I feel optimistic about WoW

[Empower]

I'm of two minds on wow. On one hand they released their fix patch before the pre patch for the next expansion. On the other hand they still ignored all alpha and beta feedback to double down on garbage grind systems.

Next expansion is gonna be the breaking point. I won't give an inch of trust if they hint at any system as broken as choreghast,conduits, renowned or covenants.

[Relapses]

Its a natural part of any game that interest drops off over time.

The claim that millions have left is completely unfounded in bias with no factual evidence to back it up.

I think there's a bigger issue at hand than just the imaginary numbers people use as a battering ram to demand change in this game. It's less than "millions of people left after launch," and more that "millions of people leaving after launch is perfectly okay and even preferred under Blizzard's current business model." It happened first with WoD then to a lesser extent with Legion, then again in BfA and finally with SL. Truth is that in order for WoW to be profitable, the subscriber bar is pretty low and Blizzard is perfectly fine with expansion tourists who only stick around for a month or two after the launch. The bigger issue are the people who see the sub graphs from before WoD and see how consistently high they were, assume that because the game is likely at a fraction of its previous heights that it's a reflection of intentionally poor game development decisions and then use that as their reasoning for demanding Blizzard change the game into whatever it is they feel it should be. (Unsurprisingly, these arguments usually boil down to "just make WotLK again," but hey. This is probably when a lot of these players first started playing the game so I can't blame them.)

The issue is less that "millions of people left" and more that people use this information for the wrong reasons. I feel almost the same exact way you do about the excessively cynical nature of the community but this is a result of popular YouTubers programming people to spout off unsubstantiated talking points instead of thinking for themselves. Like you mentioned before, people like Bellular and Asmongold have done irreparable harm to this community. At least in Asmongold's case he's brought his toxic fanbase to another game (which he'll likely ruin as well once the honeymoon phase wears off).

[xStevooo]

If you think that the current iteration of WoW is anything other than a complete sack of shit I actually feel quite sorry for you.

It is in a very bad place, it is almost embarrassing what has happened to the game over the last 5-10 years.

The systems and features they tried to implement are of a shocking standard, some of which were meant to be main aspects of an expansion. It is a wide combination of pure laziness, lack of quality, no creativity and whatever else has culminated behind the scenes that may impact the title. I personally don't know anyone that has stuck with the game, and 99.9% of people that you come across will tell you they stick around due to time invested in the past. Most of us with decent systems and/or wallets have been playing far superior games for many years and no longer accept sub par garbage.

[Empower]

I think there's a bigger issue at hand than just the imaginary numbers people use as a battering ram to demand change in this game. It's less than "millions of people left after launch," and more that "millions of people leaving after launch is perfectly okay and even preferred under Blizzard's current business model." It happened first with WoD then to a lesser extent with Legion, then again in BfA and finally with SL. Truth is that in order for WoW to be profitable, the subscriber bar is pretty low and Blizzard is perfectly fine with expansion tourists who only stick around for a month or two after the launch. The bigger issue are the people who see the sub graphs from before WoD and see how consistently high they were, assume that because the game is likely at a fraction of its previous heights that it's a reflection of intentionally poor game development decisions and then use that as their reasoning for demanding Blizzard change the game into whatever it is they feel it should be. (Unsurprisingly, these arguments usually boil down to "just make WotLK again," but hey. This is probably when a lot of these players first started playing the game so I can't blame them.)

The issue is less that "millions of people left" and more that people use this information for the wrong reasons. I feel almost the same exact way you do about the excessively cynical nature of the community but this is a result of popular YouTubers programming people to spout off unsubstantiated talking points instead of thinking for themselves. Like you mentioned before, people like Bellular and Asmongold have done irreparable harm to this community. At least in Asmongold's case he's brought his toxic fanbase to another game (which he'll likely ruin as well once the honeymoon phase wears off).

I mean... you are excusing a lot of shit choices doing this. I know I used to run alts and enjoy content in a new character in past expansions. I haven't done this since wod and the last patch of legion with how much bullshit got added into the game.

I feel like attacking the messenger isn't really addressing the underlying problem. Blizzard has over time made wow waste your time to get to the interesting content. This trend needs to die.

[Cazze]

Just like flying mounts in 9.1 did not suddenly make WoW this crazy new fantastic experience, the switching of covenants and grindable thorgast in 9.1.5 won't change much either.

I don't think the reason you don't enjoy WoW has anything to do with these things.

I don't think a 9.2 with a new zone, a new raid, a new dungeon and some new story quests will bring many back. I don't think a 9.3 will either.

10.0 is the only real shot to make it popular again. And I think it needs to focus on making the game more social. More people talking to each other, in a friendly manner. For instance by making the guilds attractive to casuals.

Making it more social will make it livelier but won't bring in more players. People nowadays don't play games to socialize.

The thing they should focus on is more evergreen content - things that stick expansion after expansion or are even expansion agnostic.

[The Stormbringer]

Not particularly, but I do hope they eventually reel me back in. The universe of Warcraft has been a big part of my life since my childhood.

Yeah... same here. If they can show they're actually making good on fixing up their business practices, and making things more fun and engaging in-game, while also presenting features and story I give a shit with, then I can easily see them catching me and pulling me back in. I don't want to dislike WoW, just like I don't want to hate Blizzard, but it'll definitely take a lot of serious changes for them to bring me back.

[chiddie]

Surely BfA and Shadowlands are the result of somewhat questionable choices that have compromised their goodness.
I read that many talk about ego and unheard feedback etc ..
Surely they have influenced but what I see is another thing.
Bfa and Shadowlans are low budget expansions, it is clear that the blizz after Legion applies the motto "minimum effort maximum return" and this way of doing things inevitably compromises the quality of the product.
Why didn't they listen to the feedback in beta? Simple because either it costs too much money to change everything or it brought too little money, this is the reason.
Why are they doing it now? Because they have lost, for various reasons, a lot of players, many more than they thought and it will get worse and worse.
The WoW situation is currently very complex and i'm not so convinced that the blizz has the strength and resources to recover and revitalize WoW. We'll see but I personally think we're watching the last moments of the most popular MMO ever. I hope I'm wrong.

It’s not a budget issue. They just have to decide if they want to allow meaningful solo progression or not. If they won’t allow, the flame will slowly fade until only darkness will remain.

[Relapses]

It’s not a budget issue. They just have to decide if they want to allow meaningful solo progression or not. If they won’t allow, the flame will slowly fade until only darkness will remain.

There's a refreshing argument: "If Blizzard doesn't make their MMO a single player game, it'll die."

[Biomega]

I'm always optimistic, because I enjoy that mindset more.

But I don't make choices based on optimism - I make them based on reality. I certainly hope WoW improves, but I won't resubscribe unless and until it actually gets to a level I'm comfortable with. Hopes and dreams don't cut it for me.

If WoW simply never gets (back?) to what I enjoyed it, that's just how it is. I'm not the only customer, and my preference isn't law.

[Kalocy Jim]

I think there's a bigger issue at hand than just the imaginary numbers people use as a battering ram to demand change in this game. It's less than "millions of people left after launch," and more that "millions of people leaving after launch is perfectly okay and even preferred under Blizzard's current business model." It happened first with WoD then to a lesser extent with Legion, then again in BfA and finally with SL. Truth is that in order for WoW to be profitable, the subscriber bar is pretty low and Blizzard is perfectly fine with expansion tourists who only stick around for a month or two after the launch. The bigger issue are the people who see the sub graphs from before WoD and see how consistently high they were, assume that because the game is likely at a fraction of its previous heights that it's a reflection of intentionally poor game development decisions and then use that as their reasoning for demanding Blizzard change the game into whatever it is they feel it should be. (Unsurprisingly, these arguments usually boil down to "just make WotLK again," but hey. This is probably when a lot of these players first started playing the game so I can't blame them.)

The issue is less that "millions of people left" and more that people use this information for the wrong reasons. I feel almost the same exact way you do about the excessively cynical nature of the community but this is a result of popular YouTubers programming people to spout off unsubstantiated talking points instead of thinking for themselves. Like you mentioned before, people like Bellular and Asmongold have done irreparable harm to this community. At least in Asmongold's case he's brought his toxic fanbase to another game (which he'll likely ruin as well once the honeymoon phase wears off).

Good points, and ones that not many people consider when making their absurd demands on the developers. The game will never reach 12 million+ subscribers ever again, and thats okay. Using any sub loss as a reason to demand blizzard to cater to the way they want to play the game is not a good approach.

Completely agree with you on your popular youtubers comment.

[The Stormbringer]

They've replaced JAB with two co-leaders, and some of the staff have been let go. Who they didn't let go are those in the executive suite and those are the ones who dictate the direction WoW takes. The whole goal of WoW is to maximize shareholder value/return. Someone compared two slides for ActiBlizz's quarterly reports, one was from 2016 and the latest one, these slides showed revenue and MAUs. The interesting thing is that despite the MAUs dropping in about half, the revenue was pretty much the same.

While I have no doubt that the development team have the capability of turning things around now and in the future of making a truly great 10.0, I would be pleasantly surprised if those in the Executive allowed them to do so.

While they don't release sub numbers anymore, they do release MAU numbers. So while impossible to see how one franchise is doing, you can see how Blizz is doing as a whole.

There are also add-ons out there that search for players in-game and gather data. I'd obviously take these numbers with a grain of salt, but we already have an idea of how poorly things are going...

[Hitei]

You can reduce any game to its numbers. I would argue that, until the tail end of WoD or so, there was a "world first" development policy. This was particularly prominent in vanilla and dropped off as time marched on, but it simply isn't present anymore.

Early on, they weren't directly developing a game - they were developing a virtual world to explore and populating it with systems that made sense in the context of the game's world. Now, the inverse is true - they develop systems and then force them to make sense in the game world. They no longer develop a zone then populate it with relevant quests - the very geography of the world is informed by the demands of the world quest system as interlocking jigsaw pieces of "points of interest."

I mean this just isn't accurate though. You've dreamed up some romanticized version of previous development and some abject perspective of current development.

Really the only "world first" part of Vanilla (exclusively) design is the contemplation of biome distribution, where most of southern Kalimdor is desert, southern EK is wet, high elevations (Dun Morogh, Winterspring, Arathi) are cold, etc. Vanilla, BC and Wrath zones are the ones that lean into "Point of Interest" design the most, overwhelmingly so. Almost every single zone in Vanilla and the first two expansions is quest areas and then empty, flat space inbetween with a handful of terrain assets (rocks, trees, etc.) and random mob spawns. There is literally nothing BUT quest hubs, and then the more mob dense areas those quest hubs send you to, with nothingness inbetween. There's maybe a dozen places per continent in those early zones where there's just stuff for the sake of filling out the world, and a huge portion of the time that stuff consists of copy-pasted assets used a billion other places (random empty one room caves, ruined towers, etc.)

Mists of Pandaria is the first expansion that actually bothered to develop the zone outside of quest PoIs, which is immediately obvious because MoP is where you start having little, individually made areas of stuff that don't just correspond to a quest and are just there to make the world feel alive.

I also don't know why you're pretending early systems were somehow more contextualized to the game world. There was nothing world-building about BC dailies, if anything they undermined the reality of the world because you kept being sent to the same place to kill a bunch of enemies day after day, only to come back the next day and have that problem still be a thing and the camp you'd cleared 20 times already still need to be cleared again.

Reputations in Vanilla have a good theoretical foundation for expanding the world by having different groups you help out and who reward you, but then the actuality of the system was that (like the dailies and shit you are complaining about from current) it was mindless time wasting that often didn't really make any sense narratively (killing the enemies of Ravenholdt gets you some acknowledgement, but what REALLY gets them thinking of you as an exalted ally is bringing lockboxes for their novice rogues to practice lockpicking on; Thorium Brotherhood and Hydraxian Waterlords both have you farming Molten Core over and over).

There only reason there was a ""world"" for casual MMO players in the early game was that World of Warcraft was brand new to 90% of the people jumping in and playing, so they had lots of time to figure things out. Hence why Classic has raid-logging problems and no overflowing casual population. If you really paid attention, you'd realize that the exodus from WoW to FFXIV isn't "truly casual MMO players" it is precisely those inconvenienced mid tier players who are bored of the game and looking for something similar but new.

Comparing the amount of non-raiding/mythic+ content for casuals in the game now, or in BfA or Legion to early expansions is a joke. You think there's no world for casual mmo players here and now? What the fuck were they doing in BC and MoP when the only thing besides heroics, raids and arena for casuals was dailies? What were they doing in Wrath where the only thing outside of Raiding and PvP was spamming heroics? Wrath was the biggest, most casual expansion of the entire game's history and it was the most instance lobby time period the game has ever had.

[Rafalga]

You guys are getting baited. Hard.

[Relapses]

You guys are getting baited. Hard.

It's a sad state of affairs when anybody who has an even moderately positive opinion of the game is assumed to be "baiting."

[Amarys]

nope, the 9.1.5 changes are not helping me feel better at all and don't address the issues that prevent me from coming back beyond the once every other week or so login.

You do realize that as far as Blizzard is concerned, you're a happy camper totally content with the game. You pay your sub, you tax the servers less than the average player so they would love it if everyone was like this.

[Sharby]

As someone who's played every expansion largely from start to finish, Shadowlands isn't actually bad at all which is leading me to believe there are just several factors leading to WoW's temporary/permanent decline. That being:

-WoW is a terrible social game, there's zero reason to hang out or stay logged in after completing your business which leads to the game feeling very lonely outside of raid/M+ time. Realm communities are basically gone, you never recognize people or see the same folks which leads to every interaction feeling largely impersonal which leads to an emotional detachment from the players around you.

-Your character doesn't really feel personal or intimate. This kinda coincides with the above point but these days I feel people want something personal they can carve out and say "this is mine" when playing an MMO, WoW doesn't really give you that, the customization changes were in the right direction sure and are fantastic in their own right, but there's still really only like 4 variations of character people have, and the character models themselves are still subpar visually, not to mention we still don't have gear dyes. Additionally, in the story, you feel less like a main character and more like a frustratingly overpowered yet useless prop in the story.

-Casual content largely grindy/boring/insufficient. This expansion's M+ and raiding has actually been quite good, as has the class design for the most part. The combat systems and overall gameplay of the expansion are great in my opinion. But the problem is, that's all there is. Outside of instances, the vanity content just feels hollow, not to mention really grindy in some aspects (anima farming.) In Legion you could pass the time by doing stuff like artifact skin collecting, class mounts, mage tower, pet battles, withered army training, etc etc. But this expansion doesn't have that (or at least, the iterations of the above aren't as fulfilling) which contributes more to people just raid logging and then eventually getting bored and quitting. Even BFA had islands to pass the time. Torghast was supposed to be the big timesink of the expansion, but I feel like it fell through.

-No one can deny the bad press WoW has been getting too, friends who might've considered playing flat out refuse to look at the game due to it, I've had multiple people come up to me inquiring as to why I would continue to give the company money after XYZ situation, which doesn't influence my decisions personally, but for others it might. Big streamers and influencers seeing shitting on WoW as profitable certainly doesn't help either.

These reasons, among others are why I find myself playing WoW less and less and playing FFXIV more as my go-to MMO despite feeling XIV is an inferior game in most aspects. A healthy social scene is what helps MMO's thrive imo, so I think in 10.0 the devs should really work hard to bring WoW into the modern age of connectivity, that's the only way I see it having a resurgence. Gameplay is a core facet of a good game but WoW isn't a single player RPG, its not enough to just have good combat and bosses, the game has to be the whole package, and currently I do not feel that it is.


In any case, these changes in 9.1.5 for players who have been playing the expansion are excellent through and through, and if Shadowlands has 2 more major patches it will be remembered very fondly as people will forget the launch state imo, which really wasn't that bad to begin with. I'd say it already has a better track record than Legion and BFA, its just unfortunate that general apathy/negativity about the game is so widespread now, I don't think it will do much to improve the game's image (as seen in this thread alone.) But I am glad that they are coming, especially before the second major patch.



Just my two cents at least.

[Kalocy Jim]

I mean... you are excusing a lot of shit choices doing this. I know I used to run alts and enjoy content in a new character in past expansions. I haven't done this since wod and the last patch of legion with how much bullshit got added into the game.

I feel like attacking the messenger isn't really addressing the underlying problem. Blizzard has over time made wow waste your time to get to the interesting content. This trend needs to die.

It's an interesting concept.

If you play the game and do primarily everything on 1 or maybe max 2 characters, then those players really don't have much issue with the game. One occasional streamer that I watch primarily for his work out streams is Bajherra. He made a comment recently similar to this, that if you play only a main, or maybe 2 at max, you have a ton of stuff to do and enjoy the game a lot because you aren't having to repeat the same systems 12 different times.

I get that playing alts is fun for people, but don't expect to be perfectly optimal on all your alts, or be prepared to spend the time and effort necessary if you do want to be optimal. That's actually one of the things I like about the current state of the game. It rewards people who play 1 or 2 characters because we don't have to do "the grind" on 12 or more alts.

Quite frankly, the "altoholic" crowd burns themselves out because of their addiction.

[cuafpr]

You do realize that as far as Blizzard is concerned, you're a happy camper totally content with the game. You pay your sub, you tax the servers less than the average player so they would love it if everyone was like this.

that irony is not lost on me..but my OCD doesn't let me break the sub as I've been a sub since week 1, even when i was deployed and couldn't play....

[draugril]

It's an interesting concept.

If you play the game and do primarily everything on 1 or maybe max 2 characters, then those players really don't have much issue with the game. One occasional streamer that I watch primarily for his work out streams is Bajherra. He made a comment recently similar to this, that if you play only a main, or maybe 2 at max, you have a ton of stuff to do and enjoy the game a lot because you aren't having to repeat the same systems 12 different times.

I get that playing alts is fun for people, but don't expect to be perfectly optimal on all your alts, or be prepared to spend the time and effort necessary if you do want to be optimal. That's actually one of the things I like about the current state of the game. It rewards people who play 1 or 2 characters because we don't have to do "the grind" on 12 or more alts.

Quite frankly, the "altoholic" crowd burns themselves out because of their addiction.

Not to derail too badly, but I think this is a spot where FFXIV really shines. You can experience the breadth of the game on a single character. That's not really true of WoW with its faction system and current Covenants and the like. There are types of gameplay and specific narratives that you are required to have at least one alt to enjoy.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I would really love to see some factual evidence of this sub loss. Where are the sub numbers being announced, did they start releasing that information again?

There actually is some sparse info in the investor reports but as of the last one there’s no hint of sub loss they have actually reported a rise in either subs or MAU for wow for the past 7/8 or so reports.