Is there less pressure to address content droughts because of the ingame store?

[Deleted]

Right, because there's no relationship between those two things. I'm sure a ton of that $200M came from people who don't subscribe to the game...

Is it no longer common for people to read what they type before submitting it as a cogent thought?

Of course they still need subscribers, but the money makes up for a lot of the losses.

[Deleted]

It has never happened before. Ever. Like, quite literally this has never happened before.

Yeah we never waited at the end of an expansion. This is so totally new.
Whatever, we also clearly didn't have 10x more casual content during MoP - the introduction of void storage itself made up for at least if not more I guess.
You also made it perfectly clear that dungeons are (or should be) the pinnacle of PvE so clearly it's been a really bad expansion, and judging by what we know WoD will also be - but clearly people want more dungeons that's why they're not giving them, probably business shenanigans.
Also since blizzard are pretty bad at what they do, they really couldn't care less about losing 3M subs because they are selling horses on the cash shop. It's a well known fact that people tend to look at money generated by micro transactions and not sub numbers.

Most if not all of what you're saying relies on personal feelings more than facts. I'll leave you and your nostalgia right there being frustrated on a game that clearly doesn't bring you anything worth your time - especially no dungeons.

[Nahela]

It most likely puts more pressure on them actually. In-game store isn't going to make any money if people aren't playing due to lack of content.

[Deleted]

Yeah we never waited at the end of an expansion. This is so totally new.
Whatever, we also clearly didn't have 10x more casual content during MoP - the introduction of void storage itself made up for at least if not more I guess.
You also made it perfectly clear that dungeons are (or should be) the pinnacle of PvE so clearly it's been a really bad expansion, and judging by what we know WoD will also be - but clearly people want more dungeons that's why they're not giving them, probably business shenanigans.
Also since blizzard are pretty bad at what they do, they really couldn't care less about losing 3M subs because they are selling horses on the cash shop. It's a well known fact that people tend to look at money generated by micro transactions and not sub numbers.

Most if not all of what you're saying relies on personal feelings more than facts. I'll leave you and your nostalgia right there being frustrated on a game that clearly doesn't bring you anything worth your time - especially no dungeons.

Yes we waited for content at the end of expansions, but never 11 months, and even longer since it will probably end up being 13-15 months. Why do you keep ignoring that. Like every time you say "oh but there were content droughts before" and I respond with "but not that long", you just repeat the same thing again. It's ok if at the end of an expansion there is a period where there's no new content, it isn't unusual that we have to wait about 6 months between raid patches, so a 6-8 months hole between the last raid and the expansion is ok, though it would be best if they could at least throw in some little bit of non-raid content to give us something new after a few months. But it has gotten longer and longer and longer. This is not how it always used to be.

I did not say dungeons are, or should be, the pinnacle of PvE content, but quite honestly, scenarios, Brawler's Guild and Proving Grounds are far from being that. Dungeons are however awesome content. Always were when they were done right.

Where do you always get that 3 million subs number from? Last sub drop was 800k and the overall sub drop from the 12 million peak at the end of Wrath is 5.2 millions.

What facts do you want to hear? Directly comparing the number of zones to each other, like I did and you pretended that MoP had just as many as TBC and WotLK because of Timeless Isle?

[Deleted]

Yes we waited for content at the end of expansions, but never 11 months, and even longer since it will probably end up being 13-15 months. Why do you keep ignoring that.

I've acknowledged it more than once, and again a one time offence can't been seen as a trend. Also I've addressed the fact that going without content could be attributed to other factors, but that you won't hear it.

it isn't unusual that we have to wait about 6 months between raid patches,

And that's what we've been having all expansion long with patches filled more than they ever was, once again you seem to be oblivious to that. The only thing counting for you being that you are bored now, so surely the whole expansion was void of content.

though it would be best if they could at least throw in some little bit of non-raid content to give us something new after a few months.

Nope I'd rather have them concentrating all their effort in the new expansion, that's is what you want, not what's best.

I did not say dungeons are, or should be, the pinnacle of PvE content, but quite honestly, scenarios, Brawler's Guild and Proving Grounds are far from being that. Dungeons are however awesome content. Always were when they were done right.

Once again this is your own feeling towards content. Once again lot of people are enjoying them and you disliking them doesn't mean it didn't take a big amount of time making those features.

Where do you always get that 3 million subs number from? Last sub drop was 800k and the overall sub drop from the 12 million peak at the end of Wrath is 5.2 millions.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...on-Subscribers
Since we're typically talking about MoP in this thread, the expansion has lost 3M (3.2M) subscribers on the course of it's 2 years span.

What facts do you want to hear? Directly comparing the number of zones to each other, like I did and you pretended that MoP had just as many as TBC and WotLK because of Timeless Isle?

You didn't compare anything, you just told me "TBC and WotLK clearly had more content, and cata also of course" those are not facts, those are taken out of nowhere, those are what you feel is the truth, while having nothing to back it up.
Simply counting the number of zones (frankly a very poor way to compare quantity and quality of content - even poorer way to compare workload put into them) they are the same in TBC and MoP, while wrath had 1 more. You yourself decided to fit the definition of a zone and squeeze out 2 zones of MoP for your argument, which you can't.

Quite frankly I've answered all these before... you being impervious to anything else that doesn't go your way is pretty tiring.

[Deleted]

I've acknowledged it more than once, and again a one time offence can't been seen as a trend. Also I've addressed the fact that going without content could be attributed to other factors, but that you won't hear it.


And that's what we've been having all expansion long with patches filled more than they ever was, once again you seem to be oblivious to that. The only thing counting for you being that you are bored now, so surely the whole expansion was void of content.


Nope I'd rather have them concentrating all their effort in the new expansion, that's is what you want, not what's best.


Once again this is your own feeling towards content. Once again lot of people are enjoying them and you disliking them doesn't mean it didn't take a big amount of time making those features.


http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...on-Subscribers
Since we're typically talking about MoP in this thread, the expansion has lost 3M (3.2M) subscribers on the course of it's 2 years span.


You didn't compare anything, you just told me "TBC and WotLK clearly had more content, and cata also of course" those are not facts, those are taken out of nowhere, those are what you feel is the truth, while having nothing to back it up.
Simply counting the number of zones (frankly a very poor way to compare quantity and quality of content - even poorer way to compare workload put into them) they are the same in TBC and MoP, while wrath had 1 more. You yourself decided to fit the definition of a zone and squeeze out 2 zones of MoP for your argument, which you can't.

Quite frankly I've answered all these before... you being impervious to anything else that doesn't go your way is pretty tiring.

It is a trend, because it's been getting longer and longer over time. Here's a quote from myself.

No it isn't the same length of no new content than before the ingame store.

Naxxramas came out June 20, 2006, TBC was released January 16, 2007.
-> 8 months of no new content

Sunwell came out March 25, 2008, WotLK was released November 13, 2008
-> 8 months of no new content

ICC came out December 8, 2009, Ruby Sanctum came out June 29, 2010, Cataclysm was released December 7, 2010
--> 12 months of ICC, but only 6 months of no new content because of Ruby Sanctum

Dragon Soul came out November 29, 2011, Mists of Pandaria came out September 25, 2012
-> 10 months of no new content

Siege of Orgrimmar came out September 10, 2013, Warlords of Draenor will likely release after September
-> We are now at 11 months of no new content, and it will likely be 2 more months at least

It is clear that the time without new content is getting longer and longer, and that even though they said they wanted to reduce the time with no new content between expansions and wanted to shoot for a 1-year expansion cycle.

It used to be just 8 months for the first two expansions, then it got 12 months but they threw us another content patch in between there so the 12 months could be forgiven, then it was 10 months and now we're at 11 months and the expansion isn't even out yet. It will likely end up being around 13-15 months and that's almost double as long as it used to be for TBC and Wrath.

I mentioned the 6 month gap between raid tiers because it is totally acceptable to have such a content gap, because you need a certain time for raiders to clear it. I know that this has often been the case, you don't need to tell me that, because that's exacty what I've been saying with that. And it makes an 11 month dry period unacceptable.

It would definitely be best if they gave us filler content between expansions. They used to be able to give us filler content and release expansions in a reasonable timeframe, they are able to do that. I don't believe that whatever time they spend on filler content delays the expansion by the exact same amount of time it takes them to create that filler content. If they work on a raid as filler content, it only takes those resources away from the raid team. It's absolutely possible that there are time windows where they can work on that without delaying it significantly, because the rest of the team can keep working on the expansion. Equally if they release something like Timeless Isle as filler content, a zone with reused art assets, that has no quests and is very small to begin with, I believe it would offer a lot of content to keep us busy during the content drought and not take resources away from the complete team. Again there could be time windows where they would be able to fit in working on minor content like that. And even if it would delay the expansion by a small amount of tme, like even a month, I think it would be better to have 13 months until the next expansion, with filler content thrown in half-way in between, than to have 12 months of no new content until the next expansion with no filler content in between at all. Opinions may differ, but I think that new content is long overdue at this point. I know they are working on the expansion right now and that content will come soon but they should've given us new stuff months ago and still release the expansion in a reasonable timeframe, around this time of the year to be quite honest.

You say I didn't compare anything, then you say I compared number of zones and quests. The quality over quantity thing is nonsense. Quality of quests also got better from TBC to Wrath, yet they gave us more zones in Wrath. Increasing quality is an ongoing process, I hope we don't reach a point where the quality is so high they can only give us one zone. What made quests better was that there was more variety, more fun quests and it was less chaotic than in Vanilla. It is something they achieved through the experience of trial and error over the years, to see what worked and what didn't. There are certainly some type of quests in recent expansions that required the development of some new techniques, like taking over characters and playing through them, but they already started that in WotLK with quests like the one in Icecrown where you'd play as Arthas and fight Illidan.

And again you either seem to not be able to count properly or you do this on purpose. Let's just get this out of the way. I'll include everything that could be counted as a zone, even the Timeless Isle.


The Burning Crusade

1. Hellfire Peninsula
2. Zangarmarsh
3. Terrokar Forest
4. Nagrand
5. Blade's Edge Mountains
6. Netherstorm
7. Shadowmoon Valley
8. Isle of Quel'danas
9. Azuremyst Isle
10. Bloodmyst Isle
11. Eversong Forest
12. Ghostlands


Wrath of the Lich King

1. Borean Tundra
2. Howling Fjord
3. Dragonblight
4. Grizzly Hills
5. Zul'drak
6. Sholazar Basin
7. Stormpeaks
8. Icecrown
9. Wintergrasp
10. Crystalsong Forest
11. Death Knight starting area

Funnily enough, if we count zones like you do, then WotLK even has less than TBC, but most people would agree that of the zones that truly matter, the zones for max level players, WotLK had more. Blood Elf and Draenei starting areas have way less content than the average zone in WotLK.


Cataclysm

1. Mount Hyjal
2. Vashj'ir
3. Deepholm
4. Uldum
5. Twilight Highlands
6. Gilneas
7. Kezan
8. Lost Isles
9. Molten Front
10. Tol Barad

It's worth noting that Kezan and Lost Isles together provided as much content as the whole of Gilneas, they were two different environments but both a lot smaller than Gilneas as a whole. However the questing experience in Cataclysm for the new races was only half as big as that of the new races in TBC. They had two zones where you would level a good bit beyond level 20. In Cataclysm it took you to around level 13. It's fair to say that Azshara was part of the Goblin questing experience, but then again Worgen didn't get any equivalent of that. We could also argue that they redesigned the old zones with Cataclysm which is a tremendous amount of work, but not all zones were updated, some of those that were updated were only updated a little bit, and even those who were completely redesigned still had the groundwork already done that they could build upon. They had the general layout of the zone, it is likely much less work than to create a complete new zone. It's hard to really say how that compares against the other expansions. At least they should've put out more max level zones even if that came at the expense of other content. Five zones was just not enough and paled in comparison to other expansions.


Mists of Pandaria

1. Jade Forest
2. Valley of the Four Winds
3. Krasarang Wilds
4. Kun-lai Summit
5. Townlong Steppes
6. Dread Wastes
7. Vale of Eternal Blossoms
8. Wandering Isle
9. Isle of Thunder
10. Timeless Isle


Warlords of Draenor

1. Shadowmoon Valley
2. Gorgrond
3. Talador
4. Spires of Arak
5. Nagrand
6. Frostfire Ridge
7. Tanaan Jungle
8. Fields of Farahlon

Two of the zones will be exclusive each to one faction in terms of level up quest content, making the average leveling experience of the player, when the game releases, take place in 5 zones with little choice as to what zones to level in. I even heard Gorgrond will be split into two, where you could only experience one part of it depending on how you upgrade your garrison. Maybe they want to create the illusion that there is more replayability that way. Judging from the map Spires of Arak also looks a bit smaller than most zones. Tanaan Jungle and Fields of Farahon might be patched in later and it's unclear what content and how much content they will offer. It's very possible they will offer no quests at all, as more quests, when everybody is already level 100, makes little sense, so they might turn them into Timeless Isle like event islands. We have no idea how big Farahlon is going to be.


If we include every zone, even the ones like Timeless Isle, which simply are not on par with actual zones like Jade Forest, then it is clear that MoP had less than TBC and WotLK.

Now let's cut the crap, these aren't all real zones. They are zones in the sense that when you enter them they have their own name, probably their own chat. But everyone who thinks Timeless Isle took as much work as Jade Forest, Borean Tundra or Hellfire Peninsula is crazy. They didn't take the same amount of work and time and they don't offer as much content. I bolded every zone that we should consider in this. Those are zones that were in the game at launch and provided a lot of level up content with a good amount of quests, creatures and art. Crystalsong Forest didn't really have any quests worth mentioning, Timeless Isle didn't have any at all and Isle of Quel'danas was about as big as Timeless Isle with only a couple of daily quests there.

Furthermore zones like Valley and Krasarang belong together. They aren't really two separate zones. They were adjacent to each other, they had the same overall story going on, you started in the Valley and then you were sent down for a couple of quests only to be sent back up again to finish the story in the Valley. It is totally conceivable that they designed the two as one zone and then just decided to split them up on the map and give them two different names in order to make it look as if they had one more zone. Together they were about as big as the average MoP zone and about as big as the average expansion zone. Alone they both would have been poor excuses for zones. It would have been like making Bone Wastes their own zone in TBC. It's fine to have smaller and bigger zones in terms of more diversity, but let's not pretend Krasarang was a real zone on par with Icecrown. It was a small part of a bigger zone that had lots of empty space that was later filled with PvP stuff.

These are the number of zones the expansions had.

TBC had 7
Wrath had 8
Cataclysm had 5
Mists of Pandaria really only had 5 as Krasarang and Valley formed one zone
Warlords of Draenor has 6, while 2 of them will be exclusive each to one faction in terms of level up quest content

Furthermore TBC and Wrath zones very often had exclusive quests for both factions, which means that if a zone had around 100 quests for a faction, it likely had around 140 unique quests overall.

This is really a fair look at all the zones, taking size and amount of content into consideration. If you take all the zones of Cataclysm and formed a continent out of them it would likely be smaller than Northrend and about the same size as Pandaria. Honestly just look at the map and look how much bigger Northrend is compared to Pandaria

http://wow.gamona.de/wp-content/gall..._map_world.jpg

If you have anything to object to that, be free to do so. But please refrain from writing dismissive things like

You didn't compare anything

and bring actual arguments.

[Deleted]

It would definitely be best if they gave us filler content between expansions. They used to be able to give us filler content and release expansions in a reasonable timeframe, they are able to do that.

During that same expansion we had both Naxx rehash and ToC. Once again those 11+ months we're having right now is an error in pacing the content. What if they'd kept TOES for the end of MoP instead of releasing is as the start with the rest ? Would you hold the same rand about lack of effort and work ? Because there would have been the exact same amount of work involved, just a different pacing.
MoP also had 50% more raid bosses than Cata. That's a fact, tuning for 6 difficulties instead of 2-4 is also a fact. I'm failing to see where or when along those lines did they stop caring and working hard on the game content.

May I reming you what raid came before ICC and what raid came with

Yeah TOC came before ICC I fail to see your point. If anything it goes against it.

I don't believe that whatever time they spend on filler content delays the expansion by the exact same amount of time it takes them to create that filler content.

It delays the upcoming expansion nonetheless. This is their call to make, and the people you'd have working on filler content are still working... but on the upcoming expansion. It's still work being done, not on what you'd want them too, that's all.

Equally if they release something like Timeless Isle as filler content, a zone with reused art assets, that has no quests and is very small to begin with, I believe it would offer a lot of content to keep us busy during the content drought and not take resources away from the complete team. Again there could be time windows where they would be able to fit in working on minor content like that.

So if they had release TI, say 2 months ago, would you hold the same grudge against them ? Because that's again a question of how and when they deliver content and not about the quantity / work involved in making said content.

And even if it would delay the expansion by a small amount of tme, like even a month, I think it would be better to have 13 months until the next expansion

And clearly they seem to think otherwise, not by lack of motivation but by design. Maybe this is a mistake but who knows - not me, not you.

they should've given us new stuff months ago and still release the expansion in a reasonable timeframe, around this time of the year to be quite honest.

And I told you already that I think likewise, but there's no proof or evidence that this is by lack of pressure of any kind. Their subs are leaking, who in their right mind wouldn't feel under pressure. But you see that's the magic of a subscription, you can stop it and resub when there's actually content.

You say I didn't compare anything, then you say I compared number of zones and quests.

Comparing 7 to 8 is irrelevant. How many quests are present in each zones, the relative size of each zones, the new art assets, how much original lore was made for them, how long it takes to explore/achieve all quests in them and most important in this discussion : how long it took to make them. I could shit you 10 zones and tell you my game has more zones than MoP, hence more content - I'd be wrong.

The quality over quantity thing is nonsense. Quality of quests also got better from TBC to Wrath, yet they gave us more zones in Wrath. Increasing quality is an ongoing process, I hope we don't reach a point where the quality is so high they can only give us one zone. What made quests better was that there was more variety, more fun quests and it was less chaotic than in Vanilla. It is something they achieved through the experience of trial and error over the years, to see what worked and what didn't. There are certainly some type of quests in recent expansions that required the development of some new techniques, like taking over characters and playing through them, but they already started that in WotLK with quests like the one in Icecrown where you'd play as Arthas and fight Illidan.

And how does the quality grow over time ? Yes exactly, hard work.

Funnily enough, if we count zones like you do, then WotLK even has less than TBC, but most people would agree that of the zones that truly matter, the zones for max level players, WotLK had more. Blood Elf and Draenei starting areas have way less content than the average zone in WotLK.

Which just goes to prove what I was saying, counting the number of zones, whatever way you look at it, means nothing.
Here's my original quote.

Simply counting the number of zones (frankly a very poor way to compare quantity and quality of content - even poorer way to compare workload put into them)

Moreover I wonder where you saw that I counted leveling zones, pvp zones or even TI in the count (I did mention TI, didn't count it)
This is my original quote.

Again, I don't get what you're saying. Purely speaking in a matter of numbers MoP had 7 zones, just like TBC, WotLK had 8 and Cata had 5 - and I'm not even mentioning IoT and TI (which would amount to 9 for MoP).

I bolded every zone that we should consider in this.

And since you seem to be the deciding entity around here... Good to know we have to stick to your definition of a zone and your feeling of work involved in making them. This resumes so well this whole thread. This is you, offering your views as facts. Stuff doesn't work like that, period.

It is totally conceivable that they designed the two as one zone and then just decided to split them up on the map and give them two different names in order to make it look as if they had one more zone.

Funny how "it is conceivable" becomes the accepted truth, you can't make arguments on something that isn't a fact - the fact being that they are two different zones, like it or not. Both these zones, yet quite small are comparable with say sholazar basin or terokkar forest.
Also, stop bending reality as you please, the vale is a zone, holding quests, lore, art assets and everything that makes a zone.

This is really a fair look at all the zones, taking size and amount of content into consideration.

You.counted.the.zones. Not the size, not the content. The number of zones...
Not only that but you even decided which one to include or exclude, all this based on your criterias.


I think this has gone long enough. There isn't anything left to say that hasn't been repeated 10 times over. In all fairness you just can't prove your claims that they have less pressure to work on anything because you simply can't, you're not in their heads, you're not in their meeting and you're not working extra hours to come up with a new expansion. At best you could extrapolate based on facts, but thus far you've only been theorising based on what you perceive to be true or false.
Not only this but I've explained to you a few times - and you conveniently ignored it - how flawed this theory is. Big companies are constantly under pressure not only by their shareholders and the "necessity" to always be more lucrative but in Blizzard's case public perception and their spot as n°1 for a decade now. Moreover I'm convinced that they want to bring the best quality possible and please their fans - which is all the more pressurizing.
A measly firehorse on the shop won't change any of this. If you want to believe this is the reason for your perceived lack of content, feel free to do so and be all the more frustrated. Opening yourself to multiple perspectives and possibilities instead of locking yourself up in what you feel is the one and only reasonable conclusion could help you a great deal.

[Deleted]

During that same expansion we had both Naxx rehash and ToC. Once again those 11+ months we're having right now is an error in pacing the content. What if they'd kept TOES for the end of MoP instead of releasing is as the start with the rest ? Would you hold the same rand about lack of effort and work ? Because there would have been the exact same amount of work involved, just a different pacing.
MoP also had 50% more raid bosses than Cata. That's a fact, tuning for 6 difficulties instead of 2-4 is also a fact. I'm failing to see where or when along those lines did they stop caring and working hard on the game content.



Yeah TOC came before ICC I fail to see your point. If anything it goes against it.

It delays the upcoming expansion nonetheless. This is their call to make, and the people you'd have working on filler content are still working... but on the upcoming expansion. It's still work being done, not on what you'd want them too, that's all.


So if they had release TI, say 2 months ago, would you hold the same grudge against them ? Because that's again a question of how and when they deliver content and not about the quantity / work involved in making said content.


And clearly they seem to think otherwise, not by lack of motivation but by design. Maybe this is a mistake but who knows - not me, not you.


And I told you already that I think likewise, but there's no proof or evidence that this is by lack of pressure of any kind. Their subs are leaking, who in their right mind wouldn't feel under pressure. But you see that's the magic of a subscription, you can stop it and resub when there's actually content.


Comparing 7 to 8 is irrelevant. How many quests are present in each zones, the relative size of each zones, the new art assets, how much original lore was made for them, how long it takes to explore/achieve all quests in them and most important in this discussion : how long it took to make them. I could shit you 10 zones and tell you my game has more zones than MoP, hence more content - I'd be wrong.



And how does the quality grow over time ? Yes exactly, hard work.



Which just goes to prove what I was saying, counting the number of zones, whatever way you look at it, means nothing.
Here's my original quote.

Moreover I wonder where you saw that I counted leveling zones, pvp zones or even TI in the count (I did mention TI, didn't count it)
This is my original quote.




And since you seem to be the deciding entity around here... Good to know we have to stick to your definition of a zone and your feeling of work involved in making them. This resumes so well this whole thread. This is you, offering your views as facts. Stuff doesn't work like that, period.



Funny how "it is conceivable" becomes the accepted truth, you can't make arguments on something that isn't a fact - the fact being that they are two different zones, like it or not. Both these zones, yet quite small are comparable with say sholazar basin or terokkar forest.
Also, stop bending reality as you please, the vale is a zone, holding quests, lore, art assets and everything that makes a zone.



You.counted.the.zones. Not the size, not the content. The number of zones...
Not only that but you even decided which one to include or exclude, all this based on your criterias.


I think this has gone long enough. There isn't anything left to say that hasn't been repeated 10 times over. In all fairness you just can't prove your claims that they have less pressure to work on anything because you simply can't, you're not in their heads, you're not in their meeting and you're not working extra hours to come up with a new expansion. At best you could extrapolate based on facts, but thus far you've only been theorising based on what you perceive to be true or false.
Not only this but I've explained to you a few times - and you conveniently ignored it - how flawed this theory is. Big companies are constantly under pressure not only by their shareholders and the "necessity" to always be more lucrative but in Blizzard's case public perception and their spot as n°1 for a decade now. Moreover I'm convinced that they want to bring the best quality possible and please their fans - which is all the more pressurizing.
A measly firehorse on the shop won't change any of this. If you want to believe this is the reason for your perceived lack of content, feel free to do so and be all the more frustrated. Opening yourself to multiple perspectives and possibilities instead of locking yourself up in what you feel is the one and only reasonable conclusion could help you a great deal.

I never criticized number of raids or raid bosses, I always talked about dungeons, zones and quests. I know that Naxxramas was a revamp and that it was one of the reasons why Ulduar was so polished. I don't think that it was the reason why they were able to give us a small filler raid between ICC and Cataclysm and I think they do very well have the capacity to give us small filler patches again. You're acting as if 11 months of no new content are the only way to go.

But let's still take a look at Wrath raids since you brought it up. Even without Naxxramas the expansion had Eye of Eternity, Obsidian Sanctum, Vault of Archavon, Ulduar, Trial of the Crusader, Icecrown Citadel and Ruby Sanctum. Those are 38 bosses in 7 raid environments. There is no lack of bosses and raids. I am fine with MoP in terms of raiding by the way. I have never said a thing about. I always talked about 5 man dungeons, zones and quests and in that regard I think the newer expansions are lacking. That is what I'm talking about when I say they used to give us more content in previous expansions. I never said in terms of raids. Cataclysm was a low point in terms of raids, at least in the last two tiers, otherwise raiding was fine.

May I reming you what raid came before ICC and what raid came with

I don't know where you even took that from, I never said that, I don't even know in what context I would have said that. Did you edit my quote?

I actually think that if they released Timeless Isle not with Siege of Orgrimmar but 6 months later that would have helped a lot. Instead they should've shipped some 5-man dungeons with Siege. But I wasn't too crazy about Timeless Isle anyway. No quests, not really engaging, just a grindfest for coins and forced PvP. I much prefer the Isle of Thunder type of content. Isle of Thunder had it right.

Quality grows through trial and error. Of course they put work into the game. They put quests in for TBC, then gather feedback from players, learn from their mistakes and don't repeat the same mistakes for WotLK. That way the questing experience gradually gets better because they don't make the same mistakes again. There isn't anything revolutionary in MoP in terms of questing. It is simply well-structured with a large variety of quests. You have a quest in MoP where you fly over the farms and water the fields, this is no different from a design and technical standpoint than a quest in TBC where you fly over a legion camp and throw bombs. It's the same mechanic. In WotLK you take control of an undead giant and kill some zombies. In MoP you take control of a yeti and jump around. The questing in TBC wasn't bad, it isn't miles away from MoP. It gradually got better and better and better because they learned what worked and what didn't. For example that flying birds in Skettis that dismount you are a pain in the ass and that too many vehicle quests are annoying because you don't use your character's abilities. Again I can only ask, if increasing quality of quests means more work and therefore less content, why are the amount of zones and quests about the same from Cataclysm to MoP to WoD? Shouldn't there be a significant drop every expansion? Why is there only a significant drop after WotLK? It is as if after Wrath they thought that about 5 zones for level up content is enough. 8 zones in WotLK gave more variety and options to choose from. Leveling in Cataclysm and MoP feels very linear. Leveling in Wrath wasn't. Even when it was current content, you could do half the zones to ding 80. You'd do Dragonblight and Grizzly Hills, but skip Zul'drak. You could go straight to Icecrown and ignore Storm Peaks. That kind of choice and variety hasn't been there for a long time and WoD feels as linear as MoP and Cataclysm. And this linearity exists because of too few zones.

Here's a great video illustrating that point



I still have lots of fun playing through Northrend because everytime I do it it's very different, because there is so much choice. Everytime I played through Cataclysm and MoP it was basically the same path, the only choice I had was Hyjal or Vashj'ir. Do the same quests, ding a level, move on to the next zone.

Of course it matters how many quests a zone has and how big they are, and I've commented on that. I said several times that in TBC and Wrath zones often had Alliance and Horde exclusive stuff. A lot of the zones had about 100 quests per faction, and since a large part of them were exclusive to one faction there often were about 140-150 unique quests in most zones. In Wrath Zul'drak and Sholazar were a bit smaller, around 75 quests I think. Zones like Twilight Highlands had as many quests as Icecrown. Should I really go and count quests now? You can see the number of quests from the achievements and add them together if you want to. Chances are if I do that for you you simply keep insisting that creating 600 quests in MoP takes longer than creating 800 quests in WotLK because of quality.

What does the quality come from I ask you? What makes a quest in MoP better than in TBC? It isn't the quest itself, quests in MoP often still had lots of kill and pickup quests. It was how these quests worked together. You would go and enter the Valley and meet four students, and these four students would give you breadcrumb quests to send you all over Valley and Krasarang to do quests here and there and then to finally meet up with the master they were looking for. It's the way the flow worked and the variety of quests, not having to wait too long for drops, not having to ride back and forth too much, having a window pop up while you finished a quest. The quests could still be "kill 10 monkeys" just by value of not having to travel too much, being able to hand in quests while traveling, having a coherent storyline within the zone, using gimmicks with quests, like throwing bears on a trampoline, they would be better. Those are all things that make quests more fun. But it doesn't require more work to implement a kill quest in MoP than it did in TBC. Killing ten Mogu is not different from killing ten zombies.

It is not my definition of a zone. No one considers Timeless Isle to be a zone equal to Icecrown or Shadowmoon Valley. Stop it. Even with all these minor zones, TBC and Wrath had more zones than what came after. Krasarang is so small as its own zone, it's only a handful of quests. And the Vale is not up to par with the other zones in MoP and most of the content there was removed because of their genius idea to destroy it. It still amazes me that they created content that would one year later completely disappear forever. It's amazing really.

I gave you two versions: one where I counted all the zones - all of them, no exception - and one where I only counted the level up zones for max level content. Both show that WotLK and TBC had more of them than those that followed after. The only case could be made for Cataclysm's revamped zones and quite frankly I understand how much work that must've been. But even if I include every zone without exception you'll simply say that what counts are number of quests and zone size and if I show you the zones were bigger and had more quests in TBC and Wrath as well you'll say the new expansions just took too much time, they could not create more of them.

We have barely talked about whether there is less pressure now or not, this quite frankly has become totally unimportant over the last few posts it seems, we were simply arguing over whether the game used to have more content and whether the content droughts are actually getting bigger. When I show you the clear difference in numbers you just say "it's the same". There is no doubt that 11 months of no new content is something unprecedented and if you can't even admit that, then maybe there is no point in arguing.

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Reread your post. Every single one of your points are from a "my feeling toward this is" standpoint. For the last time, what you want, what you feel is good/bad/interesting/boring doesn't translate to how much work is put into the game and/or how much "pressure" they have. No content for 11+ months, that's a choice they made, one you may not agree with but a choice nonetheless, not a choice to work less or more but a choice to work on something else, something you might not agree with but that is beyond the point.

Your feeling towards the game are important of course, but irrelevant to this particular discussion.

EDIT : Oh and by the way, all my posts have addressed how much the content translates in work load. You have clearly digressed away from your original question over an over and - once again - never addressed what I was saying concerning pressure and work load.

One last thing, all I said about the number of zones was

Again, I don't get what you're saying. Purely speaking in a matter of numbers MoP had 7 zones, just like TBC, WotLK had 8 and Cata had 5 - and I'm not even mentioning IoT and TI

You're the one who decided to make a whole fuss about it. I open my map, count the zones on each continents, there are 7 in both MoP and Outland. That's a fact, I'm not trying to bend reality and decide arbitrary definitions of zones.
Northrend is the bigger landmass an expansion delivered in purely size speaking so much is true, but as far as proving me there was more quests, do you mean when you said this ?

Furthermore TBC and Wrath zones very often had exclusive quests for both factions, which means that if a zone had around 100 quests for a faction, it likely had around 140 unique quests overall.

This quote is so representative of your whole argument. Taking things out of nowhere - be them true or not - and announcing them as universal truths.

I'm done, there's nothing to be argued when feelings are accounted as evidences.

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Reread your post. Every single one of your points are from a "my feeling toward this is" standpoint. For the last time, what you want, what you feel is good/bad/interesting/boring doesn't translate to how much work is put into the game and/or how much "pressure" they have. No content for 11+ months, that's a choice they made, one you may not agree with but a choice nonetheless, not a choice to work less or more but a choice to work on something else, something you might not agree with but that is beyond the point.

Your feeling towards the game are important of course, but irrelevant to this particular discussion.

EDIT : Oh and by the way, all my posts have addressed how much the content translates in work load. You have clearly digressed away from your original question over an over and - once again - never addressed what I was saying concerning pressure and work load.

One last thing, all I said about the number of zones was

You're the one who decided to make a whole fuss about it. I open my map, count the zones on each continents, there are 7 in both MoP and Outland. That's a fact, I'm not trying to bend reality and decide arbitrary definitions of zones.
Northrend is the bigger landmass an expansion delivered in purely size speaking so much is true, but as far as proving me there was more quests, do you mean when you said this ?

This quote is so representative of your whole argument. Taking things out of nowhere - be them true or not - and announcing them as universal truths.

I'm done, there's nothing to be argued when feelings are accounted as evidences.

Of course some of the things I said are my opinion. When I say I would like more dungeons and more zones, that is my opinion, and it is still an opinion shared by many and it is a reasonable opinion to have. Other things, like counting zones, comparing size of zones and number of quests are not based on opinions when I can provide you numbers. The argument was always that we get less content. How much work they put into it is irrelevant when that translates to less content in the end. We've already talked about the quality argument and I think it makes no sense. It's an argument they like to use to silence people. In Cataclysm, when they released Firelands, and people complained about only 7 bosses, they said "we think quality is more important than quantity". So how were these bosses better in quality than those in Icecrown Citadel or Black Temple? They weren't and people complained about Firelands being dull because of the same red fire theme, not enough variation, being there for too long especially because of the legendary questchain and not having enough bosses. Dragon Soul was equally small with reused environments. Then in MoP they stepped it up and showed that they can do quality and quantity, when they released Throne of Thunder and Siege of Orgrimmar with large numbers of bosses. They can step it up in terms of quests, zones and dungeons as well, quite frankly, they need to. Yes this is an opinion. You don't need to point that out. But it is an opinion shared by many people and is based on good arguments. We need more variety in dungeons and zones and we need new content more frequently. And there is no excuse for the content drought either.

I did adress what you said about pressure and workload several times and I did not move away from my original question. I have said that they've given us less content over the years and have gone longer and longer without no new content between the last patch of an expansion and the new expansion. You questioned that, saying that zones were always the same amount and they just could not give us more dungeons because of featueres like pet battles and brawlers guild and because the quality is so good now, they had to cut content. Look at this thread.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...9#post28837799

I'm not the only one who is bothered by this. Many people wish for more dungeons and zones to quest in so there is more variety and more fun while leveling.

If we're simply counting zones on the map then Pandaria had 7 zones and Northrend had 10 zones. Wintergrasp was a zone with daily quests, just like the Vale. If you simply count the zones with any disregard for how big they were, how much content they offered and what kind of content that was, then Northrend still is a good chunk bigger. If you just go by the map, just open it and you'll see that Northrend is way bigger than Pandaria.

I did not take anything out of nowhere when I was talking about quests. They did have faction exclusive quests in TBC and WotLK to a big extent. Just to give one example, Borean Tundra on the side of the Alliance had Valiance Keep, Farshire, the Gnome outpost and a quest hub with Thassarian. The Horde had Warsong Hold, Garrosh's landing, the Taunka outpost and another Horde outpost in the northwest. On top of that there were neutral quest hubs like Coldarra, the Kirin Tor tower and the Murloc village.

http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=33

The Horde side alone had 150 quests at least, to get the achievement. The Alliance had 130 quests. If you take into account that a lot of these quests were unique to one faction, there are much more than 150 quests in there overall. This is just one example. Northrend and Outland had a lot of zones with faction specific content. As a comparison, Twilight Highlands had 95 quests required for the achievement as Horde and 120 for Alliance.

http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=5501

Vashj'ir had about 130.

http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=4869

And those two were about the biggest zones in the expansion, with the other being a bit smaller.

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Also something to add to the thing about Valley of the Four Winds, here is what the map was supposed to look like



It was clearly just one zone, about as big as the other main zones (not the Vale). Then they just made two parts out of it and gave them different names so they would appear as two different zones. It also looks like Townlong Steppes was supposed to be bigger, but then they cut it in half and made Dread Wastes out of one part. Though I find Dread Wastes to be ok and Townlong to be a bit small, but cutting those in half was probably the right decision. Zone would've been huge.