"Players rarely argue for less convenience." - Ghostcrawler

[Lucetia]

..of which 34 000 are considered active. The thread about the pet store had 1300 replies while a poll about it had 475 people voting. (Btw 300 of those were pro or agaisnt while 175 just didn't care). Those threads are then blown out of proportion like "Everyone is against the pet store"

However when MMO C has pet or mount giveaways, suddenly you see 15 000 (!) replies. People just don't see as much an issue with many, many things that are brought up.

Exactly. I just used the numbers has a rough idea and it was probably a really high estimate, but still shows the point that even at that ratio < 1/4 of the wow population doesn't care.

[melodramocracy]

This has to be the most infuriating tweet I have ever seen from Ghostcrawler

Either the community managers are doing an atrocious job, or the designers are pretending complaints don't exist

I mean, players have been complaining about WoW being more and more casual-friendly since WoTLK, complaining about its accessibility and convenience. This story really begins with the implementation of LFD towards the end of WOTLK, then flying mounts in cataclysm, and finally LFR. Dozens of LFR threads are made weekly, how come players rarely argue for less convenience?

Why is it infuriating? What he said is completely accurate. The truth hurts, and that truth is that if there's a point where the majority of the playerbase says "this is too convienent!", it hasn't been reached yet.

The forums are absolutely overflowing with people who profess that they don't have the time to play like they used to (while LFR'ing on their 4th 90), people who are insistent that grind has nothing to do with difficulty.

Blizzard listens to these people, so they get exactly the game they asked for.

The minority of players who see that this game has devolved into a theme park shell of an MMO are effectively shouted down as sadistic, no life neckbeards, who don't realize that the 'game has changed'.

[heltvild]

So apparently people on the forums only account for a small minority of the playerbase? Well then why on earth did blizz listen to the forum complainers in 4.1 and decide to nerf all the heroics...

Maybe the looked at all the data collected, that we dont have acces to.

Things like, x players started a heroic dungeon but only a x% of them actually completed it due to x amount of wipes each dungeon etc.

[Pull My Finger]

This has to be the most infuriating tweet I have ever seen from Ghostcrawler

Either the community managers are doing an atrocious job, or the designers are pretending complaints don't exist

I mean, players have been complaining about WoW being more and more casual-friendly since WoTLK, complaining about its accessibility and convenience. This story really begins with the implementation of LFD towards the end of WOTLK, then flying mounts in cataclysm, and finally LFR. Dozens of LFR threads are made weekly, how come players rarely argue for less convenience?

It's because you're living in a bubble. It's a common effect among the more dedicated players, forum goers etc. They have a rather distorted perception of the player base, because they rarely commune outside their own demographic, which is very special. They are often in a total outrage over something because they just can't understand how Blizzard keeps insisting on something or sticking to some particular design, even if EVERYONE thinks it's completely wrong. That's a fallacious observation on the players' end.

MMO Champion for example certainly doesn't reflect what a typical player thinks. And may I say so, thankfully. Otherwise, one would come to think that WoW players are actually all completely miserable, hardly have any fun with anything and actually despise the game.

[Deleted]

This has to be the most infuriating tweet I have ever seen from Ghostcrawler

Either the community managers are doing an atrocious job, or the designers are pretending complaints don't exist

I mean, players have been complaining about WoW being more and more casual-friendly since WoTLK, complaining about its accessibility and convenience. This story really begins with the implementation of LFD towards the end of WOTLK, then flying mounts in cataclysm, and finally LFR. Dozens of LFR threads are made weekly, how come players rarely argue for less convenience?

Internet is very poor for impressions on how many people actually complain. In practice you can generally apply the 20/80 rule:
- 20% of the gamers use the forums and 80% just plays the game.
- Of the 20% forum users 20% tends to be very vocal and complain where 80% simply reads the forums.

Since 20% of 20% screams as if they are 80% of the community it often gives the false impression that their opinion is the general opinion. Sadly for them it is not. 80% simply don't care enough and play the game or move on without ever setting foot on the forums.

[Belisaurio]

yes, like 1% of the playerbase have been complaining about wow being too casual. the rest is totally fine with it.

Yeah, you read their midn and you know that all of them are fine. No, this doesn't work like that.

How do you know they have something to complain about? Maybe they just grew tired of the game, or they found another game, or they havn't time/money to play anymore.

You dont have to hate/dislike a game just becuase you leave it.

And vice versa. I'm playing this game because I like.
But here are some points that I don't like. So we don't know that the vast majority that don't talk in forums/fan-sites are fine with all that offers this game.

Because they have access to far more data than you do which includes how many people drop from groups, how many groups failed to complete the dungeon, the average run time of the dungeon, and the mechanics players tried to skip. It was based on that that they made their changes.

This is the good point that Blizzard has.
They failed time ago with some points. But we can't criticism them for that because it's impossible to know the "right button to press" in front of all statistics and know that you can fail.

[Jilor]

I don't post on the forums about WoW and convenience, yet I'm not a fan of it. Not everyone who doesn't post thinks it's great. I'm about as casual as they get, I might do an entire raid in LFR like once a month. But I liked it a lot more when the world felt more unique. When you'd inspect 20 different people of one class and see 20 different sets of gear (mixed and matched of course). I have no real problem with looking for raid, but it kind of removes that carrot on a stick for me. It's the same item only it has slightly bigger numbers each step up.

[Deleted]

A small vocal minority has been complaining. The vast majority has not.

100% this, it's hard for Blizzard to measure how many people are really upset about a change because the players that don't mind a certain change say nothing. It just seems like everyone that comments about something complains about it because it's only those people that are vocal.

[Tydrane]

This has to be the most infuriating tweet I have ever seen from Ghostcrawler

Either the community managers are doing an atrocious job, or the designers are pretending complaints don't exist

I mean, players have been complaining about WoW being more and more casual-friendly since WoTLK, complaining about its accessibility and convenience. This story really begins with the implementation of LFD towards the end of WOTLK, then flying mounts in cataclysm, and finally LFR. Dozens of LFR threads are made weekly, how come players rarely argue for less convenience?

When an infinitesimally small portion of the playerbase is complaining, and their complaint amounts to nothing more than "other players now have the chance to access my content and this makes me angry!", Blizzard are right to dismiss it. If public relations weren't such a concern for any business, I'd say they'd be entirely justified in telling you to get over it or get the fuck out of their game.

[Darsithis]

I don't post on the forums about WoW and convenience, yet I'm not a fan of it. Not everyone who doesn't post thinks it's great. I'm about as casual as they get, I might do an entire raid in LFR like once a month. But I liked it a lot more when the world felt more unique. When you'd inspect 20 different people of one class and see 20 different sets of gear (mixed and matched of course). I have no real problem with looking for raid, but it kind of removes that carrot on a stick for me. It's the same item only it has slightly bigger numbers each step up.

Then you fall into that category of people who aren't that happy but aren't unhappy enough to clamor for change.

Being vocal about change isn't a bad thing but it's important to keep in perspective how vocal people are and recognize that Blizzard and any company would be foolish to cave in to all demands. They always, always make changes based on the data they collect from the game, data we don't have access to, and the vocal community.

[Chrispotter]

What is a "real" player? How do you arrive at that number? 300 000 out of 8 million raid normals and hardmodes. That is under 5% of all subs. Where are the other 20% coming from?

If you read I gave my definition of a a "real" player was.
My original comment wasnt very well constructed and posted in a rush anyway. Please dont take my previous comment as 100% my true views, I just wanted to quickly make my point that I think a lot more players dislike the effect that LFR is having on the game. (For the effect that LFR is having, see one of the many hundreds of threads already QQing about it since its first implementation in 4.3).

[heltvild]

So this is just another "I hate lfr because i raid normal and want to feel special" thread?

[Belisaurio]

Then you fall into that category of people who aren't that happy but aren't unhappy enough to clamor for change..

Or just they don't know/want to register to fan-sites. Like me, since vanilla and I made my account this year (1 or 2 months ago I think, don't remember).

[killidan]

This has to be the most infuriating tweet I have ever seen from Ghostcrawler

Either the community managers are doing an atrocious job, or the designers are pretending complaints don't exist

I mean, players have been complaining about WoW being more and more casual-friendly since WoTLK, complaining about its accessibility and convenience. This story really begins with the implementation of LFD towards the end of WOTLK, then flying mounts in cataclysm, and finally LFR. Dozens of LFR threads are made weekly, how come players rarely argue for less convenience?

GC was brain-dead on arrival to Blizzard, so I cannot take seriously anything that is attributed to him as if he were a game developer.

[Chrispotter]

Why is it infuriating? What he said is completely accurate. The truth hurts, and that truth is that if there's a point where the majority of the playerbase says "this is too convienent!", it hasn't been reached yet.

The forums are absolutely overflowing with people who profess that they don't have the time to play like they used to (while LFR'ing on their 4th 90), people who are insistent that grind has nothing to do with difficulty.

Blizzard listens to these people, so they get exactly the game they asked for.

The minority of players who see that this game has devolved into a theme park shell of an MMO are effectively shouted down as sadistic, no life neckbeards, who don't realize that the 'game has changed'.

Us ... erm how did you put it? "Neckbeards".. realise the game has changed, we just dont like it. Dont get me wrong im not posting threads QQing about LFR or the direction of the game, but I will show my views on it in already existing threads that are discussing something of this nature. AKA Ill put up with LFR, doesnt mean I think its good for the game AT ALL.
Not to derail, but how on earth can the game retain any respect when you can literally level from 1 - 90 in a weekend, then on the monday evening you can "Kill the bad guys that are somehow so powerful, but so weak that you and 24 retards can auto attack until they fall over and give you shiny lewts and even legendary items". Please explain to me how this is okay for the game to be? How can casual players enjoy (their view of) killing the final bosses with such ease?.

[heltvild]

LFR is great for the game, but people who know nothing can't understand it, and never will. For them, it's all about feeling special.

[sophos1]

This story really begins with the implementation of LFD towards the end of WOTLK, then flying mounts in cataclysm, and finally LFR. Dozens of LFR threads are made weekly, how come players rarely argue for less convenience?

No, it started when they nerfed upper blackrock spire and stratholme into 5 man dungeons back in 2004 in vanilla. By now, it's just become a standard you should expect with every patch.

[Kelimbror]

Because they have access to far more data than you do

This can't be stated enough. People need to realize that Blizzard (and just about every online game company) have armies of statisticians and business analysts to pour through the data they collect. And they collect an obscene amount of data. I would argue that WoW, as the largest and most successful MMO over the last 'decade', probably has the best number crunchers than any other game.

I can guarantee that they have developed, altered, and fixed many things in the game purely from numerical feedback many, many more times than by actually reading someone's complaints. And as much as I hate it, they have likely determined that their rapid evolution of the cash shop is going to rake it in even more.

There's nothing they do that would purposefully hurt their revenue. Every major change is analyzed and projected so that they know relatively safely what is going to happen. This is not chance, this is not random. People are very predictable using various mathematical trends and formulas.

[Jilor]

Then you fall into that category of people who aren't that happy but aren't unhappy enough to clamor for change.

Being vocal about change isn't a bad thing but it's important to keep in perspective how vocal people are and recognize that Blizzard and any company would be foolish to cave in to all demands. They always, always make changes based on the data they collect from the game, data we don't have access to, and the vocal community.

As fair a point as that is, my real point is more along the lines that I think the average person is simply more calm like this. I don't see a big reason to go scream from the rooftops over a video game. The vocal minority comments are true for not only the people who are upset, but also the people who are happy. I only really float around the MMO-Champion site because it's a convenient source of interesting news stories, otherwise I wouldn't even be in this thread. And I almost never visit the WoW forums. I don't think I've posted there in years, literally.

I don't always think Blizzard's statistics will tell the full story either, considering there's people like me that don't really care to bring out the torches and pitchforks for a video game. I'll still do LFR and I won't tell anyone off because of the items they got. I'll probably one day cancel my subscription with no fanfare. Where as, if they made changes I find more positive, it's more likely to keep me playing. Someone made a fair point about the 4 million or so subscribers that simply stopped playing. Not all of them went quietly, but many of us will.

It doesn't put me in the majority by any means, but I think it's also a little unfair for people, like ones in this very thread, to simply proclaim numbers like 1% or vocal minority being the only ones against it. I felt much more rewarded when things were harder to come by and when the rewards (to me) seemed more interesting. And I'm sure there's others that log in quietly and will one day vanish without an uproar.

[Deleted]

"Real" hardcore raiders don't give two pickles about LFR.

And define "convenience" anyway, is LFR really that when most of the people doing it never raided before? Isn't it about accessibility, allowing an all manner of players to see the content? You know what, It's obvious that anyone quitting Normal/HC raiding would of quit anyway regardless of LFR. LFR has not "stolen" players from Normal/HC's - and if it has, who's to blame? Blizzard, or the player? I think we know the answer.

And most Casuals don't post on the forums: Because they're casual and have more important things to do.