To all the Bellulars, Asmogolds, Preaches, QoL'ers and Fans that want to Design WOW.

[d00mh4cker]

If you can design a game with 1 million whales then that will make a lot more money than 12 million randoms.

Additionally, and no one seems to understand this, you can't just make a game by doing exactly what players want. If it were that simple then every games company would just do market research and do whatever ticked the boxes and make billions. It obviously isn't that simple. People can't really envisage the broader implications of what they say they want.

Isnt that exactly what everyone is doing today?
Only marketing and no heart and soul put into the game.

There is a new COD and BF every year selling for billions because it is exactly what people want.

Issue is that people at blizzard today is 50% sales staff and 50% marketing staff. There is not one left at the company who knows a good game.
The game designers left the company.

[crusadernero]

Isnt that exactly what everyone is doing today?
Only marketing and no heart and soul put into the game.

There is a new COD and BF every year selling for billions because it is exactly what people want.

Issue is that people at blizzard today is 50% sales staff and 50% marketing staff. There is not one left at the company who knows a good game.
The game designers left the company.

Im rather sure its higher than that. As with alot of things in our society, lots are left to be controlled by sales & marketing staff. The innovative, passionate & creative game designers are out there, but they certainly aint in Blizzard. WHats coming in the future for the company? Wow xpacs, D4 and mobile games? Were two of these are already well established and wont move far off the mold.

[fooliuscaesar13]

That's fair, I just don't get the obsession with Bellular. The guy's been making negative videos about the game for like a decade now and I just don't see what someone like him would add at all.

I don't understand the fascination with him either. Negativity - for whatever reason - generates revenue though.

This is off-topic of me, but if/when he ever releases his game (is he still working on it?), I'll bet that it gets destroyed by people who make gaming videos. He will be reaping what he has sown, even if he makes the most perfect game ever. I feel bad for the people he works with.

[Soon-TM]

I'll bet that it gets destroyed by people who make gaming videos. He will be reaping what he has sown, even if he makes the most perfect game ever. I feel bad for the people he works with.

And you have the gall to complain about negativity...? Yikes.

[Greyvax]

Didn't some streamer try to design a game and ended up being a colossal failure.

[cozzri]

Peak in wow was like 10 million subs? more 12?
And now its 1 million. Maybe less.

Why design a game for the 1 million players instead of the other 9 or 11?

Blizzard are stupid. Simple conclusion.

If blizzard designed the game for the other ~11 million players the 1 million would go back to play mobile games because that is what wow is today, a mobile daily quest game built around creating addiction and micro transactions.


People will say all games die with time.
Tell that to Dota, Counter-strike, League, Minecraft, GTA, oldschool runescape etc etc etc etc etc.

Any increase in population within the game will be short-lived and focused around content releases; they release these 6-month mount/sub deals because people simply don't want to put that much time into the game anymore. Some of that can be attributed to the content being repetitive/grindy/stale; I'd argue that most of the population loss is the result of breakdown of social groups.

Classic has been great for the short-term health of the game; but overall I think it will end up hurting Blizzard long-term. From personal experience with friends going back to play Classic, the general sentiment is: We didn't miss the game as much as the community behind it. Over the years, generational and social shifts has shaped the game into what we have today.

A lot of my friends that played WoW when it game out were early 20s with kids, they had their 4 year olds farm gold for them lol. Fast, forward 17 years; same friends have grandchilden doing the exact same thing. I mean, when I was 5, when my grandpa wanted to take me fishing, it was actual fishing, not farming some dumb mount in a video game. For some it just might be the actual realization on how much time they wasted chasing pixels, but the social dynamic has most definitely changed in how the game plays out, some of which turns away veteran players, but new players as well; kids want to play what's fun and popular among their age group. The game isn't dying per se, but it does have the constant attrition of players whose feelings towards the game is "I'm over it, friends and family are gone." This is no fault to the developer necessarily, but bad design decisions do contribute to that breakdown of social connections within their game; automation is their only answer to this issue moving forward, and its a double edge sword, it allows those connections to form quickly, yet they are temporary and mostly meaningless to the player behind the screen.

They need to design the game to be fun to slow these numbers down, WoW will never be as popular as it was, but it can still be a great game if they allow it to be.

[Kallisto]

Sure they could hire a well known streamer. Take for example Bellular. Woud he go work at Blizzard for "normal" pay and bonuses? 99% no.

But they could offer him a deal good enough to make it happen. For example:
- Very good money & pay a good sum for him to leave his current work for a limited time (so they can continue without him until he returns)
- Total control over WoW for 1 expansion cycle (with option to continue if successful), everything from story to systems/rewards, raids/dungeons, PvP, whatever... assuming he wants to stay true to WoW and not change it to a battle royale or something like that

Will Blizzard do that? Hell no chance, but they COULD if they really wanted...

If there's one person who should have no control over wow development it is Bellular. The guy flip flops harder than the pendulum swing Blizzard is accused of doing when they're developing.

Bellular this year has made videos where he has stated the game is too hard, followed up by a video where he said the game is too easy. That it is both too long and short. He's making videos where his complaints are the polar opposite of what he said just a week before. That's a politician level of pandering to an audience.

[scelero]

You get folks like this in any area of life. Person CONvinces you you have a problem only they can cure, but never cure you. They just keep selling you reasons to why you think you have a problem.

Stop buying snake oil folks.

[MoanaLisa]

Do you realise that the same could have been said about, idk, Ben Brode, Ghostcrawler, Tom Chilton or even Ion himself? None of them had "achieved" anything in gaming when they were hired.

To be clear: Greg Street started by submitting scenarios to Age of Empires, was hired and ended up as lead developer before going to Blizzard. That counts as an achievement (in gaming). Ion ran one of the most influential and knowledge-based sites about the World of Warcraft before coming to Blizzard (Elitist Jerks). Likely he knew more about how the game worked at the nuts-and-bolts level than most of the system designers at the time. That counts for something.

I get the comment about not being a star player in game but for design that's actually not as important as people think.

[Kralljin]

Bellular this year has made videos where he has stated the game is too hard, followed up by a video where he said the game is too easy. That it is both too long and short. He's making videos where his complaints are the polar opposite of what he said just a week before. That's a politician level of pandering to an audience.

I don't know the context of both statements but unfortunately, those statements aren't exactly false.

The difficulty spectrum in WoW has become truly staggering for a game where a shared world was actually a criticial piece.
On the one side, you have content that is near brain dead and is pretty much an insult to any remotely competent player (questing, LFR, story related quests, etc..), on the other side you have content that even takes 300+ attempt for people that play this game for a living.

The base difficulty in WoW barely leaves the ground but the second you go beyond this, the sky suddenly becomes the limit.

[MoanaLisa]

Bellular this year has made videos where he has stated the game is too hard, followed up by a video where he said the game is too easy. That it is both too long and short. He's making videos where his complaints are the polar opposite of what he said just a week before. That's a politician level of pandering to an audience.

Always best to remember that the bigger streamers for nearly any game are all about keeping subscriptions and ad revenue up and will say anything that will help that. That's why it's just not smart to think that their opinion means anything. It saddens me to see so many people allowing these folks to do their thinking for them. But I suppose that's part of what humanity does. It's just easier with social media.

[fooliuscaesar13]

And you have the gall to complain about negativity...? Yikes.

Point taken, though I wouldn't be one of those trying to destroy his game. I'm more or less saying when it happens to him, he's earned it.

Which, again: point taken. lol. Definitely negative.

[Athenelulz]

nah fam, wow community got the skills to make wow 2, trust me

[crusadernero]

Always best to remember that the bigger streamers for nearly any game are all about keeping subscriptions and ad revenue up and will say anything that will help that. That's why it's just not smart to think that their opinion means anything. It saddens me to see so many people allowing these folks to do their thinking for them. But I suppose that's part of what humanity does. It's just easier with social media.

streamers/youtubers feed of negativity. Imagine a content creator out there defending wow right now. He would plummet into nothing. Just wait and see when 10.0 is announced and released. First its initial hype and positive talks. Then beta hits with positive feedback which turns into negative spins. Then xpac launches, everyones happy with positive talks cause its new. Months down the line its not new anyore and the negativity loop assumes once again.

[Tzunami]

Negative video headlines will always get more clicks which at the end of the day is what these people are after.

“In spite of everything you've done for them, eventually, they will hate you.”

[TheTaurenChieftain]

The thing is that all those streamers are watched mostly by MMO players or WoW players. They wouldn't get so many views if they wouldn't speak the truth in some way.
Also a lot of streamers get messages from their viewers who are often MMO- or WoW-players. So even when they don't play the game in the same way as average WoW player they still get a lot of feedback from active and in-active WoW players.

I agree that you should always be critical about the stuff that streamers rant about. But somehow it also reflects what the community thinks about the game. Otherwise they wouldn't get those views especially from active and ex-WoW players.

Also FF14 developers oriented a lot on community feedback to design their game and it worked out pretty well...

[Dracullus]

Man this hits too close to home stahp

Yes, all these anima grind and rep required to be viable in end game content, hit so close to home xD.

[Ekis]

The thing is that all those streamers are watched mostly by MMO players or WoW players. They wouldn't get so many views if they wouldn't speak the truth in some way.
Also a lot of streamers get messages from their viewers who are often MMO- or WoW-players. So even when they don't play the game in the same way as average WoW player they still get a lot of feedback from active and in-active WoW players.

I agree that you should always be critical about the stuff that streamers rant about. But somehow it also reflects what the community thinks about the game. Otherwise they wouldn't get those views especially from active and ex-WoW players.

Also FF14 developers oriented a lot on community feedback to design their game and it worked out pretty well...

Exactly. Just like the news, I view all viewpoints to formulate an opinion on my own. Even if they're speaking to a certain group, I'm not going to discount what they say simply because it's not my POV.

I don't get the hate against streamers/YouTubers; they too play the game even if it's not like the average player. Why should their voices not be heard because they're now a "figurehead", so to speak?

They wouldn't have the traction they'd have if what they were saying didn't contain at least a modicum of truth. So what's the big deal with these kind of threads?

[Sansnom]

I always get a chuckle out of such attitudes.

It's like going to a restaurant where a chef makes truly atrocious meals. When the customers complain about how awful it is, the chef takes the same attitude. If you are such a great chef, why aren't you making the food? /eyeroll

People don't need to be game designers to know what they enjoy and what they don't. People don't need to be in the industry to provide critical feedback.

The problem is some people think they are representative of the community/fans/majority when in fact they are representative of themselves only. You can have opposite opinion of what is good and what is bad. Neither are true and neither of false.

I don't need to be an auto mechanic to know that my car shouldn't be leaking oil all over the pavement.

Not exactly the same comparison. This is example of something that is broken. Not working. Not whether it is good or bad.

[Unholyground]

In all honesty blizzard should be looking at some of these private servers for ideas, some of them have done stuff they should have long ago.