Why does SL feel like end of expansion time?

[Varaben]

It did happen, but got masked by how many new subs it kept getting.

Which is why when they posted the stats in Cata that WoW had over 100 million players over its life but only 12 million max concurrent players.

WoW bled players hard, and eventually you ran out of new ones. And the Asian payment model of “pay per hour and count of a sub didn’t hurt.”

WoW is in the end phases of the product lifecycle graph where the population is low. We get some spikes in expansion releases, and a little on patches, due to some hype and players getting nostalgic for when they used to play and enjoy WoW.

Also, is an MMO (or any game) expected to be more popular the longer it goes? 16 years? 20? 40?

WOW is such an oddball in the industry that it's impossible to say. Other MMOs have come and gone even ones that had big money behind them like SWTOR - it's still alive, but some said it had a $150M budget (like Avengers??) yet it was pretty much a big flop. Blizz seems to be pushing for an "expansion" every year to keep people subbed with classic TBC on the way 2 years after Classic Vanilla. You can easily see what the cycle will likely look like - WOTLK was largely one of the best expansions in the game, so I can't imagine they'll stop at TBC.

So by having Retail vs. Nostalgia available, people can pop between the two and stay busy. Based on that, it looks like WOW will be around at least until the 20 year mark. We keep thinking a new "wow killer" will come along, and they never do - despite wow being like you said probably in its lowest population ever. Yet they're still pushing new expansions and re-makes of old expansions. I kinda feel like they won't do classic cataclysm though...

[bigfun]

U must not play on area 52.... That server is a CLUSTER....i log in and autioneers dont even load and takes me 10 mins to get out of the AH, and its not my computer either

[Violent]

Your a fool i have a hard time finding people out of my server i hate the people who play on it i wish it was Other servers.thrall has always been a huge server wtf are you talking about here fool!

Wtf are you talking about? In one post you say it's not "dying" at all, and that every server is FILLED with people (Your reasoning on why its not dying)
Then you say "I have a hard time finding people."

You can't have it both ways, there Bud.

That is not what im seeing on my server at all on thrall packed if anything to many people still playing its annoying when i get ques on it sometimes as well.

Which one is it?? Stick to lurking kiddo.

[NordWitcher]

I think they though that Torghast was going to be "unlimited content" and that on top of callings, pvp/pve weekly/daily quests, and the normal PVE/PVP content that it would keep people interested. But there's too many problems to list in the current game, and it's no surprise so many people have quit. It's pretty normal for the new expansion to bring a lot of players in then it slows patch to patch...but it doesn't have to be like that. This never happened in older expansions (pre Cata), so it's hard to say if it's just a sign of the times (way more competition now for example) or is a reflection of the game itself.

The problem with Torghast is that they basically copied rifts from Diablo 3. It's no surprise that over the years, Blizzard has taken a lot of game designs and systems from Diablo 3 into WoW like adventure mode, callings, emissaries, legendaries, etc. The problem with Torghast is that its not designed for a MMO. It feels slow, clunky and terrible. There is no real need to want to run Torghast. Now if it dropped guaranteed gear at the end of each run it would go some ways to making people want to run it.

Blizzard's challenge is that they fail to innovate and put way too much focus on raids and end game competitive game play. It makes sense as a developer to control how people play since that way it helps in better predicting patterns and developers love patterns. Helps them stay ahead and better manage plans but at the same time it's terrible for the player base cause players don't want to play how the developers want them to play. You see more and freedom being taken out of the game and put into the hands of developers cause developers can't control an open game. It seems more than ever over the last few expansions. The developers have been micromanaging everything and that's pretty obvious with the state of the game from how loot is distributed like personal loot to gate keeping, lockouts, etc. Its suddenly become a single player experience even though you are playing with others.

- - - Updated - - -

The problems with these statments of Blizzard's workfow is the same as with things like your horoscope. They are vague rubbish you say, because they are technically true for everyone and sound good, because someone is always spinning some ideas early in a dev team, but the overall production beginns way later. This is an almost univeral truth in all jobs where you can claim something like a development process (at least from the PoV of project management), be it a software or hardware product.

The recent beta phases have shown that Blizzard's workflow is way more short term than what people would think by the statments you mentioned, which btw have been stated years ago when the team was a different one. You also can't really develop another expansion in parallel with the exception of some concepts (concept art) and universal components (art assets), because the direction of the current expansion is clearly trial and error systems wise and we've seen Blizzard even admit that they react to the role of certain characters according to feedback. It would be simply pointless to spin the next expansion's changes when they completely contradict what the current design team is doing for the current expansion.

WoD was alot of things. Blizzard saw subscriptions skyrocket by almost 3 million after it went down alot throughout MoP. But that didn't last apparently and Blizzard realized that the expansion wasn't capturing people as much as they thought (imho it was a badly timed movie tie-in that backfired). One major patch (!) was a bit of social media integration for example. Blizzard went all out with the development for Legion, but like everytime Blizzard does that, they need to practically abandon the current expansion because their resources are alot more limited than we acknowledge. The content draught at the end of every expansion is the result of these limited resources. They might have had more content planned, like the Island to the north that was often talked about, but at the end of the day Blizzard delivered the minimum for raiding focused on the next expansion.

I get what you are trying to say. For example its well acknowledged that The Burning Crusade was way ahead in development even before the launch of Classic which is how they were able to release it so quickly. I mean most game development schedule last from anywhere between 3-4 years on normal size game. However, WoW is able to put out whole continents, regions and content within 2 years. That takes a lot of work which would be impossible to work on within 12 months. They probably have a big team and multiple teams working on different projects.

Now am sure they do make some changes to character arcs etc based on a players' feedbacks etc but I think the overall theme or idea won't change much. I think what I say is true cause you look at the similarities between Legion, BFA and SL. They all share similar game design systems and Blizzard thought they could get away with that. During Legion it felt fresh and new but it hasn't changed much in the last 2 expansions. They've made small tweaks here and there. Every previous expansion brought about something new and different before that however, the game has largely stayed stagnant in the last 3 expansions.

Take characters for example. People have been somewhat bored of Anduin for sometime now, yet they keep pushing him. Most likely cause they've already written his fate and set in motion his journey many years ago.

WOD got a lot of returning old players because it was supposed to be a return to "old WoW" with Old Heroes from the lore and the RTS games who had never showed up in the MMO before. These were characters spoken about in WoW lore but not someone the players got to see. That was the whole marketing behind WoD from what I followed back then. The WOW movie was bad timing but it had nothing to do with the game itself. The movie was just bad, horribly bad and rushed. It felt like a movie made for WoW fans rather than a larger audience. They just threw all these characters at you, the pacing was off, the acting was terrible and the writing even worse. That didn't help but WoW was still popular considering Legion launched after WOD and the movie.

[cozzri]

The problem with Torghast is that they basically copied rifts from Diablo 3. It's no surprise that over the years, Blizzard has taken a lot of game designs and systems from Diablo 3 into WoW like adventure mode, callings, emissaries, legendaries, etc. The problem with Torghast is that its not designed for a MMO. It feels slow, clunky and terrible. There is no real need to want to run Torghast. Now if it dropped guaranteed gear at the end of each run it would go some ways to making people want to run it.

Blizzard's challenge is that they fail to innovate and put way too much focus on raids and end game competitive game play. It makes sense as a developer to control how people play since that way it helps in better predicting patterns and developers love patterns. Helps them stay ahead and better manage plans but at the same time it's terrible for the player base cause players don't want to play how the developers want them to play. You see more and freedom being taken out of the game and put into the hands of developers cause developers can't control an open game. It seems more than ever over the last few expansions. The developers have been micromanaging everything and that's pretty obvious with the state of the game from how loot is distributed like personal loot to gate keeping, lockouts, etc. Its suddenly become a single player experience even though you are playing with others.

Copying Diablo 3 isn't the best idea because it was mostly a forgettable game. The Idea of adventure mode is fun in WoW, until you realize all there is to do is world quests (Don't we do those enough on max levels?).

Torghast feels like a missed opportunity to allow players to farm anima to their hearts content. The bottleneck for Anima is atrocious.

[Sorrior]

Copying Diablo 3 isn't the best idea because it was mostly a forgettable game. The Idea of adventure mode is fun in WoW, until you realize all there is to do is world quests (Don't we do those enough on max levels?).

Torghast feels like a missed opportunity to allow players to farm anima to their hearts content. The bottleneck for Anima is atrocious.

And the favt they missed one of the most fun parts of a roguelite...being OP as f if you last long enough with potentially crazy gonzo powers..which they apparently had in alpha but removed for some asinine reason

[Varaben]

The problem with Torghast is that they basically copied rifts from Diablo 3. It's no surprise that over the years, Blizzard has taken a lot of game designs and systems from Diablo 3 into WoW like adventure mode, callings, emissaries, legendaries, etc. The problem with Torghast is that its not designed for a MMO. It feels slow, clunky and terrible. There is no real need to want to run Torghast. Now if it dropped guaranteed gear at the end of each run it would go some ways to making people want to run it.

Blizzard's challenge is that they fail to innovate and put way too much focus on raids and end game competitive game play. It makes sense as a developer to control how people play since that way it helps in better predicting patterns and developers love patterns. Helps them stay ahead and better manage plans but at the same time it's terrible for the player base cause players don't want to play how the developers want them to play. You see more and freedom being taken out of the game and put into the hands of developers cause developers can't control an open game. It seems more than ever over the last few expansions. The developers have been micromanaging everything and that's pretty obvious with the state of the game from how loot is distributed like personal loot to gate keeping, lockouts, etc. Its suddenly become a single player experience even though you are playing with others.

I don't get why they didn't put valor at the end of Torghast. You can either run a M+ to get valor (which you can spam) or you can do torghast and get some (which you can only get twice a week anyway). It's inherently restricting the amount you get and it would give you a reason to run torghast after you finished your legendary. Seems like an easy solution they could have put into the game when they introduced valor. If you're already doing Torghast it passively increases your valor income and it doesn't actually give you any gear. You'd still have to do M+ to actually pick up gear pieces.

I understand why they didn't - they don't like to double dip on currency (though in PVP they do...), and make you feel like you "have" to do Torghast...But they already want us to do Torghast right? Just seems like an easy solution.

[wargone]

COVID probably isn't helping, either. Game design is mostly collaborative, and that is a lot harder when everybody is at home and can only communicate through (video) calls. It already delayed the launch of Shadowlands, and will probably affect the patch as well.
Though to be fair, we're only about three months into the current raid tier. Even in normal times, I wouldn't expect the next raid+associated content for another three months at least.
Another way in which COVID is probably affecting our perception is that as players, we have a lot more free time now, so we go through content faster. Working from home cuts commute times, and many hobbies are hard or impossible with the social distancing restrictions. I know several people who only started playing again because of the pandemic.

Here is the problem with the "covid" argument, ALL other game companies are still makeing content, PoE going at it strong, Warframe, Genshin impact, Fortnight.
and somehow only blizzard been completyl stuck in the ground by it?
sure covid is not helping, But other companies ARE makeing things

[Accendor]

A non-English EU server is much smaller than NA megaservers. You are not on a "populated" server. I am on one of those NA megaservers. Oribos is packed at all times of the day.

Yeah, but you can not really take that as an indication. If the population is decimated in any other language than English you can not really argue that the population is in a healthy spot.
Sure, I mean we can all just migrate to one European mega server at some point, I'm not denying there would be enough players for hat, but what does this REALLY say about the state of the game?

- - - Updated - - -

Copying Diablo 3 isn't the best idea because it was mostly a forgettable game. The Idea of adventure mode is fun in WoW, until you realize all there is to do is world quests (Don't we do those enough on max levels?).

Torghast feels like a missed opportunity to allow players to farm anima to their hearts content. The bottleneck for Anima is atrocious.

The problem is also that anima is not really something thats really motivating to get.
Sure, there are like 1-2 cosmetics that are interestinf but beyond that...

Why grind something that feels really worthless in the first place?

[yziemon]

There is a reason Blizzard offers in game mounts and rewards if you sub 6 months at time. They understand that most people drop out 3 - 4 months after a patch or expansion and only come back if there is something new and interesting for them to do. Grinding M+ for upgradeable versions of items you already have and then all of the valor to upgrade them is apparently not enough to keep folks coming back in to the game. My guild (on Illidan) is mostly empty these days too. Pretty much fell off a cliff a few days after 9.0.5 hit.

[Electric Lighter]

And the favt they missed one of the most fun parts of a roguelite...being OP as f if you last long enough with potentially crazy gonzo powers..which they apparently had in alpha but removed for some asinine reason

They didn't want people to fail it because they tied it to legendary progression was the stated reason. Their own systems shot themselves in the foot again.

[Zorachus]

Curious, do Blizz people read this forum just to gauge feedback on thier game?

[MrMatticus]

Because everyone is done with rep grinds and covenant levels, add on Nathria being a boring raid, people are just waiting on the next content patch.

[Soon-TM]

They didn't want people to fail it because they tied it to legendary progression was the stated reason. Their own systems shot themselves in the foot again.

Maybe they knew all too well that no one would bother with the PoS that is Torghast if Soul Ash was available somewhere else, e.g. a guaranteed reasonable amount after completing a dungeon, killing a raid boss (regardless of difficulty), or even world quests/callings.

They evidently "corrected" the mistake they did at BfA, where you could reasonably level up your HoA even if you never touched those goddamn island expeditions. Imagine what BfA would have been like if the only place to level your neck had been dem islands - well, that's pretty much the same thing with legendaries and Torghast now.

[Electric Lighter]

Maybe they knew all too well that no one would bother with the PoS that is Torghast if Soul Ash was available somewhere else, e.g. a guaranteed reasonable amount after completing a dungeon, killing a raid boss (regardless of difficulty), or even world quests/callings.

They evidently "corrected" the mistake they did at BfA, where you could reasonably level up your HoA even if you never touched those goddamn island expeditions. Imagine what BfA would have been like if the only place to level your neck had been dem islands - well, that's pretty much the same thing with legendaries and Torghast now.

Hard to say... torghast was drastically different on beta. I think if they made it like mage tower... gave out the armor sets for completing it the whole system would of really taken off.

To be honest blizzards utter terror of not tying specific currency rewards to content they are experimenting in hasn't ever really worked. They need to have some faith in themselves. Even islands I think would of been remembered fondly if they just offered cosmetics rather then being needed if you pushed early mythic progression.

[Argorwal]

Maybe they knew all too well that no one would bother with the PoS that is Torghast if Soul Ash was available somewhere else, e.g. a guaranteed reasonable amount after completing a dungeon, killing a raid boss (regardless of difficulty), or even world quests/callings.

They evidently "corrected" the mistake they did at BfA, where you could reasonably level up your HoA even if you never touched those goddamn island expeditions. Imagine what BfA would have been like if the only place to level your neck had been dem islands - well, that's pretty much the same thing with legendaries and Torghast now.

That would mean that after a few weeks of islands my neck is capped for the rest of the patch and I don’t have to do any for months?

[schwank05]

Basically this. Everyone complained about WF/TF and corruption, so they removed it. Now people can get BiS and they're done, nothing to do until new content. That removes some players from the pool.

People complained about AP grinding for the past two expansions and how it felt mandatory, so they removed it. Without an endless grind available, people get BiS and stop because there's nothing to do until new content.

People complained about RNG on the Legiondaries, so they made they craftable and severely reduced the amount of time required to farm out your patterns for the most part, so people got their legendaries and got them upgraded early on. Now they've got no reason to do Torghast until new content.

Blizzard gave in to player demands on a ton of things like the gear system, AP grinding, legendaries, and plenty more and now suddenly players are realizing that without that endless treadmill of RNG to run on, the game has limited life span because there's no possible chance at upgrades any more. Now those players are going boo hoo no content nothing to do when I log in with the raid cleared and are blaming Blizzard instead of realizing that all these Youtubers and their feedback have created a game that will become stale very quickly because unless Blizzard starts pumping out patches at an insane speed, they're going to hit a wall every single patch and have nothing left to do.

I love this I have been unsubbed for about a month now because I have all the best gear I can get at my skill/ time level. I got best gear I could and got to 210ilvl and am happy I cleared the content I cared about and now I can wait to resub and use catchup mechanics when the patch drops.

[Soon-TM]

That would mean that after a few weeks of islands my neck is capped for the rest of the patch and I don’t have to do any for months?

That would mean that you could safely ignore islands Torghast without significantly gimping your toon, unless you were into mythic progression or something. I know for a fact that I practically never ran islands, yet I ended with a >90 HoA on all my four 120's in BfA.

However, I can't ignore Torghast on any of my max level toons without heavily handicapping myself.

[Dracullus]

Curious, do Blizz people read this forum just to gauge feedback on thier game?

For sure they listen to youtubers. SL is wishlist of most loud whiners in this community (who are suspiciously silent right now when they should defend their views).

- no titanforging, simple gear, possible to get bis in season and be 'done' - check
- more 'meaningful' loot - check
- no need to grind world quests/casual content - check
- no RNG legendaries, predictable crafting - check

At least we should be thankful Blizzard isn't completely mad and won't listen to Asmongold church 1:1, cause we will end up with stuff like removing LFR.

As for this forum, I guess many devs read this, but it's hard to get any useful data. Some people bitch 24/7, in most cases even without any reason, just say current expansion is shit and that's it. Other part defend Blizzard 24/7, in most cases as reaction to first group. True discussion with people exchanging arguments is rare sight.

And stuff repeat all the time. If not you, someone else unhappy with game would put thread like you in this time of expansion life cycle. I'll post it again, cause first time people didn't seem to notice: https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...-not-its-first

That would mean that you could safely ignore islands Torghast without significantly gimping your toon, unless you were into mythic progression or something. I know for a fact that I practically never ran islands, yet I ended with a >90 HoA on all my four 120's in BfA.

However, I can't ignore Torghast on any of my max level toons without heavily handicapping myself.

We should compare first patch to first patch. Were you able to ignore islands and world quests if you were doing any progression content during Uldir/Season 1?

[Mojo03]

They need to stop these updates every 6-8 months and do smaller ones every 3 months or so.

Like the maw update should of been 9.05. The raid 9.1 and the dungeon 9.15.

How they are still this bad at planning after 17 years is beyond me.