Is Preach And The Community Becoming Overly Cynical About The Game?

[Zyky]

"This is the worst expansion ever. If you dont agree with me you're stupid." this is the attitude that drives me away from the game.

Honestly it's great if you enjoy aspects of the game. I'm not going to call you an idiot, unless you try to defend aspects that are widely disliked(by the playerbase) to me and try to belittle my opinion of the state of the game. The game in general is in a very bad place, but a lot of it stems from class design(or lack thereof). In the past, even Warlords, if classes were fun to play, people stuck through the content, but we're at a place where WoW is bleeding subs not even a year into the expansion...because of how horrible almost every spec feels to play. It just feels like something huge is missing from almost every spec in the game, and cooldowns being on the GCD aren't helping either.

[Gadzooks]

Have you ever considered that maybe a lot of people feel that the game is not in a good place and the negativity is justified? That "shift in attitude" didn't happen for no reason.

When the devs outright ignore feedback throughout the entire alpha and beta, and break promises (like that shaman rework they promised that never happened), being negative is really the only option left to make the devs get off their backsides and do something about all the problems.

I would point to the drop in participation across the board in the extended WoW universe as a red flag that people don't love where the game is...and are just not playing. Most people, in my experience, don't read the websites, don't watch YouTube, and don't go outside the game. They know about changes when they appear live, and they might read the patch notes.

I'd bet most people are blissfully unaware of the issues in alpha/beta, broken promises, and the rest. They don't run to the forums and websites to complain, they just stop playing. They probably have a vague idea that something is wrong, but they're not invested in playing, no matter what, so they just unsub, and go do something else.

As far as Preach and the other YT streamers go, I see them struggling with the game like everyone else. Their jobs rely on the game, so they're going to make videos no matter what, but I think their eyes might have been opened to not JUST rely on WoW from now on.

[The Stormbringer]

Streamers put all the weird biased ideas into the heads of the stupid, who come to forums to parrot them.

The only bias Kripp puts in my head is that the Hearthstone devs need to actively balance their game more.

[Sanguinerd]

You wish people would stop talking about arguably the most influential and high quality WoW content creator there is on a WoW forum?

This is your problem right here. But hey if you need someone else to tell you what to think good for you.

Thanks for the notification, here's one back.

You realise how small the active WoW community is now right?

It's still pretty big

[dacoolist]

If someone hates the game: unsub and STOP - the people that continue playing the game will voice their opinion and keep moving forward.

Preach is not the community - he is a BOSS, but he doesn't speak for all of us, and I know he doesn't WANT to speak for all of us.

A little off topic: Blizz not allowing him to go to Cali to voice his ideas was the biggest fucken mistake they've made this year.. if you're reading this Blizzard: Fly preach out and talk to the guy - his ideas are absolutely awesome and should at LEAST get voiced in person.

[Nnyco]

He is completely demonetized

And defo does not promote his twitch stream nonstop.

[infinitemeridian]

I appreciate Preach's criticisms, but there is a line. Most content these creators want the game to be more complex than it is intended to be or than it has ever been. WoW is not a PoE and never has been. Going into these systems with the mindset that they need to be super complex, while an interesting topic, is not how they're intended to be viewed.

[thunterman]

A little off topic: Blizz not allowing him to go to Cali to voice his ideas was the biggest fucken mistake they've made this year.. if you're reading this Blizzard: Fly preach out and talk to the guy - his ideas are absolutely awesome and should at LEAST get voiced in person.

Would be a big mistake to include him, after the public display of exploiting. PR nightmare either way, certainly shouldn't give power to cheaters, I'm glad he wasn't included, and I'm glad he won't be ever again. They'd be well aware of his opinions regardless, CM's read MMO-C, I'm sure they also keep tabs on what the "influencers" are saying too.

It was, is and will continue to be the correct decision. He cheated and streamed it - pretty much endorsing it at the time and spreading news of said exploit to a bigger audience. Hardly deserving of a expenses paid trip across the world to have a behind closed doors circlejerk, with people (Ion) that are 100% not going to listen to a damn thing anyone in attendance says anyway.

The trip wasn't about getting advice anyway, it was about getting popular youtubers to make videos promoting 8.2

[SirCowdog]

I appreciate Preach's criticisms, but there is a line. Most content these creators want the game to be more complex than it is intended to be or than it has ever been. WoW is not a PoE and never has been. Going into these systems with the mindset that they need to be super complex, while an interesting topic, is not how they're intended to be viewed.

That's the problem whit a 15 year old game. If all you do is take away one simple thing and hand back another simple thing, it gets dull. The people asking for more complexity are largely asking for it because by now we don't need more simple mechanics. We already mastered that back in vanilla and TBC.

This isn't a new game, it doesn't need to be tailored to new players!

So adding more complex mechanics and abilities to the game is generally a fairly good direction to go. But for whatever reason Blizzard keeps trying to focus on this ambiguous group of non-existent new players that would supposedly be so stupid that they couldn't figure out how to watch a Youtube video explaining whatever they didn't understand.

The other, more cynical, explanation is that Blizzard has to keep the game dumbed down because that's the target audience that are still playing the game. People who are too dim to look past what's immediately in front of them and need overly-simplistic systems in order to avoid being overwhelmed. I'm not saying that's everyone who plays WoW, but you know those players exist. Why Blizzard would cater to them should be obvious, however: Lowest Common Denominator.

So of course people like Preach, and those with more than 2 brain cells to rub together, get cynical when Blizzard keeps churning out weaksauce that a 5-year-old with crayons could figure out.

[Gungnir]

I appreciate Preach's criticisms, but there is a line. Most content these creators want the game to be more complex than it is intended to be or than it has ever been. WoW is not a PoE and never has been. Going into these systems with the mindset that they need to be super complex, while an interesting topic, is not how they're intended to be viewed.

Except that the game used to be more complex just a few expansions ago and that was widely regarded as the best expansion gameplay-wise.

And the fact of the matter is that it isn't even about having more buttons, but how you can interact with your character to influence how it plays and behaves.
Let's look at an example where just removing one baseline spell made a huge difference in how you play it and how you went around analyzing fights in order to get the most out of your class; destruction warlocks.

In BfA, you can effectively sit on a boss and do a rotation that doesn't differ nor make you think about any interaction other than "if it has adds, use havoc".
In MoP, you had Shadowburn baseline. Every fight you could, utilizing havoc and shadowburn sniping would not only give you moments you could engage in to bring more out of your class, but also vastly changed up your resource management and more importantly, how you engaged with your class in every aspect of the game.

Just KNOWING that you had such a simple but effective tool made you actively engage and think about how you were going to do the fight and when to utilize your cooldowns to maximize potential resource gain.



It's just one spell, with a simple interaction, but it gave so much to the general feel of the spec and how the spec flowed.
Complexity doesn't mean 200 buttons, it just mean something more than the 4 very non-interactive and non-synergistic buttons we have nowadays on most classes.

[Softbottom]

What's a preach.

[Nuggsy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=767StGhEO-E

Preach recently made a video getting in-depth with the new Heartforge system. After watching it, it got me thinking. How can someone be so nitpicky and cynical about literally everything regarding the mechanics of the game? I try very hard to understand the intricacies of my characters, but I just can't match preach or other mythic raiders feelings on how classes play in BFA. I can't look this deeply into them or care this much. I do agree they're worse than legion, but they dont feel as terrible as the forums make them out to be. I love Preaches content, but his attitude recently regarding new content turns me off. It's a real shame. The community in general has gotten so cynical as well. You can't go 5 seconds without people ranting about the smallest thing.

What do you guys think of preach and the community in general recently? Has anyone else noticed a shift in attitude towards WoW? Do you miss Preaches more chilled out critiques and videos? Maybe all of this has to do with him losing ghost? Not having two opinions bouncing off eachother? I'm not sure. Does the negativity turn you off of the game?

Seriously dude, what is with you and Preach? Were you banned from his chat and decided to just QQ over MMO champion for years? Give it a rest.

[ls-]

I don't think you actually watched the video you linked. You just picked the latest video and wrote some bs.

All the issues he brought up in it are legit concerns w/ the new azerite system. And he's right about the old/current azerite system shortcomings as well.

[redf]

You're implying that I agree with Preach, and that I get all my WoW opinions from him. Just because you might not enjoy a creator doesn't mean no one else can. I watch preach because I like to hear his view and find him funny. Pretty simple really.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQzlcmD-1ZM&t=144s

Most recent Q&A has less than 100k views after a month

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS1h-xA7YW4

Announcement for the biggest patch in BFA only has 200k views after 2 weeks.

Absolutely huge community it seems you're right

those videos never had much views

[Shaqthefat]

And defo does not promote his twitch stream nonstop.

No he really doesn't. He never mentions it in any of his videos

[Lazuli]

Legion class design was no less uninspired, braindead, formulaic, restrictive and boring than BfA class design. Perhaps slightly more buttons to press but functionally and mechanically an absolute cancer and devolution on class design as a whole. Blizz put a bit of aids icing on the cake with increased GCD but that's about it, felt the same to me. /shrug

[neik]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=767StGhEO-E

Preach recently made a video getting in-depth with the new Heartforge system. After watching it, it got me thinking. How can someone be so nitpicky and cynical about literally everything regarding the mechanics of the game? I try very hard to understand the intricacies of my characters, but I just can't match preach or other mythic raiders feelings on how classes play in BFA. I can't look this deeply into them or care this much. I do agree they're worse than legion, but they dont feel as terrible as the forums make them out to be. I love Preaches content, but his attitude recently regarding new content turns me off. It's a real shame. The community in general has gotten so cynical as well. You can't go 5 seconds without people ranting about the smallest thing.

What do you guys think of preach and the community in general recently? Has anyone else noticed a shift in attitude towards WoW? Do you miss Preaches more chilled out critiques and videos? Maybe all of this has to do with him losing ghost? Not having two opinions bouncing off eachother? I'm not sure. Does the negativity turn you off of the game?

I haven't really noticed anything abnormal about the guy.

He's my go-to person if I ever need to expand on the subject.

[llewllew]

I appreciate Preach's criticisms, but there is a line. Most content these creators want the game to be more complex than it is intended to be or than it has ever been. WoW is not a PoE and never has been. Going into these systems with the mindset that they need to be super complex, while an interesting topic, is not how they're intended to be viewed.

Loud negative voices get more attention.

[MoanaLisa]

Forum communities tend toward ever-increasing shouting and bad behavior because that's what it takes to get noticed. If you want a thread with 700 replies (which implies you "win" something besides attention) you don't write a serious, thought-out take. You ramp up the drama and hysteria to a higher level than anyone else in an effort to get noticed.

So the answer to the thread question is yes for the community and maybe for Preach. If he's losing viewers because he's being polite and non-confrontational then he'll adjust because something needs to be done. His entire deal is based on how many people watch him. It's not just Preach though, really it's all of them that are after higher views. For the "community" it's the nature of social media and there are dozens of articles and sources about it. YouTube views and forum thread replies are really much the same metric for some. Just on different platforms and different scales.

There's always been a ton of negativity toward WoW. People just don't remember the hundreds of threads about Cataclym's heroics, Mists dailies, Warlords lack of anything to do and the changes to flying and on and on and on.

[Weeps]

Seems like a lot of people don't realize that these "content creators" have been around way before BfA...

It just so happens that they think BfA is trash. Rightfully so, if you ask me.

It is ok that people feel this way about a game.

What is not ok is people telling people to "shuddup and just leave."

That's just like people crying about people criticizing Comrade Trump.

Criticism makes things better.