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  1. #61
    Warchief Akraen's Avatar
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    One thing I don't like is the constant rushing.

    I've done Heroic Scenarios every week since they came out.

    I have no clue what's happening in any of them. Something about some trolls. I turn into a goblin. I protect barrels of beer being struck by lightning. Ship battle for some reason. No idea what's really happening in any of them or why.

    Because you rush. Rush rush rush. Have to do everything fast. The entire culture is set to maximize VP, get it done. No time to slow down because you have so much other crap to do. Good luck convincing anyone to slow down. They'll just leave ya to die.

    I won't pretend to know the cause for sure, but this wasn't a problem in vanilla, TBC, and WotLK as I can remember. The hurry up mindset really became big in Cata and worse in MoP.

  2. #62
    Deleted
    Very interresting thread.
    It was a really, really strange idea from Blizzard to kill the community, which happened mainly because of the Dungeon Finder. I have never understood why someone would play a MMORPG, when they don´t like to communicate and have an immersive world.

    I mean, there are games for this kind of people, many, many games. For people who like RPGs, but don´t communicating, there are games like Skyrim. For people, who like to play with other people, but don´t want to deal with timesink stuff like leveling, riding mounts, gearing up, etc., there are games like LoL and SC.

  3. #63
    Quote Originally Posted by Venant View Post
    I don't get why so many people are slamming convenience here, the prime reason why they put 'boring' parts in games is because they need to pad games out to hit a certain play time threshold. When was the last time you decided you wanted less convenience in your life?

    To tell you the truth, what this game has done is move the less 'convenient' parts of the game into the higher tiers of game play, namely heroic raiding. It is not convenient to wipe on a boss for 10+ hours, progression raiders have to deal with this all the time. Make the rest of the player base put up with what progression raiders do and you would have everyone quit.

    I do not believe the majority of players really want to be challenged or inconvenienced, I believe what players want is compelling game play which is so engaging that players will overlook the sometimes necessary pacing mechanisms that you term as 'inconveniences'.
    The purpose of this thread was to show that certain conveniences are potentially damaging to the community, and in turn may be hurting the game. I don't care very much about what people think they want, people can be very myopic about that. That's what the example of what the features offered was for, and an implication of how people feel towards them.

    We don't really have to talk to anyone else, and we'll often never see anyone we play with ever again (in LFR, LFD, and X-Server regions)). There's a social consequence to your interactions in a finite (especially small) community. If you're completely anonymous, there really aren't any repercussions; not much incentive to be kind, try to play well, or even play at all.

    I never mentioned the difficulty of the game. I personally prefer that there are no heroic modes, just different dungeons of different difficulties.
    I never "termed sometimes necessary pacing mechanisms as 'inconveniences'", I never even addressed the pacing of the game in any way.

  4. #64
    Quote Originally Posted by Lumicide View Post
    The purpose of this thread was to show that certain conveniences are potentially damaging to the community, and in turn may be hurting the game. I don't care very much about what people think they want, people can be very myopic about that. That's what the example of what the features offered was for, and an implication of how people feel towards them.

    We don't really have to talk to anyone else, and we'll often never see anyone we play with ever again (in LFR, LFD, and X-Server regions)). There's a social consequence to your interactions in a finite (especially small) community. If you're completely anonymous, there really aren't any repercussions; not much incentive to be kind, try to play well, or even play at all.
    Community is by choice, it is not something that can be forced upon players.
    If the community in a game goes down the drain, then that is down to player choice only, no other reason.
    Convenience is linked to community, but in the opposite way to what some people claim.
    A horrible anti-social community increases the need for convenience, the need for queuing and random groups because of inaccessibility of traditional organised content.
    Fixed schedules, excessive gear requirements, favouring of friends/guildies etc.
    What do those do to the community ? Make it more closed and more segregated than ever.

    THAT is why the conveniences exist as they do, because players increasingly forced them.
    Last edited by ComputerNerd; 2013-11-22 at 07:12 AM.
    Quote Originally Posted by DeadmanWalking View Post
    Your forgot to include the part where we blame casuals for everything because blizzard is catering to casuals when casuals got jack squat for new content the entire expansion, like new dungeons and scenarios.
    Quote Originally Posted by Reinaerd View Post
    T'is good to see there are still people valiantly putting the "Ass" in assumption.

  5. #65
    Quote Originally Posted by MoanaLisa View Post
    They made an expansion which played precisely to elite players and lobbied the players hard with all of the usual BS about aspiring to play better and bring the player not the class and how dungeons should be hard. They were wrong. Damage was done, however and a lot of people found it easier to quit for those and other reasons.
    Optional theory, (granted, based on nothing but observation): difficulty aside, perhaps Cata just didn't have very appealing content. Even to a fairly un-progressive player, if you will (or someone who may have never actually set foot in a 5 man early on), leaving the very focused and story-centric continent of Northrend to be thrown into 5 somewhat weakly connected new zones probably didn't come across as a solid continuation of things. In fact, for people that didn't bother to go back and do most of the old zones again, they saw even less of the new big baddie.

    Fast forward to MoP, and we see another turn-around on the part of the devs, this time expanding the overall scope of content, and giving people more to do (a direct result, btw, of people claiming to have nothing to do other than sit in queues all throughout Cata). And despite complaints of the 'grind', dailies were the answer for casual players, as they're do-as-you-like content. And again, we see consistent sub losses.

    In summary: Over the course of two expansions, the direction of the game has sort of flip-flopped.... turning decidedly more casual from 4.3 onwards, yet with next to no positive change in subs. Perhaps it's simply a matter of the overall content not being appealing. Maybe more folks simply didn't like Pandaria on a story level, and no amount of different mechanics would have kept them.

    Quote Originally Posted by MoanaLisa View Post
    I don't think for a minute that a great number of people sat at their computers every night watching their random heroics go down in flames after an hour or more of trying to finish them or trying to make adjustments to the healing they knew from Wrath and logged off angrily stating "The game is just too damn convenient!"
    And on the other hand, I've yet to hear a consumer of convenient content ever say "You know, this is a bit too short / easy. Can you make this more challenging?" If anything, players simply accept that as how things are, and continue requesting more of the same.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Venant View Post
    When was the last time you decided you wanted less convenience in your life?
    Fairly regularly actually, albeit in minor ways. And in any case, I don't look for the same things in life that I do in a video game. Convenience, rarely makes for a memorable experience, and can at times be a detriment to quality.

  6. #66
    Quote Originally Posted by DSQ91 View Post
    People will always find excuses.

    "Peak was during wotlk, the easiest expansion hur dur"

    They don't realize the 2 peaks were right after wotlk release when people still believed it was gonna be like TBC and at cata release because cata was announced as leaving easymode wotlk behind and going back to tbc.

    Not much can be done about it though. Scrap the bad convenient and time saving features and millions of entitled casuals legitimate paying customers leave. Keep those bad convenient and time saving features and millions of players no one leaves because the game isn't even close to as good as it used to be hardcore players don't care about what happens outside of arenas and heroic raids, despite what elitist MMO champion messageboard members say
    Fixed that for you, fixt it right on good

    p.s. WotLK peaked because the game was good, real good - or do you not remember Wintergrasp crashing too many people were trying to play it. And it peaked before cata because the Chinese were finally getting Wrath right near the end of the expansion due to political issues and stuff, so there was a large boost from Chinese players around that time. Before that, the game had been on a pretty steady plateau... because the game was freaking awesome, including 2 raids (Ulduar and ICC) that are generally considered some of the best raiding in the history of MMO's.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Akraen View Post
    I won't pretend to know the cause for sure, but this wasn't a problem in vanilla, TBC, and WotLK as I can remember. The hurry up mindset really became big in Cata and worse in MoP.
    Can't speak about BC, but I know in Wrath it was "go go go go go!!!" in heroics. Getting your emblems/badges as fast as possible by blasting through heroics and aoe'ing everything in sight was definitely the norm in Wrath.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Throne View Post
    The number 1 cause of popularity decline is loss of novelty, the game isn't new anymore, the genre isn't new anymore, so people are used to it, and it loses a lot of its appeal.

    The number 2 cause is over convenience which leads to immersion loss.

    Loss of novelty isn't something that will kill WoW, although immersion loss may (eventually)
    Wrong and wrong.

    The #1 reason in sub loss is bad story telling.

    Why does no one but me see this? Cata and MoP are like Episodes 1 and 2 of the star wars prequels, and WoD is shaping up to be nicely analogous to Episode 3 in it's terribleness.

    We loved BC and Wrath because it told a story that we were all invested in. Many of us - probably most of us - played as Illidan. As Tyrande. As Arthas. We were them. We knew them. They became as close to us as Cloud and Aeris. We cared... because the story was good enough that it made us care.

    Garrosh? Horrible, horrible character - leaving aside his oafish evilness, no one cares about him. He seems like a bad plot device from a D-movie, instead of a well-developed character with a rich back-story like Illidan. This is also why people complain about Tyrande, her lore has been completely trashed.

    As for #2, Wrath of the Lich King is/was arguably the most casual friendly MMO experience I have ever had in my entire life, and I felt more immersed in that expac than anything since. Want to know why? Because of the story! Wrathgate. Matthias Lerner. Crusader Bridenbrad - how many people cried doing that quest? A lot. Has there been anything approaching that level of emotion since then? No. Hell no. Nothing close.

    The MMO champion elitists such as yourself would have us believe that an old game with lots of convenience wouldn't do well. Well, Wrath of the Lich King came out 4 years after WoW first started, and yes, it's graphics were pretty dated even for 2008. And it was by far the most convenient, casual and alt-friendly expac of them all. And it had 4.4 million more subs than it has now - now that convenience has been overrun by hardcore attitudes like yours, and now that the story has gone completely to hell.

    Take off your blinders, MMO elitist. Convenience + Great Story + Smooth Gameplay = great game. (Smooth gameplay is all they have left, and credit where it's due, the mechanics of combat are still some of the best out there in my experience.)

  7. #67
    Quote Originally Posted by Venant View Post
    I do not believe the majority of players really want to be challenged or inconvenienced, I believe what players want is compelling game play which is so engaging that players will overlook the sometimes necessary pacing mechanisms that you term as 'inconveniences'.
    Inconvenience vs immersion - if convenience breaks immersion = bad - if convenience does not break immersion = good
    And if you play games for the hell of it, instead of being "focussed" on improving or trying to be the best, why even play games?
    I guess games were brought to the masses and I am just an oldtimer that hangs on the days there were no "continues" in games and you had to start all over to attempt at finishing the game.

  8. #68
    Quote Originally Posted by ComputerNerd View Post
    1. Community is by choice, it is not something that can be forced upon players.
    2. If the community in a game goes down the drain, then that is down to player choice only, no other reason.
    3. Convenience is linked to community, but in the opposite way to what some people claim.
    4. A horrible anti-social community increases the need for convenience, the need for queuing and random groups because of inaccessibility of traditional organised content.
    5. Fixed schedules, excessive gear requirements, favouring of friends/guildies etc.
    6. What do those do to the community ? Make it more closed and more segregated than ever.

    THAT is why the conveniences exist as they do, because players increasingly forced them.
    1. People tend to just chose convenience over the other option. Remove the convenience doesn't mean they're going to just not play the game. An often cited issue with people in LFD/LFR is they're rude. They seem perfectly willing to be social, albeit antisocial.
    2. So any community's behavior is simple the choice of the people in that community, and never the situation they're in?
    3. In what way is that? As a community becomes more convenient, the better it behaves? These particular conveniences leads to near anonymity, and people sometimes behave like one of YouTube's typical comment sections.
    4. You mean asocial? I don't think the community is particularly asocial, they just have a higher rate of being an asshole than before. And why would they be more afraid of being social than before, or are they just unwilling?
    5. Didn't seem to hurt WoW when they were harder to achieve.
    6. I think it would make them talk to each other more. Yes, the servers would be literally more, or less, segregated; but smaller communities seem to work better than large ones. WoW may have also attracted some of the "wrong crowd", so they may wash out if it were to be made less convenient.

    "In contrast to numerous studies of community structure, we find that the best communities are relatively small with sizes only up to about 100 nodes. We also find that above a size of about 100, the "quality" of communities gets worse and worse and communities more and more "blend into" the graph. Eventually, even the existence of communities (at least when viewed as sets with stronger internal than external connectivity) is rather questionable. This seems to agree with Dunbar who predicted that 150 is the upper limit on the size of the human community." -http://cs.stanford.edu/people/jure/pubs/ncp-www08.pdf

    These conveniences cause us to interact with so many people that we don't form a community. There are very little consequences for being rude, incompetent, or afk, when we feel that we'll never see anyone a second time.
    Last edited by Lumicide; 2013-11-22 at 09:20 AM.

  9. #69
    The two aren't opposing concepts. The convenience just gives options for people who aren't interested in community. There's nothing wrong with that. The people who want to be social and group up and whatnot still can, there's nothing stopping them. But now the people who don't want to, don't have to. It's a win/win.

  10. #70
    Quote Originally Posted by Vaelorian View Post
    - the statement: LFR is fun!
    Most people who do LFR have no other choice because they do not have time/won't make time to raid in an organised manner. LFR is something that helps them progress their character. Good for them. And because it offers gear beyond 5 man heroics AND valor (pretty nice amount) and if you are an enchanter a chance on a Crystal... it is the most efficient way to gear up and make enchantments cheap. What is human nature again? Ah yes the path of the least resistance.... So people are going to do LFR en mass. It certainly is popular - the masses are all into LFR!!! But is it fun? I gather some people do like LFR. I emplore everyone to ask themselves if they find LFR fun, or do they find the gear they get fun or the chance to get gear fun or the valorpoint gain fun to ultimately get gear via that way - or if they genuinly find LFR fun to do?
    Personally I'd rather do Candy Crush then LFR. But alas, because I do not raid organised/scheduled, I'd have to make due with LFR. I do it for the gear and valor. That's it. If there wasn't any gear in LFR, I would step into LFR once and then never again.
    This statement of ur made me wonder, do u even play the game anymore? else u wont be so out of touch.

    1) it is the most efficient way to gear really? the most efficient way to gear up is flex. Its easier than normal and still requires decent organization, and u know what they drop way better loot than lfr drop. so by human nature what do u think ppl will choose? There is always flex going. so u can always jump into one, so long u have an hour or so free time to dedicate.

    2) make enchantments cheap never laughed so hard. i m sure u dream that lfr showers u with loot on every boss kill. (This also makes me to wonder, if u even set foot into any lfr). For ur information, no lfr doesn't bless u with that many loots. so 1hr+ q and after about 1.5 hour to finish it, u may be lucky to get 1 or 2 sha crystal at best. this by no way makes enchanting cheap. u wanna kno what makes enchanting cheap? its timeless gears. All timeless gear i send to my appropriate enchanters to DE. and bam! i had about 10 stacks of sha crystal. Now, this! is what made enchanting cheap. not LFR lootz, that u keep dreaming about.

  11. #71
    Quote Originally Posted by championknight View Post

    You posted the theory and yet fail to understand there are flaws to the Product Life Cycle Theory

    1) There is no set time in which the product must be in each stage (Decline? Didn't many say WoW is not 'dying'?)
    2) May not apply to all products (Radios are still around and will still be around even after a long time)
    3) Emphasizes a lot on the product instead of the brand (People may still play WoW because they like Blizzard's games and would like to try their MMO sometime in the future)
    May I add a 4th point to the Product Life Cycle theory that weakens it when it comes to videogames in 2013? The fact that Blizzard is adding expansions every two years and updates graphics, systems etc. To match the competition keeps them in the Maturity state for almost the full duration of that expac. I believe it's incorrect to use this model blindly as there are no real MMO 2.0 on the market (They are all similar, only combat varies and that is mostly preference not improvement) and WoW remains the MMO with the most features, the smoothest gameplay etc. This prevents them from stepping into the Saturation/Decline phase as an expansion is exactly what the word means, it's like a new product on top of your old one improving it. As long as the MMO market develops as little as it does I would say it's fair to place WoW in the maturity category and might even get into the Growth category during expansion releases.

    Using a theory is only valid if the use of said theory is correctly analyzed. All factors must be taken into consideration before a model can be applied or the model might be flawed for said use. The PLC theory is a solid theory but you have to take the market into it as well before you can place a product in any of the phases.

  12. #72
    Quote Originally Posted by anjan011 View Post
    This statement of ur made me wonder, do u even play the game anymore? else u wont be so out of touch.

    1) it is the most efficient way to gear really? the most efficient way to gear up is flex. Its easier than normal and still requires decent organization, and u know what they drop way better loot than lfr drop. so by human nature what do u think ppl will choose? There is always flex going. so u can always jump into one, so long u have an hour or so free time to dedicate.

    2) make enchantments cheap never laughed so hard. i m sure u dream that lfr showers u with loot on every boss kill. (This also makes me to wonder, if u even set foot into any lfr). For ur information, no lfr doesn't bless u with that many loots. so 1hr+ q and after about 1.5 hour to finish it, u may be lucky to get 1 or 2 sha crystal at best. this by no way makes enchanting cheap. u wanna kno what makes enchanting cheap? its timeless gears. All timeless gear i send to my appropriate enchanters to DE. and bam! i had about 10 stacks of sha crystal. Now, this! is what made enchanting cheap. not LFR lootz, that u keep dreaming about.
    Flex isn't an option for some people. LFR is always an option. If you jump into an ongoing (or be there at the start) Flexraid and before it ends you leave, it would look bad on you. LFR is not like that. No one cares if you leave after XYZ amount of time spend in LFR.

    Timeless isle is better yes I agree. But other then that LFR is where you can farm crystals too (meanwhile trying to gear up duh... you don't do LFR to just get crystals... I never implied that).

  13. #73
    Quote Originally Posted by Itisamuh View Post
    The two aren't opposing concepts. The convenience just gives options for people who aren't interested in community. There's nothing wrong with that. The people who want to be social and group up and whatnot still can, there's nothing stopping them. But now the people who don't want to, don't have to. It's a win/win.
    They are not opposing concepts, systems that cater to either will directly or indirectly effect the other. Inconvenience and incentive are two development tools used to moderate player behavior to fit the intended experience of a game. Historically, WoW had very strong incentive to participate in social group play. Currently, WoW has very strong incentive not to participate in social group play. Social group play is by nature inconvenient. Very inconvenient. By incentivizing group play there can be a balance between making it desirable while still making solo play very feasible. Currently, there is virtually zero incentive for socialized grouping in WoW. Aside from the fact that solo play is more efficient in almost every way now, there is the indirect effect that making solo play more feasible for players, the pool of players available for social grouping is drastically reduced. Not to mention players seem less self-moderated than ever as there is no incentive to be respectful of a community that a player no longer have use for.

    There is nothing win/win about it. Newer game systems clearly cater to the solo player. While it is still the physically possible to play in socialized groups, the game provides little incentive compared to solo play, making group play feel like a penalty.

    You are right in that this is not about opposing concepts. But, I find it difficult to argue that the implementation of "convenience" has not been at the expense of other core game fundamentals - one being community.

  14. #74
    Quote Originally Posted by Hardstyler01 View Post

    This is true for ALL products. Once new versions come out the older versions go in decline. Or do you honestly still watch movies through VHS? It's really simple basic economics, I'm sure Blizzard is fully aware of this effect and have made changes to the game accordingly.

    What is there to improve? When the first cars were invented people were still trying to breed faster horses. It's just a stupid battle that you can't win. That's pretty much what you're suggesting as well. In the end a horse can't compete with a car. WoW can't compete with newer games. There is no simple change to WoW that will bring people back in masses. WoW is old and outdated, it has been in decline for a few years now and that will only continue.

    The only thing that could get people to return would be releasing WoW 2 with an updated engine, updated graphics, updated game mechanics, new story, etc. But that would be an entirely different game.
    This is simply not true. Your comparison to any other product is inaccurate. I'm not sure what product you are comparing WoW with, but the more accurate comparison would be to compare it with Disneyland. Disneyland was opened in 1955. Since then many new theme parks have cropped up, but Disneyland is still there. This is because Disneyland 2013 is not the same as Disneyland 1955. They have continuously upgraded, altered and renovated the theme park to keep it fresh, making people return and new people to come. This is exactly how WoW has worked these past 9 years. The fact that WoW is old is irrelevant, as they continue to make upgraded not only to game play, but to graphics as well. There is no reason to believe WoW does not have a bright future ahead still.

  15. #75
    Quote Originally Posted by Zarc View Post
    This is simply not true. Your comparison to any other product is inaccurate. I'm not sure what product you are comparing WoW with, but the more accurate comparison would be to compare it with Disneyland. Disneyland was opened in 1955. Since then many new theme parks have cropped up, but Disneyland is still there. This is because Disneyland 2013 is not the same as Disneyland 1955. They have continuously upgraded, altered and renovated the theme park to keep it fresh, making people return and new people to come. This is exactly how WoW has worked these past 9 years. The fact that WoW is old is irrelevant, as they continue to make upgraded not only to game play, but to graphics as well. There is no reason to believe WoW does not have a bright future ahead still.
    I guess it depends on how you define "product". World of Warcraft and Disneyland are not products, they are brands. World of Warcraft content releases are products, which the graph does apply to. Disneyland rides/attractions are products, which the graph does apply to. That illustration shows examples of brands surviving by consistently producing new successful products over time.

  16. #76
    Quote Originally Posted by ComputerNerd View Post
    Community is by choice, it is not something that can be forced upon players.
    If the community in a game goes down the drain, then that is down to player choice only, no other reason.
    Convenience is linked to community, but in the opposite way to what some people claim.
    A horrible anti-social community increases the need for convenience, the need for queuing and random groups because of inaccessibility of traditional organised content.
    Fixed schedules, excessive gear requirements, favouring of friends/guildies etc.
    What do those do to the community ? Make it more closed and more segregated than ever.

    THAT is why the conveniences exist as they do, because players increasingly forced them.
    Ah I was waiting for your biased hatred towards raiders post. For someone who talks about choice and convenience you shot yourself in the foot with your anti-Flex and anti-proving grounds talk.

    Form your own group if you dont like how others lead. No one is keeping you from entering the instance. Players choosing to work together as a team and place the benefit of the group over an individual are not anti-social. The random finder systems get used used by players with social issues or anti-teamwork mentality and force themselves upon others in group based content. Groups did not get anymore restrictive than it did back in Classic. WotLK and Cata group restrictions was nothing new.

    Yes it is your choice how you choose to talk with others, just be ready to be responsible for the outcomes of your choices.
    Quote Originally Posted by Vaelorian View Post
    LFR is always an option.
    Given the current run times even LFR would not be an option for those who found one hour heroic dungeons to be too long. LFR has gotten in an odd position. The group size was also supposed to help resolve queue time issues for DPS and instead you see queue times twice that of Cata heroics. To run all wings could bring someone to around the time it took someone to run seven heroics in Cata which would give far more VP.
    Last edited by nekobaka; 2013-11-22 at 11:29 AM.

  17. #77
    Don't blame the tool, blame the tools that misuse the tool.

    The tools don't take away from the community, the community has taken away from itself.

    What did you see happen before? People spending hours to form groups for simple shit ... which means they weren't doing guild runs ... so the 'guild' thing was a problem already.

    Playing with friends x-realm is a great thing, because playing with friends is great, especially not having to spend extra money to do so. Making friends on servers ... well, not everyone thinks every person that says hi to them is their 'friend'. You also wouldn't really befriend a person who is a trade chat douchebag either.

    LFD/LFR ... well, it sure beats forming a group for 2 hours, flying out there, to have one of the people leave before entering the damn place for whatever reason ... not to mention the gearscore crap that started to spring up.


    See, the tools don't take away from a toxic community, they just give you alternative ways to play without directly dealing with them. See, you can still form groups, you can still join/create a guild, you can still do everything you've always done, and now you can also use the tools in game with those friends and guilds to make it more convenient for you. No need for using kick, if you do full friend/guild runs!

    Yes, server communities in theory are great ... but not when the community was already becoming very toxic.


    You want to remove core features of WoW ... features that if they don't launch in other MMOs it is considered a travesty!

    Just remember, if any new MMO launches, be sure to run to the defense of any 'missing' features you wish to be removed from WoW, and state how that company's decision to not implement it is far superior to WoW's decision to keep the feature.



    See, what Blizz is doing is working on the entire game being -one- community. That is a move towards a true 'MMO', right now we have that first 'M' standing for moderately (multiplayer), not massively. 5-20k per server. Boasts millions of subs, but you might only see a couple hundred unique players at any given time outside super crowded highly factional servers like Illidan and Stormrage (about 20k and almost all in one faction). As they work on connected realms, as we go forward, there may be a time where ALL servers are connected, or there will only be a few 'super-servers' where the community is split between, relying on tech like they do in CRZ, spawning another instance when one gets full. Other games go about this similar but different (Tera and SWtOR, channels/instanced planets-fleets).


    Look, you can try to blame the features/tools all you want ... the real problem lies with the people playing the game, not the things we can use in the game. Fix the people, starting with yourself. It doesn't take many to influence a great group. Be consistent. Be helpful. Spread the positive attitude and it will catch on. It has worked in other games, but it takes someone making the leap and organizing positive server events. Giving away runs instead of selling them. Organizing community events and activities. Taking the time to help out lowbies as a form of recruitment, not just random whisper spam. Helping them out even if they are guilded, and hint they'd be welcome with your guild if they ever needed a new home. Just doing things step by step, YOU can create the interactive community you desire ... just don't expect it to be handed to you without effort, Blizz can only design the games and systems, they can't MAKE you be social or interact. That is up to YOU.

  18. #78
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vaelorian View Post
    Huh? The only thing removed was Have Group Will Travel. What other convenience was removed? And what is worse... tell me about what kind of convenience was added in Cata. Cause that expansion was THE expansion with the most convenience ever until MoP.
    What other convenience was removed? Hmmm, how about reasonably easy 5-mans and ICC10 level raiding? Also, HG:WT was removed in MOP iirc.
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  19. #79
    Quote Originally Posted by Lumicide View Post
    "In contrast to numerous studies of community structure, we find that the best communities are relatively small with sizes only up to about 100 nodes. We also find that above a size of about 100, the "quality" of communities gets worse and worse and communities more and more "blend into" the graph. Eventually, even the existence of communities (at least when viewed as sets with stronger internal than external connectivity) is rather questionable. This seems to agree with Dunbar who predicted that 150 is the upper limit on the size of the human community." -http://cs.stanford.edu/people/jure/pubs/ncp-www08.pdf

    These conveniences cause us to interact with so many people that we don't form a community. There are very little consequences for being rude, incompetent, or afk, when we feel that we'll never see anyone a second time.

    This is pretty spot on. Not only do these conveniences increase population size beyond what is really sustainable, they also drop the new player into a community from the get go without giving them a reason to join it. Also, guilds themselves now reward players for joining a group while still leveling and punish them for leaving the guild by resetting their guild progress; this discourages them finding guilds that suit them. Those guilds are rewarded for exceeding the ideal population size as well.

    Then of course, there's the situation where the only time it's beneficial to be in a group is when it's required, decreasing the opportunities to find other people of similar interests and skill level on an individual basis. That of course has been compounded by the cross realm community challenges, though this may be fixed with their "not server mergers" system.

  20. #80
    Quote Originally Posted by Hardstyler01 View Post
    There is no simple change to WoW that will bring people back in masses. WoW is old and outdated, it has been in decline for a few years now and that will only continue.

    The only thing that could get people to return would be releasing WoW 2 with an updated engine, updated graphics, updated game mechanics, new story, etc. But that would be an entirely different game.
    Arguably each expansion includes updated graphics, mechanics, new story, etc. And despite claims of it being 'outdated', can you name an MMO that is, on all fronts, a superior experience (and have it be a concensus opinion)? I have a complaint list a mile long with this game, and I can't name a better title at this point.

    It's like folks who rail on about the desktop PC being outdated, while ignoring the fact that there is absolutely nothing on the market more customizable, more suitable for computing tasks excluding mobility, and certainly nothing more powerful. It's not even debatable.

    It's just that the pc itself has existed for decades, and our society tends to gravitate towards the myth that newer is always better. I'll wait patiently while the wheel is reinvented.

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