Are we expecting too much from Blizzard?

[Deleted]

I think it's about 50/50... There seem to be the one side always calling for more casual content and access to everything, those are the ones who expect too much. Then there's people like me who accept most of it the way it is as long as they keep raiding somewhat interesting and with Legion we get a sweet new dungeon system to look forward to, in my opinion that already surpasses my expectations for the expansion, as I already know raiding will be about as solid as it has been in the past so I don't feel like I'll be disappointed there.

Now I'm not against casual content and availability of content to everyone, but, and I can't stress this enough, it's the "I'm a casual player but I'm entitled to everything" mentality that drives me insane. Just like in real life either you put in the time and effort and get rewarded or you don't and get nothing, simple as that. But if you don't feel like putting in the time and effort you shouldn't expect to have access to everything either.

[Deleted]

Yes, people expect way to much from anything and anyone these days because they feel entitled to everything and anything within the shortest amount of time.
The gaming community like it was is no more, what we have now is a the shadow of the great community it once was.

[rhorle]

That is excatly what overhype is, you tell people that there will be X,Y and Z but in the end you only deliver Y.

No. Over hype would be if they released a web page or had a whole blizzcon slide show for the two Capital cities and then later cut them. Or had it on the box like flying combat in Wintergrasp. That would be classified as over hype. It is no where close to over hyping something by simply stating that the current plans are for two capital cities and then later changing what those two capital cities are. Most of what Blizzard said would be in WoD was in WoD in some form or another. We still had two capital cities they just weren't what they originally announced.

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You may have noticed a lot of those things blizz added are things no one ever asked for, ever wanted ,or will ever give two shits about.

This is the epitome of the problem Blizzard faces. People don't like something so they equate everyone as not caring about it. More classes, more races, different raid difficulties, pet battles, and more are all things that some people wanted and plenty of people care about.

[Soluna]

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?

I just expect as much as MoP. I don't feel like the systems in general have gotten more complex than MoP, not that much. And if they have, I would gladly have a slightly less complex system so that I would have MoP's content supply which was awesome to be fair.

[rhorle]

A year of no content is evidence of one thing and one thing only, weak leadership. Especially since it is becoming standard.

I don't see how. The best leader in the world can't speed things up. We all know that Blizzard could produce content every month if they wanted to. It wouldn't meet whatever they've set their standards at though. It has nothing to do with leadership and everything to do with Blizzard deciding that lack luster content wouldn't be better then focusing on new content for the next expansion. We all know how well Ruby Sanctum was for "content".

They certainly could plan better. What they need to do is have catch up or "last raid difficulty nerf" content released during the last stages of the expansion. How different would WoD be right now if people could do some new set of dailies/hub for Heroic level gear to get more people into raiding or just to get the last challenge/mythic/whatever they want to do. Heck even the pre-patch events reward weapons that won't give much of a ilevel benefit to most.

[Eats Compost]

The thing about expectations is that, in WoW's case, they're largely set by Blizzard themselves. They set it up as a game with a close-to-full-retail-price price for the box and any future expansions, and there's the $15 monthly sub on top of that. When you're looking at a game that will charge you right out of the gate and continue to do so monthly just to maintain access, it's only natural that players would expect a lot to come out of that. It's not a marginal price.

Now, this isn't about whether or not people can afford it. This is about perception of value. The game had a much easier time dealing with this perception when it originally came out. The argument that you can sink many hours into WoW used to hold a lot of weight, but the current gaming environment has changed that radically. Swathes of games like LoL and DotA came to prominence, offering hugely replayable multiplayer experiences at a fraction of the cost (or none at all). Games like Overwatch are coming out that require a box cost but without a subscription, and still include balance and content updates. Not only does WoW struggle to provide value against these games, but it also struggles to provide value against more traditional single-player RPG experiences; things like Elder Scrolls, Dark Souls and The Witcher tend to make WoW's quality and quantity of content look poor in comparison, especially when comparing price points. You've even got some franchises like Monster Hunter on the fringe, where they manage to take some of WoW's key multiplayer concepts (team boss battles, etc) and implement it in a more fulfilling, compact and cheaper way.

The long and short of it is that while Blizzard's limitations are understandable, they're the ones setting the bar here. Obviously there's still a very large base of players that think it's worth it, but it's completely understandable that a larger and larger amount of players are beginning to perceive a mismatch in what WoW provides and what WoW demands. What used to look like $15/mo of game 10 years ago may not look like $15/mo of game today. That doesn't mean that it's simply a matter of cutting the price or something like that, but I do think that they may need to reconsider the structure of what sub fees are meant to be paying for.

[Nomortalzx]

no we are not lol

[Kyriani]

Blizzard biggest issue, from my point of view, is that every xpac seems to be "change for the sake of change". Now I get that remaining entirely static for ever just isn't realistic but there is something to be said about consistency and familiarity. When every xpac revamps the classes, its a roll of the dice on how well that revamp is going to be received. Not everyone is a fan of having to relearn their class with every xpac. And its not just classes.

From vanilla to wotlk we had a specific style of talent tree system that left things very open and hybrid specs existed. Come Cata the trees were cut in half and hybrid specs we're basically killed. Then come MoP and the entire talent system was replaced with the style we have now. WoD then shifted several talents around, some abilities were removed from being core class abilities and instead became talents, and Legion is doing that again.

There's something to be said for a consistent experience over the years but consistency is not something we've had between xpacs since WOTLK imo. Changing things every xpac just for the sake of change is stupid imo. Stick with things that work and are popular. Not only do i think that would make the population more stable, it should also make it easier to make content once you've got concrete, "not going to be changed unless absolutely necessary", systems in place and severely curtail adding new ones. The wheel does not need reinventing with every single xpac.

[Lochton]

Nope, never was, never will.

Prepatch is a glimpse of what the next expansion will be, period. It's a mechanical switch from what are the current mechanics to what they will be in the next expansion.

Even the patch naming being (X+1)1.0 clearly show how they are allready part of what comes next.

But yes, pre-patch can have content. It actually happend once, the pre wolk patch. With a decent short time content. And pre legion patch is aiming that way for the first time since wolk.
It is still a light content designed to fill 2-3 weeks. It's in no way comparable to a daily zone and not on the same scale of a "major patch" (aka new tier patch). It's just a transition to the next expansion.

The one I replied to counted between an amount of time. And sorry, but all Pre-patches has had some sort of content or event.

[Deleted]

Yeah, I'm sure you're able to sleep better at night if you keep repeating that mantra to yourself.

No, why would I sleep any better knowing that you go around hunting for threads to blindly defend Blizzard in? If anything it keeps me awake laughing thinking how ridiculous it is.

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I never said "everything's fine", so I guess we're having some issues with real facts and hard data here.

What does all this babble have to do what I said, anyway? I said that most people who keep whining all the time don't really know, and can't articulate, what they really want, or need. They just know they're unhappy.

why would anyone of sane mind be happy with ridiculous content breaks.

[clevin]

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?

Content > systems. We don't play systems, we play content - that's what we pay for. Personally, I think it's mistake to have things like pet battles in the game when you don't have the resources to create core content like 5 mans for patches. Yes, resources are finite, but they CHOOSE how to allocate them. No one forced them to incorporate pet battles or to create multiple raid difficulties. in my view they should start by saying "OK, what are the core things that players expect to have", allocate resources to those, and then add new things if and only if they have the resources AND will have resources to keep them up going forward.

[Craaazyyy]

i expected that they are not going to ruin the game.. but they did.. i dont think i expected too much

[Tinykong]

They really need to spend more time making new content, and less time redesigning the wheel.

I would be fine with an expansion every 18 months, and every other expansion was just additional content without levels/class changes.

[Pull My Finger]

No, why would I sleep any better knowing that you go around hunting for threads to blindly defend Blizzard in? If anything it keeps me awake laughing thinking how ridiculous it is.

Probably because you're a butthurt ex-fanboy that has to whine on a daily basis to somehow cope with his disappointment. In fact, you're telling yourself the same old fairy tales right now: about me "blindly defending Blizzard" - it's just something you need to tell yourself to be able to cope. Whenever you realize that not everyone is as butthurt as you, you need to tell yourself all these people must be "blind fanboys", "white knights" and all the other usual infantile vocabulary. You just can't imagine a reality where not everyone is as desperate (or addicted) as you. Where was I even "defending Blizzard" at all? The wild imagination leaps of butthurt coping mechanisms do wonders.

[Bumbac]

Expecting what they announce at Blizzcon and then fail to deliver?

How dare we?!

[Denkou]

No. What we expect from Blizzard is the NORM. They just spend way too much time on redoing the classes every expansion instead of adding actual content

I agree with you on this one. Class changes are fun but it seems like every class gets a complete overhaul and change in philosophy from expansion to expansion. Sometimes classes play just fine, but they decide to blow it up and start from scratch, just because it's a new expansion and they feel the need to make some drastic changes.

There have been many times where I would have preferred that they kept a class the same from one expansion to the next, and just added more content instead.

[darklogrus]

There's something to be said when your expectations are average and it was never even close to being met. Warlords was an empty expansion that was quickly abandoned by the Dev team.

[Rudkobing]

Nope. They made the game. They can make the content.

[Hardkorr]

I do not think it is that fans are expecting too much from Blizzard, but rather than fans have a certain standard for Blizzard that Blizzard established for themselves in previous games/patches (aka lots of "polish" and gameplay). An example would be when Blizzard is announcing a new system and we think "Oh cool it sounds like X feature from Y game and I loved that." Then Blizzard releases the system but it is a simplified and less engaging version of X (or scrapped altogether). Then those Blizz fans who have experienced and expected a similar or better form of X are upset. So basically Blizzard is constantly not meeting the standards of fans who have come to expect better things from Blizz. It's like a long steady cycle of disappointment.

Y can be previous patches, games, or current games/MMOs from competitors
X can be graphics options, Garrisons, followers, Order Halls, professions, class abilities, lore, time frames, gear customization, expansions, raid mechanics, battlegrounds, and pretty much everything you can think of.

[Deleted]

Probably because you're a butthurt ex-fanboy that has to whine on a daily basis to somehow cope with his disappointment. In fact, you're telling yourself the same old fairy tales right now: about me "blindly defending Blizzard" - it's just something you need to tell yourself to be able to cope. Whenever you realize that not everyone is as butthurt as you, you need to tell yourself all these people must be "blind fanboys", "white knights" and all the other usual infantile vocabulary. You just can't imagine a reality where not everyone is as desperate (or addicted) as you. Where was I even "defending Blizzard" at all? The wild imagination leaps of butthurt coping mechanisms do wonders.

Like I say we need not worry, we have you to drown out these people by blindly defending the indefensible.

"The deeper issue is actually that most people that keep complaining don't even really know what they expect." Well it cant be Blizzard's fault...can it? I mean, how dare people keep complaining about ridiculous content droughts....its outrageous!