"Zell has left the building." - discussion

[Slavemaker]

Hello all!

This paragraph is an edit to the post: This thread is not about Zell himself. I don't know him either, first time I hear about him. This thread is about the point he makes about the direction WoW is going and your opinions on it since I felt it's a good post. yes, it's his opinion(which is why the topic is named like that), and I want to hears yours as well

I was looking through the blue posts and saw one pointing to this post on the official forums. It is a complaint about the current direction of the game. It reached the response cap on the official forums but I saw people wanted to talk about it since they made a continuation thread... which got locked because "feedback in such threads are often of less value to us" as the blue poster Nakatoir says in this post:
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3010462048
Said blue did say the OP's opinion was important, but aren't those who discuss his opinion important as well?

I really do not like how you strategically left out the fact that the blue poster said that "I quit" threads are what give "feedback of less value" instead you are saying something else, if you are going to point out what the blue poster says then please say it word for word, what you said is just making people think something they should not be thinking.

G'day!

We feel that your original thread brings up a great number of valid points, and we assure you that we have been following the concerns mentioned in it. However it is an "I quit" thread, and as such we feel it has served its purpose and thus there is no need to continue it.

If you wish to create another thread where you express your concerns about the game, please feel free to do so. Do keep in mind that "I quit" threads tend to be quite emotional and often derail into heated discussions, and because of this, feedback in such threads are often of less value to us.

Please keep the constructive feedback coming, but please try to keep it objective

That is specifically what the blue poster Nakatoir said.

[Borgiest]

Lock this crap off..turned into a bitchfest.

[caa]

I agree with Zell. To basically sum everything up: the game doesn't feel awarding anymore.

[enchanted]

Lock this crap off..turned into a bitchfest.

^^ nuff said...

Less spammy replies please.

[kendro1200]

A really well written post that nailed pretty much every problem with WoW. It's simply the community sucks now because Blizzard listened to their QQ-BC-Was-Too-Hard-For-Me posts and added Dungeon Finder. I'm not saying i genuinley miss spamming for a pally tank for 2 hours, but if you had a guild to roll with, I do miss all heading out to the instance. I mean, players that started late WoTLK or Cata probably can't even point out Maraudon and Drak'Tharon-Keep on the map.

This is entirely true, the worst part is then you have to hold their hand to get them back to the instance when they always die because they like fire.

[Pua]

This is entirely true, the worst part is then you have to hold their hand to get them back to the instance when they always die because they like fire.

Assuming they didn't simply ditch the group the second it happened.

[Hexian]

Yeah it is, he was whining about how the game does not challenge him, its all easy mode, etc, other people didn't have to walk up hill in the snow BOTH ways. Its the standard "I quit" post from someone who needs to move on instead of dwelling on their own inadequacies. I didn't read one thing in there that did not scream, he is better than those who keep playing.

You never read his post.

Keep trying to deny there is anything wrong with this game fanbois while subs continue to drop faster than prom night panties. A 15% lose in subs during 1 x-pac....clearly nothing is wrong...nothing at all. The denial in this thread is simply mind boggling.

[Deleted]

I like this post, and I think it's good that Zell showed his opinion. I quit too and some of what he says goes for me too, but not all.

Personally, I wouldn't blame LFD at all. I didn't have time to experience endgame TBC, because as a noob I didn't level fast and wasn't done until some weeks into Wotlk. But from what I heard, except getting a group in trade took a while... some classes or spec suffered really hard from being allowed to participate because of lack of interrupts, ccs, and so on. I have always been a true shadowpriest (or at least used to be) and back in those days it was still "OMG you're shadow? Respec holy". Since I dont want to respec because the fun for me is to play what I want and improve my skills in that spec. I would probably have had much smaller chances getting my daily done compared to today.

Also, when we didn't have LFD there was this daily heroic dungeon. And I was extremely happy to lose: Oh, today it's Occulus GREAT (before nerf), and the next day: OMG Occulus again, amazing! and day after that: Wow, just wow, today its Caverns of Time stratholme!
You know, you could get the dungeons you really hated and so many days in a row.
The feeling that you could do daily random instead, and leave when you got stratholme, or Halls of stones with that useless boss just containing adds that you pretty much oneshotted and that took hours. You were punished, 15 and then changed to 30 min for leaving, but you could still get your daily done and either take the first dungeon popping up, or wait til you get one more amusing.
So, you can say it broke the community, but I also believe that many people felt they could take part more. Being left out just because they wanted to play a certain spec is not fun, simple as that


Otherwise I agree with the post, many things that they promised that didn't work out.
The things I'm sad about they leaving out in cata was:
¤ Path of the titans
¤ Southern Barrens not turning into a high lvl zone
¤ Archeology being such a painful failure, didn't live up to the expectations

I am also probably a "wrath baby" since that's when I reached lvl cap. And I had fun there, played some pvp, did almost all daily quest zones, started raiding at the end of Ulduar. Didn't like the raid, except cat lady perhaps =) But I joined every week cause some people in my guild loved it.
Luckily enough, I didn't get benched in ToC even though many shadowpriests out there were. Ofc, I was sad because of the state we were in, even more sad when blues said we were fine and then upcoming week posting many, many buffs to us :P
Anyway, I didn't quit even though my spec was next to useless.
ICC was an amazing time, I never got bored of the dungeons... also knowing battered hilt dropped there made them more fun to run =) In the raid, I was in a great guild that were progressing a lot. Being a bit of a casual I suggested to just be the person they could call in if someone in the core group couldn't make it. And I joined some weeks, and if not I could always PuG and either way I could also get into 25-man groups that was very good, because people could do both 10 and 25 man on their mains you usually ended up in good guilds 25-man run. Eventually our guild started having ICC 25 hc gold runs every friday so finally I just settled for doing those and it was really fun.

I had my first, 1-2 month break last patch before cata. Even though I don't like shadowpriest being to the ground I don't like them overpowered either. Especially since I knew it certainly wouldn't last into Cata =) And today we all know it didn't

In cata, I had fun probably first 3 months, but it felt different than Wotlk. I started by pvping most of the expansion. Didn't feel like pveing at all, tried some dungeons and didn't mind them being hard, that was ok. But they took hell of a time... and being a casual you usually don't want to spend 2 hours on a single dungeon when you have little game time already. So, even though I didn't feel like pveing back then, I also knew I wouldn't have had the time.
Eventually, pvp appeared not getting any attention this expansion, and very little other things as well. Oh, yes, I also tried archeology. Got professor title but that profession drove we crazy. I just couldn't continue after that. Would be interesting to know how many people out there actually kept going, but experiences show not many people take part in that profession any more.
I read mmo-champion quite much, and I'm used to regular updates on content, on class balance and so on. There haven't been much blues during this expansion, far from what I've been used to.
It was wierd but it was probably the first sign, and then first patch just 2 dungeons... crap to people pvping or doing other stuff. I had my hopes up... still not many blues. Fireland patch, we gave up pvp somewhere after that because of being tired of neglection of it.

Some months into firelands we started raiding, not having any pve gear it didn't take long to get gear enough to start raiding. Within a month we had done all starting raids on normal and firelands normal. Jumping in SW for 1-2 raids a week, didn't even need more valor points outside raiding and starting the dungeons from scratch, they are really boring this x-pac. No dungeon you were happy to get. In Wotlk I loved ICC dungeons, ToC dungeon, violet hold, that loken halls, Azjol nerub, and I even started to like Occulus because of chance on mount in the bag.
So, I didn't feel going into heroic dungeons, even though getting orbs probably would have made me some sweet gold. Well, nothing to buy for the gold out there but yea =)
Then our guild died, and we just gave up. Just jumping in SW and working on AH business didn't cut it. We seen the content so wasn't worth the hard work getting a new guild or start our own.
Release of patch and release of MoP info didn't get me overly excited, quite the opposite. The DW raid didn't look much for the world, and guessing it will be done quite fast. MoP have not released any information worth the name yet, and I still find it hard to believe they can improve the game much after this.

Previous blizzcon things told about will come in upcoming x-pac have been left out and not made it at all. This time when hearing about MoP you feel like they left something out.

So pretty much, neglection of the game as for now is probably main reason why people are leaving, and then hardcore vanilla ones might have their reason, TBC fans have their, and Wrathbabies have there.

Still, not much seems to be happening in the area, except adding special offers. Either blizz must feel certain that the target group for MoP will bring enough players to the game that it will make up for the ones going elsewhere.

[Osmeric]

You hated CoT Stratholme? That place was hilarious!

Also, who could forget: http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/2...make-it-arthas

[Deleted]

Well written and he has a lot of valid points.

I agree that using the random dungeon finder will more often than not group you with immature annoying people.

Maybe they should make it more desireable groupign up with people from your own server, guildies or not. Could bring some of the server community back.

[One-X]

Maybe they should make it more desireable groupign up with people from your own server, guildies or not. Could bring some of the server community back.

Assuming you mean the LFG system, it's already in place. The dungeon finder prioritize people from your own server first, then it searches for players on other realms.

[Tydrane]

Just to add some constructive criticism to the pile, I'd suggest that WoW would be a lot more enjoyable today with more world content and less cross-server interaction. Cataclysm was the perfect opportunity for this. They re-made the Eastern Kingdoms and Azeroth and in doing so, had a lot of areas such as mountainous zone borders which have been shamefully under-utilised.

The problem with the current dailies for many players is that there is not enough variety - you're either in Hyjal or Firelands, which are cool and all, but the rest of the world is just scenery once you reach 85 (unless you're maxing Archaeology, which is about as fun as farming or fishing). With the implementation of phasing, Blizzard gave themselves a tool to allow players' actions to have dynamic effects on the world around them. Imagine if instead of all the dailies being in Hyjal, players at level 85 could travel to new towns, camps, outposts or whatever spread around the world in what is currently just wasted space, and offered a variety of different daily quests with different storylines tailored to their zones. They could even return players to old zones for "episodic" storylines, like they did with Stranglethorn Vale (except this time, put some effort into it).

Renovating Azeroth was such a huge missed opportunity, and Mists of Pandaria seems set to cruise right past another. 5 more levels, 5 (admittedly huge) zones, a new race and class - but what is to be done about the inconsistency between the 1-60/80-85 experiences, and the 60-70/70-80 experiences? Whether or not people like the new linear storylines for Cataclysm zones, the quests are still mostly fun and the objectives are more varied than in Vanilla, even BC. Working through Outland is an outright chore now and while Northrend is still good, progress feels too slow. When the Burning Crusade was released, Blizzard stated that they wanted the 60-70 experience to take about as long as the 1-60 experience. Every new expansion should be based on that, but they should normalise the rate of progression up to the previous level cap, so that the time involved getting from 85-90, for example, should take about as long as it takes to get from 1-85. This is exacerbated by all the reworkings they've performed on various classes. Apart from being slow and uninspiring, Outland was a struggle to get through on my mage because between 60-70, there weren't many new toys (spells, talents), I wasn't feeling the character progression.

Anyway, that's what would have kept me around. Cataclysm created what I thought were some great zone storylines, many that I would have liked to see revisited. Western and Eastern Plaguelands, Stonetalon Mountains... Even The Blasted Lands has become one of my favourite zones, though I used to detest it.

[Lovestar]

Assuming you mean the LFG system, it's already in place. The dungeon finder prioritize people from your own server first, then it searches for players on other realms.

I think he means specific incentives for NOT using LFD. The problem is, then LFD queues increase and part of the purpose of the tool is defeated.

As far as the LFD matchmaking system, I'm on a low-pop (I mean LOW pop) backwater server. I still see people from my server... well... never, since that system went in. Back in WOTLK we at least had to band together to get the Dailies/Weeklies done. =/

[Deleted]

Assuming you mean the LFG system, it's already in place. The dungeon finder prioritize people from your own server first, then it searches for players on other realms.

That change, as far as I know, came around the Firelands patch. Considering I still played and did dungeons then I think I can talk on this: I never saw anyone from my server in a dungeon unless they were with me in my group when we queued, and Shadowsong-EU is a resonably large population server, not high, it's more medium-to-high but still.

[One-X]

That change, as far as I know, came around the Firelands patch.

It was actually added in the Rise of Zandalari patch, 4.1. ^^

I think he means specific incentives for NOT using LFD

I have that feeling too, but I just felt to post that just in case.

[Deleted]

Why is one player quitting such a big deal? I've seen 5+ threads on this guy in the past 20 minutes.

Because unlike others he is capable of expressing himself and his feedback resonates with a large fraction of the player-base.

While I don't agree with his disregard for MOP developments (I actually like the new talent system) I do believe that Blizzards concept of "convenience > all" is hurting the game.

[Aktavite]

Frustration and difficulty = failure, blaming others for the failure, and growing intolerance of anything that could lead to failure.

Remember how LFD was in late Wrath? Totally different, because it was easy.

Sorry, but once again how does that correlate to a decline in the community?

People have been quick to blame others for failure since this game was released. You make it sound as if this never happened prior to LFD.

Thylacine IS zell lol

Well then his opening post is a contradiction of himself.


EDIT: Something I just found from the lovely MMO-Champ forums in August 2008 before the LFD tool:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...an-Ninjalooted

[Lovestar]

While I don't agree with his disregard for MOP developments (I actually like the new talent system) I do believe that Blizzards concept of "convenience > all" is hurting the game.

As someone who has been an aggressive advocate of the philosophy "WoW is a better game than ever" even through early/mid Cata, I'm somewhat scared how much I find myself agreeing with this sentiment.

I still really enjoy playing it, but things feel so much more hollow. Maybe that's the future of MMOs, though; just a cooperative RPG battle you hop in and play with friends for a couple hours, then leave alone until the next reset period. More room for other games / RL stuff, I guess. :/

[igame]

Zell has left the building and I agree with every reason he gave to leave.

WoW is not even a sliver of the great game it used to be

[Last Starfighter]

it's not really a valid point. it's not WHO is quitting but WHY they are quitting. especially when the WHY is more or less factual such as being promised to have to CC mobs and then the dungeons being nerfed so hard that CC isn't even necessary.

I think that was one of blizzard's mistakes with this expac. They made a major announcement about heroic difficulty. Had they not said "Heroics will be heroic again", people wouldn't have had that in their mind going in to cata. But since they announced that 6 months before release, that gave people enough time to rage on the forums, bring alot of attention to it, and had it in their mind when cata hit. It is disappointing when changes that can be dynamic and add flavor to content have to be completely reversed because of part of an emotional community.

---------- Post added 2011-11-21 at 06:35 AM ----------

Because unlike others he is capable of expressing himself and his feedback resonates with a large fraction of the player-base.

While I don't agree with his disregard for MOP developments (I actually like the new talent system) I do believe that Blizzards concept of "convenience > all" is hurting the game.

"Convenience>All is hurting the game.". This is completely true. The integrity of the game is being replaced with bowing to part of the community, and walking on eggshells to keep subs.

It's such a massive taboo now to label yourself as someone who loves challenge, grinds, and things that add flavor to the game. People seem to think that having a grind in an mmo is somehow going to drive the playerbase away. But the reality of it is, getting everything done, and not having anything to do is going to hurt much worse. The shared lockouts is a big testament to that.