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

[Miffinat0r]

I'd love a system that let you play with NPCs. Even more if you had to level and gear out those NPCS. But that idea induces irrational levels of rage from most WoW players I've seen so I don't see it happening.

I look forward to rated solo bg queues though if/when they come. I'll certainly get some mileage out of that.

It'd be cool. That way you could do what you want when you want and then you could turn around and offer anything you don't use on the AH.

OH NO THE HORROR OF OUR COMMUNITY BEING RUINED!!! As if Facebook/Discord/Twitter/IG didn't ruin your MMO Community.

[BeepBoo]

Yes it is and kindly tell me what major achievement can one get SOLO in wow?

Mage tower challenge?

How far can pugs go? 2k pvp and 2-3 bosses mythic? Even the high end M+ can't be done solo grouping not without major pains that are NOT worth it.

You will never ever be able to solve this problem. At least not without making the game faceroll easy at its hardest. I only play games that actually require me to be good to complete.

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It's almost like gaming as a whole has massively grown over the last 10-15 years, the potential audience is much bigger than it was in 2008

Not for retro content and not for the "traditional" MMO market

[Celement]

It'd be cool. That way you could do what you want when you want and then you could turn around and offer anything you don't use on the AH.

OH NO THE HORROR OF OUR COMMUNITY BEING RUINED!!! As if Facebook/Discord/Twitter/IG didn't ruin your MMO Community.

Do you just not enjoy wow?

[Relapses]

Or they would be investing in these because they realize they're in a decline and the only way to get new revenue is to get new players but you have no idea what it actually means to be a new player because you don't leave your gated bubble with your dedicated groups so all the issues that face regular players you'd have no idea how to solve.

That's what's happening here.

They've been in a decline for eons. Like I said in a post a few pages ago, this "decline" is the new normal. Cyclical and tourist players are the main draw for WoW in 2022. Blizzard no longer needs to rely on people staying subscribed to the game for long periods of time. The goal of WoW shouldn't be to make a game that is appealing to 100% of its playerbase for two decades. If you find that the modern game is no longer to your liking then vote with your wallet and play another game. Do not shout at the rooftops about how Blizzard has failed to consider your singular vision of what the game should be and how their failure to consult you personally has resulted in a video game that you do not like. This kind of behavior needs to stop.

[VMSmith]

Matter of opinion really. Social game with solo options and content or solo game with multiplayer options and content is just perspective. There's nothing whatsoever about Massively Multiplayer Online that implies that all content needs to be social in nature. People choose and if there's not enough solo stuff for them there are other MMO games that have more. This nonsense about what people are supposed to do is just that.

Yep, this.

The reality is that WoW is an MMO that is designed around organized group play, with solo content being given short shrift. And some people think the parasitic relationships that develop from this are "social".

Other MMOs focus more heavily on solo play, with group content being optional. Some of them provide tools to increase engagement between players in a cooperative manner, rather than WoW's competitive focus.

People insisting that "MMO" means organized group play are likely informed solely by their time with WoW, and not all the other MMOs that do things differently.

[Zorgulon]

It is a bit weird that the WoW playerbase is SO focused on: I WANNA PLAY THE GAME HOW I WANNA PLAY IT! I DON'T WANNA DO X I JUST WANNA DO Y!
Like, That's fine, but then maybe it's not the game for you?
I don't play LoL because I want to play PvE.
Ppl can't play Souls games and be like "It's TOO HARD! This is just CATERING TO THE 5%!!!"
And also, if you wanna PvP in DS, you gotta kill dem bosses and get your loot, aka PvE!

[Puremallace]

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.

THIS PEOPLE THIS! 5 zones and a raid is not going to cut it. Dragonriding is time gated on the abilities they will allow and invalidates every other mount you have OR THAT they will allow to get in the damn expansion itself which is just insane to me.

Name the feature that will give you a reason to log on more than once a week outside of a Mythic clear or raid lockout!??!?!? They had the right idea with Covenants but do not understand you can just add it without the arbitrary time gates and people will just enjoy the content.

Ion says he has been listening but I am failing to see where it is. What you did not add an arbitrary grind and you expect people to thank you?!?! Hey guys we did not add a horrible grind is that not a great feature of the expansion!!! You can thank us later!

[Beefhammer]

Did you forget the part where WotLK was the most successful expansion Blizzard ever released?

Actually WotLK grew the the brand by the lowest amount during their big growth period. Vanilla grew to 7.5M, TBC gre to 11.5M, WorLK only grew by .5-1M. That means growth slowed down significantly during WotLK. It may have had the most total subs, but it was hardly the most successful expansion.

[Relapses]

Actually WotLK grew the the brand by the lowest amount during their big growth period. Vanilla grew to 7.5M, TBC gre to 11.5M, WorLK only grew by .5-1M. That means growth slowed down significantly during WotLK. It may have had the most total subs, but it was hardly the most successful expansion.

This is patently wrong due to market saturation, which I've already discussed a few pages back.

[exochaft]

Actually WotLK grew the the brand by the lowest amount during their big growth period. Vanilla grew to 7.5M, TBC gre to 11.5M, WorLK only grew by .5-1M. That means growth slowed down significantly during WotLK. It may have had the most total subs, but it was hardly the most successful expansion.

Depends on your definition of successful and what metrics you want to use. Furthermore, perhaps WoW reached a saturation point in the player market for the time, and no matter how good any expansion was it wouldn't get past that number of players. What we can say is that WotLK didn't lose players during it's lifetime, not much more than that regardless of how one wants to talk about said expansion. In this day and age of WoW, not losing customers and/or gaining more would probably be considered successful.

However, I could make the case that some changes and systems that happened during and around the time of WotLK has lead to some of the reasons why WoW has been in decline ever since. As many people have been mentioning by this point, WotLK was the start of the social pillar being destroyed, or at least the framework was put in place which later expansions would exploit. Blizz stated around this time that they were officially going to start designing raids around the existence of boss addons. LFG random match-making made its debut around this time, as well. Raids started adding more difficulties/sizes. There were a bunch of other aspects that were changing around WotLK, and, while each individual thing may not be a negative or even good in isolation, the summation of all the changes lead up to the problems we have today.

If anything, WotLK was an experimentation time for WoW (was literally talked about in blue posts back then), and it resulted in some good things and some bad things. The unfortunate reality is that some of the problems that existed or started during time were never fixed or addressed in a way to prevent some of the problems we have today (such as faction balance). Furthermore, lot of the 'lessons learned' from this era have either been forgotten or rehashed over and over again, which results in reinventing a broken wheel... whether this is due to turnover, pride, changes in corporate environment, etc. is up for debate. Be that as it may, there's a reason that every time Blizz actually admits screwing up something, the favored solution is usually a reference to how the game was in the past: a lot of the solutions are found in how the game used to be.

[m4Zzo928]

Idk Tc, after taking in all the info. I think this expansion may be the best ever for the non-hardcore. They're really taking things to a new direction content-wise. I think this expansion and the last they've catered to somebody who got fired a few months back involving the systems. Now it seems they're focusing more on talents, and spreading them through content, instead of having player power so convoluted.

[dragonflight10]

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.

Alot more will come later, ofc blizzard will announce content for casual players
but solo player not so much. It's a multiplayer game
and why should blizz cater to the likes of you ? you play the game and refuse to participate in any hard content or group play and whine ?

[Kyanion]

However, I could make the case that some changes and systems that happened during and around the time of WotLK has lead to some of the reasons why WoW has been in decline ever since. As many people have been mentioning by this point, WotLK was the start of the social pillar being destroyed, or at least the framework was put in place which later expansions would exploit. Blizz stated around this time that they were officially going to start designing raids around the existence of boss addons. LFG random match-making made its debut around this time, as well. Raids started adding more difficulties/sizes. There were a bunch of other aspects that were changing around WotLK, and, while each individual thing may not be a negative or even good in isolation, the summation of all the changes lead up to the problems we have today.

I mean you could make that argument but you'd be wrong. The amount of subs in the game back then INCREASED around the time some of the changes like LFD came in. In fact you can go look at the patch days for various WotLK patches and the sub numbers reported back then and see that the 'lfd killed wow' argument was fucking laughable. What hurt WoW? Cata being a....let's just say not WotLK-quality expansion. Also the Lich King was beaten, one of the main bad guys of WoW lore.

[Relapses]

I mean you could make that argument but you'd be wrong. The amount of subs in the game back then INCREASED around the time some of the changes like LFD came in. In fact you can go look at the patch days for various WotLK patches and the sub numbers reported back then and see that the 'lfd killed wow' argument was fucking laughable. What hurt WoW? Cata being a....let's just say not WotLK-quality expansion. Also the Lich King was beaten, one of the main bad guys of WoW lore.

To be frank, I doubt WoW's retention levels were any better in WotLK than in modern expansions. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they were much, much worse. The difference and the reason we saw the declines we did wasn't the fact that more people were quitting than had before, it was the fact that less people were starting the game new to replace the ones leaving. Obviously, this is just a hunch but I'd point to the recent shift in game design towards engagement metrics as evidence of this.

[Sauredfangs]

They can create different content for casual players. Maybe some more community based content that could use some love. Check out some of ideas in my signature.

[Kyanion]

To be frank, I doubt WoW's retention levels were any better in WotLK than in modern expansions. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they were much, much worse. The difference and the reason we saw the declines we did wasn't the fact that more people were quitting than had before, it was the fact that less people were starting the game new to replace the ones leaving. Obviously, this is just a hunch but I'd point to the recent shift in game design towards engagement metrics as evidence of this.

I don't think they were either, there was a lot of churn of new players and leaving players given by the what, 100 million created accounts Blizz gave out as a number many years ago.

Many people love to blurt out that LFD and changes killed the game but at least after that patch went out subs went up by a million for the rest of WotLK which usually shuts that argument down. I'd say Cata itself was a factor in people leaving as well as the Lich King story being finished. But hell, it's only guessing which is what everyone is doing.

[Doffen]

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

Strange take seeing Legion was the expansion wich added most content outside of raiding ever.

Every expansion before that was a raiders paradise.

[Beefhammer]

This is patently wrong due to market saturation, which I've already discussed a few pages back.

Can discuss it all you want the fact remains WotLK only brought in 1M at best new ir returning players, while Vanilla and TBC brought in a combined 11.5M. It was definitely popular due to accessibility, one of the most casual expa signs to date, and Arthas, which WC3 was most of Warcrafts fans first Warcraft game up until WoW.

But WoW plateaued in WotLK.

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I don't think they were either, there was a lot of churn of new players and leaving players given by the what, 100 million created accounts Blizz gave out as a number many years ago.

Many people love to blurt out that LFD and changes killed the game but at least after that patch went out subs went up by a million for the rest of WotLK which usually shuts that argument down. I'd say Cata itself was a factor in people leaving as well as the Lich King story being finished. But hell, it's only guessing which is what everyone is doing.

Blizzard has been on record in the past regarding this and after day one, players were leaving in droves every month, they just had far more players coming in in Vanilla, less so in TBC, and even less so in WotLK. From Cata through the end if MoP players were still leaving at a good clip they were just not seeing nearly as many new/returning players. WoD saw a huge I flux at the start, but we have just been seeing the trend of an old game having a tough time attracting new players.

[RoKPaNda]

I'm part of that 5% and I agree that catering to us is the worst idea ever, but I really didn't get that feeling from the reveal that they were going that route fwiw.

[Beefhammer]

Depends on your definition of successful and what metrics you want to use. Furthermore, perhaps WoW reached a saturation point in the player market for the time, and no matter how good any expansion was it wouldn't get past that number of players. What we can say is that WotLK didn't lose players during it's lifetime, not much more than that regardless of how one wants to talk about said expansion. In this day and age of WoW, not losing customers and/or gaining more would probably be considered successful.

However, I could make the case that some changes and systems that happened during and around the time of WotLK has lead to some of the reasons why WoW has been in decline ever since. As many people have been mentioning by this point, WotLK was the start of the social pillar being destroyed, or at least the framework was put in place which later expansions would exploit. Blizz stated around this time that they were officially going to start designing raids around the existence of boss addons. LFG random match-making made its debut around this time, as well. Raids started adding more difficulties/sizes. There were a bunch of other aspects that were changing around WotLK, and, while each individual thing may not be a negative or even good in isolation, the summation of all the changes lead up to the problems we have today.

If anything, WotLK was an experimentation time for WoW (was literally talked about in blue posts back then), and it resulted in some good things and some bad things. The unfortunate reality is that some of the problems that existed or started during time were never fixed or addressed in a way to prevent some of the problems we have today (such as faction balance). Furthermore, lot of the 'lessons learned' from this era have either been forgotten or rehashed over and over again, which results in reinventing a broken wheel... whether this is due to turnover, pride, changes in corporate environment, etc. is up for debate. Be that as it may, there's a reason that every time Blizz actually admits screwing up something, the favored solution is usually a reference to how the game was in the past: a lot of the solutions are found in how the game used to be.

I'm using attracting new players. I o ow it'salways touted as the most successful because of 12-12.5M players, but like I posted, WotLK barely grew compared to the previous 2 entries.

But yes, much of what was introduced then can be seen as some of the reasons why things went down hill.