What Went Wrong? My guess is: Convenience and Lack of Potential - Read On

[PuffyPussy22]

That argument is usually said with rose-tinted glasses since the hardest parts of the game are right now much harder than they were in the first two iterations of the game

No, actually, its said by people who know what they like out of a game. Lets do a comparison piece, you do know what a comparison is right? Okay, lets compare mechanics in games across design and try to find out if we can see any design in any new game that rewards difficulty/reward and see if its possible, just maybe, for people to just actually like hard things with high reward. Okay, Dark Souls exists, prove that no one likes its design because it focuses on a design that is, by your standards, old and outdated. No one could possibly like this game, or its super outdated gaming style, that focuses on the nostalgic yeah? All those sales are just figments of the devs imagination is it? Interesting!

[Coconut]

The problem with what you call "potential" is that it's perceived differently as the game ages. In Vanilla, and even in TBC, when a lot of new players were coming, and the expansions lasted long, people could perceive that potential.

But after a few expansions, everyone realizes that there's always a gear cycle. When you look towards the future, you see there will be some new content, whether it's a patch or an expansion, and gear levels will increase or reset. Raids aren't long term ultimate goals anymore because people are aware of the cycle by now (at the end of Vanilla everyone was surprised greens were better than Naxx gear). And you can't draw them out too much either, because people consume them and move on.

There is also more competition between genres now, and entertainment in general. Back in the old days, that you could play a Night Elf from Warcraft III, or a Blood Elf or another race, was cool in itself. There was a time when the simple fact that the world existed drew people in, and they naturally accepted a longer progression path, or unattainable goals, because all they wanted was to be a part of the world.

Now, that experience has grown old, and at the same time people invested time and money and feelings into the game and have higher expectations. They want more content, specifically cooler content, and they want to be a part of it. There are many faults in the changes they make, but not all of them are bad. Some of them are necessary. And the old system that worked when the game was young would no longer work now.

[PuffyPussy22]

No. I didn't say that. I said that most that complain didn't like it, i.e. I said the opposite. It's simple really. The majority of players around those iterations of the game were very young. That is coupled with the fact they still play now to comment. So if they still play now and they comment, in most likelihood, in majority were younger than 20 years old, they were teenagers. i.e. the rose-tinted glasses effect was in full effect.

So wait, if you were saying the opposite you are saying that people who disliked BC actually disliked it for nostalgia? How can you then go on to say that no one liked grouping for 5 mans? I am sorry, but you aren't making any rational sense at this point my man. If you were saying the opposite then you could only be arguing in OPs court, yet you are arguing against him. Do you know what you are arguing? Heck, immediately after you say you were arguing the opposite, you argue for nostalgia as a mark against this game, completely invalidated what you literally just said within the same sentence. A little odd behavior I must say.

Also don't insult our intelligence. The phrase rose-tinted glasses was obviously used in the context of nostalgia. So the dictionary lesson was completely off topic and a way for you to show-off you know a greek word.

Yes, that is why I gave you the definition of nostalgia. You really have no idea what is going on do you?

[Deleted]

That's so wrong. It's actually exactly the point here. If you find a university that only required or even additionally required time-invested to give PhDs, they are not a good one.

The whole point of what they do is requiring quality in the work requested. If the work requested would be generated in 10 minutes it should be fine.

In fact, it would be better if they had an Einstein that gave them the work requested after he generated it in only 10 seconds.

I can actually easily elaborate on this topic seeing as im half way through my astro physics education (yes im going for a PHD).

What people say about physics is vastly different from each other. Some people find the concept challenging while others have no issue with the concepts itself but rather the language that physics speak (which is mathematics, specifically calculus and linear algebra).

Mathematics at its core also trigger different feelings of "hard" on people. I, for one, see them as having the same ethics as "reputation" did during old school wow. I do the same calculations over and over again until eventually I have done them enough time to always remember how to do em. Same way we used to deal with "rotations" back in the day too.

I will not agree with you ever that "hard" is only mechanically challenging. There is challenge in doing repetitive things again and again. Same with being a bodybuilder. It is not hard to lift weights. The challenge lies in maintaining everything you do and getting your arse down to the gym exactly when you planned.

[Chain Chungus]

WoW's issue is that it gradually became more and more on rails. Now it's all streamlined hand-holding from start to finish.

[Deleted]

The OP did. He talks about how 'fun' it was to 'fight your way to a 5man'. No, just no.

Ur exactly the kind of person i am talking about in my post... #17

That guy who wants to play wow solo.

[Deleted]

I will not agree with you ever that "hard" is only mechanically challenging. There is challenge in doing repetitive things again and again. Same with being a bodybuilder. It is not hard to lift weights. The challenge lies in maintaining everything you do and getting your arse down to the gym exactly when you planned.

The work requested for a PhD would include repetition likely. However, it is open to the skill of the player, the student, to do it faster than others. MMOing is a bad example in that since they restrict us in months to no end to not lose their subscription.

In general, restricting people to do tedious stuff that are easy to do, offer nothing but repetition, is exactly the opposite of good science.

Good science doesn't do repetition for the sake of it. It gets a result. Or at least a result other than protecting monthly fees.

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WoW's issue is that it gradually became more and more on rails. Now it's all streamlined hand-holding from start to finish.

Did you kill Archimonde mythic?

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Ur exactly the kind of person i am talking about in my post... #17

That guy who wants to play wow solo.

Maybe I do. I don't like relying on strangers. I find it repulsive punching a card weekly or daily for a raiding guild for example.

[Deleted]

Maybe I do. I don't like relying on strangers. I find it repulsive punching a card weekly or daily for a raiding guild for example, that's something for a real job to annoy you.

This is the kind of person Blizzard are designing the game for these days... enough said.

RIP Wow

[Echo of Soul]

I predict this thread will go on for 30 pages, most of it flaming.

I agree with you OP, but you won't get the spoiled 90s generation to even understand why getting everything for free is a bad thing.

[Deleted]

I can only speak for myself. I want to have fun. I had fun in PvP, i qeued BGs all day long in the past because i liked the combat system in PvP. I also played Morrowind and had fun some 12-13 years ago, do i play it now? No, i play skyrim amd ESO because those games are better and brought something new.

WoW didnt bring anything new, the problem is not convenience, i even turned off fast travel in Skyrim and i rarely use it in ESO...the problem is lack of content for the amount of money i pay for the game, simple as that. Removing flying or bringing back running 30 minutes to a dungeon is just a waste of time. Even 1+ hour long qeues for BGs are UNEXCUSABLE when millions supposedly play this game. No, no, no.

[Deleted]

I predict this thread will go on for 30 pages, most of it flaming.

When most of it is directed to me, then I say something right that your side can't handle properly. At the end of the day you aren't saying anything original. It's the same topic posted every 4 days, someone says "it got wrong because it got easier" and for the 100th time it doesn't get the obvious, it didn't even get easier so the whole premise is on clay legs.

[Tomana]

Conclusion: To engage more players, Blizzard has removed more and more "walls" that limited certain players from content.

You said it yourself, they don't have a choice. You can't develop raids for 5% of the population and use the subs from 95% of other players to finance it, it essentially amounts to a feudal society with peasants and lords. Furthermore, it cannot be defended from a financial point of view, as those resources could be spent elsewhere and impact a much bigger part of the player base. If you want to keep making raids, you have to get the maximum amount of people in them, so that those costs can be justified. The problem is, obviously, is that right now, we are into what is called a "raid or die" model, where there is not much max-level content outside of raiding (and PVP for those who are into it).

So, what can Blizzard do to change that? Well, they can add alternative non-raid content which players can run to progress their character. However, the lead devs being EQ neckbeards obsessed with raid bosses, this is not likely to happen.

Conclusion: Blizzard focused so much on "bring the player, not the class", that they ultimately destroyed the sense of class choice.

Again, you don't have a choice. You can't say "hey guys, bring 4 shamans to the raid for the BLs or die" and getting with it forever. Having a UNIQUE buff from a class is a very bad thing (tm) because then people will be brought into the raid just because of it. This being said, it would seem that the devs are reversing themselves a bit and are making specs for each class a bit more distinctive (see hunters).

Yes farming reputation was booring as f**k, but at least you had stuff to do, right?

This is actually very interesting. Back in vanilla, no one said anything about farming reps. In WoD, incidentally, where the initial 3 or 4 reps have exactly the same grinding mechanic as in vanilla, it caused a QQ megatsunami. Now, you can draw any conclusion you want, but if I had to bet, I'd say that people do not see those grinds as fun (assuming they did at some point, which can be debated).

Potential: Why it was important and why we need it again
One of the main reason I kept subbing indefinitely during the first 2 expansions was due to potential. TBC came with so many raids at launch it was amazing, and I had the potential to reach it. All I needed to do was continue on the progression ladder.

Good for you. Unfortunately, most people, when they realized they'll need 4 months to get somewhere, will simply quit. TBC subs grew, but it was at the cost of a huge churn of players quitting and new players replacing them. This was not a healthy model. By the time the EQ neckbeards running the show realized it (prolly with the help of some well-placed kicks) in WOTLK, it was too late.

Convenience have ultimately killed both the MMO and the RPG part of WoW.

You have to realize one thing: WoW is not growing up in a vacuum. Players are not stuck in WoW for their whole life. If they are inconvenienced too much, they will go somewhere else where they are less inconvenienced. And in 2015 we have something we didn't have in 2004: a lot of MOBAs and mobile games. Why would people spend weeks grinding stuff, leveling, farming or whatever they're doing when they can jump ship, open a menu and have access to quick, bite-sized content they can do at a lunch break? Which is why MMORPGs either have to align (at least partially) with that approach (WoW), be stuck in a small niche (EvE), or crash mightily (Wildstar).

[laplacedemon]

I agree with you OP, but you won't get the spoiled 90s generation to even understand why getting everything for free is a bad thing.

Don't even get me started about their music!

Back in the old days, we played tictactoe on our stone tablets and we liked it! Sure it was less convenient, but it gave us more time to socialise.

Seriously though, new generation being spoiled and doing everything wrong is almost as old as humanity itself.

[Deleted]

You have to realize one thing: WoW is not growing up in a vacuum. Players are not stuck in WoW for their whole life. If they are inconvenienced too much, they will go somewhere else where they are less inconvenienced. And in 2015 we have something we didn't have in 2004: a lot of MOBAs and mobile games. Why would people spend weeks grinding stuff, leveling, farming or whatever they're doing when they can jump ship, open a menu and have access to quick, bite-sized content they can do at a lunch break? Which is why MMORPGs either have to align (at least partially) with that approach (WoW), be stuck in a small niche (EvE), or crash mightily (Wildstar).

That I can easily answer.

No other game in the world atm, afaik, have captured the MMORPG experience as Blizzard did.

One has to understand that MMORPGs are a niche marked, and Blizzard made WoW with that in mind. That it exploded into the perfect storm it was and reached 7 million players by the end of Vanilla, no body knows just quite how that happened, but that was a once in a life time thing. I agree, you didnt have much gaming options in 2004 in terms of online gaming.

That being said, I do believe that Blizzard should go back to their roots and understand that it is a niche marked.
But Ultimately I understand that me saying this is flawed. This is what I want. And there are people who probably love the current model and who joined recently.

I think Preach says it best what I feel in these two videos:

[KevyB]

90% of what happened is that it got old. Most of the complains are rose-tinted glasses generated. For example, finding a 5man to do a heroic in TBC was not fun, it was abhorrent.

Shows you didn't play during TBC at all, it was easy and satisfying.

Unless, of course, you were a complete moron and didn't bother grabbing the group building addon, which you probably don't even know existed.

[Vintersol]

The thing is: WoD is showing how far convinience can go without dropping subs in a heartbeat. All problems the game currently has, are selfmade by blizzard.

[Akka]

Very good post, OP. I agree completely.

[Deleted]

WoD is showing how far convinience can go without dropping subs

All those easy conclusions are fallacies. This is a huge multifaceted game. You can't blame the game just on one feature or 2, it has several facets.

e.g. sure a lot of us found the Garrisons lame, but was it really that that dropped the subs eventually?

It's most likely the game is just old. The decline was constant since WotLK and we all know it.

[Tomana]

One has to understand that MMORPGs are a niche marked, and Blizzard made WoW with that in mind.

One has to understand that Blizzard does NOT make games to be niche markets. They want to make powerhouses: Diablo, Warcraft, Starcraft. They're not some small newcomer to the market. Now, granted, they perhaps didn't expect the game to hit 10M, but trust me, they weren't expecting it to linger around 1 or 2M, either. Otherwise it wouldn't even make it past the drawing board.

I agree, you didnt have much gaming options in 2004 in terms of online gaming.

Precisely. And now, you have a lot of those options, and they can offer more "fun per hour" and most important, more flexibility.
For example, I no longer can afford raiding for 4 hours in one sitting (because work and stuff, you know). I don't play MOBAs because the concentration of retards there is bordering on indecency, but for some people, it's not a problem.

That being said, I do believe that Blizzard should go back to their roots and understand that it is a niche marked.

If WoW becomes a niche market, you'll have about 5 times less content than today. A subscription-based, theme park MMO cannot be niche, because you have to endlessly churn out new content to keep people subbed. And you need a lot of resources for that.

I think Preach says it best what I feel in these two videos

Please stop linking videos from some Internet guru and use your own brain. It's a great feeling

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All problems the game currently has, are selfmade by blizzard.

Yes, but they have nothing to do with convenience. They have to do with the fact that you're essentially forced into raids? And why are you forced into raids? Because the EQ neckbeards running the show want to make MOAR raids to stroke their egos. And because their expenditures are being watched, they have to draw the maximum amount of players into raids through LFR, in order to justify the said expenditures.

What killed WoD so fast was the "raid or die" model where there is NO current content to do for you outside of LFR and garrison.

[Deleted]

EQ neckbeards running the show want to make MOAR raids to stroke their egos. And because their expenditures are being watched, they have to draw the maximum amount of players into raids through LFR, in order to justify the said expenditures.

That's a conspiracy theory. It's also obviously wrong. Higher management is obviously allowing it because they believe it brings more subs, not just conveniencing their raid devs' salaries.