It feels like Blizzard is slowly abbandoning this MMO

[Deleted]

Kinda ridiculous opinion considering what during last 2 expansions Blizzard greatly updated game graphic/model/effects/animations. And they keep upgrading it.

You're right, the fact that it took them 2 expansions = 4 years + an unknown amount of time to finally update 10 years old models and 14 years old animations is kinda ridiculous.

[Flurryfang]

While i really don't agree with OP about how he sees the content changing and WoW being a bit abandoned, i do think that he might be right about Blizzards attitude.

I think that Blizzard is getting very ready for WoW to end at every expansion end from now on. Wow as an entity, while being extremly profitable, is no longer an entity that will be an increasing income for Blizzard. They might be able to stabalize or keep the dropoff low, but the game is going down and in the eyes of most companies, a thing that can not increase in profit, is a thing that you constantly have to run a cost-benefit analysis on to see if it is worth using more energy on it or instead use the investment money on a new entity, which can have an accelerating increase in profit.

So while Legion might not be the last expansion, we will proberly see the last patch of Legion and the next expansion feel very much like an ending for WoW with a tagged on to-be-continued if they actually plan to make another expansion.

[ejpaints]

I actually wouldn't care if we didn't get another "expansion" if we kept getting regular content patches the way Legion has done. I enjoy the max level zones. And I've been taking advantage of running around Argus for rares & invasion points to get gear for my alts. Mind you I think we will have another expac, I just don't see any doomsday signs with WoW atm. We've never had such a regular flow of content before & im enjoying it.

[Super Kami Dende]

Hahahahah... Wat? Abandoning how? It's been releasing content patches continuously for a year.

[Deleted]

for a game they are abandoning they sure are putting in more effort then they have in years. i can't remember the last time we had content this regularly if ever, and M+ is one of the biggest gamechangers in years.

[Kuntantee]

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.

They putting most of their efforts since post-WotLK to reduce development time/effort/resources. Anything that is flavorful (naturally requiring more effort to produce) is removed from game.

- Hardmode activation removed
- Talent/Skill distinction gone
- Unique tier sets not designed anymore
- Unique PvP sets not designed anymore
- Unique racial animations, all gone
- Number of zones, trend is it's going down
- Profession specializations means pretty much nothing
- Challenge Modes gone
- Brawlers Guild too stale*

WoW has become a boring game, at least for me.

* Except obviously some minor patches.

[randomnamegenerator16]

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.

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.

Care to provide any sources for 7.5? Because I think you just pulled that from your ass.

[MrPaladinGuy]

They're just making it more flashy with more useless junk to collect to keep you subbed since I assume a large part of the playerbase primarily continues to sub to farm older content and talk about it on social media.

[Bawk]

How are they abandoning WoW? They've released a new patch every 77 days consistently for the past year. This is the most active expansion with the most content we've had to date. I have so much stuff to do that I don't have enough time to dedicate to all my characters. That's good!

[Lorgar Aurelian]

They have added more stuff then any expan othe then maybe cata with the old world revamp or maybe wrath but clearly they must be abandoning wow.

[teverin]

For me Legion has been the best xpac in a long time. I like the fact that there is always something to do. Back in the day most of the people I played with would quit as soon as they got BiS and beat the last raid boss. They would then wait for the next raid tier. Now at least you can attempt to upgrade in various ways, and yes, through RNG (titan forging). I think its fun. I like collecting things, I like grinding and hoping to get an upgrade. Its fun. I find myself actually seeking out things to do then just running circles in Ironforge like the old days.

I mean, look at Guild Wars 2. Its one of the top MMOs and it came out 5 years ago. They haven't added a tier of gear since its release. Ascended gear has the highest stats and they have been in the game since the beginning, and yet people still play.

I don't think they are slowing down, I just think they are testing ways to keep people engaged.

[khazmodan]

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

So so true, rng seems to be the long term plan for blizzard to continue farming the junkies long after the game goes free to play.

[unbound]

Go ahead and look at the financials. Blizz has been slowly abandoning WoW since Cata.

Like the proverbial frog in slowly boiling water, it just takes a while for people to notice.

[lightofdawn]

no, they're not abandoning anything.

[Trend]

Wow as an entity, while being extremly profitable, is no longer an entity that will be an increasing income for Blizzard. They might be able to stabalize or keep the dropoff low, but the game is going down and in the eyes of most companies, a thing that can not increase in profit, is a thing that you constantly have to run a cost-benefit analysis on to see if it is worth using more energy on it or instead use the investment money on a new entity, which can have an accelerating increase in profit.

You had it right but then you got it all wrong. WoW is nowhere near the breakpoint of profitability, ergo, they will keep making investments to keep the gravy train going. You should have stopped there.

Healthy companies need growth, especially publicly traded companies, that's true. But individual product lines do not need growth. A profitable line is not going to be flushed down the toilet just because it is not continuing to grow. For instance, the Coca Cola Corporation (last I looked), was seeing most of it's sales growth with its non-soda drinks. But its namesake product is still profitable and they are not going to stop selling it just because its annual revenue is not increasing. That would be crazy.

Blizzard is gaining hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue from WoW. As long as that is the case they will continue to make investments, including regular expansions. When the day comes that they are not making boatloads of money off WoW, then things will change, but that day is not in sight yet. Subscriptions could halve and they would still be making tons of jack.

[rda]

Go ahead and look at the financials. Blizz has been slowly abandoning WoW since Cata.

Like the proverbial frog in slowly boiling water, it just takes a while for people to notice.

Yup.

It's pretty funny, but it always goes like this: you think you are miles away from something, you think you are still miles away, still miles away, miles away, and then bam, you are already far past.

People were always saying that WoW is going to live for a long, long time, posting that picture with several tombstones and whatnot. Guess what. WoW IS DEAD as we speak, for real. It already happened. The devs wrote it off back in WoD. And that's not a figure of speech, it's a real thing that manifests in the "content" they are doing: half new difficulty modes / grinds and half time gates, with nothing big and new for years now.

And many are only noticing it now - and no doubt some stubborn souls will manage to delude themselves into thinking that things are just fine, but a big majority will perhaps realize just how fucked up everything is and how hollow and DEAD WoW is in the one more year of nothing after 7.3.

There won't be any big surprises from the supposed second development team working full steam on the next expansion and basically just waiting to release it right after Blizzcon. No. We will get artifact 2.0 and timeless mythic+ raids dropping chests with a chance for ultrasuperforged. Because that's about all the resources they are willing to spend on this game. Things moved on at Blizzard.

[Riistov]

Might be the most out of touch post I've read this month.

Thanks for the laugh op.

[Highwhale]

You're right, the fact that it took them 2 expansions = 4 years + an unknown amount of time to finally update 10 years old models and 14 years old animations is kinda ridiculous.

Huh? Knowing Blizzard updating this staff means WoW will live another decade. Can't understand your sarcasm.

[Trend]

Go ahead and look at the financials. Blizz has been slowly abandoning WoW since Cata.

Like the proverbial frog in slowly boiling water, it just takes a while for people to notice.

The financials are not that detailed that you would be able to draw that conclusion without making assumptions. If you disagree point to specific quotes that back up what you're saying. My company is making huge investments while reducing operational costs at the same time. All tech companies should become more efficient as they mature.

[Arrowstormen]

Based on forums, Blizzard has been "slowly abandoning WoW" since Cataclysm.