Blizzard should swallow their pride to save WoW

[Deleted]

As a few of you will know who have seen my recent WOW videos I have returned after a 3 year break to see what has gone wrong with the game I played 6 times a week for 6 years of my life.

One word can easily sum up what is wrong with WOW and that word is "IMMERSION"

When I played through Vanilla and BC many years ago this game was incredible, the immersion of the whole experience engulfed you so much that you literally could lose yourself for hours in the world of Azeroth.

To get immersion the one thing you need is a thriving world and WOW used to have that in abundance. Everywhere was busy, Horde and Alliance would often meet in random places as two guilds were on their way to various Dungeons and this small skirmish would often escalate into a large war.

The game was total sandbox, no one had any idea what would happen during your daily play time. Our guild would have a plan to maybe go to BRD but on the way we may be ganked by another guild, again this would start a war off which usually ended with both sides calling in other guilds for help. Then when you eventually got into the Dungeon you had to concentrate, use your class well and be prepared for at least a good hour long Dungeon.

Then we had the questing, quite often I would find my quest areas compromised by Alliance and have to send for help in order to get them to leave, it was great fun. Sure you sometimes were corpse camped but Azeroth was dangerous back then.

Sometimes we would be in Org discussing what we would be doing when 100 Alliance would storm through the gates to kill Thrall, it was just an amazing living thriving world, totally in the players control.

Now though it's totally different, the Cities are full but the towns and roads are empty. People don't need to leave their capital city, they can teleport everywhere like lemmings, striving to get gear but for what? So they can dual outside their City gates?

All over Azeroth the little towns and villages that attracted so much world PvP are now guarded with level 90 Guards. Instead we have to PvP either in the boring battlegrounds or try and find someone questing.

The trouble is why would anyone be questing now? They can level up in BG's and Dungeons without leaving the AH.

World PvP is the thing that brought immersion and it was immersion that brought the players and the players brought the money. If you look at a graph of the subscribers you will see a steady rise in Subs while wow was immersive during the Vanilla and BC times but then as WOTL arrived you will see it level off and then fall and it's falling fast now. This is because people left but more important, people left and told others how bad the game had become.

So lets talk solutions:

Blizzard need to swallow their pride, admit they got it wrong and give Azeroth back to the people.

Remove the following things:

All ability to teleport to Dungeons, Make everyone ride there.
Remove Flying mounts from Azeroth
Remove all high level guards from low level towns and villages
Buff Dungeons so that you actually need to play your class properly
Remove at least 50% of wind riders and graveyards, get the traffic back on the roads
Remove Ability to teleport into Battlegrounds, make us go to battlemasters as in the old days (just make more of them to avoid griefers).
Remove a lot of phasing as it ruins immersion when you chase someone and they suddenly vanish.

Add the following things

All future expansions should take place in Azeroth, do not add any more zones, just develop the story on Azeroth so it thrives once again.

Conclusion

Ofc none of this will happen as the tears that would be shed could possibly flood the world and wipe us all out. The new breed of player has no balls, has no ability to shake him/herself down after being ganked and certainly has no patience to ride from A to B. Can you imagine the wow players of today trying to survive in Vanilla, they would have a heart attack at how hardcore it used to be. No I am afraid MMO's now are so easy, so spoon fed that the players today simply could not cope with old wow.

From a business point of view Blizzard are currently their own worst enemy, they are killing the game by making it so easy and forgiving. If they opened a BC server millions would return, but this would be an admission of doing it wrong and the PR department won't allow that

[TEHPALLYTANK]

So you want them to make every single casual player quit, because that would be the result of most of the things you've suggested. You want them to revert most of their QoL changes.

[Pootis]

I totally agree, the "world" in World of Warcraft is simply not there any more. Prepare to be flamed though, as the "new" WoW community is full of fanbois standing in line to praise Blizzard's every move.

[smokii]

yea... sure that'll fix it


/sarcasm

sorry, i shall elaborate, removing flying mounts will never fix WoW, removing the casual option will not fix wow.

giving things like LFR and LFD harder difficulties may help (i.e. adding challenge modes to lfd and normal mode to LFR), but part of the problem as you state it, is the fact the world of azeroth has grown and the playerbase has shrunk, unlike the real world, the land mass has got bigger, but the population has got smaller. it has 2 new continents and an extra 5 zones just on azeroth, but it's also got less active players than ever before, strewn across multiple servers - that explains where your "loss of immersion" comes from.

merging servers would be a good start, either that, or open up free server transfers.

[Deleted]

actually most of those changes would push the newer generation away, and most likely not attract the older generation since most of those have moved on since they quit.

so it would lead too even a greater subloss.

[Deleted]

So you want them to make every single casual player quit, because that would be the result of most of the things you've suggested. You want them to revert most of their QoL changes.

I doubt that "every single" one would quit. Most of them would adapt to teh situation and might find it much more fun with a greater challenge. But ther would surely be some players that quit. But honestly I don't think that this number would be realy tall. Most players are threating to quit but only few will realy do that, friends, guilds and other things will hold the players and make them adapt to this situation.

Question however is if those changes would realy help the game or bring back players that are long gone or attract newer ones that are looking for something not so easy.

Personally I would love those changes since I am a classic veteran. And a part of me wishes that this would happen just to see how the impact of this would be.


Still, after reading the summery of the conference call it is obvious that the casual players the game is lately made for, are not putting even that afford into the game and will leave once they are bored. So maybe it is time to shift back to a more serious type of gamer like it has been in classic an BC, players that are more dedicated and loyal.

[Sinndra]

All future expansions should take place in Azeroth, do not add any more zones, just develop the story on Azeroth so it thrives once again.

this is the only thing that might be interesting. the rest of your suggestions would completely drive everyone else out of the game. unlike the vocal minority, the majority of players as well as the developers enjoy the QoL changes that have evolved in the game over the years.

not to mention its quite obvious you play on a pvp realm, and failed to consider the other types of realms. these changes would also effect those realms and for basically no reason since those problems dont exist on normal realms. and we cant have two different games one pvp and one pve.

[Deleted]

I totally agree, the "world" in World of Warcraft is simply not there any more. Prepare to be flamed though, as the "new" WoW community is full of fanbois standing in line to praise Blizzard's every move.

So as soon as someone doesn't agree with you, they are automatically fanboys? I find that 'logic' rather flawed.

I, for one enjoy this game, even if they only had 1million subscribers, i would still enjoy it.

[Deleted]

Problem with this is that most subs in vanilla were sat around level 40 or lower.

I doubt you could bring back a 30 day /played to get to max level back in the current marketplace.

[shise]

There we go with more "save wow".

Blizzard has launched the best xpack since BC (is a shame because WotLK had the potential, the lore... but they screwed it making it so casual oriented)

WoW is GROWING, who cares they lose a million subs in the east? EU servers are as full as never before, same goes with US (except low pop ones of course, nothing new there)



Thing is, if you don'tl ike some things, jsut quit and stop moaning, but that's just my opinion ofc.

[Darkhallows]

These solutions would have the opposite effect. I also really, absolutely, 100% despise the "solution" of not having any more new zones. Because BC and Wrath were the least successful days of WoW, right? Actually wait, no they weren't.

That's not the problem.

[Alvito]

Remove the following things:

All ability to teleport to Dungeons, Make everyone ride there.
Remove Flying mounts from Azeroth
Remove all high level guards from low level towns and villages
Buff Dungeons so that you actually need to play your class properly
Remove at least 50% of wind riders and graveyards, get the traffic back on the roads
Remove Ability to teleport into Battlegrounds, make us go to battlemasters as in the old days (just make more of them to avoid griefers).
Remove a lot of phasing as it ruins immersion when you chase someone and they suddenly vanish.

As often as ppl might say they didn't like the addition of those things or want them gone so many would flip out if they did cut them out. The players lost wouldn't just magically flock back to the game with the changes either. So we would be left with a game filled, briefly, with unhappy players as the numbers dipped lower and lower. If they redid things on Azeroth with no new zones for future expansions it would come at the cost of cutting out older stuff and hurting the lvling of new toons/players and enrage so many over a reskinned reused Azeroth.

[Pootis]

So as soon as someone doesn't agree with you, they are automatically fanboys? I find that 'logic' rather flawed.

I, for one enjoy this game, even if they only had 1million subscribers, i would still enjoy it.

Check the reply of shise for instance. WoW just posted a 1.3m loss and he claims WoW is growing. Typical fanboy behaviour.

[Deleted]

People are growing up.
There's a recession and £108.00 a year on one game. (That's before expansions) is too much to spend.

[Deleted]

People are growing up.
There's a recession and £108.00 a year on one game. (That's before expansions) is too much to spend.

£108 is too much? It's half a day of working. rofl.

-

To OP :

There's a reason why you aren't working for them, and I'll tell you why your reasons are the worst suggestions I've ever read on this forum.

1. People don't want to ride to dungeons to do them, it's already a hassle with challenge modes these days, most people don't have time.

2. Never going to happen, If you remove flying in Azeroth that would be inconsistent to other continents plus leveling archaeology would be a pain.

3. High level guards are fine, you can tank them and kill them fast, on pvp realms they are even easier.

4. I personally don't mind, but I don't want a cataclysm repeat where you had to be premade to properly do them, making them harder causes more premades and will result in longer dungeon queues because people will be less comfortable to queue up for them alone, and that would make everyone pissed in general.

5. I agree about phasing, it's annoying, but that's when they plot a new story line in an old zone, it's a temporary fix until they can revert it or adapt it in a future patch.

[MrAzullMoro]

What I don't get with threads like these is why these things are said as if they are fact. Everyone has their own opinion and while you and others may feel those changes would be good on the whole it would be a major step back with Quality-of-Life and ease of getting around and a lot of people would likely quit. Some may feel that it would bring WoW back to a place better than it is in now but that doesn't change the fact that it would be a massive investment with no guaranteed return. For an example you mention immersion and removing the ability to fly in Azeroth. To me being able to fly on mythical creatures adds to the immersion. It lets me see the world from a different perspective, it allows me to go to places I couldn't before and it greatly improves speed obviously. You also mention World PvP, something that I personally am not interested in at all. So I am just one of many examples of people that this would affect very poorly as not everyone feels the same about these things. Also I hate how you say they 'should admit they got it wrong' that's such a loaded statement, Blizzard have always done what they feel is the best for THEIR game and apart from that they are still the most successful MMO by far, so what part have they 'got wrong?' Just because you disagree with some design choices doesn't mean those design choices are wrong.

[Stormcall]

As a few of you will know who have seen my recent WOW videos I have returned after a 3 year break to see what has gone wrong with the game I played 6 times a week for 6 years of my life.

One word can easily sum up what is wrong with WOW and that word is "IMMERSION"

When I played through Vanilla and BC many years ago this game was incredible, the immersion of the whole experience engulfed you so much that you literally could lose yourself for hours in the world of Azeroth.

To get immersion the one thing you need is a thriving world and WOW used to have that in abundance. Everywhere was busy, Horde and Alliance would often meet in random places as two guilds were on their way to various Dungeons and this small skirmish would often escalate into a large war.

The game was total sandbox, no one had any idea what would happen during your daily play time. Our guild would have a plan to maybe go to BRD but on the way we may be ganked by another guild, again this would start a war off which usually ended with both sides calling in other guilds for help. Then when you eventually got into the Dungeon you had to concentrate, use your class well and be prepared for at least a good hour long Dungeon.

Then we had the questing, quite often I would find my quest areas compromised by Alliance and have to send for help in order to get them to leave, it was great fun. Sure you sometimes were corpse camped but Azeroth was dangerous back then.

Sometimes we would be in Org discussing what we would be doing when 100 Alliance would storm through the gates to kill Thrall, it was just an amazing living thriving world, totally in the players control.

Now though it's totally different, the Cities are full but the towns and roads are empty. People don't need to leave their capital city, they can teleport everywhere like lemmings, striving to get gear but for what? So they can dual outside their City gates?

All over Azeroth the little towns and villages that attracted so much world PvP are now guarded with level 90 Guards. Instead we have to PvP either in the boring battlegrounds or try and find someone questing.

The trouble is why would anyone be questing now? They can level up in BG's and Dungeons without leaving the AH.

Lots of people don't play on PvP zones bro, and most people actually level by questing, not via Dungeon or PvP. I played in TBC, World PvP was basically non-existent because a great many people DO NOT CARE FOR PVP. So yeah, your changes would make the game SLOWER, not more immersive.

[Noujou]

So you want them to make every single casual player quit, because that would be the result of most of the things you've suggested. You want them to revert most of their QoL changes.

This pretty much, I read the OPs post, and while i agree that immersion has disappeared from WoW...i feel taking away these QoL changes isn't going to bring it back to way it was...

things change, you can leave the game for some time, and come back...but you shouldn't expect it to be same...things change, people change, everything changes.

I don't know what else to say, but yea, going back to the "past" is just a bad idea imo

[Deleted]

£108 is too much? It's half a day of working. rofl.

Not for me personally, I work full time; but for some unemployed people (which A LOT of the WoW population is) it's too much.

[Kuthe]

You can't just remove everything.
Ever think maybe playing for 6 days a week, for 6 years makes you sick of the game?
Maybe Maybe?
It's called being burnt out.

And then just coming up with reasons about why you think it now sucks.

Every single one of those things that you want removed would only cause a backlash with the fans.
Their subs would drop even more.

The immersion is gone, people are used to it gone. You can't go find it again.