Why did WoD fail so hard even though Siege of Orgrimmar lasted for 2 years?

[MrLachyG]

So I give you a list with over a dozen items. You bring up two of them and sat "Well, eventually you'll be done with two of them. Therefore there's no reason to go outside." Are you going to even talk about them or just parrot the party line in the face of evidence to the contrary?

Garrison chores like gathering work orders, garden, and mine - chores are not fun, and running around your garrison collecting ore etc is hardly content

Hop around to find the trainer - what?

Harrison quest - 6 Harrison quests are finite

Restock my barn - only works if you have a barn

Beat each pet tamer in each zone while cycling around doing said Harrison/bounty quests - sure you do those once but after that you don't need to; the garrison pet section is enough

Do my random heroic for points - after a while you don't need to

Do all the M0s over the course of the week - only from 6.2 onwards and once you outgeared them, why would you? (other than the event)

Do challenge modes - not repeatable

Do the apexis quests - why? the currency is useless once you have bought the mount and outgear the gear you can buy from vendor

Do archaeology - finite

Farm the outdoor elites that drop order resources - why? you get more than enough from the cache and missions

Hunt for rares that drop mounts - finite

Grind reps - finite

for people who played since Day 1, WoD ran out of content rather quickly

[Loveliest]

I can only talk for myself in regards to WoD.
1. The expansion had a terrible start with all the lag and crashing. Even after two weeks I had issues logging in and my garrison was disappearing.
2. Leveling was great. I loved the zones, the stories, the new dungeons and how it all came together with the garrison. I loved upgrading it, collecting followers.
3. The table pissed me off, even though I got used to it eventually and I bought so many pets with the gold
4. The CMs were a lot harder than in MoP - or at least my class wasn't as OP as before, which kinda killed it for me. Put in a lot of effort for that gold - and the rewards weren't all that great.
5. The raids... ugh. I hated the raids. Not for the content per se, but for the aesthetic. I was so tired of the iron Horde vibe from Siege, I disliked the raids completely. And it felt like SO MUCH TRASH. Like trash before the trash encounter.
We're supposed to have a little bit of trash to see the mechanics the bosses will do, but not so much trash. And even in LFR 3 of the wings repeated the same part with the same trash in one of the raids.
6. I had no reason to do the dungeons. There were some quests with rewards, but after doing those one time I didn't go to the dungeons outside of CMs.
7. Oh - and may I mention flying? It was cool having Timeless Isle with non flying to hunt for treasures, but WoD was the first expansion with no flying in the main areas. I started doing Archaeology and spent about half an hour in a zone, going round a mountain over and over till I said "screw this".
MoP had flying in the main zones and nobody whined that it ruined the game.
So this whole not flying thing meant it was very deterring to actually doing anything outside - like anything on alts or arch. Fishing was the only thing I WAS doing outside. Oh and beating the pets outside my garrison.

And that was that. I wouldn't say WoD failed, it just didn't bring all that many new and cool features as MoP so it wasn't as interesting.

[Aeula]

Lack of content. All you had to do in the world was your garrison (Which I enjoyed, personally. But not enough for an entire expansion) and those stupid fucking apexis crystal dailies that stopped giving relevant rewards the second you stepped into LFR highmaul.

And the Legendary ring questline which was the most tedious, boring shit. My raiding guild died, so I had to do it via LFR, a difficulty that gave no transmog and instead used generic appearances for it’s gear because the recolour of the tier sets was cut. Plus the gear itself was garbage, so you were grinding through bosses, wiping because people were idiots, and at the end of it all you’d just have 4 more macguffins to put towards the questline. Nothing else.

Oh and the launch was the worst in history. Actually had to main a character on a low pop realm for the first few months. (Thank god for free low pop realm transfers being active at the time so I could move that alt there).

Then 6.1 came out with nothing but a selfie cam and an obscure rare spawn mount that most folks will never get to show for it.

I enjoyed 6.2 and actually gathered the will to bother doing normal and heroic again, but by then the rest of the expansion was DoA.

SoO for another two years would have been better.

[Serenais]

The expansion had a massive amount of potential, but pretty much all of that was cut out. The Blizzcon during which it was presented showed it as something that had a chance to be quite spectacular.
That was remembered when the cuts statrted to come in with PTR, and the disappointements didn't stop there. The list of features that were cut was presented multiple times throughout the thread, so I won't list them here.
I recall someone (Bellular, perhaps?) sum it all up in one way - WoD is the original Star Wars trilogy, but without Empire Strikes Back. The Empire, which is supposed to be a massive threat, is just a bunch of target practice dummies that keep on losing major objectives, and the main hero has a slight developement at the beginning, to somehow become a major power in the second half. Some characters appear out of nowhere, others change for no apparent reason. Both A New Hope and Return of the Jedi were good films, and I believe that, on their own, 6.0 and 6.2 could have been good pieces of content, but they MASSIVELY require the middle part.
WoD badly required outside content - garrisons were, in my personal opinion, working too good compared to the rest of the expansion. The raiding scene needed that raid between Blackrock Foundry and Hellfire Citadel. Story needed developement between us taking down Blackhand and the rise of Gul'dan as a primary antagonist. WoD had enough potential space for at least 4 major patches ("Iron Horde strikes back" kind of patch, conclusion of the draenei storyline in Shattrath and its raid, major strike against the Iron Horde, finally, buildup of Gul'dan and the Burning Legion threat to lead into Legion), two of which would include their own zones (Tanaan Jungle, which we got, and Farahlon, which we didn't - that could've been in the "Iron Horde strikes back" patch, or the Gul'dan build up one). Garrisons being moved could've also been introduced in later patches.
And so on. And so on. And so on.

None of that was there. We got (arguably pretty good) questing content, the garrison and... that was it.
Considering what we could've gotten and what was advertised to us, it's no wonder that we left scathing reviews and popcorn scattered all over the cinema.

[Azerate]

As someone who has not played wod as current content, but someone who does all the legacy content that he misses out on, there was simply not enough content.

People were already bored of the old ways of 'nothing to f.in do in the open world", but legion content such as WQs and other stuff to do in the world were not invented yet.

[Loveliest]

I only had one toon and I had plenty to do. Garrison chores like gathering work orders, garden, and mine. Hop around to find the trainer, Harrison quest, and bounty quest. Restock my barn. Beat each pet tamer in each zone while cycling around doing said Harrison/bounty quests. Do my random heroic for points. Do all the M0s over the course of the week. Do challenge modes. Do the apexis quests. Do archaeology. Farm the outdoor elites that drop order resources. Hunt for rares that drop mounts. Grind reps. Then Tanaan added several more hours of things to do in the form of mini bosses, more apexis quests, more than a dozen pet battles, baleful farming for alts. I honestly and truly boggle when I see people say there wasn't enough content in WoD. The only conclusion I can come to is they disregard things they don't want to do as "not content" so they can complain what's left isn't enough.

Here's the thing - "plenty to do" is relative. It's relative to time you spend ingame, to the attractiveness of the feature to a player (for example, a lot of people can't stand farming - I mean baleful farming? Or waiting for Poundfist to appear?), efficiency (you can finish most grinds in a set amount of time), purpose / reward (you CAN farm elites, but there is no point, you don't need extra resources; you CAN do all Mythics, but what for?).

[Alteiry]

They also promised different capital hubs - then argued they didn’t do that - then said we’d still see the inside of Karabor even if it was not a hub.
The doors remain shut.
And I never got my zangarwhale. Or dragonfly mount.

WoD clearly hit some sort of enormous development implosion along the way - I honestly thought we’d have been told about it by now.

Blizzard has talked about this, IIRC - WoD's development coincided with a massive recruitment wave that took time and effort away from the development of the expansion. By the time Legion entered development all these new people weren't fresh anymore, so they had vast resources to make Legion the GOAT expansion that it ended up being.

[Polarthief]

They'll never admit it but I firmly believe they saw how quickly WoD shed its initial surge in subscribers and left the expansion on terminal life support while they refocused their creative efforts on making sure a rise/fall in subscribers like WoD's never happened again.

Then it happened 2 expansions later with BfA. :thinking:.

It's incredible how quickly people (Blizzard) can forget the past and it honestly shocked me when I realized I'm unsure which expansion I hated more. Comparing WoD to BfA is honestly one of the harder things I've had to do. All we can really hope for is SL to not be so lacking, yet again.

[MrLachyG]

Then it happened 2 expansions later with BfA. :thinking:.

It's incredible how quickly people (Blizzard) can forget the past and it honestly shocked me when I realized I'm unsure which expansion I hated more. Comparing WoD to BfA is honestly one of the harder things I've had to do. All we can really hope for is SL to not be so lacking, yet again.

there are heaps more things to do in BfA than there was in WoD - hell just look at the additions - Mythic+, Emissaries, Island Expeditions, Warfronts, Invasions, Horrific Visions

[Spiral Mage]

BLIZ actually said "We don't know what else to do with it, we're giving up" .. WOD was cut short and abandoned .. so I mean, even BLIZ said it was game over. I was shocked because I never thought I'd see them say: "we give up", even when things are going badly, they try to make the best of it and still project confidence ..

The fact they then quickly announced LGN gave me serious concerns that LGN was a very rushed expac and would be abandoned just like WOD but I was very surprised and glad to be wrong. I'd never .. like .. lost total faith in BLIZ until that announcement about WOD but LGN well .. I mean it was a really good expac IMO and it gave me restored hope for the quality and future of the game but down the road, there's still something undeniably wrong going on there. They act like it isn't but you can see it slipping through the cracks here and there.

MOP was an expac shipped and supported by them to the end. WOD was the expac they said: "We don't know what to do .. " and "we're giving up .." so I mean ..

[Monster Hunter]

Will say one good thing about wod

Glad stance was Hella fun.

Rip glad stance

[Loveliest]

No new class/race.

This might have contributed as well. New classes / races keep people occupied with leveling.

- - - Updated - - -

Time travel and ruining any sense of the story made ppl cba anymore, it was beyond confusing.

Also this. A LOT of people had a VERY hard time understanding the concept of an alternate timeline. Blizz overestimated the understanding capacity of your average player. Even after a year of WoD you could still see people confused of why X char is still alive.

- - - Updated - - -

LGN

I had to look this up. I've NEVER seen Legion abbreviated as LGN. But then again, I didn't spend that much time on forums in the past.

[sam86]

-snip-

so u have zero problem that of all problems and u see wow in its best now right? did u actually count that the sub numbers didn't end after whatever random number i put? did u count the seconds too?
heck did anyone who read my post thought i actually posted a real number and just random garbage because i was talking about a point and not using a super computer to count every second of it?

[Marrilaife]

Then it happened 2 expansions later with BfA. :thinking:.

It's incredible how quickly people (Blizzard) can forget the past and it honestly shocked me when I realized I'm unsure which expansion I hated more. Comparing WoD to BfA is honestly one of the harder things I've had to do. All we can really hope for is SL to not be so lacking, yet again.

The problem of BFA isn't "lack of content", it's implementing content people don't want to do, then trying everything in their power to make people do that content. I wouldn't hate on islands if they didn't try to make people to do them weekly, and didn't artificially extend their lifespan by putting some cool mounts and transmogs there that are completely rng on top of rng to obtain. I wouldn't hate world quests if I could forget about them once I get each faction to exalted (which was the case with hated MOP dailies!). I wouldn't hate on warfronts if they weren't trying to revive this dead horse by putting "heroic" version of it that is still a zerg fest, you just need to remember to defend base after capping mine / lumber mill, and gives item equal to heroic raiding.

Now for 8.3 there are invasions and I thought cool, do them a couple of times for novelty, then forget about them, right? WRONG! You WILL have to grind 1 major and 3 minor invasions per week per character as it's the gate towards your legendary cloak farming. Seriously, fuck off Blizz. Out of the 2, I'd rather be idling in my garrison than having extensive "to do" list of chores every patch. Obviously, optional side content would be a better solution than both, but we can't have that, can we?

[sam86]

The problem of BFA isn't "lack of content"

-It has inferior quality of content in compare to Legion
Also the more i think about legion, the less i like it with time, i don't like wq system where u login and u get random whatever anything anywhere, instead of the far better daily system, u log anytime a day, u know there are quests, u don't have to camp and hope that the faction u need will have a quest today
-Islands exp reminds me of MoP scenarios, except they are all same scenario just reskinned -.- (I didn't like scenario that much in first place anyway, but they varied a lot at least)
-Warfront is a 'pve' bg, which is as horrible as it sounds, i was interested in it, but when i did them i discovered how bad they are, u can't bg vs pve, they will always do same thing, playing against them show me how unrealistic the fear of AI overlords since (at least in wow) AI is as dumb as dumbest wow player

but the worst part was Nazjatar, i had far more hope for a 10000 years old capital of nelf and the top of Naga society, only to see it a generic ruin, mechagon is even worse looking but at least mechagon has almost no root in wow lore before (was it even mentioned pre-BFA?)

[Yriel]

-Warfront is a 'pve' bg, which is as horrible as it sounds, i was interested in it, but when i did them i discovered how bad they are, u can't bg vs pve, they will always do same thing, playing against them show me how unrealistic the fear of AI overlords since (at least in wow) AI is as dumb as dumbest wow player

I actually liked the Warfronts but the problem is, as you say, they are sooo static. They would have needed much more random events, AI heroes spawning at random locations with troops marching for objectives, the world bosses should do something, random stuff like fire or gas at locations making them temporary unavailable or what ever. They should have made a whole bag of random events so that every Warfront is a bit different each time you play it and that you have to react to stuff happening instead of doing the same thing every time you are there.

[callipygoustp]

Over promised, under delivered.

[Shakana]

I'm not sure that you mean. WoD actually had an incredible succes when it first launched, it was after the first quarter that subs started to go rapidly:

People were excited for WoD because they were tired of MoP's theme and wanted to see WoW return to its roots, and WoD was generally seen as a TBC 2.0

People loved going back to draenor. It was how outland used to be, the city of orcs. That was super exciting, but then they got lazy on patches, and they ruined the whole theme of the expansion, making everyone just be at their garrisons, with almost anything to do. The dungeons were fun, raids, the content was promising, but in the end, they failed.

[Ange]

Like how does that work?

Still remembering the aftermath of the Garrosh Heirlooms boosting. Some players did 1000+ boost kills in a few weeks. So many gold millionaires and so many burned-out raiders.

No mount, no achievement, no nothing before or after had such a huge pull for casual players to buy a boost. A stupid heirloom, even worse, a stupid heirloom weapon, really WoD was the pinnacle of the RAID-OR-DIE culture and it went down really hard for the same reason.

[dope_danny]

Zones getting remade late in development which left massive plot holes and even characters being messed up, most obvious being doomhammer showing up once as a moustache twirling evil orc then showing up again as the brave hero who saw the error of his ways, sacrificing himself fighting blackhand with nothing inbetween because that was a questline from the original gorgrond that got replaced.

Garrisons were straight up mobilegame horseshit and designed as an 'alt camp' that crushed the crafter economy for casual players, rendered the world outside it pointless since it had material farms.

Boring rep grinds that rewarded some sketchy mounts like the boars that suspiciously matched the original worgen racial mounts in their concept art that got replaced by horses, meanwhile the fey dragons the dreanei rode and the masked bug ridden by the crakchead orcs were added to the cash shop exclusively.

Story felt like filler since the legendary questline of mists of pandaria was all about wrahtion trying to find a champion to unify the factions because, in his own words, "the legion is coming next" and after this inconsequential alternate universe pocket adventure that just killed off maraad and brought kadghar back to replace jaina as the magical instant problem solver till she replaced him again in BfA and nothing else of lasting impact happened the legion showed up anyway and WoD was forgotten by the writers very quickly.

Ashran in general. Its still called Trashcan for a reason.

capital cities scrapped and the locations in game left as empty ghost towns.

Mists of pandaria only had two large complaints: over reliance on daily quests in its first half, its final patch was 3 quests and a daily quest in durotar/the barrens and a raid with bugger all else for a long time. But everything else? significant character development, the legendary system, the sha and old god stuff, the mantid and mogu and the thunder isle patch being regarded by many as the best content update in the game after ulduar? there was just more good than bad by a significant margin.

Meanwhile WoD is remembered almost entirely for the bad because that was the majority of the experience. It was rushed filler. Rip the bandaid off and call it what it was. Legion was nowhere near ready and something had to fill the gap and they couldn't stretch siege far enough so they gave outland the cataclysm revamp treatment and made a 'what if?' which is a lot easier to do when most of the map and characters were already fleshed out 20 years before.