Reason for persistence of content droughts in WoW?

[Felnoire]

Think I'll say none of those reasons, and I'm not going to suggest people aren't doing all content either. But I will say that content drought is a subjective thing, to me it never really occurs even though I no longer raid nor pvp. LFR isn't my scene, and I only liked pvping when I was with by friends and moved straight to an rp realm the moment they left wow. I find my content in exploring, doing quests even if they aren't going to rewards me any upgrades, rping when I don't feel I'm intruding on other people's rp scenarios, and other stuff nobody would really consider 'content'. So to me I've never really had a point I go "I'm out of things to do.", I get bored of course and go away for a while to play other games then come back to play when the mood hits me.
I do understand to those that only find raiding their thing or other aspects that the time between expansions is rather irksome. I feel a sense of wanting the next expansion to turn up sooner, not cause I feel a need for new content but cause I see what's on the horizon and want to be there trying it out for myself. Which I find is the impulse that triggers the belief the content we have is no longer enough, even if in the case of those who come to WoW for X will find there is a lack of relevant X while they wait for the next big expansion.
Blizz haven't done well to keep the schedule they had hoped to of an expansion a year (or was it two?), so I can understand why people might find it something to lambaste them for. But I find I rather they take their time and deliver great content than rush if it gives us another WoD, not that I'm totally adverse to this expansion as it did have things I enjoy doing. Too much solo garrison and orc killing (I do like variety in my homicidal rampages for loot) being my only gripes, but then I could point out flaws in every game ever.
So I think the question about content droughts is, first, what content is it you're speaking of? Raiding, PvP, basically Endgame from what I've seen. Which leads to what causes such content to be consumed at a rate that the current release of expansions can't keep up? I've always noticed the community has gotten better and better at bull rushing content that in the past they might have taken longer at, but that's subjective and objectivity would be required to find a root cause. Then of course the solution, what would actually help solve the drought? I don't think expansions should be rushed, but I find that a simpler solution would be to have content (quests, invasions, raid/scenario) of the pre patch added ahead of the pre patch what adds the new talents and stuff. It might not work well due to it tending to be balanced around the talents and stuff that comes with it normally but it would give some people a bit more of what they want to break up the months between last relevant tier and the expansion. But I find it's something they could think about if they felt the wait time was getting intolerable to the community.

[hyphnos]

The fact of the matter is, they don't create much content because they don't have to.

Way too many people will just stay subbed and bitch about things, instead of stopping giving them money for nothing.

This is probably the main reason nothing is done about it, not the reason that there isn't as much content. They spend AT LEAST as much effort reworking classes and systems every expac as they do creating content for no real reason other than they think they have to change things for the sake of change. They need to understand that not everyone is an elite mythic raider who is "bored" with their rotation or whatever. They literally make it so that nothing, not even skill playing your class has value from one expac to another which has to have at best a neutral impact on players and most likely a negative one as most sane people don't like something enough to play it in one expac want it changed into something different and often times completely different in the next.

Cutting out all the work put into constant class and systems revamps would free up more time for actual content. I'm sure the devs look at how much work they put into the game and think of that all as a huge effort for the players. When a big chunk of that effort is going to annoy your players and not give them something interesting to do, that's just a function of their overthinking everything and their groupthink worldview that everyone thinks like elite mythic raiders.

[meian]

About money: http://gamerant.com/heartstone-profit-monthly-900/
20 Million a month from hearthstone which need not much of a team to support it. So high income and low budget!

With 5.5 Million people and ~13$ subscription per month we get:
71,5 Million let's round that up to 80 Million for token sales etc. So 4 times as much as hearthstone, with a big team behind it in development and support. So high income and high budget!

Hearthstone is more profitable (budget vs income) for them then WoW is. And since the sub numbers are unknown, but there are sources like warcraftrealms.com to indicate certain infos.

Wich indicates ~1.5 Million characters in the last 30 days active.
To be fair it's player driven so the double these numbers just to be save.

3 Million people at ~13$ = 39 Million $ per Month, close to double that of Hearthstone

And if we take the 1.5 at face value it would be about the same as Hearthstone, which has a much much smaller team and therefore costs them less money to maintain.

/Edit: Answer to why people see raids as content. Raids and PvP are the only content WoW really had. Achievments are nice but meaningless, Pets and Mounts are cosmetic, Transmog is cosmetic. So no content attached to these things.

- - - Updated - - -



WotLK and TBC didn't have any of these issues... maybe because they were made with flying in mind?

Yep! It's a lot more time consuming to go back and modify zones that were not intended to have players wander around on a high Z-axis than it is to build the zones with that in mind.

Also, in regards to your comparison to Hearthstone. Hearthstone is basically a WoW addon. WoW fuels Hearthstone's profits by existing. If you took away all the WoW themed stuff from Hearthstone and made it out of a completely separate IP or even one maybe not as lore rich as WoW, it doesn't catch on like wildfire and doesn't have a fraction of it's current market reach and earning potential.

[Deleted]

Yep! It's a lot more time consuming to go back and modify zones that were not intended to have players wander around on a high Z-axis than it is to build the zones with that in mind.

Also, in regards to your comparison to Hearthstone. Hearthstone is basically a WoW addon. WoW fuels Hearthstone's profits by existing. If you took away all the WoW themed stuff from Hearthstone and made it out of a completely separate IP or even one maybe not as lore rich as WoW, it doesn't catch on like wildfire and doesn't have a fraction of it's current market reach and earning potential.

WoW ist not the Warcraft IP, it's a part of it. I know a lot of people who don't know anything about Warcraft, but play Hearthstone, because it's a cute and easy Card Game that you can play for free. The Lore doesn't do anything for Hearthstone, you don't need it for anything expect understanding some references.

[Pann]

About money: http://gamerant.com/heartstone-profit-monthly-900/
20 Million a month from hearthstone which need not much of a team to support it. So high income and low budget!

With 5.5 Million people and ~13$ subscription per month we get:
71,5 Million let's round that up to 80 Million for token sales etc. So 4 times as much as hearthstone, with a big team behind it in development and support. So high income and high budget!

Hearthstone is more profitable (budget vs income) for them then WoW is. And since the sub numbers are unknown, but there are sources like warcraftrealms.com to indicate certain infos.

Wich indicates ~1.5 Million characters in the last 30 days active.
To be fair it's player driven so the double these numbers just to be save.

3 Million people at ~13$ = 39 Million $ per Month, close to double that of Hearthstone

And if we take the 1.5 at face value it would be about the same as Hearthstone, which has a much much smaller team and therefore costs them less money to maintain.

Even if these figures are correct there is no way that the costs associated with WoW are high enough to make Hearthstone more profitable.

[meian]

WoW ist not the Warcraft IP, it's a part of it. I know a lot of people who don't know anything about Warcraft, but play Hearthstone, because it's a cute and easy Card Game that you can play for free. The Lore doesn't do anything for Hearthstone, you don't need it for anything expect understanding some references.

I disagree. At this point the amount of the IP that is taken up by WoW is staggering. The lore provides a setting and a comfort zone. People play all kinds of shitty and easy RNGfest card games for mobile platforms that you've never heard of. The lore and more importantly the brand are what is driving Hearthstone so hard. That the game is actually good helps, but if it wasn't polished people would be wondering why Blizzard was even releasing it. Alternatively, if Squeenix released the same game themed around Final Fantasy characters it wouldn't be quite as big. It'd still be big, but not quite as big. If NIS released one based on Disgaea it'd be about the size of many of the mobile OS games that once again, most people have never heard of. See where I am going with this?

[Blackmist]

I might be more inclined to believe that content takes a long time to make, if it weren't for the fact that the art team is too busy making new arse animations for Overwatch.

[Deleted]

I might be more inclined to believe that content takes a long time to make, if it weren't for the fact that the art team is too busy making new arse animations for Overwatch.

Overwatch Team is not the same team as the warcraft team.
Complain about new animations for every artifact weapon instead

[Eleccybubb]

I might be more inclined to believe that content takes a long time to make, if it weren't for the fact that the art team is too busy making new arse animations for Overwatch.

Different teams so try again.

[Deleted]

I disagree. At this point the amount of the IP that is taken up by WoW is staggering. The lore provides a setting and a comfort zone. People play all kinds of shitty and easy RNGfest card games for mobile platforms that you've never heard of. The lore and more importantly the brand are what is driving Hearthstone so hard. That the game is actually good helps, but if it wasn't polished people would be wondering why Blizzard was even releasing it. Alternatively, if Squeenix released the same game themed around Final Fantasy characters it wouldn't be quite as big. It'd still be big, but not quite as big. If NIS released one based on Disgaea it'd be about the size of many of the mobile OS games that once again, most people have never heard of. See where I am going with this?

Warcraft is the entire IP, it doesn't matter how much WoW contributes to it. If I only ever played Warcraft 3 I would know 80% of the big names in Hearthstone... and Warcraft 3 is 14 years old. So no, WoW doesn't fucking matter to Hearthstone in any significant way.

[edw]

am I the only one who likes these big breaks until next xp? Don't get me wrong 1+ year without content is not fun but a longer break like 6-8 month before xp-pack i like.
You get the chance to chill and play the game, really play the game, make some achivs collect some new mounts, get in to PVP ...

[Deleted]

am I the only one who likes these big breaks until next xp? Don't get me wrong 1+ year without content is not fun but a longer break like 6-8 month before xp-pack i like.
You get the chance to chill and play the game, really play the game, make some achivs collect some new mounts, get in to PVP ...

6 to 8 months after the last content patch are to be expected, but consistently 12+ months rubs people the wrong way.

[meian]

Warcraft is the entire IP, it doesn't matter how much WoW contributes to it. If I only ever played Warcraft 3 I would know 80% of the big names in Hearthstone... and Warcraft 3 is 14 years old. So no, WoW doesn't fucking matter to Hearthstone in any significant way.

Yep. WoW hasn't carried the torch for the Warcraft universe for over a decade now and if I'd never played WoW and only based it off of memories of Warcraft 3 I'd... you know what it's not even worth it. You've already gone in deep on that idea. No amount of facts would actually sway you. In the future before you commit hardcore to a bias regarding branding and intellectual properly, please actually understand what those terms entail.

[Deleted]

Yep. WoW hasn't carried the torch for the Warcraft universe for over a decade now and if I'd never played WoW and only based it off of memories of Warcraft 3 I'd... you know what it's not even worth it. You've already gone in deep on that idea. No amount of facts would actually sway you. In the future before you commit hardcore to a bias regarding branding and intellectual properly, please actually understand what those terms entail.

No try and convince me of your point. I'm just saying, you don't need to play or even know about WoW to enjoy Hearthstone.

[Donair]

Vanilla was the only time they didn't have a drought, with the likelihood being that much of it was "mostly" done when the game launched, including parts of BC. Since BC, every expansion has had a content drought.

BC's drought was between BT and Sunwell - 10 months, then Sunwell lasted 6-7 months. Granted the droughts keep getting longer, but every expac has had one.

Stop being disingenuous. You completely skipped over ZA which released 6 months after BT and 4 months before Sunwell. There was even a voice chat patch before ZA in Sep. '07 which was basically the equivalent of the SELFIE patch (one of our two only patches in WoD.) There was no such thing as a content drought in BC. Even Wrath released Ruby Sanctum to give us something to gnaw on for the final months leading up to Cata.

There was simply no such thing as a content drought until the glorious last 3 xpacs. Also subsequently when subs started their free-fall. But ofc that's purely coincidental and the game is simply following a typical product life cycle, right?

- - - Updated - - -

To be fair like 0.001% of the playerbase actually sat around and waited between BT and Sunwell. Most of us had barely finished BT when Sunwell came out.

Not to mention he skips ZA altogether which provided some of my fondest memories in the game doing bear runs on my tankadin. These guys have a completely false vision of the game's history to fuel their narrative. Hell, they probably weren't even playing back then. Ofc it's easy to completely sweep content I participated in under the rug and tell me it's rose tinted nostalgia when they didn't even DO it.

There was some guy earlier actually trying to spew horse crap about TBC basically only having 4 dungeons because of some re-used art assets. LOL. I mean, really how do you even begin to argue with that level of crazy? Just a waste of my time. Dear god, I wish they'd get my Legacy server of choice back up. These forums are bad for my blood pressure.

[ShiyoKozuki]

Vanilla was the only time they didn't have a drought, with the likelihood being that much of it was "mostly" done when the game launched, including parts of BC. Since BC, every expansion has had a content drought.

BC's drought was between BT and Sunwell - 10 months, then Sunwell lasted 6-7 months. Granted the droughts keep getting longer, but every expac has had one.

TBC had no content droughts.

- - - Updated - - -

To be fair like 0.001% of the playerbase actually sat around and waited between BT and Sunwell. Most of us had barely finished BT when Sunwell came out.

Yep, but now the game is designed so that 100% of the player base sit there waiting instead of only 0.001% Yay! Everyone gets to be equally as bored! Yay good design! Good job Blizzard! You rock! Make everyone run out of content and things to do equally as fast in a MMO, a genre that no one is supposed to ever run out of things to do in or beat!

So many anti-MMO design decisions in WOW that have actively harmed the entire genre for over a decade now. Not just WOW, but every single MMO made in the past decade. They need to either stop being mad that the entire player base can't see their content, or understand how to design a MMO and hire people who aren't morons and think they're designing a single player console game.

MMOS ARE NOT MEANT TO BE BEATABLE.

[Daffan]

Stop being disingenuous. You completely skipped over ZA which released 6 months after BT and 4 months before Sunwell. There was even a voice chat patch before ZA in Sep. '07 which was basically the equivalent of the SELFIE patch (one of our two only patches in WoD.) There was no such thing as a content drought in BC. Even Wrath released Ruby Sanctum to give us something to gnaw on for the final months leading up to Cata.

There was simply no such thing as a content drought until the glorious last 3 xpacs. Also subsequently when subs started their free-fall. But ofc that's purely coincidental and the game is simply following a typical product life cycle, right?

- - - Updated - - -



Not to mention he skips ZA altogether which provided some of my fondest memories in the game doing bear runs on my tankadin. These guys have a completely false vision of the game's history to fuel their narrative. Hell, they probably weren't even playing back then. Ofc it's easy to completely sweep content I participated in under the rug and tell me it's rose tinted nostalgia when they didn't even DO it.

There was some guy earlier actually trying to spew horse crap about TBC basically only having 4 dungeons because of some re-used art assets. LOL. I mean, really how do you even begin to argue with that level of crazy? Just a waste of my time. Dear god, I wish they'd get my Legacy server of choice back up. These forums are bad for my blood pressure.

What do you expect. They see that BT was released in 2007 so assume everyone just started doing BT 4 months after BC released. lmao

Nobody told them catchup gear did not exist and you couldn't skip 90% of the expansion in 2 days back then.

[Echo of Soul]

They need to either stop being mad that the entire player base can't see their content, or understand how to design a MMO and hire people who aren't morons and think they're designing a single player console game.

MMOS ARE NOT MEANT TO BE BEATABLE.

If I'm allowed to be a little tinfoily I'm 100% certain that that is Activision or at least someone very high up the food chain telling them they need X participation % to keep feature Y going. I'm sure they know how to, they're just not allowed to.

[Gilgameshh]

There was simply no such thing as a content drought until the glorious last 3 xpacs. Also subsequently when subs started their free-fall. But ofc that's purely coincidental and the game is simply following a typical product life cycle, right?

Haven't you learned, yet? Product life cycle explains everything. You just look at a graph and read a few Blizzard quotes and badda bing badda boom product life cycle.

Really though, when you tell a lot of people on here that the game they still enjoy isn't fun for you anymore, they're going to find anything in the world to tell you how wrong and stupid you are instead of even attempting to see it from your point of view. You've offended them. I've debated some cool people on here, though. It's not all bad, but there are toxic people on both sides of the argument.

[ShiyoKozuki]

If I'm allowed to be a little tinfoily I'm 100% certain that that is Activision or at least someone very high up the food chain telling them they need X participation % to keep feature Y going. I'm sure they know how to, they're just not allowed to.

I know for a FACT this is true. It's why they constantly talk about participation and say they use it as a measurement for success now.

Need to make sure everyone is forced into X content even if it's garbage and no one likes it(hey ashran), so that it has high participation rate to show the higher ups that it's worth the money!

This is why we get 4 difficulties of the same damn raid. Gotta make sure entire player base sees it or it wasnt worth the money!