"Catering to 5% of your player base will leave you with 5% of your player base"

[Kithelle]

I'm very disappointed with whole announcement. No single world about casual and solo players.
Imo Ion again will focus on raiders and make ppl quit fast.

Well to be honest...WoW is a MMORPG...the second M stands for Multiplayer

[FelPlague]

I'm very disappointed with whole announcement. No single world about casual and solo players.
Imo Ion again will focus on raiders and make ppl quit fast.

"no word about casual or solo players" literally everything in this announcement was casual and solo players...
they didnt say a SINGLE thing about M+, PVP, or Raid, everything they spoke about was casual and solo my dude...

- - - Updated - - -

Gimmick that will be forgotten, just like class order halls, mage tower, warfronts, island expeditions, covenants, and chorghast.



So? Legion introduced new races and classes too and didn't stop it from being a raider's expansion.



So far that just amounts to being able to post buy orders on the AH like in GW2 or EVE Online. Nothing about actually revamping the gameplay of crafting, let alone making the stuff created by it relevant.



I'll see it when I believe it, but the post-WoD zone design of WoW is anti-exploration.



Which look incredibly bland and claustrophobic.



I actually liked the MoP talent system.



Because they're not addressing the abysmal lack of casual content. You'll do the four questing zones over a weekend and then all you're left with is mythic dungeons and doing the latest raid for 9 months.

Dragonriding will be going forward, it is not like those

overhauled professions they literally tell us more, profession buffing items that are put in their own slots of equipment, also better crafting and specializations and stat increases.

"bland and claustrophobic" get glasses, in what world was that claustrophobic? most of the shown zones were HUGE and wide open areas, it was confirmed this will be the biggest new continent of recent time, liekly comparable to northrend or more

you will be left with the same stuff the game has always had, aswell as dragon flying, profession work,
"Claustrophobic"

[Argorwal]

All I could think while they showed someone flying about the open world with the new flying system was "when the fuck will they shut up about mythic raiding"

Haha yeah.

[Wonderment2]

Dragonriding will be going forward, it is not like those

While I hope you're right, I'm honestly half expecting us to need to kill our dragons at the end of 10.3 to fill Alexstrza with enough dragon juice to beat galakrond/Chromatus/whoever

[Relapses]

The huge chinese increase where they saw pennies for each sub you mean?

Blizzard made way more money in MoP-legion combined with the in game shop and just getting a way better average per sub revenue. Look at their financials, you are talking out the wrong hole if you're claiming they made more money during WoTLK. The money they made during legion probably totals all of classic-wotlk combined.

Do you have an aversion to reading words? I have no doubt the game is more profitable in its recent expansions but the fact remains that in terms of the number of people playing the game, WotLK is a bar to which no other expansion has ever compared.

[Tech614]

Do you have an aversion to reading words? I have no doubt the game is more profitable in its recent expansions but the fact remains that in terms of the number of people playing the game, WotLK is a bar to which no other expansion has ever compared.

Actually I read you pretty clearly lets look at it again.

it made Blizzard the most money (from subscriptions alone).

#1 it did not make them the most money
#2 it did not make them the most money from even just sub revenue because such a large portion of it was chinese subs they made almost no money on. Like seriously, look up how chinese subs worked in WoTLK(like literally 1 day subs and crap blizzard made tiny cuts on) and come back to the big boy discussion later.

Don't try to back track now and claim you didn't say this it's too late for that friend.

[deenman]

I'm very disappointed with whole announcement. No single world about casual and solo players.
Imo Ion again will focus on raiders and make ppl quit fast.

99% of the game is casual content,high m+ and mythic raids is the only thing hardcore players have,and even mythic raids become easy mode after a few months

[MoanaLisa]

I mean if there is people who can say with a straight face that WoW is playable solo who am I to disagree?

<straight face in place>

A lot of it is. Whether it's enough depends on what sort of player you are, how often you play and for how long. Thank you in advance for agreeing.

[thunderdragon2]

Gimmick that will be forgotten, just like class order halls, mage tower, warfronts, island expeditions, covenants, and chorghast.



So? Legion introduced new races and classes too and didn't stop it from being a raider's expansion.



So far that just amounts to being able to post buy orders on the AH like in GW2 or EVE Online. Nothing about actually revamping the gameplay of crafting, let alone making the stuff created by it relevant.



I'll see it when I believe it, but the post-WoD zone design of WoW is anti-exploration.



Which look incredibly bland and claustrophobic.



I actually liked the MoP talent system.



Because they're not addressing the abysmal lack of casual content. You'll do the four questing zones over a weekend and then all you're left with is mythic dungeons and doing the latest raid for 9 months.

im annoyed that i even need to answer this question but here goes, what exactly are you wanting form the game because nothing seems to make you happy?

even tho i have a extreme hatred for casters im willing to put that aside to be a dragon something that ive always wanted my only disappointment is that the new class wasnt also a tank coz god knows we need more those, also that would have been our 1st mail warring tank

[kamikaze148]

This is just like your opinion man.
A lot of good MMO's, like FFXIV, are primarily designed for solo play despite being an MMO.
Even the early MMO's worked like that.

It's great how you're a part of an active and liveable world where you can see and communicate with other people, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the main goal for every player is group play. Even WoW was when you really look at it originally designed as a mostly solo experience before they changed their focus onto raids and dungeons.

Honestly. This. FF14 does a great job at catering to a great solo experience. Where the MMO part of the game is more the social side of things, the amount of time I spent in Gridania chatting to randoms, or watching a bard perform for example, stuff I would NEVER do in WoW, where its viewed as a waste of time that could be spent in queue for...group content.

Not to say having a strong raiding and dungeon scene/design isn't a bad thing, but I would love to see the social aspects of what WoW is capable of come forward a little bit more.

[loras]

I'm very disappointed with whole announcement. No single world about casual and solo players.
Imo Ion again will focus on raiders and make ppl quit fast.

I strongly disagree, hell the entire dragonriding thing seems purely "casual", it's pretty awesome.
Add to that the rethinking of talents and professions and they might actually start becoming a more viable alternative way to gear up in the game and customise your character, rather than to just cookiecutter everything.

[VMSmith]

Honestly. This. FF14 does a great job at catering to a great solo experience. Where the MMO part of the game is more the social side of things, the amount of time I spent in Gridania chatting to randoms, or watching a bard perform for example, stuff I would NEVER do in WoW, where its viewed as a waste of time that could be spent in queue for...group content

This is absolutely the reality of MMO gaming right now. When people say "This is what WoW is, take it or leave", they're not really wrong. I get that once upon a time it was different, and I get that people want the content they enjoy to be in WoW and not some other game ... but this is the way it is.

WoW will likely never have player housing.
WoW will never reward casual play.
WoW will fumble at casual play at every turn.

WoW is organized raiding, rated PvP, and M+. That's just the way it is.

People like the OP, and myself, are better served looking for MMOs that appeal to our sensibilities, because WoW will never be that. I've finally given FFXIV a fair shake and I'm finding it refreshing, I recommend the OP do the same with some other game than WoW.

[Sorshen]

I'm very disappointed with whole announcement. No single world about casual and solo players.
Imo Ion again will focus on raiders and make ppl quit fast.

Everything they showed is 'casual', what the fuck are you smoking?

[Deventh]

I dont agree that they cater to 5% of the player base. The game is more casual and more solo now then it ever has been.

However that being said. Ion is a dumb shit and needs to be fired. How can you suck so much at your job and not be fired yet? You, me and anyone else, if we sucked that much over that length of time at what we do for a living, we would be fired and fired awhile ago. It is insane that he still works there.

The game is anything but solo and casual friendly bro, what are you on about????

[kamikaze148]

This is absolutely the reality of MMO gaming right now. When people say "This is what WoW is, take it or leave", they're not really wrong. I get that once upon a time it was different, and I get that people want the content they enjoy to be in WoW and not some other game ... but this is the way it is.

WoW will likely never have player housing.
WoW will never reward casual play.
WoW will fumble at casual play at every turn.

WoW is organized raiding, rated PvP, and M+. That's just the way it is.

People like the OP, and myself, are better served looking for MMOs that appeal to our sensibilities, because WoW will never be that. I've finally given FFXIV a fair shake and I'm finding it refreshing, I recommend the OP do the same with some other game than WoW.

Personally, I have played all of the big MMO's for considerable periods of time, with WoW being my main MMO, only returning recently. So it is super refreshing to see what is out there for comparison, and I would say the healthy thing to do for most WoW players. No use resubbing month after month if you are hating the game.

But I would never say never, once upon a time on these very forums people were adamant that official Classic WoW would NEVER be a thing, and look where we are now.

I agree that Blizzard would probably fumble with there efforts to make the game more casual/social, but really I think the problem is the playerbase and how they are conditioned to think of the game...Blizzard might implement something on par with the Golden Saucer from FF14, and players would still look at something like that and think "why would I bother doing that".

[Deventh]

Everyone should watch this video because it covers a lot of important things about what this topic is about:

[Onikaroshi]

When has wow every really done much for casual/solo players? Aside from tossing some scraps here and there it's basically always been raid or die.

[Eosia]

After six years of Ion as the game director, I don't think it should be any surprise that Ion is going to Ion. WoW won't change until he is replaced.

Yeah.... too bad he's only been game director for 2 full expansions yet people STILL heap all the blame on him.

[Lighthope]

Succsessful doesnt mean good

Yeah, it kind of does. People aren't going to pay money for something they don't find value in.

And was also not very good because it catered to casuals too much.

It was good enough for you to keep paying money for it.

Sure, there may be room for improvement. Good doesn't mean perfect.

[The King in Yellow]

"Waaah! WoW does not cater to the casual players!!!!!!!"

Meanwhile the game has gotten more casual friendly throughout the years. Honestly this discussion is getting silly. In my opinion if you do not like to play WoW casually you just do not seem to like the game at all. Same with all the "yea but Final Fantasy does this and does x". Then go play Final Fantasy?

If they only catered to a smaller percentage of the player base; this would have been a PVP only expansion. (No hate to the PVP players, but WoW is a mostly PVE based game, please don't hate me)