Is the WoW team too shortsighted ?

[zlygork]

I agree that their lore team dpecifically is very shortsighted, they keep digging holes that create future limitations, the clearer example being the lore wise power creep of the playable character making it so the 12 class orders will never have their leaders interact with each other despite their great importance for example. I do n9t think blizz is shortsighted in so far as gameplay mechanics are concerned though

[Kyanion]

Was it less of a horrible grind-fest, monster-camping-for-hours madness than EQ? Sure it was, that doesn't mean it's casual. You have no idea what you're talking about.

Did you ever actually play EQ before WoW? Because you are being very ignorant right now. I love how you leave off things like "Lose massive chunks of EXP when you die." "Mob trains that can be an entire zone and people that would and could grief you with them." "MONTHS long epic quest chains for end game weaponry with a very basic text based quest system." You just try and boil it down to monster camping horrible grind fest and it shows your total ignorance on the game.

There were plenty of downsides to EQ but for the hardcore gamer in that era it was very rewarding. Zones people couldn't go to unless they were keyed (and they were much much more difficult to get keyed for than anything WoW has ever done), An alternate advancement system after the level cap so people that wanted to keep grinding could continue to gain in power. Super huge raid sizes and many different styles of classes both buffing/debuffing/ccing/support classes that WoW really does not have anything like.

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It was not designed for casual players. It was designed for people who would spend many many many hours a week. Leveling, crafting, raiding, PvP ... everything took tons of time. It was just designed in such a way that could attract the people not interested in the masochism of other MMO's up to that point.

Again you miss the point. The primary player in Vanilla is the same they are now. Casuals. More casuals play this game than anyone. Know people that took most of Vanilla to hit the level cap? People that mainly did professions/exploring and weren't doing dungeons/raids? Those were the casual players in Vanilla, the majority. Stop being so ignorant, please.

[Tharkkun]

Well just like Diablo 3 hurr RMAH durr woops the franchise is dead, they are pulling the same shit strategy on WoW.

Hurr leveling too long and boring. Let's make it better? Nah add an option to pay to skip it instead of making it somehow more interesting.

I repeat.

You can Pay 2 not play in a pay 2 play game.

It is this attitude in all faces of the game the reason for sub losses. And don't fucking pretend that Blizzard are some sort of business master minds after what they did with Diablo and Starcraft II. That truly shows how out of touch they are.

I'll bet that Blizzard has a much better idea then yourself about how many new players are coming to the game 13 years. Does it make sense to keep continuing to force players to spend weeks leveling a new character? Not really. We have heirlooms, recruit a friend and character boosts to last expansions level cap. That doesn't make it easier. It takes some tedious moments out of the game.

If you are a new character you have 1 boost to 100 which means you can skip the old content which is quite redundant at this point. It's actually a big incentive especially if you want to play with friends. Who wants to buy the game during say an expansion launch to play with a friend but oh wait, I need another 3-4 weeks to level to 100. Well your friend is now 110 and you're just starting the content.

You also are delusional regarding Diablo 3. They created the RMAH to give players a safe place to do trades/sell items without being scammed. But they decided instead of making loot so RNG they removed it completely and made loot better overall. They also sold 30 million copies as of 2015 which is in the Top 10 of all PC games. I'd love to have a dead franchise that's probably sold close to 40 million copies of a game.

[Trend]

And you would be 100% fucking wrong. Vanilla WoW WAS CASUAL. Period. If you compare it to the games of that era which were WAY WAY fucking harder/grindier like the king of MMOs at the time, EverQuest then WoW was seen as Babies First MMO or World of CasualCraft or whatever nicknames people assigned it. You can assume that WoW was soooo difficult and hardcore and required shit tons of time but it is obvious you didn't play other MMOs before/during Vanilla.

LOL, whatever. Period. I disagree. Period. I don't think a game designed to consume as many hours as WoW was designed to consume is casual. Period. I don't think it fits the definition of the word. Period. And you shouldn't confuse your opinions with facts. Period. Not sure, why are we adding text descriptions after our punctuation? Question mark.

You keep comparing to MMO's that were all masochistic. Again, if you are taller than a classroom of kindergartners, that does not make you tall. There are thousands of truly casual titles out there. Games you can pick up and play here an there. Jump in after not playing for a few weeks or a month and have fun for 30 minutes or an hour. In my opinion, those are casual games. WoW isn't and has never been one of them.

I've noticed that insecure people make assumptions about other people's knowledge and experience and say stupid things like "it is obvious you didn't ..." Is it somehow personally threatening to you that I could have a long history in MMO's and simply have a different opinion than you? LOL

[Marrilaife]

And you would be 100% fucking wrong. Vanilla WoW WAS CASUAL. Period. If you compare it to the games of that era which were WAY WAY fucking harder/grindier like the king of MMOs at the time, EverQuest then WoW was seen as Babies First MMO or World of CasualCraft or whatever nicknames people assigned it. You can assume that WoW was soooo difficult and hardcore and required shit tons of time but it is obvious you didn't play other MMOs before/during Vanilla.

And that's the issue. Back then WOW won over other games by being more casual friendly and approachable. Right now it's losing by requiring more dedication and time than its competition, because the competition is different. MMORPGs are on the decline in general while shooters, survival games and mobas can be played in short sessions, don't require huge up front time investment (like levelling is in MMORPGs) and aren't revolving around continuous play (while WOW kinda has to, to justify the sub on it). That's why Blizzard shifted their focus onto Hearthstone and Overwatch, games more fitting the current market than the MMORPG formula. They keep WOW up because it's still profitable, they can't make it into something else to appeal to the current market situation / wider playerbase, so instead they branch out into other games.

[Schattenlied]

I don't think they are shortsighted, i just think they are trying to make so many groups happy

This right here...

If you try to appeal to everyone, no one will be truly happy with the product. I think they would be better off picking a couple demographics that are closely aligned in their wants and trying to appeal to them. This is more or less how their game design philosophy was through Wrath, they were targeting MMO players of mostly the oldschool MMO crowd, but sped up so people didn't have to spend as much time as they did in games like EQ. It appealed to oldschool MMO players enough to keep most of them interested, and the people who didn't care about raiding could level and see the world, because it wasn't a snorefest and enjoy it...

I used to level alts for fun when I wasn't raiding, I loved it, I leveled new alts of classes I already had at max because I liked doing it so much, and then it became... this. That's not enjoyable. That monk is lvl 68 now, and I can still run around totally naked and kill shit without feeling like I'm really threatened at all, which is why he is still only lvl 68, because every time I try to level him I'm bored out of my mind.

And before anyone comes in with the "it needs to be quick because 110 levels!"... Sure, make it go at a reasonable speed, just don't make it so easy that a sloth with brain damage could do it in their sleep. Challenging and quick are not mutually exclusive. Leveling should be engaging enough to keep people interested, for it to be fun and something people can want to do for the journey too, not just the destination.


They have the super low play time and low effort crowds covered with Hearthstone and Overwatch, no reason to also try to cover them in WoW too. Make specific games to cover specific crowds, not everyone at once.

[Kyanion]

And that's the issue. Back then WOW won over other games by being more casual friendly and approachable. Right now it's losing by requiring more dedication and time than its competition, because the competition is different. MMORPGs are on the decline in general while shooters, survival games and mobas can be played in short sessions, don't require huge up front time investment (like levelling is in MMORPGs) and aren't revolving around continuous play (while WOW kinda has to, to justify the sub on it). That's why Blizzard shifted their focus onto Hearthstone and Overwatch, games more fitting the current market than the MMORPG formula. They keep WOW up because it's still profitable, they can't make it into something else to appeal to the current market situation / wider playerbase, so instead they branch out into other games.

Oh no argument there Marrilaife, the competition and types of games available are far different now than 12+ years ago. But people like Trend (the post above yours) is a prime example of the clueless people that do not realize a game has to adapt after this long. It is a miracle the game has lasted as long as it has with the amount of money it brings in.

All my point was is that when WoW was released it WAS the casual MMO and most people that played the game were casual because they sure weren't raiding and doing dungeons. Of course that has changed over the years but my point to Trend, which he is being willfully ignorant, is that there were far far more demanding games out there than WoW.

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LOL, whatever. Period. I disagree. Period. I don't think a game designed to consume as many hours as WoW was designed to consume is casual. Period. I don't think it fits the definition of the word. Period. And you shouldn't confuse your opinions with facts. Period. Not sure, why are we adding text descriptions after our punctuation? Question mark.

You keep comparing to MMO's that were all masochistic. Again, if you are taller than a classroom of kindergartners, that does not make you tall. There are thousands of truly casual titles out there. Games you can pick up and play here an there. Jump in after not playing for a few weeks or a month and have fun for 30 minutes or an hour. In my opinion, those are casual games. WoW isn't and has never been one of them.

I've noticed that insecure people make assumptions about other people's knowledge and experience and say stupid things like "it is obvious you didn't ..." Is it somehow personally threatening to you that I could have a long history in MMO's and simply have a different opinion than you? LOL

And why do you think WoW was designed as it was? Because they saw how time consuming/hardcore MMOs of its era were and they wanted to put out something that would draw more people. Be willfully ignorant all you like. And I stand by what I said with your lack of experience in discussing Everquest.