It feels like Blizzard is slowly abbandoning this MMO

[Spl4sh3r]

I don't get why you bring Bonus Rolls into this. I mean if you feel they are bad, how do you think it was before they were added? It was even less of a chance to get what you wanted back then since you didn't have 2 tries per week to get something, only 1.

[Smokinya]

Horrible nullifies frequent, thus there is no "direct contradiction".

The amount of development effort they spend on WoW reduced dramatically, it is easily seen from what exactly / how much is in the patches.

The OP feels it too, but since he is not a dev, he cannot pinpoint what exactly is going on with precision. He thinks maybe they got a wrong signal, etc. No, it's not that. What is going on is that (a) they stopped believing they can ignite WoW enough to go places, but (b) they don't want to just drop it on the floor because it still produces money, and so (c) they try to diversify into other games and reduce the effort they are spending on WoW trying to do the bare minimum.

This manifests in them doing mostly iterations of the same old, same old, because iterations are very easy to do. And slowing people down by whatever means possible, time gates, many-months unlocking of raids "because it is better that way", etc.

This has been going on since WoD.

Oh hey look who it is! Its rda once again ragging on Legion. Surprised your post wasn't stroking Wrath of the Lich King as the god tier standard of all games. I don't even know why you bother to frequent these forums anymore. You should seriously just quit WoW. Legion is miles ahead of Wrath of the Lich King. This coming from a player who spent nearly 100 days of playtime during Wrath. We get it you don't like all the difficulties and the numbers game etc, etc. Anything else I missed?

The only thing that is truly bullshit in Legion is the legendary system and the insane Warforge/Titan Forge system. Both of these aspects are easily fixed. Keep the RNG Titan/War system but allow players to earn a currency to upgrade their gear so if you get lucky thats great! If not then you can still upgrade the gear. Legendaries are also an easy fix. If they want to keep having all these legendaries just make them all utility gear. That way you're not at a DPS advantage if you don't have one and it only adds utility to your class, perhaps giving you a special ability that can be used in solo content or even just a cool effect. Alternatively we got back to the old system where a few select classes have access to a legendary for that tier/expansion.

[Pull My Finger]

This is an incredibly silly thread. I don't know what you've been playing, OP, but it surely wasn't WoW: Legion. Please stop being ridiculous.

[Triggered Fridgekin]

I'm having lots of fun with the latest patch. But then, I play WoW for fun and not as a second job.

Key to success. Whenever I feel like the game is getting stale and I'm not enjoying myself as much I'll simply let my subscription run its course and come back in a month or two when my interests return. Save for streamers I feel bad for those who honestly dislike the game but feel as though they have to play it either to satisfy an addiction or to justify the subscription.

This isn't a dig at the OP but rather in a general sense.

[zanzimar]

Same thread, different words, sick of the same garbage posts daily.

[Deleted]

You might be noticing that a number of devs have moved on to work on the next expansion.

[Tyron]

Same thread, different words, sick of the same garbage posts daily.

So much this. Doomsayers everywhere.

[Marema]

I'm actually enjoying this last patch. I've been playing a lot more recently. But I also understand that this game is a complete waste of time and don't get butthurt when there are changes.

[meowfurion]

OP Your opinion is incorrect. /thread.

[Crovyn]

According to a recent report WOW is still generating the biggest income for Blizzard out of all their games. So no they are not abandoning anything.

[A dot Ham]

It feels quite honestly, like the developers have just become content with being lazy, and doing less to appeal to a smaller player base.

Oh ya okay I see where you are going that totally makes sense to use company resources to appeal to as small of a group as possible...

Blizzard likley knows that as a 12-13 year old product, WoW cannot continue forever. They said during WoD they want WoW to go on for at least another 10 years but I doubt it will even carry on being worked on for more than 5 at this rate.

At this rate... tell me what data are you using to make such a qualified opinion? Or was that just pulled straight out of your ass like the rest of your post?

Legion was a test, in many ways, a test to see if wow still had something worth keeping, and blizzard, seeing the negative feedback, seems to have taken this the wrong way. Instead of aspiring to make a better game they simply feel its easier, to slowly give up on the game all together. They initally planned Legion itself to be a significantly longer expansion, it was meant to be reaching as far as 7.5 before concluding at least, as blizzard said they had no plans to *rush* Legion, yet now, as people quit, and the game becomes less popular, blizzard changes its mind.

Again, where are you getting this information?

A test? O'rly? You must have some solid insider info to share on that fact.

Longer xpac? 7.5? Again... you must have some inside information that hasn't been shared with the rest of us.

7.3.5 is the final raid, 7.4 may exist but 5.5 was meant to exist and we all know how that turned out, scenerio turned into a novel remember? Wouldnt be surprised at all if the next 7.4 content suffers the same fate and legion is just *ended* in 7.3.5 with the next expansion beta launching early, and the expansion launching earlier than other expansions to keep people from leaving too quickly.

5.5 and novel? Are you referring to the Garrosh's trial? Yeah because that would have made for compelling game play.

But we've discovered your sources... pure guessing games.

If, blizzard announces a Warcraft 4 title, you can bet, the chances of WoW surviving another 5 years will be slimmer than ever. They will very likley move onto a WoW 2 title after WC4 is completed.

Why? Because you say so? You make a lot of assumptions and assertions based on zero data...

WoW may have been a good game, may still be a decent game...

But it is a game thats had its time, and its slowly moving to a point where I feel, a transition from this title, to a new one, probably wouldnt be so bad.

Sounds like you are more over Warcraft than Blizzard is... you're projecting.

[TriHard]

Overwatch is their new successful baby, so I am fine with that.

[MrFiddleswitch]

Let me be clear, this isnt a WoW is dead/dying or negative thing rather a passive thought and muse about the current state of the game during 7.3

Now let me be clear, 7.3 should by all accounts feel like the largest patch ever made, with the most effort ever made put into it.

Yet somehow it does not even feel close to big or expansive, in truth it feels gated, slow, and after those inital rare farms, you feel like you literally have *nothing* to do, unless you care to do it all again on your alt, which not all of us do.

In short... the game feels smaller than ever.

I dunno what point blizzard decided less content was a good thing but for a while now, somewhere around Cata/MoP it feels like blizzards slowly been easing back from WoW, expansion by expansion, content is getting less and less progressive, and more and more grindy. The only progression is based on luck instead of effort, and this essentially makes everything you do feel worthless.

But blizzard has had 2 expansions to fix this with Bonus Rolls being unpopular in MoP and in WoD due to how heavily RNG centric loot is, PvP is a dead scene lately with literally nothing going on save the prestiege model which is only attractive if you actually *like* farming for days on end.

IN short.... its not that the game has become more casual, less casual, more grindy, less grindy.

It feels quite honestly, like the developers have just become content with being lazy, and doing less to appeal to a smaller player base.

Blizzard likley knows that as a 12-13 year old product, WoW cannot continue forever. They said during WoD they want WoW to go on for at least another 10 years but I doubt it will even carry on being worked on for more than 5 at this rate.

I'm honestly not sure where people are getting this. Let's compare shall we? What content did 2.4 bring (TBC equivalent of 7.3-7.3.5)? A 6 boss raid with 1 difficulty, a 4 boss dungeon with 1 difficulty, 1 faction with 42 total quests (daily and story) that took place on an island the size of 1 of the new zones in 7.3.

Patch 3.3 (LK equivalent of 7.3-7.3.5) brought a 2 boss dungeon and 2 x 3 boss dungeons plus a 12 boss time gated raid, it had like 5 story quests that led you through the Dungeons and the raid, but no outdoor quests outside of Quel'Delar and Shadowmorne.

4.3 (Cata equivalent) brought a 3 boss dungeon (with 5 possible bosses), and 2 additional 3 boss dungeons, 8 boss raid (still considered one of the worse), and darkmoon faire. It really didn't add any outdoor content.

5.4 (MoP equivalent) brought a 14 boss raid, timeless isle - which had no quest content and was basically just a grindfest, Battlefield: Barrens, which was basically an outdoor grindfest with a few story quests, and proving grounds. 2 world bosses per week, 1 massively time gated. 5 total world bosses.

6.2 (WoD equivalent) brought a 13 boss raid, and tannan jungle, which had like 5 or 6 story quests and 2 daily quests, and added the first step of "weekend bonus events". 1 World Boss.

Now let's looks at 7.3 and 7.3.5 - 3 zones vs. 1 in patch 2.4 ,5.4 and 6.2 vs. 0 in patch 3.3, 4.3. To be fair, the play area of the 3 zones is equal to about 1 and 1/2 to 2 times the play area of Tanaan and Timeless Isle. The most ever.

2 New factions vs. 1 in each previous patch (except 6.2, which had 2). Tied for the most ever.

4 boss dungeon vs. 9 in 4.3, 9 in 3.3 and 4 in 2.4 - The most since Cata

94 story quests including multiple cut scenes, plus many world quests (could not find an exact count) - The most ever.

8 invasion points - nothing to really compare these too - but in many ways, they are like 5 man dungeons.

8 World Bosses - 1 per week vs. 2 per week in MoP. 8 total vs. 5 total MoP, 1 total WoD. The most ever.

11 Boss Raid - 11 vs. 13 in WoD, 14 MoP, 8 Cata, 12 Wrath, 6 TBC. 4th Total announced thus far. Unknown if there is a mythic only boss.

So, in total, 7.3/7.3.5, which is basically a split patch vs. the other comparable patches has the largest outdoor area, tied for the most factions ever, has the most dungeon bosses since cata, but also offers 8 Invasion Points, which are similar in many ways to 5 man content, has the most quests, the most world bosses, and while it it is 3 bosses shy of the most bosses ever in the final raid, we still may have another mythic only boss (based on Ion's comments in Fatboss interview).

We also have an unknown number of other content coming with 7.3.5 outside of what has been announced thus far.

As for gating - Timeless Isle had a much larger gate in the grind to get to the 2nd boss (legendary cape), and had basically no content - it was 100% grind mobs and rares. Tanaan was gated behind having a garrison level 3 and the boat, which was both time gated and gold gated. Quel'danas was not gated, but many of the quests were gated behind rep. ICC was gated over a period of like 6 weeks. Sure the raid won't be out for another 8-10 weeks, but this is a result of pushing the patches out every 11 weeks instead of every 6-8 months.

If you actually look at the facts, it's pretty safe to say that outside of maybe Wrath of the Lich King - where World of Warcraft was at it's absolute peak - Legion's final patch has the most attention of any final patch of an expansion - ever. I'm not out to be a white knight here (I'm usually hyper critical about nearly everything Blizzard does), but I'm just not sure where you think the Devs are getting "lazy" by producing the largest patch in the history of the game? I'm not sure what makes you believe they are easing off of World of Warcraft when it has the largest Developer Team it has ever had in the history of the game.

It sounds to me like you expected 7.3 to be an expansion - and that is kind of expecting too much.

The only place I can agree with you is PVP, and the Brawls are at least an effort to correct the error. I will reserve judgement on this front until next expansion, however, as Ion (and other developers) has(have) stated in numerous interviews that the next expansion will feature more PVP content.

I do have an honest question - what do you think the patch is missing to feel "big"?

[Erbel]

Overwatch is their new successful baby, so I am fine with that.

It's still not making as much as WoW is. It's also an FPS which tend to have far worse player retention than MMORPG's do. BF1 and PUBG already took nice chunks out of its revenue. It's only going to keep going down.

[McNeil]

They are branching out to other games like Overwatch, Hearthstone, HotS, maybe more unannounced projects. WoW has its glory days behind and will now just try to keep the subbed players subbed as long as possible. Thats basically why Legion didn't offer anything new, they just tried to refine features that already existed like dailies into world quests and more zones like Timeless Isle/Tanaan Jungle. This time they just had 2 of these zones in a row and I can say its pretty tedious when your doing the exact same things for so long in just different zones (which don't actually look that much different though).

[Sariengrey]

13 year dec 04 player here, can count on two hands how many raids I missed since 05, 3-5 nights a week. Talk about consistent! yeah Legion was the nail in the coffin for me, too many terrible game systems this xpac, no control of rewards for your efforts(yes always been that way , but way out of control rng on rng on rng now)You can say it's me and not the game, but I will call Bs on that. I would still be playing if Wow hadn't moved away from what made it great little by little in recent years. To me this game has turned into Diablo,and while that's a good game, its not the Wow I loved to invest my time into. To me the Op is onto something and not that far off in his musings

[Laerrus]

Abandoning?

Doubtful!

This is the first expansion that I have had a great deal of difficulty completing everything that I want to do, because there is just way too much to do. There's far more content in this expansion than even MoP or WoTLK.

[Felaris Stormrage]

I doubt it. Blizzard may have intended to ditch this MMO during the production of Project "Titan", but that isn't the case today.

People have made this game a habit of theirs over the past twelve years. Tens of thousands of loyal customers and an even larger pool of players that will consistently purchase expansions/game time randomly for the nostalgia.

It isn't going anywhere. Good try at trolling, though.

[Aliven]

As long as WoW keeps growing their mountain of gold the game will never be abandoned. They just made some horrible game design decisions with the latest patch is all.

Well ist almost like this is some junior team, making awesome and totally bonkers decisions through the entire Legion expansion. Hell, they put brilliant ideas into bonkers ideas and bonkers ideas into briliant ideas. It is al intertwined to the point i dont know where it all begin.

[Yelmurc]

Lets look at the job openings for all their games at the moment

World of Warcraft - 11 openings
Overwatch - 10 openings
Starcraft II - 2 openings
Hearthstone - 4 openings
Heroes of the Storm - 8 openings
Diablo - 8 openings
Unannounced Project - 6 openings
Cinematics - 4 openings

This should give you a good idea where they are investing.