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  1. #121
    If anything changes it's most likely some extreme woke shit as a result of the bad publicity.

    The new african and asian customization options are a small taste of what is to come. Afrasiabi's NPC being turned into a woman is another. BfA Warbringers shorts featuring only powerful women (Azshara, Sylvanas, Jaina). That sort of thing. Add some transgender stuff into it and it's complete.

    Expect women and minorities taking the forefront. An all woman expansion. Men taking the backseat. Etcetera.

    A bad image on one side of the spectrum leads to an overshoot on the other end. All in the name of good will. But lots of players will not like this stuff being rammed down their throat and still quit.

    Blizzard can't win either way. They'll either be blamed for not taking action and everything staying the same (worst option), going full the other end (woke) and get hatred also (not a pure win either) or do a half assed approach and get blamed for not really commiting. Tough decisions.

  2. #122
    Quote Originally Posted by docterfreeze View Post
    The only "improvements" I'd expect due to the money they're losing from this is an expanded cash shop. That's the money maker in modern WoW, not subscriptions. The game is a backdrop to the shop.
    Yep, cash shop expansions, budget cuts from things like cinematics.

    If subs decline further then maintenance mode or more recycled content, even more budget cuts.

    Drastic changes like adding weird races or classes would not bring new players, very few things would at this point. Instead, they would just drive away existing players and that is the last thing they want.

    I personally think the decline will be very fast now. Not only because of the drama, but because Blizzard has developed a pretty negative reputation over the years and their games no longer mean good quality, safe to pre order polished products but rather low quality cash grabs. Not only that but WoW is no longer the top MMO on the market and that will hurt as well since a lot of players, when looking for a MMO want to jump into the biggest and the most popular one as opposed to spending time and effort in a dying one.

    The only think players can do is mass quit and don't let them milk it. This would force them to either act fast, invest money and try to save the game or abandon it (but that would happen anyway, just after a slower decline).

  3. #123
    As I see it, blizzards issues are twofold, and the game was generating terrible publicity and streamers were already in the lifeboats even before the lawsuit.

    They can certainly settle the lawsuit, and no doubt they will, but that's not going to do a damn thing to reverse the trend that existed before it came to light.

    The games' advertising is basically 100% from these streamers, who are now saying, without equivocation, Do Not Play This Game.

    That's bad.

  4. #124
    I'd be more worried about Blizzard than Warcraft.

    Once this lawsuit is settled, expect changes, especially if they follow through with trying to form a union.

  5. #125
    Quote Originally Posted by Merin View Post
    I'd be more worried about Blizzard than Warcraft.

    Once this lawsuit is settled, expect changes, especially if they follow through with trying to form a union.
    They'll just slowly move to Texas like all dodgy companies that don't give a shit about their employees.
    You are welcome, Metzen. I hope you won't fuck up my underground expansion idea.

  6. #126
    Quote Originally Posted by Spaceboytg View Post
    For myself, what would revitalize the game would be a shift in focus from e-sports style high-end raiding/m+ to providing an enjoyable set of activities for the more casual, automatic-matchmaking crowd. This would include things like Player Housing and a more interesting/rewarding LFD. When LFD was introduced in Wrath I was delighted! It renewed my interest in the game right as I was about to walk away from a lack of interesting activities. LFD was still viable in Legion, even after M+ was introduced, but in BfA it was stripped of all value, which continues in SL. And, of course, Garrisons were the lamest attempt at Player Housing in any MMO, ever. It's almost like Blizzard gave us the shittiest "housing" possible just so they could say "see, people hate Housing".

    This is my rock-bottom baseline for what would "revitalize" the game, for me. Anything less and I have no interest in WoW any longer.
    wile i completly agree with the player housing part

    there is no e sports style anything in wow,classes would actualy have to be balanced for that to work

    also the game has far more casual friendly content than high end stuff,this statement you made almost makes me think your talking about a completly different game

    high end players have:
    -mythic raiding
    -high keys 22+
    -pvp i wouldnt say counts as thats player driven

    casual players have:
    -normal dungeons
    -heroic dungeons
    -m0
    -m+ 1-10+ more depending on your gear
    -pet battles
    -easy world content
    -lfr
    -normal raids
    -heroic raids if you are half decent and not naked
    -collectables
    -easily farmable pvp gear with no challenge

  7. #127
    Quote Originally Posted by Lahis View Post
    We know neither of those will happen.

    Sure, the employees might be slightly better off after this (unless they all get terminated) for the protest, but ActiBlizz treating their customers as anything but walking wallets they need to suck dry as fast as possible? Never gonna happen.
    This.

    Absolutely nothing will change besides some occasional PR stunts.
    Ship has been abandoned.
    ---

    NextUI for XIV


  8. #128
    Quote Originally Posted by deenman View Post
    casual players have:
    -normal dungeons
    -heroic dungeons
    -m0
    -m+ 1-10+ more depending on your gear
    -pet battles
    -easy world content
    -lfr
    -normal raids
    -heroic raids if you are half decent and not naked
    -collectables
    -easily farmable pvp gear with no challenge
    Naming different difficulties as "casual" points is a bit disingenuous, don't you thinK?
    You are welcome, Metzen. I hope you won't fuck up my underground expansion idea.

  9. #129
    Quote Originally Posted by LostSinclair View Post
    So, by now everyone and their dog has seen the clusterfuck that has been brewing in blizzard and finally spilled over onto our side of the fence for all to see. And it is generating all kinds of movement, whether it's good or bad in the long run is something we'll just have to see. Between this scandal and blizzard and a general hatred for shadowlands a quick trip through /wow on reddit will show plenty of people just saying "Screw this, I'm out."

    As you can expect certain blue's are sweating about sub numbers. My point being is that short of a jaw dropping 10.0 trailer(which is a year away at the absolute best) WoW is going to be on the decline, so blizz in my opinion will likely try adding certain hooks that they would normally not consider or simply not bother with that will keep the game numbers afloat until they can try again with the next expansion.

    New non standard model races?(Centaurs, trolls, Vorkai, Naga)
    Faction changes?
    Class/race restrictions?
    long demanded customization options?

    What do you think is a possible Hail Mary from Blizzard to keep people interested?

    Current thread warnings:
    This is starting to derail into a "WoW is Dying/Dead" thread, so let's pivot back to the notion of things that could revitalize the game as opposed to dwelling on/celebrating its death (or going completely off-topic into unrelated real world issues).
    I think to prevent this thread from derailing , you should have perhaps omitted the first part of your statement and just gone straight into the bit about, due to the current state of WoW Short of a Jaw Dropping 10.0 trailer... blah blah blah, What would it take to retain players until the next expansion where the team can try damage control as they did in Legion.

    Honestly though as for my take, I think it's kind of sad that a company with several thousand employees needs to basically scrap an expac halfway through to be able to pull together the resources to focus on the next one. That's like the whole problem with Diablo 3 and it's lost second expansion.

  10. #130
    I hope they will work for sub numbers through modernized quality content including class and gameplay design that doesn't feel outdated. I hope they will keep experimenting and innovating such as they did with the mage tower, islands, warfronts, Torghast, the Maw, invasions, world quests, m+, allied races, the Demon Hunter play style, etc.

    They were not equally received, some were more successful than others, but they all are producs of efforts to revitalize and improve the game. So I hope we keep seeing new stuff and better stuff. I absolutely hope they don't reverse back to "old and tried" approach where they only deliver on concepts from 15 years ago that people could instead enjoy by playing Classic.

  11. #131
    Quote Originally Posted by Trumpcat View Post
    I hope they will work for sub numbers through modernized quality content including class and gameplay design that doesn't feel outdated. I hope they will keep experimenting and innovating such as they did with the mage tower, islands, warfronts, Torghast, the Maw, invasions, world quests, m+, allied races, the Demon Hunter play style, etc.

    They were not equally received, some were more successful than others, but they all are producs of efforts to revitalize and improve the game. So I hope we keep seeing new stuff and better stuff. I absolutely hope they don't reverse back to "old and tried" approach where they only deliver on concepts from 15 years ago that people could instead enjoy by playing Classic.
    Maw innovative? Maw sucks major dick. It's one of the worst things they added in Shadowlands.

  12. #132
    I don't really see the connection of how this internal affairs matter is going to end up changing WoW positively outside the loose connection that happier employees make better games.

    The problem with the writing is one inherent to how expansions are developed. The problems with systems is a response to earlier complaints of a lack of something to do.

    The game might change, but I don't see how this would be from a concerted effort from Blizzard to change anything but surface level stuff like removing Afrasiabi characters or giving less skimpy outfits to female characters.
    If things change it will be because of a change in work hours or from reshuffling of the employees.
    The world revamp dream will never die!

  13. #133
    Quote Originally Posted by Luck4 View Post
    I only see two possible outcomes solutions from the decline spiraling we're seeing:

    1. They'll change the gameplay fundamentally, going back to older more successful expansions concepts such as Wrath of the Lich King and Mists of Pandaria and try to improve from there without all the garbage systems we have today. Also from a lore perspective going back to a more grounded expansion with something like a World Revamp or a new big continent, think Kalimdor/Eastern Kingdoms size with some unavailable zones at launch, on the "Other side of Azeroth" with stories more akin to Warcraft III and less as WoW these days.

    2. They'll change nothing gameplay-wise and will bring another expansion with few zones, another type of borrowed power, new grinds, and new currencies. On top of that, they'll double down the ingame store adding more stuff, possibly even P2W stuff, to milk the remaining subs so they can make enough profits for all subscribers the game lost. And from a lore perspective, they'll keep making filler expansions where many main characters are used as a plot device for the benefit of a single one while retconning and exploring more cosmic nonsense places.
    This is a very good picture of what could be (we wish) vs what will probably be (because of chasing short term profits). The last couple of expansions were all about chasing that quarterly report, more cash shop, "deluxe" and 6-month promos just as the Q(number) cutoff is nearing, more paid services (like the Classic character cloning), and more hamster-wheel retention strats. I'm not sure if they can turn around from "how can we hook addicts for paying for another month / cash shop service" to "how do we make the game fun and release it only when it's actually ready, not when a quarterly deadline is pressing" (9.1 was obviously rushed because Q2 deadline was nearing and players were rioting due to being stuck 8 months in Castle Nathria, they HAD to get something out).

    Shadowlands is also the first expansion is a very, very long time where levelling is just not fun, even for the first time, it's just one big lore info dump, your character isn't an actor in the story but more akin to a bystander. Gameplay should come first, and lore shouldn't stand in its way, only be subservient to it. You aren't creating a fanfic novel, only a video game. Walking next to an npc who spams you a wall of text "what happened" is lame gameplay no matter what.

    Each patch introducing new "systems" which obviously launch imbalanced because screw PTR feedback we have to get it out of the door, and then being caught between nerfing the good parts and upsetting the players, and doing nothing or token buffing the crappy parts (which will still be too weak to use) smells of corruption in 8.3 and benthic gear in 8.2 all again, they never learn it seems. Actually, it goes all the way to legion legendaries when half the people were upset because they got prydaz, and the second half got a good leggo only to have it nerfed in the 7.1 patch. You'd think humans are capable of learning from their mistakes, but not Blizzard. "Let loot be loot", but btw we introduce 5 different systems that are more important to your character's power level than obtaining "good loot" (i.e. equipment).

    They're just going back and forth, look at pvp gear, it had separate ilvls in WOD, then templates in legion, then same ilvls at shadowlands launch, and now it's back to separate ilvls. It seems there's never a "this worked we keep it, this didn't work, we discard it" evaluation, just going in circles design wise.

    They also insist on keeping the 2-faction system despite 1 faction being completely dead both on retail and in classic, and population numbers being within 20-30% of their wotlk peak.

    Tbh if anyone watched Mad Season's Show youtube video why he quits, I think he made a point too - he wanted to play classic to escape boosts, cash shop mounts and all the gaudy stuff, and it made its way to classic too, cuz profits. Pretty sure after classic tbc and classic wotlk they'll restart the cycle with vanilla+, they already sent a survey about "faster seasons, 6 month cycle instead of 2 years, more gold, xp and loot drops" so basically Diablo-esque seasons in classic for zoomers, and I bet it will happen at some point in the same way as they did send a survey about stat squish and level squish before they implemented it, and people said it will never happen, and it happened. The survey is just there to gauge backlash, if no big backlash - we go through with this idea.

    They know Cata was badly received, so Cata classic won't make them as much money as classic / tbc / wotlk, so they have to invent another cash cow. All this without developing a single piece of a new content except stuff like the warp stalker "deluxe" mount. They can half-ass retail and still not go under thanks to classic subs.

    They will invent more retail raids with more dodging than super mario, tuned around race to world first making a spectacle, more crappy infuriating m+ affixes because it looks cool on mdi, while leaving the common player to deal with retail being completely overran by boosts, because they get 33% cut from every token sold. The more inaccessible content is, the more inclined are average and sub-average players to just buy a boost. I haven't played FF14 that seems to be growing fast, but I heard from people who play that the content there is much more "noob friendly". And nope, WOW's lfr doesn't count, because it gives watered down rewards so it has very limited replayability, outside of "seeing content" or completing a quest there's zero reason to ever go to lfr again.
    Last edited by Marrilaife; 2021-07-31 at 08:03 AM.

  14. #134
    Quote Originally Posted by Marrilaife View Post
    They know Cata was badly received, so Cata classic won't make them as much money as classic / tbc / wotlk, so they have to invent another cash cow.
    WoW Classic Classic, now with extra vanilla!
    "There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
    "The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
    "Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"

  15. #135
    Bloodsail Admiral froschhure's Avatar
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    They exactly know what they have to do.
    But they don't

    let the storm pass and wait for 10
    love WoWarcraft

  16. #136
    Quote Originally Posted by Haidaes View Post
    Naming different difficulties as "casual" points is a bit disingenuous, don't you thinK?
    how so?

    10 char

  17. #137
    Quote Originally Posted by deenman View Post
    how so?

    10 char
    Because that is the same as naming m+ 5 and 10 and claiming thats two totally different types of content, then I could make the equally silly argument that there are a bunch more numbers above 22 than below. Suddenly we have an infinite amount of content for the <.1%.

    Ignoring all that, counting pet battles as exclusive content for casuals is nonsense, everyone can participate in them, they are part of the side content in terms of MMORPGs, as they have nothing to do with your character progression.

    In general it's a silly idea to claim that "casual" content is exclusive for casuals, in truth it's there for everyone interested, even the most elitist elite. On the other hand high end content is exclusive to those that have the time, skill or money only. Just because the best aren't interested in them is not much of an argument, you can say the same about any content ingame. I could also say that I only have heroic raids for me as content and just pretend all the other stuff doesn't exist.
    Last edited by Cosmic Janitor; 2021-07-31 at 12:06 PM.
    You are welcome, Metzen. I hope you won't fuck up my underground expansion idea.

  18. #138
    The Insane Thage's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by arkanon View Post
    If they used this as an opportunity to totally strip things back and rething the direction of the game, I would be happy with that. Obviously there are bigger things happening for the staff involved, im purely saying from a gameplay perspective.
    I've been wondering lately how much of the game's issues have been arising from what's outlined in the lawsuit. If you shovel all the work onto a minority of the workforce, produce a wildly-hostile and disruptive work environment, bleed talent due to constant harassment, and your team leader is a human calculator who boiled everything down to spreadsheets and PEMDAS math, I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out the shoddy coding, sloppy plot developments, and overly systemized gameplay obviously meant to stretch out thin offerings were the end result.

    At this rate, I think the only thing that's going to improve the game will be company-level changes. A purge of the executive and middle management levels, unionized employees, and strict oversight of HR practices to restore any level of confidence in the workplace, and we might see the game improve when everyone on the team begins doing their fair share of work.
    Be seeing you guys on Bloodsail Buccaneers NA!



  19. #139
    The Unstoppable Force Gaidax's Avatar
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    In the end whether WoW rebounds or not will squarely depend on content Blizzard puts out.

    This backlash, ultimately, has no bearing on WoW's wellbeing either way. What will really decide is what we will get in expansion. If the expansion is good, people will flock to it, like happened with Legion.

    I do think, however, they need to avoid at all costs their reveal trailer having only 2 new things in it like in Shadowlands. They absolutely need to introduce a new class AND a new race on top of that. That one is a tried and true way to keep people entertained and their last new class entry was really good too.
    Last edited by Gaidax; 2021-07-31 at 12:44 PM.

  20. #140
    Quote Originally Posted by Gaidax View Post
    In the end whether WoW rebounds or not will squarely depend on content Blizzard puts out.

    This backlash, ultimately, has no bearing on WoW's wellbeing either way. What will really decide is what we will get in expansion. If the expansion is good, people will flock to it, like happened with Legion.

    I do think, however, they need to avoid at all costs their reveal trailer having only 2 new things in it like in Shadowlands. They absolutely need to introduce a new class AND a new race on top of that. That one is a tried and true way to keep people entertained and their last new class entry was really good too.
    I can agree on a few things here - first, none of this REALLY matters - sadly, from a gaming perspective, this will all blow over pretty quickly. Sure, the forums will still show outrage, but as usual, in game reality will be quite different. '

    Secondly, yes, CONTENT will determine if things move forward or not. People love to appear outraged, but really, we all know half the ppl who say they hate classic play classic, half those who say they hate rogues play rogues, and half Americans voted for Trump.
    Quote Originally Posted by Kyanion View Post
    In no way are you entitled to the 'complete' game when you buy it, because DLC/cosmetics and so on are there for companies to make more money
    Quote Originally Posted by rhorle View Post
    Others, including myself, are saying that they only exist because Blizzard needed to create things so they could monetize it.

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