Do you believe Blizzard has the strength to pull WoW back at it's place?

[DarkspearNeverDie]

Well maybe after the 3 mil sub loss Blizzard just thought "well, sod it.. people are unhappy anyways, this is the time to pull off all controversial moves we have left and then move on to 7.0 with the people that remain".

Basically "choosing" a segment of their playerbase whose wishes align with their development vision instead of trying to cater to everyone.

Not sure, just a thought that rambles through my skull. What do you think?

Absolutely plausible. Catering to too many people has stretched the game thin. They can get along with any reasonable number of subs you want to throw out there, and if they're all in accordance with the return of Classic/WoD's open-world design, they can make it the best it's ever been going forward.

[Wildberry]

Absolutely plausible. Catering to too many people has stretched the game thin. They can get along with any reasonable number of subs you want to throw out there, and if they're all in accordance with the return of Classic/WoD's open-world design, they can make it the best it's ever been going forward.

PreBC's World and WoD's world don't have many similarities, don't try to conflate the two.

[Deleted]

They can get along with any reasonable number of subs you want to throw out there, and if they're all in accordance with the return of Classic/WoD's open-world design, they can make it the best it's ever been going forward.

Ever heard of Wildstar?

A 12 years old game design doesn't work today, that's why the game evolved all these years. And WoD is actually the least open-world xpac of them all.

[zorkuus]

PreBC's World and WoD's world don't have many similarities, don't try to conflate the two.

It's like he's playing a completely different game. That nostalgia drug is potent stuff.

[Wildberry]

It's like he's playing a completely different game.

Honestly, he sounds like a Catababy who never even played back then, and has just heard stories on forums.

Those days had their high points, WoD has recaptured none of them.

[Granyala]

The game is doing bad. Let's be honest, it just is.

Precisely my point.
NOW is the perfect time for massive shakeups like the "no flying ever again!" thing.

People that still play the game after this are loyal fans, and it will be much easier and stress free to design for them.

[DarkspearNeverDie]

PreBC's World and WoD's world don't have many similarities, don't try to conflate the two.

They both have no player-controlled flying mounts available for use. That's a massive similarity, as it affects nearly everything that goes on in said open world.

[Deleted]

Precisely my point.
NOW is the perfect time for massive shakeups like the "no flying ever again!" thing.

People that still play the game after this are loyal fans, and it will be much easier and stress free to design for them.

That would make sense if "no flying" was the only game development issue. No, it's just on the top of a massive pile.

[Wildberry]

Precisely my point.
NOW is the perfect time for massive shakeups like the "no flying ever again!" thing.

People that still play the game after this are loyal fans, and it will be much easier and stress free to design for them.

Trying to get rid of subscribers to form a base of "Yes men" subscribers is not a good idea, by any means. They still have interest in maximizing WoW's profit, first of all. Second of all, it's the "loyal fans" that they seem to be pissing off with these decisions.

[zorkuus]

Precisely my point.
NOW is the perfect time for massive shakeups like the "no flying ever again!" thing.

People that still play the game after this are loyal fans, and it will be much easier and stress free to design for them.

The way I see it the only shakeup they need is the devs. New blood.

[Deleted]

They both have no player-controlled flying mounts available for use. That's a massive similarity, as it affects nearly everything that goes on in said open world.

Warlocks and summoning stones.

[DarkspearNeverDie]

Honestly, he sounds like a Catababy who never even played back then, and has just heard stories on forums.

Those days had their high points, WoD has recaptured none of them.

All you do is attack. WoD has recaptured plenty of them, including exploration (before Aviana's Feather), WPvP, and experiencing a massive world from the ground.

[Wildberry]

They both have no player-controlled flying mounts available for use. That's a massive similarity, as it affects nearly everything that goes on in said open world.

No, it really doesn't. By that logic, Timeless Isle was similar to PreBC (It wasn't).

Maybe one of these days you'll make a decent point. I haven't given up yet!

[ComputerNerd]

People like changes just fine when they're good ones.

And it is always going to be detable whether a change is good, as no change is going to be universally liked.
The amount of noise on a subject cant be taken to be representative as those happy with a change often aren't as vocal as those unhappy.
Otherwise wow would have died or have less than 500k subscribers by now were the overall feelings matching those that you see most readily portrayed on forums.

The community played a major part in making the game what it was.
That has gone, because it chose willingly to destroy itself.
Players themselves decided to ruin what made the game, and chose to blame blizzard for it.
Pushing players together doesn't make a game social.
They are social if they want to communicate for reasons other than just what someone else is doing for them.
We have more tools for that, but less willingness to communicate positively with random people.

[Deleted]

WoD has recaptured plenty of them, including exploration (before Aviana's Feather), WPvP, and experiencing a massive world from the ground.

All I do in WoD is checking my garrison. That's not even comparable to what I did in Vanilla.

[Wildberry]

All you do is attack. WoD has recaptured plenty of them, including exploration (before Aviana's Feather), WPvP, and experiencing a massive world from the ground.

Draenor is actually extraordinarily small in comparison to PreBCs world. It arguably feels like less of an experience than, say, WotLK. WPvP is still as dead as ever, and is nowhere near the state it was in during PreBC. Honestly, I'd say we have less WPvP now than we did in MoP (inb4 you blame that on something else, ignoring the fact that you're asserting there's WPvP this expansion).

[mercutiouk]

the idea that they're headed to a direction THEY want is probably about the best thing going. If it becomes something that's a decent "challenge" to play while keeping enough people on board there's a good chance it'll run and run like that. If that also happens to be what they WANT to be making... so much the better for everyone involved. It's a more honest game going forward with everyone (devs and players) enjoying what's being created rather than trying to be everything to everyone - that's rather a long way in WoW's past now.

[Deleted]

Probably not. Pretty much all my friends who have ever played WoW bought WoD, but I don't see any of them getting the next expansion.

I personally feel like Blizzard should derail the progression train and let people progress at their own pace. Now you just do your chores every week and everyone progresses pretty much at the same pace. Nothing feels like you've earned it and if you miss a chore you fall permanently behind. Even if it's just slightly, it feels like only getting the stick and never any carrot.

Obviously this is just an opinion of a single player, but that's pretty much why I left WoD and probably WoW entirely.

[Cthulhu 2020]

That's fine, but 3 million subs and counting say it isn't.

Blizzard has that exit poll where you can tell them why you're unsubbing. If even a majority of those 3m were because of no flight, I'm sure they'd have reevaluated their stance.

As it is, the gaming market has been blown wide open in the last 5 years or so. Expansions to MMOs are being treated like stand alone games to a lot of people, who sub for a short period then go back to exploring the massive selection of games that exists today. Streamers bounce back and forth between WoW and other games, coming back to WoW when there's brand new content that people want to watch, and then going and playing something else because they know watching someone beat the same raid for the 5th time is boooooooooooooring. Welcome to 2015 and gaming tourism.

[Zantos]

They need to make some big changes, like not telling US what is fun and what isn't fun. They need to get this grand vision out of their head and look at the fact. The fact is, WoD is, at this point, the biggest failure of an expansion ever. Its tied for second most lost subscribers in an expansions life cycle, after only its first quarter! It took cata over a year to lose 2.9Million. MoP lost 3.4million, not much more than WoD or cata, but over the course of two years.

Fact is, they need to wow us big time and stop thinking with their heads in the ground. WoD is horrible, and the fact that they can sit that and Gloat about it and believe its any bit successful is beyond stupid.

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Blizzard has that exit poll where you can tell them why you're unsubbing. If even a majority of those 3m were because of no flight, I'm sure they'd have reevaluated their stance.

Highly doubtful