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

[Osmeric]

They didn't design Cata at all to be hardcore.

From the NY Times, Dec 18, 2011:

“What we’re trying to do now is figure out what our current audience wants,” Tom Chilton, World of Warcraft’s game director, told me by phone last week. “It became clear that it wasn’t realistic to try to get the audience back to being more hard core, as it had been in the past.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/ar...line.html?_r=0

So, yes, they designed Cataclysm to be more hardcore, and that didn't work. It's right there in the fricking Newspaper of Record, man.

[Verral]

Here's an idea for exclusivity for those that only want to do end-game raiding and don't think others should get to see the content. Remove questing from them to even be able to level to what they have to be to get into those raids. Remove PvP from them as well. And remove dungeons since that isn't end-game raiding. After all, they don't deserve anything other than what they want to be exclusive to them. Also, don't let them level more than a single character as leveling more is a sign of being an alt-o-holic.

Now do you see how asinine your quest to make raiding exclusive OP? Excluding others from something just because you don't think they deserve it is idiotic since you pay the exact same that everyone else does for the game and if they don't get exclusive content, why the hell should you?

Let's imagine HFC was exclusive and you were not good enough to do it.
You would just watch the encounters on youtube (which is no different from LFR since you've got no idea about the encounter itself) and stop caring.
The only thing you'd miss would be the shittiest gear possible and 10 achievement points.
Now that's sad, right?

[RickJamesLich]

From the NY Times, Dec 18, 2011:



http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/ar...line.html?_r=0

So, yes, they designed Cataclysm to be more hardcore, and that didn't work. It's right there in the fricking Newspaper of Record, man.

Sounds like a difference between "hard core" and "it was easy before so now we want it to be more hard core"..... Cata's 5 man's weren't challenging unless you consider "You sap and you sheep right after" to be tricky. Hardcore is Muru in the Sunwell, or Scholomance when it was brand new and trash was respawning after 5 minutes. There really wasn't anything "hard core" about Cata 5 man's though. They were more challenging, but to say they were "hardcore" is just being dishonest though. Especially when you could outgear them easily with items from rep grinds.

Also it's ironic you bring up the 5 man's from Cata, because that first tier was widely regarded as being the best thing from Cata, and everything else after was credited for making it the worst expansion of all time..... until WoD.

[Osmeric]

Sounds like a difference between "hard core" and "it was easy before so now we want it to be more hard core"..... Cata's 5 man's weren't challenging unless you consider "You sap and you sheep right after" to be tricky. Hardcore is Muru in the Sunwell, or Scholomance when it was brand new and trash was respawning after 5 minutes. There really wasn't anything "hard core" about Cata 5 man's though. They were more challenging, but to say they were "hardcore" is just being dishonest though. Especially when you could outgear them easily with items from rep grinds.

Also it's ironic you bring up the 5 man's from Cata, because that first tier was widely regarded as being the best thing from Cata, and everything else after was credited for making it the worst expansion of all time..... until WoD.

So what you're saying was Chilton said the increase in difficulty in Cataclysm wasn't realistic, and so it should have been EVEN HARDER?

You're simply ridiculous.

[Verral]

Sounds like a difference between "hard core" and "it was easy before so now we want it to be more hard core"..... Cata's 5 man's weren't challenging unless you consider "You sap and you sheep right after" to be tricky. Hardcore is Muru in the Sunwell, or Scholomance when it was brand new and trash was respawning after 5 minutes. There really wasn't anything "hard core" about Cata 5 man's though. They were more challenging, but to say they were "hardcore" is just being dishonest though. Especially when you could outgear them easily with items from rep grinds.

Also it's ironic you bring up the 5 man's from Cata, because that first tier was widely regarded as being the best thing from Cata, and everything else after was credited for making it the worst expansion of all time..... until WoD.

Cata 5 mans made me sweat quite a lot, getting used to the new healing system as a resto shammy was tricky. I would run OOM midfight on every single pack of mobs :<
Talking about early Cata, I quit 2 months into it.

[themaelstorm]

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.

Correction: Raiding used to be THE level of awesomeness YOU wanted to achieve OR you felt compelled because it was the only alternative.

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.

And what's wrong with that?
Why should I be forced to spend my nights just for seeing some models and story progression?

You can have your difficulty and the item rewards with it. See, there is a correlation there.
You like PVE. PVE uses items. You get better items with harder PVE. Then you use these better items for even harder PVE.

I want story and the immersion. It does not relate to PVE. So I can do LFR or maybe with my friends in a flex and I'll be happy. I won't get the items you want. I don't care about them.

You get the reward that you like and so do I.

No offense but I think Blizzard really nailed it by calling this the precious snowflake situation. You just want to be special. And you feel you lost this special-ness. But the hypocricy is that, if what you care is being a hardcore raider, you can still try the harder difficulties and the achivements. It still is there.

So please drop your "better players" nonsense and clearly accept that you liked being special.
And that holds no value.

Which is exactly why Blizzard implemented these.

People who care about harder raiding still can do it. People who just want to special for the sake of it, Blizz don't need to cater to.

[Glorious Leader]

Sounds like a difference between "hard core" and "it was easy before so now we want it to be more hard core"..... Cata's 5 man's weren't challenging unless you consider "You sap and you sheep right after" to be tricky. Hardcore is Muru in the Sunwell, or Scholomance when it was brand new and trash was respawning after 5 minutes. There really wasn't anything "hard core" about Cata 5 man's though. They were more challenging, but to say they were "hardcore" is just being dishonest though. Especially when you could outgear them easily with items from rep grinds.

Also it's ironic you bring up the 5 man's from Cata, because that first tier was widely regarded as being the best thing from Cata, and everything else after was credited for making it the worst expansion of all time..... until WoD.

That first tier crushed so many 10 man raiding guilds it not even funny. They simple couldn't keep up with the increased difficulty. I'd love to know who it's widely regarded from I suspect the handful of people who agree really shouldn't give us pause.

[RickJamesLich]

So what you're saying was Chilton said the increase in difficulty in Cataclysm wasn't realistic, and so it should have been EVEN HARDER?

You're simply ridiculous.

Nah, what I'm really saying was that they were appropriately tuned. They were no doubt more challenging than wotlk 5 man's where it was almost impossible to die on shit, but at the same time they weren't so over the top that they were "hardcore".

Honestly if you look back at things, overnerfing those heroics took out any sort of longevity the game had for a lot of players. Not only that but they didn't prepare players for raiding. Essentially you saw guy's that were finally "finished" with the 5 man's but they had no where else to go because besides wiping on the entry bosses in raids, leaving a lot of players stuck with queueing for ZA or ZG 5 mans for months lol.

[Glorious Leader]

So what you're saying was Chilton said the increase in difficulty in Cataclysm wasn't realistic, and so it should have been EVEN HARDER?

You're simply ridiculous.

Theirs no statement you can use by the developers as proof simple because the hardcore posters here can and will apply post modern semantic obfuscation until whatever statement is meaningless OR actually has the exact opposite meaning in their favor.

- - - Updated - - -

Nah, what I'm really saying was that they were appropriately tuned.

A hahaha see. It's fairly clear Chilton said they were not appropriately tuned but apparently we mistook what he said and they were ! Ahahagagh.

The developers literally wrote a fucking blog begging us tonplay with the harder dungeons but no they were appropriately tuned lololol

[RickJamesLich]

That first tier crushed so many 10 man raiding guilds it not even funny. They simple couldn't keep up with the increased difficulty. I'd love to know who it's widely regarded from I suspect the handful of people who agree really shouldn't give us pause.

Pretty much go to any "worst expansion" poll and you'll see that the two leading options are either Cata or WoD, and when most people have a positive point to say about Cata, it's only mentioning that first tier.

- - - Updated - - -

A hahaha see. It's fairly clear Chilton said they were not appropriately tuned but apparently we mistook what he said and they were ! Ahahagagh

Yeah lol, we've seen with his logic that WoD lost half of it's subscribers in short time though. Despite a very high subscription peak when it first came out, suggesting that even old time players were willing to give it a chance. The problem being though, after you clear the game within a month or so, the game lacks replay value. Now there is no doubt some people will think "fuck the game is too hard, I'm going to quit" if they do try to bring challenges back, but on the flip side we've also seen millions say "fuck the game is too boring, I'm going to quit" as well. There's gotta be a happy medium, something which we haven't seen hit in quite some time.

[Glorious Leader]

Pretty much go to any "worst expansion" poll and you'll see that the two leading options are either Cata or WoD, and when most people have a positive point to say about Cata, it's only mentioning that first tier.

Yea most people also vote without leaving feedback. The accuracy of.such polling is of course up for debate but see here you've just shifted the frame of the debate. Instead of the near universal acknowledgment that shit was hard in cataclysm (and that's why the poor reception) you've managed to claim that the hard stuff was why people liked cataclysm hahahha hah oh yes of course they really ought to repeat that

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah lol, we've seen with his logic that WoD lost half of it's subscribers in short time though. Despite a very high subscription peak when it first came out, suggesting that even old time players were willing to give it a chance. The problem being though, after you clear the game within a month or so, the game lacks replay value. Now there is no doubt some people will think "fuck the game is too hard, I'm going to quit" if they do try to bring challenges back, but on the flip side we've also seen millions say "fuck the game is too boring, I'm going to quit" as well. There's gotta be a happy medium, something which we haven't seen hit in quite some time.[/QUOTE]

Oh yea the 6 million who left were clearly all returned old timers look for a br00tal hardcore experience hahahha hah how bout people cause raid.or die sucks and raid content should have been GUTTED even more in favor of other content. How bout the singular loudest complaint from wod being raid or die?

Again the developers literally wrote a blog begging people to engage in the increased difficulty because they agree with your viewpoint and they were soundly SOUNDLY rebuffed by the community large.

[Soeroah]

Paying road tax doesn't give you a Ferrari to drive around, hard work does.
Paying for WoW doesn't give access to the hardest content, hard work does.

Simple as that.

Aye. You get to drive down the same roads, but your vehicle is different. Different speeds, prestige, features, etc.

Exclusivity isn't bad for WoW, quite the opposite, but when they're trying to sell a story, it's important to make sure the majority can access the story. Given how many books and comics they pump out, it's pretty clear story is a bigger part of the selling point than some like to admit.

Honestly, if LFR were replaced with a single-player scenario version of the raid with no loot or achievements, I wouldn't care, as long as it had all the story in it. Likewise I wish they didn't remove the legendary questlines from MoP and WoD, they should have just removed the rewards.

[Dormie]

From the NY Times, Dec 18, 2011:



http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/ar...line.html?_r=0

So, yes, they designed Cataclysm to be more hardcore, and that didn't work. It's right there in the fricking Newspaper of Record, man.

And what they think hardcore is/was wasn't the same as the hardcore people enjoyed before.

[RickJamesLich]

Yea most people also vote without leaving feedback. The accuracy of.such polling is of course up for debate but see here you've just shifted the frame of the debate. Instead of the near universal acknowledgment that shit was hard in cataclysm (and that's why the poor reception) you've managed to claim that the hard stuff was why people liked cataclysm hahahha hah oh yes of course they really ought to repeat that

Well considering the tier was challenging when it came out (including the raiding) I think it only goes to suggest that having challenge in there increased the replay value, which in turn is why people had no issue with that first tier. If you make content so easy that it's almost impossible to die, essentially the content has very little replay value. Blizzard has used a few tricks to string people along still, such as "conquest points" and the new thing, legendaries, but even that stuff doesn't get people to log in anymore.

As for the difficulty in the game, it's all subjective but really.... all you had to do was use CC, and by that point in the game, pretty much every class had CC tools finally.

[Glorious Leader]

Well considering the tier was challenging when it came out (including the raiding) I think it only goes to suggest that having challenge in there increased the replay value, which in turn is why people had no issue with that first tier. If you make content so easy that it's almost impossible to die, essentially the content has very little replay value. Blizzard has used a few tricks to string people along still, such as "conquest points" and the new thing, legendaries, but even that stuff doesn't get people to log in anymore.

As for the difficulty in the game, it's all subjective but really.... all you had to do was use CC, and by that point in the game, pretty much every class had CC tools finally.

Again they wrote a blog agreeing with you pleading with the player base to engage in the increased difficulty wow dungeons are hard. The response from the community was no thanks. They didn't engage in the difficulty they began to leave the game. Unless you're gonna suggest it wasn't difficult enough you really don't have a leg to stand on.

[RickJamesLich]

Oh yea the 6 million who left were clearly all returned old timers look for a br00tal hardcore experience hahahha hah how bout people cause raid.or die sucks and raid content should have been GUTTED even more in favor of other content. How bout the singular loudest complaint from wod being raid or die?

Again the developers literally wrote a blog begging people to engage in the increased difficulty because they agree with your viewpoint and they were soundly SOUNDLY rebuffed by the community large.

The millions that came back, and the many millions more that left shortly afterwards, came back for different reasons no doubt. But when you can easily see all of the content in the game without much effort, the game loses replay value, incentives to get to the "next level", etc. I don't disagree that there should be "other content" too, but it can't be so easy that you can afk through it like LFR lol.

And there was no difficulty increase besides in certain modes of raiding. Questing for example was entirely nullified. Doom Lord Kazzak, a world boss, can be solo'ed lol. Can't you still get pvp gear extremely easily too? So where is all of this challenge at?

- - - Updated - - -

Again they wrote a blog agreeing with you pleading with the player base to engage in the increased difficulty wow dungeons are hard. The response from the community was no thanks. They didn't engage in the difficulty they began to leave the game. Unless you're gonna suggest it wasn't difficult enough you really don't have a leg to stand on.

Apparently they didn't agree with me because I tried WoD and there was no increased difficulty. In fact it was the opposite lol. I ask you again, where was this difficulty at?

[Glorious Leader]

The millions that came back, and the many millions more that left shortly afterwards, came back for different reasons no doubt. But when you can easily see all of the content in the game without much effort, the game loses replay value, incentives to get to the "next level", etc. I don't disagree that there should be "other content" too, but it can't be so easy that you can afk through it like LFR lol.

And there was no difficulty increase besides in certain modes of raiding. Questing for example was entirely nullified. Doom Lord Kazzak, a world boss, can be solo'ed lol. Can't you still get pvp gear extremely easily too? So where is all of this challenge at?

Again more obfuscation. The harder difficulty DID NOT ENGAGE THEM ENOUGH TO KEEP WITH THE GAME. So this notion that difficulty matters is clearly bunk unless you're going to argue the game should have been more.difficult

[Daffan]

But you don't see casual players demanding to see Mythic. You barely even see Mythic raiders complaining. Most of the complaints, as evidence from being a constant official forum poster and from blues stating this themselves, are mostly heroic level raiders that have dabbled in SOME mythic bitching that LFR/normal "scrubs" have no right to "their" content.

Casual players very rarely complain about the content design except when there's nothing compelling to do in the game EXCEPT raiding. Blizzard is choosing to funnel everyone into raiding to justify the larger development budget and scope for them.

And the exact reason casual player have nothing compelling to do is because everything compelling was made obsolete because of free raid gear and catchup they want(lol). Mythic dungeons are cool, but why would anyone do it? etc etc

Legion has mythic dungeons will be good, but inb4 pvp gear in season 2 will be better then everything except mythic dungeon/raid 2 and again, back to where we started where people feel forced to raid or mythic dung because everything else was skipped over.

[Glorious Leader]

The millions that came back, and the many millions more that left shortly afterwards, came back for different reasons no doubt. But when you can easily see all of the content in the game without much effort, the game loses replay value, incentives to get to the "next level", etc. I don't disagree that there should be "other content" too, but it can't be so easy that you can afk through it like LFR lol.

And there was no difficulty increase besides in certain modes of raiding. Questing for example was entirely nullified. Doom Lord Kazzak, a world boss, can be solo'ed lol. Can't you still get pvp gear extremely easily too? So where is all of this challenge at?

- - - Updated - - -



Apparently they didn't agree with me because I tried WoD and there was no increased difficulty. In fact it was the opposite lol. I ask you again, where was this difficulty at?

That's clever but nice try. As I said they were "REBUFFED" BY ALL THOSE PEOPLE LEAVUNG and since their fucking jobs rely on keeping g people playing they moved to a dress it. WoD is obviously not the same game as cata but that does not erase wow dungeons are hard from existence.

[Direpenguin]

Here's an idea for exclusivity for those that only want to do end-game raiding and don't think others should get to see the content. Remove questing from them to even be able to level to what they have to be to get into those raids. Remove PvP from them as well. And remove dungeons since that isn't end-game raiding. After all, they don't deserve anything other than what they want to be exclusive to them. Also, don't let them level more than a single character as leveling more is a sign of being an alt-o-holic.

Now do you see how asinine your quest to make raiding exclusive OP? Excluding others from something just because you don't think they deserve it is idiotic since you pay the exact same that everyone else does for the game and if they don't get exclusive content, why the hell should you?

This is the problem with today's Participation Trophy/Instant Gratification mentality, and the pussification effect it has on society. You are blaming your lack of commitment and/or time on everyone else and calling it exclusion.

No one.. repeat NO ONE is excluding you from anything. There is no flag on your account preventing you from seeing/doing anything in the game. The only limiting factor is yourself. For once, just shut up and own up to it. Jesus titty-fucking Christ already. I don't raid anymore due to time commitments, but I don't expect everything to be throttled down to my level, nor do I blame Method for excluding me from any content...it's my own decision and I accept it.

Also, I don't see you bitching about the top PvPers who are excluding you from seeing the top Seasonal awards or participating in the PvP events during BlizzCon.