A great write up that Blizzard should think about

[championknight]

You did NOT have to buy a single thing with real money, people just took that route because it was easier. You could simply have played the game and earned all your gear through normal gameplay in a relatively short space of time, assuming you had the skill ofcourse. At least D3 wasn't plagued with cheats like Torchlight II, there were so many cheats with millions of gold and full end game gear it made that game a joke.

If you ignore the optional RMAH, in almost all areas save for not having an offline / lan mode, D3 was an improvement over D2 when it came to story and actual game play.

Earning gear in D3 without going to AH? Good luck wasting your time earning scrap
Good story in D3?! Heres some reading glasses and a hearing aid
D3 is proof that online only doesn't mean serious dupe tricks and etc don't exist, and even brings its own problems

OT: The main priority right now is to fix the dead servers above else, because if anyone new rolls a character there they would feel they are playing a single player RPG with things they cannot even complete nor a bare bones AH economy

A game doesn't have to be super popular to last (i.e. Runescape), but WoW is a victim of its own peak of popularity due to group mechanics and large number of servers that are currently underutilized

[SamR]

Only horrible players spent real money in D3. At least when I was playing. Like most people I know who were experienced gamers and knew what they were doing, I made money in D3. Enough to pay for MoP on 2 accounts and still have $18 sitting in battle.net. The really hardcore who leveled much faster than I did made way more money because they farmed a lot of the good stuff before they got nerfed. I liked to play the AH, but I wasn't really that hardcore in D3.

So while I beat Inferno with my undergeared WD by researching tactics and trying different strats, the lazy and the entitled sat around whining on the D3 forums about how Inferno was "impossible" without uber gear.

It's funny a lot of the same people who complained about how easy WoW is and how casuals get too much good gear went to D3, had their asses handed to them in Inferno, and then whined about how it was impossible to do without uber gear.

[Deleted]

So what's the problem? You don't want these kind of restrictions for you, you just want them for everyone else?

i'll answer that with another quote:

The thing is, content needs to be equal.

[Glorious Leader]

Only horrible players spent real money in D3. At least when I was playing. Like most people I know who were experienced gamers and knew what they were doing, I made money in D3. Enough to pay for MoP on 2 accounts and still have $18 sitting in battle.net. The really hardcore who leveled much faster than I did made way more money because they farmed a lot of the good stuff before they got nerfed. I liked to play the AH, but I wasn't really that hardcore in D3.

So while I beat Inferno with my undergeared WD by researching tactics and trying different strats, the lazy and the entitled sat around whining on the D3 forums about how Inferno was "impossible" without uber gear.

It's funny a lot of the same people who complained about how easy WoW is and how casuals get too much good gear went to D3, had their asses handed to them in Inferno, and then whined about how it was impossible to do without uber gear.

I didn't spend a drop of real money. Did spend gold though. 40 levels without an upgrade is absolutely fucking terrible.

[Sierra85]

I didn't spend a drop of real money. Did spend gold though. 40 levels without an upgrade is absolutely fucking terrible.

the loot issue is something that hopefully will be rectified after blizzcon. it's pretty bad that it takes that long though.

[Deleted]

And these guys peaked at a whopping 114k subs in 2008! How can WoW get in on this kind of action?

actually i don't want WoW to become a better graphics Tibia ... i want WoW to stay the game it is as much as i like Tibia for the game it is.

i prefer to see the post as a comparison of MMO styles, not a "Change WoW"-Post.

[Glorious Leader]

the loot issue is something that hopefully will be rectified after blizzcon. it's pretty bad that it takes that long though.

Hopefully. I was a pretty strong critic of D3. I'd love to come back I guess I mean I bought the bloody game but if it comes at the expense of buying an expansion ehhh i don't know brother. It's hard to make that decisions without all the info though. I remain as ever the open minded skeptic.

[championknight]

the loot issue is something that hopefully will be rectified after blizzcon. it's pretty bad that it takes that long though.

A wee bit late considering the game's release quite some time back. The recent fixes did salvage the game somewhat and avoided the game becoming a total joke of a game like C&C 4 or SimCity 5

[Rorschachs]

I just can't take the article serious after reading this.

Yes, Blizzard was smart to do what he quoted, since they still have a game 8+ years later having made billions of dollars. How ludicrous to imply any part of what led to this outcome was 'not very smart'.

agreed. These articles just show how retarded they think the players of the mmo genre are.

[Ethas]

It wouldn't work with WoW, and it wouldn't bring as many subs. On the other hand, a game doesn't need that many subs. Only read the first 4 pages but people are acting like if a game doesn't bring as many players as WoW has you shouldn't even bother making it. Which is completely false. 2 million subs is still great, hell, 1 million is still good. Especially for a PC game.

I for one would love a harder MMORPG were death meant something and you didn't get to level cap during a slow weekend. Something like Dark Souls in MMO form would be amazing.

If 1-2 millions of subscribers would be enough, Blizzard wouldn't have worried about adding pay-to-play elements to the game to increase income, obviously.

[BHD]

If 1-2 millions of subscribers would be enough, Blizzard wouldn't have worried about adding pay-to-play elements to the game to increase income, obviously.

Because they have a parent company breathing down their neck, demanding more money. 1-2 millions isn't enough for Blizzard, but for other companies it would be.

[Ethas]

Because they have a parent company breathing down their neck, demanding more money. 1-2 millions isn't enough for Blizzard, but for other companies it would be.

I would have put it this way: World of Warcraft is the only stable and reliable source of income for Blizzard. Obviously, they have a lot of staff working on Starcraft, Diablo, World of Warcraft and their future projects. Activision-Blizzard company is already 2x times bigger than EA, which is often praised as the largest game developer+publisher. So, to run this company they cannot afford to have 1-2 million subscribers. Sure it is enough for BW and other competitors, but for Blizzard it is vital to have as much as they can. Otherwise they won't be able to deliver such great and polished content to their customers and fans (sure Cataclysm and Diablo 3 were crap from the perspective of fans, but they had a lot of polished content still). So I wouldn't say that Activision is the one to blame for everything.

[BHD]

I would have put it this way: World of Warcraft is the only stable and reliable source of income for Blizzard. Obviously, they have a lot of staff working on Starcraft, Diablo, World of Warcraft and their future projects. Activision-Blizzard company is already 2x times bigger than EA, which is often praised as the largest game developer+publisher. So, to run this company they cannot afford to have 1-2 million subscribers. Sure it is enough for BW and other competitors, but for Blizzard it is vital to have as much as they can. Otherwise they won't be able to deliver such great and polished content to their customers and fans (sure Cataclysm and Diablo 3 were crap from the perspective of fans, but they had a lot of polished content still). So I wouldn't say that Activision is the one to blame for everything.

I was talking about Vivendi, not Activision. But with the recent purchase I guess Kotick/Activision is in charge more now? Idk. Either way, my point still holds true. 1-2 mil subs is still good for a lot of studios/publishers. And as I said in my first post I didn't mean that I wanted any of this for WoW, as it just wouldn't work. Another game from another studio, yes.

[Deleted]

I can see it now:

Guild A sits in front of second to last boss of a raid dungeon and waits for Guild B to come and tag it, Guild A then bypasses the now occupied 2nd to last boss and proceeds straight to the final boss while Guild B rages.

Without instancing you'll have maybe 1 or 2 raid guilds per server. Each raid would need to allow 200+ players so that its not just 25 or so people who get to kill a boss every week, which in turn leads to having each fight a shit storm of no tactics, zerging the boss and raging at healers.

[mysticx]

Maybe the MMO-genre is just in a big downturn ATM, the main principles are the same (No matter how fast or painful you make it, MMO's are "a lot of grinding" at heart), maybe people just don't want to invest multiple-hour stretches of time in a single game anymore? the same thing happened to point-and-click adventure games: sold like hotcakes in the 90s and then just stopped coming out (Bit of a revival recently but still nowhere as popular as back then), same with rhythm-games: huge earners for a while and then they just rolled over and died as players got tired of them.

Note that no new MMO's have gained (And kept) the amount of players that WoW lost over the years, so loads of people just stopped playing MMO's entirely, maybe the MMO-genre will go through a similar drought for a while, with the current state of the gaming-market overall (Casual games heavily on the rise), i just doubt that a difficult, punishing game will impress anybody anymore.

[vesseblah]

Either way, my point still holds true. 1-2 mil subs is still good for a lot of studios/publishers.

Not for any AAA level MMORPG. SWToR went f2p when the game went under 1M subs, Rift waited till 500k.

Somewhere around 200k is the limit of profitability with any payment model, that's the cut-off point when MMORGPs have been completely shut down in recent years.

[BHD]

Not for any AAA level MMORPG. SWToR went f2p when the game went under 1M subs, Rift waited till 500k.

Somewhere around 200k is the limit of profitability with any payment model, that's the cut-off point when MMORGPs have been completely shut down in recent years.

Not sure if I understand what you mean. I said that 1-2mil subs is good and you give me examples of -1m and tell me that those aren't good? So.. you're agreeing with me? D:

[vesseblah]

Not sure if I understand what you mean. I said that 1-2mil subs is good and you give me examples of -1m and tell me that those aren't good? So.. you're agreeing with me? D:

Yes and no. You and many others need to accept the reality that when not even mainstream games with established fanbase like SWToR can top one million and stay profitable, the odds for niche games (ie. something utterly silly this thread is all about) will never see numbers anywhere even close to million. Even 100k would be reaching it, and it wouldn't be profitable.

[BHD]

Yes and no. You and many others need to accept the reality that when not even mainstream games with established fanbase like SWToR can top one million and stay profitable, the odds for niche games (ie. something utterly silly this thread is all about) will never see numbers anywhere even close to million. Even 100k would be reaching it, and it wouldn't be profitable.

I see. I never outright stated that such a game *would* have a million subscribers, but I'd be lying if I said I don't wish for it. Maybe a game like that could turn out like Eve Online, although I have no idea how profitable that game is, and I assume it's no way near the subs I previously mentioned. But now I'm kinda talking about both the game the topic at hand is about and # of subs, which I didn't mean to be the same point.

Clarification: I'd love a game that was harder and incorporated at least some of the points from the OP, and in my own first post I just mentioned that you don't need WoW's # of subs to stay alive, having around 1-2mil subs would still be profitable. I didn't mean for that to sound like I thought a game like what this thread is discussing would have 1-2mil subs, only that 1-2mil subs would still be profitable. I don't know if this makes any sense, if you want I can try to clarify it more. My first post is quoted higher up on this page too.

[velde046]

So many things that I disagree with or think are simply stupid, for length considerations I'm gonna pick a few...

2. Grouping Must be Encouraged and Soloing Must be Discouraged.

There is no way around the fundamental requirement that at it’s core a fantasy MMORPG should to encourage and promote that players form groups and experience the world together. SOE should reward groups of 2, 3, 4 and more players that band together and give them a synergistic advantage based on complementary class abilities. Grouping creates community. Soloing destroys community.
Needing to group also creates a much better community and better players. Players who behave like idiots soon find out that their reputation will precede them and they won’t get groups. Without groups, they can’t progress. Little Johnny learns a lesson that he has to behave considerately or he will never get a group.
Allowing easy soloing to the level cap will simply not work and will trivialize the entire world. Players already have scores of MMOs and video games they can play if they are looking for a single player video game. Be bold SOE. Do not give in!

3. Stop the Hero Crap I think at this point the MMO community is really sick and tired of being spoon fed false praise and constantly told we are HEROES. It’s insulting to our intelligence.

WHat a load of bullshit, players should be able to play the way they want, there is stuff for people that want to group up and stuff for people that just want to play by themselves. People should not be forced, even though the basis is a multiplayer game and you can do more with groups, it should NEVER be an obligatioon.

4. Let Players Form their Own Memories and Make their Own Stories

With WoW, the story became the focal point. The quest designers and storytellers dictated how players should act. Players were herded into an episodic narrative that has no deviation and only one outcome. Players became puppets that blindly went from golden question mark to golden question mark doing the bidding of the quest designer.

You get to make memories and experiences at max level. During the leveling process Blizzard wants to tell us a story, not create one. It's just like a book, you're epxeriencing it, not writing it.
Force feeding players stories and that are not their own and instead driving them into the box of contrived narratives is a recipe for disaster and erodes the cooperative spirit which is the bedrock of creating a good community. This is what Blizzard has been doing for years and they have the worst player community in MMO history to show for it.

7. Player Drama and Conflict is Good **

Both Blizzard and SOE, with WoW and EQ2 fell into the philosophical trap that held that eliminating player conflict was a good thing in a virtual world. They foolishly believed that when players disagree and fight over various things like contested spawns and resources, kill stealing, and trains that it was a bad thing and the game needed to have built in anti-exploit/anti-conflict mechanics built in to stop it. This had the unintended consequences of sanitizing the MMO and treating players like prisoners by taking away their freedoms.

Why is a self-policing system better? Blizzard makes the rules and they need to enforce those. If I play a game I want to be treated with the same amount of respect that I give others. I think that banning players is better than an 'outlaw'debuff....
ANd I doubt that Blizzard is willing to add more GM's as it would take a lot more.... The way it is, is way more efficient.

8. No Easy Travel

Nothing makes a world smaller than providing fast means of travel. This is true for the real world as it is true for virtual worlds. Easy travel trivializes all of the hard work that environment artists and world builders and designers put into all of the zones. bla bla bla

Another piece of bullshit. Just give flying, people want the most convenient method mostly and sometimes the scenic one. If you had to go to work 20 miles each day and you could choose between going on bike or by motorized transportation what would you choose if you wanted to get there quickly? Of course if time allowed it, maybe you would ride the bike, but most of the times you wouldn't.

In conclusion I find it a whiny post, that is mostly colored by nostalgia glasses....