Is World of Warcraft still aiming to be videogame? Or just a very smooth business?

[Boogums]

You look at how little WoW has evolved in terms of actual gameplay over the past 13 years

What. The fuck. Are you. Talking about?

[HordeFanboy]

Two terrible expansions in a row clearly shows how to make big money with low effort.

[Deleted]

Nintendo ? yeah too and they need to make profit to survive and keep making game.

I know it's just a typo, but I'll use it to reaffirm my conviction that Nintendo just keeps making the same game over and over.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

I would say it is still aiming to be a video game, yes. Blizzard is the business.

[Nfinitii]

Lmao, "if u want to stay competitive u have to buy the wow token" that's some rich shit there lol.

[Deleted]

Yes, there's still millions of players, but despite the hype of Warlords bringing back numbers to legendary Cataclysm numbers,

Highest numbers were in Wrath.

especially after the pandaland kitty adventure atrocity,

Imho MoP was the best expansion they ever made. Pandaren are a big thing in Warcraft lore, they have always been. Yet nobody complained about them e.g. in WC3.

players didn't stay, and numbers keep decreasing, as players seek greener pastures offering more for their money, as they move out from their parents and start to realize the value of their time and hard earned cash, and how neither are worth investing in WoW considering the return.

Most people I know that play WoW are 25-35. by your logic, we should only see easily fooled teenies playing WoW. Its quite the opposite. because like it or not, WoW actually offers a lot for the monthly sub. Going to the cinema once is more expensive then a WoW sub, and it only lasts about 2h. So yeah, I'd consider WoW pretty cheap.

*IF* you want to stay competitive with new patches or expansions, you now have to buy WoW tokens and sell them in order to have the gold to buy the AH gear pieces which will now easily sell for hundreds of thousands or millions of gold.

What the hell are you on? BoE items have been a part of the game since forever. And they are still reasonably priced. And even if tokens droe their prices up, this would have occured two years ago when they introduced the token, not now. But yeah, it hasn#t.

Not to mention that potions, flasks etc have seen an increase in prices of like 500% over the previous expansion.

prices have always risen with new expansions. Blizzard increases the income of players with every xpac, and so prices go up. its natural and completely healthy. Yes, potions are a bit more expensive now, but so are herbs. Which actually means that you get decent gold/h by picking herbs, which wasn#t always the case.

One WoW token gives you more gold than a semi-no-life player makes in 3 months. Gold prices are inflated beyond redemption.

No they aren#t. Kill tichondrius on normal, sell one mount, buy your token. And 50 bloods are easy to come by in one months. There are other examples, but you can pretty easy get the gold for one token. Go pick some herbs, even if you only go one day a month picking herbs and do it for 3-5h you can still get your token. Which is quite reasonable.

Has WoW become a big Buy2Play, Pay2Play AND Pay2Win game, WITH microtransactions which are not "micro" at all? A fucking NAME change is like 15-20$, an appearance change is like 30$.

Name changes have always been expensive, imho. And no, its not Pay 2 win, because everything you can buy in the shop is purely cosmetic. I couldn't care less if someone had 20€ to spend on a pet. You can#t get more powerful by throing money at the game, and thus its absolutely fine, imho.

Yet you look at the gameplay, not much has changed. The game is less grindy in terms of accessibility to content, but the scope remains the same:

If the game had abandoned its core concept, it wouldn#t be the same game. You doN#t complain that need 4 Speed is a racing game, do you? Or at least you wouldn#t want NFS to become an RTS, because then it wouldn#t be NFS anymore. A game has to stay true to its core, otherwise it hasn#t anything that defines it.

Raids/dungeons are the same principle as ever, only now there's like 10 new difficulties to each. It's the same stale tank/healer/dps where dps hit 123, healers hit 123 and tanks hit 123, done.

The triangle works. Why mix it up? its actually what makes WoW great, imho. the fact that there is clearly defined roles and that you need to play togther and utilize them to defeat an encounter. I wouldn#t play WoW anymore if they changed that. If I want a game without roles, I can play D3.

[quote]Then there's nonsense like pet battles, which most people do for the cash they can make on it more than because it's fun, which fuels the business atmosphere that feels like it permeates out of all of WoW's pores these days./quote]
Just because *you* don't like pet battles doesnt mean nobody does. I don#t do them much, I'm not a big fan. But I know my fair share of people who actually like those pet battles, and I am glad blizzard added some content for solo-players thats different from the rest.

Legion was a very sugarcoated expansion with not much new to it, but a lot more of the old stuff, re-labeled and repackaged to look new, like for example instead of having 40 new levels to level up, they spread it instead into the Artifact, so it's like lvl 110 + 30 from artifact. And yet it feels like there's a new thing that's becoming mandatory to spend on, WoW tokens, on top of the increasingly questionable "why should I pay monthly fees on this when the alternatives are pay once or play for free". Not to mention lore that is increasingly being pulled out of the game and introduced into expensive books you have to buy if you want to read about it.

Most Free-to-Play games aren#t actually free. In avery single F2P game I have played you pretty quickly hit major raod blocks if you didn#t spend money. Sure, you *could* grind that stuff in some cases, but it thats mostly not reasonable in those games. I actually like WoW. I pay my monthly sub, and then I get properly balanced content that is the same for everyone. I hate nothing more then F2P/P2W.

I dunno, for what's supposed to be a new and improved crack team of 300 developers that's been building since pandaland, I'm not seeing the results. The art team is amazing as always of course.

There are certainly things one can critizie about Legion. Its definitely not without flaws. AK/AP and legendaries being completely broken, imho, is at the top of my list. But to call the whole game into question because of it? C'mon. people have been saysing "WoW is dying" ever since TBC was announced. Well, it is dying. Every game will at some point die. But I'm pretty confident it will be some more years and some xpacs before that happens.


But yeah, if you look at the PCG_Matrix WoW clearrly is in the "Cash CoW" state. Trying to get as much return for as low of an investment is just good business strategy at that point. but Blizzard could be milking WoW much more for a short time, and yet they don#t and still play the long game. because at the end of the day, they still have some people that actually care about delivering good games, and not only about the fast money. And thats why so many people still come back to WoW after all this years.

[StationaryHawk]

Yes, I'm sure everyone is rushing out to buy tokens in order to stay competitive. There's no way any player could make 80k in less than three months.

[Marrilaife]

Always some random deranged poster pushing his agenda oblivious to facts...

but despite the hype of Warlords bringing back numbers to legendary Cataclysm numbers, especially after the pandaland kitty adventure atrocity, players didn't stay, and numbers keep decreasing,

Pushing agenda no#1:

Facts:
- Cataclysm had a drop off of players, TBC & WOTLK were the growth periods, during Cata the game had generational change, many old players left because they moved on with their lives, Blizzard started to try to salvage the game with things like adding LFR in Dragon Soul. Also it was considered a bad expansion, dubbed "Thrall the Green Jesus".

- MOP in a hindsight is considered one of the best expansions to date, next to WOTLK, just check the threads "which was the best expansion up to date", was also pretty decent in retaining the playerbase until SOO 14-month content draught and "raretimer Huolon" Timeless Isle of boredom & no content.

Throne of Thunder patch is considered an example of a good period in WOW design where both casuals and hardcores got content.

- WOD was the first expansion seeing sharp dropoff in player numbers to the point Blizzard stopped reporting player numbers, had nothing to do with MOP, or with WOD launch (which was great and seeing a surge in player numbers to unexpected levels), more with lack of followup and "selfie camera" patch.

*IF* you want to stay competitive with new patches or expansions, you now have to buy WoW tokens and sell them in order to have the gold to buy the AH gear pieces which will now easily sell for hundreds of thousands or millions of gold. Not to mention that potions, flasks etc have seen an increase in prices of like 500% over the previous expansion.
One WoW token gives you more gold than a semi-no-life player makes in 3 months. Gold prices are inflated beyond redemption.

Pushing agenda no#2:
- No one needs to buy BOE gear, ever. You can gear up from normal gameplay, unless you're lazy and / or rich to want skips & shortcuts then you buy BOEs & boosts.
- Gold is easy to make if you have two brain cells together and don't spend it frivolously on pointless shit. Like the one above. Inflation works in favour of a casual player who can sell their herbs, enchants, augment runes, everything basically for those "inflated prices" and get easy gold.

When people don't have gold, we have problem we've seen in vanilla, people have to grind raw gold for pitiful payoffs to be able to afford fixed costs like repairs and mount skills. When people have gold, suddenly you can sell a handful of mats and be able to cover all the expenses game throws at you. Not even mentioning most expenses got removed! You no longer need to pay for spells or spell ranks, arrows, poisons, buff candles, the only mandatory goldsinks are repair bills and mount training.

A casual player has no need for luxuries like flasks, potions, food buffs or augment runes, therefore he can sell them instead of buying and make a lot of gold if prices are high. Easy.

Has WoW become a big Buy2Play, Pay2Play AND Pay2Win game, WITH microtransactions which are not "micro" at all? A fucking NAME change is like 15-20$, an appearance change is like 30$.

Didn't know you "win" at the game by changing your name or sex of your toon.

These are luxuries no one really needs for anything, they're there for people who have money and are bored with their characters to the point they want to change them.

The only service that is kinda lame it costs so much because sometimes it's a necessity not a luxury is a realm transfer, and that's only because Blizzard refuses to do more server merges despite WOD killed many realms and Legion didn't revitalize them either.

And yet it feels like there's a new thing that's becoming mandatory to spend on, WoW tokens,

They are not mandatory. According to Blizzard, only minority of playerbase ever buys or sells tokens.

Not to mention lore that is increasingly being pulled out of the game and introduced into expensive books you have to buy if you want to read about it.

There were books & comics from Warcraft universe since before even WOW launched.

Anyway every game developing company is a business and they want to earn money. No one makes games as charity. Even garage developers gather money to fund their projects, no matter how passionate people are, nothing is ever for free.

Your whole thread reeks of whine how you're too clueless to afford wow tokens so you hate them, because instead of being smart how you manage and earn your gold you throw it away left and right on pointless stuff (buying BOEs or name changes? completely unnecessary) and you have no clue how to make it efficiently if you think it takes 3 months of "semi-nolifing" to earn for 1 token.

Reminds me of people who whine life is too expensive and then spend 300$ a month on pointless cellphone chit chat, 150$ a month on cigarettes and some other wasteful sum on overdue credit card debts.

[Deleted]

Let's put it this way. I wouldn't have bought cata or mop if they were single stand alone games. I would have definitely bought wod and legion. So yeah, in my opinion they are back providing videogames.

[cFortyfive]

You look at how little WoW has evolved in terms of actual gameplay over the past 13 years, yet how much more it offers in terms of things you can pay money for, and you start to feel like you're playing a very smooth money making scheme more than a video game which strives to evolve in order to keep up with the times.

Obviously just a platform to generate revenue for Blizzard.

[Cæli]

I know it's just a typo, but I'll use it to reaffirm my conviction that Nintendo just keeps making the same game over and over.

it's true that they keep making the same game over and over
accounting for remake/remasters makes it worse

so far at least

[MoanaLisa]

You look at how little WoW has evolved in terms of actual gameplay over the past 13 years, yet how much more it offers in terms of things you can pay money for, and you start to feel like you're playing a very smooth money making scheme more than a video game which strives to evolve in order to keep up with the times.

Let's talk about that.

"Keeping up with the times" suggests there's some MMO out there that is modern, successful on a large scale, and sets an example in advanced development and design that Blizzard should strive to meet.

What would that be exactly? And why?

[SirCowdog]

Yes, I'm sure everyone is rushing out to buy tokens in order to stay competitive. There's no way any player could make 80k in less than three months.

Can't tell if this is sarcasm or not. It's absolutely possible to make that much gold more quickly than that if you're willing to put in the time.

[Chuckadoodle]

"pandaland kitty adventure atrocity" You have no credibility....

[Marrilaife]

Can't tell if this is sarcasm or not.

Smells like sarcasm to me... Especially since there are so many youtube vids "how I made my first million from zero" etc.

Sadly world (of warcraft) is full of dumb players who come to forums and whine "the token just went 20k up do you know how many more alts I'd have to run through Cata raids for this?"

It's like saying "oh the plane tickets to Hawaii got more expensive, do you know how many more hours I have to flip burgers to be able to afford them?"

[SirCowdog]

Let's talk about that.

"Keeping up with the times" suggests there's some MMO out there that is modern, successful on a large scale, and sets an example in advanced development and design that Blizzard should strive to meet.

What would that be exactly? And why?

I think it might be less of any one, single game that can set the example, but rather aspects of games that are doing something better than WoW.



More lateral progression is something that WoW is distinctly lacking. Everything about the game is keyed for linear progress, from the gear to the levels to the artifacts. I think WoW could very much benefit from allowing players to expand into different roles on one character rather than having to start completely from scratch with an alt. Something along the lines of Path of Exile's passive ability tree, for example.

A real economy. Something like EVE online, where everything is made by players.

I would bring up World PVP, but I think that's actually not something that WoW actually has any business being. However, it could go hand-in-hand with a better economic system, in which case something like GW2s WvWvW system could work, or Black Desert's node wars. Anything more involved would tread into the realm of making WoW into more of a survival/sandbox game.

WoW's open world could benefit from something along the lines of The Division's world tiers, or Diablo 3's difficulty settings, where a player gets to choose what level of challenge they want from the open world. Those both work primarily off of personal instanced versions of the open world, however. But I think something could be done with phasing tech to make it happen.

[Fang7986]

Couple points.

Playing WoW and playing competitively are 2 very different things and you can enjoy the game doing the first without ever having to do the latter (which I really feel is what the majority of players do, just because you don't notice them, doesn't mean they aren't out there.)

If you are a herbalist you can easily make the gold a token would give you playing a few hours a month. Example Foxflower has a median US realm price of 40g according to the Undermine Journal site. You can easily farm 200 in less than an hour. I myself farmed a stack in about 20mins last night because I had some luck and the fox spawned 3 times in a row. So that means you could make the price of a token on the US realms in about 10-12 hours of play time,(40 x 200=8000, 8000 x 10hrs =80000) way less than the 3 months you claim it would take.

Complaining about the sub cost is like complaining about paying for Cable, and paying for microtransactions is like paying extra for HBO or Showtime. You don't need to you choose to. There are plenty of free options (free games, over the air channels) if you want them. But don't get pissy because other people are fine with paying for more.

- - - Updated - - -

Yes, I'm sure everyone is rushing out to buy tokens in order to stay competitive. There's no way any player could make 80k in less than three months.

Everyone forgets there is a limit to the # of tokens you can buy too, you can't just go completely nuts buying them.

[Auxora]

No it hasn't really changed. The grinding has gotten easier and then back to harder through the years, but the game itself at the core is exactly the same. Don't fall into the trap of being distracted by the minor changes that it causes you to overestimate how much has really changed.

As far as people spending real money on high-level gear, that's been around all along as well. I know a number of people that sold highly geared toons on accounts for $900+ each back in vanilla. Back in the day you could tell the purchased accounts a mile away since they would be geared but completely inept at their class where it was clear they didn't level it themselves. Especially in Wrath people sold raid carries. The gold sites have always sold toons and gear. Now, there are some pieces you can buy but you really can't buy the bis gear for all slots on the AH. And it's always been very possible to get that gear through hard work without spending any real money. If someone wants to spend hundreds of dollars to jump ahead in gear, they are kind of fooling themselves because usually the lack of experience earning the gear themselves will show up in lack of skill when doing high-end raiding (or pvp ftm). At best gear might get someone their foot in the door in a raid group, but within a run or two the rest of the team will be questioning how they got their gear. The player still needs skill, it's not a situation and really hasn't ever been where someone without much skill can buy gear with real-world cash and then faceroll tougher difficulty raids. There are games like that but wow isn't one.

[Kanegasi]

I really don't understand the circle logic OP is running with. WoW is obviously a videogame you pay to play. It's pretty simple.

[Vineri]

They add a vending machine next to my tenis court. Because of that, tenis is no longer a sport.

Tennis court or no, I'd take interest if a vending machine was added that took game currency instead of real life currency.