Does Blizzard actually like RPG?

[Deleted]

I've got this feeling that may explain (and help doing with) part of the drama around WoW...

Blizzard is one of the best gaming studio around. No doubt about that: all their releases have been huge success both commercially or with the critics. (Ok, maybe D3 got some bashing though it still was a hit)

But here's the trick: they don't just create any kind of games, there's a pattern. Simply put, Blizzard like fast-pacing action games. Be it Starcraft, Diablo, Hearthstone, Warcraft, Heroes of the Storm or the upcoming Overwatch: they are all designed to be playable in 10-20 minutes sessions.

And that's cool of course, no problem with that. I myself have lots of fun in Hearthstone now or Starcraft in the past, just to name some of my favorites.

But if the "fast action-packed" philosophy works wonder with FPS, RTS or even card-games it's problematic with MMORPG because they are on the opposite side. MMORPG are supposed to be about living in a coherent world 24h/24, 7d/7. If you want to shoot zombies or races with friends, you play L4Dead or Mario Kart. If you want to live like Aragorn or Han Solo, you'll play Skyrim or Eve Online. Do you see the difference? One kind is enough condensed fun for the evening, while the other is supposed to have you play for weeks/months/years.
That's because RPG isn't only about fighting. It's also about exploring and crafting and questing and socializing etc etc. Lots of talks have been made about themepark vs sandbox but the truth is that contrary to guys like Richard Garriot or John Smedley, Blizzard never even liked RPG to begin with. They like to grab a shotgun and explode murlocs with it. They were never the kind to sit around a table and investigate for hours to solve a mystery.

Drama happens because players are lured into thinking WoW is what it's not. The background of course is totally rpg friendly: it get his source from Warhammer who came from D&D who took its inspiration from Tolkien so obviously, it's a lore all roleplayers are familiar with. Also, when you start leveling and discover this world full of quests and wonders you're not limited. Want to explore Kalimdor instead of Eastern Kingdom ? You can. Want to spend 2 days straight questing against the Lich King? You can. For a new players, the possibilities seems infinites. It's once you reach endgame that the box opens (or closes...) and you get the real Blizzard idea of fun: instanced fast games. PvP? 20 minutes top. Dungeons? Same. Raids? Sequences of 10-minutes bosses. Pet-battles, garrisons chores, daily hub ? You get the idea.
Weird side effect of this mentality is the fact that freedom isn't allowed. If players were free to do what they want, chaotic creation would ensue: some would spend days creating a new castle (à la Minecraft), others would go on a long diplomatic mission to convince blood elfs to switch side etc. etc. It's not 10-minutes sessions of fun anymore.

Thing is Blizzard didn't even do that intentionally: they were probably super excited about creating a MMORPG back then, an improved Everquest-like without all the stuff that looked boring. But we also know they didn't planned having a success this huge... nor having to maintain the game for 10, maybe 20 years.
That's why they're currently hitting a wall: they spent 6 months creating a raid players burn in 2 months. They could add sandbox/RPG features, like housing, political system, alliance of guilds, non-combat class, way deeper/complex professions etc. But... IT'S JUST NOT THEIR MENTALITY. It would be like asking Nintendo to release Mario with a gore mode, or expecting Apple to sell cheap products. So they just keep doing what they know: class balances, new raids, extra levels and some perks (pets, mounts, reputation grind...) to keep players busy meanwhile.

Why am I writing this ? Well, because when I started playing WoW 7 years ago, I was still expecting them to add MORE. Instead they keep adding the SAME thing, just with 5 more levels. It was frustrating. Now that I fully understand the situation, I'm (more or less ^^) ok with it; WoW will never be the MMORPG of my dreams, just a cool themepark game with its pros and cons.

[Baracuda]

Blizzard haven't done a good RPG in years, probably not enough profit for the work it requires.

[Khorm]

I started playing 10 years ago so you are a noob to me. WoW is WoW and will always be WoW. The formula of games is only ever changed when the tanked, see that FF game that they had to completely redo.

[collosus]

Good read. I agree with the majority of what you said, sadly nothing will break this cycle.

[Adramelch]

You lost all credit when you said raids are "fast-action packed", labeling them as "sequences of 10 minute bosses".

[melodramocracy]

This game's always been rather light on the RPG factor. It's nearly non-existent at this point.

[Elim Garak]

Blizzard haven't done a good RPG in years, probably not enough profit for the work it requires.

what do you mean in years? More like never.

[GrumpyJester]

They like RPGs. Many of them have participated in traditional pen-and-paper roleplaying games.

But like you said, their trademark is making things fun & fast. With WoW, they took the traditional MMORPG concept and made it fun & fast (or at least they tried to, there are certainly critics ).

[Deleted]

Lest we forget, most of the people who made the old Blizzard games are no longer working for Blizzard. Some big profiles are, but most aren't.

[Deleted]

You lost all credit when you said raids are "fast-action packed", labeling them as "sequences of 10 minute bosses".

They actualy are. Hello LFR and hello LFG.

[Kokolums]

I made a similar point in a thread once. WoW is basically 1/3rd of an MMO. In an MMO, you have 3 aspects:

1. Raiding
2. PvP
3. Leveling

When vanilla WoW first came out, the possibilities seemed endless in how they could expand upon all three aspects. As it turns out, Blizzard seems only interested in raiding. Raiding has an entire ecosystem built up around it. A proper raider can expect to spend 10-20 hours or more raiding.

PvP got boiled down to arena, which is designed to be played maybe 1 hour per week. And its built that way so you can raid and arena. They refuse to cut raid hour time, so PvP had to be redesigned into a side game played in a little sandbox.

Leveling is almost abhorred by the Blizzard dev team now. They done things like create a DK class that starts at a high level, xp boosts so you cannot even properly finish zones anymore, to free level 90s with purchase of a collectors edition.

PvP and leveling never realized their potential. Its 1/3rd of an MMO.

A true MMO would have all 3 aspects fleshed out. That's not the case here. This is more like a raiding game.

[Deleted]

See the funny thing is that blizzard actually love RPG. What they also like is satisfying the most people. Sadly enough, a huge portion of the playerbase love convenience, easy to apprehend and quick content. Once upon a time, Alterac used to last for hours (or even days). Raids needed you to invest so much time around it (acces quests, resist gear, consumables etc) Even crafting needed so much more effort.

But guess what ? SO many people hated those. So they changed their philosophy.

Lately they realised the future of earning money and making a name for the masses is the F2P route (funny how one of the best way to earn money is a free to play ahah) and there they go. Hearthstone, HoTS and Overwatch all are following this format. Easy to play, for everyone, quick.... and of course so many ways to entice you into spending money.

I'm pretty sure everyone at Blizzard actually love RPG it's just that - if you either want to please everyone, or if you just want to make money - in both cases : you don't always do what you personally want/like.

[Deleted]

I made a similar point in a thread once. WoW is basically 1/3rd of an MMO. In an MMO, you have 3 aspects:

1. Raiding
2. PvP
3. Leveling

When vanilla WoW first came out, the possibilities seemed endless in how they could expand upon all three aspects. As it turns out, Blizzard seems only interested in raiding. Raiding has an entire ecosystem built up around it. A proper raider can expect to spend 10-20 hours or more raiding.

PvP got boiled down to arena, which is designed to be played maybe 1 hour per week. And its built that way so you can raid and arena. They refuse to cut raid hour time, so PvP had to be redesigned into a side game played in a little sandbox.

Leveling is almost abhorred by the Blizzard dev team now. They done things like create a DK class that starts at a high level, xp boosts so you cannot even properly finish zones anymore, to free level 90s with purchase of a collectors edition.

PvP and leveling never realized their potential. Its 1/3rd of an MMO.

A true MMO would have all 3 aspects fleshed out. That's not the case here. This is more like a raiding game.

Agreeing alot with this statement. After playing alot of new MMO's lately I surely feel like leveling in WoW is seen to the devs as something unneccesary that they just want players to not have to do. This leads (according to me) to the WORLD of warcraft feeling VERY dead, seeing as the focus highly depends on instanced areas (Raids, dungeons, PvP zones etc) at end game.

[Primalthirst]

I'd say WoW has the necessary framework for the classic RPG experience. As M4D has said, the thing is, that isn't what most of the playerbase is looking for.

I love a good story driven experience, probably a lot more than the next guy, single-player RPGs are probably my favourite games. But it's not what I'm looking for in an MMO. In an MMO I'm looking for high quality raiding and other group content with the minimum fuss. I don't want to have to grind etc, I just want to log in and kill internet dragonz. The best MMO experiences I have ever had is testing new raids on the PTR, I can just log in and fight cool bosses without having to worry about all the other shit.

[Deleted]

I dont like how 'Fun' has to equal 'Fast', but only in MMORPGs.

Wanting a slow, immersive adventure is a very downtrodden idea today. It's sad.

Yeah, which is usually where I stop reading.

There's an open mind if I ever saw one. Why bother even posting when you're just going to berate feedback instead of instigate with it.

[Deleted]

We have one main reason why leveling is only small percent of WoW. It is the most time consuming part for developers.

Look at raids - of course it is done very well, we have nice raid zones, nice bosses and mechanics. But it was done once and people repeat it every week. Look at daily quests, not only in WoW, but also in Hearthstone, etc. It is really easy to create that kind of quests, especially if they have in Blizzard "templates" for quests ( I mean, they don't code it from the beginning, but have classes, templates, prefabs, engine for it, whatever). For example in MoP they did various quests for some factions and almost everybody was doing it every day. It is valuable for Blizzard. Little work -> gamers play.

And now look at leveling. It is not repeatable. Here we have: a lot of work -> gamers play few weeks. This is reason why they concentrate on dailies (apexis, normal dailes, weekly etc.), raids, timewalking dungeons (again small amount of work and pinch of nostalgia), grinding currency for mounts, reputation. I said reputation, dailies - this is the problem why people complain about no content. In previous expansions we had a lot of dailies and reputation. People were complaining how it is boring, however those complaints were rarer.

It is big problem of every MMO. When we play single, we can play amazing 10-20h storyline and say "That game was amazing!". In MMO we play 10-20h and this is just the beginning. Now think:

Some company did single player game in 2 years. That game allows to play for ~15h. Assuming it was nice, we have big success, a lot of fans.

Blizzard did expansion in 1-2 years. They had to prepare content for next 1-2 years. It is just not possible to create amazing content for such a long time.

And this is not the problem of WoW. It is the problem of MMO. Game development is far to slow to create new content with the same speed as gamers play. I will love to play quests like 90-100 quests every day but it is just impossible to prepare it for us. And don't say: "This is so big company, they have enough devs for it.". No, they don't. Try to work in game dev company and see how difficult and time consuming it is. And it will be more difficult, because we expect more and more. You say that in Vanilla it was harder, you were leveling for a long time, getting gear was also really long process. You are right but now it wouldn't be so long. We are experienced in WoW, we know how to play that game. Of course I know, I feel that difficulty was decreased but I'm 100% sure that if it was Vanilla right now, we would be complaining as well.

[Kioshi]

Blizzard doesn't like RPG, they like $$$ the more $$$ they can get with less work, the better. If they can sell us Dog Shit for $$$, they will and even charge you more for darker shit too.

[Kickbuttmario]

I don't know man. This game has been getting constant complaints about how the past mmos of old were more RPG, better, more friendly and so forth.

Heck, even WoD, with how Doomhammer was handled, just screwed up the whole RPG element in Terrokar. In Wrath, Crystalsong Forest (or whatever it was called), was basically an empty zone that had only a few daily kills/collect quests there and there... In Cataclysm, they never finished the storyline for Neptulon. In TBC, pretty much the storyline and how Malfurion or Tyrande weren't there for Illidan's destruction except Maeiv.

I can name a few more but the truth is: This game has never really met some solid standards for what an RPG game is supposed to be. The only thing that is keeping it alive is its older players, and the grand scope of how big the game is.

[Raugnaut]

Blizzard has stated multiple times that they prioritize the MMO portion over the RPG portion.

[Deleted]

wow is a themepark, you obtain the correct height (difficulty) for the ride (raid) you want and can do it as many times as it pleases until you puke. Everything else is just filler to keep you entertained inside the park.