Warcraft is Blizzard's Most Neglected Franchise...By FAR

[Avada Kedavra]

Wait.....

Isnt there an entire World dedicated to Warcraft?

[Callace]

They are trying to get back world PvP, make the worlds feel larger, make exploration a bigger deal. Players have been asking for that months, years.

I am personally looking forward to it. I know there are others also looking forward to it.

You disagreeing with something =/= the game being neglected.


Back on topic - your post made me do a double take. Warcraft neglected by Blizzard? Are you kidding? These are the kinds of posts I really hope are in jest and have just managed to fool everyone.

It won't have any effect on PVE servers though, which is most, correct me if I'm wrong.
You haven't really addressed anything I have said.
Why are you okay with a price hike coupled by longer down time than what was earlier suggested?

[DarkArchon]

It won't have any effect on PVE servers though, which is most, correct me if I'm wrong.
You haven't really addressed anything I have said.
Why are you okay with a price hike coupled by longer down time than what was earlier suggested?

That's actually not true at all, many more scenarios and situations will present themselves if your all on the ground and can see other players more frequently. Even if they don't flag themselves you can still piss them off and find other ways. We've had flying for years, that shit is old now. I welcome the change. Get off your cry pony.

[Marquize]

...It's at least 2 quarters away, placing it a cool 5 quarters after SoO. This is after the developers at Bcon gave us their thoughts about a Spring release.

They never said that it was going to be release this spring, it was the player base that came up with that myth

...And it's going to cost 25% more. https://battle.net/shop/en/product/w...rds-of-draenorAfter they deliberately said it would not at Bcon.

Do you have any source for this? I watched all of the Blizzcon panels about WoD and I have no memory about any pricetag.

...And they are removing features. "Afrasiabi also mentions that he thinks it is possible that players could love a world with no flying."

I don't see why this is such a big deal anyways, we had no flying while leveling in Pandaria so that should not be new and do you really NEED flying to stand and AFK in the new capital while you wait for queues to pop?

Believe it or not, but since there are about 7-9 million people playing the game world wide, the server maintenance costs and employees that handle support and all of those details that you never think about actually cost alot. The shop may not be needed but as long as people actually are stupid enough to pay real money for the items there I see no point for them to remove it, it's a business after all and they aim to earn money from this.

Diablo 3 was released way before MoP so it only makes sense that Diablo gets it's expansions before WoW.

Also if I were you I'd give up on the idea of a WC4, now that they have WoW they're not going to make another strategy game to tell the tales of warcraft and the title would be competing against Starcraft in the market since both are strategy games and competing against your own titles is just stupid.

[Deleted]

WoW has suffered because of D3, SC2, Hearthstone and HotS for sure, perhaps even Titan if they went far into development before it was scrapped.

Only have to look at the very slow progress of WoD to see they are putting other things first.

[Kapaya]

I laughed at the D3 AAA. Didn't have to make that whole post for that joke!

[Callace]

That's actually not true at all, many more scenarios and situations will present themselves if your all on the ground and can actually see other players. Even if they don't flag themselves you can still piss them off and find other ways. We've had flying for years, that shit is old now. I welcome the change. Get off your cry pony.

I think there is more convenience from flight than fun from world pvp, because most people haven't even encountered the latter, let alone seek it out. You're comparing a special interest to something that affects everything. I think their current plans for pvp indicate that they have cut world pvp loose anyway (outside of the new bg zone they are adding). This isn't just about flying though, it's about the overall value of the game very slowly receding in the midst of a price hike. Don't you have your own criticisms?

- - - Updated - - -

I laughed at the D3 AAA. Didn't have to make that whole post for that joke!

It was a big letdown at launch, but the somewhat recent improvements are huge.

- - - Updated - - -

The shop may not be needed but as long as people actually are stupid enough to pay real money for the items there I see no point for them to remove it, it's a business after all and they aim to earn money from this.

That's the crux of the argument. If people are dumb enough to pay for something, then that is the shape the game will take. It isn't a biproduct, it's how they directly make their decisions: what people spend money on.

[Bigbamboozal]

There's no logic to your post whatsoever.

Lol yes, there is, you just didn't seem to catch it.

OT: I tend to agree with you somewhat OP, the thing is, the product lifecycle and marketing square. (Anyone got a link to a diagram of it?)
Basic run down of it goes like this: Development, Growth, Maturity, Saturation, Decline.
To be quite honest, we're somewhere in between the later half of the overlapping parts of saturation and decline.

If they really were brilliant minds of industry at the helm of the biz side, they'd be working hard to keep it in growth meets maturity, but greed means it won't.
Sorry bro, wish there was something real and special, but it's all dollar signs and bean counters.
Welcome to the world of bidnesscraft, where game makers are trying to make megabucks.
cuz you know, nerds need gold teeth and shit.

[Zogarth]

Rock and roll racing is the most neglected imo.

[Luxeley]

The price of the expansion is not a Blizzard specific thing, it seems a lot of MMO's feel a necessity to creep up the price. A bigger issue is that Blizzard is giving players less and charging more. Why? Because they know they can and will get away with it. Why? There is no legitimate competition right now. One can pump a lot of enthusiasm into ESO or Wildstar or even EQ Next for that matter, but the real question is, will any of these offer "staying power." People will buy them and try them, especially since there is fair possibility WOD does not hit the shelves for 6-9 months.

[Callace]

The price of the expansion is not a Blizzard specific thing, it seems a lot of MMO's feel a necessity to creep up the price. A bigger issue is that Blizzard is giving players less and charging more. Why? Because they know they can and will get away with it. Why? There is no legitimate competition right now. One can pump a lot of enthusiasm into ESO or Wildstar or even EQ Next for that matter, but the real question is, will any of these offer "staying power." People will buy them and try them, especially since there is fair possibility WOD does not hit the shelves for 6-9 months.

It seems strikingly out of the ordinary that Blizzard would up the price after so many years. Normally older games offer lower prices, but like you say, they know a large swath of people will pay regardless. I seem to have failed at shedding some self-awareness on the issue. The posters here are too insulated by their sensitivities or lack the creative intelligence to question their own enjoyments. I don't think Blizzard is even concerned with other games, all you have to do is listen to their defensive customer base around here to understand they will be getting their $$ at any rate they choose.

[Lackluster]

Nawwwh, Lost Vikings claims that title!

[Callace]

Nawwwh, Lost Vikings claims that title!

I thought they were making new ports for it?

[Peyj]

It won't have any effect on PVE servers though, which is most, correct me if I'm wrong.
You haven't really addressed anything I have said.
Why are you okay with a price hike coupled by longer down time than what was earlier suggested?

World exploration and the world feeling larger don't affect PVE servers? Really?
In fact, only one thing I mentioned doesn't - world PvP.

What price hike? Are you referring to the fact that WoD will cost, what, $10 more than MoP? I saw some people complaining yesterday about it costing more than MoP. No, I'm not bothered with it at all. By the time WoD releases, won't MoP be ~2 years old?

A $10 price hike over a span of 2 years doesn't phase me. I couldn't even tell you what MoP cost if it hadn't been for people complaining about it recently.

In response to WoD's release date, in the words of the great Shigeru Miyamoto:

'A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever.'

I'm still having fun in MoP. If I stop having fun in MoP before WoD comes out, I'll stop playing for a while. I have a games backlog longer than I know what to do with, so a bit of downtime means I'll get around to playing some other games.

[Lord Pebbleton]

I somewhat agree with OP.
With a game like WoW that nets a waterfall of money every month, I'm tired of hearing things like "We won't add that because it would mean one less tier", "Yes, but no because it would delay WoD", "We'll do it soon".

[Peyj]

I somewhat agree with OP.
With a game like WoW that nets a waterfall of money every month, I'm tired of hearing things like "We won't add that because it would mean one less tier", "Yes, but no because it would delay WoD", "We'll do it soon".

This is a fair point - the profit margin for WoW certainly indicate it would be nothing to employ additional resources to add extra content without the harm of delaying tiers, patches, etc.

But it's also a pretty slippery slope. Where do you stop? To satisfy a community this large, at what point do you say "Well we added 20 new mounts, 30 new outfits, 10 new battlegrounds and didn't delay a single tier or expansion, but that's enough now guys?"

And how do you prioritise what the people want?

People wanted Pandaren for years.
Blizz implemented Pandaren and now people complain about it.

I don't know what the answer is, but I understand your concern on that point. I just don't know how, if they started being more flexible on stuff like that, they draw the line.

[Jekyll]

The no-flying is due to a minority who can shout the loudest, claiming they are trying to replicate the feeling of the early game, which was in fact due to the attitudes of the players more than it was due to the means of travel.
Players made the community and players destroyed it, but blizzard are oblivious to this, or at least those in charge are.

The loud minority also screamed for dailies for raids and heroics gears rep, guess you're not wrong.

[dapperedodo]

WoW has suffered because of D3, SC2, Hearthstone and HotS for sure, perhaps even Titan if they went far into development before it was scrapped.

Only have to look at the very slow progress of WoD to see they are putting other things first.

Wait wat? WoW suffered because of SC2 or D3. The development of both these games started before WoW even released. Different teams are working on different games. Actually SC2 suffered from WoW cause the development of SC2 got delayed 1 year because the moved the resources from the SC2 development to WoW.

Beside Cata every expansion had enough content for every kind off player. MoP even had the most content off them all. Every expansions had huge gaps between content releases, yes even the high praised TBC had 10 months between BT and Sunwell and 8 months between Sunwell and WotLK. The only difference is that during TBC not every could consume all the content thanks to the gating. Unless we see WoD being released later then the 1st week of september blizzard still follows the pattern it always followed with WoW content.

[Deleted]

Lets see from a raid pov.

23 Nov 2004 wow is released.
20 June 2006 Naxx is released (last raid patch) 1 year 7 mths (ish) from start of game.
9 Jan 2007 TBC is released 6 mths 20 days from last raid.
25 March 2008 Sunwell Plateau is released 1 year 2 1/2 mths from start of expansion.
13 Nov 2008 Wotlk is released 7 mths 19 days from last raid.
30 June 2010 Ruby Sanctum is released. 1 year 7 1/2 mths from start of expansion.
7 Dec 2010 Cata is released 5 mths 7 days from last raid.
23 Nov 2011 Dragon soul is released 11 mths 16 days from start of expansion.
25 Sept 2012 Mop is released 10 mths 2 days from last raid.
17 Sept 2013 Heroic SoO is released (flex and lfr are out later) is released 11 mths 23 days from start of expansion.
20 Dec 2014 WoD (info from battle.net but its not a release date I've heard rumours its going to be around Sept release) So at the latest 1 year 3 mths 3 days. My guess its going to be around 1 year from Heroic SoO.

So yes this does look like its going to be the longest wait for a new expansion however imo wotlk and tbc both had filler raids (but its all content). Is it enough for me to care....nope. I'll do what I usually do, unsub for a bit and play other games (most likely eso however I didn't like the beta) and resub when I want.

[Supakaiser]

Lost Vikings