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  1. #661
    Quote Originally Posted by Kralljin View Post
    They straight up said that WoW is one of the core franchises of Activision Blizzard and the only major thing of Blizzard itself actually sees some form of growth right now.
    Both OW and Hearthstone have been in decline lately - while other franchises such as Diablo are still years off before they bring in any revenue and HotS / Starcraft not being mentioned at all anymore.

    So yeah, disregarding the relevance of WoW to Activision Blizzard is already false and if the revenue of WoW starts to tank, Blizzard (not Activision Blizzard) is in deep trouble unless they have other games ready to compensate.

    Sounds more like an explanation how these fluctuations come into existence, rather than saying "yeah, it's fine to us if people unsub".

    Mate, the subs indirectly reflect the stockvalue, because more people subbed = more revenue = higher stock value.

    So yeah, if they're reporting a sub drop, that will negatively impact the Activision Blizzard stock unless the other Activision branches can compensate that - which however doesn't make Blizzard itself any better, they will be seen more as a liability internally by Activision Blizzard.

    Doesn't take a genius to figure out why they stopped reporting sub numbers after the biggest drop in history, because there is no law that forces to report them and then they can easily hide them beneath vague terms in front of the shareholders if they're not doing too well.
    It doesn't matter if Blizzard or AB considers WoW core or not. The shareholders that vote, which have practically no influence because they are so small don't care about individual games and what the fuck goes on with development. All they care about is AB as a whole. Blizzard is around 29% of ABs total revenue and WoW is just a small portion of ABs revenue. Funny if subs matter that much then why has subs revenue fallen yet the stock price keeps rising. Seriously it only matters to some forum people.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by A Chozo View Post
    For real? Every single expansion has a plot, has tons of questlines, has a general theme that is anchored on that plot. Every single dungeon and item's flavor is made to go with the plot.

    Just because people ignore it or it is lacking in quality it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist

    It would be like me ignoring all the plot of the Warcraft 3 campaign to play on custom maps then saying that the game's plot is irrelevant and the name of the game should instead be Dota
    I truly wonder why some still play the game with such obvious hatred and vitriol toward it.
    Last edited by SirBeef; 2020-07-03 at 10:01 PM.

  2. #662
    Quote Originally Posted by A Chozo View Post
    For real? Every single expansion has a plot, has tons of questlines, has a general theme that is anchored on that plot. Every single dungeon and item's flavor is made to go with the plot.

    Just because people ignore it or it is lacking in quality it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist

    It would be like me ignoring all the plot of the Warcraft 3 campaign to play on custom maps then saying that the game's plot is irrelevant and the name of the game should instead be Dota
    It's there it just isnt what is important. Gameplay is king of all.

    The story is inconsequential compared to it.

  3. #663
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    Quote Originally Posted by Krakan View Post
    It's there it just isnt what is important. Gameplay is king of all.

    The story is inconsequential compared to it.
    For you.
    I wouldn't have played World of Warcraft if it weren't Warcraft.

  4. #664
    Quote Originally Posted by SirBeef View Post
    It doesn't matter if Blizzard or AB considers WoW core or not.
    If they consider it a core franchise, then the health and by extension revenue is pretty important to them.
    Quote Originally Posted by SirBeef View Post
    The shareholders that vote, which have practically no influence because they are so small don't care about individual games and what the fuck goes on with development.
    You miss the point, if WoW is not doing well, then Blizzard is not doing well and relies on its sister companies to carry it.

    People aren't just going to gloss over it "because Activision as a whole is doing well", if Blizzard did better, they'd get more money, that's why they talk about those franchises during the investor calls in the first place and not just say "everything is fine, see you in three months!".

    Because that's the reality of it, Activision wouldn't just sit by and watch how Blizzard might drag their profit down.

    And for Blizzard, WoW is a pretty huge factor as far as costs are concerned, both development and running costs.
    Last edited by Kralljin; 2020-07-03 at 10:26 PM.

  5. #665
    I doubt the DPS difference will be that big, its prob. A bit more than pick a Race. Even with wrong converant you will be able to do 90+ logs that's enough I guess.

    I might go and take a look in Alpha, just bored out of Alpha, same as everyone else, on Primetime like 20 people are online xD

  6. #666
    Quote Originally Posted by A Chozo View Post
    For real? Every single expansion has a plot, has tons of questlines, has a general theme that is anchored on that plot. Every single dungeon and item's flavor is made to go with the plot.

    Just because people ignore it or it is lacking in quality it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist

    It would be like me ignoring all the plot of the Warcraft 3 campaign to play on custom maps then saying that the game's plot is irrelevant and the name of the game should instead be Dota
    FF XIV is story driven, wow is not.

  7. #667
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    Quote Originally Posted by Specialka View Post
    FF XIV is story driven, wow is not.
    Both are.

    FFXIV executes it with more focus and quality tho.

  8. #668
    Quote Originally Posted by A Chozo View Post
    Both are.

    FFXIV executes it with more focus and quality tho.
    We do not have the same level of expectations.

  9. #669
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    Quote Originally Posted by Specialka View Post
    We do not have the same level of expectations.
    Which is irrelevant.

    Going down this route we'll soon be discussing if a Bad Plot can still be classified as Plot, which would be weird and off-topic as hell.

  10. #670
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    Quote Originally Posted by A Chozo View Post
    It's a return to something very basic in Warcraft: the choice of a faction. An important choice, which is why we are glad that Covenants are happening the way they are.
    It changes NOTHING, neither in the overall story nor for your character in lore. Or do you really think that in 10.0 there will be separate storylines according to what you chose in SL? In any other RPG I've played, you e.g. fight different bosses. Or there is a place with very hard mobs which you can skip if you belong to faction X, at the cost of not being able to buy Y. Hell, even the final cinematic may change in each case. Tell me with a straight face that we're going to have ACTUALLY meaningful choices instead of a couple of skills + a xmog set, which again will change NOTHING as far as story is concerned. The RPG part is SEVERELY lacking (and I'm being generous), and gameplay will probably be !@#$ed all over again.

    Btw, I loved how you snipped the rest of my post. I guess that you didn't have any arguments, so you resorted to "no u".
    Last edited by Soon-TM; 2020-07-03 at 11:03 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by trimble View Post
    WoD was the expansion that was targeted at non raiders.

  11. #671
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    Quote Originally Posted by Soon-TM View Post
    It changes NOTHING
    Yes, as expected in World of Warcraft. Best we can get is some different set of questlines and that's it.

    What's your point?

  12. #672
    Wow has a plot, that does not mean it is story driven.

  13. #673
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    Quote Originally Posted by A Chozo View Post
    Yes, as expected in World of Warcraft. Best we can get is some different set of questlines and that's it.

    What's your point?
    That it is not too RPG when your choices don't change anything. Why include them in the first place, when you are risking to !@#$ up with gameplay in the meantime?
    Quote Originally Posted by trimble View Post
    WoD was the expansion that was targeted at non raiders.

  14. #674
    Quote Originally Posted by Kralljin View Post
    If they consider it a core franchise, then the health and by extension revenue is pretty important to them.

    You miss the point, if WoW is not doing well, then Blizzard is not doing well and relies on its sister companies to carry it.

    People aren't just going to gloss over it "because Activision as a whole is doing well", if Blizzard did better, they'd get more money, that's why they talk about those franchises during the investor calls in the first place and not just say "everything is fine, see you in three months!".

    Because that's the reality of it, Activision wouldn't just sit by and watch how Blizzard might drag their profit down.

    And for Blizzard, WoW is a pretty huge factor as far as costs are concerned, both development and running costs.
    WoW has been returning less and less revenue for at least the last two years. Yet despite that and your claim that shareholders give a shit about WoW, ABs stock price has gone up. So yes Blizzard cares Kotic probably only cares that it's above projected margins, and shareholders only care that AB prints money.

  15. #675
    Quote Originally Posted by SirBeef View Post
    WoW has been returning less and less revenue for at least the last two years.
    I don't think there are any hard numbers on WoW itself out there, we don't even have sub numbers for like 5 years by now.
    That aside, they've also been increasing the amount of MTX, so there you go.

    And taking the reports from late 2018 into account...i don't think Activision is that happy with Blizzards performance.

  16. #676
    Quote Originally Posted by Soon-TM View Post
    It changes NOTHING, neither in the overall story nor for your character in lore.
    But it very much does.
    Or do you really think that in 10.0 there will be separate storylines according to what you chose in SL? In any other RPG I've played, you e.g. fight different bosses...
    ...Hell, even the final cinematic may change in each case.
    Why would it have to be in 10.0? There are completely separate storylines according to what you choose in 9.0. Even if it doesn't change the overall story direction of the expansion itself, that completely changes the story your character goes through, the characters you meet and work alongside, the people you kill, etc.
    Those campaigns will undoubtedly, just like war campaign and class hall campaigns, involve fighting different minibosses and the like. I don't know about the final cinematic, but there will almost certainly be plenty of cut scenes and in-game cinematics that are exclusive to your covenant, just like with the two war campaigns in BfA or the difference between factions in Legion.

    Or there is a place with very hard mobs which you can skip if you belong to faction X, at the cost of not being able to buy Y.
    This is already the case though. If you pick venthyr, you have the ability to teleport skip mobs in outdoor or dungeons (if you have a full group of them), this comes at the cost of not being able to buy/earn angel wings, or night fae backpacks, or build an abomination, or buy certain mounts.

    Like what are you asking for here? That Y be something absolutely necessary/required? Even in a single player RPG it wouldn't be, because there'd be no choice at all, you'd have to go the thing that lets you buy it.

    Tell me with a straight face that we're going to have ACTUALLY meaningful choices instead of a couple of skills + a xmog set, which again will change NOTHING as far as story is concerned. The RPG part is SEVERELY lacking (and I'm being generous), and gameplay will probably be !@#$ed all over again.
    What is "ACTUALLY meaningful"? The choice effects what storylines and quests your character will see this expansion. What abilities you have access to, what soulbind tree you have access to, what mounts/armor/transmog/etc. you have access to.

    Like you understand that, fundamentally, gameplay can't be "fucked all over again" UNLESS it's meaningful right? It is because they are meaningful that there's the potential for them to have large consequences.

  17. #677
    Overall it's fine if you don't want to play w/e is optimal and just choose whatever you're happy with. Ofcourse you'll be able to clear content without having it for sure.

    But looking at this as you climb the ladder in progression and such these "choices" aren't really choices at all. Honestly, i'm not really bothered about talent choices they seem to have their uses where there is always going to be one that's better for whatever situation you're in and given the way these talents scale one is generally gonna be better than the rest unless you're in a specific situation and tomes fix that nuance.

    The thing about these "choices" is that making meaningful progress in a guild or a pug without selecting the best tools you can you're automatically letting your team down so it turns from a thematic you enjoy to an essentially mandatory choice - why would your guild choose you over a similar skilled person when they have chosen a better covenant and has access to the better abilities, enjoy the bench.

    The realm I play world of warcraft in vs the realm you play world of warcraft in are vastly different and I get to complain about aspects I don't like because it directly effects me. If one covenant is broken and I take it and then they nerf it so another one becomes better essentially I need to leave my current covenant and move across. Now you can argue the fact that I chose to play like this so I will need to put up with it and sure I understand. But Blizzard have proven time and time again that their choice and the way they balance these things have always been completely terrible. My time and my duty to prepare and make sure i'm optimal so I can continue to have fun is literally at the mercy of blizzard and a few changes in numbers.

    Atleast they are artificially better than azerite traits. Gotta love bis traits for some classes being on an rng token or waiting multiple months saving titan residuum to purchase it outright
    Last edited by OFiveNine; 2020-07-04 at 02:54 AM.

  18. #678
    Quote Originally Posted by Hitei View Post
    It's how every expansion of wow has worked, including BFA.

    You could pick the worst spec of the worst DPS class, on the worst race for that class/spec, pick the worst talent in every single row, the worst essence, the worst corruptions, the worst azerite trait for every slot of every piece of azerite armor... and you would still be doing plenty enough DPS to get through normal dungeons, heroic dungeons, LFR, Normal raids, low end keystones, and probably heroic raids as long as you're reaching the appropriate item levels and know how to play your class..
    Nope, then it means it didn't work.

    Comparing it to PoE it would mean you could assemble subpar gear in one week and clear mythic raid with it while being a casual (but fairly skilled) player in fairly casual gear.

    While tryhard players would get a bit better gear in one day and still clear it. After a month they would be going to mythic, with 1 tank, 1 healer and rest of dpses, killing bosses in 20s.

    That is the difference in power cap vs content difficulty.


    Another example, imagine if you could upgrade your average ilvl by 1 each day with almost no limit. That's how it would work.
    Another example, imagine mythic raids had heroic level of boss HP.
    Last edited by kaminaris; 2020-07-04 at 06:38 AM.

  19. #679
    Okay some of you have completely derailed the thread and is now arguing over whether wow is a RPG or not.

    WoW is described by Blizzard themselves as a MMORPG, you have it right there in the genre, R P G.

    Done, can we get back on topic now?

  20. #680
    Quote Originally Posted by Echocho View Post
    Okay some of you have completely derailed the thread and is now arguing over whether wow is a RPG or not.

    WoW is described by Blizzard themselves as a MMORPG, you have it right there in the genre, R P G.

    Done, can we get back on topic now?
    It is not like they have any choice in that ? What would wow be ? A mmofps ? Maybe a mmoARPG would be closer to reality.

    Anyway, from the looks of it, covenants are going to be a big hassle if you can't switch easily if they do not balance them out. I really wonder how they are going to manage the fact that you can pick a covenant because it is the best for that specs then switch and Voilà, it is the worst for that other spec of the same class.

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