I propose this: Give the raids back to the raiders

[Deleted]

Which is yet more Blizzard PR bullshit. The revamp was done before Cata launch and didn't stop them from also putting out a full first raid tier in Cata (although admitted not a particularly good one). Rest of the raid content was developed after Cata shipped while no resources were being used on the world revamp, meaning that they simply did not put enough talent working on the raid content for whatever reason.

I don't think you understand how games are made...
In what time do you think they worked on MoP? as soon as an expansion ships they start making content for the new one.

[vesseblah]

This is the typical Blizzard PR bullshit. Cataclysm had half the number of raid encounters of WotLK. First cutting their content production in half, and then redoubling it and claiming "look at us, we're so cool for putting in more stuff into the game!" should not impress you.

It's Blizzard learning from their mistakes. Which is something you are clearly incapable of doing.

Let's not result in name calling please. -Azshira

[Deleted]

In what time do you think they worked on MoP? as soon as an expansion ships they start making content for the new one.

Exactly, which is not a problem, unless they fail to deliver half the content they explicitly advertised the current product to contain.

[Deleted]

Exactly, which is not a problem, unless they fail to deliver half the content they explicitly advertised the current product to contain.

Hey, Z.

In the light of the lead developer recent statements which basically add up to saying you are completely wrong about this topic - hows about you acknowledge that error?

in fact it would be nice for hardcore raiders in general acknowledging that LFR etc are all there to subsidise their hobby......

[Deleted]

I like the idea. Raiders since now will have raids for them, they will be hard so casuals can't do the content, it's restricted to real players. There will be no heroic mode raids, just normal raids will be very very hard, only playable for special snowflakes. Of course LFR will be deleted. I'm wishing to have a content seen only by a 5% of the players.

To be logical then I propose this: Give casual things back to casuals.

When a player accesses a raid, during all the week for his entire account the next features will be disabled to him:
- Daily Quests
- Normal Quests
- Reputations
- Currencies
- Pet Battles
- All LF tools
- Entering Dungeons
- Entering Scenarios
- Out of Raid Achievements
- Crafting
- Gathering World Materials
- Public channels
- Auction House
- Vanity Items
- Festive events

So now, casuals we don't have to feel overwhelmed by the presence of semi gods who are the only ones meant to raid.

Have a nice time raiding special snowflakes!

[Deleted]

In the light of the lead developer recent statements which basically add up to saying you are completely wrong about this topic - hows about you acknowledge that error?

I'm not wrong. Go count the number of different encounters in WotLK and in Cata.

[sulfuric]

They didn't change 80% of their menu. Raiding is like 15-20% of their menu.

Would you chance 1 customer to potentially not lose 3? Blizzard did.





Wow went more hardcore. Lost more subs than being accessible.

Every wow killer that is more hardcore dies on it's arse.

Ther trend is pretty clear on this.

this is misleading nonsense. Blizzard didn't "chance' any customers because back then they simply had a playerbase, not a divided playerbase but people playing the game they created (only nowadays you have people who say "make the game easier and more accessible or I quit, and all my friends too'). What they ACTUALLY did was assume their playerbase was a constant, and built the game to lure in a NEW playerbase. So this idea of "well blizzard catered to the casuals to make more money duh" is nonsense. Blizzard marketed to, went after, and CREATED the casuals

[Deleted]

this is misleading nonsense. Blizzard didn't "chance' any customers because back then they simply had a playerbase, not a divided playerbase but people playing the game they created (only nowadays you have people who say "make the game easier and more accessible or I quit, and all my friends too'). What they ACTUALLY did was assume their playerbase was a constant, and built the game to lure in a NEW playerbase. So this idea of "well blizzard catered to the casuals to make more money duh" is nonsense. Blizzard marketed to, went after, and CREATED the casuals

So the 50% + of players who never reached max level weren't casual?

---------- Post added 2012-09-21 at 11:48 AM ----------

I'm not wrong. Go count the number of different encounters in WotLK and in Cata.

Ill take that as a "no, I am not adult enough to accept direct evidence from blizzard and prefer to answer a question that was never asked."

Have you ever thought about becoming a politician?

[Deleted]

I'm not wrong. Go count the number of different encounters in WotLK and in Cata.

You are not wrong... allrighty then...

So, let's see how MoP turns out and discover that... right now there's not much else to say on this topic, Blizz pretty much confirmed that the direction the game is taking is not the one you want, so you'll have to wait and see.

[Deleted]

So, the lead content designer has stated this in an interview:



So... there you go!

If it was a problem that only 5% of the playerbased did raid why didn't they just scrap raiding altogether with tbc or wrath. Strangely enough they continued making raids though...
But well maybe activision told blizz to invest in other things than raids because activision knows best and so on and so forth... And activion says to few raid bad investment without thinking about what other things wow has got from raids like new mechanics for dungeon encounters etc etc.

Saying we are shipping mists with 18 bosses because of lfr is just some kind of silly defence of lfr, because the tool has been critized by certain parts of the playerbase, like people being annoyed about having to go through the same content twice a week in order to maximice their possibility to get gear upgrades. Or people just annoyed about the ninjaing, the bad behaviour and the abysmal play of people in lfr.

[Gilian]

I didn't claim they had perfect foresight, only that there must have been something in BC that they didn't like (and I made a guess at what it was).

It's not obvious that the performance of Wrath and Cataclysm means they think BC was better, for reasons we've gone over many times (for example, market saturation/exhaustion of the potential player pool), and because they have not moved back to a BC model.



This is true only if all else is the same. Ceteris paribus. But all else was NOT the same, so one cannot make this inference. And, clearly, Blizzard isn't making this inference, since they are not moving back to the BC model.

Well, I am using logic and facts. You are just guessing and think whatever Blizzard does it the right thing. Which is kinda hilarious when you look at how many subscribers they are losing.

Ofcourse there was something that made them change the game. That's not what this is about at all. Once they started to reset gear every tier, make multiple difficulties and all the other stuff, to satisfy themselves because they had some sort of plan, they only lost subscribers. Yet people are here defending it. What is that for logic? Then people say, "well Blizzard said so". Blizzard is not in the business to give you accurate information, their only goal is to make profit.

If I was a student in economics I could probably give you ten other reasons (guesses) why you could be wrong. There can be many reasons to not go back to TBC design and not because it was a bad design. There, now I turned your logic around. :S

[Vaalyn]

"Casuals" just pay for "server access"? Pretty sure they pay $15 a month just like everyone else.
Since when did a "raider's" $15 go towards more gameplay and content than a "casual's" $15 a month?

EDIT: Your comment is based on the assumption that a "casual" player is bad and can't learn his class or raid mechanics. That's just a false premise...casual players are those that don't have the time to commit (i.e. jobs, families, spouses, kids, RL hobbies)

Bads are Bads, Not all Casuals are Bads....don't confuse the 2 please.

Not to confuse Casuals with Bads (and there are a lot of bads)
We all pay the same amount for game/server access. What we do with it is up to us.
If people want to raid, they should invest the time to make it a worthwhile event, not just show up as an entitlement and look for their welfare epics.
All the content Blizzard puts out there is available to every player in the game if they are willing to invest the time and effort to experience it.

[Prag]

Hey, great business strategy. Rewind the clock to a time where the vast majority of your development time went unseen by the majority of the player base, just so those few players can call themselves by a title that means absolutely nothing once they're logged off.

I don't pity hardcore raiders at all. They spend 40+ hours a week working to get a raid on farm just to turn around and sell full heroic runs to casuals. Then I see the same people making arrogant posts about how they're real raiders and casuals should just go die in a corner... Wait, what?

This idea would just make even more "raiders" go into selling/boosting runs once things are on farm, and then it turns into a game where casuals just farm gold to buy their way into raids and all the development time and story for that raid is lost entirely.

Terrible idea, OP. Stop looking down on casuals. If hardcore raiders put as much time/effort into a sustainable future as they do into raiding, they wouldn't need their status in an RPG to look down on others and this is why many "casuals" are casual. If you think I wouldn't prefer to play a video game 40 hours a week than deal with the stress at my office, you're crazy!

Edit: I'm not making the asinine assumption that every hardcore raider has no life, but math is math. 40 hours a week invested in a game is 40 hours a week not invested elsewhere.

[Gilian]

We don't have the information Blizzard has so we can keep guessing all day long. It might be that during Vanilla and TBC the influx of players was so large it covered the loss of players and when WotLK hit Wow wasn't flavor of the month any more so the recruitment of new players stagnated but the loss continued. That is my personal theory at least based on the small sample of players I know. The casual players I know irl played until TBC lvl 70 when they had nothing more to do and they quit. Then they came back for WotLK and played through the end as they had plenty to do with pugs and ez heroics and then quit again early cata. It is just a theory but I think I've seen Blizzard saying that lot more quit the game than those that are actually playing the game.

WoW wasn't flavor of the month anymore? They have been the most popular MMO for years now. Nice theory.

If you want a theory use some logic and not some made up story to defend something that you like.

[Osmeric]

Well, I am using logic and facts.

You are using illogic. In particular, you are making an unwarranted ceteris paribus assumption.

[Cybran]

So the 50% + of players who never reached max level weren't casual?

Grow up already. Ghostcrawler answered a question of Crendor yesterday and Ghostcraler said "BY FAR the MAJORITY of players are max level". This argument is dead. Let it go already. Most people are max level bored out of their minds from the shitty endgame Wrath and Cataclysm had.

Most people are max level and are too incompetent to find a raiding guild. This is why LFR was created. To give them a gear treadmill every new patch. It has nothing to do with "budgets" and "seeing content". It was all about keeping the bad players hooked.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/09/18/mi...rawler-street/

And then another thing is, the content really has shifted its focus to endgame. Leveling up is still a big part of the game, but more players spend most of their time at maximum level now. And we spent a lot of effort in Cataclysm working on lower-level content that the game kind of needed. It was time for us to make that effort.

- Ghostcrawler

Endgame is the key. The game needs more Dungeons, Raids and max level zones for hard quests and events. Casualism kills the game and has to stop.

[Deleted]

WoW wasn't flavor of the month anymore? They have been the most popular MMO for years now. Nice theory.

If you want a theory use some logic and not some made up story to defend something that you like.

I'm pretty sure you have heard about other genres apart from MMOs, right?

[Deleted]

Grow up already. Ghostcrawler answered a question of Crendor yesterday and Ghostcraler said "BY FAR the MAJORITY of players are max level". This argument is dead. Let it go already. Most people are max level bored out of their minds from the shitty endgame Wrath and Cataclysm had.

Most people are max level and are too incompetent to find a raiding guild. This is why LFR was created. To give them a gear treadmill every new patch. It has nothing to do with "budgets" and "seeing content". It was all about keeping the bad players hooked.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/09/18/mi...rawler-street/

- Ghostcrawler

Endgame is the key. The game needs more Dungeons, Raids and max level zones for hard quests and events. Casualism kills the game and has to stop.

In TBC and wrath 50% of players didn'[t get to max level, in an early post i've already linked that vdeo.

less conclusion jumping, more reading.

Cheers.

[Deleted]

Grow up already. Ghostcrawler answered a question of Crendor yesterday and Ghostcraler said "BY FAR the MAJORITY of players are max level". This argument is dead. Let it go already. Most people are max level bored out of their minds from the shitty endgame Wrath and Cataclysm had.

Most people are max level and are too incompetent to find a raiding guild. This is why LFR was created. To give them a gear treadmill every new patch. It has nothing to do with "budgets" and "seeing content". It was all about keeping the bad players hooked.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/09/18/mi...rawler-street/

- Ghostcrawler

Endgame is the key. The game needs more Dungeons, Raids and max level zones for hard quests and events. Casualism kills the game and has to stop.

Nice reading comprehension, Injin's talking about Vanilla and BC... they are talking about different times.

[Ryanlol]

In my opinion, raids have gone to the casuals for good. Challenge Modes are where Blizzard sees potential for hardcores. Casuals won't pursue it because there are no tangible rewards, but Hardcore players will enjoy every moment. It's easy to lose yourself in a crowd and play subpar in a 25-man raid. Not so much in a Challenge Mode.