repairing your gear.

Remove that, remove the other... here you are. The game has changed so much, that is no longer a RPG.

I am just expressing my opinion. I don't claim to be more clever that anyone.

Realism is absolutely not a priority. Blizzard established that when they sent you dragons in the MAIL. Literally no one gives a shit except for pseudo-intellectuals on MMO-champion.

Durability does not exist for realism; it exists to add a minor death penalty. It actually serves a function, unlike reagents which apparently only exist to take up bag space. It's not difficult to spam-right-click in a vendor menu on the item you need once a month.

RPGs do not rely on things like reagents. Providing a good gameplay experience while delivering a story which heavily incorporates your character (hence role-playing game) is what makes an RPG.

As I said before, WoW has a million severe issues which are driving players away, usually boiling down to developer arrogance. "Not being an RPG" is not one of them; it's not a real issue at all.

[Drpizka]

Realism is absolutely not a priority. Blizzard established that when they sent you dragons in the MAIL. Literally no one gives a shit except for pseudo-intellectuals on MMO-champion.

Durability does not exist for realism; it exists to add a minor death penalty. It actually serves a function, unlike reagents which apparently only exist to take up bag space. It's not difficult to spam-right-click in a vendor menu on the item you need once a month.

RPGs do not rely on things like reagents. Providing a good gameplay experience while delivering a story which heavily incorporates your character (hence role-playing game) is what makes an RPG.

As I said before, WoW has a million severe issues which are driving players away, usually boiling down to developer arrogance. "Not being an RPG" is not one of them; it's not a real issue at all.

For some of us apparently, it is.

Some of us don't care about raids and epics, we want to login, spent a couple of hours with friends adventuring and that's it.

And don't tell me I can do that too now, because:
a)group quests don't exist any more
b)dungeons are a joke

Believe me, one of the severe problems you say is that the game is super easy right now.

[shoegazing]

Cross realm zones are another big piece of the problem.

It used to be that when you were out questing in say Arathi Highlands, you would run into that UD Warrior and you'd help them with a quest, or you'd get into a WPvP battle with them fighting over a quest objective. And then the amazing thing was, two days later when you were in the Plaguelands you would see that same player! And you'd say "ok I'm not losing to him this time, time to get my payback" or you'd /wave and help them out again.

And more than just running into a single player more than once, you'd also run into players from their guild and you'd have an idea what to expect. "Wow, these guys in <Bloodsworn> are ruthless gankers and they have the best raid gear, I'd better not let him see me" or "hey, that's the third person from <Elite Guard> that's helped me this week, I should ask if they are recruiting".

On a PvP realm at least, the world felt hostile and dangerous... and that made it exciting! And it wasn't just the danger of dying, it was the fact that your reputation was on the line, your guild's pride was on the line, etc.

The LFG tool is another problem. I agree that it's wonderfully convenient. But I still think you should have to physically travel to your Mauradon run. There was more of an investment in the group. People wouldn't just bail after 1 wipe, they'd work together and figure out a way to succeed and it felt rewarding. And maybe the priest got ganked on the way there, so you and the hunter would run outside and help her make it to the dungeon safely. And you'd complete the whole dungeon together, even though it was a longer experience, because again everyone was invested in the group.

Personally, I like a lot of the convenient changes that have been made to modern WoW. But I still think there could be a balance where we have some of that convenience and those common sense QoL improvements without losing the elements that made Azeroth feel like an expansive place with a thriving community that you could be a part of.

Finally, let me say a few words about class design. It's so heartbreaking to me how fundamental pieces of the rogue class are being cut up and divided among the different specs for the sake of "differentiating the class fantasy". My rogue has been making and using poisons for 11 years, and now suddenly she is just going to forget this skill? She has been using Gouge and Garrote for 11 years, and now she is just going to forget how? And she's going to suddenly have access to all this shadow magic? Combat rogue is a pirate now? And yet none of the 3 rogue specs on Legion Alpha feels like a complete rogue. Furthermore the reduction in the number of buttons, and more importantly the reduction in how interesting and interactive those remaining buttons are, is an extreme disappointment. Subtlety is supposed to be the stealth oriented spec, yet they've removed so many of the buttons we use in stealth that Shadow Dance won't even have it's own stealth action bar anymore, because "there aren't enough buttons to justify it". Well, whose fault is that? We didn't ask for this. It feels like Blizzard is determined to completely remake all 3 rogue specs in a way that even further reduces the complexity and the finesse and the opportunity for creative or inventive gameplay, and they're going to do so in such a way that none of them feels like a proper rogue and a lot of the people who have played this class over the years are going to be disappointed.

Legion looks promising to me in many ways, but the insane level of dumbing-down on the class design just 100% ruins it for me. I understand that PvE encounters are going to have more complicated mechanics, but I'm primarily a PvP oriented player, and our "encounter mechanics" are our class toolkits and our enemies class toolkits! Even with the PvP talent trees, and even focusing on active abilities over passives, there are not only less buttons to push than previous versions of the game, but those buttons are less interesting when you push them.

To me, for Legion to really be a great expansion, we'd need a) partial rollback of some of the convenience changes that have come at the cost of that RPG feeling, and b) the return of some complexity to our classes toolkits and the return of some buttons which are situational or require a lot of thought and aren't 100% obvious and intuitive to every single player.

[Bepples]

For some of us apparently, it is.

Some of us don't care about raids and epics, we want to login, spent a couple of hours with friends adventuring and that's it.

And don't tell me I can do that too now, because:
a)group quests don't exist any more
b)dungeons are a joke

Believe me, one of the severe problems you say is that the game is super easy right now.

I agree that those things are real issues (less so for Dungeons since there are now mythic dungeons). Realism, however, is not.