In an alternate universe...

[Deleted]

...what would have happened to WoW if Garrisons were extremely well received by the community?
I'm talking 11 Million subscribers because of Garrisons alone.

Would the developers change the game to fit this playstyle?
"Play World of Warcraft now with your cell phone and do all the missions"?

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I'm asking this because this alternative universe actually makes me worry...
What if in the future a feature we dont like gets extremely famous and the entire game changes to accommodate this players?

Like the Fallout 76 situation.
People are mad because they wanted a singleplayer offline experience (like it always was since the beginning) and now its mandatory to play Online Multiplayer.
This will guarantee the game will be extremely famous BUT the hardcore fans are extremly mad about this.

Meaning: The entire game changed to accommodate the current market.
What if something similar happens to WoW?

disclaimer: Im actually glad Fallout 76 will have multiplayer. Im not one of the people who is mad about it. just an example

[A Chozo]

If it happens, the players who dislike it will stop playing WoW. We are in 2018 and not only the competition is on par, but there are other games worth playing too (as always).

[Battlebeard]

I am honestly suprised, almost shocked, that Blizzard have not made a Battle Royale game yet to try to challenge the market of Fortnite, PUBG and now the new game Realm Royale. It scares me that these games are so popular, even though I kinda enjoyed PUBG for a while.

Point is, if the market shifts even further, the mmorpg genre might get so small (cause of other types of games, like Battle Royales and MOBAS) that Blizzard might, if not cancel, but atleast change WoW so drastically to compete on the market that we can't even recognize it.

I mean, as an example that COULD happen, with e-sport growing and Mythic+ being considered a success, who knows. In 5 year, WoW might turn in to a dungeon-moba with only Mythic+ though prolly called something else.

[Eapoe]

I am honestly suprised, almost shocked, that Blizzard have not made a Battle Royale game yet to try to challenge the market of Fortnite, PUBG and now the new game Realm Royale. It scares me that these games are so popular, even though I kinda enjoyed PUBG for a while.

Point is, if the market shifts even further, the mmorpg genre might get so small (cause of other types of games, like Battle Royales and MOBAS) that Blizzard might, if not cancel, but atleast change WoW so drastically to compete on the market that we can't even recognize it.

I mean, as an example that COULD happen, with e-sport growing and Mythic+ being considered a success, who knows. In 5 year, WoW might turn in to a dungeon-moba with only Mythic+ though prolly called something else.

WoW might change a bit here and there, but I doubt the core concept will ever fully change. Sure, there might be more emphasis on garrisons or class halls from 1 xpac to another, but Blizzard is making new IPs to get in on other markets. They are not drastically changing 1 of their games to appeal to multiple genres.
Blizzard already makes games like HotS to get in on MOBA type games. They have OW to get in on team based FPS. They have Hearthstone for whatever the hell that appeals to. They have Diablo for their dungeons crawling loot piñata games. They have Starcraft for the RTS market.
If Blizzard wants in on new markets, they design games for those markets. Sure, sometimes things might blend a little bit with their attempts to have Garrison mimic an RTS (which hasn’t worked for them yet), but that’s about it.

[nyc81991]

I am honestly suprised, almost shocked, that Blizzard have not made a Battle Royale game yet to try to challenge the market of Fortnite, PUBG and now the new game Realm Royale. It scares me that these games are so popular, even though I kinda enjoyed PUBG for a while.

I know some people hate BR games and it has kind of become a joke with everyone making their own. However, Battle Royal does fit Blizzard more so than most.

[Orby]

I am honestly suprised, almost shocked, that Blizzard have not made a Battle Royale game yet to try to challenge the market of Fortnite, PUBG and now the new game Realm Royale. It scares me that these games are so popular, even though I kinda enjoyed PUBG for a while.

Point is, if the market shifts even further, the mmorpg genre might get so small (cause of other types of games, like Battle Royales and MOBAS) that Blizzard might, if not cancel, but atleast change WoW so drastically to compete on the market that we can't even recognize it.

I mean, as an example that COULD happen, with e-sport growing and Mythic+ being considered a success, who knows. In 5 year, WoW might turn in to a dungeon-moba with only Mythic+ though prolly called something else.

Blizzard usually not the fastest to hook onto whats popular, WoW, Hearthstone, Overwatch and HotS are genres that really didnt come out when their respected genres peaked, maybe except WoW which was a peak in it's genre itself :P

[SirCowdog]

The thing is that games like PUBG and Fortnight are a current fad. WoW has been around for 15 years, and Warcraft/Startcraft/Diablo longer than that. I don't think Blizzard needs to instantly jump on the newest thing simply because it's garnered a lot of CURRENT popularity. Blizzard's position is secure.

Having said that, it wouldn't surprise me to see one of the Blizzard games picking up a Battle Royale style game mode. It would probably fit Overwatch best, although I suppose we could see something in WoW as a battleground? BfA is bringing a lot of new features, so that's a definite possibility. I guess the new Diablo game could be one giant Battle Royale as players fight over shards of the black soulstone? That would be....bizarre, but I guess it could work.

Even if Blizzard did make a battle royale or something else, it would be decent. I mean...consider Hearthstone and HotS. HS arguable dominated its genre, and while HotS isn't the most amazing thing ever, it's DECENT. Honestly I don't think this is anything we have to worry about.

[yjmark]

The core of WoW has not changed since vanilla. I don't see any evidence of them changing the game that drastically for anything. They seem to add or remove tons of features and tweak things, but nothing ever really changes the core of the game.

[Thimagryn]

In an alternate universe, Garrisons would be "World of Warcraft: Garrisons", a facebook/mobile app game.

TBH it's not a terrible idea, just keep it separate from WoW. Fallout had a highly successful app game that even one of my cousins played, and she would never have had any interest in the Fallout series if it weren't for it being a Tiny Tower-esque app game.

[Cosmic Janitor]

The garrisons were never the problem, the lack of everything else that wasn't raiding or grinding shitty apexis crystals was. It could have been salvaged, instead blizzard chose to completely abandon it and instead make legion.

- - - Updated - - -

I am honestly suprised, almost shocked, that Blizzard have not made a Battle Royale game yet to try to challenge the market of Fortnite, PUBG and now the new game Realm Royale. It scares me that these games are so popular, even though I kinda enjoyed PUBG for a while.

The problem is that Fortnite is already what Blizzard would have made artstyle wise and injecting poorly written story in a battle royale wouldn't have helped them either.

[Doomchicken]

...what would have happened to WoW if Garrisons were extremely well received by the community?
I'm talking 11 Million subscribers because of Garrisons alone.

Would the developers change the game to fit this playstyle?
"Play World of Warcraft now with your cell phone and do all the missions"?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm asking this because this alternative universe actually makes me worry...
What if in the future a feature we dont like gets extremely famous and the entire game changes to accommodate this players?

Like the Fallout 76 situation.
People are mad because they wanted a singleplayer offline experience (like it always was since the beginning) and now its mandatory to play Online Multiplayer.
This will guarantee the game will be extremely famous BUT the hardcore fans are extremly mad about this.

Meaning: The entire game changed to accommodate the current market.
What if something similar happens to WoW?

disclaimer: Im actually glad Fallout 76 will have multiplayer. Im not one of the people who is mad about it. just an example

If a feature ever gets added that only the smallest of minority vocal dipshits like it and everyone else hates it, it should be immediately binned. If a feature ever gets added that the majority like and it pisses off the smallest majority hardcore idiots, it should be be preserved for future usage. The 0.1 percent isn't worth catering to in an MMO and catering to those people need to go the way of the ghost.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

If garrison was what they talked about before hand it would have been. But it got shoved into a very static spot with a very cookie cutter build to be optimal combined with being all the content the expansion really offered. They cut a corner on them and it burned them to the ground. Sad really. Not to say they every would have been #bestfeatureever but if it was just a piece of a much larger puzzle than it wouldn't have come off as bad as it did. I mean it was pretty much a full expansions backbone of content you have full scale built 2-3 weeks in if you were dense.

[Kokolums]

The people designing wow were obviously very antisocial back in WoD as they were pushing all kinds of solo gameplay whereever they could. Had garrisons been a success, it would have been expanded greatly because it is solo gameplay.

[Sansnom]

...what would have happened to WoW if Garrisons were extremely well received by the community?
I'm talking 11 Million subscribers because of Garrisons alone.

Would the developers change the game to fit this playstyle?
"Play World of Warcraft now with your cell phone and do all the missions"?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm asking this because this alternative universe actually makes me worry...
What if in the future a feature we dont like gets extremely famous and the entire game changes to accommodate this players?

Like the Fallout 76 situation.
People are mad because they wanted a singleplayer offline experience (like it always was since the beginning) and now its mandatory to play Online Multiplayer.
This will guarantee the game will be extremely famous BUT the hardcore fans are extremly mad about this.

Meaning: The entire game changed to accommodate the current market.
What if something similar happens to WoW?

Why would that be a worry anything about? If a feature is extremely popular, than that would mean the majority likes the features. This is a good thing and why should Blizzard not continue to include such feature?

The people that dislike would be in the minority, so the game will continue to prosper.

[Deleted]

Why would that be a worry anything about? If a feature is extremely popular, than that would mean the majority likes the features. This is a good thing and why should Blizzard not continue to include such feature?

The people that dislike would be in the minority, so the game will continue to prosper.

Because its a "battle" between Target audience and Current Market

In my opinion the correct thing to do is appeal to the "Target Audience".
Because WoW was originally made to fill a "niche" market of MMORPG fans.
WoW was not originally made to "make money" to whatever the current market was.

If the game changes to fit the current market...one may say is not the "right" thing to do because is essentially betraying the original "niche community" or the "original target audience".

edit: Like the Fallout 76 situation. They ended up betraying the "target audience" to appeal to the "current market"