Have We Become Overly Critical?

[Lolites]

but I think we should be critical

sure, but not without brain, thats what the op was on about, criticising is fine and actualy good, criticising anything without valid reason, without even saying (or in some cases knowing) what is the point of criticism is just pointless...

[Alanar]

sure, but not without brain, thats what the op was on about, criticising is fine and actualy good, criticising anything without valid reason, without even saying (or in some cases knowing) what is the point of criticism is just pointless...

Sure, I agree on that. But I notice alot of the critisims these days are mostly complaining.about the same issues Just that some put more thought or write with more words. Well basically saying the same thing.

The one liners: game is bad are easily ignored.

[MoanaLisa]

Plus Ion IS the Game Director so it stands for reason that he is calling the shots.

People say this but if you've watched them over the years, the Game Director is clearly more in charge of gaining team consensus than calling the shots. I think it's very rare for the Game Director to directly make a decision and that's likely after all efforts at gaining consensus have failed. The effort to remove flying in Warlords is a good example. It took them months to finally make an obvious decision, much of that expressed in various channels. When they finally came to a decision, Ion announced it but it was clear that it was something that everyone in the building who had an opinion weighed in on and some disagreed with the final decision.

So, I don't put much stock in the notion of a Blizzard Game Director handing out edicts from on high. That's not how they work and there's a ton of evidence over the years that demonstrates that. In fact, I would assume that if anyone is a hard-ass on making decisions, it's in the small group of executive producers and managers that essentially run the teams.

[VinceVega]

I feel like most of the time these 'other' mmos are taken as example, because they have options that are just there and are part of what an mmorpg should be offering, while wow simply doesnt have it or you have to pay for it.

Not realy about crying and still.playing wow. One big example is costumizations. Took them 16 years to add a new eye color. Its not realy acceptable in these times. But that is my opinion.

Well yeah. I am not saying wow is perfect. I also think that the whole customization thing came A) way to late and B) is not nearly enough, like seriously. Half of the customizations don't even change anything about the model itself or has an impact on armor. Like Nightborne... heavens... 3 faces? Really?
Or sets and their lack of them.

I played Eso, Aion, Swotor, GW 1 and 2, FF14 and none of them could keep me because while they have some parts that are arguably better than wow overall the issues they have are bigger than wows (for me) and after maybe 1 or 2 month i get anoyed with it and go back to wow.

[McNeil]

People seem to forget that we can also criticize out of passion for the game. We have known better times WoW was in and we'd like to see them go back to being just as good, but then Blizzard decides to bring the game forward into another direction that is not to our liking. This is when we call out to Blizzard that doing X or Y will not improve the game and then come with suggestions on how we think makes the game better. Personally I really like WoW, but I don't like the direction they are taking with the past few expansions. I do talk shit about the game every now and then but that doesn't mean that I'm some stucked up ''hater'' who just wants to spread misery or something. Its because I know that the game can be way better than it is, and if I can even contribute a little to improve the game then it might even convince getting some friends back to play so I can have a good time.

As for Blizzard getting too much criticism, you gotta admit that they do fuck up a lot as of late. I still think that out of all their games WoW is easily in the best position, but thats also mostly thanks to Classic and the upcoming TBC. I do think that some people criticize the most stupid things that barely even matters in the long run, like some certain event happens in the lore and we get threads spammed that its a really dumb thing they did, or that one of their abilities got slightly nerfed and suddenly its the end of the game. But other than that, every form of criticism is acceptable as long as they don't go overboard with personal threats, even something like ''get Ion fired'' doesn't suit well with me and its non-constructive. Don't forget that people like Ion still have to feed their family, nobody likes to lose their jobs. Just saying something like ''hunter sucks now, fix pls'' is constructive enough for the company to at least take a good look at the class.

[Queen of Hamsters]

I feel like most of the time these 'other' mmos are taken as example, because they have options that are just there and are part of what an mmorpg should be offering, while wow simply doesnt have it or you have to pay for it.

Not realy about crying and still.playing wow. One big example is costumizations. Took them 16 years to add a new eye color. Its not realy acceptable in these times. But that is my opinion.

The thing is that they conveniently forget to mention all the downsides those other MMOs have.

Be that an ever diminishing playerbase, or things such as stores where you need to PAY to change things like eye color and such.
People tend to be more critical in choosing which game to spend time in than they are when choosing tires for their car, or electrician to secure the newly renovated bathroom's electrics. If aaaall those other MMORPGs did the entirety better, they'd be the bigger games.

But they're not.

For comparison to the reasoning of some: I can like the local bakery's rye bread better than anything that's on the market, but that doesn't mean there's not mass-produced bread that gives people just as much bang for their buck (cheaper too) on the market. That is a fact no matter how much I hipster-screech about it. And there's downsides to my local baker too. The bread is expensive, they often run out of stock and they got far less variety on offer than the bread shelves at the grocery store.

In fact, I stopped shopping from the local baker when I found what I suspect to be a bit of fingernail in the loaf, but that's another topic...

So yeah, whilst other MMORPGs do several things right, they do a whole lot wrong too. That just seems to get lost in translation, or maybe the people hailing them haven't actually PLAYED them... Wouldn't surprise me. <.<

[Lolites]

Sure, I agree on that. But I notice alot of the critisims these days are mostly complaining.about the same issues Just that some put more thought or write with more words. Well basically saying the same thing.

The one liners: game is bad are easily ignored.

yeah, pretty much, vast majority of "criticism" is sadly just whining, and quite often factualy wrong...
ma fav example 8.3 being "empty patch", i get that not everybody liked the content but "empty" was just... wrong

[Queen of Hamsters]

Well yeah. I am not saying wow is perfect. I also think that the whole customization thing came A) way to late and B) is not nearly enough, like seriously. Half of the customizations don't even change anything about the model itself or has an impact on armor. Like Nightborne... heavens... 3 faces? Really?
Or sets and their lack of them.

I played Eso, Aion, Swotor, GW 1 and 2, FF14 and none of them could keep me because while they have some parts that are arguably better than wow overall the issues they have are bigger than wows (for me) and after maybe 1 or 2 month i get anoyed with it and go back to wow.

Agreed, on everything except Aion and GW1, can't say anything on those as I never tried them...

I think Blizzard deflated a lot of possible hype by not including more customization in 9.1. It's such a simple way of creating buzz and excitement, and they DID call customization a major feature of the expansion, but alas... Maybe in 9.2, they'll slap us in the face with the motherload of hairstyles and stuff. I doubt it though.

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yeah, pretty much, vast majority of "criticism" is sadly just whining, and quite often factualy wrong...
ma fav example 8.3 being "empty patch", i get that not everybody liked the content but "empty" was just... wrong

Yeah, one shudders to think of the inherent selfish nature of people unable to appreciate that them not liking content =/= there IS no content.
That, or their ability to completely disconnect from facts of reality in favor of their emotions...

Now, back to Dawn of Man!

[Thage]

Is this forum extremely critical? Yes. Is it overly critical? I don't think so. We're talking about a development team that is notorious for digging their heels in on all the wrong things, typically because it was someone's brainchild and they wanted to 'leave their mark' on the game's history. It's inevitable that the criticism gets harsher the longer things go with being ignored until Blizzard finally about-faces long after damage has been done and their solution, which would have been spectacular when the feedback first started filtering in during beta, ends up far too little, far too late.

"Blizzard is a big ship" only goes so far as a defense, so does their attempts to diffuse the blame by going with an approach where team leads rarely put their foot down and keep everyone focused on a singular vision. Blizzard isn't a small company starved of resources; their flagship titles print money and they're owned by a company that regularly pulls in billions annually. When a system is very obviously not playing well regardless of how good it looked on paper, waiting until the next expansion to overhaul that system is a symptom of a lazy, unfocused development process--they're more focused on how announcing changes to the bad system can get a pop from the crowd than with getting the bad system replaced to provide a better game experience. That's the biggest problem with the game right now: the developers are more focused on how they can get hype than with letting the hype build itself.

[Kokolums]

Blizzard invites bonus criticism by not reporting sub numbers. The easiest way to silence critics is to show that the playerbase is growing. When you hide the numbers, people assume the worst. Because, after all, if the numbers were good, a company would shout them from the mountaintops. When fansites restrict discussion of sub numbers, it just invites even more criticism.

The best method of determining sub activity is tracking the number of downloads per day of popular addons like dbm and raider.io.

[Advent]

I honestly think people are stuck in this weird loop of discontent when it comes to wow. People love it, but are constantly complaining about it like a jaded spouse. This Destiny 2 video sums up my thoughts quite well, and suits many wow commenters too. https://youtu.be/hRXwAvUVI4M?t=580

[Kokolums]

I honestly think people are stuck in this weird loop of discontent when it comes to wow. People love it, but are constantly complaining about it like a jaded spouse. This Destiny 2 video sums up my thoughts quite well, and suits many wow commenters too. https://youtu.be/hRXwAvUVI4M?t=580

Well this is obviously wrong. The playerbase is historically at a very low point. I maintain that one more Blitzchung-level snafu will drop the playerbase so low that it will force them to merge factions.

[sil3ntearth]

I honestly think people are stuck in this weird loop of discontent when it comes to wow. People love it, but are constantly complaining about it like a jaded spouse. This Destiny 2 video sums up my thoughts quite well, and suits many wow commenters too. https://youtu.be/hRXwAvUVI4M?t=580

Right?

I think it depends on where the criticism is coming from. I think we could all do with remember to come at it from a place of constructive criticism instead of just lashing out.

[Izzyfurious]

No OP, thats literally imho all video games that over time gets huge communities. The bigger they get, the more iditos and vocal morons they will attract over time. And those will start overshadowing the much less vocal ones in general quicker.

One time on here i said similar too, and one poster replied and told me thats indeed how it has being since forever. So i know this is not just me feeling it.

[Gorsameth]

It's no secret who supports Blizz and who crucifies them with every, single decision; however, I have to wonder...

have we become overcritical of a 15 year old MMO that continues to get updates? Ultima Online, EverQuest and World of Warcraft have been around for a long while and still have a large and dedicated fanbase, yet other MMOs like Aion, LotRO, Warhammer, Age of Conan, and even Guild Wars 2 all set out to dethrone the long standing favorites and eventually faded into nothingness. What do you suppose prevents some players from just being excited to still have new content and millions of other players?

No I don't think its people being over critical, and being critical is not a bad thing. I think the main problem is people not recognising they no longer enjoy the game and refusing to move on.
We often wish we were still the same person as we were 15 years ago. For some its hard to accept that time has moved on.

[Ashleyxoxo]

Drama post about drama posts.

[OMGTwitchTV]

I actually don't know why people bring up the pandemic all the time to be fair.

It was mostly just to illustrate a team who succeeded being alone where they have previously missed the mark being in the same building. As for the tree mount, it will become my Gnome Hunter's new favorite

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3.1 with raid (great one, no question about that) and few dailies was amazing, but 8.3 with raid, dailies, assaults, corruption system, story q line, visions, nev pvp and M+ seasons with new affix, outdoor changes to two zones, legendary, redesigned bg, two new races, auction house overhaul and more small changes was "empty patch", so what do you think?

yes, people are way too critical, and, which is far worse, completely forgetful and biased

I would not call it an empty patch, but BFA for me just did not have the more classic wow feels to it. BFA felt like Pandaria. Sprawling zones with very little cohesive story to them. In fact, it was not until Shadowlands that my Night Fae trips back to Drustvar even felt like Drustvar had any significance. As for empty patches, that would be 6.1 when we got S.E.L.F.I.E. cameras and Twitter integration.

[hulkgor]

It's no secret who supports Blizz and who crucifies them with every, single decision; however, I have to wonder...

have we become overcritical of a 15 year old MMO that continues to get updates? Ultima Online, EverQuest and World of Warcraft have been around for a long while and still have a large and dedicated fanbase, yet other MMOs like Aion, LotRO, Warhammer, Age of Conan, and even Guild Wars 2 all set out to dethrone the long standing favorites and eventually faded into nothingness. What do you suppose prevents some players from just being excited to still have new content and millions of other players?

It's not unique to WoW, or here on MMOC.

As a whole, we're just overly egotistical, entitled and plain rude over the anonymity of the internet.

Pretty sure nothing will ever change in that regards, that ship has long sailed.

[NineSpine]

Idk man.. like I said there just to many thing that feel like an opinion and just to broad to just flatley say: its because of the players. I can sum up a list as well where feedback was given and none was used. Your game works because you and I play and pay, so they better listen. But like I said as well this feels like an entire different company then when I first started playing in vanilla.

Thorghast is a good example why it seems you dont get it.
Thorghast in their eyes was a player and developer mix of feedback and working together. It didnt turn out that way because they didnt listen and you see the effect on live servers. Throghast was a fail and mostly fire and forget. Now that everyone got their legendary there is no reason to do it anymore. There are alot of vids on youtube about streamers who provided feedback and were shocked at the final changes they made at the end.

You need to pay more attention to the feedback that was delivered. The feedback was that it took too long, that it felt bad to not be able to "complete" something, that it felt bad for your powers to determine too much about your run, that it shouldn't be mandatory, etc.. Those are the things the streamers and demanded. What they didn't realize is that getting what they want would ruin the feature, and it did. Then, the streamers turn around and act baffled why it sucks now.

It's exactly what I'm talking about: Players demand things, get what they want, and then act confused why the game sucks. It sucks because THEY AREN'T DESIGNERS so implementing their requests will make a bad game. What's a camel? A horse designed by committee.

[xStevooo]

When something is garbage, it is garbage regardless of how you want to decorate it,
In relation to WoW specifically - when you charge money to purchase the game, charge money for expansions, charge for a subscription fee, have insanely over inflated service costs and an in game cash shop - you deserve to be scrutinised under a microscope. The sheer lack of quality, creativity and implementation in almost everything they do is beyond laughable, something I wouldn't expect from a F2P product.