Are we expecting too much from Blizzard?

[Alvito]

Eeeeehhhh.. Pre-patch is a major patch, then there's an expansion, then a semi patch (technically major, if it wasn't because people whine that the raid doesn't count because it was already there (except it wasn't finished)), and then another patch..

At best you can lump in the pre patch with an expansion. If we do that that is 3 in 3 years which is still awful.

[Deleted]

Is it too much to expect a decent crafting and professions system? Surely almost everyone can agree that it is worse now than it has ever been. Vanilla crafting is a million times better than in WoD.

That is just one example, but it is not expecting too much to at least be as good as 10 years earlier. I mean the template is there how to do it well...their own template!


Nobody is expecting WoW to have Crysis 9 like graphics with VR support where you can smell the shit coming out of a cow in Westfall. Just systems in place that give players something to aim for.

[shonist]

Right the Garrison wasn't pitched with a literal fuck-ton more features then they delivered? Like multiple locations?
Or the two captial cities in WoD?

They overhype shit just as bad as people do.

Maybe yes...

[Belloc]

Nothing justifies having year-long periods of no content in an MMORPG.

The ability to suspend your account and not pay for that year-long drought justifies it. The fact that people continue buying expansions justifies it. The fact that those expansions are excellent justifies it.

Yeah, a lot of things justifies it.

[threads]

FFXIV had 5 major patches, then an expansion, then 3 more major patches, all in the time wow had WoD and 6.2

nobody is expecting too much from blizzard. it's their fault the game lost so many players.

[Tart]

Blizzard created their own shit storm. They had a nigh on perfect formula that just required new content to be added. Instead they had to casualise the game and add bollocks like lfr, multi raid difficulties, faceroll mechanics and pet battles. And on top of that they buckle under the smallest % of qq'ing.

You reap the seeds you sow.

[Icyflamez]

FFXIV had 5 major patches, then an expansion, then 3 more major patches, all in the time wow had WoD and 6.2

nobody is expecting too much from blizzard. it's their fault the game lost so many players.

Sooo much this! It's exceptionally bad because the team Blizzard has working on WoW is much larger than Square Enix's FFXIV team. They've used the excuse that WoD was light because they had to take time to train the new people on the team and the results will show in Legion. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt one last time but if Legion fails to deliver consistent content patches this is going to be Blizzard's last chance for me (and a lot of other players)...

[Paperfox]

I read the dev's notes and I do see their point of view and do agree that there are significant difficulties in programming (having done some programming myself). That what you want to do vs what you end up being able to do can be quite different.

What gets me is their:
- design decisions: the Design Team that took over in cat who got rid of tokens, the profession re-design that (IMHO) was a big middle finger to those who spent time on professions, and
- the fact that they significantly increased the size of the team specifically so that they could deliver additional content more frequently, then ended up with huge content droughts.

All in all I think they are the ones who set the bar high.

[A dot Ham]

The game has generally gotten ever more complex over the years from a development point of view, with many additional systems that require maintaining compared to 10-12 years ago (more classes, races, raid difficulties, pet battles etc). In addition, the overall quality of content has increased over time.

Given the above, are we expecting too much from Blizzard? There are constant complaints about the lack of content in game. But when you now have so much on your plate, scarce development resources have to be divided amongst a greater number of systems which naturally means that the amount of raw content released over time will decrease.

Are we being too harsh on Blizzard? Should we be expecting less raw content over time given Blizzard's situation?

Quit treating the game like a race and you won't have the same problems.

"Hey man have you played the new Halo?"

"Psssh Yeah!, Beat it in the first week?"

"Well how was it?"

"Dunno, I was too busy getting to the end to actually have fun with it."

I can't think of another game where people are so eager to be done with it. If I power through it, its because I am having fun, not because I want to be the first to finish it.

[The Stormbringer]

Quit treating the game like a race and you won't have the same problems.

"Hey man have you played the new Halo?"

"Psssh Yeah!, Beat it in the first week?"

"Well how was it?"

"Dunno, I was too busy getting to the end to actually have fun with it."

I can't think of another game where people are so eager to be done with it. If I power through it, its because I am having fun, not because I want to be the first to finish it.

But, but, muh raidingz!

In all seriousness, I completely agree. I've never understood this mindset. Every time I've started an expansion I've taken my time and enjoyed it as much as possible. This is why Expansion launches have always been a positive thing to me.

[UnluckyAmateur]

I can understand that there are complaints but I don't think there would be as many if this wasn't the 3rd time in a row with a year long content drought.

[Tharkkun]

FFXIV had 5 major patches, then an expansion, then 3 more major patches, all in the time wow had WoD and 6.2

nobody is expecting too much from blizzard. it's their fault the game lost so many players.

Why aren't you playing that game then? Oh because it's trash, that's right.

- - - Updated - - -

Sooo much this! It's exceptionally bad because the team Blizzard has working on WoW is much larger than Square Enix's FFXIV team. They've used the excuse that WoD was light because they had to take time to train the new people on the team and the results will show in Legion. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt one last time but if Legion fails to deliver consistent content patches this is going to be Blizzard's last chance for me (and a lot of other players)...

I know right? I mean they only released a MMO that failed so hard they fired their entire management, shutdown the game within 2 years, and spent an entire year re-making a new game. I want to be like Square and still have less players than Runescape.

[Mahcake]

issues, delays, bugs, problems in devolpment, those are all things

Weird. Stuff like that doesn't happen in other MMORPGs.

[Deleted]

They actually adhere to what the majority wants, which seems pretty logical to me. Adding things such as pet battles and transmog that are completely optional and in no way shape or form interferes with other forms of gameplay is never a negative. How are multiple raid difficulties a negative? Most people that bash WoW seem to have a lot of issues but no real idea why they dislike it.

Multiple difficulties don't work at all well in multiplayer games. Almost all content is now pitched at the lowest skill level as a direct result.

- - - Updated - - -

Why aren't you playing that game then? Oh because it's trash, that's right.

- - - Updated - - -



I know right? I mean they only released a MMO that failed so hard they fired their entire management, shutdown the game within 2 years, and spent an entire year re-making a new game. I want to be like Square and still have less players than Runescape.

Yes you said it, they re made an entire game in the time Blizzard releases a lame expansion.

[Wondercrab]

Generally speaking I feel like WoW would probably be a better game overall if they put a little less emphasis on quality and more on quantity, at least when it comes to more casual content. I would be totally fine with more revamps of old dungeons, more winged dungeons using repeated tilesets and simplistic bosses (TBC style), and more timewalking-esque ways of making old content relevant again.

Unfortunately this is kind of anathema to the way Blizzard does things as a developer. They hold quality and polish in the highest regard, with a huge amount of emphasis placed on slick, tight, heavily controlled player experiences, with little tolerance for jank or sloppiness. Honestly it's amazing that the company who took a decade and multiple failed prototypes to finish Diablo III manage to get out a full WoW expansion every couple of years, and it shows with the comparative lack of polish WoW has compared to their other titles. Yet even then, they try their best to make things as shiny and smooth and impressive as possible, even when it comes at the price of content.

It's a perfectly valid design philosophy to have, but I feel like MMOs (which thrive on new content) are better served by slightly different priorities.

[FelPlague]

Weird. Stuff like that doesn't happen in other MMORPGs.

except it really does... but no one pays attention to it because its much much smaller >_>

[Menzolies]

I do think some people have unobtainable expectations of WoW. People calling for vanilla like gameplay, with current modernization, yet nothing changing all at the same time is just ridiculous.

I think this is best statement, and probably the most true

[ComputerNerd]

They chose to cater to all types of players. So, more work for them as a result.

Imo they need to clearly choose a side. So:

- Either a casual-friendly game with more solo content (medium difficulty) and less group content but it would be fully queueable
- Or a game focused on guilds and group content that needs some skills and effort to get rewards

Trying to have both in one game makes everyone unhappy.

Apparently Wildstar, at least according to the players was wow done right, catering to the "hardcore".
And we saw how that worked out.
Focusing on giving noisy players what they say they want hasn't worked out too well in others.
So the something for everyone may not be as bad an approach as people are making it out to be.

Again a generalisation of "everyone".
If "everyone" was so unhappy as some would suggest, then the sub numbers would have dropped quicker than even at their worst declines.
So that number vocally complaining and announcing they are leaving are simply not that representative of the playerbase.
If they are even being truthful.

The problem is players complaining that the game isn't catering solely to their whims.

[dacoolist]

Classic basically started this entire legacy from almost nothing.. They had the fans, and the lore.. but it wasn't mainstream. After Classic BLEW UP subcribers, and Blizzard knew they struck Gold, they moved forward on getting lots of people in on their game for development, and design moving forward. They had MANY, MANY years before the first Expansion came out to develop content, and get everything setup for this huge video game. (Right place Right time)

TBC - Now: pretty much just damage control, after Wrath. Everything has been new, amazing, and the game was only so many years old by the time the end of wrath hit. Cata forward has been a nightmare of QQ from the forums, insane bullshit from content droughts to massive changes to the entire game as we know it.

Does any of this mean the game sucks or that it's not better than it was in classic? I personally played for a bit in classic, and then from Mid TBC forward, until today - playing probably 10 hours a week average. The games MUCH better today, but EXPECTATIONS are something we all set extremely high because of nostalgia of the past. The game was never as good as we THOUGHT it was - it was the community, and the sheer newness of everything years ago that drove the game to where it is today.

The game will never be what it was.. and it if WAS still that old piece of shit, the subs would be below 100,000. 2016 has a ton of games, a ton of competition and it's just not an MMO market anymore. Most of us have gotten older, sure a lot of us still play.. but when you look at all the stuff you've done over the course of 11.5+ years.. you start to think.. holy shit that amount of time!

Let Blizzard continue on with the game without questioning if they've done the right thing or not. Sure you can complain all day to blizzard about it, but the only thing that's going to make the game GREAT, is positive reinforcement - not this "I HATE YOU BLIZZARD" "OMG BLIZZ YOU KILLED WOW" "I'M GOING TO THE NEXT WOW KILLER BLIZZ RIPINPEACE" and all this stupid shit, when the simple fact is: your bitchass will be back next fucking patch like all the other cry babies

[frostybacon]

In the past, the justification for having people pay you 15$ a month, after already paying 50$ for your game, was "servers are expensive...how can we run the game without your subscription fee??"

Nowadays...blizzard is floating in money. That argument doesn't fly so much. Yes running servers is expensive....but at this point, they can easily cover 10 years of running the servers, especially as sub numbers plummet and many of their servers can be merged. Come on Guys, it's past the time where wow needs 65 different realms.

The justification now for paying 15$ a month is that players are paying the devs to keep their game updated, not to maintain server databases. I'm sorry, if you're gonna ask for me to pay you 100$+ to play a game I already bought four fucking times, you better put some effort in updating that shit, jah feels?