Activision Blizzard Q3 2012 Earnings Call

[Stannis]

Who the hell want's to just run lfr once a week though? it's so shitty to have just that as your primary pve source for gear. Putting the gear behind nothing but rep and dailies is the dumbest thing in the universe. It basically means I log in once a week for LFR and Sha and that's it. Don't have the care to pvp or the apptitude for it. Don't want to run dailies. Have the majority of crafting gear available to me and have all ilvl 463 so now what? If you stop doing dailies you start to see how sparse the progression content is in this game. It is literally do dailies or that's it for your outside of a raid.

So you don't want to:
1)Raid normal/heroic
2)Run LFR
3)Do dailies
4)Do PVP

And somewhat expect to get the best gear possible... doing what, precisely? Spamming LFD?

[Glorious Leader]

Blizzard has disagreed with you for about 5 years now. So clearly your viewpoint doesn't mesh with the design of the game. No amount of elitist prattling will change that.

Newsflash: doing everything in this game should reward gear. You know why? Because that is what their customers want. It doesn't have to be the same gear, or have to look the same, but purps/transmog items should be busting out of everywhere.

This isn't the beginning of MMO development. This is a decade into being programmed that gear is the highest form of reward and thus the most satisfying to most people. Games are trending towards rewarding your account for your overall actions and not limiting you to a minute and specific set of activities. You may personally disagree, but like I said: Blizzard thinks differently. Other companies are pushing these boundaries and they are only going to get more open.

Any MMO would be much better for it as well.

Blizzard isn't rewarding people for every activity though and they likely never will. They don't reward people for epics with fishing. Dailies have always had SOME reward behind them but never as much. I'm okay with them having reward they just don't need to have this much reward and they don't need to have so much more reward than dungeons. If Blizzard genuinely feels what you outlined then they should have dungeons more rewarding. The playstyle I had grown accustomed to over the years is now bankrupt.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

So, yes I have complaints, but I've learned that raging in forums doesn't do anything.

Whoa!

Now that's a first I've seen of that!

But, yeah, GMs can't change what Blizzard does and that's not the venue for it, though. It's the forums, IF, you're not banned...yet.

[Glorious Leader]

So you don't want to:
1)Raid normal/heroic
2)Run LFR
3)Do dailies
4)Do PVP

And somewhat expect to get the best gear possible... doing what, precisely? Spamming LFD?

Best gear possible is a clever euphemism. I never got the best gear possible from doing lfd but I got the best gear available to me outside of the raid lfd (more or less). For instance I never had 403 in cata at the end but I did have lots of valor gear and it made the activity I liked to do rewarding as hell. Now the best gear I can get outside of the raid is doing dailies.

[TobiasX]

Who the hell want's to just run lfr once a week though? it's so shitty to have just that as your primary pve source for gear. Putting the gear behind nothing but rep and dailies is the dumbest thing in the universe. It basically means I log in once a week for LFR and Sha and that's it. Don't have the care to pvp or the apptitude for it. Don't want to run dailies. Have the majority of crafting gear available to me and have all ilvl 463 so now what? If you stop doing dailies you start to see how sparse the progression content is in this game. It is literally do dailies or that's it for your outside of a raid.

it's exactly the same for raiders who have content on farm; they clear everything in 1 night then (may) log in the odd night to do other things.

[Stannis]

Best gear possible is a clever euphemism. I never got the best gear possible from doing lfd but I got the best gear available to me outside of the raid lfd (more or less). For instance I never had 403 in cata at the end but I did have lots of valor gear and it made the activity I liked to do rewarding as hell. Now the best gear I can get outside of the raid is doing dailies.

Getting revered with a faction requires much more effort than doing 7 faceroll heroics a week, so it deserves better rewards.

[Glorious Leader]

So, yes I have complaints, but I've learned that raging in forums doesn't do anything.

Realistically the only thing that does is leaving the game and unsubbing. However so what? Why can't I come and vent here about bullshit? Do I harass you when you make a ooooh I love this game thread? No I leave you in peace to love your fucking game. Congratulations. You found criticism in it.

---------- Post added 2012-11-08 at 01:59 PM ----------

Getting revered with a faction requires much more effort than doing 7 faceroll heroics a week, so it deserves better rewards.

"Effort" is also a clever euphemism. I agree the heroics are faceroll but so what? I still gain so little out of them that the reward doesn't even match that. After 2 days I was done with them. They need to be more rewarding.

[ZenX]

Who the hell want's to just run lfr once a week though? it's so shitty to have just that as your primary pve source for gear. Putting the gear behind nothing but rep and dailies is the dumbest thing in the universe. It basically means I log in once a week for LFR and Sha and that's it. Don't have the care to pvp or the apptitude for it. Don't want to run dailies. Have the majority of crafting gear available to me and have all ilvl 463 so now what? If you stop doing dailies you start to see how sparse the progression content is in this game. It is literally do dailies or that's it for your outside of a raid.

First of all, it is TBC's second coming, however, having played it before, it is not as exciting and probably boring to a degree.

If you don't want to play the game, no one can really do anything feasible about that as you clearly want to ignore more half of the things that you can perform as gameplay then cry how the game lacks content.

You have been playing the game for 8 years mate, you have seen pretty much all there is to it regarding PvE and its not really gonna change for you to experience it as "whole brand new quality content". If you are not content with it, then you are not and thats pretty much final.

Colors and sensations are subjective, get over it. Stop being the obnoxiously stalky ex-boyfriend its not good for your health.

[Glorious Leader]

it's exactly the same for raiders who have content on farm; they clear everything in 1 night then (may) log in the odd night to do other things.

Really? Those guilds clear all 3 raids in one night? and heroic raids to? Somehow I doubt were at that point now. Even if we were I'm not asking for dailies to be removed. I'm asking for them not to be the sole way to get the best gear you can outside of a raid/pvp environment. Hiding shinies behind dailies and raids is the worst decision they could have made.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

People that qq about the game being shit/bad/etc... are the ones that AREN'T playing

OR

Are weak people that can't even quit a game they dislike - which is sad.

OR

People who quit are hoping WoW will improve so they can once again enjoy playing the game.

I loved playing in WotLK. Couldn't wait to login to raid. Couldn't wait to heal. Loved Northrend as it was.

Then came the destruction called, Cata. Not been pleased since.

So here's hoping for an expansion only realm.

[Seranthor]

Whoa!

Now that's a first I've seen of that!

But, yeah, GMs can't change what Blizzard does and that's not the venue for it, though. It's the forums, IF, you're not banned...yet.

what?... you painted me as a Blizzard fanboi?

[ZenX]

If you don't want to play the game, no one can really do anything feasible about that as you clearly want to ignore more half of the things that you can perform as gameplay then cry how the game lacks content.

You have been playing the game for 8 years mate, you have seen pretty much all there is to it regarding PvE and its not really gonna change for you to experience it as "whole brand new quality content". If you are not content with it, then you are not and thats pretty much final.

Colors and sensations are subjective, get over it. Stop being the obnoxiously stalky ex-boyfriend, its not good for your health.

Just gonna quote myself here as I don't have nothing more to say.

[Seranthor]

Realistically the only thing that does is leaving the game and unsubbing. However so what? Why can't I come and vent here about bullshit? Do I harass you when you make a ooooh I love this game thread? No I leave you in peace to love your fucking game. Congratulations. You found criticism in it.

---------- Post added 2012-11-08 at 01:59 PM ----------



"Effort" is also a clever euphemism. I agree the heroics are faceroll but so what? I still gain so little out of them that the reward doesn't even match that. After 2 days I was done with them. They need to be more rewarding.

Cant remember starting ANY thread, let alone a 'I love this game' thread...

[Kevyne-Shandris]

what?... you painted me as a Blizzard fanboi?

No, telling you that GMs can't change what Blizzard does. It's the wrong venue for such complaints.

[Glorious Leader]

First of all, it is TBC's second coming, however, having played it before, it is not as exciting and probably boring to a degree.

If you don't want to play the game, no one can really do anything feasible about that as you clearly want to ignore more half of the things that you can perform as gameplay then cry how the game lacks content.

You have been playing the game for 8 years mate, you have seen pretty much all there is to it regarding PvE and its not really gonna change for you to experience it as "whole brand new quality content". If you are not content with it, then you are not and thats pretty much final.

Colors and sensations are subjective, get over it.

It is not TBCs second coming. Not only is it literally not in the sense that the design decisions don't reflect TBC esque grind, it is also not in the sense that such a thing is absurd and likely not possible. It's just something you people make up to tell yourselves how good the game is even when it's shit. I honestly hope for the sake of the game that the developers don't share that same nonsensical vision. Trying to return to something that happened 5 or 6 years ago, after all this change and all this growth and all this progression is stupid. The only thing more foolish than calling this game a TBC revival would be if the developers had actually tried to achieve this goal.

You are correct in saying that I have seen the game for 8 years and I have rarely seen it regress to such a point as it is now. In that time the game has more or less done nothing but progress away from "grind" systems and only been more rewarding of an experience. Mists is perhaps the least rewarding experience I've ever had in the game. I want to play a game that's rewarding in the short term. Not something that will keep me bored months from now. Being bored because content is shitty dailies is actually worse than being bored at Blizzard inept ability to reduce content at a fast enough pace. In the former I unsub at a record pace. In the latter well it kept me entertained for a couple months at least.

---------- Post added 2012-11-08 at 02:08 PM ----------

[/COLOR]

Cant remember starting ANY thread, let alone a 'I love this game' thread...

You know very well what I meant. I don't come and stop you from cheer leading and letting it be known how much you enjoy Mists. More power to you. In fact as much as I want the game to improve itself from it's current state I would not under any circumstances expect that to come at the expense of your enjoyment. I feel theirs a happy medium here where Blizzard can make some adjustments to improve the experience for many of us.

[Glerimos]

It'll stay above 10 million.

[Ferocity]

I knew this thread would derail into dailies... But hey, they are what MoP is about anyway.

But back on subject, a lot of people will just eat every change made to the game and will defend it as "needed". It won't help game to be better. In fact, it will only provoke further decline. And even if WoW will be making weird changes in game to increase subs by alluring, in example, couple millions housewives who would otherwise watch soap operas, would it mean game changing to the better? Amount of subs =/= quality of game.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

You know very well what I meant. I don't come and stop you from cheer leading and letting it be known how much you enjoy Mists. More power to you. In fact as much as I want the game to improve itself from it's current state I would not under any circumstances expect that to come at the expense of your enjoyment. I feel theirs a happy medium here where Blizzard can make some adjustments to improve the experience for many of us.

^^ This. ^^

We all want to play WoW for our own reasons. It's not "Let's kill off WoW!!!". It's that many of us liked playing WoW as it was, and like to return to how it was.

I can't speak for everyone, but I do know what I want, and have stated for years on the WoW forums and now here -- I want WotLK back, so I can enjoy playing my role again in an appropriate paladin-like setting.

It's not about buffs.

It's not about shinys.

It's about playing a game you want to love playing again!

[Cybran]

Who the hell want's to just run lfr once a week though? it's so shitty to have just that as your primary pve source for gear. Putting the gear behind nothing but rep and dailies is the dumbest thing in the universe. It basically means I log in once a week for LFR and Sha and that's it. Don't have the care to pvp or the apptitude for it. Don't want to run dailies. Have the majority of crafting gear available to me and have all ilvl 463 so now what? If you stop doing dailies you start to see how sparse the progression content is in this game. It is literally do dailies or that's it for your outside of a raid.

Casuals only do LFR and once they hit a "brickwall" they just quit.

I will keep playing until the game gets shut down and i will keep complaining and demanding a better service. This is the franchise i have loved since WC2. I want to see it improve, not turn in to an arcade game.

So, yes I have complaints, but I've learned that raging in forums doesn't do anything.

I seriously facepalmed after i read your email... You were writing tickets to complain about design decisions and they told you to go the forums... I have no words...

[Glorious Leader]

^^ This. ^^

We all want to play WoW for our own reasons. It's not "Let's kill off WoW!!!". It's that many of us liked playing WoW as it was, and like to return to how it was.

I can't speak for everyone, but I do know what I want, and have stated for years on the WoW forums and now here -- I want WotLK back, so I can enjoy playing my role again in an appropriate paladin-like setting.

It's not about buffs.

It's not about shinys.

It's about playing a game you want to love playing again!

Look tmmrw lets say they said were removing the valor requirement from gear. Okay You can still do dailies for all this crap and dungeons to. What would happen? It's an extremely MINOR change that would all of a sudden make dungeons far more rewarding and dailies would still be more rewarding than they've ever been. In both instances whichever play style you choose would be rewarded and aside from the few forum trolls and the virtual peasant community who insists that I toil and labor in grueling daily questing for virtual pixels NO ONE WOULD COMPLAIN. Quite the opposite I feel. The sigh of relief from the community would be palpable.

Instead what we get is NOTHING. Why? Well likely because they want you to get used to the idea of doing these dailies for rewards. If they make it rewarding enough people will do it and sub to do it and it's easy enough content they can produce enough of it to keep up. It's a cynical and jaded calculation on their part and I really really really hope it bites them in the ass big time.

Ultimately all of this stems from their dumb ass decision to delink dungeon and rep grinding because rep grinding wasn't fully being exploited as a ridiculous grind. I don't expect it will last but who knows at this point.


---------- Post added 2012-11-08 at 02:25 PM ----------

Casuals only do LFR and once they hit a "brickwall" they just quit.

I will keep playing until the game gets shut down and i will keep complaining and demanding a better service.

Well yea that's kinda the point. Even casuals like to progress and I can tell you my casual friends who still play aren't progressing and are leaving. Without dailies their isn't a pve form of reliable progress that they can count on for reward. That's it. They don't like being subject to RNG from fucking LFR. They were happier with "hard" dungeons because they weren't bads they were just casuals.