"Players rarely argue for less convenience." - Ghostcrawler

[Lazuli]

This just in: casuals ruining MMOs.

Majority of casuals don't even use forums, Blizzard probably ignores most feedback and just keeps tabs on sub losses after patch updates.

The road only gets worse from here my friends, for us 1% anyway. I'd love for it to revert to something less glorified facebook game app but alas this is what happens when the devs 'pick a side' and stick with it. Whatever makes more money.

I still enjoy the game but ... meh, panda's, LFD, LFR, etc. all screams children and laziness. Let's just give everyone everything for zero effort because hurrdurr I don't want a 2nd job argument holds soooo much ground. Then why do we have quests, or anything that requires effort for that matter?

[xanzul]

What he is saying is that once you decide what level you want to be at, you should work towards it. Take jogging for example, if you goal for jogging is get in a little better shape, then no problem but it still takes effort. The catch is when you are on your normal jogging to get in better shape then you decide you want to run a marathon without running more. You fail miserably if you do that. So the logical step after that is to re-evaluate your goals.

WoW's logical step has turned in to crying about how hard it is to run a marathon and demanding that you be given something just like a marathon but requiring little to no effort to complete but still getting a similar medal to those who run the normal marathon.

If your goal in WoW is to raid and see content, then do it. Don't bitch and moan and want things easier to accommodate you. This is a massive game that accommodates to all types of players and just because it doesn't specifically hit your exact time frame or effort or anything doesn't mean it needs to be fixed to make it right for you.

People's goal seems to be easiest epics possible and that is just a crappy game model to base a game around.

When are you people going to get it through your thick skulls that the people running LFR weren't raiding AT ALL before LFR? They are NOT the same raiders you raid with today. They are different players who had a multitude of reasons why they weren't raiding who wanted to be able to do some form of raiding. What they do has ZERO impact on your raids. It has ZERO impact on your progression. It has ZERO impact on your enjoyment of the game. I'm sorry you can't mock them any longer and lord your epics over them but that is just too god damn bad now isn't it? It is absolutely sickening the attitude you people have towards this game and people who have different play styles. Blizzard isn't catering to that mentality any more and thank god for that. I can only hope it drives every single last one of you out of game for once and for all.

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It's like using a god mode cheat in a video game and bragging you beat the game and it was easy after you bitched about how hard it was til you found the cheat code lol.

Who is bragging about beating the game? Jesus christ. Just lock this up already. It is a shit thread built on a shit premise.

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But they WERE bleeding subs then. It's just the influx made up for it. What happened in Cataclysm is the NET change in active accounts went negative.

I know lots of people who dropped the game in BC, Wrath, or even Vanilla. There are a lot of ex-players out there.

These people will never ever accept that a large part of the 20 million people who have quit the game did so during the holy and sacred vanilla/tbc.

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Have you actually seen options on unsubscribe page? Most options are similar to "game is too difficult" and few options like "lack of time". That's it. So the only real options are ether something is too difficult or RL stuff. There is an option similar to "I don't like direction where game is heading", but no option to specify what exactly player doesn't like. (at least it was like that last time I used that form. Now I use only game cards that don't subscribe me, so there is no option to unsubscribe) Results of such poll are useless.

So no, Blizzard don't know why people quit because people in charge of collecting data are incompetent.

That form isn't the only source of data. Much of their metrics don't even come from voluntary feedback but from how people play the game.

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this is a really great post.

only would add 1) the 4m (is it less than 4now?) western subs is only possible just due to the huge inertia of wow being THE mmo new players try - how many vanilla/bc players are left? 50%?

2) wow would have gotten some high sub interest early on classic if today's game went out then just due to war3's success and the storyline, but yeah, the game would have bombed.

3) i often say that while Kotick is death for a complex mmo game, he is a great businessman. I just don't think McMMO is necessarily the only viable model that they could have taken with wow after the merger.

As per the merger agreement between Vivendi Games and Activision and as per Activision-Blizzard's company bylaws, Blizzard Entertainment would maintain their autonomy they had prior to the merger. Kotick can't do a god damn thing without a majority vote of ATVI's board of directors and with Vivendi holding 62% that means Kotick in essence answers directly to the CEO of Vivendi just as Morhaime does and did prior to the merger. Nothing has changed in how Blizzard is run.

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Right on on everything. Blizzard's shifted it's business model to providing for a new playerbase, one that's not likely to stick around.

I'll add that going back to the older playstyle of truly investing yourself VERY long term in the game will hurt it more than help it now as the vast majority of the playerbase has either evolved or been replaced with players enjoying the conveniences and jumping in and out of the game.

While the quoted post wasn't really biased or opinionated at all, I'll inject some of my own in saying that Blizzard has really gotten to shooting itself in the foot by ensuring maximum short term profits very much at the expense of long term profits/loyalty. I'm more than willing to wait another 4-6 years to see what they have wrought.

What makes you think the 12 million subscribers during Wrath were all the same people? This game has had significant subscriber churn from day one and it isn't due to Blizzard fucking up the game or catering to the wrong people. This is a video game not a way of life. People will stick around as long as the game is fun but make no mistake about it they WILL leave at some point regardless of what Blizzard does or doesn't do. People really need to accept subscriber loss is a reality that simply can not be prevented.

[nekobaka]

Source? They acknowledged that there was a gap between LFR and normal and that there weren't the proper mechanisms for players to improve (if they wanted to). They *could* have nerfed Normals to solve that. Instead they added an entirely new, cross-realm, scaling raid difficulty. They also added proving grounds, presumably to help solve the same issues. That doesn't sound like a team saying "fuck off and do LFR."

I posted the quote a month ago, let me look for it. In one of the blogs GC mentions that going nto MoP that normal mode dungeons will be tuned tighter for guild groups in mind and LFR will be for those who find normal mode too challenging. Well this meant that the lower end guilds got bumped out of normals and the gap between LFR and normals increased. Blizzard thought these players would be happy with LFR, but their data is proving otherwise.

My use of words are a bit strong but that is effectively what the developers did by increasing the gap between LFR and normals in MoP. The developers made attempts to drive away the PuG player base into LFR which resulted in the lower end guilds being hurt along with the PuG community of casuals who prove that one can be a casual and not commit to a schedule and see content.

[xanzul]

actually, I think the entire 'make raids puggable' attitude that started with 3.0.2 was imposed from above. there is a blue post (chilton?) saying that naxx 3.0 wasn't tuned as hard as 'we' (blue) would have liked. Given how easy wotlk heroics were on release, how easy outdoor questing was, etc., I think they were told to make the entire game accessible to nearly the entire playerbase, and the way they did this was just by nerfing mob damage across the board. wotlk heroic trash damage appeared to not have numerically increased from tbc lvl 70 heroic levels, despite health pools almost doubling.

Accessibility was literally a mantra with kotick, there is an early 2009 interview with him where he talks about an ATVI game being released and goes into some detail on how they were making the game much more accessible to a larger group of people (potential customers). At the time I thought about how similar it was to how wotlk had been tuned - I think he told blizzard to go to that church (accessibility) too. (I know there is a cult movement here which thinks the atvi ceo doesn't have any ability to give broad market direction for their products to blizzard).

Nope sorry but you are full of shit. Blizzard has had autonomy ever since Vivendi bought them. No one tells them to do anything as far as design philosophy goes. There is no big meanie evil bean counter forcing Blizzard to casual up the game.

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Ok but when Blizz made 5 mans "Challenging" the LFR liking crowd bitched..........so again, who's fault is it?

What you people are unable to comprehend is that it isn't that people don't want challenging content to exist, it is that they want options in how challenging content is for them. Not one single casual has ever said lets get rid of heroic modes. None. Not one single one. What they do want however is an option for casual versions of content and that's fine just as it is fine for there to be hardcore versions of content. Everyone gets what they want without it being at the expense of others. I really just can not fathom how this is a bad thing especially considering how the demands for nerfs due to limited options made life miserable for the hardcore. LFR is what is preserving your challenging raid content and yet you want to remove it.

Yes 5 man heroics are faceroll again but we have challenge modes now. Same goes for scenarios and from the looks of it Blizzard is adding solo content with scaling difficulty in Proving Grounds in the endless mode. Now that Blizzard has come up with solutions to handle zone population issues there is no reason we can't have group quests and elites back in open zones and I fully believe we will get exactly just that in the next expansion. Some of you really need to step back and put some thought into this because of Blizzard's decision to appeal to a casual audience they now have the resources to give us more varying types of content for all types of players. No one needs to be left out and nothing needs to be taken from everyone. The state of this game is better than ever for those seeking a challenge and the only "problem" I can see here is that Blizzard is no longer catering to this exclusionary attitude some players seem to have that is a relic of the past and needs to stay there.

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The small vocal minority has been complaining. The vast majority does not communicate with developers at all, but clearly these people who don't use the forums at all want more and more convenience. Ghostcrawler and people in this thread know this because.... uhhh.... they read minds? No, no, I mean... they read the signs!

Like this!

See, if a lot of players use the LFR feature that means they clearly enjoy doing so, it has nothing to do with any of the other perks like free gear... and uhh, people always seem to use their flying mounts over their ground mounts, so clearly they like convenience there to and don't ever want to use ground mounts again, has nothing to do with speed or anything like that, the silent majority just hates ground mounts... and players also enjoy to blow through 5 mans without even thinking, we know this cause the success rates of 5 mans are through the roof... all that stuff means the silent majority likes it, right?

You think you are being clever but you are just being ignorant. Unlike the perpetual whiners on these forums people by and large don't actually sit around doing things endlessly that they hate. They stop doing it and if they pay for a game they aren't enjoying they stop paying rather than sit on the forums and bitch endlessly.

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Yep and what about the ones who don't say shit and just leave? Are they a minority as well?

What makes you think they left for the reasons you are unhappy with the game? The only thing comments like this prove is that it is entirely accurate to refer to the incessant whiners as a vocal minority.

[jakeic]

No. The primary purpose of the game is to make money. Providing entertainment is the means by which it attains that primary goal.

If the game provided entertainment, but didn't make money, it would be a failure.

if the game didn't make money it would be a failure of the business that produced the game, it wouldn't be that the game failed. the primary goal of a game is to provide entertainment and competition.

[xanzul]

There is only one type of real feedback, it is the wallet one. You can say, write, tweet or sing whatever you want, the only time any company changes things is when the money flow stops. So if you are not happy with the game, or want a dramatic change, unsubscribe, as each time you pay your fee, you say "Good job, Greg, please do continue."

GC isn't the only one making decisions.

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They don't seem to understand the difference between what we say we want, and what we actually need.

Actually it is the players who can't seem to figure that out. I think Blizzard has a pretty clear picture on what they are doing.

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Did you just write that GC ist not responsible for the direction of the game? If so, no point in argueing with you anymore. You've perfectly disqualified yourself.

He isn't solely responsible for the direction of the game. Blizzard develops collaboratively without one single person having full control over everything. Nothing is being put into the game without at least some sort of consensus among other developers.

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The problem is.. are the other 87.5% venting otherwise?

Working in the food service or the service industry in general, teaches you that, JUST BECAUSE YOU DON'T GET COMPLAINTS, DOESN'T MEAN THAT IT'S GOOD OR PEOPLE ARE CONTENT. Most people, will take the loss, never come back, and move on.

This is flawed argument.

Seriously. Now, take the sub count loss. Sorry, losing millions players isn't content by any standard. Of course, you are going to use, mid expansion, old game, or whatever excuse you want.

So you can take roughly, 1-2% of the player base that is vocal and damn sure bet, that a lot of their guildmates, friends, or relatives have heard about their opinions. Will take into account said opinions. Might even agree with said opinions, but will continue to play.

I just don't get where this ideology comes from.

All we know is a certain number of players left. That's it. Nothing more nothing less and only Blizzard has the full details on whys and hows and even that is limited to an extent. The only people who truly know why subscribers left are the subscribers themselves who left. Basing arguments on why things should be changed because of subscription loss just isn't valid for a multitude of reasons. If your argument can't stand on its own without being propped up with subscription loss then there isn't much value to it in the first place.

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Then if was so bad, then. Why did people put up with it? So Why was it OK in 2005 and not OK, now... please explain?

The game changed. The market changed. The players changed. Want more reasons? There are plenty more where that came from.

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The amount of people who have been playing this game for all 8 years is probably really small. Saying that is the reason for losing 1.3 million is a bit sketchy.

Are you seriously saying playing a game long term isn't a valid reason for why some may have left? games aren't fun forever and always. Eventually they get boring and it is time to move on. It isn't the indictment on the qualify of a game as much as you want it to be.

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This is probably the true issue then. I think it's about damn time blizzard simply introduced an in-game voting/survey system for game changes.

It is unnecessary as it would simply give players the mistaken impression that Blizzard develops by democracy and they already can get the same data through other means. They care about feedback but ultimately it is their game, their vision and their call in what should be changed and how.

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He is responsible for the articles he writes on the WOW website.

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Again with the stereotyping and insulting of people who get into this game, I love how you people say it's us more hardcore players doing the insulting etc but it's really YOU.

Ever think to consider hardcores have a bad reputation because of incessant whining and bitching about how "dirty casuals" have ruined the game?

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WoW isn't really losing players to other MMO's though. Other MMOs are about as low pop as ever minus the little burst they get when they go F2P. WoW is losing people to no games or other types of games it seems. That isn't a cry to bring those other types of games in to WoW, which they seem to be doing, its a cry to make their MMO worth playing over the other games again. There were plenty of good games that came out during WoW's life and each one would take a very minor group from WoW. I remember Aion hitting in Ulduar and thinking it would take tons for WoW cause it was a pretty good game. It took practically no one in the Q report. That is because people liked WoW more than Aion(and others).

WoW needs to go back to catering to the MMORPG market and stop worrying about trying to pick up people from Halo or Pokemon. Those types of people will always return to their type of game when the new one appears.

what part of Wow is even remotely like Halo? Also pet battles are in many other games and it isn't just Pokemon.

[Itisamuh]

True. The mainstream playerbase obviously loves being able to quickly queue for a dungeon or a battleground, but as endlessly is repeated by now already, it comes at the loss of community feeling. No more effort and reward for getting together with people, making friends who you can depend upon to do dungeons together... Arguably you can also say that LFD made the game more toxic, because grouping with 5 friends probably wouldn't include someone insulting you for clearing too slow, as opposed to grouping with 4 anonymous randoms.

But again, the people who want to make friends and have consistent groups can still do so. Nobody is forcing them to play alone.

[xanzul]

Why isn't it growing though? Why is it deemed that the MMO market is dead? The MMO market has gone down some, but that doesn't mean it can't go up if the game play is up to par. Yeah, people will go try the F2P games if they are interested in MMOs. That doesn't mean they are going to stay with the first one they try if they like it. They will probably ask around for the "best" MMORPG to try it out. If WoW was amazing and wonderful and everyone loved it, you bet your ass those people would come try out WoW. If you are a gamer and enjoy playing games, you know they cost money, the price is a deterrent but it isn't an obstacle that can't be overcome by great game play and immersion.

Because the mmo market has always been a niche market and Wow is the first mmo to ever hit the market saturation point. Anyone who thought the game could keep growing infinitely was only deluding themselves and quite ignorant.

[Normie]

I still enjoy the game but ... meh, panda's, LFD, LFR, etc. all screams children and laziness. Let's just give everyone everything for zero effort because hurrdurr I don't want a 2nd job argument holds soooo much ground. Then why do we have quests, or anything that requires effort for that matter?

I often wonder: What are you people on about?

There's a point at which hyperbole makes no sense.

[Height]

I've unsubbed and I don't think it's a bad game. It's just an old game and I'm ready to move on. I do think it got a bit too convenient though. There is a point where yes it feels initially nice to add convenience, but it also takes away charm and the pleasure you receive when your hard work is rewarded. It also helps immerse you sometimes. A dangerous world is more exciting to adventure through than one where you know you'll be safe around every bend.

For ex: Running (sow) and only having druids/wizards in EQ portal you made the world feel large and wondrous. When they added POP books to teleport you instantly without communicating with other players it hurt the social aspect of the game and made the world shrink.

[xanzul]

Exactly, MMOs were not a big thing when WoW came out, they were considered "nerd games" like Dungeons and Dragons........if they stopped fucking around and doing stupid shit and got innovative again they could come off life support, but right now they are just milking it until it bleeds it's last drop, like they don't even give a toss about the game anymore.

That's just the thing though. Blizzard doesn't innovate. They improve on the innovations of others. If the market is ever going to start growing again it won't be until someone comes up with something innovative rather than continually copying Wow over and over and over only to end up failing spectacularly.

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"Vocal minority" is a buzzword used by Blizzard to justify not having to listen and react to every complaint on the forum. Fact is only a small fraction of the WoW population is "vocal" about anything on the forums or on Twitter, be it positive or negative. So no matter what the argument is and whether it is in favor of or against Blizzard's ideas, they can always discard it as coming from a "vocal minority".

A lot of people have been complaining about the game being too casual/easy/convenient. And yes, while they may seem like a minority when compared to the game's total population, they certainly aren't a minority when simply looking at the vocal part of said population (people who post on forums and Twitter).

Blizzard doesn't have to justify a god damn thing to ANYONE. Again it is their game, their vision and their calls to make on how to develop the game. Players need to learn their place here and understand Blizzard developers are not their bitches.

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"Vocal minority" is a buzzword used by Blizzard to justify not having to listen and react to every complaint on the forum. Fact is only a small fraction of the WoW population is "vocal" about anything on the forums or on Twitter, be it positive or negative. So no matter what the argument is and whether it is in favor of or against Blizzard's ideas, they can always discard it as coming from a "vocal minority".

A lot of people have been complaining about the game being too casual/easy/convenient. And yes, while they may seem like a minority when compared to the game's total population, they certainly aren't a minority when simply looking at the vocal part of said population (people who post on forums and Twitter).

Blizzard doesn't have to justify a god damn thing to ANYONE. Again it is their game, their vision and their calls to make on how to develop the game. Players need to learn their place here and understand Blizzard developers are not their bitches.

[Normie]

I posted the quote a month ago, let me look for it. In one of the blogs GC mentions that going nto MoP that normal mode dungeons will be tuned tighter for guild groups in mind and LFR will be for those who find normal mode too challenging. Well this meant that the lower end guilds got bumped out of normals and the gap between LFR and normals increased. Blizzard thought these players would be happy with LFR, but their data is proving otherwise.

My use of words are a bit strong but that is effectively what the developers did by increasing the gap between LFR and normals in MoP. The developers made attempts to drive away the PuG player base into LFR which resulted in the lower end guilds being hurt along with the PuG community of casuals who prove that one can be a casual and not commit to a schedule and see content.

Normal modes were tuned too hard for groups that were primarily social. Basically, if your raid is going to carry underperformers (because they are friends/children/relatives/spouses/whatever and you think it's more important to play WITH them than to exclude them because they're not great at WoW), then you've been struggling mightily in T14 and T15.

People complain that the game isn't "social" enough, but then when you get to the hardcore raiding mindset (which is the only mindset left nowadays), it's fuck you I don't care if you're my friend, if you're not going to run LFR for your runes than you can GTFO my raid.

I think it's hugely more important to the long term health of the game that there be content that people can play in socially than it is that there is content people can play competitively. But maybe I'm wrong.

[xanzul]

And that is why they have single player RPGs, people who want to do things on their own and just queue are trying and SUCCEEDING in changing games people like ME love, I don't go onto other games and try and force my will onto them do I? THAT'S why I am so pissed off.

Queues don't prevent people from socializing nor does it turn Wow into a single player game. Again they were meant to supplement player formed groups not replace them. Blizzard isn't responsible for the laziness of its players. Nothing is stopping you from making your own groups.

[Jainzar]

This has to be the most infuriating tweet I have ever seen from Ghostcrawler

Either the community managers are doing an atrocious job, or the designers are pretending complaints don't exist

I mean, players have been complaining about WoW being more and more casual-friendly since WoTLK, complaining about its accessibility and convenience. This story really begins with the implementation of LFD towards the end of WOTLK, then flying mounts in cataclysm, and finally LFR. Dozens of LFR threads are made weekly, how come players rarely argue for less convenience?

People on MMO Champion have been complaining, not so much on the official forums or via other feedback. And Blizzard does not really read MMO Champion, or if they do, doesn't give a shit about the complaints voiced here.

[xanzul]

Think it is very ignorant this comment by Ghostcrawler. Sure he is right that people do not argue for less convenience.

But compagnies like Blizzard should also try to see the future. Weird perhaps but true. They should expect a result from giving more convenience to the playerbase. Eeven if they cry out for a certain feature. What would the effect be?

Blizzard either obviously failed at doing so MULTIPLE times - or - they did so knowing stuff would happen but thought it would have more positive then negative aspects.

Either way, inconvenience is not always a bad thing.

I won't go into "what should never have been implemented". These things have been done and cannot be undone basically without screwing with a lot of peoples expectations on how the game works = probable sub loss if they do remove certain things.

So basically you ignored not only the context of the quote this thread is about but the entire thread itself. Good job.

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Its interesting, in TBC it was all the casuals posting on the forums that the game was too hard! Now we have the same people telling people who want the game to be harder to shut up, double standards? Now I for one am a heroic raider, I like how that is at the moment.

There are some things i don't like in the game, but really they don't bother me that much! LFR is ok, I go in there for a giggle at how bad people can play and don't take it too seriously but i play, don't die and move as i should to avoid stuff, but the problem there is even the less-skilled players do not take it seriously! 5 mans are a little shit, TBC had the best 5 man dungeons about interms of difficulty range. I think we will only see 3-man scenarios rather than 5-man dungeons in the next expansion, which is OK, they are quite good for storytelling and they are much quicker for the Looking For system, as they can just stick 3 dps together and off they go. But is quicker better? Guess thats what Blizz really need to work out.

Players are being told to shut up because those who want a challenge in game have it if they decide to seek it out.. It doesn't require the removal of easy content. I think that is a pretty valid reason to tell someone to shut the fuck up especially when it is the 100000000000th time the thread has come up.

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That is an amazingly inaccurate statement. Majority of people play and if they don't like something, they quit. Obviously if they like it they'll keep playing but don't assume, like GC seems to, that because people remain quiet it means they like how things are. We sure as hell haven't seen 1.3 million posts in the past 3 months saying they are unhappy.

Or maybe people unhappy with certain aspects of the game realize that despite their issues with the game they still enjoy it and don't blow it out of proportion like most on these forums do. People here seriously overstate the severity of many game issues.

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Just out of curiosity.. how do we know?

By playing the game? I'm not seeing anywhere near the amount of bitching and whining in game that happens on this forum.

[Omgarsh]

I've never understood comments like this. WoW grew in subscription numbers by a very large amount during vanilla and TBC. Admittedly, it was the shiny new toy in vanilla, but it kept climbing despite how few people were actually raiding and the even lower number of people who did Naxx or Sunwell. Yet, somehow, there's an argument out there that that doesn't work, despite the evidence to the contrary. Naxx was huge, 15 bosses. And yet, what, less than 1% of the population, something like eight or nine thousand players ever killed Kel'Thuzad at level 60...out of over six million. Yet somehow, they found the time to devote to developing it and only gained subscriptions. I'm not saying it has to go back to that way, but I just don't find that argument valid.

There are other reasons why sub numbers could have gone up: It was by far the best MMO on the market at the time, and it was recently featured on TV shows like South Park (so it suddenly had even bigger publicity in North America, at least). And those are just two off the top of my head. I'm just saying inaccessible raids aren't necessarily why people kept signing up. In fact I really doubt that was it, because I recall Blizzard saying that despite all the effort they put into content in TBC, they still lost most players before they hit max level to see things like heroics and raids. But anyway, my reason isn't any more valid than yours. I'm just saying this is a case where causation doesn't equal correlation.

[xanzul]

Haha yeah thats exactly what I am doing right now. I just canceled my sub just because there is nothing new. Will probably resub when we can kill Garrosh and then cancel once again.

So you quit the game because you lack the self control to avoid doing LFR and doing raiding the "right" way? There is plenty of new content you are just skipping it for the easy content. This is a player created problem and not a design issue.

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On the contrary, no point posting a thread like this on MMOchamp these days since most of the critical/unhappy people have already quit the game or gave up on this site/wow long ago and are nowhere to be seen. The majority who remain still like the game or are the horrendous blizzard-defenders/fanboys who will attack anyone that tries to raise a critical point, or are a mix of the two.

Let me know when there is a critical point in this thread that is valid. So far all of it has been "WAAAAH LFR ruined my game". I don't think there is really anything there that needs defense given how moronic the "point" is.

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By your logic is also follows that all hobbies must only have 1 agegroup right?

We have a model aircraft club who use the field next to my office twice a week... what agegroup do u steretype them to be?

Basically, ur an ignorant idiot if u stereotype all videogamers as teenagers and students...

No the point being made is that issues in a video game aren't worth all the drama being created over them in comparison to things in life that actually do matter. Most adults are capable of keeping things in perspective.

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Whereas there is a very large community of forum users on this forum who are ex-wow players, they are the 'un-subbed', they are those people who left the game. A recent thread entitled 'why did u quit Wow?' ran on for many many pages and had hundreds and hundreds of posts. U ignore that group who still use this forum at your peril...

If u want to get a good idea to why people left Wow then that thread is possibly the best and most accurate statement of fact u can find outside of having access to Blizzards secret data.

Quite honestly I don't give a fuck what people who quit the game years ago have to say about the current state of Wow and neither should Blizzard. That is why an active subscription is required to post on their forums. The only thing required to post here is an axe to grind.

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Since when does not being vocal on a forum means you are okay with everything?

It's also pretty rare to stick around on a forum to criticize a game. I am only here because it keeps me from getting bored at work. If I wasn't bored you would never hear me "complain" about a videogame.

I think this statement of Ghostcrawler is kinda ridiculous when you see so many threads with complaints on the forums about too much convenience. So much that other people complain about the complaining.
Maybe we need to be extremely specific about what we are argueing so Ghostcrawler can understand us?

GC understands things just fine thank you very much it is actually players like you who are willfully ignorant on what GC and other Blizzard employees have to say and what they mean.

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At this point does it matter why people have quit? The main focus to me would be trying to figure out what can work to keep the customers you have right now. Need to stop the outflow before you worry about getting people back.

This patch coming up is really a hail marry patch with some huge things in it you would not expect to see come out during the last tier.

VR: Could solve a lot of problems or create a lot of new ones. It's pretty bold to try to it now.

Flex Raiding: One more mode of raiding.

Proving Grounds: A new system to try to help players be better at the game.

Then of course the new raid. This is a lot for a end tier patch and a lot of it seems to a attempt to stop the bleeding. Who knows if it will work but they are giving it a shot.

I like how Blizzard resolving some long standing issues players have brought up is being portrayed as an act of desperation. Did it ever occur to you that Blizzard is doing some of the things in 5.4 because players asked for it? you people need to make up your mind. Does Blizzard listen to us or not because you can't have it both ways.

[brunnor]

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First, at least you read through the thread enough to see my posts, which is nice.

Hardcore raiders never unsub because they can't afford to. They need to keep farming to have the best possible gear on mains or alts for the next tier of raiding. As it is seen currently, casuals don't stay subbed once they are done with content, they unsub until new stuff comes. There have been plenty in this thread saying exactly that. LFR isn't doing the job of keeping them interested so it needs to be changed since it was pretty much the end all for keeping the more casual player base subbed.

The people who do LFR, assuming they came Cata+, probably weren't raiding. They were doing other things be it dailies or 5mans or whatever. There is nothing wrong with people not raiding. It has always been the case that people will not raid if they can't afford the time to do so. In Wrath, assuming that they were playing, everyone raided. There were pugs everywhere, GDKP and casual pug guilds all over the place. Blizzard elected to change that with Cata and forced a lot of formerly raiding players to no longer raid.

These people all wanted to raid but it was taken away be Blizzard listening to people who wanted 10s to be on "equal" footing with 25s. LFR is a far cry from what Wrath raiding was.

The McDonald's argument works though. Lots of people eat there, lots of people like the food, lots of people don't eat there and lots don't like the food. Does it make those who don't like it have no reason for not liking it? Or does it make those people who do eat there actually like it? Do they go their just cause it's convenient and cheap? Or on the way home or any other number of reasons. Thinking that because people do something, they must like whatever they are doing is just plain dumb.

[xanzul]

OMG this is so ignorant I don't know what to say really. And yes this is what Blizzard says too, can you believe it?

"everyone must love LFR" for example, because it is so popular. It is used so much people most LOVE IT!!!!!!

Actually and I know I can only know a tiny tiny fraction of players myself... but the players I know apart from 1 do not like LFR at all. They do LFR because it rewards gear and has efficient valorgains...

They feel it is a braindead experience. And no I am not talking from a heroic pov. I've been in both heroic and casual guilds (casual at the moment). They all say the same... Yes it is a convenience feature for some (even to them). But is it fun and thus preferable? Hell no. Its just a means to an end. You cannot commit to raids and still want to progress your character? Yeah you need to go thru a 45 min of boredom to get it.

I am sure there are many people who LOVE "raiding" at the level LFR is. I just haven't met them yet apart from 1 player.

This player loves to raid in that way. For the rest they don't like it but feel they have to do it to progress their character.

No I'm sorry but you are wrong. Outside of these forums players don't continually do things they hate adn they sure as hell don't pay for a game where they don't enjoy most of what they do. If people are running certain content in a game odds are it is because they want to not because they are "forced". If anyone is ignorant here it is you. Like I have said people on these forums seemingly have lost touch with reality a long time ago because they don't represent most Wow players.

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I'm not a fan of Ghostcrawler at all. I think his design choices are responsible for the loss of subscribers just as much as fluctuations in the market, there are games such as EvE which have maintained a large consistent player base... It's simply a myth that market changes and consumer expectation changes are responsible for WoW's 'decline', i think its a petty attempt to remove responsibility from the game developers making simply bad design decisions.

It is a myth that market changes can affect subscription numbers? Are you for real? You can't compare Eve which is a game designed to be hardcore from the start that isn't even remotely anything like Wow with a game that was designed from the start to be casual and accessible. No one is saying Blizzard isn't responsible for their mistakes nor that they aren't responsible in part for subscriber loss. The real myth here is that a game can be popular forever and grow infinitely. It just simply isn't true.

[brunnor]

Or maybe people unhappy with certain aspects of the game realize that despite their issues with the game they still enjoy it and don't blow it out of proportion like most on these forums do. People here seriously overstate the severity of many game issues.

People do make things seems worse than they are on forums for sure, but that doesn't mean it should be completely discounted due to it being out of proportion. There are some of us who don't blow it out of proportion. I would like to think I'm one of those as I don't ever do the classic, "OMG NERF/FIX/CHANGE THIS OR I'M QUIT/WOW IS DEAD/etc kind of posts". We merely bring what we know and think to the forums to talk things out, or in some cases argue a point we feel strongly about. Obviously a vast majority of what everyone says on the forums is strictly their opinion but that's what forums are about.