When You Realize the Sad Truth: WoW Players Don't Care About The World in WoW

[Lolites]

WOD had great raids, reasonably good dungeons (although they become pointless soon) and "standard" pvp as pretty much every expansion, what it lacked was world content, and how well that went right?

[Mojo03]

It's a theme park MMO that's transitioning (or already?) to a lobby MMO.

The first three games were designed with the world being the main character, which I think is part of why they are more beloved. Cata was the start of the theme park approach, which "oddly" ​was the first expansion they did from start to finish under the Activision banner.

Furthermore, the game is run by the former head of elitist jerks, which was a guild/website back in the day for theory crafting and a primary hangout for hardcore dbags. It's no surprise the game is so heavily focused on raiding and M+ with little care or innovation in anything else.

[Mellrod]

Most people probably dont pay attention to Azeroth while they're in it, but that is not the same as people not caring about it. If you remove the explorable world of Azeroth you remove a large portion of the game, and the sole thing that made it popular all those years ago to begin with. Having an entire world to sit in while you wait for an instance queue is worlds better than sitting in a single boxed-in room.

[VinceVega]

World content in this game has always been fucking terrible, especially compared to the intricate questlines and flavorful choices of good RPGs like Fallout New Vegas, Dragon Age Origins or TW3, or the interesting world interactions of titles like Breath of the Wild. What does WoW got? Farming nodes of herbs and ore? Quests that 90% boil down to the local flavor of twenty bear ass collecting with the other 10% being easy overworld bosses or vehicle sections (or trekking slowly to the other end of the map in Classic instead)? Dailies/WQs which are the same twenty bear ass collecting except with even less context? Treasures that lost most of their novelty a month into Mists? Of course it helps that those single-player games are designed to just end at some point, while a MMO doesn't and needs to eternally keep players busy and subbed.

In theory they could pull a SWTOR and make so much world and story content, with decent presentation, that it becomes attractive to seek it out... at the expense of the rest of the game, especially the endgame which makes people stick around once they're done with the story and initial questing bits. Blizzard can't possibly create those as fast as players consume them, and thus the retention mechanics are repeatable instances; dungeons, raids, battlegrounds, arenas. That's how it's been since the day WoW launch and will be until the servers close in like 20 years or something.

It's always the same song and dance. People care about the world and immersion and the journey and all that jazz, until a couple months into the expac where they want to raidlog. Classic was supposed to be all about this true RPG experience until everyone was farming dungeons for XP, farming AV for Honor or speedrunning raids. Blizzard knows this very well and it's why they don't bother designing an intricate open world when many people just want to (sometimes literally) fly over it once they're done.

Neither classic nor retail are games like that though. None of them made real long term use of the open world.

Swotor did with a long stroy and because it is essantially a single player game. Single player games ALWAYS trump storywise. They have more freedom and less stuff to consider like different outcomes. That is simply not possible in an MMO as long as the story is for everyone.

People are asking wow to be something it never has been. Wow is and always was and endgame centric game around raids, dungeons and pvp. The rest is tacked on to give you something to do but not the focus and i hope it never will be.
Because what wow does good it is doing the best.

Other MMOs cannot compare even a bit to it. Swtor found its neish. Like ESO. in a long basically single player campaign with a huge story and nothing else.
FF14 tried to do both, but both inferior as a result. The story is not as good as Swtor or ESOs and the endgame is not as good as wows. Not bad. Just not as good.

So there are games for every flavour. You just have to pick the one that fits the best and not try to make a game into something it is not intended.

[loras]

I think there's a huge problem facing the MMORPG genre, and that is that it exploded into popularity so hard with WoW's over-success that it attracted so many types of players who's fun is entirely compartmentalized and couldn't care less about the overarching game world. They either raid, do some dungeons, or PvP, or collect things. Roleplaying and socialization aspects have been taking a backseat for years now, it's nothing new and I won't bore you with more talk on this.

I had a thought, though, and it's pretty sad because I'm probably completely on the mark here. I think if someone came out with a new type of sub-MMO genre that completely eschewed the world out of it, it would be really successful and suck up a lot of these types.

Imagine logging into a game where all that's offered is a chat lobby with chat channels, a friends list, and the ability to queue up for different types of content. Raids are there, dungeons are there, PvP arenas are there, Battlegrounds are there, they have all their usual bells and whistles with the multiple difficulties for some and achievement hunting etc. You could literally relegate old world mog farming to a gacha type of game and people wouldn't notice a difference. When you queue up for a raid with other people, of course you zone into the actual 3D instance of the raid and do that as you normally would. Same with dungeons, arenas, battlegrounds, etc.

Leveling and professions could be entirely removed and the beginning of the game starts you out with some basic gear and a training mode scenario to learn the class. The game is just about farming loot so you can farm harder difficulties and get achievements, pets, mounts, and mogs etc.

People wouldn't hardly notice a difference and would play this kind of game possibly even more than they would WoW.

I think you're underestimating the playerbase here, and honestly it's positively refreshing.
Because a lot of what you mention is loud on the social channels, but much more diminutive in the real, full populace.

WoW has a sort of "continuity" between the types of content you mention in the world that connects, and though i agree that it should be respected far more by devs, fora and other loudmouths alike i think that the general public truly appreciates the "World" part of Warcraft.

The devs, to their credit, seem to have realised that "something" is off, and have made attempts to mend it, however crude or unsuccesful.

I'll list a few:
- Warmode, an attempt to get people to engage in world pvp
- World quests, an attempt to make the world feel more alive and dynamic (invasions and likewise more comprehensive approaches are the more succesful variant of these to me)
- Island expeditions, a poorly executed attempt to revive that feeling of discovery and wonder
- Expanded customisations / allied races, to make your character mire "yours" and thus more of a genuine character to fit into the world
- Warfronts, an extremely poor attempt to reincorporate the RTS roors of warcraft into WoW
- Covenants, an attempt to make choices meaningful again by bonding form to function so that your choices become a way to define your character, rather than just some toggles you alter depending on what content you intend tobat that moment

So all in all i think there is reason to be more positive on this, as despite the many failures people definitely seem to realise that jt is an important aspect.

[Arikara]

Eh. Plenty of WoW players care about the world. Have you seen how people argue with each other about conflicts and events?

The real problem is that Blizzard doesn't care about their world—they're too busy chasing after the next content patch and parading their poorly-written antagonist and protagonist NPCs around. What happened to simply existing in the world and taking in its cultures? Where's the atmosphere and the sense of belonging?

[WowIsDead64]

I think there's a huge problem facing the MMORPG genre, and that is that it exploded into popularity so hard with WoW's over-success that it attracted so many types of players who's fun is entirely compartmentalized and couldn't care less about the overarching game world. They either raid, do some dungeons, or PvP, or collect things. Roleplaying and socialization aspects have been taking a backseat for years now, it's nothing new and I won't bore you with more talk on this.

I had a thought, though, and it's pretty sad because I'm probably completely on the mark here. I think if someone came out with a new type of sub-MMO genre that completely eschewed the world out of it, it would be really successful and suck up a lot of these types.

Imagine logging into a game where all that's offered is a chat lobby with chat channels, a friends list, and the ability to queue up for different types of content. Raids are there, dungeons are there, PvP arenas are there, Battlegrounds are there, they have all their usual bells and whistles with the multiple difficulties for some and achievement hunting etc. You could literally relegate old world mog farming to a gacha type of game and people wouldn't notice a difference. When you queue up for a raid with other people, of course you zone into the actual 3D instance of the raid and do that as you normally would. Same with dungeons, arenas, battlegrounds, etc.

Leveling and professions could be entirely removed and the beginning of the game starts you out with some basic gear and a training mode scenario to learn the class. The game is just about farming loot so you can farm harder difficulties and get achievements, pets, mounts, and mogs etc.

People wouldn't hardly notice a difference and would play this kind of game possibly even more than they would WoW.

You will never know, what is cause and what is consequence. For example world is only content available for me. Problem is - Blizzard drive players like me away from their game. So, it's not only players, who should be blamed for this. Devs' actions affect playerbase. I.e. if they would make better world content, then may be we'd see more players, who like world content.

[cparle87]

No it was before that when they slowly removed mobs specific for crafting from spiders dropping silk to elemental mobs dropping certain materials. The node thing I honestly forgot about.

Take a look around Bastion or Maldraxxus sometime. Everywhere you look you'll see another character riding on a druid running around herb farming because Blizz made it easy for multi boxxer to inflate their profits.

[anon5123]

You cannot have meaningful content without a compelling reason to participate. The answer isnt to make content not "mandatory"

If it gives any kind of tangible endgame reward, players will whine that it is a "mandatory chore".

If you stuck raid-level gear into world quest rewards, people would start grinding world quests and whining about how "mandatory" they are. But if they don't give raid-level gear, people will just whine about how "pointless" they are.

Blizzard can't win.

[God Save The King]

I never understood this mandatory vs optional feeling thing ..are raids to you mandatory? What is mandatory in the game at the moment?
Having to do Torghast for ash? THAT is mandatory because you only have ONE way of doing something specific. But what if I tell you I completely ignored that part of SL?

Mandatory is generally in reference to minmax'ing M+/Raiding/PvP. Torghast is mandatory for all three types of content because legendaries are a huge power upgrade. The Maw is mandatory due to gems. Big complaint currently is that you want to push high level keys, mythic raids, and high level pvp to maximize your great vault.

It's a game, nothing is actually "mandatory". But once you contextualize it, certain activities become mandatory. You can simply decide to no longer minmax (what I did) and several activities stop becoming mandatory.

[munkeyinorbit]

I never understood this mandatory vs optional feeling thing ..are raids to you mandatory? What is mandatory in the game at the moment?
Having to do Torghast for ash? THAT is mandatory because you only have ONE way of doing something specific. But what if I tell you I completely ignored that part of SL?

Then I'm not surprised you managed to get feared into a pack of mobs. I'm not saying that you are bad if you don't have your legendary but if I bothered to inspect someone and they couldn't be arsed to get one I would think they were a terrible player.

[Frozenbro]

Yeah dude, bring back the glory days of vanilla world bosses!

In case the sarcasm isnt obvious, even back in vanilla the world content was trash xd unless you unironically enjoyed that world boss shit fest, but to each their own.

[Glorious Leader]

If it gives any kind of tangible endgame reward, players will whine that it is a "mandatory chore".

If you stuck raid-level gear into world quest rewards, people would start grinding world quests and whining about how "mandatory" they are. But if they don't give raid-level gear, people will just whine about how "pointless" they are.

Blizzard can't win.

Yes they can. It's very simple. They can ignore the people crying about mandatory crap because most of those people did that content anyway and remained subbed. Imagine if you sold a product that people were demanding you change because they couldn't stop buying it . How fucking stupid would have to be to change it. In a similar fashion people were complaining about other content being so rewarding so rewarding they felt "forced" to consume it. How fucking stupid would have to be to change that?

[Soon-TM]

If it gives any kind of tangible endgame reward, players will whine that it is a "mandatory chore".

If you stuck raid-level gear into world quest rewards, people would start grinding world quests and whining about how "mandatory" they are. But if they don't give raid-level gear, people will just whine about how "pointless" they are.

Blizzard can't win.

Actually it's quite easy, it just depends on which group you want to favour as a dev. In the case of SL, it is quite clear where the dev team's priorities lie.

[arkanon]

Actually it's quite easy, it just depends on which group you want to favour as a dev.

Then as @anon5123 said, its NOT easy - not if their goal is to try and please everyone. By favoring one group, you risk alienating the rest, and im sure you are smart enough to know that, so im really not sure why you think it is "easy".

[Glorious Leader]

Then as @anon5123 said, its NOT easy - not if their goal is to try and please everyone. By favoring one group, you risk alienating the rest, and im sure you are smart enough to know that, so im really not sure why you think it is "easy".

The potential risk of alienating a casual player is far greater and more likely to result in that player leaving and never coming back. Alienating a hardcore player is far less likely to do so. And no im not getting into the definition of casual vs hardcore again, just understand that the implications of those words as they actually have any shared meaning in the English language would denote that one group is significantly more invested and committed to the game than the other.

So yea its actually really fucking simple...

[iamthedevil]

I care about the world greatly. The devs force me to not need to care about the world... big difference.

[arkanon]

The potential risk of alienating a casual player is far greater and more likely to result in that player leaving and never coming back. Alienating a hardcore player is far less likely to do so. And no im not getting into the definition of casual vs hardcore again, just understand that the implications of those words as they actually have any shared meaning in the English language would denote that one group is significantly more invested and committed to the game than the other.

So yea its actually really fucking simple...

So after 17 years as one of if not the most successful mmo of all time, a genre defining game, that has maintained the same rewards structure since 2004 - now we need to suddenly fundamentally change those systems so we dont lose "casuals"...Im sure you can understand why so many people are highly skeptical.

[Osmeric]

So after 17 years as one of if not the most successful mmo of all time, a genre defining game, that has maintained the same rewards structure since 2004 - now we need to suddenly fundamentally change those systems so we dont lose "casuals"...Im sure you can understand why so many people are highly skeptical.

They needed to fundamentally change their approach years ago. If they had done that, maybe they wouldn't have lost 95+% of the people who have ever played the game.

[Nzx]

Well, ppl are very entitled in general. And this because the game gas become too old and too big to be seen as just a game. Everyone will try to push their own needs on it, whether they make sense or not. If you say you're gonna play basketball and need a team for it, here's what you're gonna get:
- ppl saying you should provide teammates for them
- ppl refusing to practice because they just want to have fun because it's just a game
- ppl who want to play solo either because they used to have a team and now that they are older they don't want to invest as much time or because they have some form of social anxiety and decided THIS team game should be for them
- ppl in crutches asking that there should be rules specifically designed for them
- ppl who are so intent on winning they curse and spit at anyone making a mistake or blame their own mistakes on others
- ppl asking that not just tall players should be chosen first because, despite the nature of the game, it is somehow discriminatory
- ppl who are gonna buy themselves a team to get carried to one win because they want some reward or they think they'll get invited by others if they do or they just need a win to feel better abput themselves and will use money for that
- ppl who hate basketball but will demand some other game be created for them so they have things to do, instead of finding an existing game that does what they need
- ppl who arent interested in basketball but like to bitch about it a lot (maybe they used to play it in highscool)
- ppl who want to make money off it at all costs, whether it's by selling teammates, wins, making a show or a farce of it on the internet, manipulating masses to change the game rules so they can win faster instead of spending whole year round practicing to be no 1 etc
- and yeah, sure, ppl who will gather some friends and play and have fun

Overall, game is big, ppl are super different and they all gathered here to make demands and not try to enjoy what this type of game offers over others they might enjoy more. Oh and make money off it, which changes things in a lot of ways.

I think it's starting to become a rule of MMO-C that threads are completely solved on the first page. This post should've been the end of it, because it's completely 100% accurate.