Purple Eyes for Void and Blood Elves, Cosmetic Icon Visuals, Curseforge Update

[Toybox]

I'm sorry, but while I immensely respect what Chris Kaleiki has contributed to the game & I do agree on some of his opinions, I really can't agree on the point about guilds.

If you want to beat the most challenging content, being in a guild was required then, but is also required now. During TBC, all T4 & most T5 content was pugged on the bigger servers, just like most things in ICC normal (and quite a lot of heroic) was in Wrath. Nowadays, sure, you can pug heroic, you can pug some mythic, but if you want to guarantee a timely Mythic clear, you want to be in a guild, just like you did back then. Yeah you can buy a boost now, but let's not pretend you couldn't buy a boost then. Nihilum were selling Illidan loot for 40k per piece if I remember right.

A good guild feels just as good as ever before, if not better. I was around in the days of dedicated guild forums & teamspeak & I don't see anything being inherently worse around the current situation with the likes of Discord. Just like then, you find a good guild, you get to know people, & hopefully you have fun playing not only WoW but other games with them as well.

To me, the only real successes that can be found from playing WoW are from finding cool people to play with & overcoming difficult challenges. The former is as good as it ever was, & the latter is better than ever before. Like I said though, I do agree on a lot of his other points... Just can't agree on the guild one

All the best to the guy.

Edit: My GM raised a good point. This guy is very clearly PvP focused, & PvP guilds really aren't a thing like they were back in the day. Maybe that's why he feels such a difference.

[datguywhocomments]

Too often the community is quick to assume that any employee that leaves Blizzard is a sign of huge inner turmoil and impending demise. Sometimes people just move on to new projects or even other companies to stay energized and engaged. Once in a while people do leave because they are unhappy in the workplace, but it shouldn't be our default assumption until proven otherwise by a "why I left" letter.

Plus we have no idea how much he was being paid. He could have been paid enough to live comfortably for the rest of his life off of dividends, and at some point he thought "you...know, getting up every day and sitting in that freakin building with all these new kids is just a waste of life. I'm quitting my job and going to start living. I have enough money to do it. The end."

[GreenJesus]

Well I know what he means but, not really sure he will find a dev to work for that will want to create that.

I don't think any future mmo or anything of the sort is ever going to be like that. Every mmo will have some sort of dungeon finder, achievements that makes people wanna focus on reaching the next goal instead of exploring by themselves, myriads of instances that separate the players etc.

Infact, look at FFXIV. It was made almost 10 years after WoW came out and every single zone is instanced, there's loading screens all over the place.

One thing I agree with though, is that WoW should go back to having its World telling the story. BFA felt like a tv show drama with all these characters taking the spotlight.

The Jaina story is a perfect example of this. The culmination of a new zone's story was some soap opera drama about Jaina crying to her mom with flash backs? Really?

[Levaustian]

I suspect it means the Twitch app will no longer work.

If it really means we can't download from the web site then uh yeah I'm hosting my stuff on just wowinterface from now on.

What on earth would the logic be to make it App only? I'd imagine it would drive all developers away from the site.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I can't really agree with much the guy is saying. Guilds are as important for the high end as they were back then, it's the low end that no longer needs them and they didn't ever to begin with.
The players being the main story is one of these things that only works if you have a sandbox game. WoW was always a themepark. Having a game about character growth only works if the character can actually grow in some way. Since they decided to reset the character grown with each expansion (and every patch tbh), the only way left was to let them grow with the story. Well that is if I understood him correctly, if he means that the other character hog the lime light then I can just say that was the case since BC.
I don't even want to comment further on player drama, like that has ever been a good thing.
I can agree that "systems" have become too big and bog the game down, but I don't see how forcing me to adjust my live around the schedule of 40 other people is going to make the game better, I already do all whenever I want to achieve something.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Isn't it funny the timeline is right around the time Activision took over 13 years ago. Of course you can't say anything bad about them directly because they're so big they could ruin his career or sue him for defamation.

He started working there only a bit before activision which means his good times there would be under them so pretending that they came in and ruined every thing and drove him away doesn’t even make sense.

[GreenJesus]

Blizzard's fanbase is a little off. I've been saying since launch and all the time about how expensive Hearthstone is and most the time no one agrees, like hello? Every once in a while one person mentions it, but now with the latest revolt people are acting like it's a new thing. Where you been all these years? So you can only take their opinion with a grain of sand. But in Hearthstones case, it's a matter of fact not opinions. Blizzard fans are very defensive until they're influenced from their streamers or something.

The only people still playing Hearthstone/post about it at this point don't care about how expensive it is. Survivor bias.

[Armourboy]

Yes its true that you still need guilds for the hard stuff, but the problem I think he sees is the rest of the game doesn't.

The game itself forced new and older players alike into communities. Even when you were only doing heroics or some PvP it made sense to be in a guild. Sure you could pug it, and eventually pug some of the raid content, but generally that was pretty limited and even then could force you into a secondary community to be able to do it. Today you can pretty much do everything but mythic raid content without it.

The game no longer naturally funnels you into communities and in Vanilla, TBC and Wrath there were various levels of them doing varying levels of content. Sure some may still exist, but they are more the exception than the rule.

My guess would be that he spent 13 years with his head buried in his work and then he looked up one day and realized he was surrounded by a different crew with different ideas on how things should be done. Classic probably opened his eyes and showed him what he personally missed about the game and when Shadowlands didn't shift back towards that direction he decided it was time to go.

Sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees and he finally stepped back and saw a forest he didn't care much for. It happens.

[Violent]

The only people still playing Hearthstone/post about it at this point don't care about how expensive it is. Survivor bias.

I still play it at times on my phone while being a passenger. Would never spend actual money on it tho.

[Armourboy]

His point is that the old game had no option for the first. Therefore, if you wanted to see the content, you were expected to get better, or find a group who was willing to help you get better - And thus did a community form around those things. Nevermind the forced attunements that required groups, nevermind that progression often required you to complete at least one run of the raid prior in order to progress... In some cases, this meant groups of lesser skilled players made a guild that ONLY did one stage of the content and never moved on. This helped people intermingle - It wasn't about giving everybody what they wanted, it was about making a good game and if people wanted to see it, they had to work out how to see it on their own. That's what created the community in game. The community relied on each other to help one another, because if they didn't, eventually, they'd run out of people to do content with and nobody would be able to do the content.

The game today holds everyone's hand too much, is his point. You literally can log in and skip two entire tiers of content and start raiding the third, in a pug, with no requirements whatsoever. Yes, it's LFR and the rewards aren't equal to Mythic modes - So what? What are you honestly missing by not doing Mythic raids? You're almost never missing anything important, just a few more stat points on your gear pieces and maybe a unique mount. (If you're lucky and it's not just a recolored model again.)

There's no point in forming a community around such a niche part of the game, especially when all the requirements to get into it can (and are expected to be) completed solo. And yes - Some might argue that's still good for the game ultimately. But none can deny that it destroyed a major community within the game that was literally focused around people gearing up and progressing.

Agree with this so much. I also think it made for a happier playerbase. That's not to say we didn't have complaints, but so much more energy was spent worrying about your friends and guild and less about nitpicking some game system. That's not to say that I think everything would be ok, but it made it easier to deal with the bad for some reason.

[mongoose221]

“Guilds in Classic are almost needed to be successful. This creates community that isn't as needed in retail.“

“ The story is a much bigger part in retail, where the drama and the characters soak up most of it instead of the players being the main story.“

2 main reasons I stopped playing avidly. Guilds don’t mean anything anymore, you can just go into group finder and find what you need. Guilds nowadays are just a bunch of ppl picked up from auto recruiter, no real reason to help others with crafting or content.

Your character definitely does not stand out at all or feel like the main character of the game. I beat all the content from BC-MoP when it was current so my character has beaten Arthas and Deathwing, never once has this been mentioned by NPCs. They just refer to you as “champion” and vaguely ref these accomplishments. Have to blame it on the fact WoW doesn’t have a linear story so ppl don’t have to do these things and Blizz doesn’t want to make the game change too much dialogue for each person.

I’ll be speaking as a WoW refugee, FFXIV does both of these so much better.

What?'
You can literally play the entire FFXIV game, and all expansions, without a guild, and just use group finder.

[GreenJesus]

What?'
You can literally play the entire FFXIV game, and all expansions, without a guild, and just use group finder.

Yeh lol. I never joined a guild in FFXIV and have done all the dungeons/trials/raids (not on extreme/savage though).

[Wadrak]

He left and this is annoucned before the Shadowlands expansion launch ? What is this supposed to mean ?

[kodemonkee]

He left and this is annoucned before the Shadowlands expansion launch ? What is this supposed to mean ?

Nothing. People leave their jobs. Do you never left a job, do you even ever had a job in your life? If yes you wouldn't ask this question.

[TheLucky1]

For being a designer and working there for 13 years he actually didn't say a lot...
That's not meant as a critique, maybe that's just it and what he wanted to say, to me it just felt like he freestyled the video and didn't really bundle his thoughts beforehand.

[abcdefgeek]

Truly a sad day. Who is going to provide braindead stick figure diagrams to explain things to us now?????????

[javierdsv]

Hmm so he left to make a "statement". He sure thinks so high of himself, lol.

[chiddie]

I don’t get this guild issues, really. The difference is that at that time it was “raid or die”, today you can do many other things in smaller groups or in solo. I fail to see why it’s an issue.

Let’s all remember that, after all, this is still a game with a monthly fee and its main goal should be entertain, not provide a second work (that you also pay for) during your spare time from the real work.

[Kallisto]

Honestly, I posted about some of his points in the forums before and the majority of people disagreed with, for instance, the dying social and community aspect of the game. I was shocked because I think it's obvious for anyone who played pre-cata.

The social aspect is still there you just have to look for it like you have to in classic or had to prior to cata.

The thing is people would rather bitch, moan, whine and cry on forums than actually spend less time putting in applications to these guilds. They treat cesspool guilds who are basically green trade chat as the norm when they're not and try to live in the pug world. If they just spent an hour researching guilds then all the crying they put in about social or pug rejections go out the window.

Well most do, shift workers are still going to be screwed over unfortunately (and no I don't buy if you're a shift worker then you shouldn't play mmos argument that some people push)

- - - Updated - - -

His point is that the old game had no option for the first. Therefore, if you wanted to see the content, you were expected to get better, or find a group who was willing to help you get better - And thus did a community form around those things. Nevermind the forced attunements that required groups, nevermind that progression often required you to complete at least one run of the raid prior in order to progress... In some cases, this meant groups of lesser skilled players made a guild that ONLY did one stage of the content and never moved on. This helped people intermingle - It wasn't about giving everybody what they wanted, it was about making a good game and if people wanted to see it, they had to work out how to see it on their own. That's what created the community in game. The community relied on each other to help one another, because if they didn't, eventually, they'd run out of people to do content with and nobody would be able to do the content.

The game today holds everyone's hand too much, is his point. You literally can log in and skip two entire tiers of content and start raiding the third, in a pug, with no requirements whatsoever. Yes, it's LFR and the rewards aren't equal to Mythic modes - So what? What are you honestly missing by not doing Mythic raids? You're almost never missing anything important, just a few more stat points on your gear pieces and maybe a unique mount. (If you're lucky and it's not just a recolored model again.)

There's no point in forming a community around such a niche part of the game, especially when all the requirements to get into it can (and are expected to be) completed solo. And yes - Some might argue that's still good for the game ultimately. But none can deny that it destroyed a major community within the game that was literally focused around people gearing up and progressing.

Here is a simple rule if gaming that has been around since day 1.

Difderent difficulty levels are different content period.

This was true in the 80s, in the 90s, in the 2000s in the 2010s. It didn't stop being true because some people are deluded in thinking lfr = mythic in content.

[Koward]

I don’t get this guild issues, really. The difference is that at that time it was “raid or die”, today you can do many other things in smaller groups or in solo. I fail to see why it’s an issue.

Let’s all remember that, after all, this is still a game with a monthly fee and its main goal should be entertain, not provide a second work (that you also pay for) during your spare time from the real work.

What he means is that because you have a greater freedom to be on your own in modern WoW, it reduces the incentive to socialize.
It's okay, it does not make modern WoW a bad game, but it certainly changes the dynamics and the content development goals.
It's not an issue, it's a different game, and it has a different audience.