Why is Exclusive content a bad thing to some people?

[Grocalis]

They did it in vanilla and TBC, during which time the game grew continuously. Look at the profit margins of WoW, look at history, look at just about any real piece of data and it's clear that the only reason to make sacrifices is greed of the owners. They could build the kind of game I'm talking about and still make a healthy profit, but they rather save money by stretching the same content for everyone. And even still there are players, not owners, but consumers that for some illogical reason defend that choice.

I have looked at the history, I have experienced more of it then you. The game grew continuously because it was new and easy compared to it's competition. Raids were not a factor, as only 2% of the player-base at the time even took part in them. There was so much more to see and it ran heavily off the momentum created by it's easy to pick up nature.

However, we are 10 years into the games lifespan. The playerbase that grew with it grew up. The wonder of the game no longer surprises us. You evolve to fit the changes, or you die.

I promise you, that if they continued with the BC model going into WOTLK, we never would have peaked at 12 million. People were already beginning to wane near the end of SWP, and it was the influx of easy heroics and raids at the start of WOTLK that wetted much of the casuals appetite as the first of the cynicism began to take root.

So I take it you've stopped even pretending to have an argument and moved on to ad hominems?

Just asking why I should take you seriously about how "bland" content is that you never experianced. Should I say all Hondas are a horrible, bumping and unsatisfying ride when I never stepped foot in one for five years?

It was the key feature to WoW, the very core systems design. You can claim it's irrelevant all you want, but I have no reason to do anything but laugh at you.

Laugh then, it does not change the fact you are wrong. I have explained the information and the data, you don't want to listen because it does not sit in your doom and gloom. Good for you.

[Deleted]

Even if the heroic dungeons were the "hardest since TBC" it still doesn't mean that they were actually hard, it's 5 man content that is perfectly doable even with inexperienced players. The main difference between TBC and Cata was that they had introduced this abomination called LFD in WotlK and people got frustrated by the slightly higher difficulty because they were doing the dungeons with uncoordinated PuGs.

still, those heroics were unsuitable for LFD and were drastically different from Wrath's heroics. even if i personally enjoyed them, if the average player didn't the whole system was flawed because LFD is aimed to satisfy pretty much every wow player.
imo a system with harder (challenge mode, preferably not timed though) heroics with no LFD, plus standard LFD heroics for the masses is better.

[Destruktion]

Early WoW was successful because the majority of the experience was compelling to play. The difficulty of end game raiding likely wasn't even a factor, and the importance of raiding to the vast majority tends to get overblown on the forums.

I think I asked this question elsewhere, but what sort of expansion do you think would yield more subs:

a) amazing overall content with sub-par raids.
b) sub-par overall content with amazing raids.

People might love to point out that millions left this game because normals are too hard..perhaps the notion that the overall game content isn't compelling plays into it as well.

Thank you for putting what I have been trying to express for a while into such succinct and compelling words.

[Floopa]

Cataclysm endgame, up until they gave up with the FL nerf and introduction of LFR, was casual hostile. The casual game was "level another alt!", or possibly spend hours in frustrating heroic LFDs.

Blizzard has admitted they made it too hardcore (in earnings calls and in the NY Times, no less), so your denial on this is remarkable.

Normal modes in 10 man were easy even before the nerfs. If you couldn't clear FL before the nerfs then you're pretty horrible if you ask me.

[vesseblah]

Early WoW was successful because the majority of the experience was compelling to play. The difficulty of end game raiding likely wasn't even a factor, and the importance of raiding to the vast majority tends to get overblown on the forums.

I think I asked this question elsewhere, but what sort of expansion do you think would yield more subs:

a) amazing overall content with sub-par raids.
b) sub-par overall content with amazing raids.

(a) without a doubt would entice more people short term, but it's hard to say if without viable "engame" those people would stick around long enough to turn subs into upwards trend or just cause month long surge after every patch release and then drop again back to old numbers.

---------- Post added 2013-06-10 at 07:34 PM ----------

Normal modes in 10 man were easy even before the nerfs. If you couldn't clear FL before the nerfs then you're pretty horrible if you ask me.

Normal mode guilds had really big problems with Nefarion and Al'akir. Just as big as with Horridon this tier.

[Osmeric]

Did you not have a guild that you could run those LFDs with? Did you not make friends who were good players that you decided to put on your friends list to call upon to do heroics with you so you wouldn't have those "frustrating" runs? Did you not start outgearing the cata heroics quickly after the expansion launched?

I ran some heroics with guildies. But they quickly lost interest, and I could see LFD was going to be a disaster, so VP farming was going to be obnoxious. And it was clear raids were going to be even harder than the heroic 5 mans, so what exactly was the point of farming that VP?

So, to answer your question, no, I didn't start outgearing cata heroics, since I stopped running them, and let my subscription expire in early Feb 2011. I didn't return to WoW until Dec 2011, more than ten months later.

As we get more experienced with a game, we become better able to recognize things that are going to suck, and avoid them. This skill enabled me to avoid most of Cataclysm.

[Osmeric]

Normal modes in 10 man were easy even before the nerfs. If you couldn't clear FL before the nerfs then you're pretty horrible if you ask me.

Ah, the usual gratuitous and irrelevant ad hominem comment. So predictable, you hardcores. "You made an argument I couldn't refute, but at least I can try to make you feel bad."

---------- Post added 2013-06-10 at 04:42 PM ----------

Early WoW was successful because the majority of the experience was compelling to play. The difficulty of end game raiding likely wasn't even a factor, and the importance of raiding to the vast majority tends to get overblown on the forums.

I think I asked this question elsewhere, but what sort of expansion do you think would yield more subs:

a) amazing overall content with sub-par raids.
b) sub-par overall content with amazing raids.

Probably the former. BUT... GC has said they'd like to find amazing compelling non-raid end game content -- they just haven't figured out what that could be.

But yeah, you are basically agreeing early WoW succeeded despite difficult end game content, not because of it.

[Jaylock]

I ran some heroics with guildies. But they quickly lost interest, and I could see LFD was going to be a disaster, so VP farming was going to be obnoxious. And it was clear raids were going to be even harder than the heroic 5 mans, so what exactly was the point of farming that VP?

So, to answer your question, no, I didn't start outgearing cata heroics, since I stopped running them, and let my subscription expire in early Feb 2011. I didn't return to WoW until Dec 2011, more than ten months later.

As we get more experienced with a game, we become better able to recognize things that are going to suck, and avoid them. This skill enabled me to avoid most of Cataclysm.

If I may ask, why did your guildies "quickly lose insterst?" What was the factor that made them not want to run them to gear up?

If difficulty was a factor at all, then I will tell you thats exactly the attitude that blizzard has created with easy content starting with WoTLK. Since the heroic is no longer a 15 minute faceroll, players became spoiled and had a false sense of what a heroic should be.

[Orange Joe]

If I may ask, why did your guildies "quickly lose insterst?" What was the factor that made them not want to run them to gear up?

If difficulty was a factor at all, then I will tell you thats exactly the attitude that blizzard has created with easy content starting with WoTLK. Since the heroic is no longer a 15 minute faceroll, players became spoiled and had a false sense of what a heroic should be.

Might have something to do with dungeons taking 60+ minutes at the start of the expansion?

[PenguinChan]

Might have something to do with dungeons taking 60+ minutes at the start of the expansion?

Didn't help a lot of people were not prepared to use CC and basic tactics on a lot of trash. Which astounded the hell out of me, people still pulled through and did it though.

[Osmeric]

If I may ask, why did your guildies "quickly lose insterst?" What was the factor that made them not want to run them to gear up?

If difficulty was a factor at all, then I will tell you thats exactly the attitude that blizzard has created with easy content starting with WoTLK. Since the heroic is no longer a 15 minute faceroll, players became spoiled and had a false sense of what a heroic should be.

I think you're falling into the trap of thinking that, without Wrath, we'd all have been perfectly fine with BC-level heroics in Cataclysm. There is no evidence to support this theory. Personally, if they had made Wrath more difficult than it was, I would have walked away almost immediately. I was not up for a repeat of BC. And so, when Cataclysm came along and was hard, out I walked. Wrath didn't spoil me; Wrath kept me from leaving two years earlier.

[Tomana]

The totality of evidence is simple: your model lost WoW millions of players, mine made WoW one of the most successful games ever.

What made WoW successful was not the raiding, since the raiders were a minority. It was other factors like (surprise!) its general accessibility compared to competition (such as EQ and LA).

[PenguinChan]

And so, when Cataclysm came along and was hard, out I walked. Wrath didn't spoil me; Wrath kept me from leaving two years earlier.

But how? Cataclysm really wasn't that mind boggling hard with the heroics. Crowd Control wasn't used on every pack, and most wipes were caused due to people cheating the ilevel system or refusing to learn boss mechanics. When I was playing, people adapted quite fast and realized what they had to do. The most troubling things I remember were the Grim Batol Gronns with the NPC's around them, The Stone Core sentries, Throne of Tides goblins, and a few sparingly reasons the dungeons were actually causing wipes. And the most vivid imagination of CC was just so you dealt with less damage, unless it was Vortex Pinnacle. Which most classes had a way to deal with it, not one class comes to mind in a group of 5 who couldn't handle it.

Maybe I'm taking the difficulty for granted and didn't really get bothered by one or two wipes in a dungeon.

[Tomana]

"70% of new players dont even make it past level 10... "

Thats one of the "facts" Blizzard knows. What they dont know is why they already stop playing that early.

Because back then the starting zones were way too rough, which is why they got adjusted twice.

[PenguinChan]

Because back then the starting zones were way too rough, which is why they got adjusted twice.

Twice? Are you talking about the hostile removal and the other minor tweaks before Cataclysm?

[Orange Joe]

Twice? Are you talking about the hostile removal and the other minor tweaks before Cataclysm?

I think there was some minor tweaks before cata. Increased regen blow lvl 10. Making mobs neutral. Can't remember them all.

[Tomana]

Twice? Are you talking about the hostile removal and the other minor tweaks before Cataclysm?

Yep, first one was making the mobs neutral, second was redesigning some of them and the quest rewards in Cata.

[Aquamonkey]

Yes, and the paradigm of giving more people stuff to do started where, again? It wasn't in Cata and it sure as hell wasn't in Mists. Wrath picked up on a trend they had first tested out with the whole Sunwell patch, what with daily quest hubs and dungeons to go along with the raid. They since realized it's not feasible to do it everywhere, hence their current idea of releasing faster, more frequent patches. Nowadays the idea is to give everybody something to do. Release only raid content only hardcore raiders can enjoy, and you leave a LOT of people hanging.

The old system did have stuff for everybody to do. The new raids were for people who had finished all the content already in the game. Everyone else still had all that content to do. If someone had finished leveling, they still had dungeons. If someone had finished dungeons, they had heroics. If someone finished heroics, they had 10mans. If someone finished 10mans, they had the rest of T4. And so on. Releasing a new raid at the very top didn't take away the other content the game offered.

Adding quests hubs with raids wasn't new to TBC either. AQ and Naxx added events in the world for people of all progression levels to do.

The new system actually removes stuff from progression by skipping people over content when a new tier is released. So instead of the entire gambit of content being progressable, all progression is crammed into the latest tier.

[BcShane13]

"OMG I PAY FOR THIS GAME I DESERVE EVERYTHING IT HAS TO OFFER WITHOUT WORKING FOR IT" is how I see it now a days.

[Rotted]

Tbh I hate going with a sterotypical view, but frankly

I pay to see the same content as you, I should get a chance to see,

Making heroic raids, to some people is making them impossible, If I went into raiding these days, I can probably say I would be able to get to a level of about, 1/3 into heroic content,

I used to raid primarily in tbc and wrath, naturally as I was young, my raiding performance increased further into wrath. But did I get a shit if people got the same level gear as me from grinding heroics to get badges? no I did not, it was no skin off my nose

The same applies to content, so what if I've turned social and see the end boss from a simplified PoV, what effect does it have on you?

I'm getting pretty tired of this bull shit because some people have superior gear and skills they think they're "better" than casual and deserve to get more, while paying the same rates, hell half the douches I know, pay every 6 months, while most of my casual mates pay monthly, ironically they pay more than the hard cores.

I will say this though, since LFR (+ decrease in subs) less people are interested in joining guilds to raid, and its harder to recruit, especially if you use a application system, since they've seen it, and can do it easily on LFR, why put the hours in for normal / heroic, but the oppsite side of this coin, normal / hc only gear becomes gear that less and less people have, so in a twisted way making epics, epic again, for example the weapons in DS from every boss minus DW

Edit:

Some people mentioned mounts, now I love mounts and some old content ones being at 1% is better than nothing, but I wouldn't complain at a slight increase

And I do like the idea of making "bonus" boss's for people completing some content, like Sin HC