[Analysis] People that badmouth wow usually just got bored of it, in general.

[Deleted]

There are some myths in this game:

• WoD was a terrible expansion
• Legion was a great expansion
• WotLK was the best expansion
• TBC was the best Expansion
• Vanilla was the best version
• new: BfA will be a horrible expansion

etc. etc.

What people fail to do though when considering those aphorisms is to put them in the context of time. When are those statements made and established? That's the crucial factor here.

When TBC was released the overwhelming majority of players were not used to WoW yet, they were still excited about it, almost nobody had gone bored of it; let alone it was unique among other games of the time. Hell, most people didn't even have the time to see all the content of vanilla at TBC release. As a result it's obvious that TBC would be honored similarly to vanilla.

When WotLK was released the situation was more complex. Most people here don't know that but it got a lot of hate from many veterans. The people that were hardcore at vanilla often liked it but a large part of them thought it was a sellout. They thought it made the game more simple and accessible, more than it should be. Most players in total though loved it because they started later.

With Cataclysm we enter an era of extreme change. This is the time of the first big wave of people that got enough of Wow in general got bored of the game in whole, and not of expansions. The expansion wasn't perfect but the technologies were obviously improved in several ways. Still due to that 'time' in the history of the game, the old bored players labeled it average.

Pandaria got lucky because of that. The expansion was again improved technologically but the big picture was that it wasn't either stellar or too different. But the Cataclysm era had aborted all the bored players of Vanilla so now mostly the excited people remained. Pandaria was practically TBC V2. in that factor of time.

WoD got back to the cycle of Cataclysm. While the expansion wasn't the best ever technically it wasn't horrible at all objectively. But it was the time that the era of the players of WotLK started leaving in majority. WoD was Cataclysm V2 in terms of its bad luck in being at an Exodus.

The cycle continues with Legion. While Aesthetically the expansion pleases most Wow players it doesn't really offer anything revolutionary technically or generally. But WoD has aborted most players that got bored of Wow merely because their time has come so it's labeled good.

BfA is Cataclysm V3 and WoD V2 in its bad luck at that. The people that started around Pandaria will now be old and bored of Wow in general; they do not know why, they will blame it on BfA itself, but in reality they left because they simply got bored of the game in general.

[Deleted]

A lot of good points you make. I also think the reason why less players play WoW is because people are getting "bored" with it.
Im just going to post my favorite graph i always post. Wow is being victim to the "product life cycle".



In my opinion, if WoW wants to break this cycle it needs to "revolutionize" the genre or at least "spice things up" in ways never before seen.
But we all know Blizzard is not going to do this. They were never known for "revolution" in the genre.

I also dont believe WoW will keep "declining". It will just hit a wall where all players remaining are hardcore fans.

But, i agree some expansion were "not bad" but people say they were simply because they got bored with the game.
They badmouth the game but in reality they dont even know why.
Its because they are tired of the "same old, same old".

[IceMan1763]

Shouldn't "Analysis" be replaced by "IMO"?

Where is your analysis? Where are your data and sources?

[bozoben]

Shouldn't "Analysis" be replaced by "IMO"?

Where is your analysis? Where are your data and sources?

Was pretty much just going to type this.

And the fact that the reason most people called those expansions crap was that, well, they were.... Were there good things in the expansions? Sure, Was most of the expansion good content? No....

[Corroc]

A lot of good points you make. I also think the reason why less players play WoW is because people are getting "bored" with it.
Im just going to post my favorite graph i always post. Wow is being victim to the "product life cycle".



In my opinion, if WoW wants to break this cycle it needs to "revolutionize" the genre or at least "spice things up" in ways never before seen.
But we all know Blizzard is not going to do this. They were never known for "revolution" in the genre.

I also dont believe WoW will keep "declining". It will just hit a wall where all players remaining are hardcore fans.

But, i agree some expansion were "not bad" but people say they were simply because they got bored with the game.
They badmouth the game but in reality they dont even know why.
Its because they are tired of the "same old, same old".

Isn't wow already doing this with patches, its basically bunch of mini cycles that keep it up for two years until the end of expansion hits.

[Requimortem]

Analysis: People that defend World of Warcraft usually just don't know what quality games are, in general.

[Eazy]

Not really mate. Your analysis is bad. And saying that time is the only factor is just purely wrong.

MOP was worst expansion and Wotlk is best for me.

[Pickynerd]

The problem with mmo's is that they change over time, and people hate change.

[Deleted]

Isn't wow already doing this with patches, its basically bunch of mini cycles that keep it up for two years until the end of expansion hits.

A lot of people tell me what you just told me.

But i dont believe a new expansion is "a new game".

Its the same game with new skins...and its a reset.

In reality we are playing the same game...and getting bored with it.

[potis]

People badmouth WoW because something they got used to, or enjoyed, got changed.

I have been badmouthing any game i play when they make retarded decisions, doesnt mean i wont play it, but i will voice my negative opinion.

Also, people that dont change with things, need to understand they arent special snowflakes and no one gives a fuck about them.

WoW evolved like everything else, evolve with it and stop crying.

As example, a few friends that i know that the only thing they enjoy to do is, farm 24/7, pretend they are good at games by outfarming everyone else.

When they realized back in 2005 that the farming required as example for Rank 14, they badmouthed the game and quit since then, because it was out of their league, Rank 14 was too much farm for them.

Other friends on the younger side, are the same, since for the last few expansions Raider > PvPer in WPvP gear scaling, they constantly whine how its unfair, they are the same retards that 5v1 players and call it PvP.

Artifact Power in Legion is something i badmouthed and still am as one of the most retarded decisions and things to implement.

My 2005 18 year old version would have loved Artifact power, "I AM RANK 1 ON THE SERVER IN ARTIFACT POWER FARMING, YES!".

My 29-30 year old self in 2016-2017 which was more logical simply said "What is this retarded bullshit, i cant farm Artifact Power on every fucking alt because Blizzard wants to keep the 18 year olds busy".

Everyone badmouths the game for different reasons, its the mentally unstable vocal minority spamming the forums thats seen a lot which triggers these posts.

WoW is losing people because they are getting older while the new blood isnt as interested in it, as of 2018, Fortnite is the target, as CS:GO was in 2015, as LoL was in 2012, etc, Dota being in there, PUBG in between etc etc.

[Kralljin]

Quite honestly, for an "analysis" the statements made are rather broad.

Wotlk was hated at first, because they fucked up the 3.0 - 3.1 experience very much:

In the "newer" era of WoW, 3.0 version of Ret and DK strong contender for the "most OP spec / class" in WoW's history.
Dk's received countless nerfs and had several talents reworked or outright removed to be "balanced".

Just a few reminders:
Plague Strike removed all Hots at first (REMOVED not dispelled, thus no Life bloom trigger btw.)
Shadow of Death, returned Unholy dk's as Ghoul after death for 45seconds which dealt decent damage and could stun.
Death and Decay had a chance to horrify people (as Glyph)
All Dk specs had a groupwide aura effect (Blood Leech / Lifesteal, Frost Spell Resistance, Unholy MS)

On the PvE side, Blizzard totally fucked up the raid design.

The only serious raid in 3.0 was Naxxramas, that was puggable even in 25man.
The hardest encounter was 10 / 25 man Sartharion+3Drakes.

However, 10man Sartharion could be done via a speedkill with 8 Dps or alternatively totally break the encounter by bringing a fully stamina geared Demo Lock which then lets his Voidwalker tank Sartharion until all adds are taken care off (you could bypass a crucial dps check because of this).

To get this straight: The only raid Instance with more than a single boss was puggable and the most difficult Encounter had a cheese strat for both difficulties, there was no fucking need for a guild except "The Immortal".

A lot of people also have grown to like the difficult 5man Heroic dungeons of BC, that was gone, every single 5man in Wotlk was an AoE fest from start, no CC required.

Despite this, Wotlk is now regarded as good expansion - why? Because Blizzard at least fixed some issues.
Ulduar / ICC are still highly regarded raid instances.
The later PvP seasons of Wotlk was not perfect but golden compared to the infamous Season 5.

I could go on with the issues of Wotlk, but my final point is:

There is a *gameplay* reason why certain expansions are liked and others are not, nostalgia plays a role there true, but you can't look at an expansion "oh well players got bored so they didn't like it".
This is no indepth analysis, an indepth analysis would take a look at each respective expansion features and discuss their impact on the game, were they good, were they bad, which player basis got screwed over and so forth.

"People got bored of Cata" is just not an analysis, an analysis would state why people got bored of cata.

[Archmage Alodi]

There are some myths in this game:

• WoD was a terrible expansion
• Legion was a great expansion
• WotLK was the best expansion
• TBC was the best Expansion
• Vanilla was the best version
• new: BfA will be a horrible expansion

Stopped reading there lmao.

[Deleted]

A lot of people tell me what you just told me.

But i dont believe a new expansion is "a new game".

Its the same game with new skins...and its a reset.

In reality we are playing the same game...and getting bored with it.

This is an argument that always startled me. While for sure fatigue is a factor there are many many human activities (hobbies/sports/games) that are much much older than wow and people still play/do them. If you look at subs number it's a thing but if someone go out of his way to point out exactly why the game changes make them less willing to play it i tend to listen.
Why if i got bored of something i should come here and tell someone that the game is shit now for this and that?

[Deleted]

This is an argument that always startled me. While for sure fatigue is a factor there are many many human activities (hobbies/sports/games) that are much much older than wow and people still play/do them. If you look at subs number it's a thing but if someone go out of his way to point out exactly why the game changes make them less willing to play it i tend to listen.
Why if i got bored of something i should come here and tell someone that the game is shit now for this and that?

I think "some" people that badmouth the game are just bored with it and dont even know it.
They dont know that the reason why they no longer get excited about the game is "burnout".

Because the core elements of the genre are still in the game.
You raid, you do dungeons, you do dailies etc

Its the same game at its core. People are just bored with it.

For example, Cataclysm.
Cataclysm was not a bad expansion. In my opinion Cataclysm just marked the time when everyone "got bored with the game"...at the same time.
Thats my opinion and thats why i think Cataclysm saw a drop in subscriptions.
Because people simply got bored with the game at the same time.

- - - Updated - - -

People badmouth WoW because something they got used to, or enjoyed, got changed.

I can agree "some" people badmouth because of changes. Im one of them.

But STILL they would be bored with the game in the end.

In my example, even if wow didnt have LFR, no transmog, old talent trees...i would still be bored with the game.
Because is 10 years of playing the same thing.

Even with my "dream changes" i would still be bored.

[Cilraaz]

There are some myths in this game:

• WoD was a terrible expansion
• Legion was a great expansion
• WotLK was the best expansion
• TBC was the best Expansion
• Vanilla was the best version
• new: BfA will be a horrible expansion

etc. etc.

So your initial premise is based on WoW "myths", which are actually just subjective opinions about the game. The only logical conclusion is that no analysis could be done on this premise... because they are completely subjective opinions. So any result is immediately faulty.

[Deleted]

So your initial premise is based on WoW "myths", which are actually just subjective opinions about the game. The only logical conclusion is that no analysis could be done on this premise... because they are completely subjective opinions. So any result is immediately faulty.

I also dont understand the "introduction" of his post. The "Myths" part.
It served no purpose for his "opinions" and points being made.

But i actually agree with his points.

Cataclysm was not a bad expansion IMO. It was just "more of the same".
People say it was a bad expansion when in reality, Cataclysm just marked a time when everyone got bored with the game at the same time.
This is what i believe.

People tend to say an expansion is bad, when in reality they are just bored of playing the same game. Its "burnout". IMO

[A Chozo]

Is this what passes as "Analysis" nowadays? An simple opinion?

Damn.

Also, by compared to other WoW expansions, WoD was shit. A good game, and a shit expansion.

[Cilraaz]

I also dont understand the "introduction" of his post. The "Myths" part.
It served no purpose for his "opinions" and points being made.

But i actually agree with his points.

Cataclysm was not a bad expansion IMO. It was just "more of the same".
People say it was a bad expansion when in reality, Cataclysm just marked a time when everyone got bored with the game at the same time.
This is what i believe.

People tend to say an expansion is bad, when in reality they are just bored of playing the same game. Its "burnout".

I could agree with you (and I actually do), but the opinions themselves will never lead us to an objective result. There are people who loved Cataclysm. There are people who were ambivalent to Cataclysm. There were people who detested Cataclysm. People felt this range of emotion for the expansion for different reasons. The only way to get any kind of objective result would be to take a statistically significant sample of people who disliked the expansion and extrapolate data from a survey given to them in order to find why they each disliked it. The first problem with this is how do we determine how many people actually disliked any given expansion? Without knowing that data, we can't have any confidence in a sample size.

Also, from what I can tell of the OP, the sample size was zero. So the better title tag would have been [Conjecture].

[Kyphael]

Not true at all, bad is bad. The general consensus is Warlords of Draenor sucked because there was little to do and it seemed like a foot note to set up Legion. I got bored with WoD and bad mouth Blizzard due to uninspiring content, which turned out to be true because the general consensus is, they sacrificed time and resources for woD to focus on making Legion awesome, which they did. So yeah, maybe the 2 year break caused by WoD heled rejuvenate my interest in WoW, but I was driven away due to somewhat boring lore in Mists and then a terrible overall WoD. Legion brought me back in because it had so much going on.

[Corroc]

A lot of people tell me what you just told me.

But i dont believe a new expansion is "a new game".

Its the same game with new skins...and its a reset.

In reality we are playing the same game...and getting bored with it.

Its not a new game but its the same product, getting upgrade that starts the cycle again. It breaks the cycle and that's the only reason why people keep playing wow year after year.