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  1. #341
    Quote Originally Posted by Frylord View Post
    @SirCowdog

    Not going to quote that wall of rubbish as you clearly lack reading comprehension.

    I'll just leave it you still can't give me a reason why flying was a good idea and how it didn't remove far more than it gave.

    And I love how you think vanilla was a pile of shit (probably never played, like most of the spoon fed anti-vanilla people), but you're here in the vanilla server section clogging up threads with your useless drivel.
    So, you say you want a rebuttal, but your own simply dismissess counter-points without thought. Right, I can tell this is going to be a great conversation.

    You disagreeing with my point of view does not mean that I lack reading comprehension. It means that you don't like what I said, but don't have anything of value to counter with, so you resort to creating an insult about my level of literacy. You further had no more points to back up your own opinion, so went on to attack my character via a claim that I didn't play during vanilla. (Which, for the record, I did. I can provide plenty of details, but I expect you'd dismiss that too.)

    But you want a reason why flying was a good idea. It's not so much that I need to provide exhaustive details as to what flying adds to the game. All I have to do is prove how ridiculous the claims are that flying is BAD for the game. And that's something I can do with hard facts not based on opinions or subjective points of view.

    The subscriptions values over a period from 2007 to 2014.

    Flying was part of the open world design from TBC through MoP. The same period of time wherein World of Warcraft had its highest participation and subscription numbers. If Flying is so damn harmful to the game, as you claim, then explain to me how subscriptions continued to INCREASE after it was included as part of the game from the launch of TBC, all the way through WotLK. Even Cata and MoP(where subs started to decline), still had higher numbers than WoD and Legion(the non-flying expansions).

    It's almost as if flying doesn't actually cause the harm you say it does, and might be caused by other factors.
    Last edited by SirCowdog; 2017-11-13 at 10:31 PM.

  2. #342
    Quote Originally Posted by Army Dreamer View Post
    Now this explains. It is not that you don't like your flying enabled. It is that you don't like other people are able to fly. You don't care what they like. Interesting personality.
    Now this explains it. It's not that you don't want to see flight removed. It is that you don't like other people not being able to fly. You don't care what they like. Interesting personality.

    Not the best of arguments.

    What people like, isn't necessarily what is good/what is best for the game. People often overlook the effects that a feature might have on the game overall.

    I'm sure there are people who like the absurd gear-scaling, and insane healthpools, and damage numbers. I'm sure people plenty of people like Transmogrification. Some people even like LFR, X-realm, M+, raid difficulty settings. I'm sure some people like frost mage changes in cata's pre-patch that are tragically still with us. Of course I don't care about what they say they like, I don't think any of those things were good changes/features.

    I'm sure a lot of people would argue never, or being extremely reluctant, to remove content to the game. Refusing the prune content has left us with tons of leveling zones, and tons of levels. Resulting in there being no pacing while leveling. Lots of boring old dungeons that are rendered useless for anything aside from powerleveling. And the zones themselves are entirely empty, because everyone sprinted to the next zone to level more efficiently. Stories that are completely nonsensical with respect to the current game content. All for what people say they like.

    Retaining mechanics because they're "popular" doesn't mean you're making the game better, or that you're even helping retain the player base. I'd be very surprised if flight was really that important to many people, as some in this thread suggest it is. I can't imagine caring more about convenience than good content and enjoyable mechanics.

  3. #343
    Quote Originally Posted by Lumicide View Post
    Retaining mechanics because they're "popular" doesn't mean you're making the game better, or that you're even helping retain the player base. I'd be very surprised if flight was really that important to many people, as some in this thread suggest it is. I can't imagine caring more about convenience than good content and enjoyable mechanics.
    Typical. Suggestion that flying isn't important to people in an environment where everyone who actually cared about it was already driven away by WoD and Legion's mishandling of it.

    Did you ever stop to consider that maybe some people think of "good content" as something that INCLUDES flight instead of ignores it? That it might have had something to do with what made the game so good for so long?
    Last edited by SirCowdog; 2017-11-13 at 11:33 PM.

  4. #344
    Quote Originally Posted by SirCowdog View Post
    Typical. Suggestion that flying isn't important to people in an environment where everyone who actually cared about it was already driven away by WoD and Legion's mishandling of it.

    Did you ever stop to consider that maybe some people think of "good content" as something that INCLUDES flight instead of ignores it? That it might have had something to do with what made the game so good for so long?
    How certain are you that it was WoD's and Legion's handing of flight alone that hurt the game? And why are you so certain it was flight that helped BC? Is it possible that other things had been screwed up that may have hurt the community?

    Nov 18, 2014 : 3.9m <- release of WoD
    Dec 17, 2014 : 4.5m
    Jan 30, 2015 : 4.3m
    Feb 08, 2015 : 4.1m <- BRF added
    Mar 24, 2015 : 2.8m
    Apr 21, 2015 : 2.4m
    Jun 25, 2015 : 2.2m <-HFC added
    JuL 21, 2015 : 1.9m
    Aug 10, 2015 : 1.9m <-flight added inbetween here
    Sep 05, 2015 : 2.0m <-flight added inbetween here
    Oct 29, 2015 : 1.7m
    Nov 06, 2015 : 1.7m
    Dec 17, 2015 : 1.7m

    source: waybackmachine of warcraftrealms.com/census.php

    Judging from this data, it doesn't look like flight did much more than get people to log in and grab flight, play for a month, then not bother playing afterwords.

    http://www.statista.com/graphic/1/27...by-quarter.jpg

    seems to show a similar tale
    Last edited by Lumicide; 2017-11-14 at 12:17 AM.

  5. #345
    I think blaming flying for the sub numbers falling is a bit like saying the check engine light came on because of a dirty windshield.

    Yes both issues involve a vehicle, but they aren't related.

  6. #346
    Quote Originally Posted by Lumicide View Post
    How certain are you that it was WoD's and Legion's handing of flight alone that hurt the game? And why are you so certain it was flight that helped BC? Is it possible that other things had been screwed up that may have hurt the community?

    Nov 18, 2014 : 3.9m <- release of WoD
    Dec 17, 2014 : 4.5m
    Jan 30, 2015 : 4.3m
    Feb 08, 2015 : 4.1m <- BRF added
    Mar 24, 2015 : 2.8m
    Apr 21, 2015 : 2.4m
    Jun 25, 2015 : 2.2m <-HFC added
    JuL 21, 2015 : 1.9m
    Aug 10, 2015 : 1.9m <-flight added inbetween here
    Sep 05, 2015 : 2.0m <-flight added inbetween here
    Oct 29, 2015 : 1.7m
    Nov 06, 2015 : 1.7m
    Dec 17, 2015 : 1.7m

    source: waybackmachine of warcraftrealms.com/census.php

    Judging from this data, it doesn't look like flight did much more than get people to log in and grab flight, play for a month, then not bother playing afterwords.
    As I said, you're looking at it from a perspective that only takes into consideration data from an environment where flight is being ignored in the design. OF COURSE flight doesn't do much for the game or the population when it's only dropped in as an afterthought, is only obtainable after the content has been exhausted, and doesn't actually add anything.

    Flying might be in the game, but the overall DESIGN is still ground-only. Do you not recognize this?

    This is exactly the point I was making. You, and others, are basing your opinion on flight using a flawed premise. The entire argument for flying being bad is based on an underlying foundation of Blizzard doing everything in their power to sabotage it without removing it completely.

    In other words: Flying was not a problem until Blizzard made it into one.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lumicide View Post
    Are you looking at the same info I am? That picture is the same as THIS one. It clearly shows an increase in subscriptions from TBC through WotLK, where flying was part of the design. Even Cata and most of MoP had just as many or more subscriptions than Vanilla(without flight) and both WoD and Legion(which barely topped an average of 5m without flying.

    It would seem to me that the design which includes flight performed better than those without. This might just be a case of correlation implying causation, but it certainly proves that flying isn't nearly as harmful to the game as some people(particularly Blizzard) would have us believe.
    Last edited by SirCowdog; 2017-11-14 at 12:30 AM.

  7. #347
    Quote Originally Posted by SirCowdog View Post
    Are you looking at the same info I am? That picture is the same as THIS one. It clearly shows an increase in subscriptions from TBC through WotLK, where flying was part of the design. Even Cata and most of MoP had just as many or more subscriptions than Vanilla(without flight) and both WoD and Legion(which barely topped an average of 5m without flying.

    It would seem to me that the design which includes flight performed better than those without. This might just be a case of correlation implying causation, but it certainly proves that flying isn't nearly as harmful to the game as some people(particularly Blizzard) would have us believe.
    I didn't say it was particularly harmful, in fact, I said it was nothing (earlier in the thread). I doubt flight had any strong correlation at any period. The big negative changes, so far as I'm concerned, occurred at the pre-cata patch and beyond.

    Subs were better before mages had perma frost ele (which I think actually ruined balance, as every class had to counter mage's formally strongest cd as a baseline)
    Subs were better before LFR
    Subs were better before Xrealm
    Subs were better before blizz reduced cc abilities
    Subs were better before Garrisons were added*
    Subs were better before Class Halls were added*
    Subs were better before this, that, and the other thing

    *surely these two things didn't help the subs, as they caused people to just stay in a nice instance away from people all day.

    I handled flight in BC, WotLK, and Cata, the exact same way I handled mounting. As a means of getting from one place to another more quickly. And nothing more. Merely an option of convenience. (not much of an option, mind you. People aren't going to pick a slightly less convenient option just because it might be a very slight degree more enjoyable.)

    As I also said, earlier, short of a fairly large overhaul of the game design, flight, itself, coudln't even be made mechanically enjoyable.
    Last edited by Lumicide; 2017-11-14 at 12:39 AM.

  8. #348
    Quote Originally Posted by Lumicide View Post
    I didn't say it was particularly harmful, in fact, I said it was nothing (earlier in the thread). I doubt flight had any strong correlation at any period. The big negative changes, so far as I'm concerned, occurred at the pre-cata patch and beyond.

    Subs were better before mages had perma frost ele (which I think actually ruined balance, as every class had to counter mage's formally strongest cd as a baseline)
    Subs were better before LFR
    Subs were better before Xrealm
    Subs were better before blizz reduced cc abilities
    Subs were better before Garrisons were added*
    Subs were better before Class Halls were added*
    Subs were better before this, that, and the other thing

    *surely these two things didn't help the subs, as they caused people to just stay in a nice instance away from people all day.
    Since this is a thread about flying supposedly being the worst thing Blizzard ever did, I try to constrain my arguments to that scope. In which case I'm going to make arguments in favor of flying, and poke holes in arguments against(or in your case, neutral).

    All I can really say is that the time periods and expansions which included flying in their design performed better, and had more subscriptions than those without. Note carefully here that I do not imply that flying is directly responsible for that better performance. I'm simply establishing that a design without flying(WoD and Legion) is not intrinsically better, and certainly isn't providing the amazingly superior experience that Blizzard claimed it would allow them to create.

    The idea that flying has no effect on the experience or enjoyment of the game would seem to conflict with that. Although I'm willing to concede that other than subscription numbers, there's no way to prove that.

  9. #349
    As a druid, flying and flight form was the greatest thing added to the game. I love flying high, dropping flight form, and catching myself moments before death.
    “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
    – C.S. Lewis

  10. #350
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by SirCowdog View Post
    So, you say you want a rebuttal, but your own simply dismissess counter-points without thought. Right, I can tell this is going to be a great conversation.

    You disagreeing with my point of view does not mean that I lack reading comprehension. It means that you don't like what I said, but don't have anything of value to counter with, so you resort to creating an insult about my level of literacy. You further had no more points to back up your own opinion, so went on to attack my character via a claim that I didn't play during vanilla. (Which, for the record, I did. I can provide plenty of details, but I expect you'd dismiss that too.)

    But you want a reason why flying was a good idea. It's not so much that I need to provide exhaustive details as to what flying adds to the game. All I have to do is prove how ridiculous the claims are that flying is BAD for the game. And that's something I can do with hard facts not based on opinions or subjective points of view.

    The subscriptions values over a period from 2007 to 2014.

    Flying was part of the open world design from TBC through MoP. The same period of time wherein World of Warcraft had its highest participation and subscription numbers. If Flying is so damn harmful to the game, as you claim, then explain to me how subscriptions continued to INCREASE after it was included as part of the game from the launch of TBC, all the way through WotLK. Even Cata and MoP(where subs started to decline), still had higher numbers than WoD and Legion(the non-flying expansions).

    It's almost as if flying doesn't actually cause the harm you say it does, and might be caused by other factors.
    Again with the reading comprehension. And no, that was not a personal attack, merely a statement of fact.

    I've provided many reasons to support my argument for why I believe flying was terrible for the community and detrimental to the overall game.

    I've repeatedly asked for you to give a counter reasons to back up your argument why this isn't true and if whatever reasons you can come up with outweigh what was lost with the introduction of flying. You have yet to do this, it's hard to dismiss what you haven't given.

    And no, subscription numbers is not a hard fact on why flying wasn't terrible. There are too many factors and it's open to too much interpretation. I could say that because of flying being so slow in TBC that it's impact was minimum and it wasn't until WOTLK when for the first time subs STAGNATEDthat flying really began to be an issue. I could say because of the increases proliferation of flying, subs were almost half of what they were at their peak before Blizzard stopped reporting them.

    But I wont, because flying is just one small part in the decline of subs, which is why I wont attempt use such a ridiculous statistic as fact to back up my argument.

    And I never stated that flying was the sole reason for the decline in WoW's popularity, though it certainly was a major contributing factor. As previously stated, the slow erosion of community and the world in general was one of the major blows to what originally made WoW so appealing to a lot of people. Trying to use sub numbers as a hard fact for your sole argument for flying is so stupid I don't even...

    Btw,

    It's not so much that I need to provide exhaustive details as to what flying adds to the game. All I have to do is prove how ridiculous the claims are that flying is BAD for the game.
    Jesus fucking Christ, what are they teaching kids in school these days? No, that's not how a debate works.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Drudatz View Post
    Death a punishment? in wow? you never played a game obviously where DEATH IS a punishment. In wow you just run back to your corpse and thats it.
    Clearly I was being subjective in regards to death then vs death now and how people were much more willing to help out others to avoid this punishment. Death now is 30 seconds of inconvenience. Death then was 5-10 min of running, maybe taking a ress sickness if your body was somewhere you couldn't reach, or spending 20 min corpse hopping to safety because you're surrounded by respawns.

    And I play Eve Online, the single most unforgiving game out there when it comes to player death. Will I have to preface anything I say with some stupid disclaimer now? "Death in vanilla was punishing (though other games had it worse)!"

    For fucks sake.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Corroc View Post
    Wotlk was the most popular expansion to this date. No attunements, no clearing old raids because they introduced 5man instances that acted as a catch up.
    Don't agree with this, and I've never quite understood why people have such fond memories of WOTLK.

    WOTLK was pretty terrible apart from Uld and ICC, and even ICC was tainted by spending 2 fucking years in that place.

    WOTLK was the first expansion where sub numbers didn't increase, they stagnated. Vanilla gained 8m subs. TBC gained 3m. WOTLK gained 500k, up to another 500k near the end of the expansion.

    And remember, there's a constant churn of players who join and leave during the expansions, and for the first time ever WoW had as many people leaving as it had joining. And looking back, is it really such a surprise? Let's look at what WOTLK gave us.

    *Decent 70-80 leveling zones.
    *Very easy normal dungeons
    *HC dungeons that were a joke compared to TBC HC's that quickly got outgeared
    *First raids were so undertuned they were a joke and cleared within the first few days
    *Flying and LFG pretty much killed what was left of realm communities
    *Uld released + hard modes. One of the best raids ever made
    *TOTC release, worst raid ever made
    *Catch up gear invalidated previous raids and created the "only one tier of current content" that lasted up until today
    *ICC released. Great raid tainted by forcing the entire playerbase to run the same raid for 2 years, as they invalidated all previous content by giving such quick catch up mechanics
    *Multiple raid difficulties instead of the much preferred hard modes in Uld

    That's all I can really remember off the top of my head, but you see my point? WOTLK in my opinion did so much more harm than good and I think the subs reflected that.

  11. #351
    Quote Originally Posted by Frylord View Post


    Don't agree with this, and I've never quite understood why people have such fond memories of WOTLK.
    Its just funny that you are stating your opinions as common fact.Most of the things you are saying are actually good changes made to wow. Its tiresome to try argue with someone who thinks his opinions are facts. Well you dont even really play this game so I'm just wondering why you care to complain so much?

    If wotlk was so shit then why it had 12M subs almost entirety of the expansion?

  12. #352
    Yeah I totally agree spending extra time doing nothing is far better. Thinly veiled anti consumer time gating mechanisms should 100% be praised by the consumer ...

    Seriously?

  13. #353
    Herald of the Titans Daffan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Corroc View Post
    So you are you just like the other guy and want to progress emerald nightmare year after the game launched? Yeah, no. You do understand that even in vanilla and tbc it was incredibely hard for new players to get in to raiding scene because there wasn't any guilds progressing in mc and bwl during naxxramas? These people had no chance of ever getting to raid naxxramas. Introduce catch up gear and they can get to those guilds and experience raiding.
    People still use Vanilla and TBC as evidence it's a 100% negative system? In Vanilla/TBC there was no flex, no cross-realm raiding and no premade finder, most people got stuck at Molten Core, one part because they couldn't get enough people to raid as they were on dead servers or the effort to get 40 was too much. Or better yet in TBC how guilds needed to run 2-3 Kara groups just to start 1 25 man raid group, therefore freezing nearly everyone at Karazhan (Casual guilds never had 2-3 raid leaders for Kara)

    You say there weren't any guilds progressing MC and BWL during Naxxramas yet the absolute majority of players never even saw Naxxramas. There was enough people interested in T1/T2 prog in 2006, just all the logistical problems screwed them.
    Last edited by Daffan; 2017-11-14 at 02:59 AM.
    Content drought is a combination of catchup mechanics and no new content.

  14. #354
    Flying is fine. Blizzard doing absolutely nothing in the air is the issue. There could be plenty of dangers to avoid or areas like Alcaz Island that you absolutely cannot fly into but Blizzard just doesn’t bother then cries that flying is somehow ruining the game. Well, make it more engaging then! And I’m in strong agreement that the worst thing Blizzard has done to the game is lfg/lfr. It destroyed server communities and social interactions in an MMO.

  15. #355
    Titan Charge me Doctor's Avatar
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    Flying was ok in TBC, but when they started shoving it in every expansion - yeah, that kinda sucked
    Quote Originally Posted by Urban Dictionary
    Russians are a nation inhabiting territory of Russia an ex-USSR countries. Russians enjoy drinking vodka and listening to the bears playing button-accordions. Russians are open- and warm- hearted. They are ready to share their last prianik (russian sweet cookie) with guests, in case lasts encounter that somewhere. Though, it's almost unreal, 'cos russians usually hide their stuff well.

  16. #356
    Quote Originally Posted by Daffan View Post
    People still use Vanilla and TBC as evidence it's a 100% negative system?

    In Vanilla/TBC there was no flex, no cross-realm raiding and no premade finder, most people got stuck at Molten Core because they couldn't get 40 people to raid as they were on dead servers and it took to long to form a group. Or better yet in TBC how guilds needed to run 2-3 Kara groups just to start one 25 man raid group, therefore freezing nearly everyone at Karazhan.

    You say there weren't any guilds progressing MC and BWL during Naxxramas yet the absolute majority of players never even saw Naxxramas. There was enough people interested in T1/T2 prog in 2006, just all the logistical problems screwed them.
    I assume you are done with editing now.

    Vanilla and TBC are used as example because they both show extreme flaws in the system. Attunements, gearing and raid size.
    Majority of the people who didn't saw naxxramas never set a foot in any kind of raid. Not just Naxx.
    There were alot of problems in classic that were the reasons people didn't get to raid. 40man raids are not something you can just pug together and go in, shoot the boss and loot. Even in mc there was alot debuff mechanics that needed certain classes, you needed to have raid leader who would announce shit happening because the boss mods back then were extremely bad.

  17. #357
    Herald of the Titans Rendark's Avatar
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    Flying is one of the best things they ever put in.

  18. #358
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Corroc View Post
    Its just funny that you are stating your opinions as common fact.Most of the things you are saying are actually good changes made to wow. Its tiresome to try argue with someone who thinks his opinions are facts. Well you dont even really play this game so I'm just wondering why you care to complain so much?

    If wotlk was so shit then why it had 12M subs almost entirety of the expansion?
    You're beyond annoying, really you are. Stop cherry picking and perhaps read the entirety of my post? Here, I'll even help you as you seem to have reading difficulties.

    That's all I can really remember off the top of my head, but you see my point? WOTLK in my opinion did so much more harm than good and I think the subs reflected that.
    You see, in discussions people put forth their opinions, and the reasons why they hold that opinion it. That's what I'm doing. I suppose you're not used to that novel concept. From my understanding debate is look down upon in modern education and everyone has to respect and never question someones opinion. Hell, people don't even have to defend their opinion in anymore form anymore. I digress.

    You hold the opinion that WOTLK / flying / etc was a good expansion / feature inclusion. I disagree and give some of the reasons why I hold this opinion. Instead of defending your position and debating why that's wrong, you just cherry pick / deflect / avoid the conversation all together.

    As previously stated (but we've already covered your reading issues) WOTLK was the first expansion that had stagnated sub numbers (unable to retain more joining players than those that leave). The issues introduced in WOTLK were one of the major contributing factors in the rapid decline in sub numbers in the following expansions.

    All of the "features" you tout as great for the health of the game really doesn't explain why since their introduction the number of subs has dropped year on year to the point Blizzard no longer reports them.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Corroc View Post
    Most of the things you are saying are actually good changes made to wow.
    You know, I think my irritation has got the better of me. Let me help you out and let's have a civil debate.

    Hmm, let's take catch up gear / mechanics. You tell me why you think it's a good addition to the game, and I'll try to refute your claims. Deal? If I can't, I'll concede that it's a worthwhile addition.

  19. #359
    Quote Originally Posted by Frylord View Post

    You know, I think my irritation has got the better of me. Let me help you out and let's have a civil debate.

    Hmm, let's take catch up gear / mechanics. You tell me why you think it's a good addition to the game, and I'll try to refute your claims. Deal? If I can't, I'll concede that it's a worthwhile addition.
    I'm gonna let you deal with your narcissim outside the forums, ok?

  20. #360
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Corroc View Post
    I'm gonna let you deal with your narcissim outside the forums, ok?
    Well, I think I was right originally. You really are beyond annoying.

    Tried in good faith to open some honest discourse, you respond with a troll remark. How pointless, waste of my time.

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