WoW Desperately Needs Some Kind of a Roundtable Between Devs and Players

[arkanon]

Weirdly enough, all single player games I've played allow me to go AFK for extended periods of time. As a matter of fact, even RTS's do, when played in SP mode. So yes, I fully expect solo content to allow AFK'ing, especially when Visions got a lot of backlash due to the timer - hell, that was one of the reasons why the Torghast timer was removed when SL was still in alpha.

WoW is not a single player game.

Solo friendly content in an online, multiplayer game ≠ a single player game.

[Stickiler]

what about the token?

They equate Boosts with the Token, because they failed their Correllation != Causation class, and somehow believe that boosts wouldn't exist if the Token didn't(Even though Boosts have existed since Vanilla, and have been growing in popularity each expansion)

[Jinpachi]

People are losing more and more faith in the WoW development team and SL.

I don't mean bringing in toxic people like Asmongold or Bellular but actually get in a myriad of different types of player type community leaders and host a long roundtable type discussion between them and key developers. This is just my opinion but I'd say intentionally avoid the super popular streamers and Youtubers. Bring in people who have gold making and crafting channels, and guys who are into the lore, and guys who just like leveling and managing alts, not simply the elite raiders and M+ers. Make it a 4-hour back and forth or something, I don't care. It doesn't even have to be public, though that'd be nice, just an acknowledgement that it happened from both sides.

Ion scheduled an interview with Preach a couple weeks ago and the perception was that he came away feeling incredibly out-of-touch with the community. People coming away with an even more negative view of the game after an interview is a rarity. I don't mind Ion he's a good dude but there needs to be a connection established again and faith and good will restored for 10.0.

No one wants to humor the idea that this game is in a managed decline state, it is simply in a rut right now and that can be fixed. But people like JAB need to tempor Kotick and let Blizzard do its thang like it used to, and engage with the players. I really want to be sold on the idea of this game moving forward again and feel genuine excitement like I did back in Legion. Legion, for all of its flaws, felt like it had a true vision and passion to it.

What do you think? Do you agree? Do we need some hope instilled into us and some initiative taken by the WoW team?

Let's Make Azeroth Great Again.

Stopped reading at "toxic people like asmondgold or bellular". I reject your whole premise on that sentence alone. foh

[deenman]

They equate Boosts with the Token, because they failed their Correllation != Causation class, and somehow believe that boosts wouldn't exist if the Token didn't(Even though Boosts have existed since Vanilla, and have been growing in popularity each expansion)

Wile i dont doubt tokens make it easier and safer for people to get boosts,its still a much better alternative than having people go to 3rd party gold selling websites that get that gold by hacking/stealing/boting etc

not to mention that simply having the token in a real money shop based game is generaly a good thing,people who dont want to spend money can get stuff with gold(be you for or against the ingame shop is irelevant to this)

[Couchpotato2013]

They equate Boosts with the Token, because they failed their Correllation != Causation class, and somehow believe that boosts wouldn't exist if the Token didn't(Even though Boosts have existed since Vanilla, and have been growing in popularity each expansion)

Point out in my statement where I said boosts wouldn’t or didn’t happen. If you took 10 seconds to read before spewing copium riddled drivel, you would come to know that with the implementation of the wowtoken you cannot at all compare boosts done post-implementation to pre-. Why? Because blizzard created a region-wide standardized unit linking IRL currency (and thus time) and server gold. Additionally since blizzard is the one hosting the service, you cannot deny they have a financial incentive to position wowtoken sales (supported by their year over year increased revenue for wow and loss ~29% of customers for all games since 2018). And with those two points, it becomes painfully obvious that at the expense of game health, token sales have undoubtedly increased especially for the more fomo related draws in the game.

Tell me how good you feel when someone spends a paycheck or less on tokens to get boosted in arena for glad mount while you sit there fumbling around with idiots who refuse to do voice or read up anything while at rival/duelist. Ridiculous.

But everything must be fine, cause you lack the “sensors/attention” to see a character in game or on the armory so blatantly carried to gameplay standards that the community has to depreciate since they no longer mean anything (and because the same people disregarding/depreciating are boosting people to those points).

Like just look at wowranks.io and the FoS achievement section for phenomenal cosmic strength (Azeroth’s Champion). Look at the last few months of characters and see how many of them have FoS achievements in PvP, or 1 lone azshara and or possibly mythic nzoth kill (while only having killed the first 1-4 bosses maybe or not).

Sickening how people like you and others just turn the cheek to this. People know when they are getting out done by others and then begin to question why that is the case when someone just randomly jumps up in the metaphorical ladder for no reason. It then makes them question why with their limited time they are investing time into a game when others can just pay to cut. Then they become apathetic and possibly then quit, when the cost/benefit ratio clearly leans toward the most sane/quick path to success being to pay someone.

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Wile i dont doubt tokens make it easier and safer for people to get boosts,its still a much better alternative than having people go to 3rd party gold selling websites that get that gold by hacking/stealing/boting etc

not to mention that simply having the token in a real money shop based game is generaly a good thing,people who dont want to spend money can get stuff with gold(be you for or against the ingame shop is irelevant to this)

Here’s a thing rather than doing the lesser evil. How about blizzard just do the thing they claim they are supposed to be doing and clamp down on that with some draconian resolve?

Oh no some russian/SA/eastern European/Chinese dude is going to sell gold, we can’t do anything about it. Let’s throw our hands up in the air and just feign defeat. While then offering an alternative that only props up the sinking ship of this game. Pathetic.

[deenman]

Here’s a thing rather than doing the lesser evil. How about blizzard just do the thing they claim they are supposed to be doing and clamp down on that with some draconian resolve?

Oh no some russian/SA/eastern European/Chinese dude is going to sell gold, we can’t do anything about it. Let’s throw our hands up in the air and just feign defeat. While then offering an alternative that only props up the sinking ship of this game. Pathetic.

again,the token also serves the very positive purpose of letting players get shop items with gold

and second,it 100% limits atleast some of the risks players took by buying gold from 3rd party

even if blizzard solved ALL gold selling issues magicaly(something that i dont think any game ever has),the token would still have a place

[Soon-TM]

WoW is not a single player game.

Solo friendly content in an online, multiplayer game ≠ a single player game.

WoW at large isn't SP, Captain Obvious - but Torghast is, or can be if so you desire. Ditto for levelling, which you can do solo just fine, including going AFK as long as you wish (or at least until the server automatically logs you out), provided that you park your toon in a safe place. I don't see why should it be any different with Choreghast, since the timer had already been deleted during alpha because it didn't serve any purpose. And it still doesn't in my understanding.

[arkanon]

WoW at large isn't SP, Captain Obvious - but Torghast is, or can be if so you desire. Ditto for levelling, which you can do solo just fine, including going AFK as long as you wish (or at least until the server automatically logs you out), provided that you park your toon in a safe place. I don't see why should it be any different with Choreghast, since the timer had already been deleted during alpha because it didn't serve any purpose. And it still doesn't in my understanding.

No, you cannot by default walk away from your keyboard while lvling or doing any other solo activity in wow or most multiplayer gmaes without at least first moving your character somewhere safe. Torghast is NOT somewhere safe. Raiding can be solo, if you so desire. Dungeons can be solo, if you so desire. You amusingly start saying by saying "Torghast is solo" before immediately backing out of that, since no, it is NOT solo. Like many activities in multiplayer games, they CAN be done by yourself, but that does NOT make them solo, and doing something by yourself in a multiplayer game does not magically make that game a SP game.

[Caerrona]

WoW at large isn't SP, Captain Obvious - but Torghast is, or can be if so you desire. Ditto for levelling, which you can do solo just fine, including going AFK as long as you wish (or at least until the server automatically logs you out), provided that you park your toon in a safe place. I don't see why should it be any different with Choreghast, since the timer had already been deleted during alpha because it didn't serve any purpose. And it still doesn't in my understanding.

You can afk in torghast every 3rd floor. How is 10 minutes of game play to get to floor 3 hard? Jesus christ some people.

[Otaka]

Devs usually don't want to be controlled by players, because profit =/= better game. Another factor is - money. Example? Player housing. It's good for players, but would be too expensive to implement. So it's not worth development resources.

Well so far in the past few expansions they have introduced new systems in the game and then made those systems obsolete after that... imagine if in WoD we had gotten a proper player housing and that housing would carry over to other expansions as a place for us to visit, decorate and just do the new expansion class quests... o wait better yet the Legion Class Halls were amazing addition and could consistently work as class specific housing over the years but they dropped the support immediately after the expansion ended... why?

Once the structure is complete it doesnt take alot of development resources to just add a few npcs, quests or other additions to those locations... far more resource efficient than always reinventing the wheel every expansion with something new.

There isnt alot of things the development team has done which arent being forgotten come new expansion... only something like the talent trees have remained the same structurally with few things being moved around each expansion. Imagine if they wasted even more resources recreating a new talent system each time?

It doesnt take a developer to realize that this type of development isnt working in the long run. They are digging a hole for themselves each time they abandon something... a hole that must be filled with new features.
They could instead improve the old features and we could have a much bigger and better game if the existing features were being improved overtime instead of forgotten. (without the old content simply becoming transmog run or mount run content)

[Soon-TM]

You can afk in torghast every 3rd floor. How is 10 minutes of game play to get to floor 3 hard? Jesus christ some people.

Not anymore with the incoming timer. Jesus Christ these folks

[Couchpotato2013]

again,the token also serves the very positive purpose of letting players get shop items with gold

and second,it 100% limits atleast some of the risks players took by buying gold from 3rd party

even if blizzard solved ALL gold selling issues magicaly(something that i dont think any game ever has),the token would still have a place

The game positions itself as a tabula rasa escapism by virtue of being in the mmorpg genre. Introducing even more disparities to that (beyond people being on welfare or being paid to play the game and thus having a genuine 24 hours/day to play) then results in the game purportedly appear to follow by that mantra.

- no boosts
- no rmt
- no bots
- no multiboxing (should have never been a thing since the game’s inception)
- no store
- no carries
- no token

I don’t know why that is so hard to have in a game that demands a monthly sub and then w/e the local price for the expansion. If they need more money, up the sub or expansion. And enough of this toeing the line to reap the benefits of both sub and near freemium gameplay. Just turn the game into freemium and be done with it. That way you’ll send a clear message to the rest of us frogs in the pots that the water is boiling and we need to leave.

[Caerrona]

Not anymore with the incoming timer. Jesus Christ these folks

Oh so now your moving the goal posts to 9.1? (Which their isn't a timer anyways)

If your referring to the streak bonuses they are adding, I just assumed someone who had issues with 10 mins of gameplay before 9.1 wouldn't really care about that as it seems to be a skill issue or life issue that you should sort out instead of crying about it. Also the streak bonuses reward speed/full clearing or both. So you can still afk.

[dacoolist]

People are losing more and more faith in the WoW development team and SL.

I don't mean bringing in toxic people like Asmongold or Bellular but actually get in a myriad of different types of player type community leaders and host a long roundtable type discussion between them and key developers. This is just my opinion but I'd say intentionally avoid the super popular streamers and Youtubers. Bring in people who have gold making and crafting channels, and guys who are into the lore, and guys who just like leveling and managing alts, not simply the elite raiders and M+ers. Make it a 4-hour back and forth or something, I don't care. It doesn't even have to be public, though that'd be nice, just an acknowledgement that it happened from both sides.

Ion scheduled an interview with Preach a couple weeks ago and the perception was that he came away feeling incredibly out-of-touch with the community. People coming away with an even more negative view of the game after an interview is a rarity. I don't mind Ion he's a good dude but there needs to be a connection established again and faith and good will restored for 10.0.

No one wants to humor the idea that this game is in a managed decline state, it is simply in a rut right now and that can be fixed. But people like JAB need to tempor Kotick and let Blizzard do its thang like it used to, and engage with the players. I really want to be sold on the idea of this game moving forward again and feel genuine excitement like I did back in Legion. Legion, for all of its flaws, felt like it had a true vision and passion to it.

What do you think? Do you agree? Do we need some hope instilled into us and some initiative taken by the WoW team?

Let's Make Azeroth Great Again.

I’m not saying dev’s shouldn’t try to make the game better with player feedback… but theirs a single xpac that blizz literally opened their entire dev team to the community.. and it was possibly the worst xpac in HISTORY. People wanted player housing.. blizz gave us garrisons.. the playerbase finally got what they had been asking for and crying a river for YEARS. People also wanted faction battles: Blizz released Ashran.. and lastly: people wanted raids to be everything and anything else to have less dev time.. the xpac lasted about as long as shadowlands has been out.. and blizz pretty much left wow to die at that point. The people running WoD have either been fired or quit due to how bad it was.. and tbh: the community was to blame for everything that happened.

The playerbase has some SHITTY ideas and we’ve seen it kill the game over and over. If you don’t like retail.. go play classic, or final fantasy 14 copypastaland: and stop giving devs your “great ideas”

[deenman]

The game positions itself as a tabula rasa escapism by virtue of being in the mmorpg genre. Introducing even more disparities to that (beyond people being on welfare or being paid to play the game and thus having a genuine 24 hours/day to play) then results in the game purportedly appear to follow by that mantra.

- no boosts
- no rmt
- no bots
- no multiboxing (should have never been a thing since the game’s inception)
- no store
- no carries
- no token

I don’t know why that is so hard to have in a game that demands a monthly sub and then w/e the local price for the expansion. If they need more money, up the sub or expansion. And enough of this toeing the line to reap the benefits of both sub and near freemium gameplay. Just turn the game into freemium and be done with it. That way you’ll send a clear message to the rest of us frogs in the pots that the water is boiling and we need to leave.

-boosts you mean the lvl boost?yeah i guess they are pointless considering how fast lvling is
-people would still bot,i knew a few players who just boted for themselves,for professions,lvling,honor,had nothing to do with gold selling
-how could you posibily ever eliminate rmt?HOW?
-multiboxing im pretty neutral about
-store pretty neutral,would be nice if the mounts wouldnt be so amazing,but again,just use gold
-carries will always exist,be it for gold or real money,you literaly cant stop it
-token is objectivly good for the game and players

[kaminaris]

Oh so now your moving the goal posts to 9.1? (Which their isn't a timer anyways)

If your referring to the streak bonuses they are adding, I just assumed someone who had issues with 10 mins of gameplay before 9.1 wouldn't really care about that as it seems to be a skill issue or life issue that you should sort out instead of crying about it. Also the streak bonuses reward speed/full clearing or both. So you can still afk.

It doesn't tho. Streak does not award any "full clearing", dunno why people felt for that. Its literally embodiment of "gogogo mentality" that awards rushing to next mob as fast as possible. The only thing it's different vs timer is that clearing asap foor has similar result to clearing asap entire floor.

But that exact shit is what people complained about. I do not want to be efficient. Period. I want to take as much time as I like.

[MoanaLisa]

WoW is not a single player game.

Solo friendly content in an online, multiplayer game ≠ a single player game.

Many choose to play it that way with the option of grouping up with friends (or whatever) and they're not wrong to do so. The content is there for them. It's something of a strawman at this point to characterize WoW as "not a single player game." Of course it's not but there is often plenty to do that works well for solo play and despite what some people think, that's not a bad thing. There are more people who play the game this way than anyone outside of Blizzard HQ imagines.

They're rather invisible to most people. As a rule they have nothing much to say on forums and most players are unlikely to ever cross paths with them. I presume that's perfectly fine. If someone wants to play solo they are by definition not interested in social play. Social players shouldn't want them in their groups either as a rule.

Blizzard's attempts to force people into social situations have never really worked and now we're mostly left with this dystopic system where complete strangers group up—presuming they meet some artificial set of guidelines set by the group leader—do their thing as quickly as possible, mostly never saying anything to each other, and never seeing those players again.

It's weird. It's not how humans interact in real life, it's as asocial as it can possibly be while in the company of other breathing humans, and it's something that Blizzard really needs to think about.

[arkanon]

Many choose to play it that way with the option of grouping up with friends (or whatever) and they're not wrong to do so. The content is there for them. It's something of a strawman at this point to characterize WoW as "not a single player game." Of course it's not but there is often plenty to do that works well for solo play and despite what some people think, that's not a bad thing. There are more people who play the game this way than anyone outside of Blizzard HQ imagines.

They're rather invisible to most people. As a rule they have nothing much to say on forums and most players are unlikely to ever cross paths with them. I presume that's perfectly fine. If someone wants to play solo they are by definition not interested in social play. Social players shouldn't want them in their groups either as a rule.

Blizzard's attempts to force people into social situations have never really worked and now we're mostly left with this dystopic system where complete strangers group up—presuming they meet some artificial set of guidelines set by the group leader—do their thing as quickly as possible, mostly never saying anything to each other, and never seeing those players again.

It's weird. It's not how humans interact in real life, it's as asocial as it can possibly be while in the company of other breathing humans, and it's something that Blizzard really needs to think about.

This is a lot of words that are not at all related to the discussion being had - someone is angry that the game does not behave exactly like a SP game - I am simply pointing out that is not a realistic expectation to have of a multiplayer game.

[Kumorii]

Im only aware of one timer? Am I missing some other timers?

hard timers, m+.
Soft timers we have more, enrages in raids, torghast 9.1 where speed is a factor if I recall... but other than that I can't think of more.
Not that I mind though.

[Doffen]

I'm fine with a challenge in Torghast, as long as it's not in parts where Soul Dust has to be ground out, seeing as that's not really optional. However, timers can f**k right off. Mythic+ has enough timers, don't need them elsewhere as well.

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Also, all their guildies are in WoW, and for meny people these are also their friends, but ones they only see in WoW. So unless the guild moves as a whole to a new MMORPG, they can't leave without losing touch with their friends. As very few guilds will have members who all want to move to the same new MMORPG, they stay and the guild slowly fades from attrition. How many 'friends & family' guilds are still healthy and active in WoW these days? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure it's a lot fewer than there were a decade ago, even proportionately.

I dont like what Torghast is I guess. Its not meant to be a challenge, but more like spammative(not sure if its a word lol) fun and not like challenge modes.

A timer adds another level of difficulty. It just doesnt fit into what Torghast is now(but it did fit their design when they first made it).

As me vs devs in a roundtable: Fuck you devs for making Torghast boring after listening to other players feedback