Poll: Is blizzard getting more and more controlling on how we consume content?

  1. #1

    Does blizzard have control issues?

    I remember vanilla through wrath, where blizzard created Large worlds with multiple stories going on where you could play how you want to play.

    Starting with Cata it has gotten progressively worse as we are forced to play and experience the game in a regimented linear fashion.

    Control is a good thing but too much can be the kiss of death. Wondering what others feel....

  2. #2
    Quote Originally Posted by Barkloud View Post
    I remember vanilla through wrath, where blizzard created Large worlds with multiple stories going on where you could play how you want to play.

    Starting with Cata it has gotten progressively worse as we are forced to play and experience the game in a regimented linear fashion.

    Control is a good thing but too much can be the kiss of death. Wondering what others feel....
    You are absolutely correct before Cataclysm we were the creators of our fun, adventure in the game. Yes there was dungeons, pvp and raids but nothing was actually there for you to do with your time.

    In Cata they started creating 'fun" things for people to do, mist continued this with even more "things" to do and today we have the summit of that mountain. All fun in the game is constructed by Blizzard and thus no one wants to do it or can't do it for very long.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Bovinity Divinity View Post
    Well, I don't think they set out to be nefarious control freaks intentionally.

    Part of the issue is that they want to create cohesive storylines for the player to enjoy. Unfortunately, in order to do that, you need a fairly linear method in which to tell the story: Game of Thrones wouldn't be Game of Thrones if it were a choose-your-own-adventure book, the writer needs a linear method to tell you the story that he wants to tell.

    And indeed, as we've seen many times in the past, some players have complained that the lore of the game is not well expressed in the game itself. So this is some thing that - at least from Blizzards' perspective - we've asked for.

    Unfortunately, as you've observed, that has the side effect of making things feel railroaded. You're pushed from Point A to Point B with little say in it.

    So the question becomes: Is it all worth it?
    I agree, I do not think they are nefarious. I think a certain amount of control is crucial. I am just wondering if others feel currently it is too controlling or not controlled enough.

  4. #4
    Honorary PvM "Mod" Darsithis's Avatar
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    I think there is room for more than linear "questing-on-rails". I think that we should be given the normal storyline of the zone that you progress through, and once that basic story in the zone is completed, a variety of questlines open up that take you all over. Some might be related to the storyline of the zone, some might just be interesting things at the same time. Look at zones like Duskwood for an example. You've got the worgen, stalvan, and the mad dude in the tower to contend with at once.

  5. #5
    Stood in the Fire ArMeD_SuRvIvOr's Avatar
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    I honestly miss the questing from Classic. It stopped being like that in TBC, when questing became streamlined, on rails, and WAY TOO CONVENIENT (quests being in your near vecinity, never taking you too far away from your quest hub). Sure, it's fine, but it's lost the flavor, the soul. I miss quests that took you from a zone to another, learning the lore of the world, and in the end they gave a good chunk of experience. It also made players go from one zone to another, making the world feel more alive!
    Really sucks if they start to limit their vision for an expansion just to get the next one out faster.
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  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Barkloud View Post
    I remember vanilla through wrath, where blizzard created Large worlds with multiple stories going on where you could play how you want to play.

    Starting with Cata it has gotten progressively worse as we are forced to play and experience the game in a regimented linear fashion.

    Control is a good thing but too much can be the kiss of death. Wondering what others feel....
    Cata was bad, completely linear, but MoP was a lot better and WoD is perfect. One major storyline to follow and many side-quests and hubs to do when you want to (or skip completely). Plus you can skip parts of the major storyline and don't even have to finish it to move on to a new zone. So, I feel you didn't play this expansion.

  7. #7
    I do not like being forced to do garrisons. Or dailies (mop gated gear/enchants behind rep). I wouldnt mind garrisons if they were optional like the farm, and I like dailies when they arent gating raid gear behind them. wrath got things right. rep wasnt an issue with tabards, and daily hubs were optional for the most part. when you force people to do something to progress, that's when it begins to feel like a job. garrisons feel like work, not fun.

  8. #8
    Old God Mirishka's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Barkloud View Post
    I remember vanilla through wrath, where blizzard created Large worlds with multiple stories going on where you could play how you want to play.

    Starting with Cata it has gotten progressively worse as we are forced to play and experience the game in a regimented linear fashion.

    Control is a good thing but too much can be the kiss of death. Wondering what others feel....
    The questing and such is trying to tell a more distinct, unified story than classic. Back then, you could wander off and find a guy by a cave in classic that needed worms - which was great, but had nothing to do with anything else. These days they seem to prefer more structure.

    Mists had a lot of non-linear quests, at least in certain zones. I found tons of side quests in Jade Forest, for example.

    Also, it doesn't make them 'controlling' to design the game that they want to make. It is THEIR game, after all. Are you controlling for deciding where your kid goes to elementary school? What they eat for dinner? No. You're a parent, being a parent.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Moradim View Post
    I do not like being forced to do garrisons. Or dailies (mop gated gear/enchants behind rep). I wouldnt mind garrisons if they were optional like the farm, and I like dailies when they arent gating raid gear behind them. wrath got things right. rep wasnt an issue with tabards, and daily hubs were optional for the most part. when you force people to do something to progress, that's when it begins to feel like a job. garrisons feel like work, not fun.
    And for every person that feels the way you do, there's someone who loves them.

    Also... you aren't 'forced' to do them. I'm so sick of people using that word to describe their choices in a game. Is someone from Blizzard standing behind you with a silenced handgun pointed at the back of your head whispering "Set up more missions or you die"? No.

    So you aren't being 'forced' to do shit. You're playing a game, and you don't like some of the things you have to do in the game. Its as simple at that, and trying to make it into some dramatic 'I'M FORCED TO DO THIS' nonsense is eyerolling to the point of damaging my vision.

    Go spend a couple of years in prison. Then you'll have a proper understanding of what it means to be forced into doing something.

    You could level through dungeons, professions, grinding, recruit a friend... my hunter is 100 and geared to the teeth, and her highest ilevel follower is like 611. Know why? Because my hunter has practically ignored her garrison. Not because I hate it, but because I already have one 'full time' garrison on my warrior and I didn't want two.
    Last edited by Mirishka; 2015-01-28 at 03:43 PM.
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  9. #9
    The ego of the developers got in the way, like always.
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  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Barkloud View Post
    I remember vanilla through wrath, where blizzard created Large worlds with multiple stories going on where you could play how you want to play.

    Starting with Cata it has gotten progressively worse as we are forced to play and experience the game in a regimented linear fashion.

    Control is a good thing but too much can be the kiss of death. Wondering what others feel....
    Wanting to deliver a story for all players to experience requires a bit of restriction. I mean... you can level through Northrend and effectively not see things like Wrathgate. Which is fine, but as a developer, they probably want to ensure that folks feel like they're as involved as they can be in the story arc.

    In this too, they're a bit all over the map, as they tied rather pertinent storyline advancement to completely optional dailies / rep grinds in MoP, which made no sense to me.

    Control outside of that (talent trees, class restrictions, glyph restrictions, etc) have all been in an effort to curb the difficulty of balancing classes in my eyes.

  11. #11
    I personally think they are too controlling. They have consistently removed player choice over the years if it doesn't conform to their vision of how their games should be played.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Ryme View Post
    The ego of the developers got in the way, like always.
    This is the unfortunate truth. It is less of a control problem, and more of an ego problem. When their ideas turn out to be garbage, they hold on to them like children to a blanket, refusing to admit mistakes and correct them. *Some* of the changes in 6.1 are 'repealing' mistakes, or trying to bandage them, but it isn't enough, IMO.

    It certainly doesn't help that some of their CM's come off as arrogant and dismissive and some of the Dev's don't seem to have a clue about class abilities that are crucial to development. That they seemed to have ignored a large portion of the feedback in Beta as well is also discouraging.

    I hope things get turned around before. . .well it will never be "too late", too many people invested 10 years of their lives into this game so it'll never die unless Blizzard actively kills it. . .but it'd be nice if we had a healthy, happy playerbase instead of an angry disgruntled one.

  13. #13
    I think the opposite. The player base is too controlling, and Blizz keeps giving in to the demands of whoever is yelling the loudest. Then, they have to change things because another section of the player base starts yelling about the changes.

    Of course, if Blizz learned moderation on changes, I think they would go a long way in preventing the flip flopping cries of the players.

  14. #14
    Sadly, this isn't a matter of opinion; it's a matter of fact. Blizzard went from having a sandbox world with a variety of optional story arcs to having a theme park ride with a single, linear story arc. The storytelling has gotten more and more dynamic and world-encompassing at the cost of the world becoming more static and purpose-built.

    Take planet Vanilla for example. You could hit the level cap, gear yourself up and raid your weaselly black guts out without ever meeting Tyrion Fordring. You could totally skip the entire Silithid story arc, and the world would make just as much sense as it did for someone who zigzagged across the planet dealing with the threat. When you went into Ashenvale Forest, you could have adventures in present day Ashenvale Forest.

    Now all the world's a stage, exactly, literally speaking. Each zone is the setting for a specific story, which isn't necessarily the current story. The majority of them are in various stages of anachronism - Ashenvale is in a three-way tug of war between Ragnaros (who's dead in the present timeline,) Garrosh's (now defunct) "New Horde," and the embattled Kaldorei. When you go there, you're not just galloping across Kalimdor; you're going back in time.
    Dalaran is . . . where, now? Last we heard of it, Dalaran was supposed to be floating off the coast of Kalimdor, looming over Orgrimmar. It's an Alliance city in the story, but in the game it's a neutral sanctuary hovering next to Icecrown Citadel. Do you want to go do Dalaran and see what's going on there? To goddamn bad; you can settle for the Dalaran they built to tell the story of 2008.

    The noose just kept tightening. By the time Cataclysm rolled around there were entire zones you couldn't get to without playing through specific storylines. Everyone had to do a specific chain of eightysomething quests, all in the required order to get a character raid ready.

    They don't even want to let you have control over the angle at which you approach these linear questlines! One of the reasons cited for grounding everyone was that they want to control the point of access to the story, not just in time, but in space! You've got to look at it from >< this angle, Dear Consumer, for it to conform to our artistic vision for the scene. But hey, you get to decide which spells to cast when we tell you who to kill!

    People love it, though! It's like the song says: what you want is freedom from choice. Mr. Toad's Wild Ride is selling gangbusters, so they'll just keep lengthening the track for as long as people stay buckled in. It's less work for them, even.
    Last edited by Kaganfindel; 2015-01-29 at 03:20 PM.

  15. #15
    Pandaren Monk Banzhe's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bovinity Divinity View Post
    Well, I don't think they set out to be nefarious control freaks intentionally.

    Part of the issue is that they want to create cohesive storylines for the player to enjoy. Unfortunately, in order to do that, you need a fairly linear method in which to tell the story: Game of Thrones wouldn't be Game of Thrones if it were a choose-your-own-adventure book, the writer needs a linear method to tell you the story that he wants to tell.

    And indeed, as we've seen many times in the past, some players have complained that the lore of the game is not well expressed in the game itself. So this is some thing that - at least from Blizzards' perspective - we've asked for.

    Unfortunately, as you've observed, that has the side effect of making things feel railroaded. You're pushed from Point A to Point B with little say in it.

    So the question becomes: Is it all worth it?
    This "side effect" could easily be removed without changing the linear story line, all they literally need to do is remove the 'lets hold your hand' setup currently attached to questing, and let players read the quest-text (or go online / read key points) to figure out stuff on their own.

  16. #16
    Scarab Lord tj119's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ArMeD_SuRvIvOr View Post
    I honestly miss the questing from Classic. It stopped being like that in TBC, when questing became streamlined, on rails, and WAY TOO CONVENIENT (quests being in your near vecinity, never taking you too far away from your quest hub). Sure, it's fine, but it's lost the flavor, the soul. I miss quests that took you from a zone to another, learning the lore of the world, and in the end they gave a good chunk of experience. It also made players go from one zone to another, making the world feel more alive!
    This is almost word for word how I feel. The freedom is gone, the whole questing experience 1-100 is all "on a rail". It's meh but I wouldn't say Blizzard has control issues I just think they want to convenient as many as possible for more subs. It sucks for those who like the traditional way, but whatever..

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