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

[Icaras]

Not everyone cares about server reputations or communities, most servers are fairly big and even the "big fish" guilds usually don't matter as much as they like to think they do.

And having to sit somewhere with trade access and spam for a group is fun....how? Maybe you sit your ass in a city/garrison feeling bored in a queue. Me? I go out and do things.

I've actually played games with no group finder tool (Aion for example) and trying to get into a group for old content is ab-so lutely horrible. Any change that neabs a return to that I am very much AGAINST.

[Toxigen]

All the reading material you need:

https://flavortextlore.wordpress.com...ecline-of-wow/

http://www.wolfsheadonline.com/the-d...d-of-warcraft/

Seriously, this is a tired horse. Its been beaten relentlessly over the past four years. Blizzard's primary goal is to maintain subscriptions, which means catering to the masses. What we get is watered-down, easy content that has no substance whatsoever. We game in an age of instant-gratification and zero willingness to invest any amount of time to learn the proper way to play. Sure, there's bleeding edge mythic raiding...which is still incredibly challenging. If you aren't a top 250 world guild, however, you're just clearing stuff after so many resets worth of gear and content nerfs that its really nothing special.

Much of what is found in the two articles above is why I went back to playing a MMO that came out in 1999. Asheron's Call has more depth than WoW could ever dream of. That's what a lot of us "old school" gamers want...something to keep us intellectually engaged.

[Deleted]

LFR

The goose with the golden eggs right now is the legendary progression. And that goes through LFR. It fixes people into monthly fees in order to get it.

[Frostweaver]

The most i miss is the Community feeling as you described in Server Wide Community... when douchebags would pay a price for being one.. you knew who were good players, who were the casuals, you had your tanks/healer/dps for heroics on friend list.. etc..

Missing that feeling ...

[Moxal]

I have to laugh every time an overly nostalgic poster cites convenience as a/the reason for the major sub losses of WoD.

[Vintersol]

All those easy conclusions are fallacies.

And i think your conclusion that all conclusions are fallacies is a fallacy.

[Deleted]

And i think your conclusion that all conclusions are fallacies is a fallacy.

Yeah I had an argument though with reasons that supported it, not just "no, you!".

[caervek]

Furthermore, TBC had a HUGE progression line you had to work through to get anywhere near the tier 5 and 6 raiding. Attunements to everything and gear checks.

This isn't really true, the was attunement but it wasn't permanent, IIRC SSC/TK had their attunement removed whe they were still current content and MH/BT had their attunement removed before SWP came out?

In addition you could catch up on gear by running five mans to get badges for gear or simply by doing PVP (season three gladiator let you walk into BT and trade numbers with people in full T5 gear). By the time SWP was out you could get to L70 and be ready for MH/BT the same week.

[Illustrathor]

I'm on your side here... and would add: I'd break the problem to WoW down on one word: Casuals.

Don't get me wrong, I have become kinda a casual myself over the last couple of years due to not enough time to play as much as i used to. but the problem is, Blizz wants to please the casuals... easier classes, easier rotations, easier gear, easier access, easier success etc. These Casuals may be spiking the subs, but as we can see, won't stay.

It is raight, many things have improved over the years but it has become unpersonal. The social aspect is dead, individualisation is stuck to transmogg and the success is displayd to thre digits in your inventory. We had little tweaks to talent trees that made a huge difference in how we played, we've seen Thunderfury and we dropped on our knees and praised the lord, worked together to open gates to an old enemy and we hat little annoying stuff like poison viles in our bags that were missed shortly after they have been dismissed.

Yeah, it was hard in Vanilla or BC to see the end content and that was not the best solution but with Wrath, it was perfect... untill they "evolved" it further so it became a guided tour with selfie cams along the sights.

It doesn't matter anymore what you do, how you play or anything of that sort, we've become annonnymous faceroller. Back in that day your reputation was it what got you invites or honor among the players, the weapon at your side showed how good you are and if you are a ninja looter, you pretty much had to delete your character because everybody would know.

Sure, it is fun to play and everything feels leveled but it has cost to much to get to this point... for example the roughness. There is nothin really difficult anymore, nothing worthy to optain or to achive... in times were everbody gets legendaries, it doesn't feel epic anymore...

[Vintersol]

By the time SWP was out you could get to L70 and be ready for MH/BT the same week.

That was only the case if you were in a raidgroup that supported you. That wasn't possible via pugs.

[kamuimac]

you dont have to guess what went wrong - blizzard cattering to 1 % and gutting out content from eveyrone else was what went wrong - wtf were they expecting taking away content from 90 % of playerbase ? them to jump with happiness while only ones who have content atm are 1 % (aka mythic raiders) ? were they really epxecting people to play this shit ? all of devs responsible for this abomination should be fired months ago.

[Tomana]

Higher management is obviously allowing it because they believe it brings more subs, not just conveniencing their raid devs' salaries.

That's what one would be inclined to think, yes, except that "higher management" allowed Sunwell to happen. I'm certain the devs are being watched a lot more closely now, I agree. However, the fact is, almost all of the resources are poured into either raids or leveling. There is no max-level content worth mentioning except some daily chores (and in pre-6.2 WoD, even not that).

Now, whether raids actually bring subs is an interesting and more open question.

[Khovan]

I've seen quite a few of these posts lately, and I tend to agree with most of it. I think the players who like WoW the way it is today are of a different generation and mind set. The rest of us who like the team work and social aspects are the dusty moths in the room. I wouldn't say insta-grats or anything; just different.

I'd just like to see another Dark Age of Camelot type game (DAoC2 PLS!!!). It didn't bother me to grind my way through a character level just so I can go down to the next level of Darkness Falls (or being chased out/killed by another faction). Spending time in a group killing spawns Catacombs or hell even Mithra's Tomb just to progress and collect the shitty little dungeon sets was a lot of fun and interacting with other players. Class quests, crafting, etc...all were great. Getting a mob trained sucked sometimes, but it certainly kept you on your toes

Fighting your way TO the dungeon was half the fun. Getting to Maraudon or even down into Wailing Caverns was great. Not everything has to be over in 5 minutes; take some time and enjoy the scenery and story.

If I only had the money to invest!

[Kevyne-Shandris]

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.

It, like ghost walking were designed as time sinks (it had nothing to do but to wait the game clock).

Blizzard still keeps it when even EQ/EQII took that out years ago, as they said it was a time sink no longer needed (so no, it's not an opinion).

The Glider lawsuit clearly showed why Blizzard keeps these time sinks still in the game, as that's how they plan how to get x-amount out of every player. They want to squeeze $120 per character. So they're expecting over $1,320 per character to level itself.

Pure greed (because it's sure not producing the content anyone really likes anymore).

[Tomana]

If I only had the money to invest!

You wouldn't even get it back, trust me.

[melodramocracy]

The game isn't easier. It's easier to do the tedious stuff. The high end stuff it's still as hard or just harder.

5% of the content does not = the entire game. This game, as a whole, is far easier than it's ever been (and it's always been incredibly forgiving)

[Deleted]

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.

That's just not true. I played on Nostalrius, a lvl 60 private serer, and enjoyed every minute of my leveling (I only PVP on live and haven't played for months). It was tedious and glorious : it felt like a fucking RPG...

[Tomana]

The goose with the golden eggs right now is the legendary progression. And that goes through LFR. It fixes people into monthly fees in order to get it.

I agree. And apparently, that doesn't work that well anymore, judging by the sub loss.

[Deleted]

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.


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.


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.


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

Any particular reason why you are so mean? Sitting safe behind your computer, must feel great!

Those videos have legit points. And by legit I mean that it reflects how some people feel about the game. If you disagree, that is not equivalent to me not using my brain. Linking videos are a great feature because most people on the internet have it easier watching videos than reading huge chunk of text.

As for Blizzard goals, I disagree. Gaming itself was a niche market when Blizzard began its journey. Some would argue that WoW was a part of what broke the stigma and made it socially acceptable, because suddenly everyone and their mothers dog knew someone who played it, if they didnt play it themselves.

As for content, this is a recent way of thinking. The idea of "content needing to be shipped every 3 months or else" is something that came relatively recently. You have to understand that by making WoW as consumer friendly as they have done, the longevity of content has been severely reduced.

Vanilla wow, things were so slow that the first few patches that came in was even new additions to the lvling experience, such as the Maraudon patch.
Funny enough, Vanilla WoW afaik is the addition of wow which has gotten most content patches and it was also the addition which needed it the least. People saw content patches during WoW as icing on the cake. More stuff to do, great but Im still not doing this one thing!

I do believe it is also healthier for the pace of the game and for the speed of production to slow everything down.

[Deleted]

everything in moderation

too much of something and things go wrong

too much accessibility, too much convenience have robbed this game of replay value and engagement

I could get into detail, but too lazy now