Putting the "Cult" back in WoW culture.

[Zodiark]

A game, movie, or show, really any IP needs to stay consistent with the theme that made it popular in the first place without letting other elements influence it changing the overall theme and feel of what made it popular to begin with. Otherwise it risks alienating it's audience.

The Twilight Zone is an example of how sometimes you have to just stay the course of your vision. In it's entire run that show only had ONE episode which was submitted by fans. The reason is because the shows creator Rod Serling recognized that while many fan ideas might be good, that by allowing too many outside voices to influence the show that the core theme and style might become muddled.

Perhaps this is true with WoW, have TOO many cooks spoiled the soup?

Is WoW loosing it's identity in favor of trying to appeal to TOO wide of an audience, thus shedding some of the "magic", that made it unique to begin with?

[Apatrida]

Well two things: I was there in 2004 and the appeal was that WOW wasn't as niche as EQ1 and EQ2 at that time but was accessible for non core gamer. Also: what part should that be? WOWs audience is fractured a lot these days: some guys only PvP, some only run M+ all day, Pet battlers, PvE casuals, Raiders etc. I don't think they will leave this path in the future or better can.

[Big Thanks]

Time passes

Things cease to be new and shiny and everything becomes dull and boring eventually

30 years of experience teached me that.
Everything comes and goes, specially in gaming

The only thing WoW can do is "innovate"....and guess what...that "innovation" they will come up with will also become old and boring eventually

such is life

[Relapses]

Too many cooks, eh? Reminds me of a certain Adult Swim short...

Anyway, my feelings on this mirror those expressed by GC in my favorite blog post of his to link on this forum:

When you see a lot of players leave over the course of say half a year, it usually spurs two diametrically opposed views on the development team. You will get one faction of “Players are getting bored - we must be bold and innovate!” You get another faction of “We are changing the game so much that we’re losing our soul! We need to get back to basics!”

Like with so many things, it’s rarely so cut and dried that you must pick one of those directions over the other. Often the answer ends up being that you need to innovate in one direction, while still making sure the game is easy to return to, and perhaps even getting back to something familiar or even nostalgic in yet other designs.

My perception has been that the players and developers in the “We’ve changed too much!” camp tend to be those who are less engaged with the game than they once were. Losing track of change usually happens to players who once played every day and are now playing once a week or once a month. They remember being super engaged with the game and knowing everything that was going on, and so the dissonance of that no longer being the case for them is really striking, perhaps even alienating. On the other hand, players who are still really engaged are the ones most likely to need something fresh and new so that they don’t run out of stuff to do.

So, no, the game really wouldn't benefit from further constraining its audience. It's already constrained enough as it is. The developers should focus on making a game that is fun to play above all else.

[Myradin]

Classic had poop quests, and even the much renowned gates of AQ chain involved a bunch of silly gnomes doing silly stuff and a meme owl. Many of it was just older memes and in-jokes that its audience didn't notice due to the internet not spreading memes globally yet. Meanwhile yes there was grim dark stuff like helping a town of ghosts deal with the memory of their death.

WoW has never had a consistent tone. Its probably just more clear now because there's more voice acting.

[cozzri]

I was thinking "more Twilight's Hammer and Cult of the Damned content"

Cult of the Sparkle Dragons really isn't doing it for me.

[Kralljin]

and a meme owl.

I'm not sure if people are just upset about a random NPC name.

Because this is what you're referring to, just an NPC that's not even remotely relevant to any quest, story or even being addressed by any other NPC.

[Le Conceptuel]

Is WoW loosing it's identity in favor of trying to appeal to TOO wide of an audience, thus shedding some of the "magic", that made it unique to begin with?

I would say I agree, at least somewhat. I think WoW would actually see more success if it made more of an effort to appeal to a particular audience. I think that the old aesthetic WoW had would actually have more luck than the one we have now because it has a more defined market segment to pursue.

[Bwgmon]

I'm not sure if people are just upset about a random NPC name.

Because this is what you're referring to, just an NPC that's not even remotely relevant to any quest, story or even being addressed by any other NPC.

Maybe a more noteworthy example would people fondly remembering going to Un'goro and helping legally-distinct Link on his quest to recover a non-copyright infringing magic triangle.

[Kralljin]

Maybe a more noteworthy example would people fondly remembering going to Un'goro and helping legally-distinct Link on his quest to recover a non-copyright infringing magic triangle.

The entire questchain still doesn't shove Zelda references in your face to the point where you don't get it without having played any Zelda game.

At face value, it's about a Gnome Warrior who lost his memory and came to Un'goro to defeat an Evil Elemental.
The Triangle you're referring isn't even called that in the game, it's called the Golden Flame, the icon itself just shows a triangular object.

There's a big difference between a reference that still works for people who are not familiar with the subject and a reference that makes no sense to any person that do not know what is being referenced.

[Myradin]

I'm not sure if people are just upset about a random NPC name.

Because this is what you're referring to, just an NPC that's not even remotely relevant to any quest, story or even being addressed by any other NPC.

No, he's part of a full ensemble. He belongs to a gnome who makes references to Tonight Show routines, references multiple 'for dummies' books, gives a quest that does the stupid random caps speech, uses modern terms such as BFF, and I can go on.

[Nerdslime]

So, no, the game really wouldn't benefit from further constraining its audience. It's already constrained enough as it is. The developers should focus on making a game that is fun to play above all else.

For my $0.02, I agree with the above. I have been playing since 2005, sometimes as a casual, sometimes as a no-life poopsocker, and I've come back after absences with that sense of "What the hell is all this?" a few times now. I've also rabidly consumed every theory, every datamined detail, and played most aspects of the game ravenously at various times. Point is, I've experienced both alienation from change and deeply engrossed player and I would say that at the end of the day, WoW's lifeblood is a passionate and large player base. There are many ways to achieve that.

Certainly Blizzard has made missteps that have repelled some fans. Certainly some are pretty univeraally-decried and therefore probably constitute a genuine mistake full-stop, like Shadowlands.

But, if anything, I would say Blizzard isn't changing too much or too little in-game, just that at times their passions for the game or perhaps their ability to manage their passions fruitfully have struggled. It's easy and perhaps fair to say Activision played a part in that, changing expectations of scheduling and metrics, but really it's such a complicated thing to try to maintain decades of creativity and sparks of genius in a Ship of Theseus that I think Activision winds up being unfairly blamed for things that are simply outside of their control.

If Blizzard wants to reinvigorate the community and re-establish primacy in "cult" status again, they need to do a lot of things. They need to take hard looks at who helms things; seek out and headhunt genuinely exceptional talents and that means paying rates above their competitors; commit to making the game's stories, systems, and experiences coherent and accessible to NEW players; iterate on design in an agile and timely fashion to address pain points and capitalize on successes; advertise aggressively based on these things.

Should they do things to ensure returning players do in fact return? Undoubtedly. This is not exclusive to doing the above and indeed would equally benefit from the above!

But the last thing they need to do is arbitrarily ignore the passions of fans, stagnate intentionally, retread every single thing we find cozy and nostalgic, and close off avenues of innovation.

[Kralljin]

No, he's part of a full ensemble. He belongs to a gnome who makes references to Tonight Show routines, references multiple 'for dummies' books, gives a quest that does the stupid random caps speech, uses modern terms such as BFF, and I can go on.

Doesn't change the fact that this owl isn't involved in the questchain at all.

[Myradin]

Doesn't change the fact that this owl isn't involved in the questchain at all.

You're forced to see it every time you come to see the gnome and all his meme quests. It stuck with me the most because of it.

Its an odd thing to split hairs over. My point still stands. Classic wow has tons of pop culture references. People are just more sensative now cause they're more modern memes.

[Aleksej89]

This is very much against HR/PR who always want to force the events of real life into every product.
From shampoos to games everything has to contain a (very shallow and fake) "representation" of everyone & everything.

Its this "checklist" tokenism approach of appealing to whatever is the most popular this month that ruined many franchises.
Blizzard products always had some funny references but their modern products mostly feel forced and fake.

[Kralljin]

You're forced to see it every time you come to see the gnome and all his meme quests. It stuck with me the most because of it.

Oh no, the few hundred of people that did the AQ40 questchain walked by an Owl named O'reily, which also happens to a common irish surname.

Classic wow has tons of pop culture references. People are just more sensative now cause they're more modern memes.

I didn't say Classic WoW didn't have any pop culture references.

I am however saying that there's a difference how most pop culture references were handled in Classic than in future Expansions.
Personally, i think Cata remains the worst offender, but that's just me.

[MoanaLisa]

WoW was unique to begin with because it was accessible to all when measured against its competition. Appealing to a wide audience has been the goal from the start. If anything the repeated attempts to ramp up difficulty in end game (starting with Cataclysm and swerving back and forth since) have served to limit the appeal of the game. High-end raiding and M+ are not accessible to the masses. Some prefer it that way and that's fine. That's a design choice.

Ion usually mentions "bragging rights" a few times a year but tell me: Do you enjoy listening to others exercising their bragging rights and expounding at length on their personal greatness? I don't.

Do you think it's the right idea to introduce a lot of competitive elements to PVE which nominally is supposed to be co-operative in nature?

Clearly, the more developers design competitive elements into a co-operative piece of the game, the more people of less skill (i.e. most players) will opt out of that game and likely the game entirely.

[Zodiark]

I would say I agree, at least somewhat. I think WoW would actually see more success if it made more of an effort to appeal to a particular audience. I think that the old aesthetic WoW had would actually have more luck than the one we have now because it has a more defined market segment to pursue.

Yeah I'm thinking more along those lines myself which is why I posed the question in the first place. Basically is WoW alienating it's original audience in favor of wider market appeal? I mean look at the front page of MMO campion today where that guy who worked at blizzard is re-releasing a book about the inner working of Blizzard and how he mentioned that because fantasy outsold sci-fi that they made a fantasy game.

I am and always will be of the mindset that games are for enjoyment and MMoRPG's are sort of like artwork in the sense that they have to come naturally and organically and be fun. Not just what is popular or more financially profitable.

- - - Updated - - -

Too many cooks, eh? Reminds me of a certain Adult Swim short...

Anyway, my feelings on this mirror those expressed by GC in my favorite blog post of his to link on this forum:

When you see a lot of players leave over the course of say half a year, it usually spurs two diametrically opposed views on the development team. You will get one faction of “Players are getting bored - we must be bold and innovate!” You get another faction of “We are changing the game so much that we’re losing our soul! We need to get back to basics!”

Like with so many things, it’s rarely so cut and dried that you must pick one of those directions over the other. Often the answer ends up being that you need to innovate in one direction, while still making sure the game is easy to return to, and perhaps even getting back to something familiar or even nostalgic in yet other designs.

My perception has been that the players and developers in the “We’ve changed too much!” camp tend to be those who are less engaged with the game than they once were. Losing track of change usually happens to players who once played every day and are now playing once a week or once a month. They remember being super engaged with the game and knowing everything that was going on, and so the dissonance of that no longer being the case for them is really striking, perhaps even alienating. On the other hand, players who are still really engaged are the ones most likely to need something fresh and new so that they don’t run out of stuff to do.

So, no, the game really wouldn't benefit from further constraining its audience. It's already constrained enough as it is. The developers should focus on making a game that is fun to play above all else.

This is one of the Times Relapses that I wholeheartedly am in agreement with you. As I mentioned something along those lines with my above comment. Fun games and content that come organically > every anything else.

[nvaelz]

A game, movie, or show, really any IP needs to stay consistent with the theme that made it popular in the first place without letting other elements influence it changing the overall theme and feel of what made it popular to begin with. Otherwise it risks alienating it's audience.

The Twilight Zone is an example of how sometimes you have to just stay the course of your vision. In it's entire run that show only had ONE episode which was submitted by fans. The reason is because the shows creator Rod Serling recognized that while many fan ideas might be good, that by allowing too many outside voices to influence the show that the core theme and style might become muddled.

Perhaps this is true with WoW, have TOO many cooks spoiled the soup?

Is WoW loosing it's identity in favor of trying to appeal to TOO wide of an audience, thus shedding some of the "magic", that made it unique to begin with?

Yeah if you compare the combat mechanics to Vanilla, it's exactly like Diablo 3, you press your ability and it procs buff that activates another ability etc, and it's all the same every class is the same, all procs all big cds.

Vanilla had identity, was visceral and not easy, sometimes there was no hope, but alot of the time there was.

NOW there is never any hope at all, it's designed out of existence, what we're left with is a skillless game navigated by addons/reprogramming nodes.
Your agility/awareness - skill to clap or become popular in PVE is diminished into nothing but a bland class lineup, OVERLY BALANCED for the horrible reason that every casual should feel powerful when they enter the game.

And you might think, but this is great! I hate being farmed by some autistic nerd etc, and I understand completely, but did you ever consider how making the game about 1 button presses that force another player to press their 1 button every time isn't good for your experience?

So my idea of WoW is way more cutting edge, you have your Cleave and it Cleaves like in Vanilla it hits hard and you really feel that Cleave hit hard.
And then you have your retail cleave it does tiny popcorn dmg and you spam it like your fingers life depended on it and it's not gated by resource costs, it's just another proc ability in your proc arsenal, so you spam your procs like you're playing Street Fighter shooting magical bananas out of your weapon.

Honestly, sometimes I think Blizzard is some evil evil corporation that wants to ruin its playerbase spirit for some evil goals that I don't even want to know about, that's how it feels when they ruin this game infront of my eyes, I don't play it much at all some days I get so excited to play it but when I actually play it I'm reminded about all the concious changes they've made to ruin the game I love, it's so much now and so yeah I have kinda quit, and I don't want to quit, I love this game, but Blizzard has lost their way, I don't know what zoomer crowd they're sacrificing our love for but it's not for me(OLD).

Let's talk about PVP balance.

What made Vanilla really bad was PVP balance, but the solution was never to FLIP IT ALL UPSIDE DOWN INTO THE JAR OF NOTES TO RECREATE IT ALL 9 TIMES, like every expansion is some sacrificial ritual where they rip apart the game and remake it? XD

Let's look at the disparity between priest and rogue in Vanilla, was the solution this long long long line of overhauls that we've seen to somehow make rogues not 1shot priests from stealth?

My idea for how it could have been solved is with miniscule changes to somehow bring things in line, not uprooting and destroying a beautiful painting(Vanilla).

Now the game is so "modernized" it's no difference from any other Blizzard franchise, we might aswell be playing Overwatch.
All about zoomer leagues and who cares about MDI? I don't, I don't care about AWC either. Why care about the new things, yeah it's dragons being overpowered, sorry spoilers.

What really makes me frustrated since I probably never really say is that I had a dream, much like how I was dreaming when climbing mountains in vanilla(nerfed away) I was dreaming of conquest and of being amazing, and so my journey has continued, I really found fun in being good at games and sadly my brain is too smart so I've noticed the things they wish to hide, how the new combat mechanics are actual nerfs to player power and how it's all in line with bringing in casual cash, so you casuals can feel good about yourselves at my expense, but that's fine I'll play chess and poker, can't get more pure than that anyway.

Cya.... XD...

[Mojo03]

A game, movie, or show, really any IP needs to stay consistent with the theme that made it popular in the first place without letting other elements influence it changing the overall theme and feel of what made it popular to begin with. Otherwise it risks alienating it's audience.

The Twilight Zone is an example of how sometimes you have to just stay the course of your vision. In it's entire run that show only had ONE episode which was submitted by fans. The reason is because the shows creator Rod Serling recognized that while many fan ideas might be good, that by allowing too many outside voices to influence the show that the core theme and style might become muddled.

Perhaps this is true with WoW, have TOO many cooks spoiled the soup?

Is WoW loosing it's identity in favor of trying to appeal to TOO wide of an audience, thus shedding some of the "magic", that made it unique to begin with?

Its primary "magic" was that it was the first MMO with real mainstream appeal. And like Diablo and Warcraft 2 before it (2 of the first games you could play online), Blizzard was quick to be one the first to put out a fairly polished game with a concept that had a lot of potential, that prior was very niche and had a lot of rigid restrictions. They loosened up the restrictions, used a more popular theme, and smoothened out the edges.

They've been trying to widen the net since Wrath, which is when Activision took over. So I have no idea why you think this is something new. If anything it seems like they've finally kind of accepted who their audience is and stopped trying to appeal to Gen Z.

Warcraft is basically a ripoff of Warhammer with other popular fantasy ripped off and weaved in (Arthurian lore, Lovecraft, etc) and WoWs foundation is a ripoff of Everquest, which the devs still seem hellbent on not moving on or really innovating on even after 18 years.

It's basically fan fiction at this point, so of course it's not going to have the same identity.