I tell you why WoW and MMORPGs are struggling in this day and age...

[NineSpine]

Of course viewers on twitch can be used to gauge interest in a game.
Valheim has peaked at over 200k at one point. The game is now solved and therefore interest is lower.

FF14 has JUST released an expansion and nobody cares? not buying it.

Also, yes you are a cultist, just having a brief look at you posts on this forum just confirmed everything I mentioned above.

Let's take a look at current players on Steam versus viewers on Twitch.

Fifth most played game right now: 900 viewers
Sixth most played game right now: 120,000 viewers
Seventh most played game right now: 253 viewers
Eighth most played game right now: 2,700 viewers

Do you think that tracks? That looks like twitch viewers match what people are playing? You are delusional.

[Candlewick]

If that was the case, why is FF14 having a giant surge in players when it is harder to get into than WoW? These are all excuses for a very simple problem: WoW is a bad game right now.

Success compared to what exactly though? I enjoy final fantasy though I feel the story is rather overrated. Final fantasy will never be the next Cod or fortnight though. I think final fantasy is profiting so heavily right now simply by not falling into the bloat trap wow has.

I have a gunbreaker and pally at cap and almost have a samurai at cap. Final fantasy has a more casual feel to it then wow. In wow things feel designed to waste your time till mythic plus or at least for me it does. In final fantasy I was bored while leveling and almost dropped it till I stumbled across palace of the dead and then ran that almost excessively while leveling.

For mmos wow has no idea what to do with players pre mythic plus and raiding beyond throwing defenseless enemies infront of them. Final fantasy at least has optional challenging content throughout even if its top difficulty is on par with wows easier heroic bosses.

[Osmeric]

An additional problem is that as MMOs decline in attractiveness, it becomes harder for a single MMO to appeal to multiple groups. Each group's requirements for what will keep them playing become more and more specific as they become jaded with MMOs. Previously, there was so much innate excitement in playing an MMO each player could tolerate considerable mistargeting of the design. Now, it's increasingly do it their way or they walk.

[NineSpine]

Success compared to what exactly though? I enjoy final fantasy though I feel the story is rather overrated. Final fantasy will never be the next Cod or fortnight though. I think final fantasy is profiting so heavily right now simply by not falling into the bloat trap wow has.

I have a gunbreaker and pally at cap and almost have a samurai at cap. Final fantasy has a more casual feel to it then wow. In wow things feel designed to waste your time till mythic plus or at least for me it does. In final fantasy I was bored while leveling and almost dropped it till I stumbled across palace of the dead and then ran that almost excessively while leveling.

For mmos wow has no idea what to do with players pre mythic plus and raiding beyond throwing defenseless enemies infront of them. Final fantasy at least has optional challenging content throughout even if its top difficulty is on par with wows easier heroic bosses.

Your assessment of the difficulty is flat wrong. Ultimates are easily equivalent to final mythic bosses in WoW, and this has been confirmed and agreed on by the people most experienced with both games.

Putting that aside, you are proving my point. The problem is WoW, not society.

[Candlewick]

Your assessment of the difficulty is flat wrong. Ultimates are easily equivalent to final mythic bosses in WoW, and this has been confirmed and agreed on by the people most experienced with both games.

Putting that aside, you are proving my point. The problem is WoW, not society.

I would disagree on ultimates but that is personal opinion. I am not really arguing that wow doesnt have problems its more defining those problems. I think wows content at the high end for the most part is fine (I think the mythic key system needs work but its functional as is). Wow just has it in their mind that content needs to be brain dead and I wish they would stop doing that. While never a hard game it used to at least pose a risk to players outside mythic and raids.

[NineSpine]

I would disagree on ultimates but that is personal opinion. I am not really arguing that wow doesnt have problems its more defining those problems. I think wows content at the high end for the most part is fine (I think the mythic key system needs work but its functional as is). Wow just has it in their mind that content needs to be brain dead and I wish they would stop doing that. While never a hard game it used to at least pose a risk to players outside mythic and raids.

The mythic key system is a good idea implemented very badly. Difficult dungeons with affixes is a great idea. A timed key based system is awful.

[Candlewick]

The mythic key system is a good idea implemented very badly. Difficult dungeons with affixes is a great idea. A timed key based system is awful.

It isn't the timed aspect that bothers me as much as the keys themselves. I don really see why players can't readily set the level of their keys themselves rather then them being a blizzard resource that bottlenecks new players. If people want to try 15s let them try 15s don't force them to level a key.

[crusadernero]

I would disagree on ultimates but that is personal opinion. I am not really arguing that wow doesnt have problems its more defining those problems. I think wows content at the high end for the most part is fine (I think the mythic key system needs work but its functional as is). Wow just has it in their mind that content needs to be brain dead and I wish they would stop doing that. While never a hard game it used to at least pose a risk to players outside mythic and raids.

If they can rework the dungeon feature at endgame alot will probably be solved.

[NineSpine]

It isn't the timed aspect that bothers me as much as the keys themselves. I don really see why players can't readily set the level of their keys themselves rather then them being a blizzard resource that bottlenecks new players. If people want to try 15s let them try 15s don't force them to level a key.

They don't want people to just bash their face against the easiest dungeon. The idea is that you are forced to run every dungeon by virtue of the random key. Not that that is a good solution to that problem, but it is what they think.

I think the whole thing is borked. The dungeons should be like mini-raids with weekly lockouts, rather than content meant to be speedrun repeatedly.

[Theangryone]

after first patch? you must mean BEFORE LAST patch, bcs thats what 9.1.5 is

and yes, they do that quite often, in both bfa and legion pretty much all restrictions they put in with base game were lifted later during the expansions (and before then too, although not so often), some of them sooner, and sure, some of them later in the expansion, BUT! what you seem to "forget" (or ignore as it doesnt push your predetermined opinion) is theres not much SL content left, as far as we know 9.2 and thats it, so when should they lift those restrictions, in next expansion? ofc they do it now, before the last major patch...

remember corruptions vendor for example? didnt even take another patch, they did it in the same patch corruptions were added...
so trying to pretend they dont do that is either complete ignorance or outright lying

You seem to arguing two things here, neither of which has anything to do with my point. Nor did I ever say Blizz never gives players what they want. As for when should they loosen restrictions, I would assume Blizz would do it when they always have which is after the xpac content is over. They have not done a shift of this manner mid xpac for as long as I remember. And then there is the Mage tower being brought back out of the blue, because if there is one thing that screams healthy sub numbers and happy playerbase it bringing back something they always said they wouldn’t and has nothing to do with the current expansion

[Candlewick]

If they can rework the dungeon feature at endgame alot will probably be solved.

I don't know if they would... end game content doesn't seem to be a big issue to me in wow as much as endgame progression systems are.

I think there could be improvements sure but I think we are at the point where leveling has gotten so bad it might be time to consider letting new players start level 60 with full conduits and renowned. If something is just a grind I would argue it needs to go.

[NineSpine]

You seem to arguing two things here, neither of which has anything to do with my point. Nor did I ever say Blizz never gives players what they want. As for when should they loosen restrictions, I would assume Blizz would do it when they always have which is after the xpac content is over. They have not done a shift of this manner mid xpac for as long as I remember. And then there is the Mage tower being brought back out of the blue, because if there is one thing that screams healthy sub numbers and happy playerbase it bringing back something they always said they wouldn’t and has nothing to do with the current expansion

The cardinal sin of wow has always been the rapid deprecation of content, and they clearly leaned more and more into that model over time in order to introduce FOMO and keep people subbed. It worked, for a time, but now we can see that evergreen designs work better and I don't think the devs know how to cope with that when they have built the whole game around saying goodbye to content after every patch.

[Miffinat0r]

???
Novelty: the quality of being new, original, or unusual.

It's being used exactly the way OP intended. Online communication is no longer new, original, or unusual. One of the biggest reasons why MMOs were so popular when they were first coming out was because the concept of an online chatroom was still a novelty. Having an online chatroom where you could INTERACT in a virtual world with other players was absolutely mind-blowing. There were other games that did have online components to them, but nothing like an MMO.

This is true. Golden Age of MMORPGs were from 2000-2010. Once social media got up and sprinting after 2-3 years from 2007-2010 MMORPG popularity especially community aspect, died.

[NineSpine]

I don't know if they would... end game content doesn't seem to be a big issue to me in wow as much as endgame progression systems are.

I think there could be improvements sure but I think we are at the point where leveling has gotten so bad it might be time to consider letting new players start level 60 with full conduits and renowned. If something is just a grind I would argue it needs to go.

Chromie Time was a step in the right direction, but it still feels awkward to play through an expansion and never get resolution or anything for the stuff happening there. As I said above, they build the content for the current patch and don't have a lot of regard for what it looks like later and how janky it becomes.

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This is true. Golden Age of MMORPGs were from 2000-2010. Once social media got up and sprinting after 2-3 years from 2007-2010 MMORPG popularity especially community aspect, died.

MMOs are having a huge resurgence right now. WoW is what is failing.

[Miffinat0r]

Its more these games are designed to be your primary game spending most of your time in them. However there are too many games out there for this method to work well anymore.

Just gonna be bold here and say Witcher 3 is a far better game than any MMORPG out right now.

[Candlewick]

They don't want people to just bash their face against the easiest dungeon. The idea is that you are forced to run every dungeon by virtue of the random key. Not that that is a good solution to that problem, but it is what they think.

I think the whole thing is borked. The dungeons should be like mini-raids with weekly lockouts, rather than content meant to be speedrun repeatedly.

I don't think the mythic key system and harder dungeons can exist together take market right now. If you can run market you can run a 15 and get better gear. Worse they want to add market into keys and especially the second half has bosses that simply are not going to be fun to play around in a pug.

Blizzard needs to concern themselves less with what players do and more on just how their plays out in reality rather then their internalized ideal.

[Miffinat0r]

Chromie Time was a step in the right direction, but it still feels awkward to play through an expansion and never get resolution or anything for the stuff happening there. As I said above, they build the content for the current patch and don't have a lot of regard for what it looks like later and how janky it becomes.

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MMOs are having a huge resurgence right now. WoW is what is failing.

WoW is making money. Through their cash store, their quarterly clear identify that's their profit module now.

What WoW is struggling, and as you can see tons of players who don't work in sales, are failing to grasp is that the "hard" mode content isn't adding or retaining new players. WoW is going to continue to flail and largely fail, because they don't embrace what the past 7 years in gaming has taught everyone:

If your game is simple, players will play. If the game is too hard, players will leave.

[Candlewick]

WoW is making money. Through their cash store, their quarterly clear identify that's their profit module now.

What WoW is struggling, and as you can see tons of players who don't work in sales, are failing to grasp is that the "hard" mode content isn't adding or retaining new players. WoW is going to continue to flail and largely fail, because they don't embrace what the past 7 years in gaming has taught everyone:

If your game is simple, players will play. If the game is too hard, players will leave.

I don't think even blizzard believes the cash shop is a long term sustainable business model over periodic releases of well received content.

I don't really see any new players in wow. I don't think blizzard can compete with the likes of facebook when it comes to mindless games.

I also cant recall any time in the last 7 years easy content brought new players to games... can you cite one?

[Tyris Flare]

MMOs are having a huge resurgence right now. WoW is what is failing.

2008-2013 or so saw basically every AAA studio and major IP get an MMO. That was the Golden Age - massive new games multiple times a year where it seemed like everyone would try it out. New World is like the first time that has happened in forever.

Plenty of MMOs are doing well now, but basically all of them are old. The ones that aren't are a disaster (New World) or Korean import garbage.

That's not a slight on any games that are doing well, but the landscape in 2022 is not everyone looking forward to the next wow killer like a decade ago. Now it's just expansions for existing games, and all the major studios (except Riot) has already blown their load. Very different world.

[NineSpine]

I don't think the mythic key system and harder dungeons can exist together take market right now. If you can run market you can run a 15 and get better gear. Worse they want to add market into keys and especially the second half has bosses that simply are not going to be fun to play around in a pug.

Blizzard needs to concern themselves less with what players do and more on just how their plays out in reality rather then their internalized ideal.

If I was redesigning the endgame progression systems right now, this is how I'd do it, and I know people who like the current system will think I'm an idiot:

Raids:
1. Two difficulties: Normal and Heroic.
2. You can queue for Normal, but Heroic you need a premade for.
3. The final 2-3 bosses on Heroic have Ulduar-like toggles for a mythic difficulty level.

Dungeons:
1. Three difficulties: Story, Normal, and Heroic
2. Story is strictly during leveling. Normal is the max level version.
3. Heroic dungeons have rotating affixes, are very difficult, have a weekly lockout, and drop the same ilvl as heroic raids.

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2008-2013 or so saw basically every AAA studio and major IP get an MMO. That was the Golden Age - massive new games multiple times a year where it seemed like everyone would try it out. New World is like the first time that has happened in forever.

Plenty of MMOs are doing well now, but basically all of them are old. The ones that aren't are a disaster (New World) or Korean import garbage.

That's not a slight on any games that are doing well, but the landscape in 2022 is not everyone looking forward to the next wow killer like a decade ago. Now it's just expansions for existing games, and all the major studios (except Riot) has already blown their load. Very different world.

If people are playing them, people are playing them. You are talking about a time period when lots of MMOs came out and failed immediately. Creating games doesn't make anything a golden age. People playing them is what makes it a golden age.

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WoW is making money. Through their cash store, their quarterly clear identify that's their profit module now.

What WoW is struggling, and as you can see tons of players who don't work in sales, are failing to grasp is that the "hard" mode content isn't adding or retaining new players. WoW is going to continue to flail and largely fail, because they don't embrace what the past 7 years in gaming has taught everyone:

If your game is simple, players will play. If the game is too hard, players will leave.

Yeah, remember when those Dark Souls games came out and they all flopped totally.

Or were they giant cultural milestones that sell huge numbers of copies and completely changed video game design?