To whom who agreed that accessibility was healthy for WoW

[Bloodyleech]

No? The older wow of vanilla-wotlk undoubtedly had more subs and that’s not even up to debate.

Yes, ofc, wotlk got the peak, but accessibility started slowly in TBC and got way stronger in WOTLK - where, as I said, wow had it's peak.
Just read my other replies. :P

[Big Thanks]

Edit @Shadoowpunk do you actually play retail WoW? Not baiting/trolling/wtfever - genuinely curious.

I played every single expansion but im not subbed at the moment.

Game design is everything in a videogame IMO
I gave you my example of B&S (that you refused to read)

For example...

Yesterday a high level player decided to interact with me on the world while i was doing a quest.
He told me "pull all the mobs and i kill them"

And i was like....."uh?"......but why? If the GAME DESIGN tells me mob experience is shait and is more convenient to just do the quest alone and continue the main story?
This social interaction was quickly put to an end...because of game design intuition

edit: I was polite and thanked him via whisper

[Nobleshield]

The issue is there's a line. You can't NOT have your game accessible. Making content for a small percentile (raiders) and telling everyone else to piss off is stupid and detrimental. However I think the issue is they went too far with random matchmaking and either didn't realize or didn't care how selfish, rude, unhelpful and entitled people will be when there's no repercussion for being a dickbag to other people.

The big issue isn't accessibility, it's lack of accountability. Final Fantasy XIV for example has random groups just like WoW and has little or none of the same toxic environment as WoW has. That tells me it's not accessibility that's the problem, it's the attitude of players and the fact there's no punishment for being an asshole in a group or not helping someone because you're selfish and only care about yourself.

Blizzard went too far with how they did things. Nothing feels worthwhile because everything is hollow and temporary or tied to RNG so an "upgrade" may not be considered good because it didn't War/Titanforge or get the "correct" Corruption or have "required" things like essences gated behind various content to try and push people to do them. Now it's a good thing those seems to be going away in Shadowlands, but it might be too little too late.

[callipygoustp]

Made up scenario?
At this point you are not even reading the posts, im sure (>_<) it was not a made up scenario at all, it was part of my opinion...a major point to my opinion

Its good that we are both recognizing our thoughts as opinions. Seriously.

[RickJamesLich]

I agree accessibility definitely has done more harm to the game than good. Some accessibility is smart of course, but it's something that needs to be used strategically. An entry level raid that has enough of a challenge that it requires coordination but still requires communication is a great idea. Setting it up so you get into the raid by hitting one button, the bosses get one shot without any knowledge of what is actually going on, on the flip side is not a good idea. A big part of wow's initial allure after everything else you encountered was the social interaction. People made buddies, in many cases you'd have friends that you were speaking with for years, all because you two teamed up to do a quest or ran some sort of dungeon together. I haven't played the game in a few years now, but I remember you could hit max level easily without ever having to speak with anyone and then proceed to get a full set of epics while continuing to not have to speak to anyone.

[callipygoustp]

I played every single expansion but im not subbed at the moment.

Game design is everything in a videogame IMO
I gave you my example of B&S (that you refused to read)

For example...

Yesterday a high level player decided to interact with me on the world while i was doing a quest.
He told me "pull all the mobs and i kill them"

And i was like....."uh?"......but why? If the GAME DESIGN tells me mob experience is shait and is more convenient to just do the quest alone and continue the main story?
This social interaction was quickly put to an end...because of game design intuition

edit: I was polite and thanked him via whisper

So, on that vein(I think):
While reading forums I am chatting away on disc with people, both people I know in WoW and people I know. Anyway, Battle for Naz started and I was pinged by a few people about joining. These aren't close friends. None of them do I know well. But we are part of the same communities. Anyway, as a result, I logged back in to the game, got an invite, and participated in a BfN. Social at 6am in morning. God dam I should be in bed.

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The issue is there's a line. You can't NOT have your game accessible.

Amen
{10char}

[justandulas]

Yes, ofc, wotlk got the peak, but accessibility started slowly in TBC and got way stronger in WOTLK - where, as I said, wow had it's peak.
Just read my other replies. :P

Classic has far more catch up mechanics and gear than tbc. Tbc pve end game grind was long and grueling. Most players wouldn’t even have the fortitude to get BT attuned.

Sure they had Kara and badge gear, but classic has zg which is so easy you can 10-15 man it effortlessly

Tbc was peak old school wow. It wasn’t until wotlk that Blizz started the wrath babies and one size fits all version of wow

[erifwodahs]

Right? It's not Blizzard's fault people don't want to spend time with you. I haven't had any issues making and keeping friends through all kinds of absolute pants-on-head dev fuckery, including the game's nadir during WoD and the slow-motion train wreck that was BFA. If the only reason people tolerate your presence is because the game forces them to, that's an indictment on you, not on the game.

This. I made friends through WoW in Legion, I visited some of my new found guildies irl and we have a BfA launch party there.

[Laughingjack]

The issue is there's a line. You can't NOT have your game accessible. Making content for a small percentile (raiders) and telling everyone else to piss off is stupid and detrimental. However I think the issue is they went too far with random matchmaking and either didn't realize or didn't care how selfish, rude, unhelpful and entitled people will be when there's no repercussion for being a dickbag to other people.

The big issue isn't accessibility, it's lack of accountability. Final Fantasy XIV for example has random groups just like WoW and has little or none of the same toxic environment as WoW has. That tells me it's not accessibility that's the problem, it's the attitude of players and the fact there's no punishment for being an asshole in a group or not helping someone because you're selfish and only care about yourself.

Blizzard went too far with how they did things. Nothing feels worthwhile because everything is hollow and temporary or tied to RNG so an "upgrade" may not be considered good because it didn't War/Titanforge or get the "correct" Corruption or have "required" things like essences gated behind various content to try and push people to do them. Now it's a good thing those seems to be going away in Shadowlands, but it might be too little too late.

Why?

I keep hearing this argument but from what limited data we do have it seems to prove it inaccurate. The game was more popular with a progression ladder.

[Nobleshield]

Why?

I keep hearing this argument but from what limited data we do have it seems to prove it inaccurate. The game was more popular with a progression ladder.

Don't get me wrong, I think there SHOULD be a progression ladder (see my other posts when talking about LFR et all). But you still need things accessible so people don't feel overwhelmed. Accessibility is a given in any modern MMO, just there's a level where it becomes untenable and I think WoW has reached that point.

Part of the issue I think is that they invalidate the prior tier when a new one comes out, that's bad. Okay I get maybe nerfing the previous tier to help catch up but it shouldn't be "ignore this and go to the latest one" all the time. There should never have been anything wrong with Guild A being still going through the end of Tier 1 while Guild B is on Tier 2 and Guild C is the top guild on the server and pushing Tier 3. People should be focused on themselves and their own/their guild's progress not keeping up with the Joneses and thinking they are garbage because they aren't immediately in the latest content (of course the toxic community pushed that mindset so...)

[callipygoustp]

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Player's experiences are subjective. Some players, like myself, find WoW to be as social as it ever was. Other players think the game is less social. Those are subjective opinions.

I'm sure you'll respond again with a bad analogy and a bunch of word salad that amounts to nothing different than you trying to convince me that my subjective opinion, and those that share those subjective opinions, are false.

[M1r4g3]

Player's experiences are subjective. Some players, like myself, find WoW to be as social as it ever was. Other players think the game is less social. Those are subjective opinions.

I'm sure you'll respond again with a bad analogy and a bunch of word salad that amounts to nothing different than you trying to convince me that my subjective opinion, and those that share those subjective opinions, are false.

Here have this salad, no one cares about your subjective opinion, its a game with millions of players, subjective opinions are irrelevant, objective opinions/facts matter.

Weirdly, on this forum, a lot of people seem to have this opinion that the environment has no impact on how people act...

[erifwodahs]

Im not trying to create a gotcha moment. If anything im trying to show you my opinion is not ridiculous by showing you a different view on things.

In my opinion a game has a good social dynamic design when...its so good...to the point of others wanting to socialize with you.
A game only has a good social dynamic when stuff like this happen:

Other people will want to be social with you if you are social. Forced social behavior is terrible game design too as you are forced with people who are not social and are assholes. Hint - assholes are not social and usually are left out, obviously players who would like to be in social environment but do nothing for it and expect "social players to come to them instead" are sacrificed, but it's on them for not wanting to join a "community" or a guild. All social people, if there would be an increase in "forced social gameplay" would just join a community or a guild and all other assholes and people who don't move a finger would be left out again. Just like social people have a community around them now and assholes/unsocial people are left out. There is no game play which can force people to talk about their life or any other stuff. You have to be willing to be friendly like that.

[Elias01]

Other people will want to be social with you if you are social. Forced social behavior is terrible game design too as you are forced with people who are not social and are assholes. Hint - assholes are not social and usually are left out, obviously players who would like to be in social environment but do nothing for it and expect "social players to come to them instead" are sacrificed, but it's on them for not wanting to join a "community" or a guild. All social people, if there would be an increase in "forced social gameplay" would just join a community or a guild and all other assholes and people who don't move a finger would be left out again. Just like social people have a community around them now and assholes/unsocial people are left out. There is no game play which can force people to talk about their life or any other stuff. You have to be willing to be friendly like that.

There is absolutly nothing wrong about forced interactions with players. It creates fun experineces even for players what do not want to interact with players. Which btw were absolute minority becouse comening to play mmorpg tham wonder why you have to play with others is like wtf moment. And people what started playing wow with mindset of solo player were never majority.

[Kolvarg]

Player's experiences are subjective. Some players, like myself, find WoW to be as social as it ever was. Other players think the game is less social. Those are subjective opinions.

I'm sure you'll respond again with a bad analogy and a bunch of word salad that amounts to nothing different than you trying to convince me that my subjective opinion, and those that share those subjective opinions, are false.

It amounts to making points and reasonings behind the opinion I hold. If they seem to be trying to convince you of anything, then it might be because there's some truth to them

I never said or in any way even suggested your opinion is false. In fact, I've already agreed multiple times that the player is indeed a big factor, as with anything.
What is false is that your subjective opinion and experience necessarily applies even to the majority of people, let alone to everyone.

You've already finally admitted that the way the game is designed affects how social it is, despite still going back to it being a completely subjective measure. What you can't seem to get around is that your subjective experience is very likely an exception, not the rule.

But you do you.

[Raelbo]

Except the numbers prove you wrong. Wrath saw the highest number of subs the game has ever had over the course of the ENTIRE expansion. You really need to stop trying to push your opinions about accessability killing the game because you're 100% wrong.

Meh. Everyone on this site likes to refer to the graph of sub numbers as proof of something or other, and most are flat out wrong. It requires an understanding of what the graph actually means, which is impossible to do by simply looking at the graph.

All the graph can tell us is how many people were playing the game at a particular time. One of the biggest fallacies abundant here is the idea that it tells us how many people stopped playing. It doesn't. Because in order to know that you also need to know how many started playing. One piece of interesting information is the quoted fact that over 100M people have played WoW - a number quoted officially in early 2014. That tells us that an average of 10M players stopped playing the game per year in the first 10 years.

I think the graph actually tells us a lot more about how successful the game was at attracting new players, which is not simply a function of how good the game is. For example, there are a finite number of people in the world who play PC games, and at some point there simply aren't any people left who haven't tried it. Also it becomes increasingly hard for any game to attract new players the older it gets. So it's completely natural that WoW was going to hit a point where finding new players became a lot harder, regardless of how good the game was.

So back in the days of TBC and WotLK, the game was able to maintain and grow sub numbers by recruiting new players. Whereas now, the game is barely able to attract new players, and can only really try and maintain sub numbers. Which means that looking at sub numbers during the TBC/WotLK era as a baseline for comparing the game today is senseless.

What I would say is this: Blizzard have a lot of data that we don't about how many players leave the game. It stands to reason that accessibility features were added to the game in response to those losses. And the evidence that someone like @Elias01 is trying to use to prove his point is actually nothing more than his own confirmation bias - trying to fit a set of numbers to his narrative, as opposed to a legitimate attempt at correctly understanding those numbers. Which is IMO either disingenuous, or plain incompetence.

[callipygoustp]

It amounts to making points and reasonings behind the opinion I hold. If they seem to be trying to convince you of anything, then it might be because there's some truth to them

Right, keep telling yourself that.

I never said or in any way even suggested your opinion is false.

You should re-read your own posts.

In fact, I've already agreed multiple times that the player is indeed a big factor, as with anything.
What is false is that your subjective opinion and experience necessarily applies even to the majority of people, let alone to everyone.

Never said it was.

You've already finally admitted that the way the game is designed affects how social it is, despite still going back to it being a completely subjective measure.

No I have regular said, in this thread and others, the game is as social as you, the player, make it. The above is an out right lie.

What you can't seem to get around is that your subjective experience is very likely an exception, not the rule.

Or its that you can't get around that my subjective experience is very likely the norm and not the exception. As I said people complaining about WoW not being social enough is akin to people stating that WoW is dying. Let me be clear here: I have no proof one way or the other but I'm not the one trying to convince people that I am the norm.

But you do you.

Right back at you. Meanwhile, I'll enjoy my social experience in WoW. I hope some day you can, once again, experience the same.

[TheRevenantHero]

There is absolutly nothing wrong about forced interactions with players. It creates fun experineces even for players what do not want to interact with players. Which btw were absolute minority becouse comening to play mmorpg tham wonder why you have to play with others is like wtf moment. And people what started playing wow with mindset of solo player were never majority.

First of all, FORCING players to interact in order to do anything would be a terrible move. Nobody wants to be forced into anything. They want to play the game the way THEY want to play. If Blizzard started forcing interactions, people will just leave rather than deal with that nonsense. I absolutely would never go back to WoW if Blizzard took away player agency and said "Either you form a group for this or never progress at all."

Second of all, you have absolutely no idea why people play the game. You really need to stop claiming you know exactly what is going through a player's head. You just keep peddling your ignorant opinions as fact when it ISN'T fact. Having the mindset of "There's nothing wrong with forced interactions" is INCREDIBLY toxic.

[Kolvarg]

One piece of interesting information is the quoted fact that over 100M people have played WoW - a number quoted officially in early 2014. That tells us that an average of 10M players stopped playing the game per year in the first 10 years.

To be fair, that's not entirely true.
The 100M number includes trial accounts, so the actual average number of people who stopped playing will be lower than 10M/year.

But you're right, the subscription graph only shows the total number of subscribers at given dates, and iirc it counted different payment models active in the east (where they payed to play by the hour, and playing even 1 hour in a given month would be counted as being an active subscriber for the month).

It doesn't tell us how many new players joined, how many old players re-subscribed, and how many quit. And the imo undeniable truth is that WoW has always been bleeding players from the start, and would have always declined in a similar way regardless of any design changes. As WoW always catered to a wide playerbase, the design changes probably changed who quit and who remained subscribed, but not so much how many of each. And if anything if it's very possible that the decline could have been much faster if they hadn't made the changes they did.

Ultimately it's just the natural progression of interest in any given game. WoW is an outlier by being extremely popular, to the point that only a small handful of other games can even begin to compare. The fact that it's still going and still essentially the king of its genre if anything is the surprising part, not that it eventually declined. No game gets to last long at its peak of interest/playerbase, certainly not at the scale that WoW reached, and certainly not with a subscription model.

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Never said it was.

When my point is that there are objective ways through which the game's design affects players' social interactions, and you constantly try to deny it based on your subjective experience, that's what you imply.

Or its that you can't get around that my subjective experience is very likely the norm and not the exception. As I said people complaining about WoW not being social enough is akin to people stating that WoW is dying. Let me be clear here: I have no proof one way or the other but I'm not the one trying to convince people that I am the norm.

Meanwhile, I'll enjoy my social experience in WoW. I hope some day you can, once again, experience the same.

The thing is you have only based that logic jump on a blatant assumption based on your personal experience, which I have addressed.

I, on the other hand, based it on reasoning as to why certain changes are prone to lead to less/worse social interactions on average, which you haven't addressed. I can't prove it any more than you can, but at least there's some logic behind it other than my personal experience.

And another blatant assumption is that I don't have a social experience in WoW without any idea of indication that's true or not. It is entirely possible (yet irrelevant) that I have a better social experience in WoW nowadays than I ever did, and still be able to separate my personal experience from the fact that that experience comes from me and not from the game.

The above is an out right lie.

Nope:

various changes have allowed for the social impact of the game to increase

[callipygoustp]

When my point is that there are objective ways through which the game's design affects players' social interactions, and you constantly try to deny it based on your subjective experience, that's what you imply.

This is what you started with:

The game is objectively less social. You can have a very social experience with it, no doubt, but it simply as incentivized by the game anymore and ultimately depends on you.

Based on my experiences, I have stated, over and over again, that this is not an objective truth but is instead your opinion. My opinion is the opposite. You have obfuscated the point through out your posts via bad analgoies and rough tangents. My stance has been the same since the beginning: the game is as social as you, the player, allow it to be.

I feel compelled to say, again:

I'll enjoy my social experience in WoW. I hope some day you can, once again, experience the same.