Why did Blizzard's business model become time-gating and content removal?

[Mcduck]

From Vanilla and up until Cataclysm (which is, coincidentally, considered to be WoW's golden age), you could play very sporadically and still get to experience all of the content. You could play for a month or so, get bored, quit, come back a year later and then run through the content that you've missed and see the story / the encounters and all that.

Starting from Cataclysm, Blizzard began to remove content. If you missed a PvP season or didn't play your char seriously during that time, you'd end up never being able to obtain the elite recolor of the set. In MoP, Blizzard stepped up their content removal game and first deleted Battlefield:Barrens when SoO launched and later completely erased the legendary cloak questline and when WoD launched. If you want to experience MoP story right now, you just can't since most of the important post-launch story content was removed. This is on top of elite set removals.

WoD mostly had the same model of content removal as MoP but also added time-gating in the form of pathfinder achievements.

Now Legion retained all of the content removal and time-gating features of previous expansions but doubled down on them: artifact appearances are very likely to be removed when the next expansion launches and they aren't something that you can obtain in a day or two, you have to play the same character for months to collect all of them. Not to mention the insane AP and RNG treadmill that you have to keep running unless you want to fall behind and be locked out of current content.

So the question is, why does Blizzard insist on people continuing to play their mains to keep up with the pace of the game instead of quitting for a few months to cool off or play alts? The only thing this business model promotes is burnout.

It works as intended

[Normie]

People work, people fall ill, people are carers aka things happen which stop some people from coming online, sometimes short periods of time, sometimes long period of times. Removing some content is unfair on these people, for example the mop and wod legend lines, I really don't see an issue in keeping them around. But to say the solution is "Just make sure your online during that part" is rubbish

Honestly? If you want to win the awards you get for playing a video game for more and longer than anyone else, then you should have to be playing the game more and longer than anyone else.

Now that we've cleared that up, exactly what is that 1000 days /played award going to do for you?

[Lumineus]

I made a brand new alt 2 weeks before 7.2 launched. Within a week she was 110, by the end of the 2nd week she was 870. The night before 7.2 she had her 35th trait, and that was from playing between 1-2 hours every night, bar one where I got 6 hours in.

It's absolute bollocks when people say they can't come back, they can't re roll

All well and good, but you can only do that because you've been playing all along, because it only works for alts, predicated on the AK level of your main. An account that has lapsed will not be able to take as much advantage of the catch-up, as the highest rank of AK that can be bought without first reaching five levels beyond it is only AK 15. Sure, the AK ranks are accelerated depending on how far behind you are, but it's not like you can just buy the AK 20 book (or soon, the AK25 one) and instantly shoot your AP gains to the moon like you can with an alt.

[BreakerOfWills]

From Vanilla and up until Cataclysm (which is, coincidentally, considered to be WoW's golden age), you could play very sporadically and still get to experience all of the content. You could play for a month or so, get bored, quit, come back a year later and then run through the content that you've missed and see the story / the encounters and all that.

Starting from Cataclysm, Blizzard began to remove content. If you missed a PvP season or didn't play your char seriously during that time, you'd end up never being able to obtain the elite recolor of the set. In MoP, Blizzard stepped up their content removal game and first deleted Battlefield:Barrens when SoO launched and later completely erased the legendary cloak questline and when WoD launched. If you want to experience MoP story right now, you just can't since most of the important post-launch story content was removed. This is on top of elite set removals.

WoD mostly had the same model of content removal as MoP but also added time-gating in the form of pathfinder achievements.

Now Legion retained all of the content removal and time-gating features of previous expansions but doubled down on them: artifact appearances are very likely to be removed when the next expansion launches and they aren't something that you can obtain in a day or two, you have to play the same character for months to collect all of them. Not to mention the insane AP and RNG treadmill that you have to keep running unless you want to fall behind and be locked out of current content.

So the question is, why does Blizzard insist on people continuing to play their mains to keep up with the pace of the game instead of quitting for a few months to cool off or play alts? The only thing this business model promotes is burnout.

Tons of stuff was removed in vanilla/bc early versions of mounts, gear looks, certain dungeon drops, the opening of the AQ gates is something that will never happen again, same with original ZG. And as to time gating there were several bosses where everyone had to drop eevrything and farm for months to get nature resistance, or shadow, or frost, or fire, or gear 8 tanks for shit like naxx horsemen.

None of what you're complaining about is new, you just enjoy whining.

[Ebalina]

Who considers that period wows golden age ?

Cause if its only some random ppl that played it is not really a thing.

[kosars]

Didn't get Hand of A'dal? Well, fuck you. You can't get it now. That was before Cata.

That's different. The content wasn't removed after BC, just the title for doing the content. There was plenty of stuff like that in BC and WoTLK, where the content was still there even after a new xpac came out, you just wouldn't get the same rewards for doing it.... but you could still do it. Now there is a whole mess of stuff you simply can't do anymore.

[Mcduck]

The answer for your question is simple - explanation of it not. Answer is Money.
Short Explanation: Blizzard is not interested in you to stay in old content. There was "clear" post one of Blizzard Devs about Pandora legendary - it was reward for staying all time in Pandora content... Yes - it is new business model - Blizzard will always force you to buy last WoW expansion by partial removing from game most most valuable previous content that can keep you from buying New Expansion. Nothing Personal - Just Business

[Grapefruitsnz]

Don't forget the TBC introduction of elite arena mounts or the Wrath proto drakes that you could only obtain by being good at raiding Naxxramas.
Unless you conveniently want to ignore them to prove a point that isn't real, of course.

QFT. There has always been content removal in the game, going back to things like the Dark Portal event tabard in 2.0, or the Arena seasons and mounts in TBC, Plagued and Black-proto dragons and the various arena weapons from Wrath (which were only reintroduced to the game recently). Gated content has also always been here. Attunements were a form of gating, forcing people to go through a serious of quests in order to do a raid. You had Sunwell Plateau, which had time-gating on the last 3 bosses. I know it's easy to forget that the "good old days" were like this, but please don't just assume that some shift in policy or design has brought on a change, when it's very easy to see time-gating and content cutting has always been here.

[SenpaiDean]

I find this video appropriate for the topic at hand

[Deleted]

Regardless of all these excuses for the current model, there has never been that much waiting in the game as there is now.

1) AK
2) weekly chest
3) order hall missions, troops, equipment, class hall research
4) world quests (new ones every 6 hours) and Legion Invasions

It all seems to be aimed at provoking the urge to log in and right-click as much as possible.
I might be missing something in the above list as well.

This extreme pacing philosophy they are currently promoting fits in well enough with the increased RNG intensity and taking control away from players (the peak of which I would consider the new gambling cave, lol. Casinos galore!) This perpetuates all kind of content because it takes longer for people to obtain what they want. Notable examples include: Legendaries, more layers to loot than ever before (procs, gems, and not just whether the item drops or not), faction mounts, etc.

The game is almost like a script where by means of RNG and AK/timegating they want to put everyone on as equal a level as possible. They want player behaviour and achievements to be as predictable as possible. What is more, and I know this might be an unpopular opinion, Legion does not have more content than previous expansions. However it uses all previous content so that it stays relevant for longer. This might very well make it look like there is more content. I hope the "either/or-people" will not attack me now. There are many ways to design a game, not just how it was before Legion and how it is now. Hence the discontent.

[Imnick]

Great. You managed to achieve the bare minimum with an alternate character who most likely had access to the Artifact Knowledge tomes. Have you managed to get all your reputations to Exalted? Have you managed to get all the Artifact Weapon appearances and the alternate colors? Have you maxed out your various professions and gotten all the ranks for them?

Gear and AP is all you need to do the content, which is what OP was complaining about. And they're easy to get on a new character. For anything except diving straight into mythic, which nobody should be expecting to just do after taking six months off, it's trivial to get a new character up to standard in 7.2.
If you are joining right now you can easily get your character to the standard that they can expect to raid in Tomb of Sargeras long before Tomb of Sargeras opens.

Reps and professions not only aren't important to that at all, but also don't have any time gating involved in them and are exactly the same or easier to level up on an alt than past expansions.
Artifact appearances similarly really don't take very long to acquire at all, excepting the ones that are entirely down to luck.
The only one you might struggle with is the quest one but even then, there are pugs going for it every week and you can trivially outgear Emerald Nightmare now just by doing Broken Shore things.

People who pretend they can't catch up are just wrong.

[Mcduck]

Regardless of all these excuses for the current model, there has never been that much waiting in the game as there is now.

1) AK
2) weekly chest
3) order hall missions, troops, equipment, class hall research
4) world quests (new ones every 6 hours) and Legion Invasions

It all seems to be aimed at provoking the urge to log in and right-click as much as possible.
I might be missing something in the above list as well.

This extreme pacing philosophy they are currently promoting fits in well enough with the increased RNG intensity and taking control away from players (the peak of which I would consider the new gambling cave, lol. Casinos galore!) This perpetuates all kind of content because it takes longer for people to obtain what they want. Notable examples include: Legendaries, more layers to loot than ever before (procs, gems, and not just whether the item drops or not), faction mounts, etc.

The game is almost like a script where by means of RNG and AK/timegating they want to put everyone on as equal a level as possible. They want player behaviour and achievements to be as predictable as possible. What is more, and I know this might be an unpopular opinion, Legion does not have more content than previous expansions. However it uses all previous content so that it stays relevant for longer. This might very well make it look like there is more content. I hope the "either/or-people" will not attack me now. There are many ways to design a game, not just how it was before Legion and how it is now. Hence the discontent.

Yes - you are - SUB is not enough - You must buy Last Expansion

[Rogalicus]

I'm OK with timegated character progression (raid lockouts or what they did with AP in 7.2, it's probably the best change of the patch), but stretching already short story content over three months is bullshit.
Also content removal is just straight away stupid. Deleting interesting storylines like Onyxia attunement, Wrathgate and Wrathion's story in MoP for no apparent reason other than 'You weren't there at the time' feels like a spit in the face.

[Darkguyver2020]

Time-gating is there to protect idiot no-life players from burning through all the new content in a weekend just so they can complain they have nothing left to do.
Also. Don't act like this is a new thing. Has everyone conveniently forgotten how Blizzard staggered releasing new raid wings during Wrath? Or the Molten Front and Isle of Thunder?

As for content removal. People have been complaining about the lack of prestige of some items. Particularly the elite gladiator sets. So they only make them available while they are relevant so the special snowflakes can have something to help validate their pathetic lives.

[Rogalicus]

Time-gating is there to protect idiot no-life players from burning through all the new content in a weekend just so they can complain they have nothing left to do.

You mean having 30 minutes of new content a week for three months is better than 6 hours at patch launch? I'd say that if their content is so sparse, it's their fault, not players'.

[Shakou]

i have no fucking clue what kind of content removal you are referring to.

oh i dunno maybe like those legendary cloak and ring questlines which are intregal to experiencing the full story of mop/wod?

Without those there's nothing but lvling up and running the instances without any of the quests really. Story was gutted for really stupid reasons. No one who has those things feels special. It wasn't special when it was in game. Why should it feel special now that people who simply weren't subscribed can't do it anymore? It's a dumb move, thankfully seems Blizzard has moved away from it altogether but we'll see.

[Thage]

Didn't get Hand of A'dal? Well, fuck you. You can't get it now. That was before Cata.

At least the quests are still there in the game. The MoP and WoD legendary questlines (of which WoD's level 100 story is almost completely reliant on and MoP's level 90 story is bridged through the patches by) offer a whole lot of fairly important lore (like why Cordana Felsong suddenly became evil between doing quests for her in Draenor and being a villain in Legion) that was removed wholesale, rather than simply removing the legendary items from the final quests and giving titles out to anyone who completed the questline prior to release day for the next expansion.

[Osmeric]

Blizzard loves you to the extent they make money off you. Didn't send them money back then and missed some content? Aw, poor unloved baby.

Next time be more love-worthy by sending Blizzard $$$.

[Deleted]

I just realized how in video games timegating achieves just what stories achieved in the 19th century newspapers (each new one continued it) and radio soap operas achieved in the 1930-1940s (well, TV soap operas still do it even). It is to keep us hooked and wondering what happens next.

However, in the present case the tiny volume of story content in 7.2 does not justify its being dragged out for 12 weeks. Maybe 6, if that.

Give a cracker to a full man and he will refuse, give a cracker to a starving man and he will say it´s the best cracker evah

[CaptainV]

Blizzard basically saw the value of using an RNG based system to gate progression entirley behind RNG, the bonus roll system made it insultingly harder to progress onpurpose so that you need even MORE time to actually get anywhere.

The randomness of loot also completley clusterfucks the value of gear. An LFR player can literally get gear equal to mythic by pure fucking luck without ever having touched a decent raid difficulty before and likewise a mythic player can get gear even less valueable than heroic gear.

This is the problem, theres 4 difficulties of raid, each one is meant to make you farm them for gear, which does not work when your not getting -any- gear and yes, this can happen, you can do an entire damn raid and get NOTHING worth progression, even getting gear LESS valueable than what you have now.

Right away, Blizzard fucked up their system to its core because of this, and as a result, its beyond saving.

It was blatantly obvious that Legion would be the expansion that blizzard would use their 4.3 Bonus Roll system to its fullest, as each expansion we've been getting less ways to progress beyond RNG.

The RNG "IS" killing this game, beyond words. Trying to make WoW into a pseudo Diablo clone does NOT work because diablo is a game where you slaughter mobs like candy and the hardest bosses are still faster to kill than half the bosses in WoW.

They could fix this simply by returning justice/valor badges, and gear that actually can be upgraded over the course of an expansion indefinately, so that old gear can still be relevent later in newer content.

Instead, we are left with a pure RNG cheese system that is badly designed and even more poorly impliamented. Theres a reason im not subbed to wow currently, and I wont touch it period until that RNG is replaced with something significantly less retarded.