Why has the game moved from skill gates to time gates?

[A Chozo]

A crazy amount of people seem to derive their fun from how someone else plays, and of course they tend to have less fun if other people aren't playing like they want them to play. It's weird but that's how it is

Luckily current WoW doesn't cater to much to those weird people.

[ymirsson]

Luckily current WoW doesn't cater to much to those weird people.

Yeah, thats what the forums are there for.

[cparle87]

I think we are forgetting about the biggest time game of them all.... RAID LOCKOUTS!!! The gear time-gating is brutal; 2-3 loots per boss per week for 40 people; why not just let you run the raid over and over? Raid sizes are smaller now, but instead of competing with other people for best in slot, you are competing with a slot machine for best in slot.

You were competing with a slot machine even then, since this was the days before tier tokens and there were good odds nothing you could even use would drop. Didn't like all pally tier tokens drop for one of the Horde WF Kel'Thuzad kills?

[Kaibhan]

This game has always been time gated, never heard of attunements?

Time gated means there is an arbitrary wait x amount of time after reaching a certain point before being able to continue on. Not complete this super long quest line that takes time.

[Kallisto]

Fair enough though you think they would support the idea of raid logging. They tend to stay during entire patches and are a rather light load on the servers with usually less then twelve hours a week.

Raid logging gave us WoD. If there's anything we don't want is a return to WoD.

[Djuntas]

They listened to classic players...Idk. Classic is easy once you get through all the time-gates, aka finding groups, forming raid....Just zzzz all the stupid shit, when content is easy. Not to mention long lvling, slow combat...drinking mana etc.

[Ezyah]

Skill gated ? The game is significantly harder now tho. You mean time spent farming gated ?

[Kralljin]

Raid logging gave us WoD. If there's anything we don't want is a return to WoD.

That would assume that WoD was a finished expansion, which it wasn't.
The Raid content was the only thing Blizzard managed to complete, it was a raidlogging expansion by accident.

And mind you, Wotlk and Cata were hardly different as far as raidlogging is concerned - once you got Therazane / Sons of Hodir Rep out of the way.
Could consider MoP as well, post 5.0 at least.

[Wallmaker Yahzarah]

Why does this even bother you. If that's how people like to play that's ok.

LOL This post is hilarious. So many levels... Ridiculous. Ludicrous. Absurd.
A guy complains, in an open forum, about a group playing a game they pay for. Another person comes in complaining about the person complaining, on a free to post format. A free to post format that allows free speech and expression LOL Like, what? WTH is going on here?

[Blackmist]

Because everyone can do time gates. And you have to stay subscribed to do them.

[Elias01]

Time gates allow Blizzard keep content acessible(keeping it faceroll) while making sure players wont burn trought content in 1 day. Skill gating = less aceasible content = less casual game = "bad".

[Belloc]

WoW has a skill cap. There comes a point where, barring obscene levels of RNG, players' progression is only limited by the amount of time they have because the mechanics are just not difficult enough on their own. So, they use time gating via gear and release schedules. The alternative is content that is cleared immediately.

[potis]

Option C is a bit broad stroke. I know plenty of people who still play and could easily do top tier content if they chose and had time too. Fuck I raided and pushed content regularly back before wod, then real life began to push wow out. I still know how to play, just don't feel like dedicating what free time to have to it.

Then you are B, you arent C, B is a broad spectrum also, its more like "Playing the game to the appropriate level its meant to be played at some point in your game time"

C is...That dude i know that had maximum number of characters from Vanilla to Wotlk and just played the low level auction house..On 3 accounts, like 100 characters level 20-30, doing pointless stuff like Malachite/Cloth stuff.

C is basically the actual casual people, not the casual by definition of bad at the game, but the people that never play this game seriously or for its actual purpose and just goof around for the pixels.

[Skytotem]

Skill gates worked when you had folks first starting out but with a lot more casual players and people who have played the game for 10+ years, time gates are more practical

Folks will either look up strategies here or on wowhead and Blaze through stuff at ultraspeed or they'll never get it

[Lightning-]

LOL This post is hilarious. So many levels... Ridiculous. Ludicrous. Absurd.
A guy complains, in an open forum, about a group playing a game they pay for. Another person comes in complaining about the person complaining, on a free to post format. A free to post format that allows free speech and expression LOL Like, what? WTH is going on here?

Ok and which one of those are you?

[Malikath]

Because, the focus has shifted from service to "profit"(even though the investors seem to angry about Kotick possibly taking too much pay for delivering too little profit as he has failed most promised growth break-points) and as a result systems that artificially prolong the life of content, rather then say adding more content to do so that the progression is spread across a series of content rather then the same boring ass objective again and again.
And since there are always sub-human wastes of air that only want to apply less effort to accomplish anything in life, not just games, these systems find if not a populous group but a somewhat vocal minority(as proven by the dramatic loss in subs when these systems were implemented) who will defend these systems, but as metrics have shown these parasites are as worthless economically as they are socially.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

There's always been time gating.

[Wallmaker Yahzarah]

Ok and which one of those are you?

LOL Never made the implication that I was either.

[LedZeppelin]

the game is time gated. Spend time collecting herbs? Missing out on mythics. Pvping? Damn u could be raiding

[Lightning-]

LOL Never made the implication that I was either.

LOL ok then