Is Warlords of Draenor actually a success?

[Gilian]

Maybe to the stupid people. And everyone here is so clever. What stops you from A) reading first all the datamined inf or B) wait a month for the purchase and see what the word on forums is or C) cut your losses after you have bought the box and get the fuck out of a game you dislike?

But ofc it is Blizzard holding a gun to your head, making you pre-order and pay a sub.

Look guys..I get it if you are all excited for a new company with a new product, but you have been complaining about slow content patches and shitty content for at least..oh wait..since I joined this forum in 2008. One thinks you should have learned by now....

I did all of that and nearly everyone here was saying how awesome garrisons were and that this was the best expansion ever. I have no clue wtf that was about. After 10 minutes of playing in my garrison I already disliked it and saw it wasn't much more than a smartphone game like farmville.

Don't know if you haven't noticed but a lot of people did exactly that and stopped paying their subscription... just like me.

Are you pretending nothing changed? That these complaints about a lack of content are ungrounded?
And ofcourse there are always people who complain but it's not like the people who complained in 2008 are the same people who are complaining now so no we haven't learned shit.

[Noctifer616]

Even though they make more money per subscriber now, their total revenue is going down. This is actually bad and not good.

[Dangg]

OP, you are kidding or what? WoD is not a success, it's a disaster. Look at (a) content, (b) subs, (c) forums. Financials aren't that great either, remove box sales and they are declining.

There was rarely a point in the history of the game where forum feedback wasn't overwhelming negative.

[Tx20]

According to warcraftrealms the player activity at the end of Q2 when 6.2 came out is about the same or very slightly higher than at the end of Q1.
The slightly increased activity can imho be explained with regular subs having something new to do, so I think sub numbers at the end of Q2 will stay around the same or even go down a bit.

But looking at the front page: holy molly, according to the poll nearly 50% of the players use the token for their subscription now. Since somebody else paid for them more than a regular subscription fee I guess someone at Blizz HQ is popping the champagne bottles at the moment despite dwindling sub numbers (Prolly not much at the end of Q2 because of patch 6.2, but Q3 will see a huge drop if Blizzard doesn't come up with a plan until then).

[Raelbo]

They released an expansion that, in the end, has half as much content as any other expansion, and yet they have the audacity to charge more for the expansion.

I find it ironic that someone calling themselves "The Truth" should open their argument with a blatant lie. WoD, at release, had just as much content as MoP. By the end they will land up 1 raid tier short (1/3 less), and even though I am among those who are unhappy about this, you cannot argue whether this represents less content until you know how long it will be until the next expansion is released. To be honest, I expect that cutting a raid tier from the expansion will mean less content per $$ than previous expansions, but calling it "half" would be grossly inaccurate.

Additionally, we're seeing more and more things like the cash shop and the new token system, which is solely designed to take away from the game, while increasing profits for Blizzard.

I would agree that the objective of the cash shop is to increase their profits. That's not exactly rocket science. But this notion that it is there to "take away from the game" needs some serious justification. What I see is good synergies. The shop adds to the game. It doesn't detract.

Every token sold is $5 more a month that goes into their pockets. They'll keep handing out gold like candy, because by doing so, they can ensure that more and more people will have the gold on hand to buy a token, therefore making it so one more token is sold.

While I can understand how someone might think this, if you apply some thought to it, it is actually nonsense. The number of tokens sold has nothing to do with how much gold there is in game or how easy it is to get gold.

If gold was harder to make in game, then people would have less gold, which would mean two things:
1) People wouldn't pay as much for tokens, but
2) People selling tokens wouldn't want as much gold for them

If gold is easier to make in game then people would have more gold, which again means two things:
1) People would pay more for tokens, but
2) People selling tokens would want more gold for them

In the end it cancels out. The amount of gold in game doesn't drive token sales. This is why the EU, NA, Taiwanese and Chinese regions all have different token pools and why there is such a huge discrepancy between the token prices.

Ultimately token sales are about a bunch of people trading real life money for some time and effort spent in the game. Whether Blizzard is rewarding 10g for that time and effort or 1000g makes no difference.

Instead, they're now a company focused on profits and how they can do the least amount of work for the biggest payout.

The objective of most businesses is to maximise profits. The more money you make from the work you do, the greater your profit. Doing less work, however, always means less profits. Your phrasing above is wrong.

Blizzard are spending more money and effort on making their game than they ever have in the past for less profit. Now while I can understand the lay person looking at the situation and just seeing their actions as greed, I think that demonstrates a lack of insight. It is pretty obvious that WoW profits are down from where they once were.

1) They have a lot less subscribers
2) Their costs have risen - more dev staff, inflation over the years, senior staff who have been with the company a long time cost more etc etc
3) The subscription rates have remained constant

While in the past it was easy for them to make a load of cash without things like the store, it stands to reason that they have been under increasing pressure to find alternative revenue streams. I am not sure there is any reason to see this as sinister....

[Gilian]

This is not a logical argument, based on a ridiculous premise, namely the "lack of content" myth/meme/flavour of the month notion that is actually bullshit.

WoD's failing has nothing to do with a lack of content. It has nothing to do with laziness, or lack of effort, or committment on the part of Blizzard, and just because an echo chamber full of WoW haters keep repeating these things on some forums does not make it so. WoD's failures are to do with getting the players to engage in the content that is there, not about the non-existence of content.

It's really just a fact that we got less content with every expansion. Less dungeons, less battlegrounds, etc. It's a fact that they rehash content more and more, Timewalking and mythic dungeons are just the latest examples and the biggest one is the insane amount of raid difficulties we have now and the insane gear treadmill that comes with it.
It's also a fact that they have been focusing more on revenue through other means than ever before. You are naive if you think that has no impact whatsoever on the game and your gameplay.

They never had your invented problem before. Players engaged plenty in content. Players really wanted to do those new dungeons they got half way the expansion but they stopped making those because the art etc. cost too much time and effort to make apparently. Switching to shipyard missions is really just cutting costs even if you deny it.

You can spin it however you want but it doesn't change any of this. They can't engage players to do the content because the content isn't fun because they didn't do their best and started cutting costs wherever they could.

[thilicen]

It sold like hot cakes, and their sub level is still around what it was in MoP + with that huge surge at the start of WoD their numbers will look very good. If they however at all care about customer satisfaction then no, not even remotely close to a success.

[Noctifer616]

It sold like hot cakes, and their sub level is still around what it was in MoP + with that huge surge at the start of WoD their numbers will look very good. If they however at all care about customer satisfaction then no, not even remotely close to a success.

How is it good? Revenue compared to WoTLK times is a lot lower:

2010 1230 million
2011 1357 million
2012 986 million
2013 912 million
2014 867 million

Mind you that 2011 and 2012 include CoD Elite revenue.

Their revenue is going down as time passes. Sure, you could say that they make more per subs, but who cares about that? Revenue matters, not sub numbers, and revenue is going down.

[Deleted]

How is it good? Revenue compared to WoTLK times is a lot lower:

2010 1230 million
2011 1357 million
2012 986 million
2013 912 million
2014 867 million

Mind you that 2011 and 2012 include CoD Elite revenue.

Their revenue is going down as time passes. Sure, you could say that they make more per subs, but who cares about that? Revenue matters, not sub numbers, and revenue is going down.

they said in their last quarterly report that revenue is up. stop pulling figures out of your ass

[Noctifer616]

they said in their last quarterly report that revenue is up. stop pulling figures out of your ass

Those figures are from their financial reports.

[rda]

they said in their last quarterly report that revenue is up. stop pulling figures out of your ass

ATVI vs just Blizzard (vs just WoW).

[Pua]

If you replace 'Is' with 'Was' - then yes, in every respect.

"Every respect", eh?

Tell me; in what way is losing three million players in a single quarter considered a success? That's a drop of around £30,000,000 (roughly $45,000,000) a month in revenue, which is hardly what one would call chump change.

To answer the OP's question:

It's been a disaster.

Even when you forget the factual basis that it's flunked to the tune of £30m a month, the more abstract problems are manifest. The community has never been this unhappy with the game, the launch was an embarrassment, the flying debacle has upset almost everyone, guild culture has taken another hiding, and non-raiders have never felt less valued than they do now. Considering that Blizzard also felt forced into writing a dreadful story concept in order to bring back the ghosts of the past, there really isn't much else to say about it. Has any other MMORPG expansion managed to shelf 30% of its population in a single quarter? I can't think of one, and that puts Warlords of Draenor into a legitimate context where it sits as one of the worst expansions any MMORPG has ever launched; if not the worst.

Warlords of Draenor has been a calamity. It still has a year to run, but cannot realistically be described as anything else at this point.

[Noctifer616]

they said in their last quarterly report that revenue is up. stop pulling figures out of your ass

Don't confuse Blizzard, Activision Blizzard and WoW. Blizzard revenue last year was at record highs, but WoW revenue wasn't.

[Deleted]

WoD is a mixed bag.

Levelling to 100 was great, MoP never did anything for me and the main questline plus bonus when entering some areas worked out great. Sure there were major issues in the first week, but they were fixed eventually.

I really enjoyed the raids so far, lots of variety and fun fights.

The Dungeons were fun, but get old fast. Nothing new there.

Challenge modes ... I'd love to do them, immensely enjoyed them in MoP, but somehow seem unable to find people willing to put in the effort of learning them :-( Looks like I'll end up buying a boost...

However the garrison basically ruined everything else in the game, with the shityard as its worst incarnation.

[Deleted]

Why would they bother working any harder than they have to when people will throw money at them regardless of the piece of shit in the box? Path of least resistance.

Interesting.

Do you work? Do you perhaps have a career as well (as in - you've moved from entrylvl to junior to perhaps senior position)?
Did you apply the same method at your workplace? Because I assume that people throw your salary at you even if you don't always "walk the extra mile" - you do OK job, take a path of least resistance?

Most people I've met (and I do meet quite a lot of people, I work as a recruiting manager in global fortune 200) are motivated to do the best they can - and move their careers forward, most companies I've talked to actively foster this type of culture - and the people who "just do their jobs and go home" tend to end up being miserable, low performers and if you can't get them back into the performing culture, they usually leave, because they don't really fit in with the rest.

In my experience, Blizzard doesn't seem to have much revolving doors - people there seem passionate, motivated and they seem to stay - which, in my experience probably means they're pretty happy, motivated and high performers.

[Pua]

I find it ironic that someone calling themselves "The Truth" should open their argument with a blatant lie. WoD, at release, had just as much content as MoP. By the end they will land up 1 raid tier short (1/3 less), and even though I am among those who are unhappy about this, you cannot argue whether this represents less content until you know how long it will be until the next expansion is released. To be honest, I expect that cutting a raid tier from the expansion will mean less content per $$ than previous expansions, but calling it "half" would be grossly inaccurate.

Not so much "grossly inaccurate" as "about right".

I'm going to assume that Warlords of Draenor is done. We're now waiting on 7.0 which, despite being an assumption, isn't one many would argue with at the moment. As a result, we can probably measure up how everything is looking and compare Warlords to what came immediately before it. Pandaria had more questing zones, more raids, more patches, more world content (daily areas), more scenarios, more battlegrounds and more arenas. Draenor had one more dungeon, to be fair, but that doesn't account for everything it lacks. We could argue about garrisons and shipyards, but these are UI features rather than content players can engage with.

Let's not forget that Pandaria was also light when you compare it with Wrath of the Lich King, yet bombs Draenor out of the water both in terms of content and in terms of its pace of delivery. You could talk about the 14 months of nothing 5.4 brought, but let's see how long we have 6.2 for before making too big a deal out of that.

I'm sorry, but arguing that WoD had anywhere near the content MoP had is misguided or naive at best, and delusional or dishonest at worst.

[Deleted]

"Every respect", eh?

Tell me; in what way is losing three million players in a single quarter considered a success? That's a drop of around £30,000,000 (roughly $45,000,000) a month in revenue, which is hardly what one would call chump change.

To answer the OP's question:

It's been a disaster.

Even when you forget the factual basis that it's flunked to the tune of £30m a month, the more abstract problems are manifest. The community has never been this unhappy with the game, the launch was an embarrassment, the flying debacle has upset almost everyone, guild culture has taken another hiding, and non-raiders have never felt less valued than they do now. Considering that Blizzard also felt forced into writing a dreadful story concept in order to bring back the ghosts of the past, there really isn't much else to say about it. Has any other MMORPG expansion managed to shelf 30% of its population in a single quarter? I can't think of one, and that puts Warlords of Draenor into a legitimate context where it sits as one of the worst expansions any MMORPG has ever launched; if not the worst.

Warlords of Draenor has been a calamity. It still has a year to run, but cannot realistically be described as anything else at this point.

This.

Unless you are a hardcore large group loving OCD raider (and who is?) WoD is a complete disaster.

WoD is that bad that if it were a brand new game and blizzard a brand new company, the game would have no players left.

[Asrialol]

From a financial standpoint yes, from a player happiness standpoint...fuck no.

What are you on about. The majority is happy with the game.

[McNeil]

It should be a succes for shareholders and raiders. For the rest, not so much.

[Deleted]

What are you on about. The majority has already stopped playing the game.

FTFY /ten chars