If 10.0 is a massive revamp was it worth dealing with Shadowlands?

[SunspotAnims]

I have changed my mind - still just do a 9.2 but be willing to drag it out and put in the actual work to REALLY overhaul the game for 10.0 and do it right, stop throwing good money after bad and good time after bad. Would rather have a real WoW renaissance in 2023 than just the next single-serving expac in 2022.

I've long thought the devs could get away with taking longer than the usual expansion cycle to release a more ambitious revamp to the game so long as they're upfront about that being their intention. I think something like that would at least be more feasible than a wholesale"WoW2"

[God Save The King]

promotional material for investors.

That is factually incorrect, and is highly illegal. Misleading shareholders is one of the few ways in America that corporations can actually be hit with enough fines and penalties to have to shut down. If the report says that the game is healthy, growing, and being well received, then all of Blizzard's metrics and legal responsibilities lead them to that conclusion. All the information you have access to, they do as well. They also have access to far, far more data than you. They clearly have the data that says you're incorrect, despite what your feelings tell you.

So you can either believe the report, or you must believe that Activision Blizzard is risking corporate suicide by lying on their report for a single game that doesn't even generate them that much revenue compared to their other products.

[Tyrannica]

My sub is running out in 9 days and i am going to play FFXIV for sure, no matter, if there will be a massive revamp of wow or not, but thats coming from a person who played FF4-FF7 as a kid during the 90ies and considered those the best rpgs of all time, ok, there is Suikoden II, but Konami is dead, only does slot machines now.

The problem just is, if a game this old as wow can't be creative in a way that it is fun to play, there will be a burnout. I for instance can't stand how blizz devs are handling their own game world, class design, outdated LFG system and long schedules for that "quality" of content given, its basicly just raid or die. I did raid SoD in the first week and instantly noticed where all the patch 9.1. resources went....the raid is fantastic, but anything else is dull, i am sorry to say this, but this is not quite enough for the most popular MMORPG, not in 2021.

Also the story is very, very blant and predictable quite the opposite of a typical JRPG story(thats usually a thrill to play through with twists at every corner).

While i can say every 2nd JRPG has a fantastic story and good gameplay on top of it.

In any case, development in wow is too slow and needs some serious competition i am glad thats the case right now. The top managment of wow needs a good wake up call! They did become very lazy and ignorant to player feedback and opinions.

Also:

a wow 2 revamp doesn't matter when the current devs hate feedback and are obsessed with systems and simcraft.

The ugly truth...people like that should never be game directors, for this job you need to know what a game makes fun, if you don't you fail. Luckily Ion is a good raid designer, the problem just is only so many people will raid.

Btw "feedback" Have heard anything of the developers lately? Me neither...guess its red alert mode in blizz HQ, FFXIV is certainly not another wow killer, but popular streamers are playing it that used to be wow streamers, people that have the power to move millions of players. That did not happen in past expansions on such a scale!

[anveena]

Maybe if Blizzard hired new devs that werent hellbent on pumping up the MAUs.

[doodle90]

If they would have added a new class and kept their new customization promises i feel like shadowlands would have not been received so poorly.

[McNeil]

The current dev team can’t get anything right. They are way out of touch with the playerbase and only care about their ‘engagement’ metrics. If a world revamp needs to be done, then for the love of God let another dev team with at least some passion for the game work on it. BFA and so far Shadowlands are perfect examples of how to not work on a game that stood the test of time.

[Razion]

While there was WoD to Legion
There was also Wrath to Cata

Cata didn't require Wrath being bad to be good, "like WoD did Legion", and these 'dead expacs' do not always promise better expacs, as Cata was less well received than Wrath.

[NineSpine]

That is factually incorrect, and is highly illegal. Misleading shareholders is one of the few ways in America that corporations can actually be hit with enough fines and penalties to have to shut down. If the report says that the game is healthy, growing, and being well received, then all of Blizzard's metrics and legal responsibilities lead them to that conclusion. All the information you have access to, they do as well. They also have access to far, far more data than you. They clearly have the data that says you're incorrect, despite what your feelings tell you.

Yeah... that's not how it works. There's a reason that what they are presenting is so vague and doesn't have any numbers in it. Do you know how high the bar is for shareholders to successfully take any legal action on these grounds? They have to prove that the presentation was knowingly false. You can't prove that for vague bullshit like "the game is strong". The idea that shareholders are going to sue and win over what the word "strong" means is laughable.

So you can either believe the report, or you must believe that Activision Blizzard is risking corporate suicide by lying on their report for a single game that doesn't even generate them that much revenue compared to their other products.

Or I can believe that when presentations to shareholders don't contain data and instead contain just a series of vague statements that can't possibly considered actionably false, there's a reason for it.

[hulkgor]

I wish they'd do a time jump after some sort of big event. Would be a great opportunity for a fresh start, building our characters up from unknown adventures again, starting with small tasks and villains (bandits, villains, warlords, elemental lords, wtv), instead of 'world-ending-threats' every patch.

[bmjclark]

I'm questioning statements made, not declaring "everything's fine". I'm one of SL's biggest critics and nobody would be happier than me if they got a fire lit under their asses and changed things as a result.

As for FFXIV surpassing the other MMORPgs, I wouldn't know since they don't release sub numbers. I've seen some "accounts made" from FFXIV, and that's it.
This is less about "fighting" and more about you not being able to provide data for the claims you've made, which is exactly what I expected since that's always the case regardless of during which expansion it takes place since WoD and the end of sub numbers being shared.

It's hard to put any numbers to WoW since they don't release any tbh. What we do know though is that final fantasy just recently (like 2 days ago I think) shattered its record for concurrent steam users and it did so over 2 years after it's last expansion released. FF14's store literally broke because so many people were buying the game. We also know that shadowlands season 2 participation is low. Some of WoWs biggest streamers and youtubers are also playing final fantasy. If you don't think those things are connected I guess thats up to you but yea.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I'm of the mind that it is practically never worth it to explore the afterlife of your setting in such detail. If they want to reset the franchise by having some big bad win it's easier to do so by introducing an in universe threat that doesn't kill off all stakes as much as demystifying the afterlife does.

[shadowmatrix]

I'm of the mind that it is practically never worth it to explore the afterlife of your setting in such detail. If they want to reset the franchise by having some big bad win it's easier to do so by introducing an in universe threat that doesn't kill off all stakes as much as demystifying the afterlife does.

They haven't gone into much detail, there are still about 50 doors in the distance that can be explored. we see one area for rebirth, an area for those who put duty ahead of everything, an area for those who love to fight, and an area for those consumed by pride. There are still many other types of souls left unrepresented.

[Nathreim]

No because Blizz has the money and resources to have made SL good and revamp the world. We keep hearing about how big the wow team is now but they keep producing less and less content.

[Cosmic Janitor]

They haven't gone into much detail, there are still about 50 doors in the distance that can be explored. we see one area for rebirth, an area for those who put duty ahead of everything, an area for those who love to fight, and an area for those consumed by pride. There are still many other types of souls left unrepresented.

We have seen the core functions and machinations of the shadowlands, being sorted to some minor domains is immaterial to the overall structure of the afterlife. Your life does not matter, as it pales in comparison to whatever comes after. Your 100 years on Azeroth mean jack shit compared to the Eons of whatever comes after. Why would we ever again care if someone dfies if we know they just end up in the shadowlands and start their real life now?

[Stormdash]

I've long thought the devs could get away with taking longer than the usual expansion cycle to release a more ambitious revamp to the game so long as they're upfront about that being their intention. I think something like that would at least be more feasible than a wholesale"WoW2"

Well, I've read that if you have to blow up your entire game and the world it's set in to revise it from the ground up into an updated and more functional, enjoyable game, you can just bake that into the story and your players will come and give it a fresh look

[Tojara]

I think it has little to do with FF14 and more to do with that it took them 8 months to come out with 9.1, which is way too long at this stage in the game to keep peoples interest. WoW has been dwindling for over a decade now with expansions and patches propping them up, one long patch cycle at the beginning of an expansion is basically all it takes for people to finally try other things. Personalities and streamers alike jump over and the masses decide it might be time to try it out.

FF14 has 3 expansions, 9.1 took forever and for anybody looking for something to do, it's awfully enticing to dip your toes into something new. If you've never tried it before it's an enormous amount of content to sink your teeth into all at once, and a very easy way to keep you occupied for a long time. Realistically speaking (this is my opinion), once people explore all of the narrative and do what they want with FF14 it's going to dry up just as quickly as WoW to them because the games aren't massively different aside from how they approach things.

WoW to me really hasn't changed in all of these 16 years. It's incredibly formulaic with predictable hooks and expansion features, where they rarely take risks. Some of the risks they took were failed features but it's not like they're remotely trying to change the formula up too much. If you think about Vanilla WoW all the way to today, the only big features that have been added as MAJOR staples (I'm not counting countless raid difficulty or dungeon changes), are arenas, RBGs and M+. The core of the game, has pretty much always been the same though.

It's not going to happen and regardless of the state of WoW this game isn't going to die anytime soon, and I doubt Blizzard will shake up the formula of the game too much. I doubt they're going to deviate from a ~2 year expansion cycle anytime soon. Without defending them they have a few major issues here. A real revamp would take an enormous amount of time and would actually have to bring fundamental/huge changes to the game. A complete reset is completely unlikely because too many players are sunk so deeply into their achievement points, mounts/pets, that starting from scratch would be incredibly unappealing to them.

In my opinion I'd love them to simply start from scratch with an entirely new engine and just craft the narrative in a completely different direction taking place right after WC3:TFT. But it's not going to happen and a lot of people just wouldn't want to leave behind what they already have lol.

[Darkeon]

I'm sure 10.0 will fix it.

[shadowmatrix]

We have seen the core functions and machinations of the shadowlands, being sorted to some minor domains is immaterial to the overall structure of the afterlife. Your life does not matter, as it pales in comparison to whatever comes after. Your 100 years on Azeroth mean jack shit compared to the Eons of whatever comes after. Why would we ever again care if someone dfies if we know they just end up in the shadowlands and start their real life now?

How you lived was pivotal to the type of soul you become hence why Alexandros Mograine was in Maldraxxus instead of Bastion. lack of choice was probably the lie the Jailor used to fool Sylvanas. How many characters were in places that didn't make sense based on their lives aside from Arthas and Garrosh? Well it's not like we see many souls from Azeroth.

[Biggles Worth]

I'm not confident in their abilities to make a patch, never mind an expansion or revamp.

[cparle87]

Jailer is out there doing "Reality's end" stuff. If he's a plot point to usher in a massive 10.0 world revamp and redone systems and classes, etc. do you think that would change your perspective on Shadowlands?

Basically knowing they were doing a ton of work for the massive rework and Shadowlands would just be a WoD to a mega-Legion.

Just judging from the way you phrased the thread title I think you'd be better off if you quit the game altogether. This relationship has gone bad.