Blizzard going out on a limb once again

[melodramocracy]

Not at all. The fact that you are so moved to make a thread on this topic proves how far gone this community is that you are willing to IMMEDIATELY associate any of these things immediately as negative.

Its a shame too, because Blizzard really did under-deliver with WOD but you equating them spending time on cosmetics to meaning a lack of "end game" is just proof that this game will never recover no matter what.
Some people just want way more than they deserve and no matter how much they are given they will never be satisfied.

It's not a question of graphical improvements being "bad" for a game, but a question of ROI as far as player engagement goes. Simply put, the amount of time it takes for a player to acclimate to a graphical update vs. the amount of time a given piece of content might stay entertaining.

Of course the argument can get more fine toothed than that, with discussions about what team is responsible for what, etc.

[Deleted]

those animations and artifacts are the only thing i want them to focus on. if they cant bring up spells and animations to a certain level (for me) i might abandone wow for superior games in terms of graphics because the feeling which comes up while playing a class is the most important thing to me, no stupid meters or mythic progression. i dont care if a spell does the highest ingame crit, if it looks bad it feels stupid. and I dont care if a rotation is challenging or not (because, you know, with time none really is) as long as it looks fantastic, feels mighty and lives up to the fantasy of the specc.

[Sentynel]

If we compare garrisons to artifacts, then garrisons at least provided *some* gameplay. Buildings, garrison campaign, followers. Yes, it wasn't overly big and most parts were pretty bland and got very boring very fast, but it was at least something.

Artifacts provide zero gameplay. OK, nearly zero since there are initiation quests.

Artifact weapons are some sort of progression system of your character -as already said in above post-. What gameplay do you want from it? They're literally pre-Cata talent trees. Don't look at it as if they were gameplay elements because they're not. They're part of your character's progression. Want some gameplay? Go out in the world and do 'em bounties across the Broken Isles.

[Destroxo]

If we compare garrisons to artifacts, then garrisons at least provided *some* gameplay. Buildings, garrison campaign, followers. Yes, it wasn't overly big and most parts were pretty bland and got very boring very fast, but it was at least something.

Artifacts provide zero gameplay. OK, nearly zero since there are initiation quests.

Not sure how you think they provide zero gameplay. The whole element of earning artifact power comes from multiple forms of content through the world from soloing to raiding/pvp all the way to cosmetic upgrades/guessing achievements.

Garrisons didn't provide any form of gameplay apart from being a 1 stop shop for resources and the occasional invasion which was implemented terribly.

I agree Garrisons were extremely lackluster but I can guarantee Artifacts seem quite the opposite

[Irian]

If we compare garrisons to artifacts, then garrisons at least provided *some* gameplay. Buildings, garrison campaign, followers. Yes, it wasn't overly big and most parts were pretty bland and got very boring very fast, but it was at least something.

Artifacts provide zero gameplay. OK, nearly zero since there are initiation quests.

But that's not even remotely true. Unlocking skins, gaining artifact points, basically everything in Legion sounds like it's going to be related to Artifacts in some way, shape or form.

It's the difference between creating something integrated into the gameplay itself (you'll already be doing dungeons, raiding, killing monsters, completing quests etc) to the Garrison where it tries to be its own additional game feature. Your artifact weapon isn't an activity on its own, it's something that enhances what we already have.

[rda]

Artifact weapons are some sort of progression system of your character -as already said in above post-. What gameplay do you want from it? They're literally pre-Cata talent trees. Don't look at it as if they were gameplay elements because they're not. They're part of your character's progression. Want some gameplay? Go out in the world and do 'em bounties across the Broken Isles.

I don't necessarily want any gameplay from them, but I want gameplay from something (and I am not seeing much).

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But that's not even remotely true. Unlocking skins, gaining artifact points, basically everything in Legion sounds like it's going to be related to Artifacts in some way, shape or form.

It's the difference between creating something integrated into the gameplay itself (you'll already be doing dungeons, raiding, killing monsters, completing quests etc) to the Garrison where it tries to be its own additional game feature. Your artifact weapon isn't an activity on its own, it's something that enhances what we already have.

What's not remotely true? Where's the gameplay? What are you doing to unlock skins? Right, killing mobs for dailies, etc. It's dailies that provide gameplay, not artifacts, artifacts are just an additional XP bar, you can't "play" them.

My point is that Legion has very little gameplay. The original poster I replied to was comparing artifacts and garrisons and I am saying that garrisons provided at least some gameplay while artifacts provide near nothing (skins are good, thanks for them, but when you piggy back everything onto same instances and same zones... you'll just see how quickly people will become bored, Blizzard may as well start writing angry essays about stupid / whiny / never satisfied players right now, because what they are doing makes sure they will get half of the player base turning into them once again).

[Irian]

What's not remotely true? Where's the gameplay? What are you doing to unlock skins? Right, killing mobs for dailies, etc. It's dailies that provide gameplay, not artifacts, artifacts are just an additional XP bar, you can't "play" them.

My point is that Legion has very little gameplay. The original poster I replied to was comparing artifacts and garrisons and I am saying that garrisons provided at least some gameplay while artifacts provide near nothing (skins are good, thanks for them, but when you piggy back everything onto same instances and same zones... you'll just see how quickly people will become bored, Blizzard may as well start writing angry essays about stupid / whiny / never satisfied players right now, because what they are doing makes sure they will get half of the player base turning into them once again).

"Legion has very little gameplay"?
We are literally in alpha. There's no gameplay to complain doesn't exist yet. Half of the shit that's been announced isn't even in the game, some specs aren't even in the game.
Complain when there's a reason to, or else it loses its meaning. You're bitching about a product that doesn't even exist yet.

But you're right, Artifact weapons aren't trying to create some sort of new gameplay, but what they are likely aiming to do is to make existing gameplay more rewarding. Things like...well, essentially everything that isn't a raid is meaningless in WoD and I think Blizzard realizes that's a serious issue. Garrisons were a system of progression that they tried to sell as an expansion point that actually did not even involve playing your character.
The two things are not even comparable, so the OP trying to is what I was pointing out, and you just reaffirmed my point. Artifact weapons are not trying to make a new method of gameplay and aren't directly interfering with it like Garrisons did, they're simply adding onto the current gameplay with a new reward system that has both cosmetic and power rewards. Which has been how World of Warcraft effectively incentivizes activities for ages, so if you think that's somehow flawed or wrong then you may be playing the wrong game.
It's also the reason Garrisons failed as hard as they did. They had to make them too rewarding to make players interested in them because they frontloaded all of their resources into this feature and had them replace so many other existing and perfectly functional parts of the game. Professions, valor points, and dailies were all in a roundabout way turned into Garrisons.

[Sencha]

All the talented devs slowly left Blizz. What you now have is a crew of beginners and wannabes. The result is something like WoD or D3. And Legion looks exactly like that again.

This exactly. Current devs are uninspired and take 0 risks, but then there's no innovation.

[Maybach]

How can you formulate such definitive opinions about a product while it is still in alpha?

Don't you need to see the finished product before you judge it?

[xanzul]

All I see from the Legion beta streams is new spell graphics and heavy focus on the artifact weapons. Anyone else feel like they are once again wasting so much development and resources into something they are hoping will be a huge hit, just like they did with garrisons. I just don't think they realize that the most of the WoW population could care less about these things. We need more end game content, a reason to explore the World. They build up so much excitement around these things and it's fun for the first two weeks until you hit max level and there is not much to do.

"waah Blizzard doesn't take risks"
"waah blizzard shouldn't take risks"

You people are never going to be happy with anything Blizzard does. Get the fuck out of here.

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I think the major content just takes lots of time and can't be released in small patches. The small things are released to the public alpha servers to show that there is still stuff happening. I expect a bigger content drop patch during march. I also don't expect the end content to be much different from all other expansions. You level, you go dungeons as long as they drop good loot, you go lfr or normal raiding and then depending on what type of player you are you are basically done and can just grind stuff for minor improvements (likecrafting some gear or get a rep-based item) or continue with HC or mythic raids for the really good gear.

Once again the alpha is for Blizzard's benefit not ours. They release new builds to test changes not as a marketing tool but because that is the whole fucking point of alpha testing.

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All the talented devs slowly left Blizz. What you now have is a crew of beginners and wannabes. The result is something like WoD or D3. And Legion looks exactly like that again.

Any proof to back this up? No? Then shut it.

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It doesn't surprise me. First thing I said when I saw the Legion trailer was "this is the cosmetic expansion". It's all just shiny flashy graphics and shit, it all looks good, but there is no depth.

Updating character models in Wod wasn't cosmetic?

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Yeap, there is a bit much about the Artifacts, I'll agree. I'll wait to see if any other department is actually suffering though, so far everything else seems to be coming along fine too. But yeah, I definitely agree that Artifacts will be like, fun for 1 week, or fun for a day or two whenever you unlock a new skin. But that's it. There's nothing about artifacts that will keep people playing past the first month, it's just a hook, and they're spending quite a hefty bunch of resources on this hook.

Pretty sure artifacts aren't the sole content in Legion.

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first: you are right.
second: we need both.

but blizzard no more wants to invest whats needed to have both. so they try to blend with graphics things because blizzards greatest strength is their art and sound team. and its the one that is most cost efficient and most shiftable.

the simple fact is: content costs money. point. and since wow became one of the biggest cashcow games, they take the "put in least possible effort to get most money out of it" way.

and this way dont work with subscriptions. it works with cost efficiency, big marketing and shiny things, to sell most possible xpacs at release for a price as high as possible. then collect the money from the subs of the following 2-3 months and be happy that your investment was way lower than that. its burst money making. the opposite of long term investments. what happens after that 2-3 months ? hold ppl as cost efficient as possible, but they dont really care. they reached their goals 3 months after release.

the times of long term descissions and investments are over (since a good while). its all about quarter numbers these days. if ppl think blizz dont know everything about "how to make most money" and not fit absolutely everything in creating a wow xpac to that concepts and shareholder descissions, to reach this goal, is just stupid and dont realize what multibillion dollar companies really do and how they act.

or in short: its all about money. and doing more mechanics (just database and math) things and more graphics (see above) things than content stuff, is just more cost efficient. thats all.

brave new world.

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you should play alpha. then you understand.

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i disagree. strongly. with nearly all your points. why? because i am workin in that biz. and i know exactly why the devs cant do, what they COULD do.

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the devs at blizz know exactly what they could do. and what the game needs. and they would say the same as the op. but in irvine its not the devs that decide which way to go... (see above)

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you are totally right imo. but i have to add: thats not blizzards fault. the whole gaming industry switched to that easy crap and high rewards playstyle since years. exactly at the moment when gaming became a mass thing instead of a nerd/niche thing.

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there are good oppinions in this thread, with much truth in it. its good to see that not every thread is just a haters vs white knight stupid battle with idiotic arguments used as weapons

I love the ignorant notion that if a product is a "cash cow" that the proper business strategy would be to completely and purposely undermine its profitability by alienating the people who made the product a "cash cow" in the first place. If something is profitable a company absolutely is going to put as much effort into it as possible.

[carlos5577]

Fuck this game after WoD, they seriously burned a bridge there. As for Legion; it looks like they are concentrating more on single player content just like they did with WoD. I'm guessing the first 1st month and half will be cool but then the lack of endgame will kick in and start to suck just like WoD

[xanzul]

My opinion is that Blizzard doesn't give a damn about weither it's a hit or not right now - as I believe since WoD they've shifted WoW into what is basically a "public-paid game systems testing realm" where they're going to keep radically re-vamping the game systems (Classes, professions, garrisons, now weapons) with each expansion and see which systems work, and which doesn't - and add or refine those said systems into future games.

Are you actually claiming Blizzard didn't do this in the past with prior expansions? My god do you people have any integrity at all? Or is your hate so all consuming that you will lie through your teeth for the sake of slamming Blizzard?

[rda]

"Legion has very little gameplay"?
We are literally in alpha. There's no gameplay to complain doesn't exist yet. Half of the shit that's been announced isn't even in the game, some specs aren't even in the game.
Complain when there's a reason to, or else it loses its meaning. You're bitching about a product that doesn't even exist yet.

Legion has very little gameplay *with all the announcements*. You look into the announcements and you see the majority of them are crap like artifacts, which add no gameplay.

Yes, half of *that* shit isn't even in the game yet, and some of the specs aren't even in the game, absolutely, you are right. Although that's not my point, my point is that all that shit taken together is small and uninteresting and will be small and uninteresting when they finally finish, even if they don't cut a thing. I mean, I am not exactly thrilled with changes to PVP, although I might be willing to try, but they are not gameplay, and 90% of what they announced are things that are not gameplay. Where are things I could do, eh? A few zones, some instances, a raid. Old, old, old, small (not a lot of zones, not a lot of instances), it will get very boring very quick. (No, let's not start with "what it is you want then", there are tens of threads on that, go and read them if you want to know, go and check what previous expansions added - brawler's guild, pet battles, achievements, for god's sake.)

And if you think they are going to add tons of significant new things that we currently don't know about, wake up. Yes, the product is far from finished. We still know pretty much everything it will contain.

[lolcats121]

to be honest all i want from a wow expansion is basic yet good solid content. stuff like quests, dungeons, raids, zones. none of this garrison bullshit, none of this artifact or class hall nonsense.

EDIT: yes i do realize that the artifacts do have a quest line involved.

[xanzul]

If we compare garrisons to artifacts, then garrisons at least provided *some* gameplay. Buildings, garrison campaign, followers. Yes, it wasn't overly big and most parts were pretty bland and got very boring very fast, but it was at least something.

Artifacts provide zero gameplay. OK, nearly zero since there are initiation quests.

Disliking content doesn't make it magically not content. Yeah yeah yeah I know, you completely lack the intellect to actually respond to anyone who disagrees with you so don't even bother trying to claim what I posted has nothing to do with what you said.

[rda]

Disliking content doesn't make it magically not content. Yeah yeah yeah I know, you completely lack the intellect to actually respond to anyone who disagrees with you so don't even bother trying to claim what I posted has nothing to do with what you said.

I agree disliking content doesn't make it magically not content. I said that artifacts provide zero gameplay and they do.

Yes, what you posted has nothing to do with what I said.

[Deleted]

Disliking content doesn't make it magically not content. Yeah yeah yeah I know, you completely lack the intellect to actually respond to anyone who disagrees with you so don't even bother trying to claim what I posted has nothing to do with what you said.

He literally just said that they don't add any gameplay. And he's right. Outside of the initial quests to get them, and possibly the quests to upgrade them, they don't provide any worthwhile gameplay.

There's nothing you can say that magically makes Artefacts into content. They are shiny toys to play with, but if I had to choose between shiny toys and stuff to do (and I'm not saying I do) then I'd choose stuff to do every time.

Hopefully, though, we won't have to choose. Because in a perfect scenario, we'll have plenty of stuff to do, and we can do it all whilst holding those shiny toys.

[VikingMana]

It's so early on that we don't actually know anything about what the endgame content is going to be like yet. It could be brilliant, it could be the worst ever, but either way it's much too early to judge whether or not they've focused too much on gimmicks and too little on gameplay. It would be hard for them to make anything that's as bad as WoD, and "Slightly better than WoD" isn't good enough either. But we have no idea as of yet, and all they've talked about on the subject actually sounds fairly promising. The idea of having every zone be level 110 at the endgame, instead of having partitioned areas or a single "Endgame zone" is interesting and could mean they're going for more diversity over streamlined boredom and grinding this time around.

Right now, it's super-important that they get their gimmicks right, and that people understand what these new mechanics are and how they work. When we're 3-2 months out, it would make sense for them to show off the big guns and what the end game is going to be like, but as it stands, much of the content you're after isn't even finished yet, so how would they show it off?

If they still haven't mentioned or shown off anything about the endgame in late-spring, around the end of April, then you're perhaps right to be worried, but right now it's a bit unfair to criticize them without anything to point to. I think it's pretty clear that they're definitely trying to all-in with this expansion.

Until all the changes to specs and classes are in place, the endgame is somewhat irrelevant though, because the core game isn't in place yet.

[Deleted]

I agree disliking content doesn't make it magically not content. I said that artifacts provide zero gameplay and they do.

Yes, what you posted has nothing to do with what I said.

Blablabla.. the same amount of moaning and whining you been doing for the past 18 months.
Can't you just give it a rest at some point and move on with your life?
Not sure what kind of life that is seeing you spend most of your time on this forum whining about a game like it was your ex girlfriend.

And No I don't spend my time here, I spend my time in Off-topic mostly and sometimes I see a topic that sounds interesting but then I see your name all over it and then its time to leave again.

[rda]

It's so early on that we don't actually know anything about what the endgame content is going to be like yet. It could be brilliant, it could be the worst ever, but either way it's much too early to judge whether or not they've focused too much on gimmicks and too little on gameplay.

We can see what they are planning to do, that doesn't look like much gameplay.

It is hard to imagine them adding anything significant. It's been more than half a year after Gamescom and they didn't mention a single new thing. They didn't have any big successes executing on what little (in terms of gameplay) they announced back then. They talked like it was 50% done back then, well, now it looks maybe 70% done, that's not a lot of progress. So it looks like they will spend the rest of the time just trying not to cut anything, they aren't going to add anything big, they have their hands full as it is.

I don't know what you are expecting to happen between now (really, between Gamescom) and the release date. All zones at max level sound interesting, but that's good just as a start of the conversation, in order for this to truly contribute significantly to the endgame, there has to be something interesting there, preferably something new, and it's not happening.