Ghostcrawler on why WoW became a game for casuals

[Zagnut]

Do you have any evidence that palyers stop playing wildstar becouse of hardcore tunning? Becouse i left wildstar becouse of scifi theme, wierd lore, game is too cartonish and humor is over the top. Rest of the game is just amazing. So pls dont talk like we all left Wildstar becouse it was too hard. But you know what w/e keep your and rest of players what think that easy game = more players dream. Too bad that WoW will never grow again in number of players. And no it isnt becouse of age of the game.

Oh and btw WoW is popular game not good game. So pls learn difference. MC Donalds is visited by millions people even when they sell trash food.

Yeah that's right, Wildstar failed because of the humor, and the theme, and the phase of the moon, anything except its GODDAMN CORE DESIGN PRINCIPLES. What a fucking joke.

Nobody is ever going to make a game like that again. Not after the Wildstar disaster. Attunements, forty-man raids, exclusivity? All that shit is deader than floppy disks and dialup modems now, forever, and I think it's hilarious.

I look forward to watching you people whine and be ignored for years to come.

[Grogo]

I look forward to watching you people whine and be ignored for years to come.

Well someone is taking this a little too seriously aren't they? With that sort of attitude there is no discussing anything with the likes of you. Good job on raising that hateful personality.

[Yriel]

Do you have any evidence that palyers stop playing wildstar becouse of hardcore tunning? Becouse i left wildstar becouse of scifi theme, wierd lore, game is too cartonish and humor is over the top. Rest of the game is just amazing.

Then i wonder why you bought it in the first place because its theme, weird lore, cartoony look and humor is clearly visible without buying the game. In fact i'd say that all of their videos are way more corny then the actual game.
So if you dislike that so much, why buy it ?

But i partly agree with you, i think most of the casual playerbase never even made it to max level in Wildstar because of the super boring leveling, the rest of them quit because of no endgame and overtuned dungeons.
Most middle class players and wannabe hardcores stopped playing because of the attunements (that they are nerfing now even though they said they'll never nerf anything because of difficulty) and that left only a few hardcores and a few casual housing fanatics.
It's interesting to see how it goes on with Wildstar.

Oh and by the way they sold a really low amount of boxes at launch compared to nearly every other (failed) MMO released in the last 6 years. But i guess it's up to speculation if that's because of the HARDCORE ! HARDCORE HARDCORE ! RAIDS ! RAIDS ! RAIDS ! advertisement or the setting.
Whats interesting, too is that ESO, the game that got so much hate and is solo and small group focused seems to have stabilized its playerbase at around 750k. Not amazing but much better then Wildstar.

[Zagnut]

Well someone is taking this a little too seriously aren't they? With that sort of attitude there is no discussing anything with the likes of you. Good job on raising that hateful personality.

What's to discuss? You guys have spent the last three years going "Please take content away from 90% of your subscribers Blizzard! Somehow this will bring you more money!" while game developers ignore you and everyone else laughs. The only worthwhile thing you guys have to contribute is amusement as you squirm around trying to explain why exclusive hardcore raiding is a cash cow even though nobody does it and games based on it fail horribly.

[Grogo]

All MMOs are bleeding subs arent they? Including WoW, which has lost the most subs. WoW losing subs, one of the main reasons is it became too damn easy in all aspect except heroic raiding. How many subs has it lost in past 2 years? The past few years has been geared towards easy mode wal-mart Grandma crowds. That doesnt seem to be paying off atm right gramma's?

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Also this: themepark design model is not the way to go any more, that is the main reason MMO's will fail now and are failing. Theme park is out.

[Deleted]

What's to discuss? You guys have spent the last three years going "Please take content away from 90% of your subscribers Blizzard! Somehow this will bring you more money!" while game developers ignore you and everyone else laughs.

You're just trying to pick fights, aren't you? Asking for content that fits your playstyle is not the same as asking for content to be taken away from anyone else. Currently WoW has no content for me at all, is it too much to ask to have just one raid tier or a handful of heroics? You're the one insisting that I shouldn't have any content because I'm not in some mythical "majority" (which you're not in either, it's just in your head).

[Koreche]

Yeah that's right, Wildstar failed because of the humor, and the theme, and the phase of the moon, anything except its GODDAMN CORE DESIGN PRINCIPLES. What a fucking joke.

Nobody is ever going to make a game like that again. Not after the Wildstar disaster. Attunements, forty-man raids, exclusivity? All that shit is deader than floppy disks and dialup modems now, forever, and I think it's hilarious.

I look forward to watching you people whine and be ignored for years to come.

well you definitely cant blame it all on that because the humor isnt even funny, it just made me feel like an idiot for playing until i turned the sound off and the art was ugly and made me not want to play when i first saw it. The hardcore aspect didnt make me quit it was mainly the stupid jokes you hear after doing every quest and every level you gain with the art.

[Zagnut]

You're just trying to pick fights, aren't you? Asking for content that fits your playstyle is not the same as asking for content to be taken away from anyone else. Currently WoW has no content for me at all, is it too much to ask to have just one raid tier or a handful of heroics? You're the one insisting that I shouldn't have any content because I'm not in some mythical "majority" (which you're not in either, it's just in your head).

You have three modes of raiding above LFR, what the hell else do you want?

Besides, I googled Yriel's claim about 750k subscribers for Elder Scrolls Online and it turns out they're correct. ESO with it's casual solo and small-group play and no traditional raiding has 50% more subscribers than Wildstar even sold boxes. Given the likely conversion rate on those boxes sold, ESO has probably 3 to 5 times more subscribers than WS.

Even if we pretend WoW doesn't exist and just ignore it, the idea that a "hardcore raiding MMO" makes financial sense has been stomped into the mud this year alone.

It's over.

[Koreche]

What's to discuss? You guys have spent the last three years going "Please take content away from 90% of your subscribers Blizzard! Somehow this will bring you more money!" while game developers ignore you and everyone else laughs. The only worthwhile thing you guys have to contribute is amusement as you squirm around trying to explain why exclusive hardcore raiding is a cash cow even though nobody does it and games based on it fail horribly.

why are you so mad lol. casual mmos are failing too WoW adding casual aspects definitely isnt getting it any subs... basically its more like MMOs in general are losing out. You are just being biased thinking you are right but have no idea what you are talking about

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You have three modes of raiding above LFR, what the hell else do you want?

Besides, I googled Yriel's claim about 750k subscribers for Elder Scrolls Online and it turns out they're correct. ESO with it's casual solo and small-group play and no traditional raiding has 50% more subscribers than Wildstar even sold boxes. Given the likely conversion rate on boxes sold, ESO has probably 3 to 5 times more subscribers than WS.

Even if we pretend WoW doesn't exist and just ignore it, the idea that a "hardcore MMO" makes financial sense has been stomped into the mud this year alone.

It's over.

Elder scrolls has a franchise behind it first of all and wildstar is just a terrible game with bad gameplay bad jokes bad art and bad balancing...

and people dont play ESO for the small group dungeon play, its a pvp focused game... Thats like saying LoL has so many players because of the small 5man AI teams

[Deleted]

You have three modes of raiding above LFR, what the hell else do you want?

I'm not interested in grinding the same content in increasing difficulty modes. I want TBC style real progression. Just give me one raid tier like Kara that you can't cheese in LFR or over gear with welfare. I don't even care if it gives rewards or not. I just want to raid few nights per week with a guild, wipe a couple of weeks per boss, and see something brand new that I couldn't get to see any other way every time I kill a boss.

Heck, I don't even need raids, if that's too much to ask. Just give me like a handful of vanilla style lvl 60 dungeons. You know ones that are not blown through in 15 minute LFG zerg. Ones that require some preparation, team building, actual team work while fighting, in epic environments. That would've kept me playing for a few months at least. But there's just no content for me at all.

Even if we pretend WoW doesn't exist and just ignore it, the idea that a "hardcore MMO" makes financial sense has been stomped into the mud this year alone.

You're just beating a strawman of your own construction. There are a million reasons why a game becomes a hit or flops, most of it just luck. I don't see why you're pointing at some random, crappy hardcore MMO failing as some kind of proof that WoW must have no vanilla/TBC progression content ever. It's possible for games to have diversity, you know.

[Zoldor]

LoL is the casuals MOBA. DOTA 2 and SMITE are both more competitive and challenging. GC appealing to the LoL community who think they are super hardcore.

[nekobaka]

You're just beating a strawman of your own construction. There are a million reasons why a game becomes a hit or flops, most of it just luck. I don't see why you're pointing at some random, crappy hardcore MMO failing as some kind of proof that WoW must have no vanilla/TBC progression content ever. It's possible for games to have diversity, you know.

It has been said many times by Blizzard they didnt expect WoW to be as big as it got and feel it was timing with the right game. The developers expected a 1-2 million subscription number which their 15 bucks a month would make them more than profitable.

Blizzards popularity though has a lot of pull and will have people just trying their games because of the developer and franchise behind it and there will be those who stick. I wonder how project titian will turn out if it ever gets out the door.

Now Bungie's Destiny on the other hand while it is an open world shooter with RPG elements the developers want to keep the association away from MMO, but the developers are really aiming high for a really large playerbase and if I recall correctly a 10 year plan. Gutsy, but Bungie has a big following like Blizzard and a game that did really well in beta. As far as I have seen is no PR marketing BS of catering to hardcores or casuals. Bungie doesnt have to segregate and label their market to get attention.

[Zagnut]

I'm not interested in grinding the same content in increasing difficulty modes. I want TBC style real progression. Just give me one raid tier like Kara that you can't cheese in LFR or over gear with welfare. I don't even care if it gives rewards or not. I just want to raid few nights per week with a guild, wipe a couple of weeks per boss, and see something brand new that I couldn't get to see any other way every time I kill a boss.

Right, in other words you've got the typical hardcore raider's mental illness where "content" doesn't exist if anyone gets to do an easier version of it. I have no idea why you guys are the only people in all of gaming who don't seem to understand the idea of multiple difficulty settings in a video game.

You're just beating a strawman of your own construction. There are a million reasons why a game becomes a hit or flops, most of it just luck. I don't see why you're pointing at some random, crappy hardcore MMO failing as some kind of proof that WoW must have no vanilla/TBC progression content ever. It's possible for games to have diversity, you know.

Uh huh, and I'm sure if the hardcore raiding game had scored 5x as many subscribers as the no-raiding game, everyone here would take it the exact same way, right? Nobody would take it as meaningful, everyone would say games succeed or flop based on all sorts of things besides their actual design. Right. You idiots are still beating the "WoW started losing subscribers in Cataclysm so it must be because of LFR!" drum all over this forum for chrissakes, even though the decline began like a year before LFR came out.

[Paulosio]

So... if easy is good for retention... where the fuck did the 5 million subs go to? You and your sycophants forget that all the work making the game easier has seen nothing but sub losses. If your argument is "Making things easier attracts and retains players" then WoW's history since TBC utterly contradicts you.

Who's to say it wouldn't have lost even more subs without those changes... You can't really say "they made these changes and sub numbers dropped so those changes are to blame" while completely ignoring the fact the game is 9 years old and there are new games coming out every year that are free to play. There are dozens of other factors that also affect sub numbers and they aren't all to do with "changes made the game worse".

[Deleted]

Right, in other words you've got the typical hardcore raider's mental illness where "content" doesn't exist if anyone gets to do an easier version of it. I have no idea why you guys are the only people in all of gaming who don't seem to understand the idea of multiple difficulty settings in a video game.

And you have the typical casual/bad's mental illness where you think "hardcores" give a crap about what you do or see. They don't. Grinding the same stuff over and over is just not fun for me. Not because someone else that I don't know or care about also saw the same content, but because I see everything without the true progression aspect. This isn't a single player game where you can just give me a difficulty switch, this is a persistent world MMO where the difficulty switch system just doesn't work at all.

Really, make a million raid tiers for casuals with 100 free epics from every boss kill. I don't care. Just give me one raid tier and/or a handful of epic 5 mans that are not like that. You can even put me in a different realm so the casuals don't get upset about it. I just want some content that gives me the true progression feeling I got back in vanilla/TBC, whether it's 5 mans or raids or whatever.

These schmucks are still beating the "WoW started losing subscribers in Cataclysm so it must be because of LFR!" drum even though the decline began like a year before LFR came out.

WoW has been bleeding subs pretty much since they started focusing on "everyone sees everything" and "everyone does the same thing at the same time, just in different difficulty modes". How far down do they need to fall before you accept that it isn't working? It's not even about hardcore vs. casual, it's the lack of variety in content and support of different playstyles.

[mistahwilshire]

"It's really refreshing to work on a game where I don't have to worry whether someone's grandmother can pick it up or not."

I've always wondered why gamers themselves don't often seem to feel this way. Perhaps the notion of games requiring integrity doesn't mesh most people's modern view where the only things that can be important in life are the things that make money.

"Hey guys, let's change the rules of chess because it's too difficult for beginners to pick up."

League is built on lacking integrity so that any moron around the world can pick up and play. His statement is idiotically ironic. The entire design of the game is to generate money from casual peoples poor decision making.

[Itisamuh]

League is built on lacking integrity so that any moron around the world can pick up and play. His statement is idiotically ironic.

No, I think that was basically his point, that it was refreshing to work on a simpler game where fewer things had to be taken into account.

[Zagnut]

And you have the typical casual/bad's mental illness where you think "hardcores" give a crap about what you do or see.

Unless what they do or see is the same content as you, in which case it loses all meaning and somehow ceases to exist, right? Fucking snowflakes.

Really, make a million raid tiers for casuals with 100 free epics from every boss kill. I don't care. Just give me one raid tier and/or a handful of epic 5 mans that are not like that. You can even put me in a different realm so the casuals don't get upset about it. I just want some content that gives me the true progression feeling I got back in vanilla/TBC, whether it's 5 mans or raids or whatever.

There aren't enough people like you to matter. Deal with it. My ideal game looks a lot different than current WoW too, I'm just not enough of a dipshit to try and pretend that my personal tastes somehow equal financial success in the face of all contrary evidence.

WoW has been bleeding subs pretty much since they started focusing on "everyone sees everything" and "everyone does the same thing at the same time, just in different difficulty modes". How far down do they need to fall before you accept that it isn't working? It's not even about hardcore vs. casual, it's the lack of variety in content and support of different playstyles.

WoW started bleeding subs at the exact same age all of the previous "biggest at the time" games did. Wow, what a coincidence. But if you really want to make this about content rather than age, I'll point out that the decline coincided with an INCREASE in difficulty. Remember Ghostcralwer's "Dungeons are hard!" blog post and all that bullshit? LFR didn't come until like a year after that.

But please, tell me all about how these facts don't matter, and how you're totally not an irrelevant niche.

[Deleted]

Fucking snowflakes.

I see this is not going anywhere. Why are you so angry? Maybe find another way to let off steam than rage on MMO-C forums?

[Zagnut]

I see this is not going anywhere. Why are you so angry? Maybe find another way to let off steam than rage on MMO-C forums?

You're right, I should probably go play an MMO. After all, they still make them for people like me. ^_^

Shame about you guys though. Maybe there's some Korean grinder MMO you'd like?