Socializing, server communities, friendships

[ShiyoKozuki]

This is a MMO, not a single player RPG.

It sickens me that solo player have been catered to so much they're the only people left playing.

[Deleted]

Go play single player games.

So much for great arguments.

[Gilgameshh]

That argument has been debunked over and over. Have you ever heard something about product lifecylces? WoW is in its decline of the lifecycle, while there is no proof that a design decision actually negatively influenced the decline. As long you are not able to prove a causal link between a change you dislike and the sub development, every idea that "casualization" negative influenced the subs are just speculation.

Product lifecycle? The game was on a continual incline until the changes we're discussing, among others, were made. I'm pretty sure based on the experience of myself and many others I know that have quit, that it did indeed contribute to the decline. If you want more proof you can scour the forums because they're full of people saying the same thing. As I said, it's not even close to the only reason; it's just part of the problem.

If you remove LFR, you would remove blizzards justification for raid content in total. Mythic raids are being paid by those who play LFR.

Since when? Raiding was always a niche. Despite the fact that only a small portion of the player base participated in raids, the game was constantly attracting millions of new players. You're telling me that this juggernaut of a company that has grown exponentially since WoW's release can't afford to keep raiding within the game unless more than 15-20% participate? I'd argue that there need to be more fleshed out niches that are only designed to please those who enjoy that aspect of the game. Blizzard simply found a way to create less content by slapping multiple difficulties on raids. My conjecture is as good as yours.

[ls-]

Since when? Raiding was always a niche. Despite the fact that only a small portion of the player base participated in raids, the game was constantly attracting millions of new players. You're telling me that this juggernaut of a company that has grown exponentially since WoW's release can't afford to keep raiding within the game unless more than 15-20% participate? I'd argue that there need to be more fleshed out niches that are only designed to please those who enjoy that aspect of the game. Blizzard simply found a way to create less content by slapping multiple difficulties on raids. My conjecture is as good as yours.

That's what they said though. They said that LFR sorta justified creation of raids, cuz prior to LFR only ~10% of playerbase saw what's going on inside raid instances. Raid content creation costs a lot of money and time.

[Deleted]

Simply merging dead/dying realms and cutting the total number of WoW servers in half would do a greater justice towards creating a community than further upping the ante by offering gear rewards on top of it.

Buckzzard will never do it. They will loss money from character transfer and it would be bad pr for the game. In moment when you hvae to merg servsers is clear sighn that your game is dead.

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That's what they said though. They said that LFR sorta justified creation of raids, cuz prior to LFR only ~10% of playerbase saw what's going on inside raid instances. Raid content creation costs a lot of money and time.

It was just PR talk. Blizzard made raids accessible in hope they will atract even more players into the game and into raiding. Problem is players what didnt raid were nor interest in raiding in first place and since raiding become accessible ti is now their only content what they can do becouse everything els what they enyojed is absolote due to accessible raiding. They lost both casual players what dont eneojy raiding and hardcore veterans what stop seeing point doing raids as all you do is reaplying same content on just higher difficulty.

[Deleted]

I would have quit WoW long ago if cross-realm automatic matchmaking for dungeons would not have been implemented. I hate playing on overcrowded servers, and I hate wasting my time with looking for group bullshit.

Besides that, having solo player content in an MMO RPG only reflects the real world options of having things that you can do on your own, and many people do exactly that.

It's a game, I have my friends in RL and I meet them face to face or have my FB contacts for people who live too far away. The concept of "friends" in WoW is something which has disappointed me very hard and I would rather burn Blizzard HQ down than have them force me to have "friendships" in WoW again to be able to play the game.

[Deleted]

I'm pretty sure based on the experience of myself and many others I know that have quit

Is anecdotal evidence your only argument? As i said, give proof for your idea that a change you dislike was the reason the subs declined, and not a lifecycle development as every single available product has.

Just read everything about product lifecycles, then lets continue to discuss.

If you want more proof you can scour the forums because they're full of people saying the same thing.

Argumentum ad populum is also no valid argument. Go and bring statistics, which show a causal link between changes and sub losses. Otherwise you also could say that the number of gnomes played declined, and therefore the number of players declined. That would be as possible as your idea that "casualization" actually influenced sub numbers negatively.

Since when? Raiding was always a niche.

It wasnt niche anymore since LFR was implemented. LFR is that successfull, that blizzard implemented the biggest part of their patch development into raids in WoD and MoP.

Despite the fact that only a small portion of the player base participated in raids, the game was constantly attracting millions of new players.

Which only did work up to TBC as people still leveled their chars mainly. Starting WotLK, raiding was made way more accessible to adress a ever growing group of people who wanted to play endgame.

You're telling me that this juggernaut of a company that has grown exponentially since WoW's release can't afford to keep raiding within the game unless more than 15-20% participate?

No, they also could keep raiding in the game with 20% playing it. But you would have one 5 boss raids per expac with reused assets. Is it that what you actually want? Or can you get rid of your idea that exclusivity is one of your major issues, and just ignore the fact anyone is able to see "your" raid content, while you have 12 boss raids with unique assets and especially crafted fights?

I'd argue that there need to be more fleshed out niches that are only designed to please those who enjoy that aspect of the game.

I would argue there needs to be more broad audience content as WoW is exactly that.. a broad audience game created by a company whichs mission statement is to adress as many players as possible.

[Gilgameshh]

That's what they said though. They said that LFR sorta justified creation of raids, cuz prior to LFR only ~10% of playerbase saw what's going on inside raid instances. And raid content creation costs a lot of money and time.

I stand corrected, then. I don't believe it to be true, but at least it's not conjecture. The point I made about the game growing despite the 10-20% of the player base experiencing the raiding content still stands, as does the fact that I shouldn't expect content to be removed from the game when 10-20% of people would quit if it wasn't for raids. Do you think it costs more than 10% of WoW's revenue/Blizzard's time to create the raids?

[Deleted]

They lost both casual players what dont eneojy raiding and hardcore veterans what stop seeing point doing raids as all you do is reaplying same content on just higher difficulty.

They lost all kind of players, due to a product lifecycle decline. If you think that a actualy change influenced the sub numbers, bring a proof for that.

[Pull My Finger]

I think those are the three most overrated things period, and I'm very skeptical of all of these weird ideas that always come down to some concept of disadvantaging people in order to push everyone into bromances.

I don't wanna be your e-buddy, forcing me wouldn't help either.

[Deleted]

I stand corrected, then.

Thats the problem about the youtube videos.. people rarely inform theirself, but just consume informations. Even if they are based on false informations.

The point I made about the game growing despite the 10-20% of the player base experiencing the raiding content still stands

No, it doesnt stand. As the game was new those days. As the lifecycle was in its growing phase. As people still leveled their chars and had heroic dungeons as their highest endgame content.

Its completely different nowadays, as people want to see the endgame, and have a lot of alts already. You will win no ex-player with telling him "Hey, you can level 5 new alts!".

[ls-]

I stand corrected, then. I don't believe it to be true, but at least it's not conjecture. The point I made about the game growing despite the 10-20% of the player base experiencing the raiding content still stands, as does the fact that I shouldn't expect content to be removed from the game when 10-20% of people would quit if it wasn't for raids. Do you think it costs more than 10% of WoW's revenue/Blizzard's time to create the raids?

Raids are extremely expensive to create. They require a lot of art/design/model/coding work to be done. I assume that the only thing that's more expansive to create is an expansion itself.

[WowIsDead64]

You're socializer. Socializers - are just 10% of playerbase. In most cases, I guess, they are also raiders. So: 1) You have enough content - there is no need to take content from other players to give it to you. 2) There is no point in developing game for just 10% of playerbase. There is nothing bad in not being socializer. "Killers", "Achievers" and "Explorers" - are legitimate players and should have content, that suits them.

Stop being special snowflake and demanding to make game exclusive for you. This stupid "game will be successful even with 1M players - so let's make game for minority, but for minority, that deserves it" logic - is what actually kills this game. Development budget shrinks more and more with every subsequent xpack. Game can have massive amount of content, only if massive amount of players play it. As always - it's casuals and solo players, who pay for development of your precious raids. No casuals/solo players - no raids, no game.

[Deleted]

This is a MMO, not a single player RPG.

It sickens me that solo player have been catered to so much they're the only people left playing.

MMO can be played as single player game with no problem. In fact, MMO devs (Lotro, wildstar) stated that more than 60% of MMO players are single players type.

[Gilgameshh]

Is anecdotal evidence your only argument? As i said, give proof for your idea that a change you dislike was the reason the subs declined, and not a lifecycle development as every single available product has.

Just read everything about product lifecycles, then lets continue to discuss.



Argumentum ad populum is also no valid argument. Go and bring statistics, which show a causal link between changes and sub losses. Otherwise you also could say that the number of gnomes played declined, and therefore the number of players declined. That would be as possible as your idea that "casualization" actually influenced sub numbers negatively.



It wasnt niche anymore since LFR was implemented. LFR is that successfull, that blizzard implemented the biggest part of their patch development into raids in WoD and MoP.



Which only did work up to TBC as people still leveled their chars mainly. Starting WotLK, raiding was made way more accessible to adress a ever growing group of people who wanted to play endgame.



No, they also could keep raiding in the game with 20% playing it. But you would have one 5 boss raids per expac with reused assets. Is it that what you actually want? Or can you get rid of your idea that exclusivity is one of your major issues, and just ignore the fact anyone is able to see "your" raid content, while you have 12 boss raids with unique assets and especially crafted fights?



I would argue there needs to be more broad audience content as WoW is exactly that.. a broad audience game created by a company whichs mission statement is to adress as many players as possible.

I appreciate that you're debating with me point by point, but I'm in a rush so forgive me for not doing the same.

Product lifecycle isn't just an argument you can throw out like it's gospel. Did the game reach it's maturity? Hard to tell considering the subs never declined until they changed their design philosophies. You can argue it did just as well as I can argue that it didn't. Did WoW have any competition from other games in the MMO genre at the time? It definitely did not. Anyway, you can't just throw out the term like it's the end to the debate. :P

LFR, if I recall correctly, was implemented due to the severe lack of end-game in Cataclysm. Raiding has never been the only end-game content. Just because it was successful doesn't mean it wasn't a emergency, band-aid solution. They stuck with the idea moving forward, in my eyes, so that they didn't have to create more content. Is that not the most logical explanation?

I would also argue that no one needs to see every piece of content in the game. You say that there was an ever-growing group of people that wanted to play end-game, but was it implemented well? LFR can exist, but I don't think it's good for the game at all in its current form. It shouldn't be a catch-up mechanic that makes other parts of the game irrelevant. I would be fine if it awarded loot with ilvl in between normal and heroic dungeons because that's where the difficulty lies. I would also argue that the old tier of content should be released in LFR form after the new tier is released so that people who enjoy raiding don't feel the need to use it as a stepping stone, whereby they see the content before they do it in a "real" raid. Raiding shouldn't be the only end-game content that exists, and just because someone feels entitled to see everything doesn't mean it's good design to cater to that.

Broad audience content, I would argue, is why we're in the hole we're in today with content. Blizzard tries to please everyone but ends up pleasing very few people as a result. What you said about people wanting to see the end-game content, well... now we have loads of people bitching that they're forced into raiding for end-game content. Because of LFR, there's no more need to run dungeons for character progression. Lots of people, including myself, love dungeons as character progression (and I don't think they've ever done dungeons well as end-game, although I won't claim to know the best way). The mythic dungeon idea was a band-aid very similar to LFR.

Also, lots of people, including myself, love having to revisit older content because it's still relevant in the expansion. Today, the only relevant content is what was released in the latest patch. Do you think LFR in its current form doesn't contribute to this problem? Is content relevance not a problem for you personally?

I realize that you vehemently disagree with what I'm saying, but I do enjoy having this debate. I'm out for now, but I'll come back to continue later today if you respond.

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Thats the problem about the youtube videos.. people rarely inform theirself, but just consume informations. Even if they are based on false informations.

I had actually forgotten this piece of information but didn't want to seem like omniscient prick by going back on my words. It has nothing to do with YouTube videos.

No, it doesnt stand. As the game was new those days. As the lifecycle was in its growing phase. As people still leveled their chars and had heroic dungeons as their highest endgame content.

Where was it stated that WoW reached its maturity? I'm no expert, but I don't think that's more than a guess.

[ShiyoKozuki]

MMO can be played as single player game with no problem. In fact, MMO devs (Lotro, wildstar) stated that more than 60% of MMO players are single players type.

Ok?
You should not cater so heavily to the single player/pug player that it encourages it over guild/friend groups in every way possible besides mythic raiding.

[Relapses]

I'm not so jaded to believe that the reason Blizzard hasn't yet merged servers is because they're too greedy. They have to be aware of the situation with smaller realms and they're perhaps waiting to see if the surge of players coming back for Legion reignites these communities. Should these realm populations die out quickly shortly after Legion's release, we may see additional realm mergers.

But that's just me looking at the situation glass-half-full instead of cynically saying Blizzard hates its customers and every decision they make is a giant fuck you.

[Deleted]

They lost all kind of players, due to a product lifecycle decline. If you think that a actualy change influenced the sub numbers, bring a proof for that.

Nope most of players left becouse Blizzard change game too much from what it was. Why you think vannila private servers have queues on they servers while retail is ghost town? Why you think we want legacy servers? Game have changed and we what have played vannila and tbc no longer enyojed it. It is boring singple player game with instant gratification rewards to trigger your pleasure zones in your brain for short period of time.

[Zantos]

Ok?
You should not cater so heavily to the single player/pug player that it encourages it over guild/friend groups in every way possible besides mythic raiding.

How do you expect them to cater to the social players? They give you CRZ so you have more people to talk to when questing. They give you LFG so you can 1) do dungeons and 2) meet new people from servers you previously wouldn't have. You have trade chat and general discussion channels on each server you can use to talk to people. You can go to the main city and just start talking to someone you walk up to.

How in the world do you expect them to cater more to the social people? They can't exactly force other players to be social. Even if you give them incentives to group up with you repeatedly.

[Pull My Finger]

Nope most of players left becouse Blizzard change game too much from what it was. Why you think vannila private servers have queues on they servers while retail is ghost town? Why you think we want legacy servers? Game have changed and we what have played vannila and tbc no longer enyojed it. It is boring singple player game with instant gratification rewards to trigger your pleasure zones in your brain for short period of time.

Yeah. You and a select bunch of other backwards folk. The rest doesn't care about your nostalgia blah. People quit the game for all kinds of reasons, get over yourself.