Will Blizz Make WoW a MMO Again Next Xpac??

[HuxNeva]

Whether it's fun or compulsory, participation is participation. And you can be sure that's all their corporate masters care about.

I'm sure retention and the revenue streams associated with that will be a top priority. 'Bribe' players with 'to good to bypass' rewards locked behind an atrocious activity that is hence made compulsory, and they will start hating the game and leave in droves. This is what happened in WoD.

[Tic Tacs]

Cross-realm realms/zones is a way to encourage MMO.

Yes, if properly implemented. I had some issues with CRZ in the past such as high latency and getting stuck on another zone after leaving group. I do think they need to merge many realms and use CRZ when expansion/large content patches come to mitigate limitations of their engine.

Also, CRZ isn't very good for community of the specific realm. For example, I would recognize many players back in the days and can refer to specific person by name rather than class.

[MoanaLisa]

Well, let's see:

Large, massive game: Check
Lots of players: Check
Can group together with those players to accomplish difficult things: Check.
Have to be online to play the game: Check.

Sounds like an MMO to me.

I have no problem with people who do not choose to engage with total strangers who may not be always looking to enhance other player's play experience.

Fun fact: I don't call on random strangers in any endeavor I can think of to help me out with something. I call friends, acquaintances and colleagues if at work.

You know that whole internet thing about "Grow a thicker skin"? Well, fuck that. I no longer have any reason to endure the abuse and sociopathic behavior that often exhibits in the game. I will avoid like the plague those who think I should be forced into playing the game with them just because they say so. Fuck that too.

I have friends, I have a guild, I even have family members from across the U.S. that play. We do things together and we have fun.

So yeah, it's an MMO.

[Sastank]

No, they built the shit pile so high they'll never dig out of it. The next expansion with be JAVA based.

Coming to a Google Play store near you.

[Mormolyce]

I swear we have this question every expansion.

And there's way more world content in the last few expansions than there was previously.

[Bigbazz]

What do you guys think? Legion was Blizzard waking up after being drunk for the past 2-3 expansions and while it added a lot of good it still plays like a lobby and its very anti social compared to the first 3 expansions. Do you think Blizzard will announce something next xpac to counter this issue? Maybe tune world quests to not be so easily solo'd, or remove LFG from world quests and provide an incentive for group questing so that solo players can still get what they want done but are encouraged to socialize with players for a better reward?

1. If you remove LFG while also having group quests/elites (that genuinely require groups) then players on dead realms won't be able to get anything done, LFG is here to stay because it's pretty much a necessity in the current climate. Tuning world quests to not be easily solo'd is a pretty vague request since the ability to solo world quests depends heavily on gear and heavily on spec. What part of this has any relation to "make wow a MMO again"?

2. Old expansions didn't have world quests, but if you were raid geared you would absolutely crush daily quests in terms of efficiency. Doing TBC's Netherwing mine dailies as a freshly dinged Fury Warrior? Shit is tough, 1 mob at a time and constant eating... But what if you're doing it as a T5 geared player? Well you're absolutely melting your way through mobs with only the occasional bandage, no longer a challenge... That's without even considering that there were 2 tiers of gear beyond that... No real challenge to speak of here that separates itself from Legion.


And I fully get what you're trying to put across, you just haven't got a good grasp on how to achieve it or what's important, and what you're wanting requires highly populated contained single servers and a playerbase that is looking for the oldschool experience, while modern wow is populated by a playerbase accustomed to the modern advances of the game.... It just wouldn't work.

[Mojo03]

There should be an organic need to group with people, not contrived content built to group players for the sake of grouping. IE mobs that are literally the same thing a lesser versions that just do more dmg and have more hp.

LFG tools save tremendous time. LFR serves a purpose, though I'd agree it is under tuned and a waste of time. If you hate it because it simplifies raiding, and is different than the old days, it's likely you're just someone who misses prestige and feeling special.

The old WoW just consisted of contrived and unnecessary BS to keep people playing longer. Those that put in more time felt special and those people now miss feeling better than other people and having people care about their shiny gear only a few people have. They took away a lot of that, no one cares anymore and those people are sad no one cares.

The end of thread 10,984 of the same exact topic said in a slightly different way.

[iamthedevil]

While it is true that you can talk to others in a PUG, most people are so focused on getting it done that any attempt at conversation would be frowned upon, if not an outright kickable offense.

IMHO most forms of the pugs are there to help you get through the instance without the bother of talking to people. Especially when it brings in players from other realms. It's too bad Blizz hasn't done some more server merging and then limit the pugs to those.

The only reason it didn't use to be like that is because of time wasted. You wait for ever plugging trade chat with LFR messages that by the time you got into the dungeon, it didn't matter if the person sucked or was slow as shit. You were stuck with them unless you had another hour or more to waste going back to org/sw to do the same thing over.

Now that oeple are so much more accessible, you don't have to deal with that garbage. I wasted on obscene amount of time in Vanilla doing jack shit because people were so hard to find.

[Darktbs]

The things that do not sleep want new flesh, Blizzard cannot make another one, we must not let them escape!

[Lasombria]

No, In 8.0 WoW will become a mobile-only typing tutor.

[Kokolums]

Blizzard is a different company now.

The original blizzard was built on making social games. The core was battle.net which used to be a huge social hub like discord is now. The business model was kids hung out in the social hub and while there might jump into games like diablo 2, starcraft, and warcraft 3. The intergration between the social hub and their games drove game sales. WoW originally had its own strong in game realm communities.

Today the social hub bas been destroyed and you dont talk to anyone. Under this system, d3 flopped and wow saw its subs collapse. Blizzard made a big mistake thinking the secret of its success was polish in already-established genres when it was truly the socal hub they destroyed.

Your best bet for social online MMO action is Rob Pardo who left blizz and started his own studio geared to create a social MMO. Just keep checking news for what pardo is doing. Hopefully we hear something soon.

[Onikaroshi]

Games as social and "mmo"-y for me as it was when i started in 2004. Players make the game social, not the company. You can't force people to be social, all Blizzard has done is given them the tools to enjoy the game in somewhat the same manner as the social players.

Besides, I have yet to see a pug raid that I've joined not banter about random things just like any guild group.

[bryroo]

If all of your social interactions disappeared the moment LFG went live maybe the problem isn't the game, it's you.

[Thetruth1400]

I hope so, I think a lot of the problem is how fast the game is now compared to vanilla-BC. Part of that slow pace gave us a actual chance to build friendship and work together because we had to. If they slow down the game it might cause a riot tho.

I agree. The thing is, back in the day, everything took time. Content actually had to be done and not skipped, there weren't 4 different difficulties of dungeons and raids where you pick how easy / hard it is, and there weren't catch up mechanics that hand out everything like candy on Halloween.

The only way Blizzard can make WoW an MMO again is to force it, and frankly, I think they're too far gone to revert at this point. We've been on a downwards slope since Cata in terms of ease, so to suddenly revert the past 7 years of watering down and going, "Surprise, everything is going to be as hard as it used to be by default, no easier modes available." probably won't go over well. I'm not even trying to be elitist, but the reality is, if you want the game to have a stable retention rate, there needs to be difficulty so you actually can tell you are progressing, not just "oh hey, I toggled a switch and am doing the same content but it's slightly harder now." Exclusivity can be a good thing if it is actually achievable, but just handing it out takes the rewarding aspects away from personal accomplishments.

[Heladys]

Stupid thread. WoW is an MMO now. If you don't like it, quit, but it's still an MMO.

[Deleted]

I think you are confusing WoW with social-oriented tools like facebook, twitter, instagram....
With those tools people WANT to socialize, while with WoW people want to play combat game with an OPTION to socialize. Some take the option, some dont. People are given a choice and choice is always good to have, think everyone can agree on that.

Also, this is information age, so people dont need to be social to get information. During vanilla and TBC there wasnt many information online about wow, these days we can google everything, we have videos, guides etc.
So, what would we talk about when we can get more, faster and more reliable info on google, instead of talking to total stranger who might just troll you?
So, instead of blaming Blizzard for that antisocial game, blame google and people in general fir using it.

[Deleted]

Maybe some of you would actually have more social interactions and make more friends in game if you weren't constantly whining about the "good old days".

[bryroo]

Maybe some of you would actually have more social interactions and make more friends in game if you weren't constantly whining about the "good old days".

If WoW were still a "real MMO" you guys would have to farm Fire Resist gear for that burn.

[Queen of Hamsters]

If WoW were still a "real MMO" you guys would have to farm Fire Resist gear for that burn.

Hahahaha! XD

Bookmarking this for future sig-material.

[SoyBoy]

What do you guys think? Legion was Blizzard waking up after being drunk for the past 2-3 expansions and while it added a lot of good it still plays like a lobby and its very anti social compared to the first 3 expansions. Do you think Blizzard will announce something next xpac to counter this issue? Maybe tune world quests to not be so easily solo'd, or remove LFG from world quests and provide an incentive for group questing so that solo players can still get what they want done but are encouraged to socialize with players for a better reward?

AT this point they should create a new mmo.
Remember wow is built off of tech from 15+ years ago. The mmo concepts it used were also from that era. It seems the new trend is to make single player/mmo all in one like the division.