A great write up that Blizzard should think about

[Xeraxis]

How many folks play it doesn't really matter, 'enough' people would gravitate to it to keep the lights on.

So said every MMO that has turned the lights off.

[Sansnom]

Feel free to tell me when was the last time you had an epic storyline or experience like that in WoW.


No. I'm just arguing against the misconceptions that people have about non-casual MMOs. And in comparison WoW is ... a very cheap experience for people who simply don't know any better. There is nothing wrong with the idea of casual game design and that some people only have a little bit of time every day and that they'd like to enjoy that time in the quickest most casual way possible. But it's just not what I'd personally call quality, in comparison it just gives cheap and shallow MMO experiences.

It seems people are trying to turn Wow into something that it is not. Not unlike trying to change a bicycle into a motorbike. Sounds you found a wonder game judging from your experience. Why not share that with the other people who are looking for that game by telling us which game this came from

You will doing everyone a favor. The game's company will gain more players, the game will gain more players, and the new players will have a game they are looking for.

[Noorri]

Even better, people need to get rid of this 'raiding is the only thing that matters' mentality.

WoW doesn't ever need to subscribe to the points laid out in that article. It never has subscribed to them to begin with. It's too established at this point. This game also breeds a certain level of expectation from it's playerbase that will continually move it farther away from any such things (look how many players want to have an option to skip leveling entirely, for example, or any number of other requests that would have been laughed off the forums back in vanilla)

And that's all fine, as long as it works for this game. May it live long and prosper doing what it does. I'm certainly looking forward to a new fantasy-setting game that brought all the listed features back, and then some. Nearly every other game out there to my knowledge that has this sort of gameplay is either extremely old from a graphical viewpoint, or has some other features that do nothing to attract and maintain players (Aventurine's historically awful support of Darkfall, EO being a genre that many don't find appealing, etc)

How many folks play it doesn't really matter, 'enough' people would gravitate to it to keep the lights on.

I agree. WoW is what it is at this point, it's a game that was initially designed to be the casual MMO and it has continued down the casual approach for it's entire lifespan. If someone wants to create a game with the points that are in the OP, that's fine. More power to them for sticking to their believes and desires about game design and gameplay.

But ultimately the OP is suggesting that this is something that should possibly be included in WoW. Which is something I disagree with wholeheartedly.

[SamR]

No. I got pretty much ridiculed because I said I agreed with the OP and would love to play a game like that.

Then I replied by describing what I found good about other games like described in the OP. Which got replied to with a reply that tried to paint me off as a liar and why WoW was so great instead... So I counter-posted why I disagreed.


You fanboys don't need to go on the attack against every post that isn't fully praising WoW and then start getting upset or pretending you've got the moral ground when you get replied to in kind.


How about you just put a sock in it and shut up or either look up why people are writing certain things before you start wagging your finger at them brainy smurf.

You get ridiculed because you post about how horrible the game is and how dumb the people who keep playing it are. What did you expect, really?

And then you play the victim being bullied by the big bad fanbois.

Once again I ask, why are you on this forum? You've made it abundantly clear you really dislike this game. Not just a few specific parts of it, but the very premise of a themepark game catered to casuals. And you continually put down people who do like this game.

So why are you here except to stir people up?

[Theendgamelv3]

I read the article and just lots of no from me.

[ramennoodleking]

Solution: have a UI feature to "turn on" penalty deaths, no quests, no instances. See how many people turn it on. Hahaha

[Glorious Leader]

It's a too simplistic notion that gets thrown around that only the top players would be the heroes and the rest peasants. Every little guild had it's own territory in the world back in those games, and they usually only competed with other small guilds in the area or worked together against bigger guilds, or completed tasks for bigger guilds. There was lots of roleplay and drama about little things and people's creativity on how they interacted with the world and tried to turn things to their advantage. It just felt more like a living breathing and immersive world.

I remember when my small group of friends were the first ones in the area to find a goldmine, we claimed it and guarded it. And people came from far and wide to try and buy gold. Sometimes things got violent, so we used our acquired wealth to hire more people and our guild grew bigger. It was a mixture of smart diplomatics, economics and pvp to keep that monopoly on gold in the area under control, and it's one of my fondest memories of playing an MMO. You simply can't find an experience like that in a theme park MMO, because it's all only about dungeons, no attention to social interactions or economics.

The "living breathing world" you cite had nothing to do with the top 1% getting all the progression (and also the majority of time being spent on the part of the developers to entertain them) and everything to do with your ignorance as a player. Well that condition is no longer in existence. You are stronger, smarter and bigger than that now. Congratulations. In the same way you aren't still amused by your father or some loved one taking your nose or hiding his thumb you aren't amused by warcraft anymore because your smarter than it. It has NOTHING to do with entitlement mentality, nothing to do with the peasant/knight scenario (which is EXACTLY what you fucking people want) and has nothing to do with what the developers did. What you wrote is actually a huge non sequitor. You could still have that in warcraft and have lfr and lfd.

The exact goal of the guy in the OP is to bring back "prestige" and "exclusivity" well that just makes us peasants again to the knights who raid. No thanks. The situation is far more equitable and better today than it was years ago. Although the developers have seen fit to try and return some of it in mists and to a lesser extent cataclysm and it's done nothign but bite them in the asshole.
- - - Updated - - -

Even better, people need to get rid of this 'raiding is the only thing that matters' mentality.

Sure. Then stop making raids Blizzard. I agree raiding isn't the only thing that matters but in reality since raiding is all consuming in terms of development it's very existence means it is the only thing that matters. Especially if we just HAVE to have raids of the size and scope as we've had in Mists.

I'm all for raiding taking a back seat, unfortunately that would mean RAIDS would also take a back seat...

[SodiumChloride]

No. People need to get rid of the entitlement. A world in which everyone has to be the hero is just pointless and childish in my eyes. You can keep playing your fake-ass multi-million MMO game where everyone gets rewarded with legendaries and hero-titles for sneezing and farting.

I'll stick to what I consider quality instead.

Given that I paid $15 a month. I would say, yes, I'm entitled to content to do, entitled to new gear for upgrades, entitled to character progression.

What else you want me to do? Wear blues until the end of the expansion, doing nothing but grind gold?

Edit:
If it's exclusivity you are looking for ... personally I don't care if you make LFR gear "blue" as long as the stats go up every tier and I get upgrades.

[Glorious Leader]

Given that I paid $15 a month. I would say, yes, I'm entitled to content to do, entitled to new gear for upgrades, entitled to character progression.

What else you want me to do? Wear blues until the end of the expansion, doing nothing but grind gold?

Edit:
If it's exclusivity you are looking for ... personally I don't care if you make LFR gear "blue" as long as the stats go up every tier and I get upgrades.

Entitlement is a funny thing. Your 15 bucks doesn't entitle you to get anything out of the game but their status as "hardcore" or "elite" players entitles them to your 15 bucks to make content that only they will do and is only suitable for them to do.

[Nobleshield]

I'm all for raiding taking a back seat, unfortunately that would mean RAIDS would also take a back seat...

Honestly is that so bad? More and more MMOs are focusing on small group content, with small raids as supplementary content instead of the EQ/WoW style where raids are the toughest content and have the best gear. I've said in other threads that I think Blizzard could get away with a model like The Secret World with Nightmare dungeons and raids that drop sidegrades/trinkets/weapons and the like but doesn't drop better gear.

[Xeraxis]

Honestly is that so bad? More and more MMOs are focusing on small group content, with small raids as supplementary content instead of the EQ/WoW style where raids are the toughest content and have the best gear. I've said in other threads that I think Blizzard could get away with a model like The Secret World with Nightmare dungeons and raids that drop sidegrades/trinkets/weapons and the like but doesn't drop better gear.

Tell me again how did TSW and its model fare?

[Normie]

The true believers in community do not realize how few players actually want to be in a game where community is required.

I have no doubt someone could create a thriving game with 100,000 subscribers where there is no instancing, where everything has to be done with a group of allies, and so on.

But it will never happen for a game with millions of subscribers.

[mosely]

MMORPG players are not Blizzard's intended audience. Hopefully something better will come along for you.

[SodiumChloride]

The true believers in community do not realize how few players actually want to be in a game where community is required.

I have no doubt someone could create a thriving game with 100,000 subscribers where there is no instancing, where everything has to be done with a group of allies, and so on.

But it will never happen for a game with millions of subscribers.

Well ... necessity is the mother of invention. So never say never.

While I'm not much of a "community player", not really a people person, I don't doubt that there are people who do want to play in such a way.

WoW's community has gone down the drain. No one gives a crap about other players anymore - there is no need to. Civility has gone the way of the dodo.

Despite being more or less a loner, back in BC I actually had "contacts". People would whisper each other asking if they want to fill a spot in a dungeon.

"Solo content" and "community content" aren't mutually exclusive. You can have both.

[Vargas]

Here is an idea; how's about the people that want to play a hardcore MMO actually go out and play one and quit whining and trying to shoehorn WoW into a mold it was never a part of. WoW never was, nor will it ever be, a hardcore MMO; I started playing in Vanilla and all that's changed is Blizzard learned to tune bosses better, add better mechanics and generally make quality of life improvements. Lots of players here like to flop their e-dick around opining the lost glory days of Vanilla and TBC and don't realize they weren't that great and certainly weren't as tough as they want others to believe.

Either you like the game as-is or you don't, but this tug-of-war nonsense has to end.

[moremana]

TLDR....lost interest about 1/2 way as I knew where it was going.

While I think WoW has been dumbed down alot, and some of it in really bad ways, you cant give a kid candy every day and take it away, not with WoW, it would be a disaster for Blizz. However, maybe Blizz has learned a lesson from WoW in how they have "as most say...ruined it" and not make the same mistake with Titan.

Lets hope so.

[Normie]

Here is an idea; how's about the people that want to play a hardcore MMO [I]actually go out and play one

That is an idea. A good one.

[Grogo]

Entitlement is a funny thing and it goes both ways (like this original post states) and you have to balance both sides of the entitled graph.

Entitlement: (dictionary)

1. the act of entitling.
2. the state of being entitled.
3. the right to guaranteed benefits under a government program, as Social Security or unemployment compensation.

So let me branch that out with:

LFR = welfare

Heroics = The 1%

Loose analogy but it makes sense. Blizzard has gotten away from the middle class. The majority of the content should be made for the middle class. Question is, do we want the welfare recipients to remain on welfare or do we want them to get out of "class" so to speak. It (welfare) should be an assistance tool geared to get out of the welfare system and into the middle class.

If Blizzard could make 5 raids, one should be geared for the welfare class, one for the top 1% and the 3 left only should be the middle class. Both the welfare and middle class both have the opportunity and a clear path to be able to get to the 1%. it's the American dream right?

Tiered raiding could be one accomplishment. The game should not be sinking more and more to social assistance more and more each expansion. Also...people on welfare tend to not feel too good about themselves and of course there is abuse of the system, where people intend to stay on it forever and suck away the tax payers dollars.

[Normie]

Well ... necessity is the mother of invention. So never say never.

While I'm not much of a "community player", not really a people person, I don't doubt that there are people who do want to play in such a way.

WoW's community has gone down the drain. No one gives a crap about other players anymore - there is no need to. Civility has gone the way of the dodo.

Despite being more or less a loner, back in BC I actually had "contacts". People would whisper each other asking if they want to fill a spot in a dungeon.

"Solo content" and "community content" aren't mutually exclusive. You can have both.

I think most players are civil and polite in the game. It's just obvious that a few aren't, and Blizzard does very little to discipline players who are acting like assholes (because that's how they want to manage the game). It may be more obvious these days than it was back in Vanilla/BC, but I don't think the pool of players was any different mentally or genetically or whatever.

[Pull My Finger]

Feel free to tell me when was the last time you had an epic storyline or experience like that in WoW.

Maybe I'm missing something, but what's so special or particularly better about the whole thing you described?