"Zell has left the building." - discussion

[Deleted]

Hello all!

This paragraph is an edit to the post: This thread is not about Zell himself. I don't know him either, first time I hear about him. This thread is about the point he makes about the direction WoW is going and your opinions on it since I felt it's a good post. yes, it's his opinion(which is why the topic is named like that), and I want to hears yours as well

I was looking through the blue posts and saw one pointing to this post on the official forums. It is a complaint about the current direction of the game. It reached the response cap on the official forums but I saw people wanted to talk about it since they made a continuation thread... which got locked because "feedback in such threads are often of less value to us" as the blue poster Nakatoir says in this post:
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3010462048
Said blue did say the OP's opinion was important, but aren't those who discuss his opinion important as well?

I think that such a well-made complaint needs to be talked about a bit more, and I also think the posters here, you, the ones reading this, are mature enough to do so in a constructive manner. I suggest however that you do read all before commenting.

So, without further add, this is the link to the original thread:
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...0461094?page=1

You need to read the first three replies, or, you can read it here from as I copy/pasted it.


"So, that’s it then. It had to happen eventually and, after the best part of four years, it’s time for me to knock it on the head, unsubscribe from World of Warcraft and take my money elsewhere. It’s been a heck of a ride and, despite the way I know this post will be viewed by the community, I’m going to comment on why I’ve fallen out of love with a game that used to utterly captivate me.

Don’t forget that I’ve written many long, thought-out posts that were designed to contribute; mindless QQ frankly isn’t my style, and those arguing otherwise need only check my post history. That said, nobody is forcing you to read this; if you’ve had enough of these posts, the invitation is offered for you to move along now.

Brass tacks, then – the game is currently nowhere near as good as it was in the past, and there’s no way I can get onboard with the new “direction” it’s planning to take. Some of you will remember my recent post about learning to play or going away (locked for absolutely no reason) and, therefore, will be familiar with some of my thoughts on where WoW has gone wrong.

When push comes to shove, the “World” of Warcraft is dead. The world has been emptied in favour of quick access to a succession of mini games, with all effort, commitment and difficulty erstwhile required having been shoehorned out. The world will continue to shrink so long as insidious queues exist and players have no legitimate reason to travel, while Blizzard have amply proven that enough forum crying will make them change their decisions.

Most of all, however, the current development team are mired in the production of mediocrity, and the unfortunate rut of trying to manage failure. Here are some “highlights” from Cataclysm:

- A “mind blowing” experience is promised for the pre-expansion event, hugely watered down due to complaints about auction house access.
- A broken world is promised, with the delivery being little more than a few upturned zones and most of the world left largely untouched.
- Blue post confirmation that raids will be the only way to get epics, proven scarily wrong by easy to access crafters, vendors and auction houses.
- A levelling experience and length similar to previous expansions is promised, but most players take no more than two days to hit the new cap.
- The most dangerous of villains to this point, Deathwing, is relegated to bit-part zone burning and plays next to no active part in any of the content.
- The “War” in Warcraft will be returned… Except no world PvP is brought back, only faction-specific mobs that are part of the 1-60 questing.
- A “new and improved” 1-60 questing experience is promised, but it’s a streamlined shortcut in which new players learn absolutely nothing.
- A significant portion of the playerbase reports there not being enough zones in the endgame (five); this five zone model is announced for MoP.
- Ghostcrawler releases a blog entitled “Wow, dungeons are hard!” extolling the virtues of trying to improve – then nerfs dungeons into the ground.
- The “PvP arms race” is vowed to be gotten rid of, but actually made worse. PvP balance is now so bad, MLG has removed WoW from the circuit.
- Mike Morhaime states that players are clearing content faster than ever before, then oversees the trivialisation of a large amount of current content.
- Blizzard force players into a currency grind that pits players of vastly differing desires and abilities into the same queue. Mayhem ensues.
- Blizzard try to address a tank shortage by offering extra rewards. The result is a flood of bad tanks that exasperate the original problem.
- A new talent system is introduced to remove cookie-cutter specs. This abjectly fails, to the extent the entire system will be redone in MoP.
- The Vengeance mechanic, heralded to solve a problem yet unseen, is made completely redundant thanks to a baseline tank threat buff.
- A promise that crowd control will be brought back, only for the realisation to land that you can’t force CC on a random group that has none.

You get the point.

The sad fact is that the current development team have failed to solve a single problem they’ve set their hand to, actually making problems worse in many cases. At BlizzCon, they spent their time during Q&A sessions talking down to nervous (yet committed) players, arrogantly telling them that what they find fun actually isn’t and that they know best.

Since BlizzCon, they’ve spent time answering questions that are either meaningless, or have already been answered elsewhere.

At the end of the day, they’re not up to the job and the game is in decline because of it. In any business where numbers were tumbling as they are now for WoW, questions would be asked of those making these decisions and, if required, people would be moved on. Time will tell.

Of course, it’s not all their fault. One thing, more than any other, has contributed to the lack of quality in recent times and we probably all know what that is.

The dungeon finder.

In one fell swoop, server communities took an absolute hammering, the world shrank to the size of the most convenient capital city, and personal responsibility went the way of the dodo. If you want further proof of just how degrading the queue is to the community, take a look at what happened when they implemented it in Rift.

Exactly the same thing.

We all know what I’m talking about. You queue up, you take a chance. If you’re very lucky, you’ll get a group largely housed of players that outgear the content and will help to trivialise it. If you’re unlucky, you’ll end up with players whose unspeakably bad skills are accompanied by an unspeakably bad attitude. Ostracism and instant ditching are commonplace. New players are treated with contempt by players looking for “fast run plz”. And because Blizzard tried to force difficulty onto players incapable (or unwilling) of accepting it, they’ve altered the very face of the game to accommodate them.

Don’t believe me? Here’s a small list:

1) The aforementioned tank “bribe”, no longer demanding quality for the most important role in the group.
2) Party buffs, depending on how many random people are in the group, indirectly nerfing current content.
3) Threat significantly buffed for tanks, destroying a long-time show of skill for the role and devaluing it further.
4) Crowd control broken apart and altered for “convenience”, removing another potential showing of skill.

In other words, the best part of World of Warcraft (endgame PvE, not just raids) has been altered beyond recognition in order to accommodate players with no patience, no desire to learn and no understanding of the “other people” concept. What’s even worse is the fact the developers themselves have chosen to blame this on “casuals”. It has NOTHING to do with those who play less time. It’s purely to do with poor, aggressive and impatient players that can’t grasp the fact that rewards are only worthwhile when you earn them.

Watch transmogrification fail after the one-month novelty has worn off. Players are less in love with the way things look than they are the memory of how they earned those items. For me, the Shield of Impenetrable Darkness conjures the exhilaration of killing Nightbane for the first time and seeing it. My Sun-Eater reminds me of the feeling I had when I saw it after a painful two-and-a-bit-month daily Mechanar run. Sure, some items “look” nice and will see use as a result – but maybe, just maybe I’ll be proven right.

Isn’t it amazing that more people now are reporting nothing to do, when there’s never been more things available? The fact the developers cannot see that players want more endgame PvE when they report nothing to do is absolutely staggering. No amount of archaeology (frustrating), arena (unbalanced), alt-levelling (mindless) or achievement hunting (boring) will appease those who want to raid more than seven meaningful bosses a week. Heck, there isn’t even that any more after savage and unjustifiable nerfs ripped the guts out of the Firelands, a wholly underwhelming raid instance in the first place.


Rounding out, I recall Bashiok asking a player what he used to be able to do but now cannot. Oh, I wish I’d have been able to post on US forums.

I can’t see a skilled hunter chain-trapping mobs, yet contribute strong DPS.
I can’t see a skilled warrior changing stances to show the extent of that skill.
I can’t raid 10 and 25 man content in the same week on my main character.
I can’t stockpile my dungeon currency for when I want to use it now.
I can’t engage in world PvP without getting a level 1 whisper insults at me.
I can’t run multiple endgame dungeons to farm gear for entry level raids.
I can’t spend a night in challenging five-man instances for epic rewards.
I can't build a hybrid talent spec that fits a unique, albeit potentially odd, niche.
I can’t build up a server reputation as a good player by tanking for groups.
I can’t choose which endgame zones to quest in as there aren’t enough.
I can’t specialize my professions for more expensive, yet exclusive, options.
I can't level my guild beyond a daily cap that decimates newly started guilds.
I can’t do attunements that provide the backdrop to the raids I’m running.
I can’t do epic group quests that complete zones, like the Cipher of Damnation.

And more than anything else, I can’t justify paying the same monthly subscription for half the content.

So, what do I have to look forward to? The loss of level cap dungeons, despite the tremendous success of them in the past. The loss of challenging heroic dungeons as they’re made easier again. The loss of yet more buffs and debuffs to make the game simpler. The loss of group quests, being replaced by easy to complete “scenarios”. The introduction of a blatant Pokemon rip off that nobody wanted. A repeat of the five-zone Cataclysm model that I hated. Another talent revamp, stolen from the Diablo developers and implemented badly. Undoubtedly yet more dailies to grind.

I’m almost done now. At the end of the day, I’m in love with a game that doesn’t exist anymore and the current team seeks to move ever further from. I can accept that many players like this new direction, but I simply can’t get onboard with the dissolving of what I loved most about this immersive, enjoyable, massive and social game. Most players will never even know what the Scepter of the Shifting Sands is, or how wonderful the quest line to achieve it was. Frankly, I’m pained that the game will never see its like again.

In closing, I’d just like to add that never before have I seen such cynicism when dealing with (in my case) long term and loyal subscribers. As the starstruck masses chose to cheer Mr. Morhaime as he announced the Diablo 3 giveaway, people such as myself were seeing it for what it was. Against the backdrop of plummeting subscribers, I resent being bribed into coughing up another year for the disassociated mess World of Warcraft has become, by giving me a mount and Diablo 3 as a sweetener. This ugly move to stem the flow away from Blizzard’s MMO jabberwocky, honestly, made me ill in the realisation that I’ve given so much of my money to a company that would treat me in such a reprehensible way. Customer loyalty obviously doesn’t occur to those grubby individuals choosing to milk a playerbase that has been very, VERY good to them.

I’m done.

As I move onto gaming life beyond World of Warcraft, I take with me a slew of great memories and some special friendships that I’ll retain for the rest of my life; not least the introduction of my life partner. I’ll never forget my first completion of the heroic Shattered Halls having been told warriors couldn’t tank it. I’ll never forget the conversation with Azuregos as I set my feet against C’thun’s minions. I’ll never forget those first few tentative steps into Karazhan with the effervescent Luxtiamat as my dutiful off tank. I’ll never forget FINALLY seeing The Sun-Eater drop from Pathaleon after killing him every day. I’ll never forget what I still consider my best raiding achievement, finally putting an end to the Lich King atop Icecrown Pinnacle.

For all who’ve played a part, I thank you and will ever thank your part in my time. For those about to contribute little more than dumb trolling below this thread, you have my congratulations.

It seems Blizzard will ruin their own game to keep you.

Peace."

And the link again for people who don't want to scroll back to top:
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...0461094?page=1

Post is written by Zell , or by his in-game name Zellviren.
So, what do you think of his opinion? I posted this since I think it highlights a lot of the problems me and many others have seen in a well-made post and hope we can have a good discussion about it with NO FLAMING or stuff like that(or as little as possible at least). I'd also like to point out I'm not Zell myself, since I know people would ask.

[Porcell]

tldr

It's a quit post, why do I care. I'm sure there's nothing special and unique about this person's analysis of the state of the game. I'm not shackled to my computer, I'll quit myself when I no longer enjoy the game.

If you don't want to read the topic, then don't feel the need to post about it.

[Majik8ball]

Why is one player quitting such a big deal? I've seen 5+ threads on this guy in the past 20 minutes.

[Orange Joe]

i feel this thread should be locked like the one you are quoting

it's just another i quit thread and i'm a special snowflake so you should listen to why i quit.....

[Gavll]

Hello all!

*snip*

However I think that such a well-made complaint needs to be talked about a bit more, and I also think the posters here, you, the ones reading this, are mature enough to do so in a constructive manner. I suggest however that you do read all before commenting.

You're a fool to think anyone here is mature or can be constructive!

[Deleted]

I actually would like to discuss about the idea brought into his post, rather then the fact that he quit.

[Menlol2]

4 years and already quitting? cmon..

[Bliq]

i feel this thread should be locked like the one you are quoting

it's just another i quit thread and i'm a special snowflake so you should listen to why i quit.....

You'd be baffled when you understand how correct Zell is.

[mööh]

What's so special about this guy? All he did was a i quit post but didn't do it like a 12 year old and write in caps. This is just a long post pointing out some stuff that didn't work out the way they wanted to.

[microtonal]

I think that if people want to play a different game, they should just go play a different game.

Every single "I quit" thread is little more than a glorified (or not-so-glorified) copy-paste of the first "I quit" thread ever written. They get less original, thought-provoking, and worthwhile as time goes on, not more so.

---------- Post added 2011-11-18 at 09:17 AM ----------

I actually would like to discuss about the idea brought into his post, rather then the fact that he quit.

His ideas are neither original nor interesting. They're the exact same ideas that have been expressed in every single "I quit" thread since there was such a thing as an "I quit" thread.

[Romobama]

occupy the quit post?

nope, I'll pay it the worst possible attention to it as anything I hate...... I'll ignore it.... thanks

[Skulli]

He made some valid points. There was also another good thread of him about dungeon difficulty etc.

Though i doubt much will change in MoP. The game continues to get easier, involve more crossrealm things (LFR, scenarios) and
add some useless gimicks as pet battles. The game isnt anymore the game that many people "fell in love" with.

The community and the world is a abomination of what it used to be. The direction and the player base changed.
Its not the typical gamer of Classic and TBC that agreed that some things were hard, challenging and you had to "work" for.
Today people complain when they have to travel 5minutes on their own. Its a generation of players that want everything now/fast without (much) effort.
Instant gratification everywhere.
The currency system with LFD together makes the game to a lobby. Everyone is looking at the return of investment ratio.
People do dungeons for points, rarely for fun. Its a job that needs to be done.

With such queues the social interaction is meaningless and gone since why care for someone if you never meet him again.

I dont think its fixable anymore though. Blizzard tried it a little bit with Cata but their failed. Now they have to live with it. The pandoras box is open.
Rift and other games introduced the LFD as well and i think the game doesnt look much better there with lobbying in main city.

[Providence]

At first I was going to reply with a "cool story bro. get lost", but then I actually read it.

He's made a lot of good points. The game has been streamlined not to the casual but to the impatient and poor playing.

[Baz]

A really well written post that nailed pretty much every problem with WoW. It's simply the community sucks now because Blizzard listened to their QQ-BC-Was-Too-Hard-For-Me posts and added Dungeon Finder. I'm not saying i genuinley miss spamming for a pally tank for 2 hours, but if you had a guild to roll with, I do miss all heading out to the instance. I mean, players that started late WoTLK or Cata probably can't even point out Maraudon and Drak'Tharon-Keep on the map.

[microtonal]

You'd be baffled when you understand how correct Zell is.

You'll be baffled when you learn that the words "correct" and "incorrect" are not meaningful designations for people's personal opinions.

[noteworthynerd]

Why is one player quitting such a big deal? I've seen 5+ threads on this guy in the past 20 minutes.

Because he passionately said what a lot of people are thinking. Two weeks ago I would have not even bothered to read this, but I've been playing other games and they're starting to show me that WoW has a lot of flaws.

[Imbasawrus]

Who is Zell and why should I care if he quits?

See the second reply.

[Maelle]

Because this guy didn't have a big enough soap-box already on the official forums? :<

They did right to lock the second thread, apart from people agreeing / disagreeing and rehashing the same tired old stuff there was nothing worthy of a second thread of the same stuff. The guy who wrote it obviously just wanted to feed his ego further and maximise the "impact" of his quitting.

imo they should ban all posts of this quitting nonsense. If people have a beef or a boring axe to grind why can't they make an email to customer service?

[Deleted]

You'll be baffled when you learn that the words "correct" and "incorrect" are not meaningful designations for people's personal opinions.

Look, read the post then reply. Its clear you have not.
He makes some really good points, points that I agree with (And many others too if you read the replies to the original post).

Who is Zell and why should I care if he quits?

Why don't you read the post instead of trolling?
Reported.

[razisgosu]

I agree with most of Zell's points. When I quit WoW the only thing I was doing was running heroic raids, spending 3-4 weeks wiping to the same boss and doing 5 mans when I had to cap VP. The game just was not the same as wrath or TBC.