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

[Mardux]

Stopped reading there. Almost had me going.

3/10

Why did you stop? Because NineSpine did what you ordered them to do by doing their "homework"?

[Necromantic]

It's not conjecture. It's his story from interviews he did.

Your first response was based off conjecture and completely hyperbolic.

These are facts. I'm sorry you deluded yourself into thinking Jeff Kaplan was some massive star in game design after getting his degree from Harvard and publishing ten books, but that's not the real world.

Could you link me the post where I said "Jeff Kaplan was some massive star in game design after getting his degree from Harvard and publishing ten books" ? I scrolled back and I couldn't find it. I'd appreciate it.

- - - Updated - - -

Why did you stop? Because NineSpine did what you ordered them to do by doing their "homework"?

Typing out one-dimensional insults is not "doing your homework".

EDIT: And neither is copying/pasting the first thing you read from Wikipedia.

[Miffinat0r]

Your first response was based off conjecture and completely hyperbolic.



Could you link me the post where I said "Jeff Kaplan was some massive star in game design after getting his degree from Harvard and publishing ten books" ? I scrolled back and I couldn't find it. I'd appreciate it.

- - - Updated - - -



Typing out one-dimensional insults is not "doing your homework".

I think he took objection to when you said Blizz recruits from top schools or something like that. But the history of the top stars at Blizz that wasn't the case. Blizzard for the longest time has recruited top players in their game or other games to come help design because they felt they understood the game better.

Reality is this Kaplan, & Alex got their start in EQ as players who were later recruited to the Blizz team. They were the definition of elitist jerk. Allakhazam published the emails that were sent to the Dev team and Brad during their tenure. Kaplan pretty much threatened to kill EQ multiple times because of how many players followed his guild. He started out as a jerk but changed his tune when he moved to OW. Alex was the same way he was in FoH which is the OG notorious guild that has a toxic reputation. Alex I don't believe had his emails published like Kaplan did but there were accounts of former devs saying the same thing about him.

Ion also followed this route as prior he was a DC lawyer who loved WoW endgame in Wraith and pointed out how hard a raid was and showed mathematically why it was flawed. He was hired through the same route.

Especially now Blizzard I don't believe people are rushing to go work for anymore. Especially given the recent news about how they treat their employees. Most I'd assume who have real talent were probably scooped by Riot or Dreamhaven.

[Necromantic]

I think he took objection to when you said Blizz recruits from top schools or something like that. But the history of the top stars at Blizz that wasn't the case. Blizzard for the longest time has recruited top players in their game or other games to come help design because they felt they understood the game better.

Reality is this Kaplan, & Alex got their start in EQ as players who were later recruited to the Blizz team. They were the definition of elitist jerk. Allakhazam published the emails that were sent to the Dev team and Brad during their tenure. Kaplan pretty much threatened to kill EQ multiple times because of how many players followed his guild. He started out as a jerk but changed his tune when he moved to OW. Alex was the same way he was in FoH which is the OG notorious guild that has a toxic reputation. Alex I don't believe had his emails published like Kaplan did but there were accounts of former devs saying the same thing about him.

Ion also followed this route as prior he was a DC lawyer who loved WoW endgame in Wraith and pointed out how hard a raid was and showed mathematically why it was flawed. He was hired through the same route.

Especially now Blizzard I don't believe people are rushing to go work for anymore. Especially given the recent news about how they treat their employees. Most I'd assume who have real talent were probably scooped by Riot or Dreamhaven.

The point originally was that the people who worked on vanilla through LK had experienced backgrounds and/or came from good schools. This is not the case today. I'm honestly not interested in his or anyone else when their only defense is conjecture. Responses like that are dated and boring.

Ion is where the game started taking the biggest shit dive (I guarantee I'm not even in the minority who believe this).

But they have not hired talented people in a long time, all the good ones jumped ship. And you're right, the recent events probably repel good talent even further.

[NineSpine]

The point originally was that the people who worked on vanilla through LK had experienced backgrounds and/or came from good schools. This is not the case today. I'm honestly not interested in his or anyone else when their only defense is conjecture. Responses like that are dated and boring.

Ion is where the game started taking the biggest shit dive (I guarantee I'm not even in the minority who believe this).

But they have not hired talented people in a long time, all the good ones jumped ship. And you're right, the recent events probably repel good talent even further.

Name. Them.

[MoanaLisa]

The primary purpose of a forum is to demand games be like other games instead of just playing that other game and going onto that games forums to talk abt what you like abt the game? Thats really dumb lol

Some people don't want to abandon the years of investment they have put into a game. That's fine. Who are you or anyone else to tell them they're wrong? The disconnect between the people who think the game should stay exactly as it is and the very same people who regularly comment about how the game is failing is pretty remarkable. This is a smallish community here at MMO-C. You don't need to look far to see that it's often the very same people. "The game is failing. Don't change it." <shrug>

[Triceron]

The person he quoted quite literally used those words...

And what content did they used to have for casual players that they don't have now? Is it the content or the reward structure?

Neither. Both.

Content was much more like what 9.2 has provided now. Multiple avenues of accomplishing the same goal, rather than shoehorning everything into Raids or gating all progress behind arbitrary infinite grinds for dozens of separate types of content.

Back then, Raids were not the be-all end-all for story in the game. Like, most of the story in the game was told through quests, and there were was enough quest content to last months of play, because the difficulty was a wide spread and it promoted exploration instead of giving everyone a compass and map that literally has everything checked off for you. Or how professions and crafting had become utterly pointless if you can just wait a few weeks and get carried through some M+10 runs instead.

From a personal standpoint, I think modern reward systems are a problem in general. I'll give the Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 examples of loot distribution.

In D2, a casual player has the same chances of getting something a hardcore player can get though, with enough luck; and even then some of the best items in the game are not uniques at all. It's all dependent on how you choose to build your character and what stats you prioritize over others. You can competently play the game wearing a mix of blues and yellows (Greens and Blues), and most of your player power comes from your class. Like, a Paladin can literally buy a magic scepter with +3 Class skills from a vendor and socket a junk shield with +all resistence gems and be pretty viable end game. All the upgrades you get after that just help you farm the same content faster, otherwise your 'progress' isn't really being limited by your gear.

Diablo 3 is like modern WoW. It literally spams you with uniques (Epics), and your goal is on getting the most optimal high-stat version of the same drops that everyone is getting. The progression content is literally designed around you completing a 'set bonus' or else your progress completely halts. In most modern design, it's quite pointless to aspire to treating Dungeons or Heroics as progression content, because they've been replaced by Mythic+ and Raids completely. Back in TBC, you could spend your entire 2 year run just doing Heroic dungeons, because they were significantly challenging and had worth to do throughout the expansion. And Heroics were fine because geared players could speed run it, while casual players treat it as a slower paced progression run. Today, that is replaced by Mythic+, and while it effectively does the same thing, Mythic+ is also not very casual because of its mechanics and timers doesn't offer much flexibility for casual play. It's all geared towards the hardcore style of speeding through it for the best rewards.

[ellieg]

Some people don't want to abandon the years of investment they have put into a game. That's fine. Who are you or anyone else to tell them they're wrong? The disconnect between the people who think the game should stay exactly as it is and the very same people who regularly comment about how the game is failing is pretty remarkable. This is a smallish community here at MMO-C. You don't need to look far to see that it's often the very same people. "The game is failing. Don't change it." <shrug>

But when the game has been the way it has for 5+ years, maybe its time to move on. I've been hearing wow is dying since 2004.

- - - Updated - - -

Neither. Both.

Content was much more like what 9.2 has provided now. Multiple avenues of accomplishing the same goal, rather than shoehorning everything into Raids or gating all progress behind arbitrary infinite grinds for dozens of separate types of content.

Back then, Raids were not the be-all end-all for story in the game. Like, most of the story in the game was told through quests, and there were was enough quest content to last months of play, because the difficulty was a wide spread and it promoted exploration instead of giving everyone a compass and map that literally has everything checked off for you. Or how professions and crafting had become utterly pointless if you can just wait a few weeks and get carried through some M+10 runs instead.

From a personal standpoint, I think modern reward systems are a problem in general. I'll give the Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 examples of loot distribution.

In D2, a casual player has the same chances of getting something a hardcore player can get though, with enough luck; and even then some of the best items in the game are not uniques at all. It's all dependent on how you choose to build your character and what stats you prioritize over others. You can competently play the game wearing a mix of blues and yellows (Greens and Blues), and most of your player power comes from your class. Like, a Paladin can literally buy a magic scepter with +3 Class skills from a vendor and socket a junk shield with +all resistence gems and be pretty viable end game. All the upgrades you get after that just help you farm the same content faster, otherwise your 'progress' isn't really being limited by your gear.

Diablo 3 is like modern WoW. It literally spams you with uniques (Epics), and your goal is on getting the most optimal high-stat version of the same drops that everyone is getting. The progression content is literally designed around you completing a 'set bonus' or else your progress completely halts. In most modern design, it's quite pointless to aspire to treating Dungeons or Heroics as progression content, because they've been replaced by Mythic+ and Raids completely. Back in TBC, you could spend your entire 2 year run just doing Heroic dungeons, because they were significantly challenging and had worth to do throughout the expansion. And Heroics were fine because geared players could speed run it, while casual players treat it as a slower paced progression run. Today, that is replaced by Mythic+, and while it effectively does the same thing, Mythic+ is also not very casual because of its mechanics and timers doesn't offer much flexibility for casual play. It's all geared towards the hardcore style of speeding through it for the best rewards.

Can you give any specific examples? Like what hard quests were you doing? And when? Like 10 years ago?

[Necromantic]

I've been hearing wow is dying since 2004.

Not taking sides but anybody who said WoW was dying back in 2004 (the year it was released in US), their comments would go through one ear and out the other. They'd have a whole whopping what? Four weeks to make that determination?

[Triceron]

Can you give any specific examples? Like what hard quests were you doing? And when? Like 10 years ago?

I'm not a casual player so no quest, to me, is hard. I just want to be clear that I personally didn't use the word 'hard' when describing quests.


I would say that there are definitely some challenging quests back then, like Mankrik's wife. It could be considered easy if you knew where to look. You literally just have to find the corpse and click it and go back to get your reward. The quest itself isn't hard. But it could be considered hard if you didn't know what you're looking for, and it could take you months to figure out where to look. The challenge is in your persistence in exploration, in your resourcefulness to look for clues or answers, and in your own luck. If you're lucky or particularly intuitive or have friends who know where to look, then it's an easy quest. If you don't, then it might be a hard quest. Overall, I call that challenging, because it's a quest that challenges the player to find their own solution. Today, a quest like that would be a marker on your minimap with arrows pointing you the way.

Otherwise, if you are asking what kind of hard content I was doing, the greatest solo achievement that comes to my mind that felt compellingly rewarding is probably getting the Sandstone Drake Archaeology/Alchemy mount, or the Blood Sail Admiral achievement and rewards. Again, I'm not a casual player, so the content I was doing back then isn't reflective of what other people were doing with their time and the content we had at the time. I am more of a power gamer/speed runner type of player, so I cheese my way through content as fast and efficiently as possible.

[Miffinat0r]

The point originally was that the people who worked on vanilla through LK had experienced backgrounds and/or came from good schools. This is not the case today. I'm honestly not interested in his or anyone else when their only defense is conjecture. Responses like that are dated and boring.

Ion is where the game started taking the biggest shit dive (I guarantee I'm not even in the minority who believe this).

But they have not hired talented people in a long time, all the good ones jumped ship. And you're right, the recent events probably repel good talent even further.

But this point is still largely not correct. The key leadership in WoW's dev team came from Kaplan who was not from top school to study gaming. He did go to an Ivy but for writing. He was picked up like Ion and Alex as a player who had some insights the dev team liked.

A lot of early Blizz I bet was like that too. A top RTS and ARPG designer making a MMO to take on EQ. We know that Blizz poached EQ devs, can't say where they came from, but I suspect they were designing MUDs or they were players in Meridian 59.

[Necromantic]

But this point is still largely not correct. The key leadership in WoW's dev team came from Kaplan who was not from top school to study gaming. He did go to an Ivy but for writing. He was picked up like Ion and Alex as a player who had some insights the dev team liked.

If you're looking at it from one of the 3 leads, that's not a proper perspective. One company I worked for, the head engineer came from Purdue. The underling engineers came from community colleges. That doesn't automatically make them as competent. Plus, you could see the results of their work spoke for themselves...

A lot of the talent behind the programming the original game had better credentials. When your investors end up causing you to cut corners and you hire budget employees, your product will show.

[Utrrabbit]

Whats even more fucking stupid is to accept artificial barriers set in a computer program because someone said "this is how things SHOULD be". So flying is ok because it fits your gameplay desires/needs but someone completing content solo because it fits their desires/needs is fucking stupid.

Who says what a game "should" be like? The devs? You? And how can we identify your actual reasons for saying so? And why should your opinion be more respected/accepted than any other?

So they put a tag "MMO" and people interprete it at will and say "oh this means I must play/cooperate with complete strangers focused on their own agenda, tolerate idiotic behaviors and mistakes, make virtual friends with people I would otherwise never give a fuck about etc".

1. Literally the devs/creators are the ones who tell you how/what are the rules of the game znd how to play. This has been the staple of gaming for over 50 years. To think otherwise is beyond moronic.

2. MMO aka Massive MULTIPLAYER Online Game. The entire game style and play style is in game genre. If you do not want to play with others, play another solo player game.

[NineSpine]

1. Literally the devs/creators are the ones who tell you how/what are the rules of the game znd how to play. This has been the staple of gaming for over 50 years. To think otherwise is beyond moronic.

2. MMO aka Massive MULTIPLAYER Online Game. The entire game style and play style is in game genre. If you do not want to play with others, play another solo player game.

How do you hear "massively multiplayer" and conclude that the be-all end-all is... instanced group content? That's not massively multiplayer.

[Echo of Soul]

But when the game has been the way it has for 5+ years, maybe its time to move on. I've been hearing wow is dying since 2004

Yeah but back then it wasn't true. The game started dying in cataclysm, that's when they started to lose subscribers and then it started to accelerate greatly when Ion's design philosophy started to show back in MOP and it's been dying at a steady pace since then.

[arkanon]

How do you hear "massively multiplayer" and conclude that the be-all end-all is... instanced group content? That's not massively multiplayer.

Where in the post you quoted did they mention instanced content?

[NineSpine]

Where in the post you quoted did they mention instanced content?

That's what the group content in question is.

[Miffinat0r]

Yeah but back then it wasn't true. The game started dying in cataclysm, that's when they started to lose subscribers and then it started to accelerate greatly when Ion's design philosophy started to show back in MOP and it's been dying at a steady pace since then.

Cata was the drop. Pandora's Box reviewed that. The design philosophy eroded the game. Now the reviewer said CSR and LFD accelerated this but really that's a norm of today's gaming world. Issue was and still is in my mind the fact that there's not this long grind to end game anymore instead it's a rush to endgame where the content is not casual friendly.

WoW literally lived long enough to see itself become the villain.

I said it once I'll say it again--WoW will be moved into the gamepass. They'll waive the sub for the gamepass. Then it'll be expansions and small content drops from there.

The purchase of Activision Blizzard was done with Krush and more mobile development.

[xuros]

What if i told you only 5% of the playerbase at most even have a clue who he is?

I'd ask you where you pulled that number from.

[arkanon]

That's what the group content in question is.

Where? I see a discussion about group vs solo, but nothing about instanced content vs solo?

- - - Updated - - -

I'd ask you where you pulled that number from.

Same place OP got their 5% number from. The point being made is that quite a few players and members of the community constantly make the same mistake - assuming the majority are as invested in the game as they are. Most people dont know what logs are, most dont use addons, most dont even know wtf mmo-c is, MAYBE wowhead if it popped up in conversation at some stage. Most wouldnt know what an Ion is, who ghostcrawler is/was, etc etc etc.

It can be REALLY hard for some to understand, but wow is a game, just a game, and the majority of players understand that and treat it as such - they dont carte about the politics, the devs, and drama, the latest sims or where their spec sits on the latest dps sims - they just log in and play.

Most games i play, i wouldnt be able to tell you the name of a single dev involved. I generally know the name of the company that made it, because its in your face when you load the game, but thats about it. I dont check guides, I dont read forums - I just play the game. This is the case for MOST wow players.