For Legion to Thrive, it must have a Post Launch Plan

[kiramon]

If it makes you feel better, silithus was present at launch and was literally an empty desert with construction signs lol

[Deleted]

Well considering ESO got MMO of the year 2015 and SWTOR is thriving with its new KOTFE expansion id... love to see where you got your facts from.

Even so, Both are continueingly giving information about what they plan to do, this is healthy for the communtiy still there and has served to attract people back to the game.

SWTOR for example has a monthly update plan constantly giving news about whats comming next, ESO had a big "Plan" back in january revealing all the things they will be releasing for this year so far, thieves guild and dark brotherhood have thrived and made the game pretty successful.

How is SWTOR thriving exactly? I enjoy the game, but for me it will always be singleplayer experience. After the first 3-4 months since launch I've only ever been subscribed for a month at the time. There's not enough interesting content for me outside of the class/main storyline. My GF who's been playing it actively since 2013 ( has refused to play anything else just SWTOR for 4-5 hours per day) has said things have started getting worse lately with bunch of people leaving again.

[Turin777]

"Blizzard might hit the yearly expansion thing if they don't redesign the entire game every expansion."

THIS. Every single expansion comes with a complete redesign of each and every class and a complete retune. If they really want to release content faster, then get the classes to a decent place then leave them alone for a couple of years.

[Soluna]

I think that the post launch the OP suggests is absurd. Even if blizzard decides to make more frequent updates it won't be faster than MoP model (a patch every 3 months alternating between big and small).

[Relapses]

You are making sweeping assumptions about how quickly other people consume content.
You aren't going to accept any sensible argument, instead deciding that anyone disagreeing with you is simply an idiot.

A fixed plan isn't going to work.
They have had plans change many times before.
We have had potential zones go missing.
We have even had an entire game go missing and come out with ideas recycled into others.

Blizzard HQ according to the average MMO-C poster:

[SteveRocks]

If you think warlords was rushed, wait for Legion.

This is what I'm afraid of and I hope it doesn't become true.

[FelPlague]

2 months... so your saying they should bring out a patch every 8 weeks ish.... wtf?

i dont even know how to respond

6 months per patch would be good... but 2... wtf?

[MoanaLisa]

Supposedly about half of TBC was supposed to be in Vanilla.

More than supposedly. Metzen and others have talked about this in the past. It's one reason why BC was so fat. A fair percentage of it was supposed to be part of vanilla and was developed before the game launched.

If Blizzard is guilty of anything it's very guilty of being too optimistic about their abilities to release patches and expansions in a realistic time frame. You would think they would have learned by now but there's something that happens with software involving scope creep and deadlines. If you set a deadline for a project at 6 months out you might have a development plan and feature set that is manageable. If you begin to add things just because then the project starts to stretch as it gets bigger and all of that additional stuff you intended to do may not be properly accounted for in project timelines. There's a lot of "Well, if we can shave off a couple of weeks here, maybe we can do this too." It rarely works out that way which is why many, many large software projects of all types run over their deadlines and expectations. Software is a messy business and even more so when you've got new development sitting on top of 15 years of old development. Problems are going to happen and QA becomes more of a nightmare causing more rework and more delays. It happens a lot.

Warlords I think is a decent example of this. It was originally rumored to be a smaller expansion in term of system development because a lot of people, including some at Blizzard, indicated that systems in Mists were in pretty good shape. Then Street leaves and there's a giant empty space at the top of systems. That took time to sort out and with new people responsible for things and no one gatekeeper for systems lots of new ideas started to percolate. Then a ton of new people were moved in from the ashes of Titan and that slowed things down even more. A lot of people don't remember how much system stuff changed for Warlords these days but it was a lot. So much that what didn't get finished was moved out to 6.1 which while a famous patch for a lot of less-than-good things in terms of content had a crap-ton of systems changes added on. That's scope creep. And probably a reasonable hypothesis of why the expansion turned out the way it did.

[ComputerNerd]

EVERY choice makes assumptions. That's the way it works since patches roll out to everyone at once. It's irrelevant if 10% of the people consume content so slowly that they take 12 months per patch. What matters is what the majority of people, the people in the middle of the curve, do.

In fact, faster content is better for everyone, even people who consume content very slowly. Think about it - the people who play regularly and are ready for content every 4 or 5 months get it and are happy. The people who are much slower still have the content they had anyway and now have even more to look forward to. Turn that around and you'r making the first group wait a longer time with nothing to do... why? So the second group, the slow group, can finish? Why do that? You seem to want to wait until everyone, even the slowest, are completely done. There's no justification for doing that aside from forcing everyone to wait just because some people are very slow.

As for idiocy... read again. It has nothing to do with disagreeing with me, but everything to do with shitting on other people just to shit on them. I have nothing but contempt for several of the people on page 1 who were shitting on those of us who want content in a sub game. Who the fuck doesn't want content regularly? What kind of, yes, idiot decides that, given the option of more content or no content that no content is better? Even if they don't want to do the content, to want it not to exist for those people who DO want other things to do is a special kind of assholery.

You stated that anyone not sharing the view that content is coming out too slow is just "bitching" and "doesn't want content" which is not what I said in any form.
You just don't want any discussion, and will just shoot down anyone who disagrees with you.
It is not practical to produce content at a rate which will only suit a dwindling minority.
Because those at the cutting edge constantly are a minority, and by the nature of that rate will exclude anyone else from catching up, reducing that number even further.
Therefore the rate of release is best being somewhere in between the two extremes.

What good reason is there for producing content at a rate only suiting those consuming it the fastest.

[Xar226]

Quality is always more important than quantity.

That's simply not true. We may disagree on where the line is, but there is absolutely a point at which there is simply not enough content to bother with playing. I'm not going to pay for one really awesome raid boss per expansion. There's literally no way.

I'd much rather have one well designed instance than 1,500 ToCs.

For the duration of how long 1,500 ToCs would last? Because even acknowledging the hyperbole, I highly doubt you come anywhere close.

As I said, Blizzard needs to plan their releases better. There's no reason they can't have as many high-quality raid tiers as is required to fill up their development timeline for the next expansion, and do so without short-changing certain tiers or making others last a year past their expiration date.

But if they fuck it up--for the third expansion in a row--they need to find a way to add content. "Herp-de-derp, we have no idea how long things take to make" is no longer an acceptable response. They've been at this for almost a dozen years now. They should be getting better at this, not worse. And yes, I say that as a (non-game) developer.

[CaptainV]

What good reason is there for producing content at a rate only suiting those consuming it the fastest.

That has a self explaining answer.

The fact WoD prooved that blizzard wanted to make content consumable at a fast burnout rate, especially raiding.

So yes, it benefits blizzard to create new content as opposed to tuning old world content to new things.

Y'know I remember when WOTLK Launched, it had 1 new class, 12 dungeons, 4 raids, a new world pvp zone with genuinley fun world pvp, a new arena, several new leveling zones and phasing for the first time in the games life.

I also remember that it added 4 new raids, 4 new dungeons, 1 new bg, 2 new world pve areas and a non legendary epic questline for dungeon players, Quel'delar.

Now compare that to the 6 dungeons, 1 launch raid, garrison quests, pvp world zone and apexis farm we got at WoD.

Then add the fact we got selfie cams, Blackrock Foundry in 6.1 (which was supposed to be in launch), No Faralohn, Blood Elves only got model updates in 6.1 when everyone else got them prior to that. And in 6.2 you got one new raid, and a new pve zone and a "small" addition to the current world pvp zone that NOBODY bothers to use these days except for its event.

Conclusion:

More is ALWAYS better.

Now I will be fair:

WOTLK didnt bring in the dance studio it promised, and it turned Azjol Nerub from a Zone/raid into 3 seperate dungeons (which was more good than bad for the game). Granted I never liked the idea of anyone killing Arthas but it worked for what it was trying to do and it told a pretty dark and mostly consistant plot about the Lich King and his motives, who is still the best villian the mmo itself has ever had, with Garrosh comming second in MoP.

But lore aside, the content was there, content that was toweringly large, we were "never" short of stuff to do in WOTLK, you could farm heroic badges on demand, when ever you wanted, with "no" cap on how many times you wanted to do that.

Compared to WoD where you can only farm a limited number of items per day in LFR runs which do not help gear you up in any way since most of them have abysmal RNG based gear, and again, its only a chance to even get that gear.

Other examples include the fact that World PVPers had their own raid, in total you had 8 raids in the life-span of WOTLK, you had 8...

Compare that to the 3 you have in WoD and you can SEE why people are upset at a lack of content.

Less is "never" better, especially if you want to say that "oh, technically its 12 raids" oh sure, having 4 difficulty curves of the same content doesnt burn out anyone after a few farms.

Theres a reason mythic raiders are "struggling" to get people to join their raids, theres a "reason" that catering to "one" group at the cost of everyone else is "never" good.

So yes, patch content, having more of it, having more content that divercivies away from typical raiding content is "good" for the game in every way and form, if we have patches entirley devoted to world pvp zones and pvp bg's and not a single raid to be found then hell yes.

If we have patches where a new world zone with ongoing weekly stories is added (in the similar ilk of 5.1/5.2) then yes, its good content.

If blizzard uses the excuse that making that content costs the game a raid tier one more time I will hit them with a shoe, because they can "afford" to make more content and they damn well know it, they have more people on team than they did with WOTLK, they have more money than they've ever had the ability to use, and plenty of franchises making it for them.

They have "no" excuse as to why the game is so slacking at this point or why the content isnt being made on demand to the people subscribed to the game.

And yes, subscribers "do" have the right to be upset that they aernt getting their monies worth, because your the consumers, enphasis on "consume".

[George Costanza]

Wait where did they confirm they will have more than 2 content patches?

[Kokolums]

If Blizzard released xpacs every year, the Legion iteration of class design would already be considered obsolete by Blizz and it hasn't even been released yet. There would be no point in perfecting the balance either, just move on to the next xpac.

[CaptainV]

Wait where did they confirm they will have more than 2 content patches?

It was either during the blizzcon Q+A or somewhere around january/march but im fairly sure during one of their Q+A's they got asked if there would only be 2 patches like WoD and they replied they'd prefer to do something closer to the traditional WoW experience this time round.

I think the plan was to go back to the 3-4 patch system.

[Relapses]

That's simply not true. We may disagree on where the line is, but there is absolutely a point at which there is simply not enough content to bother with playing. I'm not going to pay for one really awesome raid boss per expansion. There's literally no way.



For the duration of how long 1,500 ToCs would last? Because even acknowledging the hyperbole, I highly doubt you come anywhere close.

As I said, Blizzard needs to plan their releases better. There's no reason they can't have as many high-quality raid tiers as is required to fill up their development timeline for the next expansion, and do so without short-changing certain tiers or making others last a year past their expiration date.

But if they fuck it up--for the third expansion in a row--they need to find a way to add content. "Herp-de-derp, we have no idea how long things take to make" is no longer an acceptable response. They've been at this for almost a dozen years now. They should be getting better at this, not worse. And yes, I say that as a (non-game) developer.

I wish I could live in an imaginary world where fully fleshed out, perfectly designed and balanced raid instances simply materialized from thin air. Lemme guess, Blizzard is a company with infinite resources, of course they can just mass-produce content. Duh. I mean, that's why Legacy servers are here, right? Damn. Being a game developer sure is easy from the safety of my keyboard. I should apply for a CEO position at Blizzard, I can do this all day!

[ComputerNerd]

You can't argue that "more" is just better when that more is being consumed only in its entirety by a smaller minority which can consume it that quickly.
You are saying that "more" is always better because it works for some.
Produce it for the minority, but at what cost.

[Vineri]

Blizzard's plan for non Legacy: Allow new content, charge for new content, if content sucks, blame players for not knowing how to enjoy it.

It's not a willy nilly comment. I believe Blizzard has been doing this for years now.

How else would a company mitigate people who dislike their product add-ons?

[MoanaLisa]

Blizzard's plan for non Legacy: Allow new content, charge for new content, if content sucks, blame players for not knowing how to enjoy it.

Whether or not content sucks is a subjective thing. That doesn't mean there can't be a consensus about it but it's still subjective. You may hate it. Someone next to you might think it's the greatest thing ever.

And where has Blizzard ever blamed players for not knowing how to enjoy the game?

[PrairieChicken]

Plan: Next expansion will "fix" it! Just stay subbed for 18 months and you will see!

- - - Updated - - -

I wish I could live in an imaginary world where fully fleshed out, perfectly designed and balanced raid instances simply materialized from thin air. Lemme guess, Blizzard is a company with infinite resources, of course they can just mass-produce content. Duh. I mean, that's why Legacy servers are here, right? Damn. Being a game developer sure is easy from the safety of my keyboard. I should apply for a CEO position at Blizzard, I can do this all day!

Their profit is pretty much infinite resource level

[Relapses]

Their profit is pretty much infinite resource level

If you actually believe this, I am very truly and extraordinarily sorry for you.