To all the Bellulars, Asmogolds, Preaches, QoL'ers and Fans that want to Design WOW.

[Echo of Soul]

we said that in wod and yet here we are with expansions worse than what wod was XD

You have a point. Just when you think that things cannot get any worse Blizzard manages to surprise you.

[Amarys]

Only you got it wrong, it's Blizzard whos redesigning the car. They already made a working car .. now they're removing the wheels and other things from it and adding unnecessary things that no one likes (borrowed power and chores). Asmongoloid and the rest are/were(I think hes fully moved on now and doesn't comment on what Blizzard is doing much any more) just bitter cause Blizzard is ruining their favorite game.

[Osmeric]

You have a point. Just when you think that things cannot get any worse Blizzard manages to surprise you.

It shouldn't be surprising. As the game ages and budgets decline, it would be remarkable if things didn't get worse. At some point the dev budget gets tightened enough that the game cannot realistically continue. The death spiral becomes a vertical dive.

[crusadernero]

Blizzard basically have been running WoW like they are landlords; slap a fresh coat of white paint on the old turd and sell it up.

Actually, they’ve been doing the same with all their game; Warcraft 3: reforged. Diablo 2: Resurrcted; overwatch 2 soon.

I’m not sure an original thought is left at this company if I’m being completely honest; if it does exist it’s getting lost in the murk of corporate bureaucracy.

I mean.. They have tried to be innovative with wow in the last couple of xpacs. Mage tower, legendaries in Legion, IE(BfA), Warfronts, AP, AP gear, Covenants, Conduits, Torghast and more.

Sadly most of them failed, I guess Mage tower was a success. Each idea on its own aint really bad, but the implementations screwed it. I remember being excited about warfronts & IE, but it was a huge dissapointment in BfA. Especially Warfronts. Such a cool concept and a welcomed addition to wow, something that could have been intregrated into the game(as garrisons(housing) should have been.

Imagine if Warfronts were a new core feature in a game. So now in SL we would have warfronts to do. Im not talking about Warfronts as it was in BfA, cause that was a overall failure. But the concept is so cool, I firmly believe they could have done it right.

But as often times with Blizzard, they go to the extremes with things. Do not be surprised that 10.0 wont have any system whatsoever to the point its just "to little", if you know what I mean. They are also very stubborn and refuse to listen to feedback and its a common issue.

[Accendor]

I mean.. They have tried to be innovative with wow in the last couple of xpacs. Mage tower, legendaries in Legion, IE(BfA), Warfronts, AP, AP gear, Covenants, Conduits, Torghast and more.

Sadly most of them failed, I guess Mage tower was a success. Each idea on its own aint really bad, but the implementations screwed it. I remember being excited about warfronts & IE, but it was a huge dissapointment in BfA. Especially Warfronts. Such a cool concept and a welcomed addition to wow, something that could have been intregrated into the game(as garrisons(housing) should have been.

Imagine if Warfronts were a new core feature in a game. So now in SL we would have warfronts to do. Im not talking about Warfronts as it was in BfA, cause that was a overall failure. But the concept is so cool, I firmly believe they could have done it right.

But as often times with Blizzard, they go to the extremes with things. Do not be surprised that 10.0 wont have any system whatsoever to the point its just "to little", if you know what I mean. They are also very stubborn and refuse to listen to feedback and its a common issue.

There are two things i never understood:
- Why create a feature that you can not fail and that offers no entertainment for a huge part of your community, when you already have scalable difficulty in dungeons and raids?
- Why is there no pvp mode available at all?

Like I get that there is much more wrong with warfronts then that, it's just that I can not understand those decisions on a fundamental level.

[sam86]

we said that in wod and yet here we are with expansions worse than what wod was XD

generally WoD content was few, not bad, massive difference between WoD and BFA for example where just login to play was horrible due to how they overfucked ur class itself as they actually (in very rare) flat out admitted
BFA had a lot of great content, but all is meaningless when u hate to even use ur character in first place to do them

I guess we finally found a more stupid reason to dismiss a whole expansion after 'MoP was terrible because pet battles' with 'the new xpac is bad because they changed the paintings"

because main problem of employees is having a ceo bonus salary more than the entire staff salary for an entire year combined, and so far they doing NOTHING to improve it
they using the old (sadly successful) 'look a bird' tactic where they want to show they are 'changing' without actually changing, by making bullshit useless changes
This is like u complain a building is built wrong, so the owner paint it rainbow and if u say the problem wasn't the painting will accuse u being homophobic since u hate rainbow color!

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You have a point. Just when you think that things cannot get any worse Blizzard manages to surprise you.

honestly it should been easy to see, i admit i didn't see it but should been
If WoD problem was lack of content, then what about making ur class so shit that u hate to even login no matter what content there is... that's BFA
SL have a mix of BFA and WoD so far, and doubt it will be any better

[Daedius]

Be careful what you wish for.


You're basically Homer in this episode.

/snip

What? The Devs are doing a fine job being clowns as it is with all the changes lately.

[Soon-TM]

It shouldn't be surprising. As the game ages and budgets decline, it would be remarkable if things didn't get worse. At some point the dev budget gets tightened enough that the game cannot realistically continue. The death spiral becomes a vertical dive.

This is odd, because BfA, for all its flaws, didn't appear to be underfunded. I do think that the funds were terribly misallocated, that's how we got all those gorgeous Sadfang cinematics but mediocre gameplay and uninspired (to say the least) patches.

Now SL does feel underfunded, with its anemic content at launch, its tiny zones and its over reliance on systems-a-thon (moreso than even BfA) instead of actual content.

[kaelix1]

I don't think its fair to put Bellulars in the same boat as Amongold and Preach, in my book bellulars is just hitting a dead horse for profit, Asmongold and Preach pretty much point out all the problems we have atm in shadowlands beta (and a lot of people, no fair to single just preach and asmogold) the problem atm with wow is that it's really hard for blizzard to cater to only one type of player when in reality we have 3 4 types, for example, I hate korthia , i have a friend that loves that place for some damn reason, expect sylvanas, i think current tier is excellent raid wise, my friend think its shit and quit raiding, i love ma plus and would love to have a team to push 20+,my friends hate it with passion and don't go past 15 for weekly

[crusadernero]

There are two things i never understood:
- Why create a feature that you can not fail and that offers no entertainment for a huge part of your community, when you already have scalable difficulty in dungeons and raids?
- Why is there no pvp mode available at all?

Like I get that there is much more wrong with warfronts then that, it's just that I can not understand those decisions on a fundamental level.

Asked myself the very same questions, and more. There are SO many good features made over the years in wow that Blizzard has just half-assed in. garrions(housing), mage tower(coming now), Warfronts & IE are concepts that should have been a feature in every xpac going forward. Atleast with minor/bigger changes each xpac.

But nah. Release it half-assed, drop it next xpac and desperately try to create something new.

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I don't think its fair to put Bellulars in the same boat as Amongold and Preach, in my book bellulars is just hitting a dead horse for profit, Asmongold and Preach pretty much point out all the problems we have atm in shadowlands beta (and a lot of people, no fair to single just preach and asmogold) the problem atm with wow is that it's really hard for blizzard to cater to only one type of player when in reality we have 3 4 types, for example, I hate korthia , i have a friend that loves that place for some damn reason, expect sylvanas, i think current tier is excellent raid wise, my friend think its shit and quit raiding, i love ma plus and would love to have a team to push 20+,my friends hate it with passion and don't go past 15 for weekly

The question Blizzard gotta ask themself is who do they want to create the game for. I doubt the overall playerbase engage in mythic raiding & high m+ keys. theres probably a place for mythic raids & high m+ dungeon, but I doubt it fits most MMORPG players to take part in it. In that vain, maybe Blizzard should create more cool and great content for most players.

[Soon-TM]

1 - Why create a feature that you can not fail and that offers no entertainment for a huge part of your community, when you already have scalable difficulty in dungeons and raids?
2 - Why is there no pvp mode available at all?

1- Probably because Ion, ever the elitist jerk, thought that casual players wanted unlosable content and free loot, as do many of his fellow hardcore raiders in these boards. Alas, once again Ion & his ilk were proved wrong.

2- Who knows, it looked like a no-brainer, but Ion evidently thought that everything related to PvP was done after the addition of warmode.

[cozzri]

There are two things i never understood:
- Why create a feature that you can not fail and that offers no entertainment for a huge part of your community, when you already have scalable difficulty in dungeons and raids?
- Why is there no pvp mode available at all?

Like I get that there is much more wrong with warfronts then that, it's just that I can not understand those decisions on a fundamental level.

The only logical reason I can think of as to why PvP warfronts didn't happen it because it would cost too much money on bandwidth. AV in its early iterations had a lot going on like Warfronts: NPCs, Summoned Guards, Side Quests/Objectives, plus 80 Player Characters. That's a lot of information to send, information that has a price. I have very few doubts that this design decision was made with cost-cutting in mind. Blizzard as a developer has become very corporate minded with game design decisions over the years, choosing cost-effective solutions over providing a quality product. Obviously it costs them less to develop a new "hook" for 1 expansion to drawn in the consumer, rather than keep adding systems and retaining development on them going forward, which is a shame because garrisons could have been cool if developed more, Imagine having your own personal garrison in Elwynn Forest for example. The customization introduced with artifact weapons could have developed into additional progress for your character going forward, but then you run into game design bloat, which is the reason they scale back every few expansions, it costs too much money to maintain those systems than to just outright delete them.

[potis]

There are two things i never understood:
- Why create a feature that you can not fail and that offers no entertainment for a huge part of your community, when you already have scalable difficulty in dungeons and raids?
- Why is there no pvp mode available at all?

Like I get that there is much more wrong with warfronts then that, it's just that I can not understand those decisions on a fundamental level.

Because it obviously wasnt created as such and got changed to accommodate the player base which massively failed that joke version as they massively failed LFR when they werent disabling abilities.

You guys really dont get how terrible people are at the game right and always were, but the game design shifts has allowed everyone to experience some things despite their lack of skill, and time?

Look at Islands as example, worst feature ever created in WoW, now looks at Islands as a first time player that will only play a bit and then never touch WoW or some extra casual as many are that will probably only do a few and never resub till next expansion as the majority, "WoW, new unique areas and rares and wtf, volcanoes and mini-game-treasure thingies".

Many design decisions are aimed for the people that will play the game over the period of an expansion, the problems always appear (Well from PTR because the more dedicated experienced players test things and complains are accurate, but ignored), later into a few months when they realize they are getting bored, but its still a minority complaining loudly, but when you have 12 million people at your launch/first few months when things are new, even a minority % ends up being many voices cause its THAT many people playing that period.

[d00mh4cker]

Peak in wow was like 10 million subs? more 12?
And now its 1 million. Maybe less.

Why design a game for the 1 million players instead of the other 9 or 11?

Blizzard are stupid. Simple conclusion.

If blizzard designed the game for the other ~11 million players the 1 million would go back to play mobile games because that is what wow is today, a mobile daily quest game built around creating addiction and micro transactions.


People will say all games die with time.
Tell that to Dota, Counter-strike, League, Minecraft, GTA, oldschool runescape etc etc etc etc etc.

[LionSinMaikeru]

Spot on...
And the funny/sad part is, that at Blizz they are looking for new design and similar jobs non stop, but not one of them sent their resume to Blizz... Or maybe they did and were rejected because, "NO GAME DESIGN EXPERIENCE".

Yet, people listen to this sheep dogs like they are all mighty lords of game design...

To be fair, quite a few of the people that either were hired at Blizzard or entered the industry in some way without game design experience.


Ben Brode? A pizza boy who lucked out due to a friend working at Blizzard and spent 18 months testing things before becoming the lead tester.

Greg Street/GhostCrawler? He had a degree in MARINE SCIENCE and got hired for Age of Empires where he got most of his experience doing just basic scenarios (writing) and then got hired to Blizzard years later.

Alex Afrasaibi, Jeff Kaplan, and quite a few others had NO game design experienced and were simply members of high end guilds in Everquest before being abducted by Blizzard. Jeff Kaplan is notorious for being one of those "forum dwelling preachers that critique MMOs" that the OP referenced. He even went off on the Everquest devs in a famous rant.

---

The point is, Blizzard hired a bunch of people in their early days who had NO experience & produced a successful MMO...yet nowadays require degrees and a lot of other barriers to work there. So maybe that's why the Asmogolds / Bellalaurs haven't applied. Not everyone has the time or money to get a degree.

[Soon-TM]

@FanaticDreamer it's surprising how almost none of the people who made all those amazing games that made Blizzard rise to fame had an academic degree. I don't know what it is like these days, but everything Blizzard from D3 onwards has felt increasingly sterile and uninspired, with the remarkable exception of Legion.

[LionSinMaikeru]

@FanaticDreamer it's surprising how almost none of the people who made all those amazing games that made Blizzard rise to fame had an academic degree. I don't know what it is like these days, but everything Blizzard from D3 onwards has felt increasingly sterile and uninspired, with the remarkable exception of Legion.

Oh definitely interesting.

It's really a shame because it seems like today in every field there's an increased demand for degrees (especially Bachelor's and higher) when just like 10-15 years ago the only requirement for most places was a high school degree. Yet so many places back then hired without degrees and as you said did amazing work. Me and my boyfriend joke that it's a huge conspiracy to keep poor people poor.

[Quaade]

Blizzards should take feedback and listen to what players want. Then give players what they actually need. They haven't been doing either for some time now.

The Blizzard developers are Homer and Uncle Herbert is the CEO/Shareholders in this video.

That's the issue, they are giving players what they want instead of what they need. What players might want is a system that allows them to increase their power. The Archivist Codex and Shards are examples of this. However, they're far from what the players need as what they need is a system whereby they can increase their power without it feeling like a chore. Especially if employed across multiple characters.

Most people who play only say what they want and it's the devs who then have to extrapolate what they express in what they say. Ion just gives players exactly what they want and then gets shocked when he's told that was never what they needed.

That's how incompetent the current team of developers are.

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To be fair, quite a few of the people that either were hired at Blizzard or entered the industry in some way without game design experience.


Ben Brode? A pizza boy who lucked out due to a friend working at Blizzard and spent 18 months testing things before becoming the lead tester.

Greg Street/GhostCrawler? He had a degree in MARINE SCIENCE and got hired for Age of Empires where he got most of his experience doing just basic scenarios (writing) and then got hired to Blizzard years later.

Alex Afrasaibi, Jeff Kaplan, and quite a few others had NO game design experienced and were simply members of high end guilds in Everquest before being abducted by Blizzard. Jeff Kaplan is notorious for being one of those "forum dwelling preachers that critique MMOs" that the OP referenced. He even went off on the Everquest devs in a famous rant.

---

The point is, Blizzard hired a bunch of people in their early days who had NO experience & produced a successful MMO...yet nowadays require degrees and a lot of other barriers to work there. So maybe that's why the Asmogolds / Bellalaurs haven't applied. Not everyone has the time or money to get a degree.

Continues to this day. Ion is educated in law instead of any creative field. It shows in his approach and competence regarding designing a game.

[Selah]

@Quaade

Out if curiosity, why do players need more "power" at all? We have our level cap increases and a varied means of getting gear. Why do we need more than that? Wouldn't it be better to instead build or improve upon features that already exist or will contribute to more content?

Yeah, raids and dungeons are fun but what were some of the best features in the last couple expansions? Mechagon, class order halls, time walking, horrific visions (save the mandatory nature), mage tower, Suramar, allied races, deaths of chromie. None of that has anything to do with power and goes to show that we don't need to increase player power every patch and every expansion.

[Soon-TM]

Out if curiosity, why do players need more "power"?

I know you didn't @ me, but this is supposed to be an RPG, it's all about progressing your toon. And the only meaningful venue of progression left in the game is the power one, so players will naturally desire more and better gear.