WoW could rebuild itself just fine, if Blizzard has the will

[Michael Jackson]

I was always impressed by the devs of Final Fantasy Online and ESO, and how these games at launch received garbage reviews and were doomed to be just another 2 failed MMOs.

Then the devs reviewed every single aspect of the game, in the case of FFO I think they even shut it down for a whole year, re-launched the games, and now they are praised in the top 3 / top 5 of MMOs on the market.

Blizzard did the same thing with Diablo 3 with the Reaper of Souls expansion and literally every patch that launched after. Whether you love or hate D3's main story or art style, you cannot deny it is a beast of an ARPG compared to what it launched as, and ROS' story was very good as well.

Whatever issues WoW has, they could be fixed, if there was a will for it, WoW makes more money per month than most MMOs do in a year probably.

[Tesshin83]

Well the premise of the thread is that World of Warcraft needs fixing in the first place. Wow is a lot of better than those other 2 mmos you mentioned soI don't want wow to move an inch closer to those.

As no game is perfect it could always improve and I think wow best could improve on wanting to people care more about the story. Hardly any read the quest text and therefore few people even know why they are doing what they are doing in the game.

Wow has something to learn from Star Wars Old Republic in that regard with more voiceovers and in game cut scenes.

[Saltysquidoon]

1. ESO is irredeemable trash that unironically has loot boxes that directly impact player power.

2. If WoW makes more in a month than FFXIV or ESO make in a year what does blizzard need to fix exactly (from their perspective).

[Varodoc]

Except that... you know.... WoW doesn't need any rebuilding, since you literally acknowledged it's making them ton of cash and is dominating the market... so great way to disprove your entire post.

[potis]

The game is fine, its the people that are the problem as always.

People still dont understand that WoW was the League of Legends of 2007, the Fortnite of 2007, and thats why it was so popular, not because of what game it was, it was trendy, the same as the other two games have been for their own periods, 2012/2018 and so on.

Even so, as a 16 year old game, if you check official forums and reddit, there are new players starting all the time, because its a massive game, and realistically, whether people like it or not, there is nothing out there compared to it, neither FF , neither ESO, they are decent for what they are, but they arent the best.

[Ghostile]

I was always impressed by the devs of Final Fantasy Online and ESO, and how these games at launch received garbage reviews and were doomed to be just another 2 failed MMOs.

Then the devs reviewed every single aspect of the game, in the case of FFO I think they even shut it down for a whole year, re-launched the games, and now they are praised in the top 3 / top 5 of MMOs on the market.

Blizzard did the same thing with Diablo 3 with the Reaper of Souls expansion and literally every patch that launched after. Whether you love or hate D3's main story or art style, you cannot deny it is a beast of an ARPG compared to what it launched as, and ROS' story was very good as well.

Whatever issues WoW has, they could be fixed, if there was a will for it, WoW makes more money per month than most MMOs do in a year probably.

With a playerbase this big, there is no fix that would please everyone.
Nothing is broken as fuck (like FFXIV 1.0 was) and most complaints are literally stuff someone else is fine with.

[owbu]

I feel like this implies that WoW is not constantly changing and fixing itself. Sure, some attemps have failed spectacularly and had to be reversed. Some additions to the content reportoire sounded nice on paper but turned out to be duds. But overall WoW is in an eternal cycle of adding and removing things to itself and its hard to argue that most of the more permanent changes to the game havent been making it better as a whole.

And BFA is a pretty good example for that. 90% of it was terrible ideas (warfronts, OG azerite gear) or interesting ideas from legion that got old reall fast (Azerite power, RNG gear), so shadowlands is going out of its way to rip all of them out and try some really old things and some new things instead. Like gear being gear again or adding a more casual solo progression to the game that is not a brainmeltingly retarded time in/"acomplishment points" out skinner box (looking at you islands and world quests).

[lawtk]

Wow is a lot of better than those other 2 mmos you mentioned soI don't want wow to move an inch closer to those.

I think you need to check your opinions with how each has been rated by the gaming communities:

FFXIV Shadowbringers Metacritic
ESO Metacritic
BFA Metacritic

The OP has a good point about examples of how to take feedback, make something better, even at the cost of turning it off for a while. Making $$ is not a sign of success, its usually due to brand, market, and loyalty by the fan base. I have no issues with fans of any game that stick with it through thick and thin. I stuck with WoW for 15 years before two things drove me to leave, Blizzard behaving badly as a company and BFA.

I think it can be fixed, I am hopeful they find a bit of what made WoW a fun game in Shadowlands. I don't know if I will come back, but I hope for the people that still love to play the game, they get a truly enjoyable expansion!

[Laughingjack]

I feel like this implies that WoW is not constantly changing and fixing itself. Sure, some attemps have failed spectacularly and had to be reversed. Some additions to the content reportoire sounded nice on paper but turned out to be duds. But overall WoW is in an eternal cycle of adding and removing things to itself and its hard to argue that most of the more permanent changes to the game havent been making it better as a whole.

And BFA is a pretty good example for that. 90% of it was terrible ideas (warfronts, OG azerite gear) or interesting ideas from legion that got old reall fast (Azerite power, RNG gear), so shadowlands is going out of its way to rip all of them out and try some really old things and some new things instead. Like gear being gear again or adding a more casual solo progression to the game that is not a brainmeltingly retarded time in/"acomplishment points" out skinner box (looking at you islands and world quests).

You will always see these threads as wow has no united community but a collection of shipwrecked communities all smashed together from drastically changing expansions all fighting for scraps of content from one another.

[Michael Jackson]

You will always see these threads as wow has no united community but a collection of shipwrecked communities all smashed together from drastically changing expansions all fighting for scraps of content from one another.

I love this, well put.

[Marmot]

1. ESO is irredeemable trash that unironically has loot boxes that directly impact player power.

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

I've played the game for years and have never seen loot boxes that reward player power. What the fuck are you talking about?

[Justpassing]

How do ESO lootboxes impact player power?

I dunno about you but I do more dps when I have some dope cosmetics on.

[Nutri]

They do fix/rebuild the game, on a regular basis even. It's called expansions and patches where they introduce new systems and leave (some of) the previous behind.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong or broken in WoW that puts it in an unplayable state. Wether you like or dislike the systems is not a valid reason to pull the game offline to 'fix' it.

[Greyvax]

Nothing needs fixing i don't think. As long as blizzard keeps delivering new content, people will continue to play (and return). The influx of players at a new expansion drop is pretty immense.

[Dommie530]

The game is fine, its the people that are the problem as always.

People still dont understand that WoW was the League of Legends of 2007, the Fortnite of 2007, and thats why it was so popular, not because of what game it was, it was trendy, the same as the other two games have been for their own periods, 2012/2018 and so on.

Even so, as a 16 year old game, if you check official forums and reddit, there are new players starting all the time, because its a massive game, and realistically, whether people like it or not, there is nothing out there compared to it, neither FF , neither ESO, they are decent for what they are, but they arent the best.

Game is fine, nice meme. Game has been going downhill since legion, and incredibly fast ashwell. Its not a game anymore realy. Hard to describe what wow has actually become

[Ghostile]

Game is fine, nice meme. Game has been going downhill since legion, and incredibly fast ashwell. Its not a game anymore realy. Hard to describe what wow has actually become

It has become a game *you* don't like. It doesn't exactly describe it's overall direction.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

WoW doesn't need rebuilding because for some reason the community has accepted Blizzard making a lot of money is the aim instead of making a great game for them (I get it, that you know.. they want to make money and I argue it would either way). Not saying that it is currently a shit tier game. That is far from the truth. It is a really good game. But the level of innovation and creativity has diminished. Most of it is just a re-skin done by an amazing art team (top tier in the industry I would say) and needlessly re-creating the same old systems only SLIGHTLY different over and over again for about the last 3 or so expansions. Most of which are just renames and maybe, again, some re-arting. So if in WoD/Legion your heart melted for this game than you are in good shape. Going forward it is going to be that merely colored slightly different and some systems tossed in a bag, shook up, and then pulled out on a rotation from here on out more than likely. But hey.. those profit margins. Sick AF.

[Spiral Mage]

Yoshida is the real deal, I mean he's made mistakes, but over all he really knows what his players want and how to succeed. He was put in charge after FF14's horrible launch and he said he knew he'd have to really roll up his sleeves, learn fast and work hard to redeem it and he did a beautiful job.

I think WoW's problem is the Devs' just don't have the passion or the love for the game they used to have. It's made them deaf and blind, and they are pretty deadset about staying that way.

It's like on 24 Hours to Hell and Back or Kitchen Nightmares, Gordon Ramsay finds an owner who's given up, who's lost his passion and lost sight of what it takes -- and he smacks some sense into them and sets them right.

That's what the WoW team needs. If they could get some sense smacked back into them and take it to heart, and roll up their sleeves and work for it, they could easily turn this ship around and charter it back toward the path it used to be on.

[Mirishka]

I was always impressed by the devs of Final Fantasy Online and ESO, and how these games at launch received garbage reviews and were doomed to be just another 2 failed MMOs.

Then the devs reviewed every single aspect of the game, in the case of FFO I think they even shut it down for a whole year, re-launched the games, and now they are praised in the top 3 / top 5 of MMOs on the market.

Blizzard did the same thing with Diablo 3 with the Reaper of Souls expansion and literally every patch that launched after. Whether you love or hate D3's main story or art style, you cannot deny it is a beast of an ARPG compared to what it launched as, and ROS' story was very good as well.

Whatever issues WoW has, they could be fixed, if there was a will for it, WoW makes more money per month than most MMOs do in a year probably.

A: if the game was in such dire need of 'fixing' it wouldn't still be the top MMORPG.

B: You make entirely too many topics.

- - - Updated - - -

I think WoW's problem is the Devs' just don't have the passion or the love for the game they used to have. It's made them deaf and blind, and they are pretty deadset about staying that way.

Stop confusing 'they don't make WoW the way I think they should' with 'the passion is dead'. Because you don't have an iota of a clue how passionate they are about WoW.

[CiccioBello]

I was always impressed by the devs of Final Fantasy Online and ESO, and how these games at launch received garbage reviews and were doomed to be just another 2 failed MMOs.

Then the devs reviewed every single aspect of the game, in the case of FFO I think they even shut it down for a whole year, re-launched the games, and now they are praised in the top 3 / top 5 of MMOs on the market.

Blizzard did the same thing with Diablo 3 with the Reaper of Souls expansion and literally every patch that launched after. Whether you love or hate D3's main story or art style, you cannot deny it is a beast of an ARPG compared to what it launched as, and ROS' story was very good as well.

Whatever issues WoW has, they could be fixed, if there was a will for it, WoW makes more money per month than most MMOs do in a year probably.

The point is that it is true that WoW generates more money than other blizz games but it is also true that it has higher maintenance and development costs.
Blizzard is a company that as a first result is to do $$ if up to now there has not been a total rework as you intend it is simply for a reason: it costs too much and the return is not so obvious, therefore it is an investment too risky.
The situation of ESO and FF was different because they started very badly they had nothing to do while the blizz should risk so much for a game that over the years even if between ups and downs it has yielded and worked well. From a pure business perspective, your idea is bankruptcy from the beginning.