Does Blizzard blame the player feedback for the huge sub loss which leads to....

[schicklgruber]

Does Blizzard blame the player feedback for the huge sub loss which leads to them ignoring player feedback now?

I get the vibe reading all these smartass, passive aggressive replies from devs on about every topic that they think they know better and aren't just ignoring players, they're actively "putting players in their place".

Meanwhile, wow has shown a loss in subs in all but 1 quarter for 33 months straight. I get the "it's your fault, subscribers" vibe when they talk about cata especially, harder dungeons seems to be the #1 topic. They started pandering to people who were new to MMORPGs and did NOT want to spend a lot of time on a daily basis in their virtual world. Then they SLIGHTLY increased difficulty (compared to wotlk heroics) for cata heroics and are pointing to that as a turning point when in reality, the people who had issues with that are still all over the place. They were such a large part of the majority that making any group of them happy was gonna piss off or annoy the other groups by default.

this part shows their snarky attitude and passive aggressive tone (then their bullshit coveryourass move)

Q:you guys talk about ability bloat and I see the best way to address that is the revert some of the class homogenization

A:Sure. What useful ability are you willing to give up? (Source)
AThat wasn't supposed to be sarcastic BTW.) (Source)

and i'm sure the meatshields will say what they always say, but here is the thing

EQ was the #1 MMORPG around when Sony decided they knew best. 12 months later it wasn't the #10 MMORPG around.

i feel like blizzard tried to kiss everyone's ass and now that they realize they can't make everyone happy, they're bitter

[EqualWin]

well if I was blizzard I'd blame them



tbc the game is too hard, no casual friendly!!!
woltk the game is too easy!!!
cata the game is too casual!!!
mop perfectly balanced imo still complaining about shit!

[Darsithis]

I think you're reading into things too much.

As always, most of Blizzard's decisions are not based on the random forum raging of various WoW-players. It's based on player data from in-game testing and the PTR, which tells them what abilities are used the most, the most common talent configurations, the glyphs used by everyone, and the feedback from people actually testing the newest stuff on the PTR.

It's understandable that the developers get a bit pissy towards the same old posts they see every day. As a moderator here for years now I've done the same when it gets to be a bit much, when everyone is negative just to be negative instead of actually posting something useful and constructive (negative or positive).

[Hipnos14]

They should do the game that they want to do, the main problem of WoW is that Blizzard is not targeting the game for a specific audience, they want everyone and it is imposible to please every single type of player.

[schicklgruber]

well if I was blizzard I'd blame them



tbc the game is too hard, no casual friendly!!!
woltk the game is too easy!!!
cata the game is too casual!!!
mop perfectly balanced imo still complaining about shit!

majority changed greatly from mid vanilla to wotlk
majority used to suck in vanilla like it does now, but nobody cared. you did what you were able to do, you wished you could do more and that actually got a little more out of some folks

now it's the console attitude of "if it's hard, make it easier"

the point of wow was a carrot that you were always chasing, but is there a carrot anymore? did all these "quality of life"/make wow simpler changes make things less valuable and convince some that it simply wasn't worthy going after in the first place?

i know i personally wanted what i couldn't have a lot more than now, when i know that if i can stay awake, i can get about anything. when i start thinking of items/experiences i wish i had, none of it is current.

that isn't the sub's fault. in tbc the game wasn't too hard, you did what you could do. in wotlk the general feeling was "it's getting too easy" and in cata, after attracting all those folks who tried out easy-wotlk, aoe dungeons, accessible epics, they made cata heroics require an attention span and a lot of folks who hadn't been around in BC at all just bolted. cata heroics weren't hard, compared to bc they were still easy. they did have mechanics you couldn't ignore, but they weren't the class-specific clusterfuck BC heroics were

mop isn't balanced at all, it just has 1000 modes of everything for everyone. mop is "still trying to appeal to everyone" and it's failing miserably. at this rate mop will have lost 4-5 million subs by itself assuming it lasts just 6 more months (no reason to believe it won't last longer)

instead of making a game they'd have wanted to play in 2000-2004 they're making a game they think the silent majority who gives no feedback wants to play
they're ignoring the community EXACTLY like EQ did

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They should do the game that they want to do, the main problem of WoW is that Blizzard is not targeting the game for a specific audience, they want everyone and it is imposible to please every single type of player.

yeah, vanilla wow was a slightly more accessible, less cryptic version of EQ because a lot of them had played EQ. in wotlk ghostcrawler takes over, a guy who had never played an MMORPG in his life. wasn't even a big gamer, had only worked on maps for an RTS (AOE) and i still don't know why he was hired, never made sense

but the direction didn't change, it just doesn't exist. it's like they're grabbing water with their hands and can't hold on to anything as a result

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I think you're reading into things too much.

As always, most of Blizzard's decisions are not based on the random forum raging of various WoW-players. It's based on player data from in-game testing and the PTR, which tells them what abilities are used the most, the most common talent configurations, the glyphs used by everyone, and the feedback from people actually testing the newest stuff on the PTR.

It's understandable that the developers get a bit pissy towards the same old posts they see every day. As a moderator here for years now I've done the same when it gets to be a bit much, when everyone is negative just to be negative instead of actually posting something useful and constructive (negative or positive).

your "argument" literally has jack shit to do with anything. i'm disappointed. it's a meatshield post that you tried to disguise as something else. they're not losing players because they have data of how people spec. since vanilla there has always been a best spec. i just don't see why the hell you brought it up

if you're going to defend them then make sense, because if any company loses half its customers at this rate, change would happen from the top down. blizz isn't blaming anyone on the payroll

they're blaming me and anyone else who subs

that's bullshit

[Elixr]

The saddest thing about this
is that we can't possibly do something about it
they wont listen

when subs drop even more
it will be too late

[Claymore]

It definitely seems like there is a totally different design-philosophy with the game now. It does feel like our feedback is treated as less valuable, but I think that's more because the devs are a bit more open with us, whereas before, I think they were a bit more discreet in blowing us off sometimes.

Still, could be worse. I just wish they would put more importance on those of us who care about the story and setting.

[MoanaLisa]

Does Blizzard blame the player feedback for the huge sub loss which leads to them ignoring player feedback now?

No, I think they take responsibility for their mistakes and past misjudgments.

I think they are also aware of these three important things:

1. The game is ten years old, couldn't grow forever and has had an amazing run so far.
2. The competitive environment has changed a lot over the last few years as well as the target audience for the game.
3. Blizzard is big and therefore can be slow.

As to the quote, I think GC has a point. People complain about ability bloat but want everyone else to see their action bar downsized. When it comes to their own action bar it becomes something of a different story.

Basically, you took ten words in a tweet from one person and concluded 'they're bitter'.

So my question becomes what do you think they should do and what are you trying to accomplish by creating this thread? Or should they ignore your advice as well since player feedback has been so destructive?

Or is this simply a "WoW is dying" thread in which case I'll be happy to close it?

[Trassk]

Does Blizzard blame the player feedback for the huge sub loss which leads to them ignoring player feedback now?

I get the vibe reading all these smartass, passive aggressive replies from devs on about every topic that they think they know better and aren't just ignoring players, they're actively "putting players in their place".

Well given the pretentious nature of many wow players that not even surprising.

[Jerakal]

Yeah some of the devs seem oddly dismissive of player feedback on why subs are going down, I don't know if this is to quell those reactions and try to prevent additional loss or what.

[Mormolyce]

I get the vibe reading all these smartass, passive aggressive replies from devs on about every topic that they think they know better and aren't just ignoring players, they're actively "putting players in their place".

I get a smartass, passive aggressive vibe from this post. Projecting?

Meanwhile, wow has shown a loss in subs in all but 1 quarter for 33 months straight. I get the "it's your fault, subscribers" vibe when they talk about cata especially, harder dungeons seems to be the #1 topic. They started pandering to people who were new to MMORPGs and did NOT want to spend a lot of time on a daily basis in their virtual world. Then they SLIGHTLY increased difficulty (compared to wotlk heroics) for cata heroics and are pointing to that as a turning point when in reality, the people who had issues with that are still all over the place. They were such a large part of the majority that making any group of them happy was gonna piss off or annoy the other groups by default.

this part shows their snarky attitude and passive aggressive tone (then their bullshit coveryourass move)

Or maybe they're responding to the forums because that's what a LOT of people still talk about when they talk about Cata vs. now?

Q:you guys talk about ability bloat and I see the best way to address that is the revert some of the class homogenization

A:Sure. What useful ability are you willing to give up? (Source)
AThat wasn't supposed to be sarcastic BTW.) (Source)

How is this not a completely valid point and entirely relevant to the discussion? People say shit like "remove homogenisation, reduce bloat" and then they what, take Time Warp off Mages and suddenly your 10m group loses its only BL and the forums are full of angry players. Or they remove interrupts from Warriors and every PVP Warrior jumps on the forums saying WTF. And you know what? Those people may have valid points... it's why those things were homogenised in the first place.

It's very easy to sit here on forums sneering at Bliz and acting as if these problems have easy solutions. But let's see you come up with an alternative, implement it and then deal with the consequences.

[Ausr]

I like to blame a lot of what happened on Cata's release on the player base, truthfully.

[Mormolyce]

They should do the game that they want to do, the main problem of WoW is that Blizzard is not targeting the game for a specific audience, they want everyone and it is imposible to please every single type of player.

That's why we have like a million different kinds of things to do in MoP.

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I like to blame a lot of what happened on Cata's release on the player base, truthfully.

I personally loved the super hard heroics. At the same time, I was happy when they got nerfed (by which time most groups outgeared them anyway but you'd still occasionally get a group that just wasn't up to it) because while I had a blast crawling through Deadmines for 5 hours (not an exaggeration) at launch, that shit gets old a few months in when I just want my damn VP. I can definitely see why some people just got frustrated.

[Ausr]

That's why we have like a million different kinds of things to do in MoP.

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I personally loved the super hard heroics. At the same time, I was happy when they got nerfed (by which time most groups outgeared them anyway but you'd still occasionally get a group that just wasn't up to it) because while I had a blast crawling through Deadmines for 5 hours (not an exaggeration) at launch, that shit gets old a few months in when I just want my damn VP. I can definitely see why some people just got frustrated.

Oh, I had fun with Cata. I'm just saying it was the same people who whined about easy Wrath heroics getting newer harder ones, then reversing their position on it, etc, etc.

[ablib]

well if I was blizzard I'd blame them



tbc the game is too hard, no casual friendly!!!
woltk the game is too easy!!!
cata the game is too casual!!!
mop perfectly balanced imo still complaining about shit!

1. In BC, the game was riding on Vanilla. Compared to other MMO's at the time, WoW was easy, and extremely accessible. However as time dragged on...

2. Sunwell comes out, and people find this game isn't easy! Wrath comes out and the game becomes easy mode. (yet not that easy because heroic Lich King took forever to kill). Yay! 12 million subs!

3. Cataclysm comes out, and it's the first expansion Ghostcrawler has been around for the entirety of. GC and his "WoW, dungeons are hard" mentality, backfired. T11 is hard, and so are the dungeons that go with it. LFG has a 45 minutes queue, because the dungeons take 2 hours to clear. Current raids are no longer puggable due to their difficulty. Millions leave. They realize by Firelands, and the tier that followed that, that was a wrong choice and make the game easy again. Too late though for Blizzard, the subs continue to bleed.

4. Instead of admitting fault with Cataclysm and try to emulate Wrath, they go crazy in MoP, give us Panda's, no tangible bad guy, and make it the least casual friendly expansion to date by trying to pass off grinding as content. Casuals don't have time, nor want to do 40 dailies a day...on every character. As a result, subs are at the lowest ever.

[CataclismicSunrise]

schicklgruber, no, I don't think Blizzard blames player feedback for the huge sub loss. I don't think Blizzard blames anyone, really. Well, maybe Geoff from marketing. But Blizzard is a business, yeah? They know how things work. They're not silly little internet theorists; they're a real business in the real world with real researches to find out real facts.

World of Warcraft has been live since 2004, yeah? That's almost 10 years. When it first came out, it was new, it was fresh, it was exciting. Burning Crusade? Even better. World of Warcraft was flavour of the decade, and Blizzard is sailing pretty sweet.
With Lich King, popularity peaks, and like all things subject to the laws of the universe, what goes up must inevitably come back down. And so the subscriptions did, and continue to do so.

Why? Because it's fashion you little freak. It's statistics. People get bored after a few years of stale toast, people get bored after a few years of World of Warcraft, not because Blizzard ignores their forum posts, not because they suddenly do 2% less DPS while running backwards, but because we're human and we like to look at different things, we like to try new things, we like to grow and change, you fucking little moronic twonk. I'm not wearing the same shoes I had 5 years ago. I've worn them out. I've got a new car because it's just better than the old one. I've stopped playing Pacman because I've moved on from fucking Victorian England. Think about it! And the reason you're getting snide little comments from Blizzard is because people like you make other people fucking insane with anger and frustration over your tiny, virgin brain that has no fucking comprehension of common fucking sense! I hope your cock falls off.

Infracted [Flaming]: Please don't insult other users. Thanks.

[Darsithis]

your "argument" literally has jack shit to do with anything. i'm disappointed. it's a meatshield post that you tried to disguise as something else. they're not losing players because they have data of how people spec. since vanilla there has always been a best spec. i just don't see why the hell you brought it up

if you're going to defend them then make sense, because if any company loses half its customers at this rate, change would happen from the top down. blizz isn't blaming anyone on the payroll

they're blaming me and anyone else who subs

that's bullshit

I'm wondering how you expect any conversation if you call anything that isn't total agreement with you a "meatshield" response. Want to know why Blizzard might appear snarky? Look at yourself for the answer.

I don't get why everyone treats the subscription losses as something devastating that requires internal punishment at Blizzard instead of the natural consequence of an aging gamer population along with changing trends in how people consume gaming content. Why does Blizzard have to hold someone accountible in a public fashion and who are you to expect it? More to the point, you know nothing about their internal working than I do which means you don't get to say they haven't done anything.

My argument was that they focus many changes based on data from PTR and live and less from the fairly pointless drivel people post in fits of childish rage on the forum. They don't ignore our feedback outright.

[xXzCoDProxXz]

+1 Catalismic, well said

Here is your answer basically, OP. If you need to, read it 2 times over until you understand. Game got old ,simple as that. I thought Diablo 2 was the best game ever since its near endless grind for gear and pwning noobs. I used to think HALO 2 was the best game in the world. I use to think xbox360 was the best thing in the world when it came out with its shiny achievements and Gamerscore.I used to think WoW was #1 pc game since it had bad@ss pvp, etc etc.



Shit gets old, here is your answer pure and simple. The casuals had enough ,he beat it, he got to 70, 80 or 90 w/e the cap is now. Even the hardcore probably had enough, the game is nearly a decade old as the previous commenter said. Its like eating same food for lunch at work everyday...I used to love it, now I cant stand it....
Oh and Blizz not listening to their playerbase....dude, are you stuck in a timebubble? its been like that probably before your time, before even mine...its BLIZZARD for effs sake. I bet I can find a thread where I wrote in 2003, how OP hammerdins were in Diablo 2 pvp. I launched the game about 3 years ago again...guess what?T hey are still just as OP, and it has been 10 years since I created that thread on the old BNET forums.

They also take $hitloads of time to crank out patches...stuff what an experienced modder team or game developer can do in about HALF their time, with the same resources given

[rebecca191]

Yes, WoW was getting old. I think Wrath was going to be the peak no matter what. But you can't deny that Cataclysm was very unpopular compared to Wrath. Did the game really become that much older so quickly? I think there was going to be a decline no matter what, but Cataclysm caused it to be a faster decline than it would have been, and Mists didn't appeal to enough of the players to slow down the decline that started in Cata. The end of Wrath was the high point of WoW for me. It felt awesome to kill heroic Lich King. I was not bored of the game at the time but Cataclysm quickly made me sick of it, and while I did finish all the raids in Cata, Mists didn't really have anything to rekindle my interest. I haven't played in a while, but I still love what the game was before Cata and would consider playing it again if the right expansion came along. I really think it's a combination of things. Game getting old, some players moving on from playing a long time or getting older with responsibilities like a job or family, not enough younger players interested in MMOs to replace them, and yes, Cataclysm's design and content being very unpopular with a lot of players.

[Combatbutler]

Does Blizzard blame the player feedback for the huge sub loss which leads to them ignoring player feedback now?

I get the vibe reading all these smartass, passive aggressive replies from devs on about every topic that they think they know better and aren't just ignoring players, they're actively "putting players in their place".

People like you, are a more or less serious problem and in truth should be entirely ignored, most of the time they post pointless rambling how they did not get what they wanted, or what they expected, they rant on mostly because they want to and that is all there is.

To be honest I enjoy if a blueposter does give them a "smartass" reply, because these kinds of people do not deserve a serious answer, most of the time it is some sort of braindead complaint about an issue, which has no easy answer. People feel far too entitled ,because they pay monthly for this game.


The Game is ancient and its playerbase is aging, focusing more on real life matters, while few people join up to replace them, so of course the subs will continue to dwindle and I am quite certain is Blizzard is aware of this as well.