Fan Art - Naxxramas, Dev Interview, Blight Boar, ToS Progression, Tweets, Diablols

[Deleted]

Too much to quote, but i'll adress your points

I did not misunderstand, but making a game and an expansion are very VERY different things. An expansion does NOT require a brand new graphic engine, re-thought gameplay, new models, re-thought UX and UI, redesigned server structure, way more marketing than an expansion, etc. And you need to get ALL those things right, because you're Blizzard/Activision and it's expected of you ( and you want to make money, so you need a good game ). And you're suggesting a separate team working on minor patches too... Not saying your idea is bad, I actually agree with you, a new game after WotLK would have been awesome, but I worked for big 'modern' companies, and the amount of work we think is needed for anything is almost always twice as much if not more than that.
Let's not forget than humans work there, with hierarchy, corporate pressure, differences of opinion and god knows what else ( and tbf, some of my friends worked for Blizz, and it seems like an awesome place to work at, but still... ).

Yes, they are making money with micro-transactions that do not disturb the gameplay in any way, so, fair game I say. And they did make a good game with micro-transactions, it's called Hearthstone and they are printing money ^^. No, seriously, as I said, making a new game, especially one that is supposed to be replayable as shit and on a scale like WoW vanilla was at least, is a HUGE investment in terms of time and money and also a HUGE gamble.

Making money does not mean it's not dying. It just means it's good at making money. And that makes total sense actually, they have less server costs as population lowers, but the players that's left are the most dedicated ones, or the ones just starting out ( buying all the expansions, etc. ), so they spend more money than the average joe. Less costs, more money going in : benefit going up. We're just forgetting that they're also optimizing a lot of stuff behind the scenes ( optimizing server load and bandwidth cost, optimizing payement flows, adding revenue sources ( WoW Token ) etc... ) that makes them a lot of money. Also, you never evaluate any sector by just the amount of money it produces. An example would be oil. Still makes a SHITTON of money, but they're going to die out and soon. Many other sectors and industries are facing or will face similar problems as automation comes along too.

And yes, kids play what's popular, I very much agree, but as I said, MMOs require a very specific time commitment and social mindset. Do you think it's a coincidence that MOBAs, Card games and mobile games are the most popular genres right now? It's really not, we socially move towards a 'swipe right/left' world, with comfort and availability being the prime concerns ( and i'm not talking about Tinder only, but just the convenience business in general, like Uber, Deliveroo, Amazon Echo, Spotify, etc ). It's the same for games: click on a button, get paired up with people, play for a set amount of time, then leave. It's entertainment on demand which does not mix well in a Role Playing Game where most of the fun, by definition AND design is making your fun be it on tabletop RPGs or online in MMOs. So, yeah, as we evolve as a society ( and we are evolving quickly: just ten years ago, facebook was not a thing, neither were smartphones ) and our entertainment ( games, movies, shows, etc ) are evolving with us

[Deleted]

That is still the most infuriating thing Blizzard said in my eyes. "Argus is boring, so we cannot make it something amazing." Argus isn't a real thing. Argus is what you want to be. But you want it to be barren and boring because that is easy to do.

[FelPlague]

That is still the most infuriating thing Blizzard said in my eyes. "Argus is boring, so we cannot make it something amazing." Argus isn't a real thing. Argus is what you want to be. But you want it to be barren and boring because that is easy to do.

except it would be stupid and make no sense that a destroyed decimated planet looked beutiful and lush


imagine if when we got to icecrown there was no snow? it was desert and jungle and forests all over imagine if icecrown, zuldrak, winterspring, dragonshire, and storm peaks were all just sholzar basin 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 etc.... yeah it has to make sense in the lore

[Insofin]

I did not misunderstand, but making a game and an expansion are very VERY different things. An expansion does NOT require a brand new graphic engine, re-thought gameplay, new models, re-thought UX and UI, redesigned server structure, way more marketing than an expansion, etc.

But they end up tweaking the game engine, rethinking the gameplay (specially talents), remodelling their existing models, and redesigning the server structure (cross-realm, connected realms)... In the end, I'm suspecting they're even investing more efforts in "maintaining" the old game than they would have needed for making a brand new game. In fact, it's common in IT that old software reaches a point that keeping it up-to-date is way more laborious than making a new 2.0 version of it.

Just think a little about what they're always saying: that WoW's developing team is bigger than it ever was. Do you really think it's because content pops out faster? No. It actually means their software is outdated, and to actually pop something decent, they have to invest an insane amount of resources in taking them out. Sure the new spell animations are way better than they were in 3.3.5. But at what cost? Adapting the game engine to support DX11 was also a headache I'm sure took them a lot of time and people to solve. Or even making the 64-bit client.

All those things could have been easily solved with a brand new game engine, like the one they're using for Overwatch.

And that makes total sense actually, they have less server costs as population lowers,

Let me doubt that. WoW's population was cut to half (compared to the end of WotLK/beginning of Cataclysm) last time they showed subscriptions, yet the amount of active servers remained the same... At least until they "updated the hardware" prior to Legion. The server costs remained the same, because they only increase when they need to deploy new servers, and only decrease when they take them out, which as far as we all know, they've not done in like 10 years maybe.

And yes, kids play what's popular, I very much agree, but as I said, MMOs require a very specific time commitment and social mindset. Do you think it's a coincidence that MOBAs, Card games and mobile games are the most popular genres right now? It's really not, we socially move towards a 'swipe right/left' world, with comfort and availability being the prime concerns ( and i'm not talking about Tinder only, but just the convenience business in general, like Uber, Deliveroo, Amazon Echo, Spotify, etc ). It's the same for games: click on a button, get paired up with people, play for a set amount of time, then leave. It's entertainment on demand which does not mix well in a Role Playing Game where most of the fun, by definition AND design is making your fun be it on tabletop RPGs or online in MMOs. So, yeah, as we evolve as a society ( and we are evolving quickly: just ten years ago, facebook was not a thing, neither were smartphones ) and our entertainment ( games, movies, shows, etc ) are evolving with us

You're forgetting those games also are time demanding and require teamskills (if that's what you mean with social mindset). Getting into a X division in a MOBA or FPS requires effort and time investment. I'd say even more than getting to mythic raiding today OR raiding in Vanilla. Getting to do it in a "multiplayer queue" requires way more social skills than raiding (either you're a pro at social skills or the team soon falls apart due to toxicity).

If you play games just to pass time or for fun (like being in a bus/train or because you get easily bored doing the same thing for longer than let's say 1 hour), any game is good enough.

PS: Sorry for taking so long to reply, I was busy yesterday.

[Puffycheeks]

This was so goddamn gorgeous.