Another leak about what's going on at Blizzard

[exsanguinate]

https://boards.4channel.org/v/thread...blizzard-leaks

I don't know man, get your opinions. Wouldn't surprise me if this was true.

>WoW currently has around 960k active subscribers in the west. Since August the games numbers have been in freefall and never recovered.
>The higher ups assumed there were a lot more "heavy users" or "lifers" locked in for the duration than there appears to be, though the scandals could have something to do with it.
>This "final chapter of this book in the warcraft saga" was news to the team before the 9.2 video dropped. Its assumed its trying to riff on the media for FFXIV's upcoming expansion but the sentiment around the office is its bad optics and seems insincere and delivers a narrative that we are imitating rather than interating
>Danuser is insufferable. When he isn't gaslighting anyone that questions his divine god given narrative about certain characters he has an unhealthy obsession with -take a guess which- he is not really talking with the rest of the team. We make assetts and raids and quests but don't really know what for. You don't know why the Arbiter broke? why he is trying to retcon Warcraft 3 into the jailors forces fighting the jailors forces? yeah guess what? NEITHER DO WE. WE STILL DON'T. We didn't even know what Zereth Mortis was till 2 months ago. We are as in the dark as you are.
>He is even blanking other writers. The reason the Sylvanas book is delayed is because he didn't talk to Christie Golden for months after she pointed out he was trying to bruteforce a Sylvanas redemption that wasn't earned like a petulant child and as "punishment" she was kept out the loop WHILE WRITING A NOVEL ABOUT SYLVANAS SET DURING 9.2!
>Meanwhile as long as he makes raids Ion doesn't care. He just sits there most of the day stress eating and barking commands but as long as it funnels players to his next raid thats about all the rest of the work is good for. He is generally oblivious to anything outside his bubble. Or doesn't care.

>The majority of the games flaws as a product stem from these two men who both only care about their own slice of the pie so to speak and the rest may as well not exist and mismanagement is team wide.
>Cross faction grouping is on the table because they would rather do that than take the bad press hit and merge servers at the risk of losing transfer fees. Like that would be the worst news for the company this year.
>The game is monumentally tilted to horde in terms of userbase now and its almost entirely due to racial but for some reason the balance team refuses to buff any alliance racials or nerf horde ones.
>The Cyphers are a retention mechanic designed to keep players subscribed. It will take 12 weeks to unlock all base ciphers and the currency cap per week will then double this for the next stage of unlocks. Intended on paper to be a 6 month weekly content update.
>Most of us understand the complaints about borrowed systems. We do not like them either but we aren’t in charge and the ones that do seem to think we are working on a mobile project and not the rpg most of us signed up to be a part of. We feel like we are trying to trick the player into some habit forming loop like some mobile gambling app and it feels dirty to say the least.
>I work on the live team and not 10.0 but I can tell you the Infinite Dragonflight are involved along with a shift in the way we release product. WoW is not going to release expansions after 10.0 but instead focus on “evergreen” seasonal content. The game we keep being told to compare our work to is not something like FFXIV as you might assume but Bungies Destiny.

>From 10.0 onwards after the events of End of Eternity the entire game will be reworked including Chrome Time which has internally been seen as a bit of a failed experiment in its current state. Players will have an experience closer to Diablo 3’s adventure mode. You will create your character and have a series of “campaigns” to play through solo or with friends but also a seasonal track comparable to a battle pass using a system like renown. The idea being no matter what content you do be it some random quests in the Eastern Plaguelands or Island Expeditions in Kul Tiras you will always be advancing your seasonal track.
>The first season will involve the infinite dragon flight as a lore friendly way to explain this and the reworks to chromie time. You will assist the time walkers who reveal themselves to have been Attendants created by the First Ones to mend fractures in the timeline but as with the Attendants of Korthia they are a separate and visually different group to the ones we know in Oribos.
>Right now there is one baseline track that acts almost like post level cap experience and another that requires a currency but is not a paid track.
>Time Fractures will allow characters to be shifted around and there is a visions style activity called “Paradox Moments” which are essentially a blend of visions, scenarios and the theming of the old Carvens of Time Dungeons
>Speaking of the Carvens of Time themselves will be destroyed and instead of new areas the new zones will be existing zones at different points in time. Think the End Times version of Dragonblight from Cataclysm’s Dungeons

>Seasons are intended to last 3-4 months right now and alternate between WoW Classic seasons -which is the test bed for some of these ideas- and allow us to make time limited seasonal content that will use FOMO to keep the players coming back and allow us to make changes to existing zones albeit many being temporary so we don’t permanently change too many things forever as with the Shattering content that really messed up the timeline for questing players, ironically given 10.0 I suppose. While the seasons are wholesale taken from Destiny and to a lesser extent Diablo 3 of course this temporary world changing is being workshopped as something to appeal to “the fortnite generation” and started getting put forward around the time they did their big map redesign for the first time.
>This is done to spread the workload, increase profitability beyond one major box sale every 2 fiscal years and to try and lure in a new younger audience as the current “Heavy User” audience of diehards are a lot older than the target demographics Activision as a whole wants to target.
>Yes the fruit bowl stuff caused some internal fiction but its not the “us vs the essjaydubyas” you might think but rather there is a sentiment that a lot of the games current issues are being waved away by pushing the earlier team members under the bus rather than respect the work and the foundation they built.
>FFXIV is not the boogeyman you might think but we had one large meeting with leadership specifically asking “What is it doing right?” and being befuddled when people point out things and going “but we already did that” while missing the many replies of “but we don’t anymore”.

[Utrrabbit]

Lmao another meme troll thread by exsanguinate come back again with more fanfic, it is ammusing.

[Relapses]

That's some impressive fanfiction.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Hell yeah, the Infinite Dragonflight are returning! Been waiting for and harping on this for like 3 years. My confirmation bias is in full swing and this leak is definitely a real one. Forward slash S!

[Hitei]

she was kept out the loop WHILE WRITING A NOVEL

If you're going to bother posting at least do minor fucking fact checking. She immediately clarified that what she hadn't seen before was the art and in-game assets for Zereth Mortis.

End of Eternity

The retard who posted this on 4chan couldn't even manage getting the patch name right.

[Biomega]

I mean... 4chan.

There's so much trolling in this it's almost funny. But not quite.

Just another low-effort "leak" like we always get.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

The stuff about Danuser being insufferable is believable. Not sure about Ion.

[Mace]

Wow. Reading this. If true. Blizzard Activision seem more arrogant than ever and don’t know or are willing to listen to anyone. Not their players and not even their colleagues and staff.

The whole thing sounds like a waste of time.

Until they really desire to make good games rather than good money. This is going down the toilet.

[exsanguinate]

Lmao another meme troll thread by exsanguinate come back again with more fanfic, it is ammusing.

Glad I could make you laugh. A good deed every day. But do you really think it would be absolutely impossible for this to apply to blizzard?

[Mace]

Seem to have majorly lost their way.

I have no idea if this is true Ofc. But does it matter? Even if fanfic, is it really far off the truth? It seems to nail the vibe we are getting of bliZzard from other sources quite well.

The explanations also fit the crazy we are seeing in the story.

But even after all that, 10.0 can still be a good game. Just jot the old type of quality we use to have. Expect more corners and more fast tricks.

But you’d get cool graphics and shiny stuff.

Oh and the reason for the faction imbalance goes well well beyond racials.

The only way to fix it is either push the alliance hard for the next 6 years or abolish the factions.

And these clever idiots would rather abolish than fix because they don’t know how to listen. Still wow will survive. But not like it use to be.

[Darknessvamp]

I can totally see Thrall flossing as he calls all fortnite gamers celestial time champions to get in the battle circle assemble in a timewarped zone and complete daily challenges achieve feats of temporal worth to farm v-bucks fragments of compressed eternity bills to afford the latest battle pass the new chronicle of [blank] and it's rewards. All before Batman arrives and informs us that the Terminator and Rick Sanchez are default dancing over Jaina in the Heart Chamber of Azeroth. /s

Ion stress eating part made me laugh though.

[Ladey Gags]

TLDR if this is true WoW is shifting design towards being a literal mobile game. This game is good as dead. WoW hasn’t been WoW for a long time, but if this is true it’s the final nail on the coffin. They are officially turning the game into a pure FOMO seasonal game. God fucking damnit

[Lorgar Aurelian]

People should know by now from all the bullshit leaks we had about 9.1 and 9.2 that these are just poorly made fan fics.

[KainneAbsolute]

Well. Christie Golden tweeted that she isnt part of the WoW Team and she did knot 90% of the information shared in the 9.2 preview.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Bunch of nonsense and Danuser derangement syndrome.

[Calfredd]

TLDR if this is true WoW is shifting design towards being a literal mobile game. This game is good as dead. WoW hasn’t been WoW for a long time, but if this is true it’s the final nail on the coffin. They are officially turning the game into a pure FOMO seasonal game. God fucking damnit

When you hate a game so much yet still play that you hope the fake leaks detailing horrible things are real.

[McNeil]

960k subs in the west and Danuser being insufferable sounds about right, not so much for the rest

[infinitemeridian]

99% of this just feeds into the headcannon that 4chan and reddit already suspect about the direction of the game and those involved. Not that I think some of it is untrue, but this is just silly at this point.

[Thestrawman]

960k subs in the west and Danuser being insufferable sounds about right, not so much for the rest

Every good lie has a few kernels of truth in there. Or at least things that sound true.

[Nzx]

Christ this is such blatant bullshit it's painful. Ragebait fanfic written to jerk off all the mad kids who are obsessed with Ion and Danuser being the two specific problems and that all the devs are just angelic heroes being browbeaten by these two people.

"Game is overwhelming balanced towards Horde because of racials" except that racials haven't been a problem in years. "Novel delayed because Danuser" except the author has specifically and directly debunked this. "Ion only cares about raiding" except that raiders have been the red-headed stepchild of this game since the "borrowed power" everyone obsesses over became a thing. If all he cared about was getting people into raiding none of that would exist.

It's pretty embarrassing that people work themselves up so much over the existence of people like Ion and Danuser that they go out of their way to write the first chapter of Lord of The Rings over it, and it's even more embarrassing that this thread will go 12 pages with the usual suspects agreeing that Blizzard are trying to clip on to FF14 by saying this patch is an end to the WC3 storyline (somehow).