Shadowlands: Rapidly Climbing the Ladder in Popularity

[Subrias]

ffxiv was around. I actually hate ESO.. but i also hate everything elder scrolls...

[Rendark]

Shadowlands is just fine. Not the best they ever made but far from the worst. Better then legion and far better then bfa.

[Wangming]

@Wangming it would seem that SL's budget isn't as plentiful as Blizz would have us believe. After all, that sweet $200M paycheck for Kotick had to be squeezed out of somewhere... Chances are that WoW's budget wasn't spared

Well they still have the budget. What they spend it on is another matter.

Kotick be like: Bring the strippers and booze! We occasionally talk about videogames.

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But the more i deal with people from WoW, they truly are married to WoW, to the point that they don't play anything else than just WoW. No wonder why they defend it so much, even when the game is just terrible....

Yeah I have a friend like that. My BFF in fact. He is convinced WoW is amazing yet never played a single MMO in his life. He "knows" WoW's music is god tier (which explains why BlizzCon has guests stars making a concert while the Fan Fest has ingame music) and that no game has concept arts as good looking as the ones WoW has (Yoshitaka Amano says hi).

I try my best to not step into the same pitfall with Final Fantasy XIV:

[Lahis]

I'm fairly certain Blizzard has the most funding out of all the major MMOs now. Makes it weird how shit like this happened.

You assume any of the money made by WoW goes back into its development instead of shareholders and Bobby's new yacht.

[Wangming]

You assume any of the money made by WoW goes back into its development instead of shareholders and Bobby's new yacht.

Well Yoshie-P repeatedly said that he doesn't have the same funding as the WoW team. If I have to pick whom to trust between. "This wasn't planned but the dev team did it in their free time because they thought the players would like it" and "You think you know, but you don't." I would trust the former. If he says so they really do have less money.

[CaptainV]

Shadowlands is certainly *Not* climbing the ladder, when its the expansion that lost over 1/2 of the player base, thats just a harsh fact.

Im not saying that Shadowlands didnt have better ideas than BFA it did, but the execution evidently shows visual evidence that years of up and downhill promises are showing their fatigue.

Blizz would honestly be better making WoW 2.

[Osmeric]

Blizz would honestly be better making WoW 2.

It's more likely Kotick would sell the Warcraft IP and games to Tencent.

[Lahis]

Well Yoshie-P repeatedly said that he doesn't have the same funding as the WoW team. If I have to pick whom to trust between. "This wasn't planned but the dev team did it in their free time because they thought the players would like it" and "You think you know, but you don't." I would trust the former. If he says so they really do have less money.

Nobody except Blizzard knows their level of funding.

But the pace and quality of their output certainly doesn't look like their income is funneled back into dev teams.

[Soon-TM]

It's more likely Kotick would sell the Warcraft IP and games to Tencent.

Well, that could be a good thing actually. Tencent has been doing a fine job with e.g. Path of Exile, so...

[Wangming]

Nobody except Blizzard knows their level of funding.

But the pace and quality of their output certainly doesn't look like their income is funneled back into dev teams.

You people really love making excuses for why you accept being treated like shit, don't you?

[Alanar]

For me, ESO turned into my new main game. The main reason i moved to ESO, is because BFA was so terrible, that i had to move to something else. And the only game available at 2017 was ESO. I never actually believed that it was going to be as good as WoW, since its a new game with so few years in the market, and with the fear of seeing this game going bankrupt, i wasn't sure if i should spend any money on it.

But in the end, the game end up being far more interesting and far more complete than WoW. Many of these changes came since Morrowind + Summerset + Elsweyr. And made the game feel more complete.

And i think the best part of it, is that i'm not stuck in that 10% of the game, just like i do in WoW. I'm actually able to complete so many quests around the world and collect so many items around the world that i rarely get tired of it. Making alts here is super easy, that deleting them to create a new build is no problem at all.

The PvP part feels actually like a challenge. Since most builds that people use are private (there is no way to see what other people are using), and creating your own build using the sets + crafting skills + class/race makes the game more challenging. Meanwhile in WoW, everyone is using the same build over and over again (and most of them are abusing builds).

Also the races of Tamriel feel more unique than the races of Azeroth, even by being less in number, the races have so many customizing options that allows them to be unique (some unlocked by quests, others being sold in the store).

Funny....People in WoW plays Blood elves....And after playing ESO, Blood elves look ugly af for me now after playing with Altmer in ESO. And the best part of ESO is that they get tons of hairstyles + Tattoos + skin/hair colors + personalities + weapon/armor designs etc. In WoW most sets looks stupid ugly on Blood elves.

But the more i deal with people from WoW, they truly are married to WoW, to the point that they don't play anything else than just WoW. No wonder why they defend it so much, even when the game is just terrible....

I played it as well, but the repetetive areas and constant loading screens and fps issues in pvp is what made me quit. Mind you this was 1 year of eso from start. I imagine they fixed most of this?

Same happened with Swtor. Swtor had such a good combat system with even an auto attack on a key. But also big fps issues with the game since launch. They even blamed it on the players for javing bad pcs. It was hilariously bad.

I would have loved it otherwise.

[ulululu]

Yeah well obviously it is a choice between shit and crap so even the winner is a massive failure.

Threads and discussions nowadays are just full of sheer rejection. Everything is bad, they couldn't do it right anyways, no matter what. So why even bother?

It's always the same. "It's sh!t, would've been sh!t this way, would've been sh!t that way, just let it die, bla, bla, bla, how about WoW 2, listen, we as players know what's good."

The truth is: most of the damage done to the development process was due to the insatiability of the players. Everyone has the urge to feed his very own, individual preference at the expense of... any greater good - or willingly accepting it causing harm to other aspects.

Later on, when the insatiable subsided (in subscriptions) to their distorted selective perception of their reality that everything they say always is correct and the right way to handle things, other insatiable came and the cicle continued. Numbers are declining and the only effort was to develop contents that cater to the broadest audience possible at the expense of "quality". Just, to keep the fluctuation economically justifiable.

But yes, it's always the bad game and sometimes we all tend to play it. Just to blame it.

[Wangming]

Threads and discussions nowadays are just full of sheer rejection. Everything is bad, they couldn't do it right anyways, no matter what. So why even bother?

Well forgive me if I'm not thrilled that expansions have to be measured against WoD or BfA. That's like asking if you want to be punched in the face or in the dick.

Why bother? Because they used to be able to do better. And maybe they could if they wanted to make an effort. As it is, they apparently can't because we are having two bad expansions in a row.

[Nerovar]

I played it as well, but the repetetive areas and constant loading screens and fps issues in pvp is what made me quit. Mind you this was 1 year of eso from start. I imagine they fixed most of this?

Same happened with Swtor. Swtor had such a good combat system with even an auto attack on a key. But also big fps issues with the game since launch. They even blamed it on the players for javing bad pcs. It was hilariously bad.

I would have loved it otherwise.

SWTOR doesn't run properly to this day because their engine is so shit and can't utilize modern processors.

[CaptainV]

It's more likely Kotick would sell the Warcraft IP and games to Tencent.

Admittingly that *Might* not happen with the current politics of china/west.

[ulululu]

Well forgive me if I'm not thrilled that expansions have to be measured against WoD or BfA. That's like asking if you want to be punched in the face or in the dick.

If you read that again and think about it you may notice, that this is nonsense. Would be super substantial btw if you wouldn't tear the "So why even bother" out of context since I displayed what exactly I meant with that later on.

I can totally imagine you few years back causing the issue partially.

[Alanar]

SWTOR doesn't run properly to this day because their engine is so shit and can't utilize modern processors.

Shame realy, I though it had some realy strong points.

[Fkiolaris]

For me, ESO turned into my new main game.

A piece of advice, if you intend to take it seriously at end-game, be prepared to have your built and gear turned upside down potentially every 3 months. One of the main reasons I left ESO is that ZOS loves to do expansion-release level of tuning changes to everything every 3 months. Your millage may vary on this obviously, but I absolutely hated it, especially when I spent some time building a main character and gearing him up, only to see him turn to shite two weeks later in the middle of an expansion, meaning that all was for nothing and I didn't even get the chance to enjoy what I put together. As far as I am concerned, fuck that.

If that doesn't bother you, then ESO is quite a charming game in many different ways. Either way, have fun

[Wangming]

If you read that again and think about it you may notice, that this is nonsense. Would be super substantial btw if you wouldn't tear the "So why even bother" out of context since I displayed what exactly I meant with that later on.

I can totally imagine you few years back causing the issue partially.

If it makes you sleep better when you think that the game I haven't even remotely enjoyed for 7 years is the way it is due to me asking for the wrong things, you are entitled to it. Personally from precedent I believe the devs are smug and dismissive regarding what players actually ask for, untill sub number take a dive. Case in Point we had Legion and Classic due to such incidents. And it is why I switched companies.

FFXIV might not do everything perfectly. It might not even do things perfectly for me (I'm not bothered by the lukewarm PvP but I am, about the lack of magical items), but they communicate, they listen, they apologize. They make me feel like an actual human being who likes the same game they do. For Blizzard, I was an open wallet and my money an experiment on how little they have to do to still get it.

[Luxeley]

That so called rapid climb is definitely stalled with the 1st patch now expected out 6 months into the xpac.