Blizzard is not acting like BFA is failing

[Barzotti]

I'm a teacher, and not all of my lessons go as I think they would. But I'm not going to see my students the next day and say "Sorry guys, I was a total failure yesterday and you deserve my most humble of apologies". Most of the time when that happens, I'll know it personally and make changes behind the scenes for next time. At the most, I'll say "Ok, yesterday didn't go as planned so we're going review it again today with a different approach."

Another analogy would be mentioning all your business failures in a job interview. Even if they were complete and utter failures, you shouldn't admit that, that's just bad branding for you as a potential employee.

I disagree. I'm a teacher myself (high school level, 15-19 years old) and already said to my students "I've been awful during this class, sorry, I'll try to do better" (well, it was worded as "I've been fucking bad"). Your analogy is understandable from a business standpoint, but I don't run a business, I don't need to preserve some image or branding. My job doesn't depend on that. And students like honesty.

Well, I guess it's easier to be 100% honest when your job isn't on the line

[meroko]

In retrospect, it's not really failing. Some core features were a bust and they've all but fixed them. There's still a few more tweaks but this expansion has basically been Legion, without the artifact...and even that's being brought back because it was clearly a fun feature.

So yeah, not really viewing BFA as a failure at all.

[Saverem]

Is it just me or is Blizzard just acting like everything is fine?

Outside of Classic forum communication is non existent, only info we have is directly from Ion with vague promises, 8.2 PTR is not up for a MAJORRRR game changing patch, Lore has been dead silent except insulting people on the forums, devs have been afraid to communicate bugs when reported/confirm them.

The list just keeps going. Every single thing I see Ion listing out was reported far prior to BFA even launching but how many had to quit and get fired before he decided to put his hubris aside and admit something is broken?

Nowhere in his interviews is he addressing the casino that is BFA right now and if anything has embraced it even further in dev Q&A's which are few and far between. Where in the hell are the class devs? People are beyond pissed right now about class design and the pruning but there is nothing. Who in the hell looks at prot warriors in MDI right now and does not thing that is just broken and crowding out other tanks that need buffs?

Guilds have been turned into glorified raid log communities as people are just disillusioned at what is going on right now. Where is the 8.2 hype on the PTR? Atleast then you could get people motivated to stay with the game and not just give up.

That's because their profits aren't failing. Yes, there are less people playing than in WotLK, but in Wrath they didn't have a cash shop. They are making bank just from the race changing services alone with the release of allied races. The monthly sub don't really mean anything when they are making 100X that from the cash shop.

It literally costs the price of a AAA game just to buy a 110.

[MoanaLisa]

Yeah he just started doing that MONTHS after people left and over 800 people lost their jobs. Ion should be required to send an apology letter to every person who got fired for decisions he made that ruined this expansion.

800 people did NOT lose their job at Blizzard and the development team was untouched. For fuck's sake. Get your facts right. You can also stop speculating about subscription losses as facts. No one posting on this forum has any idea what subscriptions are.

As for whether or not BfA failed in a strictly business sense presales and first day sales alone covered costs and made it profitable. Everything else after that is gravy.

[Zachsophone]

I disagree. I'm a teacher myself (high school level, 15-19 years old) and already said to my students "I've been awful during this class, sorry, I'll try to do better" (well, it was worded as "I've been fucking bad"). Your analogy is understandable from a business standpoint, but I don't run a business, I don't need to preserve some image or branding. My job doesn't depend on that. And students like honesty.

Well, I guess it's easier to be 100% honest when your job isn't on the line

I agree, honesty is important, especially with HS aged students who will call you out for not being honest. But wording is important, you don't want to paint yourself in a bad light. And using that language in front of the students might not be the best idea either. xD

[kaid]

Because bfa is still making tons of money its in the top10 most grossing pc game still in 2019. Success means making money and bfa is making money.

This is why its hard for anybody not in blizzard or EA to really tell the health of the game. Without seeing the actual financials can't really tell if it is a success or not. A lot of people gripe online about it but they have done the same for a decade and it has not really stopped people from playing in mass quantities.

[Laerrus]

LOL, they aren't going to ever do that.

This is like corporate at McDonalds telling customers that they have a shit quality hamburger. They would soon lose their market share to other hamburger chains.

Always promote your product as the best even though you know that there are better products out there.

[Eleccybubb]

What are you on about mate? If anyone talks about how better a rival game is than their own they'd get chewed the fuck out. They don't pay Ion to talk about other games. It's the same reason why you see so much tiptoeing and nervous sweating whenever hosts or speakers at E3 mention a similar game during their presentation.

Nope. Lot of other devs have admitted that there are great games in the genre. And please E3 is just mostly a Sony v Nintendo v Microsoft war these days.

- - - Updated - - -

That's because their profits aren't failing. Yes, there are less people playing than in WotLK, but in Wrath they didn't have a cash shop. They are making bank just from the race changing services alone with the release of allied races. The monthly sub don't really mean anything when they are making 100X that from the cash shop.

It literally costs the price of a AAA game just to buy a 110.

Yep and that's actually sad.

£49 is more than Resident Evil 2 or Devil May Cry 5.

Sorry but 109 levels of this game are not worth that. But Blizzard know people are buying those or race changes for the Allied Races which in itself is a cash grab system.

[msdos]

BFA had the worst launch of any of the expansions, there's no question about that. The bugs were insane and the rep grind is the most boring it has ever been (forced to world quest).

We're getting flying in Nazj though and we didn't have that in Argus. They obviously have turned a corner in terms of unrelenting fun dampening. For a while it seemed like everything they were doing was fun dampening so you could have more fun later without too upfront an investment on anything (they're afraid to make upfront investments now because of the azerite trait beta debacle and the upfront disappointment of losing legendaries, which anyone with their head not up themselves could see coming).

Not being able to change your gear in M+ was also a bad design choice. They're basically saying to the playerbase, "yeah, don't get too creative.. ESPORTS". And they keep saying that over and over again in different ways with their actions (prune abilities, normalize secondaries to the point of trivialization, PVP abilities, etc.)

[Onikaroshi]

BFA had the worst launch of any of the expansions, there's no question about that. The bugs were insane and the rep grind is the most boring it has ever been (forced to world quest).

We're getting flying in Nazj though and we didn't have that in Argus. They obviously have turned a corner in terms of unrelenting fun dampening. For a while it seemed like everything they were doing was fun dampening so you could have more fun later without too upfront an investment on anything (they're afraid to make upfront investments now because of the azerite trait beta debacle and the upfront disappointment of losing legendaries, which anyone with their head not up themselves could see coming).

Not being able to change your gear in M+ was also a bad design choice. They're basically saying to the playerbase, "yeah, don't get too creative.. ESPORTS". And they keep saying that over and over again in different ways with their actions (prune abilities, normalize secondaries to the point of trivialization, PVP abilities, etc.)

Argus was 7.3, the equivalent of Nazj was Broken shore and we could fly there, I bet there will be no flying in 8.3's zone.

(And by equivalent I don't mean size or content, just release time)

[Katchii]

The 60% may be total loss from the years overall, not just last year. It's been awhile since i read up on it since i sold my ATVI shares.

That said, my feeling about wow classic outpopulating it is just based on forums, talk in game, talk out of game, and a gut feeling. I've got no cold hard metrics to back it up, other than me saying wait and see.

Some will eye roll, some will agree, some will call me crazy, but i'd bank on classic out populating BFA no problem. The expansion post BFA though, i doubt it as they will come out swinging to win back lost fans over the last few expacs. I hope so at least, it isn't like i want WoW to fail i adore the series and want whats best always for them and hope the expac after BFA is the best ever. fingers crossed

At least you're honest. I think you're crazy for predicting that Classic will have a total population higher than Live, but as you said, we'll see.

[Onikaroshi]

At least you're honest. I think you're crazy for predicting that Classic will have a total population higher than Live, but as you said, we'll see.

It may push pretty high at launch, but it'll drop drastically once the nostalgia wears off, vanilla was only good for the time, it's not a very good version of the game.

[Thorbalt]

BFA had the worst launch of any of the expansions, there's no question about that. The bugs were insane and the rep grind is the most boring it has ever been (forced to world quest).

We're getting flying in Nazj though and we didn't have that in Argus. They obviously have turned a corner in terms of unrelenting fun dampening. For a while it seemed like everything they were doing was fun dampening so you could have more fun later without too upfront an investment on anything (they're afraid to make upfront investments now because of the azerite trait beta debacle and the upfront disappointment of losing legendaries, which anyone with their head not up themselves could see coming).

Not being able to change your gear in M+ was also a bad design choice. They're basically saying to the playerbase, "yeah, don't get too creative.. ESPORTS". And they keep saying that over and over again in different ways with their actions (prune abilities, normalize secondaries to the point of trivialization, PVP abilities, etc.)

I....wow you are really stupid. BC, wrath, cata, mists all had worse launches by a long shot. The bugs were WAY worse on launch day than they were for bfa, and 90-95% of the gaming population would prefer world quest to what you had to do for old rep. Grind mobs for 5 rep a piece? Fuck. That. Shit.

Then you try and compare argus to the 7.2 zones when....wait for it....those are not the end game zones. NO end game zone has ever had flying accessable in the final zone. Not bc, not mists, NO ONE. If you had wanted to make the correct comparison, we both know that you should have used the annoying island below dal to compare to the 7.2 zones, but if you did that you wouldnt be able to shriek and whine about flying. At least try not to lie so obviously when you "argue" your point

[Hitei]

The 60% may be total loss from the years overall, not just last year. It's been awhile since i read up on it since i sold my ATVI shares.

That said, my feeling about wow classic outpopulating it is just based on forums, talk in game, talk out of game, and a gut feeling. I've got no cold hard metrics to back it up, other than me saying wait and see.

Some will eye roll, some will agree, some will call me crazy, but i'd bank on classic out populating BFA no problem. The expansion post BFA though, i doubt it as they will come out swinging to win back lost fans over the last few expacs. I hope so at least, it isn't like i want WoW to fail i adore the series and want whats best always for them and hope the expac after BFA is the best ever. fingers crossed

I mean, we are on easily the biggest wow forum (outside of the official forums) in existence, and even here, the Classic subforum gets about 5-20% of the traffic the regular wow discussion forum does, without even including all the other subforums about the modern game (classes, pvp, raiding, lore etc.)

[msdos]

(And by equivalent I don't mean size or content, just release time)

I'm not trying to be pessimistic about 8.3, I'm just trying to draw parallels. In Legion they also got a new dungeon in 7.1. We're getting ours in 8.2 along with flying. It's gonna be different in terms of relevance in my opinion.

[TigTone]

Doesn’t 8.2 inlucde a dungeon , a raid , and Two new zones?

[msdos]

I....wow you are really stupid. BC, wrath, cata, mists all had worse launches by a long shot. The bugs were WAY worse on launch day than they were for bfa, and 90-95% of the gaming population would prefer world quest to what you had to do for old rep. Grind mobs for 5 rep a piece? Fuck. That. Shit.

Then you try and compare argus to the 7.2 zones when....wait for it....those are not the end game zones. NO end game zone has ever had flying accessable in the final zone. Not bc, not mists, NO ONE. If you had wanted to make the correct comparison, we both know that you should have used the annoying island below dal to compare to the 7.2 zones, but if you did that you wouldnt be able to shriek and whine about flying. At least try not to lie so obviously when you "argue" your point

How does forgetting stuff from over 7 years ago make me stupid? Do I sit and recollect everything everyday? No. I can't remember the bugs from every launch and also the rep grinds weren't as bad, so that means BFA worse because bugs + bad, they were compounded, I don't think your rage can allow you to comprehend that formula though.

It isn't a 1 for 1 comparison. I'm more comparing the first dungeon releases. I literally said one sentence about flying, just using it as a nice treat we're getting along with the dungeon, I don't understand how that's shrieking, whining and lying and "arguing". Who am I even arguing against and what are you talking about??

If you wanna pick an online fight about nothing, why not just go to Youtube comment section?

[Tweedzz]

How does forgetting stuff from over 7 years ago make me stupid?

It's not your memory that made that post bad, it was that you stated your memory as undeniable fact, and then when on to make some false equivalencies. Maybe throw in a caveat next time such as saying that is how you remember it?

[Hitei]

How does forgetting stuff from over 7 years ago make me stupid? Do I sit and recollect everything everyday? No. I can't remember the bugs from every launch and also the rep grinds weren't as bad, so that means BFA worse because bugs + bad, they were compounded, I don't think your rage can allow you to comprehend that formula though.

It isn't a 1 for 1 comparison. I'm more comparing the first dungeon releases. I literally said one sentence about flying, just using it as a nice treat we're getting along with the dungeon, I don't understand how that's shrieking, whining and lying and "arguing". Who am I even arguing against and what are you talking about??

If you wanna pick an online fight about nothing, why not just go to Youtube comment section?

I mean, why would you say something dumb like "BFA had the worst launch of any of the expansions, there's no question about that." if you can't even remember previous launches? Also why are you acting like remembering a basic event is some extremely tiring and involved process you have to do daily?

[Barzotti]

WoD start was atrocious. Lots of bugged quests in the starting area, especially in the highest populated realms. Friends had to realm transfer to even play the game. Compared to that, BfFa launch has been pretty smooth.

Oh, remember the WoD opening? With the dark portal? The atrocious lag? It was so bad Blizz offered 5 days worth of extra time to every active subscription.