Years ago, Blizzard misidentified the problem

[Nnyco]

No it doesn't. The point isn't that WoW doesn't keep you playing. The point is that once a new expansions comes out the old content becomes dog shit. Only good for hunting down old items, achievements and in modern times mog and pets.

The world in classic and BC was alive. The devs payed attention to small details, they updated little things, to try to keep the immersion. The abilities were full of flavor and many things were clunky but it was part of the charm. Now it's nothing but milking the mindless nerds who want to min/max and play number games all day with the same three buttons to push over and over.

My point is the game is huge, yet the content is very limited. It's just whatever is latest. There's no soul. That's why it falls flat on its face the minute new contents runs out or becomes old.

To understand better you'd have to compare this to games where the world feels alive instead of a static hamster wheel of checkboxes.

You should stop lookin thru your rosetinted glasses. The world in vanilla and tbc was for leveling, just as it is now.

[Argorwal]

Sorry, but that was the rationalization Blizz came up with.

In reality, Blizz developed less content with each expansion since Wrath. However, Blizz didn't want to admit to the obvious reality of that situation.

Vanilla had 20 dungeons and 4 raids. Raids were progressive (you largely needed to clear the first one before moving to the next).

BC added 16 dungeons, 11 zones, and 8 raids. Raids were progressive. New races, new start zones, new profession, and new flight.

Wrath added 16 dungeons, 11 zones, and 9 raids. Raids were mostly progressive. New class, new start zone, and new profession.

Cata added 12 dungeons, 2 revamped dungeons, 12 zones, and 6 raids. Raids were mostly progressive. New races, new start zones, revamped original zones, and new profession.

MoP added 9 dungeons, 9 zones, and 5 raids. Raids weren't really progressive. New race and class, new start zone, and pet battles.

WoD added 8 dungeons, 8 zones, and 3 raids. Raids weren't progressive. New table and "housing".

Legion added 10 dungeons, 3 revamped dungeons, 9 zones, and 5 raids. New class and new artifact tree that was largely abandoned in the last year.

BfA added 11 dungeons, 8 zones, and 5 raids. Nothing really new added (sorry, allied races are reskins, not new races).

SL added 8 dungeons, torghast, 4 1/2 zones (Maw = .5 zones), and likely 3-4 raids. Torghast is new, but not really substantive.

Now, go back and look at the numbers and new things added. That is the real degradation. Blizz has been trying to solve the problem of being lazy (i.e. not providing much content or anything really new) with randomization (M+ and Torghast)...which is just lazy. This is the true problem.

I really enjoy how you don’t differentiate between a 1 boss raid or a literal reskin and massive raids.

9 raids in Wrath?

1 - Vault of Archivon - a world boss in an instance

2-5 - Sarth, Maly, Onyxia, Ruby Sanctum - these are each counted as a full blown “raid” despite them all being 1 boss and one is a vanilla reskin.

6 - Naxx, speaking of vanilla reskins, a literal port of a vanilla raid. Easy 15 boss padding when it takes virtually no development time.

7-9 - Ulduar, ToC and ICC. 3 legitimate raid tiers with Ulduar especially being amazing and ICC great.

Also completely left out challenge modes, mythic+ (the first real raid alternate gearing system, mage tower, etc.)

[GreenJesus]

Sorry, but that was the rationalization Blizz came up with.

In reality, Blizz developed less content with each expansion since Wrath. However, Blizz didn't want to admit to the obvious reality of that situation.

Vanilla had 20 dungeons and 4 raids. Raids were progressive (you largely needed to clear the first one before moving to the next).

BC added 16 dungeons, 11 zones, and 8 raids. Raids were progressive. New races, new start zones, new profession, and new flight.

Wrath added 16 dungeons, 11 zones, and 9 raids. Raids were mostly progressive. New class, new start zone, and new profession.

Cata added 12 dungeons, 2 revamped dungeons, 12 zones, and 6 raids. Raids were mostly progressive. New races, new start zones, revamped original zones, and new profession.

MoP added 9 dungeons, 9 zones, and 5 raids. Raids weren't really progressive. New race and class, new start zone, and pet battles.

WoD added 8 dungeons, 8 zones, and 3 raids. Raids weren't progressive. New table and "housing".

Legion added 10 dungeons, 3 revamped dungeons, 9 zones, and 5 raids. New class and new artifact tree that was largely abandoned in the last year.

BfA added 11 dungeons, 8 zones, and 5 raids. Nothing really new added (sorry, allied races are reskins, not new races).

SL added 8 dungeons, torghast, 4 1/2 zones (Maw = .5 zones), and likely 3-4 raids. Torghast is new, but not really substantive.

Now, go back and look at the numbers and new things added. That is the real degradation. Blizz has been trying to solve the problem of being lazy (i.e. not providing much content or anything really new) with randomization (M+ and Torghast)...which is just lazy. This is the true problem.

Shadowlands will probably he adding a mega dungeon in 9.1.5 similar to Karazan or Mechagon which would be +2 dungeons. There will probably also be another 1-2 zones added in future patches as well. Even with this Shadowlands is definitely going to be behind in terms of zones. 4 actual questing zones with one limited grind zone just definitely feels pretty small. I would have liked to at least see 1 more zone at launch.

Also, BFA revamped arathi and darkshore zones.

[vitor210]

Imagine being upset at time gates... the alternative is either A) being able to grind stuff in a week and moaning about nothing being worth doing or B) being expected to grind it in a week for player power else be behind.

Solution to that would be to make MORE short content that can be pushed out faster

[Lolites]

The problem that Blizzard identified were content droughts. People, especially towards the latter half of SoO and HFC were quitting because they had completed the game. Blizzard thought that this was a problem and time-gating, extreme RNG and padded out infinite content like M+ were born. It was a losing fight anyway.

do you realise timegating and "extreme rng" existed loooong before SoO?
as for "padded out infinite content like M+"... well in legion it was extremely popular and it still kind of is, so that was hardly added bcs they "misidentified problem"...

this whole rant seems more like you dont enjoy wow so instead of playing something else you want whole game changed to your liking, and fuck what everybody else think...

- - - Updated - - -

Agreed... i also never understood the problem with timegating.

bcs timegating always was a thing and it never was a problem...

[chiddie]

The problem that Blizzard identified were content droughts. People, especially towards the latter half of SoO and HFC were quitting because they had completed the game. Blizzard thought that this was a problem and time-gating, extreme RNG and padded out infinite content like M+ were born. It was a losing fight anyway.

No game, will ever, no matter how great it is, be able to occupy people's attention every day for years upon years. There is an activity that does that: it's called real life. A game with "infinite" content would have to be a virtual copy of the real world.

People play video games to escape the real world. By padding out WoW, great experiences like pushing rankings, ratings and tackling new bosses are diluted in an endless swamp of extracurricular currencies, reputations, weekly and daily activities and vanity rewards.

Like the director of FF14 said, after you beat a game you quit until the next content update. The solution to content droughts was a different pricing model instead of the archaic subscription model.

Instead of recognizing that WoW has huge spikes during expansion and content patch releases, Blizzard decided to fight a losing battle and retain customers all year round. This is a fight they'll never win but they'll dilute the game to the nth degree to try so.

It all relies on how much spare time you have to dedicate to gaming. People with few spare time like me will ALWAYS have something to do in-game, people who can play 3-4 hours a day will eat content at light speed and there’s really not much you can do about it.

[Aristai1723]

The mid term outlook for SL is so similar to BFA and there is nothing wrong with it. Do your weekly story quest, do your weekly m+ for the box of disappointment, or do 4 if you have time and like more choices (that's new but not really content, most players will settle for one). Content draughts did indeed cost subs, but is there evidence that this was better with infinite grinds? Shadowlands made these more optional than any expansion before. Which makes me think we're on a good path.

One thing people always forget, time gating is a meaningful part of world building and immersion if it is done right. It made total sense that the siege of the nighthold took time. Finding people in toughest takes time. It's kind of funny some datelined content references Denathrius defeat without knowing what percentage will have done the fight when it launches.

It's also a great feeling to be done with a character for the week, so I'm happy.

[emil133]

No it doesn't. The point isn't that WoW doesn't keep you playing. The point is that once a new expansions comes out the old content becomes dog shit. Only good for hunting down old items, achievements and in modern times mog and pets.

The world in classic and BC was alive. The devs payed attention to small details, they updated little things, to try to keep the immersion. The abilities were full of flavor and many things were clunky but it was part of the charm. Now it's nothing but milking the mindless nerds who want to min/max and play number games all day with the same three buttons to push over and over.

My point is the game is huge, yet the content is very limited. It's just whatever is latest. There's no soul. That's why it falls flat on its face the minute new contents runs out or becomes old.

To understand better you'd have to compare this to games where the world feels alive instead of a static hamster wheel of checkboxes.

The world of World of warcraft was always shit, even in vanilla in tbc, it felt empty then, its feels empty now. thats because how the world is build up, the game is 16 years old, the fundamentals are extremely outdated, its not really the game that has changed, its the general player mindset, just look at classic, both now and at release, barely anyone was doing dungeons the proper way ( and dungeons have been dead for like 10 months) and dungeons was one of the sellig points of classic. Also look at release, everyone was talking how the leveling was most of the game, but still, players was rushing max.

Also, "all day with the same three buttons to push over and over", at least its better than tbc and vanilla where you only have one button to press

[Lightforged]

Solution to that would be to make MORE short content that can be pushed out faster

Then people will complain about "filler" content.

[Darsithis]

Plenty of real life is a big circle, too. Many of us get up, go to work, cook dinner, eat, and go to bed, in an endless cycle, much like running M+ over and over again.

[Kourvith]

I notice that during such discussions, on many forums, most people talk about content drought, repetitiveness, unfun, etc, but never about the elephant in the room : Blizzard's internal tools to create this content.

Aka : the core engine. Which is really, really starting to show its age. Not talking about graphics engine, but the mechanics engine : Quests, interactions, dialogs, animated scenes. All the internal tools to give life to the game. It’s extremely stiff & outdated.

It is what makes things appear to be more and more repetitive, with each xpac being a variation of that same ageing core : a resource number for progression, status effects for combat, text popup for dialogues. It’s even more sad when you realize how artists (visuals, soundtrack) are inversely top quality, and are trying their best not to be dragged down by the engine : a glorious 3D model with glorious textures, only to be animated with a few keyframes and text popups like in 2000. An incredible story going for 20 years now, only to be narrated through exclamations marks and (once again) text popups. A superb soundtrack with a thundering voice telling you to follow him, only to be incarnated by a linear movement going from point A to point B. It's simply unelegant.

The illusion of novelty worked in Legion thanks to intelligent gamedesign, kinda worked for Bfa with incredible environments, but now in 2021, especially after recent jaw dropping games, the amount of efforts needed to cover up this age is becoming way too high.

Now for anyone familiar with coding on large projects, we all know it's impossible to completely rejuvenate so many intricated event handlers, conditions, asset management routines, code legacy over code legacy. It's just gone too big of a project. And that's why you're seeing the same patterns over and over, year after year; content creators' only range of freedom is to change a few parameters in that big, slow, old boat that is sailing for 16 years now.

Blizzard needs to face it : Wow needs a brand new core engine. Which means rethinking the whole game from the start.
edit : which doesn't automatically means rethinking the game's identity. Identity and core engine are two separate things.

[Azerate]

FF14 has a sub though, so not sure what the OP means. It just has like 100 times more shit in the real money store than wow does

[Raisei]

Like the director of FF14 said, after you beat a game you quit until the next content update. The solution to content droughts was a different pricing model instead of the archaic subscription model.

Sooo, you are playing FF14 and this is just another "FF is better then WoW" thread, I assume?

Instead of recognizing that WoW has huge spikes during expansion and content patch releases, Blizzard decided to fight a losing battle and retain customers all year round. This is a fight they'll never win but they'll dilute the game to the nth degree to try so.

Ye... WoW is in such trouble, servers being shut down tomorrow and all. How many times have we seen this? Another MMO is regarded to be so much better in some or all aspects and then it falls flat on it's face.

Granted FF has a big name behind it, that will keep it afloat a bit longer, but SWTOR had that too and that "WoW Killer" hasn't seen meaningful content in years.

Regardless, WoW is working fine for a ton of people and will keep doing so for a long time.

[Laqweeta]

Years ago Blizzard put Ion in charge.

Hopefully the bastard gets hit by a bus so wow becomes good again.

[Rawrajishxc]

Except the ff14 payment model is shit and logging in every day is cool

It's the same payment model as WoW, except it costs less per month but doesn't have a token feature. Also, logging in everyday is only cool if It's on a mobile game.

[Kuntantee]

Imagine being upset at time gates... the alternative is either A) being able to grind stuff in a week and moaning about nothing being worth doing or B) being expected to grind it in a week for player power else be behind.

Imagine people defending time-gates in a subscription based game.

[Drusin]

No game, will ever, no matter how great it is, be able to occupy people's attention every day for years upon years

Wow can if you're a collector

[Matsumotto]

The problem is trying to play a game for 15 years and still finding it cool.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Might I suggest you take a look at the sub stats from MoP's final patch...? It had a retention of over 5 million players throughout its full run.

It's also pretty clear that they're happy with the current model and release schedule that's been a thing since MoP, lapsed in WoD then returned from Legion. Since they've got access to actual player data, behaviour and all that.

[Wilfire]

Might I suggest you take a look at the sub stats from MoP's final patch...? It had a retention of over 5 million players throughout its full run.

It's also pretty clear that they're happy with the current model and release schedule that's been a thing since MoP, lapsed in WoD then returned from Legion. Since they've got access to actual player data, behaviour and all that.

Having access to data doesn't mean anything. Plenty of people in data analysis are complete idiots who apply shoddy methodology and don't know how to interpret the results they get. People are constantly making the mistake of assuming that just because someone works in an industry, they have a head on their shoulders. In reality Blizzard's devs are just as foolish as the average WoW forum poster, which would explain all the questionable decisions over the years.