Another leak about what's going on at Blizzard

[Fenrys]

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if all this is at least partially true. They know they aren't going to have some resurgence of subscribers after 17 years. The only way to continue to milk the current playerbase is to use seasons, timegates, and fomo tactics until it runs out.

I would. Its all pandering nonsense. It barely makes any sense and seems to be a greatest hits of the irrational complaints coming out of certain sections of the community over recent months. The only reason you wouldn't be surprised if its true is because its aimed at confirming what you already think.

[Kumorii]

How to write a leak:
Conform anything players speculate is the worst case scenario.

[Osmeric]

Bookmarked this thread so I can come back in a year and see how it did.

[Dystemper]

IMHO, if you want the leak to be truth, several people need to be wrong/lying. And it is kinda wild that you think that 15+ verified people are wrong just so one anonymous person in 4 chan can be right.

To say that is unlikely is an understatement.

You never worked for a large corporation have you? They will issue a a press release that everything is fine all the while top level execs are shredding documents and leaving the country.

[Shockzalot]

I go to bchan for all my reliable news information.

[Nightstalker]

At this point these "leaks" should serve as IQ tests.

[ek0zu]

I do believe that they might take the seasonal approach, it would be very sad if they really copy the Destiny path because i really tried to get into this game and i failed miserably, i like its gameplay but i can't follow its story at all.

I only hope that D3 and WoW homogenization will stop eventually.

[LordKharon]

Ion only caring about raids & systems + the Danuser stuff is at least belivable but the rest? Pfff.....

But one thing is for certain, the moment internal projections show that they will earn more money by changing the current format (2 year expansion+sub) into something else they will do it.

[exsanguinate]

Honestly, I have no problem believing any of this. It all seems very credible. Not saying it's true , just saying it's very likely.

Couldn't agree more. It really sounds like it was pulled out of thin air or more like a fairy tale, but based on what Blizzard is doing at the moment, I wouldn't be surprised if this is actually true story.

Anyone who has never worked in a big company where it's really all about money simply doesn't know how inhumane the upper management can be. That's why I'm surprised how people here can say "they care, they're not like that at all".

[Bladesyphon]

Glad I could make you laugh. A good deed every day. But do you really think it would be absolutely impossible for this to apply to blizzard?

Some, but not all.

The Evergreen content thing is something that, eventually, is going to come to WoW, and probably the most believable piece of that 4chan Fan Fiction. Every long-standing MMO does eventually reach the point where major expansion releases just no longer become feasible due to the shrinking income of the game. FFXI did this between Wings of the Goddess and Seekers of Aldoulin, as well as after, Lord of the Rings Online has started doing this, Everquest and Everquest 2 to an extent has done this, and even Guild Wars 2 did this between Path of Fire and End of Dragons.

At some point, WoW, and even FFXIV, are going to drop major expansion releases, and instead go with smaller sized addons rather than full scale expansions, falling somewhere between the size of an expansion and a content patch. I just don't think either game is really there yet. That said, if anything, XIV is more likely go down that route than WoW is, simply because SE is obsessed with moving onto the next big shiny thing, and with Endwalker wrapping up the Ascian plot, it wouldn't at all be surprising if SE pushes for XIV to start doing smaller add-on scenario content like it's predecessor does, and put Yoshida into other projects they view as more profitable, especially of XVI sales extremely well. It wouldn't surprise me at all if after XVI, SE starts pushing to make XVII the next MMO and successor to XIV.

But as for WoW, it's still Blizzard's most profitable IP bar none. It is kind of obvious that Blizzard is starting to groom Diablo to be Warcraft's successor, but a lot of that is going to ride on the success of both Immortal and Diablo 4 before Blizzard starts to consider putting WoW into a smaller content release cycle. But, much like what SE is likely going to do with XVI and XIV post Endwalker, it's going to be a wait and see game. If D4 blows all expectations out of the water, and becomes the next greatest thing since peanut butter and jelly, than yeah, I can see WoW start winding down after 10.0 and move onto the aforementioned smaller release cycle.

But if it (god forbid) pulls another Diablo 3, then they're going to keep their focus on WoW and the Warcraft IP as a whole. But deciding to switch WoW into a smaller release cycle when they have literally nothing out to even consider replacing it would be financially disastrous for Blizzard, and they're not going to do something that stupid.

[Raven]

Ion only caring about raids & systems + the Danuser stuff is at least belivable but the rest? Pfff.....

But one thing is for certain, the moment internal projections show that they will earn more money by changing the current format (2 year expansion+sub) into something else they will do it.

Yeah the Danuser stuff it totally beliveable unless you listen to people who actually work with him, who claims crazy stuff like him being liked by the team and that he often takes the blame for misstakes which others on the team have made to protect the people working in he's team, but im sure those people are lying and this unknown person is telling the truth.

[Progenitor Aquarius]

That's some impressive fanfiction.

Yea I don’t even care reading this. Probably either fake or irreverent to me.

[VideoGamePlayer]

>The game is monumentally tilted to horde in terms of userbase now and its almost entirely due to racial but for some reason the balance team refuses to buff any alliance racials or nerf horde ones.

sus. check bloodmallet and see alliance have better dps racials more often than not. shadowmeld is the best utility racial in the game.

[Reclaimer]

https://boards.4channel.org/v/thread...blizzard-leaks

I don't know man, get your opinions. Wouldn't surprise me if this was true.

>WoW currently has around 960k active subscribers in the west. Since August the games numbers have been in freefall and never recovered.
>The higher ups assumed there were a lot more "heavy users" or "lifers" locked in for the duration than there appears to be, though the scandals could have something to do with it.
>This "final chapter of this book in the warcraft saga" was news to the team before the 9.2 video dropped. Its assumed its trying to riff on the media for FFXIV's upcoming expansion but the sentiment around the office is its bad optics and seems insincere and delivers a narrative that we are imitating rather than interating
>Danuser is insufferable. When he isn't gaslighting anyone that questions his divine god given narrative about certain characters he has an unhealthy obsession with -take a guess which- he is not really talking with the rest of the team. We make assetts and raids and quests but don't really know what for. You don't know why the Arbiter broke? why he is trying to retcon Warcraft 3 into the jailors forces fighting the jailors forces? yeah guess what? NEITHER DO WE. WE STILL DON'T. We didn't even know what Zereth Mortis was till 2 months ago. We are as in the dark as you are.
>He is even blanking other writers. The reason the Sylvanas book is delayed is because he didn't talk to Christie Golden for months after she pointed out he was trying to bruteforce a Sylvanas redemption that wasn't earned like a petulant child and as "punishment" she was kept out the loop WHILE WRITING A NOVEL ABOUT SYLVANAS SET DURING 9.2!
>Meanwhile as long as he makes raids Ion doesn't care. He just sits there most of the day stress eating and barking commands but as long as it funnels players to his next raid thats about all the rest of the work is good for. He is generally oblivious to anything outside his bubble. Or doesn't care.

>The majority of the games flaws as a product stem from these two men who both only care about their own slice of the pie so to speak and the rest may as well not exist and mismanagement is team wide.
>Cross faction grouping is on the table because they would rather do that than take the bad press hit and merge servers at the risk of losing transfer fees. Like that would be the worst news for the company this year.
>The game is monumentally tilted to horde in terms of userbase now and its almost entirely due to racial but for some reason the balance team refuses to buff any alliance racials or nerf horde ones.
>The Cyphers are a retention mechanic designed to keep players subscribed. It will take 12 weeks to unlock all base ciphers and the currency cap per week will then double this for the next stage of unlocks. Intended on paper to be a 6 month weekly content update.
>Most of us understand the complaints about borrowed systems. We do not like them either but we aren’t in charge and the ones that do seem to think we are working on a mobile project and not the rpg most of us signed up to be a part of. We feel like we are trying to trick the player into some habit forming loop like some mobile gambling app and it feels dirty to say the least.
>I work on the live team and not 10.0 but I can tell you the Infinite Dragonflight are involved along with a shift in the way we release product. WoW is not going to release expansions after 10.0 but instead focus on “evergreen” seasonal content. The game we keep being told to compare our work to is not something like FFXIV as you might assume but Bungies Destiny.

>From 10.0 onwards after the events of End of Eternity the entire game will be reworked including Chrome Time which has internally been seen as a bit of a failed experiment in its current state. Players will have an experience closer to Diablo 3’s adventure mode. You will create your character and have a series of “campaigns” to play through solo or with friends but also a seasonal track comparable to a battle pass using a system like renown. The idea being no matter what content you do be it some random quests in the Eastern Plaguelands or Island Expeditions in Kul Tiras you will always be advancing your seasonal track.
>The first season will involve the infinite dragon flight as a lore friendly way to explain this and the reworks to chromie time. You will assist the time walkers who reveal themselves to have been Attendants created by the First Ones to mend fractures in the timeline but as with the Attendants of Korthia they are a separate and visually different group to the ones we know in Oribos.
>Right now there is one baseline track that acts almost like post level cap experience and another that requires a currency but is not a paid track.
>Time Fractures will allow characters to be shifted around and there is a visions style activity called “Paradox Moments” which are essentially a blend of visions, scenarios and the theming of the old Carvens of Time Dungeons
>Speaking of the Carvens of Time themselves will be destroyed and instead of new areas the new zones will be existing zones at different points in time. Think the End Times version of Dragonblight from Cataclysm’s Dungeons

>Seasons are intended to last 3-4 months right now and alternate between WoW Classic seasons -which is the test bed for some of these ideas- and allow us to make time limited seasonal content that will use FOMO to keep the players coming back and allow us to make changes to existing zones albeit many being temporary so we don’t permanently change too many things forever as with the Shattering content that really messed up the timeline for questing players, ironically given 10.0 I suppose. While the seasons are wholesale taken from Destiny and to a lesser extent Diablo 3 of course this temporary world changing is being workshopped as something to appeal to “the fortnite generation” and started getting put forward around the time they did their big map redesign for the first time.
>This is done to spread the workload, increase profitability beyond one major box sale every 2 fiscal years and to try and lure in a new younger audience as the current “Heavy User” audience of diehards are a lot older than the target demographics Activision as a whole wants to target.
>Yes the fruit bowl stuff caused some internal fiction but its not the “us vs the essjaydubyas” you might think but rather there is a sentiment that a lot of the games current issues are being waved away by pushing the earlier team members under the bus rather than respect the work and the foundation they built.
>FFXIV is not the boogeyman you might think but we had one large meeting with leadership specifically asking “What is it doing right?” and being befuddled when people point out things and going “but we already did that” while missing the many replies of “but we don’t anymore”.

I mean, Most people know about this now but think people so rather hear it from the guy who leaked BC, Wotlk, Cata, Legion & Shadowlands. This is all fake news. None of it is legitimate.

[Myradin]

Most leakers are like fortune tellers, they feed you a bunch of probable things (or things you believe to be probable) so that they can feed you other BS.

[Yutilk]

yeah that is so fan fic it's not even funny.

[Sluvs]

You never worked for a large corporation have you? They will issue a a press release that everything is fine all the while top level execs are shredding documents and leaving the country.

I have.

And this was not a press release. And not about anything criminal. It was several individuals, some of them who are not even connected to blizzard anymore. Blizz does not have the goodwill to convince current employees to lie for them, former employees have even less of a reason.

Cynicism, contrary to what the internet leads people to believe, is not a sign of inteligence.

IMHO, this leak is bullshit through and through and just appeals to what people WANT to be true. You want to believe in it? Go for it. I think it is silly.

[The Stormbringer]

I wonder if these "leakers" feel stupid when their "leak" is ultimately proven false? I mean, your made-up BS has a very limited shelf life. Do you like feeling like an idiot when everybody points and laughs at you when it's inevitably proven wrong?

I much prefer the people who leak fake WoW website or WoW logo/login screen stuff. Those, at the very least, are typically entertaining and enjoyable to speculate over. Much better than these angry game rants.

[Revamp Man]

This will just make my leak more believable

[Orby]

but he's using green text, that's how you know its legit