Originally Posted by
Zellviren
I said I didn't think it was just for the money (referencing EverQuest).
And please, let's not go down the road of "people needing to eat" or "clothe their families". Many, many people in the world do that on a far smaller budget than the likes of Street and his cronies are being paid.
All I really want to ask is this:
Was World of Warcraft better when they made epic raids like the Black Temple, had a difficulty curve in heroic dungeons, and designed the game to properly measure risk versus reward? Or do you think it's better in this age where raid content is hashed into four difficulties just to let everyone play it, and dungeons are scrapped to make people go into raids (as the only means of developing your character)?
It's up to you but, since Cataclysm, World of Warcraft has become a worse game as far as concerns me. I wouldn't presume to tell other people what they think, but the previous design team would never have argued that they didn't do something because they couldn't justify it to the bean counters. Nowadays we're told guaranteed success in the game's most exclusive content is a necessity for it to even be developed.
The result, of course, is that players are leaving. A full third of Cataclysm's high (12 million) has walked off.
The saddest part is that, despite all that, Blizzard are probably still making almost as much money as they were previously through all the micro-transactions the game now runs with.
I'm not saying you're not right, I'm not saying Blizzard shouldn't be in it for the money... But games, the best ones, are works of art. When you do it for money, rather than the love of it or the hope you'll inspire people, you start doing it for the wrong reasons and the product suffers.
Scenarios (cheap and quick to make) are in, dungeons (expensive and artistically demanding) are out. Compare "A Brewing Storm" to the likes of the original Blackrock Depths and tell me, with a straight face, that the game has improved.
That's where we are.