Could Blizzards's #1 Dev team save WoW from bleeding?

[Zarc]

The #1 team isn't always the best second time around. Just look at the Star Wars franchise. George Lucas was #1, then he came back.. not so #1 the second time around was he?

[Deleted]

Saved wow is the wrong word. You grew wow by giving players things not taking them away. You kill wow by taking things like lfd and lfr away.

Actually didn't subs start falling since Lfd was employed so end of wotlk?

[Deleted]

I seriously doubt it would help but the thread reminded me of this sketch video

http://www.collegehumor.com/video/61...a-b-and-c-team

[Deleted]

2 words, too late.

[spectrefax]

Because maybe in Blizzards opinion they SAVED WoW?

I am sick to death of people pointing at specific things and going that killed wow or that saved wow.

Does everyone remember just before SW:ToR went F2P there was so much rage on the forums that it was because there was no working LFD, but now of course that WoW losses 1.3 million subs it is because of LFD, come on get a grip.

There is ZERO and I repeat ZERO way of knowing if the feature increased or lossed subs unless you have a time machine and are able to go back and you are able to change what blizzard did, maybe without LFD WoW would have 1 million subs now, how can you know for fact it would not?

One thing is 100% guaranteed though. EVERY SINGLE change blizzard do someone somewhere will hate it and there will be moaning and bitching about it on MMO-C.

I am sick of all you back seat developers who go "OMFG I KNOW HOW TO SAVE WOW I CAN'T BELIEVE BLIZZARD CAN'T SEE IT OMFG".

There are a lot of factors that effect WoW subs.

Actually it's pretty easy to tie something like LFD and LFR to current sub climates.

Let's take a look at some numbers...

LFR combined with Dragon Soul was released at the very tail end of Q4 2011.

Q1 2012 - 0 Losses
Q2 2012 - 1.1m loss (http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...to-9-1-Million)
Q3 2012 - 500K loss (http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...on-Subscribers)
Q4 2012 - 100K loss (Release of Pandaria) (http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...00k-in-Q4-2011)

With Pandaria's main focus for group content being overwhelmingly focused upon LFR...

Q1 2013 - 1.3m loss (Largest in game history) (http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...on-Subscribers)
Q2 2013 - 1.5m loss??? (You can bet Q2 will be even worse than Q1 report)

Throughout the game's life cycle, never has their been such a drop this short after the release of an xpac. This year is pandarias first year out with primary focus on LFD/LFR/Scenarios (world of queuecraft) and they're poised to post absolutely record breaking losses that could see them as low as 5 million by year's end.

With LFR being the star of the show this expansion for group content, I'd say it's pretty safe to attribute a fair amount of the decline to people not enjoying the system.

[Deleted]

You can see how Lfd destroyed server communities. If you don't you're being willingly obtuse. Lack of community is probably the most heard complaint about wow since end wotlk?

I dont get it, you save wow but making it lose subs?

And before SW:ToR went F2P no LFD was the most heard complaint.

Stop being so obtuse.

Nothing to do with WoW subs is that simple or black and white, there are many many factors that contribute.

You can't at all say LFD killed WoW.

You can say "I don't like LFD it is the reason I quit".

There are many many people who would say "There is no LFD it is the reason I quit".

[Glorious Leader]

Actually it's pretty easy to tie something like LFD and LFR to current sub climates.

Let's take a look at some numbers...

LFR combined with Dragon Soul was released at the very tail end of Q4 2011.

Q1 2012 - 0 Losses
Q2 2012 - 1.1m loss (http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...to-9-1-Million)
Q3 2012 - 500K loss (http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...on-Subscribers)
Q4 2012 - 100K loss (Release of Pandaria) (http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...00k-in-Q4-2011)

With Pandaria's main focus for group content being overwhelmingly focused upon LFR...

Q1 2013 - 1.3m loss (Largest in game history) (http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...on-Subscribers)
Q2 2013 - 1.5m loss??? (You can bet Q2 will be even worse than Q1 report)

Throughout the game's life cycle, never has their been such a drop this short after the release of an xpac.

With LFR being the star of the show this expansion for group content, I'd say it's pretty safe to attribute a fair amount of the decline to people not enjoying the system.

You can look at it that way but it's probably more accurate to take a broader view that people don't like the overall slowness of the thing. The reason theirs so much brew haha about lfr is for a couple of reasons all of which have to do with much more arching and broad design paradigms. The lack of social outlets is one. The lack of any outlet for a casual player to go and be guaranteed of any reward for his limited time investment is another. I mean they can go into lfr but their not coming out with anything and often times that's exactly what happens. In the past they just go into 7 dungeons a week and eventually buy a peice of gear from the vendor. Now they ahve to spend an hour in que, join a group of total strangers, potentially spend two hours to clear one wing and get nothing out of it other than the reinforcement that they suck and this is their easy mode content built for them and they shouldn't even attempt to do normals. Christ it isn't even good as a teaching tool.

LFR does have alot of problems I argee but probably not from the way most people think about it. I don't think it should be removed, it shuld serve to remove barriers to people who raid at funny times or just can't commit to a raid schedule but I do agree their is a need that it currently doesn't fill. Or better yet it's scope is much to broad. LFR now fills both the roles of pug raiding in wotlk and dungeons did in catalcysm/wotlk although both in an extremely poor fashion. The roll protection will help this (although IMO only temporarily) but it's still no substitute for pug raiding normals.

[Deleted]

With LFR being the star of the show this expansion for group content, I'd say it's pretty safe to attribute a fair amount of the decline to people not enjoying the system.

What total utter hyperbole.

There are so many factors other than that, if you can't see that you are blind.

Did you actually notice that the introduction of LFR stopped the sub slide?

I guess you would put that down to something else though right?

[Deleted]

Nothing can save WoW from slow decline. Quality doesnt mean anything, MoP is far more superior to Cata and it already has fewer subscriber numbers.
The game is old and stale, it's harder and harder with every expansion for new players to join in, there's a lot of competition on the market. Numbers will only go down with time, with exception of new expansion releases.

WoW won't die rapidly, but anyone who think Blizzard can pull some magic trick to put WoW again at 12+ mil subs and stay there forever is stupid.

[Deleted]

Actually it's pretty easy to tie something like LFD and LFR to current sub climates.

Let's take a look at some numbers...

LFR combined with Dragon Soul was released at the very tail end of Q4 2011.

Q1 2012 - 0 Losses
Q2 2012 - 1.1m loss (http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...to-9-1-Million)
Q3 2012 - 500K loss (http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...on-Subscribers)
Q4 2012 - 100K loss (Release of Pandaria) (http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...00k-in-Q4-2011)

With Pandaria's main focus for group content being overwhelmingly focused upon LFR...

Q1 2013 - 1.3m loss (Largest in game history) (http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...on-Subscribers)
Q2 2013 - 1.5m loss??? (You can bet Q2 will be even worse than Q1 report)

Throughout the game's life cycle, never has their been such a drop this short after the release of an xpac. This year is pandarias first year out with primary focus on LFD/LFR/Scenarios (world of queuecraft) and they're poised to post absolutely record breaking losses that could see them as low as 5 million by year's end.

With LFR being the star of the show this expansion for group content, I'd say it's pretty safe to attribute a fair amount of the decline to people not enjoying the system.

No, but mop is "blizzards best work"...

These are all Chinese subs leaving...

The criticism during cata pre mop and during mop are only wow haters that should leave the game!!

Well I think they are now.

[Deleted]

nope ... wow is like windows. Patch patch patch .. but in the end, its a big patched sinking ship. They need to step back and be like "hey this is how things need to be".. and ofcourse do the change regardles of ... people will qq .. its too drastic .. etc.

they need to fix things, not patch them.

[spectrefax]

You can look at it that way but it's probably more accurate to take a broader view that people don't like the overall slowness of the thing. The reason theirs so much brew haha about lfr is for a couple of reasons all of which have to do with much more arching and broad design paradigms. The lack of social outlets is one. The lack of any outlet for a casual player to go and be guaranteed of any reward for his limited time investment is another. I mean they can go into lfr but their not coming out with anything and often times that's exactly what happens. In the past they just go into 7 dungeons a week and eventually buy a peice of gear from the vendor. Now they ahve to spend an hour in que, join a group of total strangers, potentially spend two hours to clear one wing and get nothing out of it other than the reinforcement that they suck and this is their easy mode content built for them and they shouldn't even attempt to do normals. Christ it isn't even good as a teaching tool.

LFR does have alot of problems I argee but probably not from the way most people think about it. I don't think it should be removed, it shuld serve to remove barriers to people who raid at funny times or just can't commit to a raid schedule but I do agree their is a need that it currently doesn't fill. The roll protection will help this (although IMO only temporarily) but it's still no substitute for pug raiding normals.

I very much agree. Queuecraft gameplay spreads far and wide into many aspects of the game.

Dragon Soul could easily be called a test for LFR. The fact that it's centerstage this expansion and pandaria's tanking right out of the gate and putting up record losses (nevermind watching the raiding community dry up faster than ever before) lends it self to your deduction.

[Doombringer]

Some quick fixes:

> Less rep grind for items, VP.
> Less grindy overall (i.e. Farming, Cooking -- a good concept, but a bit too labor intensive).
> Friendlier to alts (see above).
> Keep the varied gameplay options. Don't make 1 set of dailies a requirement to unlock other reputations (i.e. the old Golden Lotus -> Shado-Pan)
> Keep LFR more manageable. ToT is too large, too trash-filled -- even with the wings. When people said they wanted a raid like Ulduar, they were talking about overall feel and quality... not simply size. Queuing for 45 minutes to then have to run an hour in a wing for 3 bosses is too long overall.

[Deleted]

And before SW:ToR went F2P no LFD was the most heard complaint.

Stop being so obtuse.

Nothing to do with WoW subs is that simple or black and white, there are many many factors that contribute.

You can't at all say LFD killed WoW.

You can say "I don't like LFD it is the reason I quit".

There are many many people who would say "There is no LFD it is the reason I quit".

No reason to bring swtor in the debate.
Lfd isn't a problem. How is implemented together with face roll dungeons make it so that communication is not needed. Community is reduced in value. Lack of community.

And yes, you CAN say lack of community killed wow.
Of course there isn't one reason only but it's definitely top three for many many many of us.

[Glorious Leader]

I very much agree. Queuecraft gameplay spreads far and wide into many aspects of the game.

Dragon Soul could easily be called a test for LFR. The fact that it's centerstage this expansion and pandaria's tanking right out of the gate and putting up record losses (nevermind watching the raiding community dry up faster than ever before) lends it self to your deduction.

Again I have no problem with it existing, and I have no problem with queing for dungeons and lfr in and of themselves. In principle those are very good things and mists tried to turn people off queing and force them into the world which was arguably an even bigger disaster than lfr. They just need to have alternatives to queing for lfr. Dungeons for gear needs to come back. Pug raiding needs to come back.

[spectrefax]

What total utter hyperbole.

There are so many factors other than that, if you can't see that you are blind.

Did you actually notice that the introduction of LFR stopped the sub slide?

I guess you would put that down to something else though right?

They also experience their largest Q2 loss to date courtesy of LFR and everyone "beating the last boss."

[Glorious Leader]

Some quick fixes:

> Less rep grind for items, VP.
> Less grindy overall (i.e. Farming, Cooking -- a good concept, but a bit too labor intensive).
> Friendlier to alts (see above).
> Keep the varied gameplay options. Don't make 1 set of dailies a requirement to unlock other reputations (i.e. the old Golden Lotus -> Shado-Pan)
> Keep LFR more manageable. ToT is too large, too trash-filled -- even with the wings. When people said they wanted a raid like Ulduar, they were talking about overall feel and quality... not simply size. Queuing for 45 minutes to then have to run an hour in a wing for 3 bosses is too long overall.

This is a good list of fixes. In the long term I'd like to see normals adjusted down so that players could do more pug raids and the 25/10 lockout should be removed. I'd like to see dungeons of any difficulty ( I personally don't care) make a come back either way and pay out in gear. Their often faster to que for, take less time and in the past casuals were rewarded well for doing them. It was rewarding and very time management friendly.

[Immitis]

most of the people who worked on wow back then have been working on wow since mists.

---------- Post added 2013-05-12 at 07:56 AM ----------

The #1 team isn't always the best second time around. Just look at the Star Wars franchise. George Lucas was #1, then he came back.. not so #1 the second time around was he?

thats because for the first three he wasnt completely in charge.

[Milkyz]

Imagine in 2006, World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria is launched.
Then comes Cata, Scenarios are removed, Pandas, Monks. You get a bloated talent tree. LFR is removed.
Then WotLK, LFD is removed, all worgens and goblins too.
Then BC. Different raid difficulty is removed, resistance gear, no more DKs, non raiding viability for all specs, LoLcats, LoLrets.
Then Vanilla. They decide it's a cool idea to have class specific to each Faction, delete all paladin on horde and all shamans on alliance. Also get rid of Draeneis and Blood elves. Increase even more resistance gear needs, decrease quest drops, increase raid-size to 40man. Even more specs are removed from raiding viability.

Forums would be unstable with so much "OMG WOW IS SO MUCH BETTER NOW". 20mi subscriptions. Even Pope Francisco would play WoW.

Except not.

[slime]

I predict the game will go to a F2P model, but only in Asia. They gave Asia the extra raid lock out (that people in NA want just as much) so I see them offering free to play in Asian countries that do not want sub cost games. While once again NOT offering the same options in NA. You go Blizz, keep showing the world that we are all very different people that should all have different options available to them.