Should wow be a lobby game?

[Resheph]

World of Warcraft should not be A or B. It has endured precisely because it caters to a diverse group of play styles. The notion that they should change this is absurd, there's dedicated lobby games and dedicated open world games - if you just want that you can play those. WOW's strength is the versatility and diversity of what's offered, even if the curmudgeon part of the MMO champ forums don't recognize this.

[Kokolums]

Warforging / titanforging pushed everyone to go out and do world content for possible upgrades. But players complained. Now they removed it. Now there is no incentive.

[RobertMugabe]

Don't you feel like that reducing Classic down to just raiding leaves a bit out of the equation?

No, that's why I specifically wrote "in 2021". I am fully aware how great and alive Classic felt during the beginning and all the (one-time) content that was there, but sadly at this point it is just more or less "raid or die" for most people, though there has been some noticeable influx of new players and rerolls since the TBC announcement.

[Argorwal]

I'd say since TBC, or even end game vanilla, for many players it already transitioned into basically a lobby game.

Then in 3.3 with the dungeon finder in Wrath it solidified it into a lobby game.

I don't think SL is really any different than what the game style has been for ages.

[Littleraven]

I would honestly probably quit the game if that ever happened fully. I enjoy being able to go out into the world and dick around with stuff. It's not something I do all the time but I enjoy the fact that I can go grind rep or farm mats or whatever. When I hear lobby game it brings me back to what WoD was with garrisons and people hated that shit. Everyone just sat in their garrison and queued for everything because there wasn't anything else to do.

[Kralljin]

but sadly at this point it is just more or less "raid or die" for most people

Because leveling is a sizeable portion of Classic's World content but something you're not doing forever and not everyone wants to level characters the entire time.

[LordVargK]

If we are really cynical here, wasn't every WoW expansion's endgame like this? Open world activities were never really rewarding (except farming). The open world was always a place for leveling and farming, otherwise it was an obstacle to getting to instances. Legion made the open world somewhat worthwhile, because you could get legendaries nearly everywhere, but in every other expansion open world became quickly superfluous.
Before the group finder, you would spam /2 in capitals to find your group, so past expansions did not do anything better than SL. Still, WoW has not become a lobby game and I think with good reason. It really was the vast open world that made WoW great, it's kinda in the name, isn't it? WC3 was a lobby game, WoW wanted to do something different.
So personally I would miss the open World and rather than WoW being turned into a Lobby game, I would welcome another complete rework on how the World works:
- No more factions
instead:
- Meaningful reputation systems, where you have to decide between opposing forces. Make use of the "at war" option. Let rep not be a simple value to grind, let it have more meaning than unlocking items at a vendor and getting discounts.
- battle for territories
- event chains, where the outcome of one event triggers optional following events
- etc...

In essence, take a page out of GW2's book. Blizzard is great at taking inspiration from other games and perfecting them. WoW is top notch when it comes to dungeons and Raids. PvP is somewhat lacking and Open World is basically non existant in the Endgame. Rather than concentrating on Dungeons, Raids and PvP (which are already somewhat perfected) I would like WoW to work on the lacking parts. And to be clear: only the gameplay is lacking, art and music are always pretty much perfect.

[ippollite]

I think its horrible that it has to be clarified that someone will not be attacked if they dare express their different opinion.

Ah, its fine. But it's important to let people know that i'm not just goading them into an argument for the lulz. I dont want people to raise their hackles before they've even had time to consider the idea just because its likely evident i myself dont have a neutral position.

As for the topic itself, the real gist is 'what is the point of "the world" in world of warcraft?' Why should blizzard keep designing expansions around <koff> expanding it. :")

Now, obviously, people with my playstyle (or near enough) are going to not only defend it, but also DEMAND that more resources be devoted to it. But the people i really want to hear from are those who think world gearing, world progression content etc, should have almost zero impact on their chosen sphere of content. Like, what value does it have to those players? Wouldnt they be better served by a lobby game (and i know its sort of a lobby game, but i literally mean a lobby game, not a crypto lobby game where it might as well be one)? I mean literally a lobby game.

So far, the defense (and its a fair defense) is two fold (although they kind of overlap): The first is that its nice just to have a chill, mindless area to switch off and relax outside of the competitive space. The second is that its nice having some RP elements like farming herbs, engaging in the meta fantasy (anima) and just gathering gold, mats, whatever. There's something really interesting about that position. Im not sure what it is, i'll have to let the idea swim around in my head a bit. But im sure its got to do with immersion, avatar permanence, and fantasy. Its probably just that to be honest, but i cant help feel theres something deeper in that position which might actually lead us to understand what the function is of the world and whether we were kind of deluding ourselves that it was anything more than that (ergo, the 'it is and has always been a lobby game' position).

Anyway, just thought id explain why there are no wrong answers or sacred cows and why i put that disclaimer.

[arr0gance]

No, and the cynical galaxy brains in this thread saying it already is are very, very wrong. The world element is the last vestige of old school MMO elements left in the game, I doubt the developers are in a hurry to remove that because "hurr durr raider.io is TOXIC DAE else think DELET raider.io?????/1//??!"

[ippollite]

If there is a position i'd argue against it might be this one (but im grateful since it allows us to tease out my position on the matter):

Vanilla and TBC are basically also just lobby games. Now, i can understand the logic here, namely that the world game has a finite end point where it no longer impacts on the instanced/lobby features in game, thus it's simply a vehicle to transition to end game where the real game takes place, and is therefore trivial and irrelevant content when you get to the nuts and bolts of it. The world game exists only in service to the instanced game. But my problem with this is that it paints with too wide a brush and covers up the nuance here.

Im going to take one tiny example out of perhaps several i could pick to illustrate what i mean.

Weapon skilling.

Sure, at the heart of it, once you are skill capped (in the world), its nevertheless in service to your end game content pursuits. But it doesnt address the fact you nevertheless HAVE to skill that weapon up. If you are in a raid and a sword drops that destroys your daggers for possible output, and you decide you want that, but your sword skill isn't even trained. Then you're taking a trip to your faction sword trainer to learn to train with it, then youre spending time grinding on mobs in the world to get that skill up to its core potential. What i mean by this, is that the RP elements are directly (and deliberately) a crunchy inconvenience to you. Sure, if you look at the finished result (300 weapon skill) then it's simple a pointless grindy hump you had to get through IN ORDER to play the game properly. But when we go that broad, well, then everything falls under that criteria (even the instance features, gearing in itself and whatever else isnt 'beating the game'). The point is that theres a time investment in the world game that is necessitated for the instanced game experience. You arent 'raid ready' so to speak, without that investment within the world game. Which i guess brings me to the issue with current design...

Time, pacing and streamlining. What appears to have happened (very pronounced in this expansion), is that the 'crunchiness' in the world game has been dramatically pulled back. The clear objective goal is to have players, with as little resistance as possible, transition from the world game (with almost zero friction) into the real game ("the three pillars"). Over the course of the entire lifetime of the game, those crunchy RP elements have been steadily removed to the point that now we find ourselves in an almost different game than the one we had even in wod (which is arguably the progenitor of this expansion). The world game has been made 'frictionless'. It lacks any inconvenience or barrier to progression other than lets say a very smooth renown catch up system.

Which i guess is why i made this topic. If even the world game has been stripped of all inconvenience (with the exception of renown and possibly conduit/lego farming (if your bis happens to be on a world boss)), what is the actual function of the world here except to farm random cosmetics (which could just as easily be turned into drops in said instanced content or even reps from instanced content grinding)? Why retain the conceit that there even is a world game at all when the cost of development time is just so high for its return?

[potis]

snip

What? Game has always been a lobby game, you just have to have the knowledge/experience to realize its one, luckily for me this was 16 years ago, a few months after i started.

WoW has always been about endgame, people just refuse to accept that, because "their experience was different, therefor it must be the correct experience" crowd, doesnt like their dreams shattered.

Weaponskill example is terrible, a semi-competent player just wastes a hour or two and levels his weapon skills after hitting max level, who will wait for a dagger to drop from a raid to go level it up, what? Realistically the dagger is already something like 225 because he was using it some time during leveling, in Vanilla logic.

And no, your logic is flawed, you are thinking as your own personal entertainment and not the game as a whole, which most people dont get.

The average player, does not care about other average players, they want to do their own thing, Blizzard knows this.

Remember attunements? Do you know why they were removed?

Because RPG elements have to go?

Lol no, because better guilds would rather destroy the lesser guilds than actually help for the 50th time someone go through the attunement process, what happens to the lesser guild? It dies, some unsub forever, some find new guilds.

Why is your (completely irrelevant RPG elements) entertainment more important than all those dead poached guilds and those players?

And then you have the crowd that never actually even was affected by this cause they didnt even go past heroic dungeons, going "Yeah but A GOOD COMMUNITY MUST HELP THE OTHERS, YOU ARE ALL TOXIC THAT WAS THE SPIRIT OF VANILLA WOW (Yeah, Classic proved it wasnt)", yeah i am gonna decline a night out with my friends drinking 14 years ago when its not a raid night to do extra raid for the 60th time because Billy wants his new e-girlfriend to join the guild.

Attunements is a quick example of such a pointless RPG element, it did more harm than good because it literally affected everyone, it blocked the weaker players from being considered by the better players, cause no one wants to farm the same thing for the 200th time because some other guildie had something life changing and has to stop playing (Completely acceptable, dont get me wrong) and they would rather ignore the 99%, find someone from inside the 1% that was close to what they wanted.

RPG elements were removed over the years when they became hinderances to the community, and cause massive damage than actual benefit, the game transitioned more into a MMO ARPG, thats it, more action, less irrelevant bullshit stuff.

LFG is the same, it was added because after a few months, why the hell would you do HC dungeons in Wrath for the 170th time? I dont need anything, points were farmed months ago, obviously, how are you gonna make it so all those slow casual players that have 1h/night dont waste it spamming trade for groups, as it started being a problem, since Justice points had to be farmed?

RPG elements were simply replaced by secondary things that dont actually block progression, they dont segregate people more than they should and are completely optional, magically it worked and you have full communities of pet battles/transmog/bg/arenas and so on, which have nothing to do with the actual core gameplay!

After that they are still testing the waters with new things, add things, remove things, World quests were "AMAZING" in Legion, in BFA they were "EHHH" and now "WHY ARE WORLD QUESTS STILL IN THE GAME BLIZZARD AND WHY DO THESE ONES TAKE SO LONG".

Just accept that the game evolved to fit the gaming scene that has been forever changing the last years, and at the same time making changes that would bring them profit cause they are a company afterall.

Despite all that, its still the best/most bug free raiding game out there, and it doesnt seem it will stop being for a few more years.

[Swnem]

It's always been.

It's raids/dungeons or arena/bg. All of it are instances. The "world" is your lobby. It happens to have some mini-game atractions, but nothing super important.

It is a good call out though. Some mmo's of yore used to have max level zones/outdoor dungeons that were end-game. That doesn't happen anymore.

- - - Updated - - -

What? Game has always been a lobby game, you just have to have the knowledge/experience to realize its one, luckily for me this was 16 years ago, a few months after i started.

WoW has always been about endgame, people just refuse to accept that, because "their experience was different, therefor it must be the correct experience" crowd, doesnt like their dreams shattered.

Weaponskill example is terrible, a semi-competent player just wastes a hour or two and levels his weapon skills after hitting max level, who will wait for a dagger to drop from a raid to go level it up, what? Realistically the dagger is already something like 225 because he was using it some time during leveling, in Vanilla logic.

And no, your logic is flawed, you are thinking as your own personal entertainment and not the game as a whole, which most people dont get.

The average player, does not care about other average players, they want to do their own thing, Blizzard knows this.

Remember attunements? Do you know why they were removed?

Because RPG elements have to go?

Lol no, because better guilds would rather destroy the lesser guilds than actually help for the 50th time someone go through the attunement process, what happens to the lesser guild? It dies, some unsub forever, some find new guilds.

Why is your (completely irrelevant RPG elements) entertainment more important than all those dead poached guilds and those players?

And then you have the crowd that never actually even was affected by this cause they didnt even go past heroic dungeons, going "Yeah but A GOOD COMMUNITY MUST HELP THE OTHERS, YOU ARE ALL TOXIC THAT WAS THE SPIRIT OF VANILLA WOW (Yeah, Classic proved it wasnt)", yeah i am gonna decline a night out with my friends drinking 14 years ago when its not a raid night to do extra raid for the 60th time because Billy wants his new e-girlfriend to join the guild.

Attunements is a quick example of such a pointless RPG element, it did more harm than good because it literally affected everyone, it blocked the weaker players from being considered by the better players, cause no one wants to farm the same thing for the 200th time because some other guildie had something life changing and has to stop playing (Completely acceptable, dont get me wrong) and they would rather ignore the 99%, find someone from inside the 1% that was close to what they wanted.

RPG elements were removed over the years when they became hinderances to the community, and cause massive damage than actual benefit, the game transitioned more into a MMO ARPG, thats it, more action, less irrelevant bullshit stuff.

LFG is the same, it was added because after a few months, why the hell would you do HC dungeons in Wrath for the 170th time? I dont need anything, points were farmed months ago, obviously, how are you gonna make it so all those slow casual players that have 1h/night dont waste it spamming trade for groups, as it started being a problem, since Justice points had to be farmed?

RPG elements were simply replaced by secondary things that dont actually block progression, they dont segregate people more than they should and are completely optional, magically it worked and you have full communities of pet battles/transmog/bg/arenas and so on, which have nothing to do with the actual core gameplay!

After that they are still testing the waters with new things, add things, remove things, World quests were "AMAZING" in Legion, in BFA they were "EHHH" and now "WHY ARE WORLD QUESTS STILL IN THE GAME BLIZZARD AND WHY DO THESE ONES TAKE SO LONG".

Just accept that the game evolved to fit the gaming scene that has been forever changing the last years, and at the same time making changes that would bring them profit cause they are a company afterall.

Despite all that, its still the best/most bug free raiding game out there, and it doesnt seem it will stop being for a few more years.

Errr... no. FFXIV is far less buggy. As for best, it's subjective, ofc.

[ro9ue]

No it shouldn't be a lobby game. But it is.

People don't play MMOs to sit in town and wait for their queue to pop. So if that's happening they've done something wrong. There should always be something interesting out in the world for players to do even if its to just fuck around and have some fun. Both ESO and Destiny 2 zones still have a useful/active outdoor world at cap. For ESO it's because their end game housing, crafting, and dye/outfit/cosmetic systems are actually good. For Destiny 2 it's mostly just because its a FPS and it's fun to take your new toys out and shoot stuff.

WoW's gameplay is too ancient to pull off the Destiny thing, but if they actually, you know, put Archaeology back in the game, or have ANY sort of housing system to collect stuff for and have a crafting system that isn't shallow... maybe they'll get people back out into the world. But as it stands now their world is basically you get items up to X ilevel, after that it's all useless aside from taking shots at a 1% mount rare drop.

[Otimus]

Its always been a lobby game. Everything of value has almost always been instanced. That was WoW's thing. Totally babying the MMORPG genre.

The only thing that's changed is how much walking you do in the lobby and the time needed before you actively need to engage with others in the lobby.

The amount of people okay with just the sheer amount of shit instanced in the game boggles my mind. Its supposed to be this big giant world. Instances aren't a good thing. They're supposed to be an unfortunate tradeoff, not a bonus. At this point, why even play the game? The gameplay? The game doesn't even have AI. You can play games with much better gameplay if all you want out of this is teeny little instances. The PVP? You want to play modes aped from different, much more enjoyable genres? Is that worth $15 a month?

[dope_danny]

Yeah that was called Cataclysm. Or Warlords of Dreanor.

[VinceVega]

As multiple people have allready mentioned. Wow is mostly a lobby game. There is always that one part of the game that is not lobby based for every patch.

Invasions in the last patch of Bfa, The Maw now. But even here one could argue it is a bit a lobby as mosty stuff can be joined via the group finder.

People rave about the classic openworld stuff. But that is only for leveling. After that you just use the open world for worldpvp and running from city A to dungeon/raid B.

The open world in wow is and always was useless. It got a bit of a revival with WQs but even they allready overstayed their welcome for most.

It is beautfiful to look at, but that is mostly it.
Also: it won't change as apparantly many people don't like the openworld as walking for 3 minutes is allready too much for most.

IMHO: Open world does not make a game better by default. Wow has beautiful scenery here and there but most of the open world is just seen as a chore

[Leodok]

Warlords of Draenor was generally disliked, so no.

[huth]

It's only a lobby game because the players refuse to venture out unless forced. It's not the dev's doing. It's been that way since vanilla as well.

The devs have tried various options to incentivise it over the years. They've always been complained about because people don't want to venture out.

[LordVargK]

The neglect of the world that they've built over the years is something of a tragedy.

This is something I've read many times in this thread and I don't really understand it.
The open world has more to offer now than at any point in the past. Be it secrets, rare mobs, small events, treasures or battle pets, the world never got anything removed from it, only added.
But the world was never really meaningful once you hit max level, not in vanilla or any expansion. Sure, a few months in vanilla before BGs were introduced and there also were a few months were you had fighting over the control points in TBC, but for one this was PvP only and never really lasted, once the next big patch hit.
Other than those minor occurences, when did the world in WoW really had anything to offer beyond leveling? How was the world neglected?

[NineSpine]

This is something I've read many times in this thread and I don't really understand it.
The open world has more to offer now than at any point in the past. Be it secrets, rare mobs, small events, treasures or battle pets, the world never got anything removed from it, only added.
But the world was never really meaningful once you hit max level, not in vanilla or any expansion. Sure, a few months in vanilla before BGs were introduced and there also were a few months were you had fighting over the control points in TBC, but for one this was PvP only and never really lasted, once the next big patch hit.
Other than those minor occurences, when did the world in WoW really had anything to offer beyond leveling? How was the world neglected?

You’re missing the point entirely.

The open world was about sharing a world, and therefore a community, with a recognizable group of other players. It was about the unexpected things that can happen when the world is persistent and coherent, and the people in it are not transients that could phase out at any second and be replaced by someone else.

Most of my fondest memories in wow come from emergent experiences in the open world, like being out farming and having pvp break out and then each side is calling in their allies. Or a high level is farming somewhere I need to be so some lower levels band together and fight them. Or seeing someone else on the same quest, grouping up, and then deciding to go run a dungeon together. Or coming across someone doing some whacky shit to break the game, like pulling bosses to cities. The list goes on and on.

If that sort of experience isn’t your bag, that’s fine, but you really aren’t getting it if you don’t see why those sorts of experiences are the reason a lot of us love MMOs. If I wanted to play a lobby based competitive game, I would have, and it baffles me that the most successful online word of all time has been turned effectively into just another lobby based game and not even a very good one at that.