Influencers got their will, Bliz listened to their feedback, yet noone plays game

[Lucetia]

I personally have been keeping up with all the WoW stuff but I haven't played since shadowlands, and I can't justify paying $42 a month plus expansions to play a single game when something like gamepass gives me hundreds of games for a fraction of the price, it just doesn't make sense from a value standpoint.

Where are you getting $42 a month?
Also, you don't buy any expansion except the current one.

[klaps_05]

I always find comments like this kinda funny. Like do you actually think these content creators prefer a game that’s bleeding subs and will eventually not even have enough fans to make their job sustainable? They want that more than a hugely popular game to stream and make content with? Because let me tell you, if you go back to the days of 2008 or so you’d see the there was A LOT more money to be made off making Wow content than there is now simply because the game had 10 million subs. Popular and beloved games earn more. -snip-.

You are mixing up content creators - the one mentioned here primarily arent the 700 viewer one-game streamers who pray their game doesnt die and with it, their income. Thats why content creators have moved on from being one-trick ponies. Most if not all dont have a main game anymore, so a game bleeding subs is irrelevant. Whats relevant for them and making money, is a game being a controversial topic, because those takes is what makes the big videos. If a game is bleeding subs, you can make endless videos bashing mis-management or just how bad the game is, people guzzle over this type of videos. Basic principle of news - good news dont sell, bad news sell out.

You said it yourself - back in 2008 there was a lot of money cause there was many subs and the game was popular. In Shadowlands, game was bone-dry and design was atrocious, so the main way to make money off WoW topics wasnt streaming high keys or RWF, it was bashing the game to oblivion (justified) to farm interactions and metrics.

[Soimu]

For years influencers have complained about all the "main stream" issues about the game. Like "REMOVE BORROWED POWERS" and "REMOVE MANDATORY CONTENT".

Just to be specific, I am talking about people in this sphere:
- Asmongold
- Preachgaming
- Belluar
- T&E

Just to be clear, those influencers are just echoing how they see their communities talk, so it's more of a community thing. I am not trying to hate on the influencers.

Influencers have made video after video complaining about the same things and tunnelvisioned on certain things like

- no more borrowed power
- no more required content that force you to log in every day
- no more infinite AP grinds
- no more Sylvanas
- more focus on permanent systems like
* talent system
* battlepass system
* crafting system
* flying system
- more communication about the future patches and plans

We all know the list they dreamed of is kinda accomplished in Dragonflight.

Influencers no longer have anything specific to complain about. Great, I guess the game is so fun now?

Because to me it seems they all have never played the game as little as they do in this expansion.

And the influencers have just conveniently moved on to other games, while simutatiously have nothing to complain about. "I'm just not that into the game right now".

I seriously worry that Blizzard took the influencers feedback way too seriously to heart, but the reality is that following them does not make a game that people want to play.

What do you think?

Are you serious? You really think influencers believe and care what they preach in their videos? All they care is money and viewership.
All they do is milk and promote each other for viewership in their videos. That's why a lot of them mention asmongold in theirs and he reacts to them in his.

[jeezusisacasual]

Where are you getting $42 a month?
Also, you don't buy any expansion except the current one.

For us in the UK its 13 per month so what is that in Canadian money 25$? But the point still sounds it is in the same field as gamepass without the same amount of content.

[FAILoZOFF]

We all know the list they dreamed of is kinda accomplished in Dragonflight.

Influencers no longer have anything specific to complain about. Great, I guess the game is so fun now?

Because to me it seems they all have never played the game as little as they do in this expansion.


What do you think?

For people that do play it is fun I guess, for others that does not, its not.
Problems with WoW weren't all just related to ShadowLands. Game is just too f old, too bloated, too "all over the place" and incoherent. Oh and the interface is terrible and... "annoying".
Its bloody hard to pick for new people or does not even attract new people as well as alienates old ones.
I had way less (or little to none) issues picking it up back in 06, than I had with SL/DF (i left with release of BfA, but kept an eye from time to time).
Blizz will just pump this baloon untill it breaks but many peopple are starting to see it really needs a "cut off" and fresh start. Even Asmon admited that despite being a collector, he just doesn't give a f about all the mounts, tmogs and stuff like that. Theres too much of everything.

[Mafic]

This "casual" hard disagrees. As a solo player, levelling up took forever after reaching a certain point. I could play the entire day and only hope for half a blue bubble. And gods' forbid I die at any point because I'd lose all that time and effort. And if I had just leveled, it was likely I'd de-level...and of course the joys of "corpse runs" because all your stuff is on your corpse, and you butt-ass naked, have to spend hours locating where you died, plotting a long circuitous route to avoid the rather large aggro range of critters that will kill you again and again...losing more exp...if given the opportunity. It gets even more time consuming if you forget to set your bind-point in a good spot.

No.
There was little to enjoy from my perspective. You camped a safe spot where you can safely kill a "blue" target, wait the 6mins for it to respawn, rinse and repeat.

Vanilla wasn't a casual paradise but it sure was better than the alternatives out there at the time (Lineage 2, EQ) Only City of Heroes was the most accessible to casuals at the time of WoW launch.

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What value exactly? After we moved into Legion, there were several nerfs to what you could do with WoD Garrisons. Gold missions gone, can't use trading post to net gain garrison resources (which lead to net gain of WoD mats).

I guess if you need access to an AH (assuming you built one in your garrison) or bank + void storage access?

Garrisons had good value in Legion, and BFA. Only the last expansion it was nerfed enough to deplete most of its value but it still has redeeming qualities compared to say Azerite armor. That to me is a win for players even though BlizZard wanted garrisons to remain a gimmick collecting dust with WoD.

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I mean the success mainly came by being so accessable that a boatload of non-mmo players tried it. For them it was just like a CRPG but online, that was new and cool. I'd say the vast majority of those players didn't even know what raiding was supposed to be. Hell, even for me, coming from DaoC back then the concept of raiding was strange.
The problem with WoW was always that it couldn't keep its players. For the endgame they fell back to EQ tropes and most people quit then or even earlier. Blizz always complained that WoW had a very low player retention rate.

Mike Morhaime explained several times that the retention rate being low was due to players not leveling to cap and participating in endgame. That is what led to the Cata revamp. But the Cata revamp turned off a lot of the core players that participated at endgame because their side play was to level alts in the old vanilla world.

Also BFA was another attempt of this along with SLs but it is not working. It is not working to retain players because the game does a poor job of teaching players how to use talents, and abilities. Also, the lack of a coherent endgame gearing structure doesn't help. And the rental systems and how dynamic they were from patch to patch not just between expansion added to the confusion of new and returning players.

BlizZard's best success was a simple dungeon, raid gearing system augmented by the badge system and the PVP system with gear vendors. No extra temporary systems that needed to be learned, deciphered, studied, mastered, etc.

[Unholyground]

Where are you getting $42 a month?
Also, you don't buy any expansion except the current one.

$42 a month Canadian for two people to play Within the household plus the expansion cost * 2 every time a new expansion comes out. It's just way too much money.

[Lucetia]

$42 a month Canadian for two people to play Within the household plus the expansion cost * 2 every time a new expansion comes out. It's just way too much money.

I mean the subscription is just like buying a new game. That's up to you though if it's worth it or not but you are comparing apples to oranges here. Saying WoW monthly sub isn't worth it compared to game pass. It's not that easy to quantify both.

You can also always buy the expansion when it's on sale so it's not like you need to pay full price.

[Unholyground]

I mean the subscription is just like buying a new game. That's up to you though if it's worth it or not but you are comparing apples to oranges here. Saying WoW monthly sub isn't worth it compared to game pass. It's not that easy to quantify both.

You can also always buy the expansion when it's on sale so it's not like you need to pay full price.

This is true and if it does go on sale cheap enough I may consider getting it and playing for like a month or two but as it sits right now when I decide to play well that's a two-person decision with me and my wife and that instantly doubles the cost of anything. Unlike a World of Warcraft subscription I can share game pass with my wife so it's really kind of stupid in a way not even sure why they don't have family subscriptions that are a better price point.

[MiiiMiii]

sorry if I was unclear but when I say "noone plays the game" I am talking about the influencers that preached all the changes we got in DF. Ok so u got all ur changes, now u don't play the game?

[Lucetia]

This is true and if it does go on sale cheap enough I may consider getting it and playing for like a month or two but as it sits right now when I decide to play well that's a two-person decision with me and my wife and that instantly doubles the cost of anything. Unlike a World of Warcraft subscription I can share game pass with my wife so it's really kind of stupid in a way not even sure why they don't have family subscriptions that are a better price point.

Looks like today's your lucky day as the expansion is 40% off.

Game pass for some might be worth it, which is fine. For me I don't find it worth it that much as there aren't really any games on it that interest me and the ones that do I already bought on Steam. I do have it though for the 3 year subscription so my niece could access XBox Live and have some other games to play.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

Looks like today's your lucky day as the expansion is 40% off.

Game pass for some might be worth it, which is fine. For me I don't find it worth it that much as there aren't really any games on it that interest me and the ones that do I already bought on Steam. I do have it though for the 3 year subscription so my niece could access XBox Live and have some other games to play.

Yeah it's amazing if you are a hobby gamer, but if you only tend to play a handful a year (especially in niche genres like strategy etc) it's not really anything special

[Yriel]

BlizZard's best success was a simple dungeon, raid gearing system augmented by the badge system and the PVP system with gear vendors. No extra temporary systems that needed to be learned, deciphered, studied, mastered, etc.

I'm with you with dungeons but not raids. You can play a dungeon anytime you want. It doesn't take much time and can be arranged on the fly.
But raiding, you have to commit to a raidgroup, have to join a guild that is capable to do the raids and schedule 2-3 nights of your week to raiding. And i don't think many people are willing to do that.

[crusadernero]

As if raiding was the only PVE. Have you forgoten world content exists?

Bar from the questing while leveling up, world conten has never been wows strength or focus at endgame. Could say it has worked over the decades.

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I'm with you with dungeons but not raids. You can play a dungeon anytime you want. It doesn't take much time and can be arranged on the fly.
But raiding, you have to commit to a raidgroup, have to join a guild that is capable to do the raids and schedule 2-3 nights of your week to raiding. And i don't think many people are willing to do that.

I think more people would raid in retail if there was less tier of difficulties(lfr, normal, hc, mythic), and that the raids in general were easier. Could argue and say "just stick to normal", but I dont think that really works for players. Probably cause they know theres always HC difficulty after that.. In a way, progression never really ends. You never really manage to kill the end boss, you only killed him on a easier difficulty.

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sorry if I was unclear but when I say "noone plays the game" I am talking about the influencers that preached all the changes we got in DF. Ok so u got all ur changes, now u don't play the game?

Hah thats actually somewhat true when I think about it.

[Unholyground]

Looks like today's your lucky day as the expansion is 40% off.

Game pass for some might be worth it, which is fine. For me I don't find it worth it that much as there aren't really any games on it that interest me and the ones that do I already bought on Steam. I do have it though for the 3 year subscription so my niece could access XBox Live and have some other games to play.

Gamepass has already saved my like 1000 bucks since the beginning of covid, also every 1.5-2 months I get a month free because I use the rewards system. So for me personally it is well worth it.

If Dragonflight gets a 50% - 60% reduction I would consider it.

[Nalam the Venom]

I think the issue is not that people don't feel "forced to play" it's more that they DONT "feel like playing and having fun in" the game.

Having fun + WoW does not really go hand in hand, It is fun currently because i have high gear, But that all changes soon

For example, With new content dropping on 10.1 i am just not going to play WoW for a long while, I would take around a 6 week break to wait out the catalyst, But Diablo 4 in start of june, so will probably not be playing Dragonflight for a long while.


WoW content or progression to the gear is not really fun.

But having the gear is.

[Yriel]

I think more people would raid in retail if there was less tier of difficulties(lfr, normal, hc, mythic), and that the raids in general were easier. Could argue and say "just stick to normal", but I dont think that really works for players. Probably cause they know theres always HC difficulty after that.. In a way, progression never really ends. You never really manage to kill the end boss, you only killed him on a easier difficulty.

I don't think it's the difficulty, i think it's the commitment. People want to jump in and out on games, play if they want and not play if they have no desire to. If something new comes out or you have real live priorities or just have no motivation to play WoW you can't just not show up for a few weeks if you raid.

[Yakut]

I don't think it's the difficulty, i think it's the commitment. People want to jump in and out on games, play if they want and not play if they have no desire to. If something new comes out or you have real live priorities or just have no motivation to play WoW you can't just not show up for a few weeks if you raid.

Interesting, but isn't the point of an MMO to commit to playing with other players? It sounds to me like the issue is partially, as you say, commitment and probably accountability. Can't exactly pop out to join another game when you've got accountability and responsibility to uphold commitments.

[Mad_Murdock]

Interesting, but isn't the point of an MMO to commit to playing with other players? It sounds to me like the issue is partially, as you say, commitment and probably accountability. Can't exactly pop out to join another game when you've got accountability and responsibility to uphold commitments.

I'm curious can you show me exactly where that is written down at? I keep hearing folks tell me what playing a MMO means, but I can't see to find the exact definition anywhere. What I think you mean is joining a raid team and wanting to raid and not just a MMO in general, though maybe you consider playing a MMO to mean you must join a raid guild and raid. Again, like to see the cited definition of what playing a MMO means

[bloodykiller86]

idk where this guy thinks no one is playing this game lol no news is usually a good sign that people are mostly content, to much bad news is huge issues in the game. to much good news seems like pandering lol