Did casuals ruin WoW and if so how?

[RicardoZ]

Without elitsts there would be no casuals, there would just be people who play a lot and people who don't.

[Osmeric]

Without elitsts there would be no casuals, there would just be people who play a lot and people who don't.

And what a beautiful world that would be.

[melodramocracy]

Right back at ya slick. Your protestations about the developers just "picking one thing and doing it well and not this middle ground crap" is the same entitled bullshit. You just happen to the think the developers will pick whatever horse you have in this race.

My personal angle and preference on the game is somewhat irrelevant. The fact is that catering to a more limited scope of player will increase the quality of said content, and also allow for more of it. This is a truism whenever you have a somewhat fixed number of man hours for development between content releases, and is a truism when dealing with the expectations of the players themselves, which of course run the gamut. This same playerbase tends to feel slighted or ignored whenever content or improvements come out that aren't aimed specifically at them.

Expect to lose some of your playerbase, focus on the sort of player who remains, and you'll wind up with increased sub retention. Continue trying to make Azeroth the digital version of Wal-Mart, and I don't see anything changing for the better in the future.

[LeperHerring]

Actually the truth is quite the opposite. In wotlk the customer didn't have to put any effort to win, and winning was fast. as in eating in mcdonalds. That made the sales skyrocket. In TBC you had to put in effort to get rewarded and everything was harder to accomplish. Making the game easier, means the sales are rising, but the level of challenge and/or the quality is getting lowered.

Um, what numbers are you looking at? Sub numbers were skyrocketing all the way through vanilla and TBC, they hit a wall and staid stagnant in WotLK. Sure, the sub numbers reached the peak in WotLK, but that was barely above TBC numbers, and the peaks were immediately after release and immediately before Cata. For most of WotLK the numbers were around the same as TBC end numbers or slightly below. In Cata the decline started and there is a steady trend of -2M subscribers ever since late 2010.

[melodramocracy]

Without elitsts there would be no casuals, there would just be people who play a lot and people who don't.

And there'd be apples as well as oranges.

[Seegtease]

Are you kidding?

WoW was always casual. It was the game that let the forefront of casual gaming. MMOs were generally pretty hardcore before WoW. I quit playing FFXI and joined WoW because it felt so much more casual. Games made after WoW follow in the casual footsteps.

Being more casual didn't kill WoW. It's what WoW was founded on and is the inspiration for other games to try to be as successful. Anyone who really thinks WoW was not originally casual never played any MMOs before WoW.

[Fagatronics]

I'm really tired of the Word "Casual" being thrown around, a Casual is NOT a moaning b**** who demands to be handed everything, a Casual is (most of the times) a Person that plays maybe 4-6 hours a week but still has properly Enchanted/gemmed Gear and knows how to play his Class (and Raids once a week for 2-3 hours)

I know i'm being a hypocrite here, but it's just that those Elitist are so lazy that they don't even bother to understand the difference between a Casual and a Bad Player that demands more and more

I wouldn't say elitists have a poor definition "casual". More the entire player base has their own definition of casual that more often than not has negative connotations.

Casuals haven't ruined the game. Blizzard has.

[Vintersol]

And what a beautiful world that would be.

An unrealistic one that doesn't function.

[Ronduwil]

Let's put it this way, let's say two people buy a game. They both pay the same $50. Player A beats the game easily, Player B is stuck on the last mission/boss and can't beat it. Player B now has two options, does he:

A.) Keep trying, until he is good enough to actually beat the game.
B.) Call Activiventendotari and tell them to make the game easier.

The correct answer is "Option A", sadly, the WoW community has chosen "Option B".

That's the correct answer for you, because you place a higher value on a computer game than most others do. That doesn't make it the correct answer for everyone. In fact, the majority of players pick:

C.) Unsubscribe without a word to Blizzard because they have better things to do with their time than obsess over killing a virtual boss in a virtual world.

I'm kind of amused at the idea of someone actually calling Blizzard to demand that the game be made easier. The fact that you find that to be an option at all, let alone the option that the "majority" of players have taken is indicative of how far removed you are from reality. Blizzard chooses to make the game easier because they want to retain more subscriptions, not because they get tired of the barrage of phone calls that accompanies every difficult boss. There's a big distinction between the two. Just because I opt to invest my time in real-life pursuits that yield real-life dividends doesn't make me entitled. Hardcore wannabe players' insistence that I should remain subscribed to a game that offers nothing compelling for me to do on my schedule is far more entitled.

[Diablade]

LFD and LFR killed WoW,

[Dorfadin]

Don't think casuals killed wow, but I do think shared lockouts 10/25 AND same itemlevel for 10/25 killed off 25 man raiding leaving no incentive to run 25s, my server like many I guess lost nearly all 25 man raid guilds within a month of this happening

[Dragore]

... but ultimately the desire to keep the elite looking elite is what was 'ruined' ...

This is what it comes down to, and that is why so many 'elite' players hate causals they want to feel pretty again. I was like that during vanilla and BC but then I grew up and did something with my life and fulfilled my emptiness with something real instead of pixels.

Why cant people just enjoy their part of the game and stop worrying about the others. I hate PvP. I hate what Blizz does to the game because of it, but I just go with the flow, it is what it is and I try not to let it ruin WoW for me. Still having fun with the game after playing it for so long and seeing it change so much.

[dryankem]

It must be realized that Blizzard is fully in control of the direction of their game. They decided to make it more accessible, not the "casual" player. The only party that can truly ruin Wow is Blizzard.

As someone who was here from the original beta, I remember the time commitment this game used to demand, and I could say without a shadow of a doubt that if that same time commitment was still required, this game would would have less subs than it does now. Less subs means less attention required to keep the game active with new content. The direction Blizzard took WoW was probably for the best.

The only thing truly ruined was the ivory tower that all the successful 25-man guilds looked down upon the rest of Azeroth from. The addition of LFR and 10-man groups did not sit well for players who enjoyed being part of a small percentage of the population that got all the high end content and items. Not that there's anything wrong with wanting exclusive rewards for doing the most difficult content, but ultimately the desire to keep the elite looking elite is what was 'ruined'. Unfortunately though, for the greater good of the game's lifecycle, changes had to be made.

If you're a hardcore Wow player and still enjoy the game, you can partially thank Blizzard for allowing a wider audience to fund their game so they can continue developing content.

This guys deserves cookies!!! Seriously I don't know how other people can't see this.

[Silas Emile]

For everyone complaining about how easy they made wow, you do realize you can opt out of it all right?

Think leveling goes too fast? Turn off your exp every 25% until you clear every zone for your level, then turn it on and grind up to the next zones.

Hate that you can queue for battle grounds and dungeons? Then get a group together and use a meeting stone, or you know what, go to the barrens and queue for wsg through the portal (it's still there along with the pvp vendors).

Despise that players get mounts at level 20 instead of 40? Then WALK TILL 40! Hell, don't get a flying mount until your 70, and walk through all of outland. Rinse and repeat for Northrend and even go for it in cata zones.

Want to get really old school beta? Turn off auto loot. if your a hunter, pretend you need to buy ammo an destroy something of value instead of vendoring it, then randomly unequip your gun after 200 shots.

Point is, the only thing blizz did was speed up the game and give more people access too it. Yeah, i'm not a fan that they changed vanilla zones, but that's about all i'm not happy about. You can STILL do pugs, you can still do everything you used to have to do if YOU want too.

Maybe it was a mistake for blizz to speed it up soo fast that it lead to burnout, but ultimately it does not FORCE you do do anything differently. Hell, take every spell post vanilla out of your cast bar and play like you were in vanilla (as longa s those spells are still there, and for hte most part they are). Tired of everyone getting a CC or an interupt, don't use yours! Don't enter any battle ground besides wsg, ab, and av. Hell make an 80 man premade av and agree that no one wins until the ice lord is summoned.

Casuals didn't ruin the game. Self absorbed elitists who took advantage of the stuff made for casuals ruined it FOR THEM. For me, the game is still pretty kick ass. Though I must say, Fuck pandas.

[wych]

That's the correct answer for you, because you place a higher value on a computer game than most others do. That doesn't make it the correct answer for everyone. In fact, the majority of players pick:

C.) Unsubscribe without a word to Blizzard because they have better things to do with their time than obsess over killing a virtual boss in a virtual world.

Does anyone really enjoy a game where there's no challenge and they just faceroll anything?

Really?

[dryankem]

LFD and LFR killed WoW,

And yet if some other game came out with those and WOW never had them, it's likely WOW would be dead and the new game be the king of the hill.

[Osmeric]

Does anyone really enjoy a game where there's no challenge and they just faceroll anything?

Really?

Do people really expect to be taken seriously when they ask rhetorical questions with absurdly obvious answers?

[wych]

Do people really expect to be taken seriously when they ask rhetorical questions with absurdly obvious answers?

His response to being stuck on a boss was apparently "unsubscribe, stop playing".

That's a worrying viewpoint if it becomes widespread in the gaming community.

[Silas Emile]

LFD and LFR killed WoW,

Why? don't ahve 4 friends who you can fly to an instance with? Meeting stones still exist you know.

[Grimble]

Anyone who really thinks WoW was not originally casual never played any MMOs before WoW.

THIS. I'm so tired of these WoW-babies who never played an MMO before 2005 acting like Vanilla WoW was some mythical hardcore land of yore. WoW was ALWAYS "the casual game" from day one.

All classes could actually level solo, items didn't permanently wear out, shit you didn't even lose XP or drop any of your equipment when you died. The hardcore vanilla raider slogging through Molten Core was a soft little casual baby compared to pretty much everyone playing every other MMO. Right from the start Blizzard began to realize that "casual = money".