Current WoW is what you get when you put the players in charge.

[Mysterymask]

People REALLY need to stop conflating "profitable" with a game being "successful". And that "success" for the gaming corporation is VERY different than success for players.

For an MMO though financial success basically IS success it's not like Okami which sold like nothing and is still considered art or Street Fighter 3 and Earthbound which gained way more success way later on. If wow isn't successful it just dies and no one can play it anymore.

[Osmeric]

Current WoW is what you get when you put hardcore raiders in charge who design the game to cater to themselves, not towards the rest of the game's actual playerbase.

This is the correct take.

- - - Updated - - -

People REALLY need to stop conflating "profitable" with a game being "successful".

Anything else is mere subjective opinion. And profitability is connected to the base reason for the game's existence, to make money.

[Sorrowseer]

I wonder why we have to 'go' somewhere every expansion, why can't we just stay in azeroth and have new duengons and raids added and the games (lol) 'story' progress, its not theme park enough if we are not going to an entirely new zones that is mostly filled with crap we do not find interesting after a few weeks and will likley never go back to unless forced, I guess.

[Mysterymask]

I wonder why we have to 'go' somewhere every expansion, why can't we just stay in azeroth and have new duengons and raids added and the games (lol) 'story' progress, its not theme park enough if we are not going to an entirely new zones that is mostly filled with crap we do not find interesting after a few weeks and will likley never go back to unless forced, I guess.

Considering we only had what 3 expansions where we primarily left azeroth I am kinda confused by this

[Soon-TM]

Considering we only had what 3 expansions where we primarily left azeroth I am kinda confused by this

I think that what @Sorrowseer meant is that even if e.g. Pandaria or Dazar'alor technically lie in Azeroth, they feel completely detached from the "core" zones, that are and always will be Kalimdor/EK. Furthermore, all of them exist in their respective time bubble, which is especially jarring in the case of Kalimdor/EK. It's as if you were exploring modern day Europe but your maps were still showing things like the Austro-Hungarian Empire or the USSR.

[Dracullus]

People REALLY need to stop conflating "profitable" with a game being "successful". And that "success" for the gaming corporation is VERY different than success for players.

So how you define "successful game"? Every game with big playerbase has ton of negative feedback. Hell, having such big playerbase in the first place is sign game is successful. Failures are mocked on release, but then fade way.

And there is no such thing as succesful game for players. You are consument, not creator. For us games are either fun or not.

[sponge5307]

Ion cares about the game as he has been playing it since day 1.You are basically equating it to9 whether you like the game or not. They make a game I like = they care about the game. I hate the game = they don't care about the game. The devs level of care is not based on whether or not you like the game because while you don't like it, thousands of others do. This stuff is nothing more than projecting ones opinion of the game and nothing more.

If you care about the game you created won't
1.Fire most in game GMs
2.Fire a ton of customer services rep
3.Only have 2 devs to work on every class/spec out there
4.During interview give classic political answer that means nothing and have no actually meaning to the question that was asked
5.Hire a lawyer as a head lead game designer
6.During alpha and beta you were given a ton of useful feedback and ignore them
7.Changing SV hunter to melee spec in Legion even when over 95% playerbase told you is a bad idea and you kept at it. Now is a fail spec and you come out and siad you never expect it to be good in the first place
8. Have poorly written stroyline to your game that don't make sense
9.Time gate everything to prop the sub numbers to make it look good for the investors.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

If you care about the game you created won't
1.Fire most in game GMs
2.Fire a ton of customer services rep
3.Only have 2 devs to work on every class/spec out there
4.During interview give classic political answer that means nothing and have no actually meaning to the question that was asked
5.Hire a lawyer as a head lead game designer
6.During alpha and beta you were given a ton of useful feedback and ignore them
7.Changing SV hunter to melee spec in Legion even when over 95% playerbase told you is a bad idea and you kept at it. Now is a fail spec and you come out and siad you never expect it to be good in the first place
8. Have poorly written stroyline to your game that don't make sense
9.Time gate everything to prop the sub numbers to make it look good for the investors.

1-2: likely not under game designs charges int he company.

3: there are more then 2 devs working in class design.

4: you not understanding or liking the answers don’t make them mean nothing.

5: no you'd train and promote your lead encounter designer the same one who worked on raids like ulduar ICC forelands TOT and most of your other best raids and dungeons.

6: not bending over to every whim doesn’t mean feedback is being ignored.

7: taking chances to try something new and refine it to try and make it work doesn’t mean you don’t care.

8: they keep hiring more and more professional writers.

9: welcome to 2005 time gating has Always been a heavy part of wow to keep sub numbers up.

So pretty much rrayy hit the nail on the head with his post.

[sponge5307]

1-2: likely not under game designs charges int he company.

3: there are more then 2 devs working in class design.

4: you not understanding or liking the answers don’t make them mean nothing.

5: no you'd train and promote your lead encounter designer the same one who worked on raids like ulduar ICC forelands TOT and most of your other best raids and dungeons.

6: not bending over to every whim doesn’t mean feedback is being ignored.

7: taking chances to try something new and refine it to try and make it work doesn’t mean you don’t care.

8: they keep hiring more and more professional writers.

9: welcome to 2005 time gating has Always been a heavy part of wow to keep sub numbers up.

So pretty much rrayy hit the nail on the head with his post.

1 and 2 as the game lead if he knows he need more employee he let his company know and let them know it was a mistake and back them up with reason and statics. which Ion did not do or even mention it.

3. Please provide prof there are more than 2 dev working in class design. it was a known fact there 4 in total then one quit and one was fire that leaves 2. Please let us know how many class devs are there in total.

4. Again if he cares game he would given answers to questions but rather he goes on a tangent saying stuff like we would like or we try. Instead he should offer soltuion IE. We know there is an issue with AoE Cap and we have come up x solution and it will be tested in beta soon. Nope all he said was we feel this could be improve but with no follow up as how or even what they might plan to do.

5. In the end he is still a lawyer not a game developer. You can tell the difference between him leading WoW Vs PoE or GrimDawn2 or even GW2 just to give you an example. The later two clearly is design by gamer who plays and love their game. They take part in the game they listen to community feedback, they communicate with the playerbase. WoW yea not one single GM or anyone posted anything in their form.

6. No the feedback was clear as to what was working and what not. Take Fury warrior for example. It was noted, feedback given on how the damage was way way undertune. Nothing was done and live came and yup fury warrior was buffed like 8 times in total if I remember correct. Yup not listening to feedback really helps. It was also mention that HDH was also undertune and needs more defense CD. Again made it live with no change and is still under power and still ST damage is bad. It was also mention leaving some class with ucapped AoE while others have Cap AoE is going to issue again feedback given. Now you have uncapped fire mage doing insance damage in m+ and every single MDI is running them. And then covenant in WoW. They were told some covenant abilities are way too OP and tying a player to a specific covenant is just bad design and then you add soulbind to it will be really unbalance. Turns out players was right again in beta some covenant are too powerful while others are too weak.

7. Melee SV was a hot mess right from the start. Should never made it to live. It an unfinished spec and even after 2 expansion is still a hot mess. Is a spec no one will take seriously and will never be unless blizzard actually put the effort in. They completely miss the mark.

8.Lol look at the hot mess SL writing is. Jailer is a boring character. Story don't make sense. We keep going and out of the MAW. He saw us use the waypoint to escpage yet he didn't even bother posting guards by it? At least put an elite mob there to guard it. TG was a joke we go in and out. The ruincaver was very important to the jailer yet he fail notice we broken the chain to one of his arm? I mean doesn't he have guards that portal TG or even check up on his prisoner? Wouldn't they notice hey someone try to break free the prisioner. And then you have the night warrior. So in 9.1 she just get injury and we have to remove her powers? Oh and the covenant story is boring is plain. A 5 year old could come up with better ideas.

9 Sorry at the height of WoLK they have 12million subs. sure there are timegate but it was so bad. Now everything is time gated. They don't even want to release sub numbers now intead just how much money they make coz the up the price of expansions, put more stuff at the cash ship(tokens is a big sale I assume) up the price of sub pricing. Instead of trying to create something that's enjoyable they put in all these time game and wow tokens to make you spend. I really love it of blizzard breaks down how much of that revenuse is from wow tokens alone. I think it will be a big part of their revenue at this point.

[rrayy]

If you care about the game you created won't
1.Fire most in game GMs
2.Fire a ton of customer services rep
3.Only have 2 devs to work on every class/spec out there
4.During interview give classic political answer that means nothing and have no actually meaning to the question that was asked
5.Hire a lawyer as a head lead game designer
6.During alpha and beta you were given a ton of useful feedback and ignore them
7.Changing SV hunter to melee spec in Legion even when over 95% playerbase told you is a bad idea and you kept at it. Now is a fail spec and you come out and siad you never expect it to be good in the first place
8. Have poorly written stroyline to your game that don't make sense
9.Time gate everything to prop the sub numbers to make it look good for the investors.

1. Desingers and developers had nothing to do with that
2. See #1
3. Who made you arbiter of how many devs it should take? That in no way shows one does not care
4. Players have shown they absolutely cannot handle candid answers like an adult, so you get the generic answsers you get. Also not proof that you don't care
5. That "lawyer" has been a fan and player of the game since dayt one and was the guy whopointed out to Blizz that C'Thun was mathematically impossible to beat in it's original state. FUnny how you ignore that and only look at his one time profession
6. Not caving to your demands does not = ignoring your feedback.
7. Utter BS. Tons of players were asking for a melee hunter spec. Nobody said it was a bad idea until after it released.
8.The storyline is fine. THe only ones who say it doesn't make sense are the ones who hate it or are mad they didn't get what they wanted
9. They don't look at sub numbers anymore. Also, they time gate things because players will burn though it and then whine they don't have any content. Heck, players are whining about no content despite it.

They care about the game. You are not the sole arbiter of what is required to care about the game. If they did not care, they would find another job.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

1 and 2 as the game lead if he knows he need more employee he let his company know and let them know it was a mistake and back them up with reason and statics. which Ion did not do or even mention it.

3. Please provide prof there are more than 2 dev working in class design. it was a known fact there 4 in total then one quit and one was fire that leaves 2. Please let us know how many class devs are there in total.

4. Again if he cares game he would given answers to questions but rather he goes on a tangent saying stuff like we would like or we try. Instead he should offer soltuion IE. We know there is an issue with AoE Cap and we have come up x solution and it will be tested in beta soon. Nope all he said was we feel this could be improve but with no follow up as how or even what they might plan to do.

5. In the end he is still a lawyer not a game developer. You can tell the difference between him leading WoW Vs PoE or GrimDawn2 or even GW2 just to give you an example. The later two clearly is design by gamer who plays and love their game. They take part in the game they listen to community feedback, they communicate with the playerbase. WoW yea not one single GM or anyone posted anything in their form.

6. No the feedback was clear as to what was working and what not. Take Fury warrior for example. It was noted, feedback given on how the damage was way way undertune. Nothing was done and live came and yup fury warrior was buffed like 8 times in total if I remember correct. Yup not listening to feedback really helps. It was also mention that HDH was also undertune and needs more defense CD. Again made it live with no change and is still under power and still ST damage is bad. It was also mention leaving some class with ucapped AoE while others have Cap AoE is going to issue again feedback given. Now you have uncapped fire mage doing insance damage in m+ and every single MDI is running them. And then covenant in WoW. They were told some covenant abilities are way too OP and tying a player to a specific covenant is just bad design and then you add soulbind to it will be really unbalance. Turns out players was right again in beta some covenant are too powerful while others are too weak.

7. Melee SV was a hot mess right from the start. Should never made it to live. It an unfinished spec and even after 2 expansion is still a hot mess. Is a spec no one will take seriously and will never be unless blizzard actually put the effort in. They completely miss the mark.

8.Lol look at the hot mess SL writing is. Jailer is a boring character. Story don't make sense. We keep going and out of the MAW. He saw us use the waypoint to escpage yet he didn't even bother posting guards by it? At least put an elite mob there to guard it. TG was a joke we go in and out. The ruincaver was very important to the jailer yet he fail notice we broken the chain to one of his arm? I mean doesn't he have guards that portal TG or even check up on his prisoner? Wouldn't they notice hey someone try to break free the prisioner. And then you have the night warrior. So in 9.1 she just get injury and we have to remove her powers? Oh and the covenant story is boring is plain. A 5 year old could come up with better ideas.

9 Sorry at the height of WoLK they have 12million subs. sure there are timegate but it was so bad. Now everything is time gated. They don't even want to release sub numbers now intead just how much money they make coz the up the price of expansions, put more stuff at the cash ship(tokens is a big sale I assume) up the price of sub pricing. Instead of trying to create something that's enjoyable they put in all these time game and wow tokens to make you spend. I really love it of blizzard breaks down how much of that revenuse is from wow tokens alone. I think it will be a big part of their revenue at this point.

1-2: Most CM And GM layoffs were before Ion was lead designer just go look at the mop 800 lay off. Even if Ion was in charge back then it's likely that the dev's them self don't mange community stuff at all and the lead designer wouldn't have the means to get any stats or even be aware of what they do day to day.

3. Don't know where your making these numbers up from but here's a link showing at least 6 though there is most likely more, mabye if you wen't through the wow credits you could get a full list but I'm not gonna bother. https://www.wowhead.com/news/all-the...dit-ama-266435

4. again you not getting the answer you want doesn't mean you didn't get one.

5. after 10 years of developing the game and working on pretty much all of the best raids and dungeons the game has had he is absolutely a game developer the fact that you think other wise is beyond ridiculous.

6. Again not bending to your whim's doesn't mean it was ignored.

7. and they have put effort into it as you can tell but it not being like the legion version.

8.then it sure is good there hiring more professional writers who aren't 5 year old's right? something they wouldn't need to do if they just didn't care about the story.

9. the height of wrath they time gated the final raid for about two months, wrath is literally the worse time gating we have ever had no expan was as gated as wrath, so thanks for proving my point.

[SirCowdog]

Anything else is mere subjective opinion. And profitability is connected to the base reason for the game's existence, to make money.

The game also exists to entertain. And that was the point I was trying to make. Too many people seem to think that what benefits the corporation is the only metric worth considering. But it's not like profitability and entertainment value are mutually exclusive. And there are plenty of examples of smaller dev studios, or even single individuals, making a game just because they wanted to do it regardless of profit.

In many ways, videogames are a form of art. There can be powerful and moving stories, visuals, and characters. There can be modes of play that teach people discipline, or convey a philosophy. They can be constructed to be highly competitive at a professional level.

Which is all a long-winded way of saying that "profit" is not the sole motivating factor when considering if a game is successful or not. Certainly it's important. But, especially as consumers, we really shouldn't be using that as our measuring stick.

[Soon-TM]

@SirCowdog I never fail to be amused by all the random folks in these boards whose posts would make you think that they are all Blizzard shareholders or something, with how fervently they go with the hackneyed "gaem making monies so geam gud" line.

[Osmeric]

The game also exists to entertain.

It exists to entertain only insofar as that leads to it making money. In Aristotle's terminology, making money is the "final cause" of a game like WoW.

[Raava]

I mean... Is this post supposed to be negative or positive?

Old-School Runescape is essentially in the hands of the players. They poll their updates and a lot of the staff play the game. Blizzard have dropped or heavily modified new expansion content based on feedback, but not in the same way.

I think they heavily weigh in the player input in the same way as OSRS, but I imagine that they miss a lot as only x percent of players play the beta, PTR etc. I imagine they have an internal percentage that needs to be met to ascertain whether content goes through/is changed/etc.

Probably rambling, but not 100% sure if the original post is supposed to be negative or positive.

[T-34]

Which is all a long-winded way of saying that "profit" is not the sole motivating factor when considering if a game is successful or not. Certainly it's important. But, especially as consumers, we really shouldn't be using that as our measuring stick.

And what part of those that play WoW have the right to decide whether the game is successful or not?
Is it players like me that enjoy the co-operative, competitive part of WoW?
Is it players that like to collect pets and mounts?
Is it the roleplayers?
Is it those that want the game to 100% to cater to only their idea of fun?

Because you have to give someone the right to decide it, because the player-base as a whole will 100% not be able to come to an agreement.
At best you have around 100 people here giving their opinion and to draw any kind of conclusion from such a small sample about the "average" opinion of the wow player-base seems quite non-scientific.

You could of course argue that successful = number of players, but then we have to accept that games like Candy Crush are much more successful because they have many more players.