"World of Warcraft would be 'in bad shape' without embracing the casual revolution"

[Deleted]

In my honest opinion, WoW's current design advocates MORE social interaction than ever before. With RealID, cross realm invites I'm now able to stay in touch with so many players who I normally wouldn't if they changed servers, or even switched to a different Blizzard game. The community is there..

Nonsense. RealID allows you to keep in touch with people, yes. However, when a large part of the game can essentially be played as "single player", for many people there is no *push* to interact with others in a positive way. Just look at the cesspit that is LFR; you have bad players winding everyone up, average players staying quiet and just trying to get shit done, and really good players yelling in chat about how amazing they are and how everyone else sucks. Nobody is having fun interacting in that environment.

Yes, finding people to do dungeons with in the past was a little bit of a pain sometimes - but that encouraged you to seek out a decent guild, head over to your realm forums to introduce yourself and find people to play with. In TBC my realm had a massive unofficial forum, that we the players paid to keep running ourselves. Everyone knew everyone, so finding groups if you're a nice person and an even half-way decent player was not that difficult. Cross-server random LFD doesn't do that. You just queue, finish the run in silence, and leave.

If LFD had been same-server only, you'd have a point because then you'd get matched regularly with players you would see running around and the interaction/need to get to know people and not be an asshole would be there. In its current form, it doesn't even discourage you from being the biggest bellend in the world thanks to the ridiculous long-cooldown kick timer and often-times being unable to use it.

I'm hoping that with flex, and the return of same-community pugging, we'll get a bit of that TBC/Wrath community back, where the jerks are shunned and the good & nice players all get to hang out and have fun doing stuff. You won't be able to convince me that I should ever run LFR again when flex comes around.

[Goretex]

I've been hearing this nostalgic crap for a long time, ever since BC came out. I started playing WoW in may of 05, and still haven't gotten bored, I just keep playing and enjoying myself in the game.

However I do hate that I wasn't able to complete most of norm HoF and ToeS because I took my time and said "Blizz usually takes awhile for another raid like in cata and LK" and the guild I was in felt apart at the time. But I still enjoy the game and if we lose a million subscribers so what.

[Deleted]

People forget that WoW has ALWAYS been about streamlining and appealing to a more casual market, even in Vanilla. It's just that the definition of casual is changing over time. When WoW launched in 2004 it was a far more friendly, less demanding, casual experience than its competitors (like original Everquest). It's one of the reasons it was so successful.

That may be but I do have to point out that there is a line where a given game can become "too casual" when reached. It's not heresy really, adding more sugar to tea doesnt make it increasingly better right? I think the same can be said about WoW. Nothing wrong with casual approach until it becomes damaging to the game and its buisness model. I firmly believe that current subscription model of WoW was never designed with people making breaks every now and then in order to maximize profits. Otherwise if previous statement was true we would have a hour payment system next to subscription dont you think? As such I do believe that excesive accesability is damaging to the game where you give up too much but take little time in return. After all... what reason is there to stay subscribed after you got your feed of up-to-date content without even trying to reach it? Not to mention the very nature of patches where new ones practically remove previous ones from the game as worthwhile content.

[Goretex]

Nonsense. RealID allows you to keep in touch with people, yes. However, when a large part of the game can essentially be played as "single player", for many people there is no *push* to interact with others in a positive way. Just look at the cesspit that is LFR; you have bad players winding everyone up, average players staying quiet and just trying to get shit done, and really good players yelling in chat about how amazing they are and how everyone else sucks. Nobody is having fun interacting in that environment.

Yes, finding people to do dungeons with in the past was a little bit of a pain sometimes - but that encouraged you to seek out a decent guild, head over to your realm forums to introduce yourself and find people to play with. In TBC my realm had a massive unofficial forum, that we the players paid to keep running ourselves. Everyone knew everyone, so finding groups if you're a nice person and an even half-way decent player was not that difficult. Cross-server random LFD doesn't do that. You just queue, finish the run in silence, and leave.

If LFD had been same-server only, you'd have a point because then you'd get matched regularly with players you would see running around and the interaction/need to get to know people and not be an asshole would be there. In its current form, it doesn't even discourage you from being the biggest bellend in the world thanks to the ridiculous long-cooldown kick timer and often-times being unable to use it.

I'm hoping that with flex, and the return of same-community pugging, we'll get a bit of that TBC/Wrath community back, where the jerks are shunned and the good & nice players all get to hang out and have fun doing stuff. You won't be able to convince me that I should ever run LFR again when flex comes around.

I disagree, in classic after spamming trade for 4 hrs I would just get pissed and logout or go do some quests. People were really elitist asshats back then, you ask to join a guild and they would tell you to go make your own we don't want noobs here ect... I remember this and is part why I had some really bad experiences in classic. It didn't push you to get groups of people to do things,(especially if someone went afk or logged out right when u got into the instance, yeah fun stuff my ass!)It pushed people away from raiding/ 5 mans, to go do other things like que for a bg or quest. At least now I know people to raid with that aren't jerks about every little thing.

[Pull My Finger]

To the right is a part of his ass you haven't kissed yet, might wanna jump on that before another fan-boy does.

You don't have to be a Greek God to make video games bro-ham. Tom Chilton isn't out curing cancer and running the free world, he's not that special.. At least not as special as you're trying to make him sound.

He's not special. He just actually gets shit done, has been successfully running business for years, has a fair share of accomplishments to show and actually can claim to posess a certain degree of competence in a particular field. That's a list of things that set him apart from you, and that alone makes any of his comments on his own game more credible and plausible than any mental diarrhea you butthurt keyboard warriors trot out.

[Arainie]

It's as obvious as it sucks big time. But there's nothing we can do about it, might as well get used to it!

[Goretex]

No matter how many people want to paint the Blizzard devs as evil corporate guys, I've played a lot of games in my time from a lot of different companies and feel like they are probably the most candid in their interviews (maybe only second to CliffyB formerly of Epic). I've probably read 95% of GC's tweets and if he feels like something doesn't work he'll straight up say "This turned out different than we expected we are going to try something else" or "we don't like how dailies felt mandatory". Sure they aren't going to use the word "mistake", but that doesn't mean they aren't admitting them. They are just avoiding using a word so the wild animals who cry for Blizzard to burn don't post 100 threads on MMO-C titled "GC MADE MISTAKES".... totally out of the context of his entire interview.

LFR/LFD was one of the biggest advances to the genre. People sit and complain about "omg but there's no community in WoW anymore" make no fucking sense to me. It's easy to find a guild and a group of friends on WoW. I would be willing to bet that these folks aren't even the same people who played since the beginning and had to spend 2hrs in trade "/2 LF TANK MARA" only to not find one and not be able to do the content you want.

In my honest opinion, WoW's current design advocates MORE social interaction than ever before. With RealID, cross realm invites I'm now able to stay in touch with so many players who I normally wouldn't if they changed servers, or even switched to a different Blizzard game. The community is there.

I think a lot of people claiming LFR and LFD ruined the social aspect of WoW feel it's the developers job to put people into social situations with you through inconvenience and shitty entertainment. It's the same bullshit you hear from the old timers who don't like computers "back in my day we played hit a rock with a stick in the alley with other kids in the neighborhood". Sure, you're going to develop some pretty close relationships with Timmy and Bob playing rock hitting in the alley because you're the only 3 there. It wasn't quality entertainment, it was a forced social construct because there was nothing else to do. Then if Timmy isn't around you can't do anything. Fuck, you might not even like Bob and Timmy, but if you want to play stick-rocking, you HAVE to talk to them.

I'd much rather meeting people at random that I enjoying playing with, adding them to my real ID and hitting them up whenever to see if the want to do something. I don't HAVE to beg that one tank guy up on his high horse just to get my Maraudon quest done.

I agree so much lol. I hated those 4-5 hour trade spams just to look for a healer/tank/dps. Then if you got one you would be lucky if one of the other people didn't log, or go afk. Because then you would spend another 2 hrs spamming trade. Yeah I don't miss those days.

[Sierra85]

If focussing on the hardcore-players would be such a great idea, then another MMO would have done that by now and they would have been a bigger success than WoW, right?

WoW has the bonus of time and familiarity. People hate change, so i think people put up with more crap / more of the same because they are used to the way wow operates and will bitch bitch bitch, but continue to put up with it.

It's like a malaise that they cbf dealing with

[gee]

http://www.polygon.com/2013/8/23/465...ing-the-casual

Chilton says MoP has proven to be "very successful" for the company, game would be in "bad shape" without push to appeal to casuals.

What bullcrap! WoW could have hardly be in any worse shape than it has already been during MOP! GC screwed up big time losing millions of subscriptions and now this is his last ditch effort to save his sorry ass from getting sacked.

[Deleted]

And you think that will change their mind?
I can already predict: "Well, that just like his opinion, man!"

The math is pretty simple too.
4 people say they want hardcore-focus
6 people say they want casual-focus
=> Blizzard goes casual and 3 out of 4 harcore-people leave. That's still better than 5 out of 6 casuals.

If focussing on the hardcore-players would be such a great idea, then another MMO would have done that by now and they would have been a bigger success than WoW, right?

Hardcore players are always better for a game, no matter the genre, when it comes to the longevity of the game itself.

Casual players will leave the second they see something shinier. This has been the case with so many old school MMO's. EvE, Everquest, Sure even Runescape had a very successful ''revival'' with its ''New'' Old school servers from 2007.

[Olrox]

Sigh. I'll play devils advocat here..

Successfull Game != Good Game

I guess the thing is wow lost a few things that were quite nice to have and brought some underlinying sense of fun along with them, which simply run contrary to anything that adresses the casual market. Having equipment meaning something certainly felt good in the day, it gave a sense of achievment. That is no longer the feeling I'm getting today, not giving it to everyone simply means no fun for most people though. It's like the concept of items that can only be gotten once per server, nice concept but worth nil considering the cost/use ratio. I'm pretty sure it was important for wow to go down the casual route, people are inherently lazy and feel entiteld to get everything, blizzard can't change this and they need money after all as well.

Rofl. You're not playing "Devil's Advocate" at all; you're playing "butt-hurt snowflake" - whether or not you actually ARE that .01% of the playing population (I would assume you were at some point) your statement reeks of the classic stereotype. A game where the best art and content that had the most put into it is only accessible to a fraction of its players is by no means a successful game; not everyone is killing Heroic Lei Shen or wearing the Heroic Thunderforged version of all of their items but they're still wearing Tier _ and fighting the current ultimate encounter in the game. That's a lot better for the game's health - games that go the "I Wanna Be the Guy" route of being stupid and unfairly difficult for the sake of it (and thus inaccessible in single and multi-player games) is not profound and it's not a "good" game - Dark Souls/Demons Souls are known for their difficulty and above-average level of frustration; however, they're by no means restrictive - you will eventually figure out how to do what you need to do and you'll eventually get where you need to be to progress and reach the top of the game.

There's literally nothing in the game that reeks of "entitled, inherently lazy" anything aside from people who afk in LFR but that's about it.

That anyone thinks the only way to get joy out of a game is somehow having superior pixels or getting the server's only ___ needs to get another hobby because in MOST cases where you CAN do that in a game, it's unhealthy and usually accomplished in a very unsavory manner - e.g. in PvP stuff people bully/rig standings and in PvE things people will often pull really unethical shit on other players as a group to make sure one among them "wins" that rat race - it brings to mind the insane shit people from some famous guild were doing to non-guilded players over heroic items on the BMAH because they "needed" them more. There's no excuse to do shit like that and when you talk about this dumb game where only one guy gets this or that and where the game inherently shuts-out some of its players is just stupid.

Challenges are one thing - deliberate gating of content and hiding it for the sake of a tiny group of players getting an ego boost from a video game is another story.

You don't like it, don't play it - the game is just as challenging today as it's ever been; there's not a single world-class raiding guild that hasn't acknowledged that the bosses continue to get more complicated and difficult than they have ever been and that there's more information and accessibility out there than Vanilla or BC had isn't a negative point.

[Thetruth1400]

And you think that will change their mind?
I can already predict: "Well, that just like his opinion, man!"

The math is pretty simple too.
4 people say they want hardcore-focus
6 people say they want casual-focus
=> Blizzard goes casual and 3 out of 4 harcore-people leave. That's still better than 5 out of 6 casuals.

If focussing on the hardcore-players would be such a great idea, then another MMO would have done that by now and they would have been a bigger success than WoW, right?

Except that's not what we're seeing. Using your example above we're seeing something closer to this;

4 people want hardcore focus
6 people want casual focus
Blizzard goes casual
3 out of 4 hardcore leave.
5 out of 6 casuals play for a month, unsubscribe, then resubscribe when the next patch hits.

In other words, they're losing just as many, if not more people by casual catering. They've said so themselves that casuals play for a little bit and then unsubscribe only to resubscribe at a later date when more content comes out. That massive up and down of the casual community really is more influential on their bottom line then the loss of the hardcore crowd will ever be.

Take that a step further and increase the numbers.

If 30,000 out of 40,000 hardcore people leave, that's $5,400,000 lost.
If 40,000 out of 60,000 casuals in that same time subscribe for only 5 months out of a year, as casuals tend to unsub then resub as Blizzard themselves have said they do, that's $3,360,000 lost.
Combine those two, and you're looking at $8,760,000 lost a year on a casual model.

Now lets look at a hardcore centric model.
Maybe 5,000 out of those 40,000 hardcore players leave. That's only $900,000.
Casuals don't exactly change as there is still tons of alternate content for them, including LFR, Normals, LFD etc.
Even assuming that 50,000 out of 60,000 of them now only play for 5 months a year, the numbers is only $5,250,000 lost.
Combine those, and you're looking at $6,150,000. on a hardcore centric model.

Of course all that is guessing, just like your example though. The only thing we know for certain is that since they switched over to a casual centric focus, this game has gone from 12 million subs down to 7.7 million and dropping. That's a loss of over 35% of the player base since 2010. It's clearly not working.

[Ferocity]

I don't see game becoming more "casual", if anything - it became more "non-casual". Non-raiders get mostly cosmetic fluff, or gear, which is infinitely worse than what you can get in raids, sharing only looks. Raiders, have to grind for charms on top of other grinds. Constant hard resets each patch catch you in never ever ending pain of completely unrewarding grind. Normal raids are so much overtuned, that after 1st clear of ToT, I wanted to just go on break if not guild. Game is exhausting itself and its players.

So... what kind of "casual revolution" people are speaking about? LFD is feature of late WotLK, LFR is feature of late Cata - those are the only features which could be viewed as somewhat "casual". I guess talk is about MoP, so what did MoP do to "revolutionize"? Widening ilvl gap between LFR and normals from 13 to 20+? Or over-tuning normals? Or adding additional grind - for charms (which is totally sadistic for non-dps)? Or greatly increasing time required to cap VP and same time slowly stripping VP from it's main purpose - compensation for bad RNG in raids? Adding additional raid difficulty - flex - just to tell us, that normal will continue to be pain in the a*s and not something where you could calmly spend time after work?

I can't get it. Maybe someone can explain it to me, I would appreciate it.

[Nobleshield]

If anything, MoP is anti-casual. Everything is an annoying grind. Dailies on top of dailies on top of more dailies. Cool rep stuff gated behind dailies. RNG for everything. Normal mode raids that are hard for the majority, and heroics that are inaccessible for most. Even Flex is just another layer on the grind of things to do. Run normal to see if you get that cool upgrade. If not, try again on Flex. If not, try again in LFR. If not, sucks to be you for that week. Even professions are garbage now, random cuts from JC so half the time you get some PVP gem or something like Parry/Expertise that nobody is going to use, random procs for Perfect cuts that are the only worthwhile things out of the green gems. Legendary drops are entirely RNG (hello 11/12 ToT clear with one single drop of Secrets). Heroic Scenario loot is RNG. VP limits. Alt-unfriendliness.

[Jedi Master]

Burning Crusade with Hardcore-Focused Gameplay = 10M Players
Pandaland: welcome to Casualtown = 7M Players (5M of them are probably Chinafarmers/Bots)
Even for the Casuals the Game has to be too easy since Casualysm. In TBC the Casuals had a goal to reach. They could farm Heroics(not these EZMoade "Heroics" since Cataclysm) or farm Karazhan and after the first Nerfs they should even manage to progress in The Eye and Serpentshrine Caverns

Blizz ruined the Game should because they wanted to change something.

[Vladar]

In classic, TBC and for the start of WOTLK, WOW had growing subs base and people had good comments about the game. Later WOTLK, Cat and MOP were highly criticized, and the sub count went from 12m+ to 7,7m and dropping.

WOW is already in bad shape, saying that without the casual revolution the game would be in bad shape is nonsense. They also changed the whole demographic of the game from being interesting to adults to being strictly for teens and kids.

[Caliph]

I know casuals, hardcores, semi-hardcores, and people who make a living off of wow and are sponsored that all love and partake in the casualness of the game. these imo include pet battles, transmog, old raids and dungeons (transmog hunting), and the accursed (not by me) LFR.

These people wouldn't be here if all they were doing was hardcore raiding, raid attunements, brutal world bosses, exclusive class based pvp etc.

They're admitting the game was in trouble so they took steps to address it and you're mad? What would you have them do make Everquest the new wow where you grind mobs for 3 hours to get 4 bars of xp or something.

Do your hardcore stuff and stfu. why does what other people enjoy bother you so much.

[Deleted]

In classic, TBC and for the start of WOTLK, WOW had growing subs base and people had good comments about the game. Later WOTLK, Cat and MOP were highly criticized, and the sub count went from 12m+ to 7,7m and dropping.

WOW is already in bad shape, saying that without the casual revolution the game would be in bad shape is nonsense. They also changed the whole demographic of the game from being interesting to adults to being strictly for teens and kids.

If WoW was still growing with subs with MoP it would be because ''It is the best game and MoP is the best expansion.''

But since the subs are dropping since Cata and now MoP, it is because ''The game is getting old but MoP is still the best expansion.''

So yeah, when the game is rising in subs, it is because ''it is the best'' but when subs drops, it is because ''the game is getting old and players moves on.''

[Caliph]

Burning Crusade with Hardcore-Focused Gameplay = 10M Players
Pandaland: welcome to Casualtown = 7M Players (5M of them are probably Chinafarmers/Bots)
Even for the Casuals the Game has to be too easy since Casualysm. In TBC the Casuals had a goal to reach. They could farm Heroics(not these EZMoade "Heroics" since Cataclysm) or farm Karazhan and after the first Nerfs they should even manage to progress in The Eye and Serpentshrine Caverns

Blizz ruined the Game should because they wanted to change something.

You're comparing things out of context. TBC was 6 years ago where wow and mmo's were relatively still new. Casuals have even more goals now then they did back then and there's no stigma attached to it. Since when can you draw a conclusion on what i believe is anecdotal evidence. Hard/easy =/= game success.

Just 15 years ago Microsoft owned the planet including rofl stomping apple, novel, corel and all of the great names in IT. Now who are they compared to Apple, google, FB etc. You see you have to put things in context. Microsoft didn't ruin anything others came and improved things. MoP might not be an improvement but it didn't cause subs to go down. Time and attrition along with a changing player base did.

[Marfrilau]

MoP hasn't appealed in any way to casuals. LFR for instance is not appealing at all to the competent player with limited time. MoP has only appealed to bad players.