Why is exclusivity bad for WoW (and other MMOs)?

[Faible]

Not only is your analogy to wow wrong, it´s also insulting and ignorant towards people on welfare.

Yes, it was worded poorly. I ment people who is on welfare without a legitemate reason, which is a burden for the government.
Nevermind that then, I still believe the analogy is correct regarding WoW.

[Deleted]

Special snowflaking much?

What's up with this trend lately by calling someone special snowflake?
What is your ideal idea of people in an mmorpg? You want equality? Everyone to be identical?
To me, a player having a unique item is a good thing, even if I don't have it. I remember long ago when someone got AQ40 mount and all I knew was the name of that guy who got it, but I felt good that he has it, even if I knew that I will never get it, because only one can have it, but it gave me a dream that similar items to this one could be mine if I would do more and even if I wouldn't achieve it, I would still like them to exist, for the feeling that something is very rare, out of my reach.
I guess I'm supposed to read a "special snowflake" in a negative tone for some reason, which is weird, because I see it as very good and positive.

[Kolvarg]

Well what's your answer for the sunwell as only 1% of people completed that when it was current, that was out more than long enough ...

and catered to even less people at a time the game was at its most popular .... bascially a waste of time designing it

Just because only (alegedly) 1% of people completed it while it was current, doesn't mean it didn't affect a lot more people than that overall, like people who progressed it but didn't complete it, or people who aspired to reach it even if they never did.

Should FIFA stop hosting world cups just because only 1 team gets the first place and no other does?

And no point is not that everything should be super exclusive, only 1% being able to complete it.

Point is that a sub-based MMORPG should have longer lasting content where things should take some measurement of time and commitement to achieve.


I'm ok with the current game, I enjoy it. But if they want to push a "cyclical" game design of content that is mostly completable in a couple months (when big patches get released in 6+ months at best):

1) They're "betraying" the original fanbase;

2) They should go with a B2P model that much better matches their target audience than the current system.

[Trapped]

Problem is for the most part the game has become so accessible that there really isn't a true community to help and cooperate with because of how easy it is to get what you want even without a guild or that much effort or time.

If raiders are a minority, even with all the accessibility, then the solution isn't to push everyone to washed down versions of it. And if (apparently) the majority of people doesn't want to raid, raiding certainly shouldn't be the only part of the (PvE) game that offers substantial challenge.

This exactly. Accessibility has totally killed off guilds because you really no longer need to be in a guild to see the watered-down content. Guilds should be the core factor that drives the community, and they just aren't anymore.

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Just because only (alegedly) 1% of people completed it while it was current, doesn't mean it didn't affect a lot more people than that overall, like people who progressed it but didn't complete it, or people who aspired to reach it even if they never did.

Should FIFA stop hosting world cups just because only 1 team gets the first place and no other does?

And no point is not that everything should be super exclusive, only 1% being able to complete it.

Point is that a sub-based MMORPG should have longer lasting content where things should take some measurement of time and commitement to achieve.

Good point. There needs to be a "World Cup" in every MMO, and WoW has 4 different versions of it so everyone can experience it.

[Shakari]

Should a blind person be mad at a movie maker if they pay for a movie and yet they can't see it?

And no I'm not trying to be mean to blind people, or say that, if we could, we shouldn't make movies that blind people can watch.
I'm saying if you are not able to experience/enjoy a piece of media properly, there's plenty fish in the sea. Not every games need to be playable by everyone. It's your choice to pay for what you want to play. If you think you don't get enough worth out of it because you are unable to complete X part of it, you can just play something else that's more fitting for your abilities and availability, no? =P

and I agree and those who cannot raid mythic will not raid mythic same goes for heroic etc but to use your analogy, wow is a game for everyone and it caters for those blind people so every one can experience the movie not just those with good eye sight.

I don't raid mythic or heroic as the friends I play with don't raid them, now I accept that I won't get the good loot, mounts etc but I do want to see the content and storyline as the whole game is based around a storyline and it makes no sense to restrict access to that, not one person loses anything from everyone seeing it and many gain. The best loot is given to the people who do the hardest versions of the content, but everyone gets to see it.

Basically you lose nothing by everyone seeing the content as long as the loot is gated behind the relative difficulties, which it is.

Anything else it just pure elitism just for the sake of it and it serves no purpose.

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Just because only (alegedly) 1% of people completed it while it was current, doesn't mean it didn't affect a lot more people than that overall, like people who progressed it but didn't complete it, or people who aspired to reach it even if they never did.

Should FIFA stop hosting world cups just because only 1 team gets the first place and no other does?

And no point is not that everything should be super exclusive, only 1% being able to complete it.

Point is that a sub-based MMORPG should have longer lasting content where things should take some measurement of time and commitement to achieve.


I'm ok with the current game, I enjoy it. But if they want to push a "cyclical" game design of content that is mostly completable in a couple months (when big patches get released in 6+ months at best):

1) They're "betraying" the original fanbase;

2) They should go with a B2P model that much better matches their target audience than the current system.

More realistically FIFA should stop hosting the world cup when the only teams competing are Brazil and Germany, because no other countries teams can get into the stadium. Would that make for an entertaing game, for Brazil and Germany sure, for the rest of the world ... not really, and would soon just stop happening.

[Kolvarg]

and I agree and those who cannot raid mythic will not raid mythic same goes for heroic etc but to use your analogy, wow is a game for everyone and it caters for those blind people so every one can experience the movie not just those with good eye sight.

I don't raid mythic or heroic as the friends I play with don't raid them, now I accept that I won't get the good loot, mounts etc but I do want to see the content and storyline as the whole game is based around a storyline and it makes no sense to restrict access to that, not one person loses anything from everyone seeing it and many gain. The best loot is given to the people who do the hardest versions of the content, but everyone gets to see it.

Basically you lose nothing by everyone seeing the content as long as the loot is gated behind the relative difficulties, which it is.

Except this is game, not a movie. It's not intended to be "seen", it's intended to be played. Gameplay (and the difficulty in it) is part of the experience.

We do lose something, which is immersion, epicness.

In a true MMORPG setting, you'll actually feel you're part of a living and evolving world. You'll invade Northrend, slowly make your way from to its heart, fighting the scourge and it's allies, increasing you and your faction's strenght, until your people are ready to fight the lich king. Maybe you won't make it there - Maybe you'll only be able to kill the few first of his guards. But even if you never get to fight the lich king directly, you know you did your part to the best of your ability, and you'll rejoice when he finally gets beaten.

When the game is designed for instant gratification and loot bait, though, you'll just get to max level, wait a few weeks, magically teleport to the final boss and kill him at the first try without hassle. Everyone can do it, but it also ruins immersion and epicness for everyone.


I'm not saying only mythic-level raiders should be able to complete raids. I'm not saying non-raiders shouldn't be able to, in some way, experience the story/lore part of raids.

I'm just saying watering down raids and overall boosting up the accessibility isn't the only solution, very likely not the best one either.

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More realistically FIFA should stop hosting the world cup when the only teams competing are Brazil and Germany, because no other countries teams can get into the stadium. Would that make for an entertaing game, for Brazil and Germany sure, for the rest of the world ... not really, and would soon just stop happening.

The difference here is there is true competition in PvE if you don't choose to engage in it. If you're a less skilled player or just have less time availability, you can just find players that match your mindset and schedule and do your own progress at your own pace. Maybe you'll need to get more gear than average to down a boss. Maybe you won't clear it while current. But I guarantee, if what you want to play is a MMORPG in the true sense if what it is (or used to be), you'll have a better experience.

[OreoLover]

I'm not saying only mythic-level raiders should be able to complete raids. I'm not saying non-raiders shouldn't be able to, in some way, experience the story/lore part of raids.

I'm just saying watering down raids and overall boosting up the accessibility isn't the only solution, very likely not the best one either.

Agreed, but I haven't read one viable suggestion I would prefer for ages.

Ones that aren't viable and ones that I wouldn't prefer are plentiful.

EX: Not viable - story equally released in every type of content. Not preferable - remove all but "Mythic."

[Deleted]

Well what's your answer for the sunwell as only 1% of people completed that when it was current, that was out more than long enough ...

and catered to even less people at a time the game was at its most popular .... bascially a waste of time designing it.


Thing is yes the 40 man and progression made it harder, but that;s what people seem to be arguing for, exclusivity ... which makes no commercial sense realistically and practically for the majority of the player base.

It isnt waste of desing time. I think lot of you dont understand psychological value of unbeaten content. It creates certain need and thrive for such content specialy for players what actualy never get to do it. If unbeaten content see only 1% of player base but retain millions of players becouse for simple reason having unbeaten game and unexplored content still to do then it is not waste of desing time.

In MMORPG games player are not equal. Some put effort and deserve to see content others doesnt. I never get to see 100% of content during vannila and TBC. But i never left game. I had tons of fun doing other content and never mind players being special. It was what kept me playing game that one day i might be at their spot. Now since everytingh is so easy and accessible i just dont care. I quit raiding and later i quit game. There is nothing in game what i could care about. Value of raids and guilds is almost 0.

[Equoowe]

You also needed to be somewhat "good" at the game and your class if you wanted to raid

LOL it was the complete opposite, even more so in 40 mans raids, you could be a truly horrible player and still clear everything, very few times did raid fights punish those types of players and it was normal even in the best guilds to be carrying bad players.

I know a shaman in Vanilla that cleared everything up to Sapphiron, in TBC he did arena at 1100-1200 rating, that is the kind of player that could raid and clear the hardest bosses in the game at the time.

[Blackmist]

If you only provide content to one group of players, the rest will stop coming.

[Rafoel]

If you only provide content to one group of players, the rest will stop coming.

Have you ever wondered why Blizzard didn't one, just one, single realm in which there was no various raid types, no raid finder, and generally no any "casual" features people whine about? Remember, setting up a realm WITHOUT some feature is basically 0 cost.

Because it would destroy the game utterly. All serious players would immediately migrate to this realms. Without them, average players would be stuck with bad players, which they don't want. They would migrate too, and so bad players would be stuck in their own sauce. They would be unable to complete any challenge. Then anybody remotely better than the rest would want to migrate too. Ultimate only the worst of the worst would stay, while the rest, majority of players, would be stuck on this special realms(s) and whine all over again that they are forced to do what they don't want.

That might be the reason they are adamantly defending agaisnt the idea of legacy realms. They fear what would happen when serious players leave live servers.

[Deleted]

I think it all stemmed from the emergence of metrics-driven development. The developers now feel that if everyone isn't participating in everything, then it's a waste of development resources. Exclusivity cannot exist with this developer philosophy and exclusivity is in fact seen as a failure: if everyone isn't doing the content then something is "wrong" and money was wasted developing that content. So content is designed to be done by everyone.

Basically, money over fun.

That's what I think as well.

Its a result of bad management that thinks only about money and cutting costs, not making best possible game.

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If you only provide content to one group of players, the rest will stop coming.

Maybe because the rest didn't want to do that content in first place? Today we have developers shoving everyone into raiding, regardless of player's choice. To push players into raiding they devastated leveling, exploration and outdoor content, which is what majority used to do when WoW was at its prime.

Giving all content to everyone is bad. Today everyone can see entire content in 1-2 weeks and then they have nothing to do. No dangerous savage world to explore, nothing to look forward to. The only things remaining are doing same content with extra gimmicks and doing daily/weekly chores.

WoW has turned to shit because of "everyone must see everything" and "only last patch matters" philosophy.

[MoanaLisa]

I think it all stemmed from the emergence of metrics-driven development. The developers now feel that if everyone isn't participating in everything, then it's a waste of development resources. Exclusivity cannot exist with this developer philosophy and exclusivity is in fact seen as a failure: if everyone isn't doing the content then something is "wrong" and money was wasted developing that content. So content is designed to be done by everyone.

Basically, money over fun.

Games run on budgets. This game in particular, which is obviously getting smaller for a lot of reasons, has every reason to allocate their budget in ways that will benefit the most players. It has nothing to do with fun. It's just business. It's not just Blizzard either. If raids are expensive and time-consuming to make and only one in five players are seeing them then changes will happen. More people will see raids or you would see even fewer raids and bosses than you do now. Take your pick.

[Megitsune]

Exclusivity isn't exactly a bad thing but there are reasons why WoW and other MMOs have shifted away from it. For one, catering to the majority. The majority are casual players who don't want to spend a ton of time trying to achieve things or grind. Obviously when the majority are catered to and happy, they stay subscribed to the game. I think Wildstar tried to bring back the whole "super difficult exclusive raiding" thing and it just ended up being one of the many reasons the game failed.

Also just looking at it from just a business point of view, it's very annoying and basically pointless to put so much time, effort, and money into content that only like 1% of the playerbase would see/play through.

[Gratlim]

I have mixed feelings about it. The best period I played in WoW was the end of classic when my guild was still struggling in T2 content and never saw Naxx because it was way to hard for us. Same thing happened again in BC. At the end of it we were farming SCC / Grull / Kara, were struggling in BT and were too bad for Sunwell. Still struggling and working our way up to Naxx / Sunwell is what made the game fun and challenging.

All the fun stopped after Ulduar which was the last long, rich and challenging raid for us. From T9 and up we dominated easily our server on the pve race but the game suddenly became boring. It took a couple of years to realise and unsub but at some point, if you experienced classic, BC and the start of Wotlk, you realize multiple difficulties =/= content. It's quite the opposite. It makes raid content bland instead of giving players different raids depending on their level. The way I see it, that's what killed raiding and wow, not LFR.

[HuxNeva]

It is a US company catering to a US audience, which nowadays means:
- 'instant gratification', an endless stream of meaningless 'achievements' needed to continually feed the ego of people with an attention span below that of a goldfish.
- Equal results over equal opportunity, think 'no child left behind', in a room with a very low ceiling everyone can share the high jump gold medal. Anything else would be 'discrimination'
- 'I don't have time for this', remember the goldfish? Completing anything not dumbed down to the lowest common denominator will earn you the title of 'try-hard' or 'snowflake', and we can't have that, as that would be discriminatory (see previous point)
- P2W 'cause money is God. The one thing that beats all the above. It is a-ok to be harshly discriminatory, as long as the basis is money. Extreme Neoliberal politics and vices absolve money from the diligent rule of egalitarianism. Hence, even in entertainment, it is just fine to buy your gold to get your gear or get carried through your achievements.

I could go on, but you get the drift.

[Archermit]

Exclusivity is a good thing imo. Now for the past few years I have been very casual and not able to raid at a level that I once did, I never feel I am entitled to see all content. If you're not good enough to see a new boss. Players need to see people in epics or shiny gear to see waht they could get with a little time and or effort....you don't need to kill all bosses within a month of a new patch, just because it takes longer doesn't mean you were not good......

[Deleted]

LOL it was the complete opposite, even more so in 40 mans raids, you could be a truly horrible player and still clear everything, very few times did raid fights punish those types of players and it was normal even in the best guilds to be carrying bad players.

I know a shaman in Vanilla that cleared everything up to Sapphiron, in TBC he did arena at 1100-1200 rating, that is the kind of player that could raid and clear the hardest bosses in the game at the time.

Only 24 guild cleared naxx so you are obivously wrong. You couldnt be bad and stay relevant back in vannila. And btw hello LFR anyone? Now i can actualy finish raiding content while afking pretty sad.

[Echo of Soul]

I don't mind different difficulties as much, however I think two of them should be removed.
* LFR should be removed just because it devalues the whole raiding experience. When you've seen it at one difficulty you've seen it in all of them.
* Mythic should be removed just because it destroys guilds due to burnout and whatnot and is just too damn difficult.
Both of these are optional things but I think players need to be saved from themselves sometimes.

There should also never be a requirement to do more than one difficulty. As it stands today if my guild raids heroic we pretty much have to do the next tier at normal mode first since it drops upgrades. And this, just as LFR devalues the raiding experience of progressing through an instance. You've already done it, why do you have to do it again?

[WowIsDead64]

This is on topic of "we don't need 4 raid difficulties to cater to every playstyle". Why do people feel like exclusivity is bad? Raiding used to be THE level of awesomeness you wanted to achieve. Raiding used to be nearly exclusive to guilds only, thus forcing people to find a guild if they wanted to raid. You also needed to be somewhat "good" at the game and your class if you wanted to raid. There was no hand-holding, babysitting mode. There was one mode: raid mode. You were either a raider or you weren't. It gave (some/most) non-raiders something to work towards. When I first started playing and saw everyone in their awesome raid gear, it made me want to get better. That desire pushed me into theorycrafting and made me a better player. Having that proverbial carrot-on-a-stick is healthy for the game because it breeds better players in the end, and I think we can all agree (maybe?) that the skill level of the average player has dropped considerably over the years. Why? Because there isn't just one "raid mode" anymore, you have a figurative slider bar that lets you see raid content at your skill level. For some/most, they're content doing LFR or pugging through the LFG system, even despite the better gear in heroic and mythic. They're seeing the content, getting SOME sort of character advancement, and the game ends there. Waving Mythic gear in front of people's faces isn't enough to make them want to go out and "get good" anymore like it used to.

I know common rebuttals to this usually go something like, "Well, Blizzard doesn't want to spend dev money on something that only a fraction of the players will ever see" blah blah blah. I get this point, but its very easy to justify exclusive content when the game's better days had exclusive content. When every player gets to see the Super Bowl (albeit a watered-down one), there's no drive to see a "slightly-harder mode" of the same Super Bowl.

You are both right and wrong. Yeah, raiding is good carrot on a stick. Actually I didn't quit this game back in WotLK, just because I started to raid. And it made me good player - I started to read guides, care about gear, flasks, gems, chants, etc. But at the same time... You know... I wouldn't be possible without first step. That first step - was invite to Naxx spider quarter last boss Maexxna only to press Heroism at right moment. And it was possible only because Naxx was super casual - it was LFR prototype, which allowed my raid to invite completely noobish players. So. Easier difficulty levels are required as ladder steps for players to gradually improve. Otherwise players would hit brick walls, burn out and quit. Also players skill caps are different - not all players will be able to improve enough to do mythic raiding. Actually only 1% of players can.