"Players rarely argue for less convenience." - Ghostcrawler

[xanzul]

GC was brain-dead on arrival to Blizzard, so I cannot take seriously anything that is attributed to him as if he were a game developer.

And yet he is a game developer who has been a part of several hit games long before he worked for Blizzard. You may not like him, you may not agree with him but in the end he got the job he has right now because he had the experience and qualifications for it which is a hell of a lot more than I can say about armchair developers like you.

- - - Updated - - -

Us ... erm how did you put it? "Neckbeards".. realise the game has changed, we just dont like it. Dont get me wrong im not posting threads QQing about LFR or the direction of the game, but I will show my views on it in already existing threads that are discussing something of this nature. AKA Ill put up with LFR, doesnt mean I think its good for the game AT ALL.
Not to derail, but how on earth can the game retain any respect when you can literally level from 1 - 90 in a weekend, then on the monday evening you can "Kill the bad guys that are somehow so powerful, but so weak that you and 24 retards can auto attack until they fall over and give you shiny lewts and even legendary items". Please explain to me how this is okay for the game to be? How can casual players enjoy (their view of) killing the final bosses with such ease?.

Stop worrying about what others are doing. It is none of your god damn business quite honestly.

[melodramocracy]

Stop worrying about what others are doing. It is none of your god damn business quite honestly.

MMO's don't exist in a vacuum. Player behavior actually does have an impact on the game.

[Deleted]

No it's not.

Welfare epics, hybrid tax, PvP gear in PvE, blah blah blah, someone finds a good troll/whine and the community latches on to it in an endlessly repeating loop for a couple of years. LFR is just the whine du jour.

u totally didnt read what i said right...

Ru seriously telling me that all of those points u listed have more threads, posts and pages on these forums than LFR discussion?

Ofc not so stop talking bullshit.

LFR has more thread, posts and pages of discussion than any other issue EVER in Wow history...

Example - how many pages of MMO CHamp history must i go back to find any discussion on Hybrid tax? 20 pages? 50 pages? and how many threads about LFR will i find in the past 50 pages on these forums?... i rest my case.

[nekobaka]

I didnt see a link to the source with context on the OP so here it be.
https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/sta...25121058045952
I am not so sure GC made a general claim to convenience or to that situation, but he did make the claim that the choice to port to instances was a move the developers chose even if it went against their wants to get players out into the world.

Players rarely argue to specifically make things like professions and dailies less convenient. What players ask for instead is to make them more meaningful which could in turn make them less convenient. Counting all things that are specifically asking for things to be less convenient is rare. The asking can still happened in big chunks with what happened with HGWT.

[brunnor]

What made WoW popular was bringing "all possible gamers" to it. That's essentially the definition of popularity. When everyone does it or wants to do it.

There are no particular rules regarding "what an MMORPG is about." If you think there are then you are thinking inside the box, and inside the box is where the MMOs with a few hundred thousand subscribers/players live.

WoW brought all possible MMO players to WoW. It didn't bring all possible gamers. It is now trying to bring all possible gamers and its pushing away the all possible MMO crowd. That is why tons of people play all the new MMO betas and such, they are looking for something better than WoW, mostly.

There is a rule on what an MMORPG is about as it's been that way for years. Thinking inside the box got WoW 12 million subs, thinking outside of it has brought that number to 8.3 million. When WoW was an MMORPG by definition it thrived fully.

[Itisamuh]

Us ... erm how did you put it? "Neckbeards".. realise the game has changed, we just dont like it. Dont get me wrong im not posting threads QQing about LFR or the direction of the game, but I will show my views on it in already existing threads that are discussing something of this nature. AKA Ill put up with LFR, doesnt mean I think its good for the game AT ALL.
Not to derail, but how on earth can the game retain any respect when you can literally level from 1 - 90 in a weekend, then on the monday evening you can "Kill the bad guys that are somehow so powerful, but so weak that you and 24 retards can auto attack until they fall over and give you shiny lewts and even legendary items". Please explain to me how this is okay for the game to be? How can casual players enjoy (their view of) killing the final bosses with such ease?.

1. Speak for yourself about the leveling. I don't know why some people say it's too fast, it takes me months. It's a terrible grind.

2. Everyone knows the game has changed. Not everyone agrees that it's changed for the worse. Believe it or not, more than just raiders play.

3. People enjoy killing the bosses, even with easy mechanics, more than not getting to kill it at all if they can't or won't raid.

4. I guarantee the fact that you don't have to wait around for a guild or group, or live by a schedule, is a bigger appeal than the difficulty.

5. As someone else said, it's none of your business what others enjoy. Do what you like, and let them do what they like.

[brunnor]

1. Speak for yourself about the leveling. I don't know why some people say it's too fast, it takes me months. It's a terrible grind.

2. Everyone knows the game has changed. Not everyone agrees that it's changed for the worse. Believe it or not, more than just raiders play.

3. People enjoy killing the bosses, even with easy mechanics, more than not getting to kill it at all if they can't or won't raid.

4. I guarantee the fact that you don't have to wait around for a guild or group, or live by a schedule, is a bigger appeal than the difficulty.

5. As someone else said, it's none of your business what others enjoy. Do what you like, and let them do what they like.

Leveling that is done in less than 12 hours by anyone is too quick. That's great it takes you a while cause you do other things, but those of us who do this as a primary hobby shouldn't be screwed out of a good experience because you think it takes too long. A bigger appeal doesn't mean a better game. That's the thing a lot of people don't get... just because something is popular doesn't mean it is good and just because something gets done a lot doesn't make it popular.

[Thimagryn]

He says "rarely"

So how many have been complaining? If even 100 000 complain (and it is definitely less) while 8, 9, 10 million play and play....what does that tell you?

Would you say because 90% are complaining threads and only a handful are "I love this game" that 90% of all players hate WoW?

Inflated numbers and stats with no basis of factual evidence. If you want to persuade anyone, you gotta stop bullshitting.

[Thage]

So apparently people on the forums only account for a small minority of the playerbase? Well then why on earth did blizz listen to the forum complainers in 4.1 and decide to nerf all the heroics...

Because people were quitting en masse over them. At the last Blizzcon, when MoP was announced, the heroics were specifically name-checked by the CEO of Blizzard Entertainment as something that cost them a lot of casual players before going on to note MoP heroics would be closer to Wrath-difficulty, with Challenge Modes for people that wanted harder 5-mans so they wouldn't be completely marginalized.

- - - Updated - - -

Thinking inside the box got WoW 12 million subs, thinking outside of it has brought that number to 8.3 million. When WoW was an MMORPG by definition it thrived fully.

Someone doesn't know their MMO history. WoW was bashed, repeatedly, on release for being too casual-friendly by Everquest hardcores, and every step of the way through Wrath, they kept making it increasingly accessible and casual-friendly to go with shifts in the market. Then they listened to disgruntled hardcores and took a gamble with Cataclysm, which blew up in their faces in both the Eastern and Western markets--it wasn't hard enough for Eastern players, who would blast through the content and unsub, and casuals and raiders alike in the Western markets quit en masse over what amounted to a lack of endgame. Right now, the main sources of sub losses are from an unsustainable business model in the East, hence why they're restructuring WoW for China and Korea into a free-play-with-cash-shop game, to compete with the prolific free-play scene over there.

[MoanaLisa]

So apparently people on the forums only account for a small minority of the playerbase? Well then why on earth did blizz listen to the forum complainers in 4.1 and decide to nerf all the heroics...

Blizzard didn't need the forums to tell them they screwed up with the 4.1 heroics. Trust me, they would have known that something was up if they had never had forums at all. If you at Blizzard watch your spreadsheets that tell you how many people are logging in, how long they are staying and a general idea of what they're doing, forum noise is the last thing you need to know about with something like the Cataclysm heroics.

Forums can confirm things but in and of themselves, they're too self-selecting and filled with people who post about what's best for themselves and not what is best for the game overall.

[Shiny212]

yes, like 1% of the playerbase have been complaining about wow being too casual. the rest is totally fine with it.

blizzard dont care about some whiners on the offical forum/mmo champ.

You're right there's a small vocal minority complaining, that's because everyone that found it too casual quit the game, and yeah they're fine.

[MonsieuRoberts]

WE have been complaining about the gradual simplicity, but there are millions who are more than happy with it.

[Itisamuh]

Leveling that is done in less than 12 hours by anyone is too quick. That's great it takes you a while cause you do other things, but those of us who do this as a primary hobby shouldn't be screwed out of a good experience because you think it takes too long. A bigger appeal doesn't mean a better game. That's the thing a lot of people don't get... just because something is popular doesn't mean it is good and just because something gets done a lot doesn't make it popular.

I agree that popularity doesn't necessarily equate to quality, but the fact remains that nobody has to do LFR at all. If you don't like it, don't do it, simple. And if people think leveling is too fast, they should stop wearing BoA gear and using every other booster possible. There's plenty of ways to stretch out the experience, without ruining it for the rest of us who don't want it to drag on any longer.

[Ronduwil]

Games are made for entertainment, and not everyone derives entertainment from the same aspects of a video game.

Plenty of games on the market cater to what you're referring to, why not just go pick one of those?

I'm not seeking to make money off of WoW, am I? I already unsubbed from WoW, but that's not making money for Blizzard, is it? Like you said, games are made for entertainment, and to maximize profits Blizzard needs to make the game as entertaining as possible for the most people possible. Most people don't want to play a game that requires them to devote the equivalent of a full time job's worth of hours to churn through its content. That's why Blizzard added conveniences like portals and dungeon finders. I don't understand why anyone would call players who take advantage of conveniences like that "lazy." I'm sorry that I don't want to experience a 15-minute virtual commute inside a game after experiencing a 45-minute commute home from work in real life. That doesn't make me "entitled" or "lazy." That makes me wise with respect to how I allocate my leisure time.

[brunnor]

Someone doesn't know their MMO history. WoW was bashed, repeatedly, on release for being too casual-friendly by Everquest hardcores, and every step of the way through Wrath, they kept making it increasingly accessible and casual-friendly to go with shifts in the market. Then they listened to disgruntled hardcores and took a gamble with Cataclysm, which blew up in their faces in both the Eastern and Western markets--it wasn't hard enough for Eastern players, who would blast through the content and unsub, and casuals and raiders alike in the Western markets quit en masse over what amounted to a lack of endgame. Right now, the main sources of sub losses are from an unsustainable business model in the East, hence why they're restructuring WoW for China and Korea into a free-play-with-cash-shop game, to compete with the prolific free-play scene over there.

Do you like picking and choosing what you remember? That seems like how it is to me. They didn't do anything in Cataclysm that was at all like what hardcores asked for besides harder heroics, and even then they weren't hard enough. They lost 300k players during that time. Only 300k players for a bunch of possible reasons left during that time. That was their "failed" experiment, 300k sub loss, which may or may not have been related to the hard heroics.

[Ronduwil]

Do you like picking and choosing what you remember? That seems like how it is to me. They didn't do anything in Cataclysm that was at all like what hardcores asked for besides harder heroics, and even then they weren't hard enough. They lost 300k players during that time. Only 300k players for a bunch of possible reasons left during that time. That was their "failed" experiment, 300k sub loss, which may or may not have been related to the hard heroics.

They released Cataclysm at the end of 2010, so by all rights subscriptions should have temporarily surged, just like they did with MoP. Instead they dropped by 300k, as you pointed out. We don't know why they dropped. Only Blizzard knows that. From their response, however, we can infer that the game's difficulty had something to do with it.

[Simca]

So apparently people on the forums only account for a small minority of the playerbase? Well then why on earth did blizz listen to the forum complainers in 4.1 and decide to nerf all the heroics...

Because the forum complaints increased tenfold (showing a change in who was coming to the forum and for what reason), and the 'traditional' forum crowd was against the nerfs (myself included tbh).

[Thage]

Do you like picking and choosing what you remember? That seems like how it is to me. They didn't do anything in Cataclysm that was at all like what hardcores asked for besides harder heroics, and even then they weren't hard enough. They lost 300k players during that time. Only 300k players for a bunch of possible reasons left during that time. That was their "failed" experiment, 300k sub loss, which may or may not have been related to the hard heroics.

Cata bled all through its lifespan with the exception of the first quarter 4.3 was out for. Even post-nerf the Cata heroics remained leaps and bounds harder than the Wrath 5-mans, the Zul'Again heroics basically killed LFD for their duration, and the Molten Front failed to keep casual players on. As I said, Blizz specifically name-checked the Heroics as a problematic element, both when they released the easier 4.3 heroics and when discussing the MoP heroics.

Their failed experiment was hemmorhaging subscribers for nearly the entire lifespan of an expansion, something that was unheard of before, and in MoP Western subs have largely stabilized while they lose a ton of Eastern subscribers to an unsustainable business model. Maybe you should check those news posts on the earnings calls--they point out in specific where most of the losses are coming from and why, and time and time again in Cata post-mortems the 5-mans were pointed out as being a mistake.

[Vladar]

"Players rarely argue for less convenience." - Ghostcrawler

Now hes just downright lying. People have been complaining since vanilla, yes vanilla with the gear available in the 20 man deemed to good vs the gear in 40 man and the special quests in dungeons (dungeon tier 1.5). There was more complaining in TBC with heroic badge gear, etc. Players have been arguing for the middle of vanilla. GC saying players dont complain means hes lying or totally disconnected.

[RicardoZ]

A small vocal minority has been complaining. The vast majority has not.

Pretty much, yes. If you count up all of the people who post complaint threads on this site, plus all the ones from battle.net forums, plus bloggers, podcasters, YouTube commentators, etc...you're still barely approaching (and I'm being generous here) the 3% mark in all WoW players.