If BFA was a standalone game (set in different universe) it would be dead already

[Deleted]

Let's be honest here, if BFA was a standalone game not set in the Warcraft universe it would probably go from P2P to F2P after 3 months.

And after another 3-5 months it would be dead.

The only reason people are still interested in playing it is because they've spent YEARS on their accounts in WoW.

[Aeula]

I'd say that's pretty obvious, aye.

Most people stick around for the Warcraft brand, farming old content and the fact that they've committed so much time to the game already.

[lollerlaban]

Doubt it. People are willing to gobble broken shit for eternity, just look at PUBG, Atlas and any Sport Installment.

[bigbleach]

Let's be honest here, if BFA was a standalone game not set in the Warcraft universe it would probably go from P2P to F2P after 3 months.

And after another 3-5 months it would be dead.

The only reason people are still interested in playing it is because they've spent YEARS on their accounts in WoW.

Wut? Other mmos have come out with jack shit in terms of content lol. You can't really compare an expansion to a standalone game. Do other mmos have systems like M+? Or raiding that is remotely as challenging as Wow's? I've watched some raids in FF14. It is laughable with their 3 mechanic bosses, relying solely on particle effects and flashy spells during the fight lol.

[babyback]

Let's be honest here, if BFA was a standalone game not set in the Warcraft universe it would probably go from P2P to F2P after 3 months.

And after another 3-5 months it would be dead.

The only reason people are still interested in playing it is because they've spent YEARS on their accounts in WoW.

It’s the same with LoL, DOTA2 and CSGO People have invested a lot of time and money into their accounts. Them leaving the game for a similar one even if it’s bettter is very slim.

[Varitok]

Wut? Other mmos have come out with jack shit in terms of content lol. You can't really compare an expansion to a standalone game. Do other mmos have systems like M+? Or raiding that is remotely as challenging as Wow's? I've watched some raids in FF14. It is laughable with their 3 mechanic bosses, relying solely on particle effects and flashy spells during the fight lol.

You are sort of proving his point, considering you talk about watching a raid from FF14 and knowing all content of other MMO's but only playing WoW. What content is WoW offering exactly? Leveling up with a different skin? Doing the same dungeons...BUT HARDER! Doing a new raid (in a couple months) but then you do it again...HARDER!

[SirCowdog]

Google "Sunk Cost Fallacy" and you'll see why people keep paying for this crap. The reason why the playerbase keeps dwindling is because every day more and more people realize that the continued investment doesn't add up.

If WoW wants to continue to be successful, they'll either turn up the exploitation of remaining players, or have to reinvent itself. I think we all know what choice BfA went with.

[Deleted]

Hm, I actually disagree.
I think in an alternate universe where BfA is allowed to stand on it's own legs it probably wouldn't be so disliked. The reason why many long time players seem to feel so frustrated about BfA is because it's different from what WoW was a few years ago. It's no longer the game THEY loved when they started playing or were at their peak in interest for the game.

But if BfA could exist without that heavy legacy I think it could be a success (although it's hard to tell since mmos aren't the liveliest genre at the moment). But BfA isn't a bad game, it's just different from old WoW. You don't have to agree all round, but it's visually gorgeous, has top tier storytelling and more content than any other mmo or previous wow expansion. It's more a question of whether or not you personally like that content, because it's there and a lot of people find it fun. And you can't ignore that a lot of the hate actually stems from people taking after each other. It's become trendy to dislike this expansion, and I'm not saying that people's opinions don't matter but... people just spew each other on and start hating on literally everything, even the things they actually like.

[Keltas]

Wut? Other mmos have come out with jack shit in terms of content lol. You can't really compare an expansion to a standalone game. Do other mmos have systems like M+? Or raiding that is remotely as challenging as Wow's? I've watched some raids in FF14. It is laughable with their 3 mechanic bosses, relying solely on particle effects and flashy spells during the fight lol.

Any mmos fights (even wows) look easy as shit when you watch a video or stream of someone successfully doing it. Similarly, WoW raids don't have more than 3 mechanics on bosses either.

FFXIV expansions have about the same amount of zones, dungeons, and raid bosses as a WoW expansion does.
GW2 expansions are a bit lighter on dungeon/raids, but they release 9 basically new classes each one, plenty of huge open world zones, and it's $30 instead of 50.


WoW doesn't release more content than what other mmos do anymore. They release (slightly) more raid fights, but less casual, dungeon, and open world content. They only look like they release more because they can pad that out with 4 raid difficulties and m+ being reshuffled each cycle.


GW2 has fractals, which are similar to m+ as well, so yeah other mmos DO have m+. In fact, fractals were first and honestly I'd bet m+ was based on seeing them be successful over there.

[Deleted]

sunk cost and nostalgia definitely helps blizzard out a lot.

[Deleted]

I disagree.

There's a lot of people still enjoying the game. I have no problem finding groups for anything quickly.

[Irian]

There's about no doubt in my mind that that's the case. I'd say the same for every expansion that came after MoP, honestly, except maybe Legion but even that's kinda iffy.

WoW these days is not a good or particularly enjoyable game. It's a game people have attachment to and want to see do good again, so they linger and wait and hope.

Wut? Other mmos have come out with jack shit in terms of content lol. You can't really compare an expansion to a standalone game. Do other mmos have systems like M+? Or raiding that is remotely as challenging as Wow's? I've watched some raids in FF14. It is laughable with their 3 mechanic bosses, relying solely on particle effects and flashy spells during the fight lol.

Ultimate Coil is leagues above Mythic Aggramar or Mythic G'huun in difficulty. If you want to talk difficulty, yes, the ceiling of FFXIV is comparable or harder than WoW.
There's less of it, sure, but look up Ultimate Coil of Bahamut and tell me with a straight face that you think Mythic G'huun is even in the same field of difficulty or personal accountability.

[Kyranna]

Once they'll design fun classes and stop pruning their spellbooks, people will come back. Players want fun "vehicles", then they'll run every circuit. I wish I could have back MoP class design, it was so damn fun to play that it aches me to play the current pruned, shallow, boring, unfun version.

[Lochton]

Let's be honest here, if BFA was a standalone game not set in the Warcraft universe it would probably go from P2P to F2P after 3 months.

And after another 3-5 months it would be dead.

I don't think such decision can be made with such an abstract idea as all expansions has sold on the fact of 'warcraft'.

Yes, it would be dead if launched as standalone but no one would launch the contents of an expansion as a standalone - all expansions would be dead if launched as standalone.

The only reason people are still interested in playing it is because they've spent YEARS on their accounts in WoW.

Uhm, no? There are people who enjoy parts of the content? There are new players who join the game with us even still?

[Deleted]

Wut? Other mmos have come out with jack shit in terms of content lol. You can't really compare an expansion to a standalone game. Do other mmos have systems like M+? Or raiding that is remotely as challenging as Wow's? I've watched some raids in FF14. It is laughable with their 3 mechanic bosses, relying solely on particle effects and flashy spells during the fight lol.

Guild Wars 2 created a M+ system before WoW...

[Soon-TM]

Let's be honest here, if BFA was a standalone game not set in the Warcraft universe it would probably go from P2P to F2P after 3 months.

And after another 3-5 months it would be dead.

The only reason people are still interested in playing it is because they've spent YEARS on their accounts in WoW.

Aye, it has already happened with D3. If it hadn't been published by Blizzard, sales would have been !@#$. But ppl fell for the hype and vanilla D3 sold like freshly baked bread... Too bad that the game was utterly broken, and the fix (aka RoS) came too late to save it.

[bigbleach]

You are sort of proving his point, considering you talk about watching a raid from FF14 and knowing all content of other MMO's but only playing WoW. What content is WoW offering exactly? Leveling up with a different skin? Doing the same dungeons...BUT HARDER! Doing a new raid (in a couple months) but then you do it again...HARDER!

I was considering trying FF14. I didn't make it past 20 because of how their leveling system works. Endlessly repeatable quests at level 20...? The absolute worst part of wow are dailies and that is the leveling system of FF14 lol... I wanted to see if it got better at end game. It doesn't. It looks extremely boring. Their UI is HIDEOUS and you have very little control over what you can do with it. A +5 Shrine of the Storm is not the same dungeon as a +15 shrine of the storm. Mechanics matter in every aspect of the dungeon, where they are more forgiving in the lower keys. Same setting, but it gives a completely different feeling. FF14 looks like it has 1 difficulty... easy.

[Kyphael]

Yeah, and wishes were fishes, the world would be an ocean. What's your point?

The exact same could be said, more truthfully even, of Warlords of Dearnor, which could have legit served as a soft reboot to the lore with the time traveling shit. The point is, there was even less to do in WoD and the game was even worse. People never realize, or rather, forget how bad the game can really get. To me, WoD was rock bottom and we can't possibly go lower. BfA has its problems, but I'd definitely put it above WoD and even Cataclysm in terms of entertainment.

[McNeil]

If BFA did not have the Warcraft brand and the succes they had in their earlier expansions, than it would be an entirely different beast if it came out as a standalone game. The main reason why people still play to this day is because of their attachment to their characters and all the progress they made that they don't want to lose. Though I don't see it doing even nearly as well in todays age, considering its gameplay and graphics look rather poor when compared to most modern games. There wouldn't be a new audience where they can reach out to. So I would expect this game to be F2P with a lot of microtransactions (yes even more than we have now), considering that new MMORPG's don't even do well these days.

[NED funded]

There's about no doubt in my mind that that's the case. I'd say the same for every expansion that came after MoP, honestly, except maybe Legion but even that's kinda iffy.

WoW these days is not a good or particularly enjoyable game. It's a game people have attachment to and want to see do good again, so they linger and wait and hope.

Ultimate Coil is leagues above Mythic Aggramar or Mythic G'huun in difficulty. If you want to talk difficulty, yes, the ceiling of FFXIV is comparable or harder than WoW.
There's less of it, sure, but look up Ultimate Coil of Bahamut and tell me with a straight face that you think Mythic G'huun is even in the same field of difficulty or personal accountability.

Its weird that people praise this sort of difficulty. Its not fun when the entire raid wipes because someone made a mistake, it wasnt fun on TOS and it isnt fun now. Its artificial difficulty.

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Op, maybe?? Most mmos tend to fail, so I guess its the nature of the market. Asian mmos are really weird tho, in that they have everything be super grindy and p2w. Someone said it, we cant know and its pointless to speculate.