Years ago, Blizzard misidentified the problem

[Queen of Hamsters]

Having access to data doesn't mean anything. Plenty of people in data analysis are complete idiots who apply shoddy methodology and don't know how to interpret the results they get. People are constantly making the mistake of assuming that just because someone works in an industry, they have a head on their shoulders. In reality Blizzard's devs are just as foolish as the average WoW forum poster, which would explain all the questionable decisions over the years.

Today I learned this on MMO-C: Data doesn't mean anything, and it also doesn't drive the designs of an MMORPG.

[Stickiler]

Having access to data doesn't mean anything. Plenty of people in data analysis are complete idiots who apply shoddy methodology and don't know how to interpret the results they get. People are constantly making the mistake of assuming that just because someone works in an industry, they have a head on their shoulders. In reality Blizzard's devs are just as foolish as the average WoW forum poster, which would explain all the questionable decisions over the years.

There are absolutely people in DA jobs who use the wrong methodology, for sure. There are also people who use the correct methodology.


No matter the method, they'll still get results that are infinitely more useful than people on forums(who're untrained in any kind of DA) who're just pulling numbers out of their ass and using that to justify their own preconceived notions.

[Kuntantee]

Imagine having an argument for no-time gating..where is yours and can you point us to an MMORPG that works without it?

Imaging having your memory wiped. WotLK had no time gating outside of dungeon/raid lockouts. Some time-gating is OK but what we have currently feels cheap and artificial.

In a game that and genre that basically relies and always relied on timegating. But I guess if it is timegating like the stuff that was required to reach honor ranks or clear raids and get gear and it was in the game since 2005 and you grew up with it - then it is fine and not timegating?

Doing raids is time gating? Are you nuts? That's the content you want to do and do it on your own pace. Let me repeat, on your own pace. This is the exact opposite of time-gating.


I mean people have reached to a level on defending Blizzard that I thought they could not reach. Hear hear, raiding is time gating...

What's next? Blizzard develops a game composed of white screen and you guys think that's the best game ever created?

[korijenkins]

Imagine being upset at time gates... the alternative is either A) being able to grind stuff in a week and moaning about nothing being worth doing or B) being expected to grind it in a week for player power else be behind.

A is the superior option. People act like having nothing to do is a bad thing. This game should not eat up 100% of your free time.

Solution: Don't gate power behind grinds, don't time-gate grinds. If I want to do it all in 1 day or never I should have that option. Give people freedom to do what they want in your expansion and it will, unsurprisingly, be more loved.

[Queen of Hamsters]

There are absolutely people in DA jobs who use the wrong methodology, for sure. There are also people who use the correct methodology.


No matter the method, they'll still get results that are infinitely more useful than people on forums(who're untrained in any kind of DA) who're just pulling numbers out of their ass and using that to justify their own preconceived notions.

Nah, I'm sure this particular multi-billion dollar company uses its data completely wrong and have been for all this time. MMO-C individuals got the REAL data. Source? Their ass.

[Argorwal]

A is the superior option. People act like having nothing to do is a bad thing. This game should not eat up 100% of your free time.

Solution: Don't gate power behind grinds, don't time-gate grinds. If I want to do it all in 1 day or never I should have that option. Give people freedom to do what they want in your expansion and it will, unsurprisingly, be more loved.

Sounds to me like we should remove raid lockouts and have no conquest cap so we are all free to play as much as we want and progress as far as we want as fast as we want.

[LordVargK]

Imaging having your memory wiped. WotLK had no time gating outside of dungeon/raid lockouts. Some time-gating is OK but what we have currently feels cheap and artificial.

What do we currently have? And of course WotLK had timegating: It took us until the last patch to see the fate of the lich king. And we even had similar forms of timegating as we have now: Argentum tournament requires you to do a certain amount of daylies to progress, just as an example. Without catchup, I might add.

- - - Updated - - -

A is the superior option. People act like having nothing to do is a bad thing. This game should not eat up 100% of your free time.

Solution: Don't gate power behind grinds, don't time-gate grinds. If I want to do it all in 1 day or never I should have that option. Give people freedom to do what they want in your expansion and it will, unsurprisingly, be more loved.

Would be fine by Blizzard. They would sell you the entire expansion for 300$ though instead of paying a sub. You see the ridiculousness of your statement in an sub fee powered MMO, do you?

[Swnem]

Except the ff14 payment model is shit and logging in every day is cool

Huh? It's the same one as WoW.

[Shelly]

The problem that Blizzard identified were content droughts. People, especially towards the latter half of SoO and HFC were quitting because they had completed the game. Blizzard thought that this was a problem and time-gating, extreme RNG and padded out infinite content like M+ were born. It was a losing fight anyway.

No game, will ever, no matter how great it is, be able to occupy people's attention every day for years upon years. There is an activity that does that: it's called real life. A game with "infinite" content would have to be a virtual copy of the real world.

People play video games to escape the real world. By padding out WoW, great experiences like pushing rankings, ratings and tackling new bosses are diluted in an endless swamp of extracurricular currencies, reputations, weekly and daily activities and vanity rewards.

Like the director of FF14 said, after you beat a game you quit until the next content update. The solution to content droughts was a different pricing model instead of the archaic subscription model.

Instead of recognizing that WoW has huge spikes during expansion and content patch releases, Blizzard decided to fight a losing battle and retain customers all year round. This is a fight they'll never win but they'll dilute the game to the nth degree to try so.

Actually their solution was regular content releases on a quick schedule, although they never announced what the schedule was.

Legion followed this best with everything being roughly 111 or so days apart if I remember correctly.

BfA also had it, where for the most part if you were an "average" guild you would just be finishing heroic a few weeks before the next tier launched.

You can also see it in Shadowlands, we can expect a content update on or around week 13 if they keep us going at 3 renown per week, or week 23 if they scale us back to two renown per week after next week.

[Mirishka]

The problem that Blizzard identified were content droughts. People, especially towards the latter half of SoO and HFC were quitting because they had completed the game. Blizzard thought that this was a problem and time-gating, extreme RNG and padded out infinite content like M+ were born. It was a losing fight anyway.

No game, will ever, no matter how great it is, be able to occupy people's attention every day for years upon years. There is an activity that does that: it's called real life. A game with "infinite" content would have to be a virtual copy of the real world.

People play video games to escape the real world. By padding out WoW, great experiences like pushing rankings, ratings and tackling new bosses are diluted in an endless swamp of extracurricular currencies, reputations, weekly and daily activities and vanity rewards.

Like the director of FF14 said, after you beat a game you quit until the next content update. The solution to content droughts was a different pricing model instead of the archaic subscription model.

Instead of recognizing that WoW has huge spikes during expansion and content patch releases, Blizzard decided to fight a losing battle and retain customers all year round. This is a fight they'll never win but they'll dilute the game to the nth degree to try so.

The alternative is that they don't timegate anything, people finish everything in a week and then whine for months that they have nothing to do.

Neither extreme works, but there really isn't a middle ground to be had beyond making the 'repeatable' content rewarding/compelling.

My solution would be to add tons upon tons of things to collect: toys, cosmetics mounts etc from basically every source in the game. But piling that stuff on creates its own set of potential issues so that's easier said than done.

[darklogrus]

Agreed... i also never understood the problem with timegating.

Im cool with it, 1 M+ every other week ( don't want you getting burnt out on that) Ohh and we can start time gating the raid bosses as well ( we want everyone at the same point )

Look, I just created 30 weeks of content without even trying and its overwhelmingly loved by the MMO-C grp..

[Relapses]

Yes, you figured it out. Blizzard, in their efforts to stop people from quitting, implemented... wait. No, this can't be right.

Hang on, let me check the notes real quick. Okay, yes, they implemented features that make people quit.

Truly next level thinking on display here.

[Dastreus]

Except the ff14 payment model is shit and logging in every day is cool

It has literally the same payment model.

[Relapses]

A is the superior option. People act like having nothing to do is a bad thing. This game should not eat up 100% of your free time.

Solution: Don't gate power behind grinds, don't time-gate grinds. If I want to do it all in 1 day or never I should have that option. Give people freedom to do what they want in your expansion and it will, unsurprisingly, be more loved.

Solution: Burn people the fuck out and if they start complaining tell them to "git gud." And when everybody quits the fucking game in a week, blame Blizzard for not making the game good enough for 100% of players to feel satisfied.

We call this the WildStar approach. Care to tell us how that went?

[Mysterymask]

either would be much preferable.

Being able to play the whole game at its release is what players want.

Then once ur done, you can raidlog and play another game off raids, another whole game.

Until thats done. Then another, and another and another! So many fun games out there!

Sounds like you shouldn't be playing MMOs...you know a genre that's entire existence is dependent on people constantly playing?

[kamuimac]

Sounds like you shouldn't be playing MMOs...you know a genre that's entire existence is dependent on people constantly playing?

this is the same problem as WoD had

its expansion catered to people who dont want to play game just raid log.

and just like WoD its completly failing - because majority of players never raid.

[Zmagoslav]

Having access to data doesn't mean anything. Plenty of people in data analysis are complete idiots who apply shoddy methodology and don't know how to interpret the results they get. People are constantly making the mistake of assuming that just because someone works in an industry, they have a head on their shoulders. In reality Blizzard's devs are just as foolish as the average WoW forum poster, which would explain all the questionable decisions over the years.

Yes, data is meaningless and they should clearly rather listen to MMO-posters, who deliver conflicting opinions every other week and never back it up with explanations or sources. /s

[Lolites]

A is the superior option. People act like having nothing to do is a bad thing. This game should not eat up 100% of your free time.

Solution: Don't gate power behind grinds, don't time-gate grinds. If I want to do it all in 1 day or never I should have that option. Give people freedom to do what they want in your expansion and it will, unsurprisingly, be more loved.

right, why wouldnt blizzard (and by extention us) want people to burn through the content on day one and then leave until new content...
surely loosing third (or more) of the revenue wouldnt lead to less and worse content. nooooo not at all, after all blizzard do it for free for us, its not busines or anything, employee would put their own money just so they can create content for us!

[kukkamies]

No game, will ever, no matter how great it is, be able to occupy people's attention every day for years upon years.

Oldschool Runescape can do that. It's truly the dream game of people with too much time. Overall I spent maybe 2 years playing it 5-10h a day. The ones who truly like it have played it for a decade for 10h+ every day.

It's a game that always has something to do and without stupid time gates

[msdos]

Now is the perfect time to abandon retail because the story has taken a complete nose dive. They have to shoe horn in deceased, retired, make believe, redesigned heroes left and right now to keep people interested.
"Crap, what throwback allied race can we think of now to remind people this is Warcraft?? How about playable Murlocs???"

The game may be the "same crap as always" as contrarian addicts like to say, but keep playing anyway. But story wise, it's complete garbage and not the same whatsoever, it's markedly worse in story and the lore is nose diving, not just in substance but also in consistency.

Sylvanas knew about all this BS HOW???????????????????? Nice story line......