"Players rarely argue for less convenience." - Ghostcrawler

[Peacemoon]

I think the WoW developers are becoming increasingly conservative in their MMO design philosophy. I sincerely think they regret some of the things they have added to WoW, but know they can't get rid of it now that the genie is out of the bottle.

Before it was clear that they saw no downside to implementing LFD, LFR, cross realm stuff etc, as they constantly promoted it and got fully behind that philosophy of gameplay design. These days they do acknowledge that there are both advantages and disadvantages to these systems, but they don't really debate the ins and outs of it much (at least publicly), except to say that a lot of players now rely on them and enjoy it.

As for GC, to me its clear he was a 'MMO novice' when he started and didn't appreciate the qualitative effects of online communities or close knit realms, and still finds it difficult to truly appreciate anything aesthetic as he seems a pretty hardcore numbers guy. I think its only recently that he has begun to really understand the differences between an MMO and an offline single player computer game. This criticism may or may not extend to the rest of the design team, but who really knows.

[DrSteveBrule]

A huge majority of the playerbase never voice what they like or dislike on any forums anywhere anyway. They never provide feedback and usually when they stop their subscription they don't bother to fill out any elaborate reasons why they stopped either, because they just don't care.

That is the reality of things.

Secondly, the small minority on the forums that does say what they like and dislike are often too ignorant to hit with a stick. The truth usually is that consumers are fickle and don't really know what they would enjoy or wouldn't enjoy. Sometimes giving them what they ask for is the worst thing you can do.

But complaints... for complaints you usually can only depend on your small minority, because the large majority lays forever silent. When people on the forum continuously keep complaining about something it at least gives you a good indication of what your dedicated playerbase experiences. One of the things they need to learn to balance is how to provide content for their dedicated playerbase that doesn't piss off their bigger uncommited casual playerbase and vice versa.

Nice post. Sadly the majority of forum posters think of themselves as the majority of WoW players.
I fully agree that most players don't know what they want but think they do.
That's what makes the "majority" more volatile than the "minority."

They think the over casualization of WoW brought it back from the brink of destruction in Cata when dungeons are hard yet we've lost even more subs since then. And they still ignore that fact to this day. Not to mention they had to use tools like the year sub lock and scrolls of resurrections.

I wouldn't be on here arguing against them if it wasn't for this glaring hypocricy really.

[Deleted]

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

Same vocal minority that crys for nerfs, remember Cat easy HC dugeons? the vocal manority cried and you were thowned super easy dugeons.

Remember all those complains about people not seeing countent, and no more pugs?


I am sure there have been more topics agaist lfd and lfr than in favor of pugs

[Thage]

Same vocal minority that crys for nerfs, remember Cat easy HC dugeons? the vocal manority cried and you were thowned super easy dugeons.

People quit the game en masse and the heroics were specifically name-checked by the CEO at Blizzcon as the main reason they lost casual players. It wasn't just from people whining on the forums like anti-LFD/LFR threads.

Remember all those complains about people not seeing countent, and no more pugs?

Ion went on-record that raiding was no longer economically-feasible for the amount of money that went into it versus the amount of people that actually did it at the MoP Press Tour, hence LFR's implementation, and LFD was put in in response to players spending hours pugging for heroics in BC depending on what class they played.

I am sure there have been more topics agaist lfd and lfr than in favor of pugs

I'm sure there are. I'm also sure it doesn't matter because Blizzard uses more than just people bitching back and forth for or against something on the forums to gather data.

[nekobaka]

People quit the game en masse and the heroics were specifically name-checked by the CEO at Blizzcon as the main reason they lost casual players. It wasn't just from people whining on the forums like anti-LFD/LFR threads.

The reason was not specifically the heroics. The reason was content difficulty and lack of content.

Blizzard didnt just make the heroics harder, Blizzard effectively tried to shove players into challenging content without alternatives like normal mode which set it up to fail in the end. Recently GC has been making comments that challenging content is fine as long as there are alternatives which players didnt have with the five man heroics in Cata. As GC has said with Flex mode, you cannot force players to step up but you can try to entice them to do such with rewards.

[Thage]

The reason was not specifically the heroics. The reason was content difficulty and lack of content.

Morhaime pointed out, when discussing MoP 5-mans, that the Cata heroics bombed hard and that it cost them a lot of casual players. The post-mortems were more specific in that a general lack of endgame and its difficulty cost them people on both sides of the spectrum, hence why MoP released with so much (one could argue, and people certainly have, that it released with too much that felt too required).

[brunnor]

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.

Why does it matter where the sub losses come from? The fact that there are massive losses is all that is important. You also have zero idea if western subs are stable at all. You only know what they said in the call, "Majority came from the east." That doesn't mean nothing came from the west. The west could have lost 600k players and their statement would still be correct.

They point out why they think their losses came about. They also aren't dumb and wouldn't come out and say to their shareholders, "Hey we really fucked this game up and don't know how to fix it now... so keep giving us money." They will word things so very carefully to make it sound like they got a handle on things to keep the money rolling in. So all their data they release with conf calls is highly subjective because it's all them trying to sound good while saying they lost a lot of things.

[Thage]

Why does it matter where the sub losses come from? The fact that there are massive losses is all that is important. You also have zero idea if western subs are stable at all. You only know what they said in the call, "Majority came from the east." That doesn't mean nothing came from the west. The west could have lost 600k players and their statement would still be correct.

Losing subscribers to an unsustainable business model versus losing some imaginary bajillion hardcores are two very different things for a business to address. That's why where the losses come from is important--one requires an altered business model in that market, the other requires a drastic change in game direction.

They point out why they think their losses came about. They also aren't dumb and wouldn't come out and say to their shareholders, "Hey we really fucked this game up and don't know how to fix it now... so keep giving us money." They will word things so very carefully to make it sound like they got a handle on things to keep the money rolling in. So all their data they release with conf calls is highly subjective because it's all them trying to sound good while saying they lost a lot of things.

It's also kind of seriously illegal to lie to your shareholders about stuff like that, so the subjectivity of it only goes so far. 'Hey, our business model in the Eastern markets needs a lot of work' is a far cry from 'Hey, people hate our game and we're obstinately refusing to change it according to forum outcry,' and one would think that Blizzard would be smart enough to admit that to their shareholders if nothing else, to put them at ease if they decide to overhaul their design philosophy again like they did in Wrath, Cata, and MoP rather than risk shareholders wondering if their money really is being well-spent.

[Weightlifter]

Ghostcrawler's job is basically to insult his customers on Twitter.

[Halicia]

"less convenience" to me would be like players arguing 'hey, remember when we had to walk for 30 minutes across the map when we died, wasnt that great?'

or in terms of LFR, 'ya know what LFR needs ? queueing stones outside the instance so that people get out of town more often!'

the complaints people have about the LFR 'experience' generally have little to do with convenience.

[Tobedeleted123]

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

Doesn't change the fact the statement GC tweeted is just plainly wrong.

[Jessicka]

This will never happen because no matter what, players even above LFR will complain those in LFR can get epics with less time invested.

I don't think that's entirely true. I think the resentment is that players who are self evidently catching up, are doing so in a level of content they feel is beneath them, since they are in their own eyes 'Normal' raiders. They're being 'forced' on off nights to go there, to pick up odd bits of gear to help them through Normals. Now, it's been said time and time again that if you're clearing present tier in good time, you'll have the gear to go into the next without setting foot inside LFR for the next tier.

So this is the thing, they're still catching up in terms of gear and progress, but 'gear catch up' isn't as instant as it has been in the past, which makes it harder for their Normal progress to catch up. That builds the resentment of the "less effort epics", because their own progress is bogged down to the same level of gear, in spite of the additional efforts they're putting in to actually get better from raids.

With the extra flex step, it's another step of catch up and it can be done with the players you actually want to be playing with. It will make those LFR epics noticably a little more inferior, as well as reduce the exposure of players in the LFR system who do abuse it by AFKing and such.

I remember back in Wrath and TBC we had the Welfare Epics from badges and heroics, and while there some complaints about the ease with which players got them; they weren't nearly as intense as they are now. I think that's because we all knew they were from incomparable content and were incomparable items, not just because of lower ilvl, but because of different models and names. I think right now that LFR being the 'new' catch up has not quite hit people. Once they're raiding with their groups in Flex, and using Flex to step into Normal, maybe they'll see LFR for what it is; the replacement dungeon finder catch up mechanism.

[KrazyK923]

Oh god, I knew when I saw this tweet somebody would complain about it on MMO-Champion.

GC is 100% right here.

[Deleted]

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

Working in the industrie where I need to work with complaint's I can say for a fact that almost always the so called vocal minority is actually the vocal majority.

Granted that it only goes for people using some product over a long term (new players who play till they cleared on LFR and quit aren't counted)...but since it's about WoW with subs, it applies.

[jakeic]

Doesn't change the fact the statement GC tweeted is just plainly wrong.

i'm generally not interested in convenience over immersion.

[DrSteveBrule]

The reason I frequent the forums as often as I do is because I found out how much this fucking majority on the forums speaks for the majority of WoW players.

It's like lobbyists up in this bitch.

[Lord Blackmore]

What irks me is when people say vocal minority. Vocal would have to indicate sound, but when I read I don't hear anything. Anyway, can you all stop pulling statistics out of your ass? People are complaining for a reason.

Vocal minority is perfect acceptable in the context it's being used on this forum. It doesn't mean people have to actually be speaking with their voices.

[Defengar]

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

A very large minority were so pissed they simply left (20% of the player base).

[KCguy]

Can't please everyone. A very small amount of people complaining about something really doesn't mean much. Which is almost always the case. The majority of players don't care. They go about their business and do their own thing. I am one of those many people.

[Volitar]

Why don't they just slip a little survey into your mailbox every 6 months or so, then they can get real feedback and we don't have keep saying "vocal minority".