"Catering to 5% of your player base will leave you with 5% of your player base"

[VMSmith]

It's true. No one is saying that. What some are asking for is a more rewarding and interesting end game for players who, for whatever reason, cannot raid or do not have the skills to do high-level M+. It's not a huge ask.

And, sadly, there are a good number of people, including on these forums, who delight in telling anyone that doesn't fit into their narrow view of what the game is "supposed to be" to get lost, beat it, hit the road, you're not wanted scrub. They actively want to make the game worse for those who don't play their way and hope for the games playerbase to shrink just to get rid of those people. I cannot fathom why they do this, other than possibly seething self-loathing that they find their sense of self-worth from a video game rather than treating it as entertainment, like the people they despise.

[cparle87]

Not quite sure why people still hang on to the perception that Asmongold perpetuates toxic culture. I mean, maybe at one point in time? But his latest content easily reflects a person who merely 'plays it up' for the audience, and is otherwise just a persona of a 'dudebro', like a Dr. Disrespect.

Most of Asmongold's commentary on WoW itself is actually quite sensible when he's not outright mocking it.

Because every thumbnail of his videos has him looking like someone just shat in his dinner and he's about to pull out a club and kill them with it? Or how so many of his videos have the word outrage in them?

- - - Updated - - -

Except we know that's not the case with many other MMOs that manage to retain a majority of their casual base through content that is simply more accessible.

Source? /10chars? Like Ashana says just a few posts down.

- - - Updated - - -

More like "New content that people will go 'Ooooo' at for 10 minutes then forget it exists"

Blizzard needs to create activities for non raiders to do. If someone doesn't want to play PvP, raiding, or M+ then they quit the game, because there's nothing beyond mount and pet collecting after that point.

Many people often say they don't care about Blizzard making content other than raiding, but healthy MMO communities are made up of players who do all sorts of things. And yes, 95% of Blizzard's player base could be casual players if they had casual content to keep them engaged. But there isn't. So they don't.

It's almost like there are world quests, treasures, rares, raid equivalent look to earn, covenant activities, and such to do. Nope, none of those things. Non raiders have literally nothing to do.

[Triceron]

Because every thumbnail of his videos has him looking like someone just shat in his dinner and he's about to pull out a club and kill them with it? Or how so many of his videos have the word outrage in them?

You know that his clip videos on youtube aren't even uploaded by him, right?

Source? /10chars? Like Ashana says just a few posts down.

I mean fuck, I literally addressed it right under that post you're talking about.

[NineSpine]

It's almost like there are world quests, treasures, rares, raid equivalent look to earn, covenant activities, and such to do. Nope, none of those things. Non raiders have literally nothing to do.

And what was taken away? Dungeons, battlegrounds, professions, reputations.... All of those things were rendered pointless for progression for casual players. It was replaced with fucking world quests and other horseshit, time gated farming.

[VMSmith]

And what was taken away? Dungeons, battlegrounds, professions, reputations

All those things used to be so much fun to do. But they took the rewards out of Heroic dungeons to try and force people into Mythic dungeons. Random BG rewards are made into garbage to push Rated, and there's no solo queue so you usually come up against a premade that trashes your team. Professions haven't meant anything in so long I don't know why they're still in the game. Reputations in MoP brought story with them and progression for your character, ever since they've been garbage to please the raiders that don't want to be "forced" to do things they don't like (but have no trouble "forcing" non-organized players to raid/M+/Rated BG for anything).

The things they list as activities for non-organized players are absolute grindy trash with trash rewards, no progression. It's all just busywork to try and keep people subbed.

But I hope Blizzard keeps at it! The lessening of WoW can only benefit the rest of the genre

[Neuroticaine]

Not quite sure why people still hang on to the perception that Asmongold perpetuates toxic culture. I mean, maybe at one point in time? But his latest content easily reflects a person who merely 'plays it up' for the audience, and is otherwise just a persona of a 'dudebro', like a Dr. Disrespect.

Most of Asmongold's commentary on WoW itself is actually quite sensible when he's not outright mocking it.

I tried watching an Asmongold video once but I couldn't stand how much the guy moved his eyebrows. It was incredibly distracting. I can't even remember what the video was about.

[Yriel]

It's almost like there are world quests, treasures, rares, raid equivalent look to earn, covenant activities, and such to do. Nope, none of those things. Non raiders have literally nothing to do.

Not for more than a month, no. That is equivalent of one M+ dungeon that only goes to +8 or a raid with 2 bosses.

[Raisei]

I think the selfish part is demanding the game keep becoming more and more casual unfriendly because it makes you happy that other people aren't having fun. On the flip side, nobody is saying "delete the raids to make casual players happy".

See, that is what I mean with "factually incorrect".

1) No one, except for some extremists, is demanding for the game to become "casual unfriendly". The demands come exclusively from the "casual" side. Illustrated nicely by the fact that these threads are alwas made by the "casuals".
People on the other side just want a fair reward for the difficulty they do. If you do Heroic and M+ then you invest a lot of time into learning fights and executing them. The gear you get is the reward for this. If someone would get the same gear for, let's say, farming Marrowroot, which requires neither skill nor practice, then that would be incredibly unfair.

2) The game HAS become more and more casual friendly for years now. You literally can get a raid setbonus now for farming open world currency. But despite all of this, the "casuals" keep opening threads like this. Tell me, when does it end? When is there enough casual friendliness? How much more do the "casuals" need?

I am flat out certain that the screaming will not end until you can log in and get a set of Mythic raid level gear in your mailbox for the achievment of paying a sub. Probably not even then and that is why these threads are so harmful.

If people do not want to take part in Raids and Dungeons then there is dozens of games they can play that do not focus on them. Why does this one have to change it's core gameplay to please you?
Play FF (which is after all doing everything better then WoW, if you believe these forums) or SWTOR if you prefer solo-content. Let WoW stay the game it has been for 17 years successfully.

- - - Updated - - -

Glad to know you are content with the non-raiders having the leftovers while the "superior beings" that are raiders, enjoy full access to the game while artificially gating others from it too.

Nobody is gating you from anything, but you.

[Aydinx2]

Glad to know you are content with the non-raiders having the leftovers while the "superior beings" that are raiders, enjoy full access to the game while artificially gating others from it too.

What is being gated from you? You see the lore and fights. All you're missing out on are normal+heroic/mythic only mechanics and a single extra phase (and the extra phase isn't even more lore).
If you want the loot rewards from those difficulties, you need to beat those difficulties. Welcome to "how videogames should work".

You can literally get more gear than ever without entering even LFR mode. But you people are just never happy until your new character spawns in with full BiS gear.

It's sad that you think the game is gating anything from you when it is your own lack of skill and effort that stops you from getting it. And somehow you managed to spin it in such a way that the people who do take the effort are the bad ones.

- - - Updated - - -

Who says what a game "should" be like? The devs?

That is typically how it goes.

[Osmeric]

I think the main argument is whether or not you believe games should primarily be developed as an art, with the vision and passion to see an imagined world realized through gameplay, or developed as a service, with the longevity and accessibility to "serve" as many people as possible. The "art" model is what indie devs thrive or die on, while the "service" model is generally prefered by corporate interest and more likely to suffer from design-by-committee.

The game as art approach sometimes works, but that's really a matter of luck. It works if the artistic vision elicits a good customer reaction. But that's accidental, if it happens at all.

For something like an MMO, it's even worse, since the designers have to keep getting it right, not just once, but expansion after expansion. The chance of their vision lucking out time after time and continuing to appeal to customers as the game evolves doesn't seem like it would be very high at all.

[ellieg]

The funniest part about these "casuals" in this thread is them pretending like they are personally invested in the company and how much money it makes. Any sane person tries something, sees its not bringing them enjoyment, so they leave it and try something else. Bunch of "casuals" in this thread not enjoying how the game has been for 5+ years and when told that maybe they should leave and find a game they do enjoy, they start crying about how wow is dying. Like bro, let it die then. You just look ridiculous lmao.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Blizzard needs to create content that isn't raids, dungeons, or pvp.

I'm 1000% serious on this. "Casual" players don't really want easy raids. Easy raids are just a ride at a theme park that you do a couple of times then get bored of. LFR, for all its controversy, was probably one of the most useless tools in player retention overall. It does nothing for more serious raiders, and casual players only ride it a few times before they're bored of it. Most only do it once. I realize that WoW is "raid or die" mentality, but you're leaning too much into "die" right now.

Healthy MMO communities have a huge diversity of players. People who participate in one aspect of the game, people who participate in another, etc. I've had guilds where all of us did somewhat different things. But we were friends who came together and had fun together in a shared space. Some were casual, some were hardcore. Some were raiders, some were not.

You remove all of those players who don't want to raid, dungeon, or pvp? You're left with a dead game, because most of the higher end raiders, aside from WFR, clear the raid then don't log in for the next 8 months. Either that or or they're a midcore raid and they raid every week, but even then they really only log on to do daily grind. If they didn't have the daily grind and consumables to farm for, most of them would only log in for raid (Source: entire experience of vanilla through MoP)

Player communities are insanely important to the health of an MMO going forward. Blizzard could develop tools to promote communities again. They could focus some of their energy on cool stuff to do that anyone can do. Fun and exciting group content that's repeatable, that gives you a reason to log on and play outside of your raid obsession.

But I get the feeling they're just going to make this expansion all about raids, dungeons and pvp like they always do, then wonder why their revenue is way way down. That and I get the feeling that most of the toxic parts of the community have been distilled down and concentrated into WoW, as most of the people are leaving for other games where you can't be toxic.

[Yriel]

See, that is what I mean with "factually incorrect".

1) No one, except for some extremists, is demanding for the game to become "casual unfriendly". The demands come exclusively from the "casual" side. Illustrated nicely by the fact that these threads are alwas made by the "casuals".

Probably not willingly but yes there are a lot of those demands.
Every single time a casual activity is introduced that let casuals grind for some sub-par gear, a good part of the raid/m+ faction complains that now they are "forced" to do this content they don't enjoy because the gear might get them some 0.5% bonus in the beginning of the raid. And they demand that to be removed.
That is why we are where we are now. SL releases, basically everyone gets raid/m0 entry equipment just for doing the covenant quests and thats it for casual content, everything else is sub-par. So the raiders just have to do the questline and can start their raids without ever to have to set foot in the zones again.

[Necromantic]

Most of the people that designed wow vanilla has little experience. You have no idea what you are talking about.

They hired developers from very prestigious schools who had years of game development experience. I recommend doing your homework before grabbing random comments and making replies of conjecture.

[cparle87]

Not for more than a month, no. That is equivalent of one M+ dungeon that only goes to +8 or a raid with 2 bosses.

He was arguing that there was nothing to do. Nothing to do, and nothing to do that gives player power because you've reached the end of the progression path for casual content, are two different things. Apples and oranges. You can keep doing those things, collecting things, earning gold, getting new appearances, practically forever. And there are people for whom that is the endgame and this patch has given them more than the game ever has. There's no point like in TBC where the game says, you can't kill any more rares or do any more dailies.

- - - Updated - - -

Glad to know you are content with the non-raiders having the leftovers while the "superior beings" that are raiders, enjoy full access to the game while artificially gating others from it too.

So go do it yourself. Or be an adult and accept that if you don't earn something you don't get it. I love the appearances of the pvp sets and pvp mounts but I hate pvp and refuse to do it. So I, guess what, accept I won't have those things.

I also love how you try to set the whole thing up as an "us vs them" "big man keeping us down only giving us scraps" tribalism nonsense.

[Yriel]

You can keep doing those things, collecting things, earning gold, getting new appearances, practically forever.

No you can't. I basically got everything i was even remotely interested in SL in 2 months. And that included leveling 3 alts. That's hardly "forever".

[cparle87]

They hired developers from very prestigious schools who had years of game development experience. I recommend doing your homework before grabbing random comments and making replies of conjecture.

They made MC in a week and couldn't get past the trash without wiping really bad so it was the first and last raid they tested inhouse.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...rning-one-week

[Loveliest]

The definition literally just means 'Many people playing this same game, online'. How people choose to play online is up to the player, and otherwise not defined as having to group up to do content.

When the new expansion hits, I'm gonna bet you and most of your buddies going to solo the questing content.

Can you please stop with this bs? Seriously. Yes, you can choose to play it solo, but it is not its strength and it will NEVER be so. It focuses on group content because single player games don't offer that. So if you want group content, you go to the genres that offer it. If you want strong single player experiences, go play something that focuses on that. It will be a better fit for what you're looking for.
Seriously. This game is NOT supposed to be single player. It offers little content as such. If you buy a single player game you spend up to 100 hrs in it. Maybe more depending on replayability. And then you expect for that price and a monthly fee to get single player content at top quality for the lifespan on an expansion. It doesn't work like that. Single player content will last you just about the same and rest will be grind and repeatable. And what makes repeatable content not boring in this particular genre is engaging with other humans. Whether vs in pvp or cooperatively, in dungeons or raids. If you want to do this, you choose this genre. If you want to play a single player game that is the quality of a single player game that lasts for thousands of hours instead of hundreds, this is not it.

Please, please, do yourself a favour and pick a genre that is designed for what you want. If I play wow, I come here for group content because I have SO many other options for single player games and not that many for good group stuff. Please, stop trying to transform it into something it can never be and moving focus for the one thing it's meant to do right. Just choose something else that is actually designed for what you want.

[And as a side note, to your last remark, I level with my friends as well every patch. Even stuff like ZM I didn't do alone. I don't play this game to solo.]

[Cragrock1]

I'm sorry man, but if you are talking about clearing 4 zones in a weekend you are not casual.

Casuals, by definition are people with an hour or so to spare every day or 2.
Casuals do the quests, then the odd activity of their choice, be it bgs, professions, mog hunting, mount hunting, dailies, social interactions, lfr, exploring.
Of that there is plenty

What you are discussing are the lazy, self entitled people that play gamed with God mode on and complain they are too easy when they complete it in an hour.
Wow is an mmo, you play what you can and when you can to a standard you can achieve.

Gimmick that will be forgotten, just like class order halls, mage tower, warfronts, island expeditions, covenants, and chorghast.



So? Legion introduced new races and classes too and didn't stop it from being a raider's expansion.



So far that just amounts to being able to post buy orders on the AH like in GW2 or EVE Online. Nothing about actually revamping the gameplay of crafting, let alone making the stuff created by it relevant.



I'll see it when I believe it, but the post-WoD zone design of WoW is anti-exploration.



Which look incredibly bland and claustrophobic.



I actually liked the MoP talent system.



Because they're not addressing the abysmal lack of casual content. You'll do the four questing zones over a weekend and then all you're left with is mythic dungeons and doing the latest raid for 9 months.

[Dalinos]

Yawn. More nonsense half-arguments to disprove something that isn't even controversial take. WotLK was peak WoW and a lot of that had to do with the accessibility that it garnered. It certainly wasn't the beginning of the end which is what the person who I quoted originally had suggested. I dislike fanfiction which suggests that if Blizzard had just kept the TBC model from now until the end of time WoW would have 97 billion subscribers and Bobby Kotick would be president of the universe.

That depends on who you were man. WOTLK was the beginning of the end for me, for my guild and for other players like me. WOTLK saw the biggest exodus of experienced vanilla-TBC raiders. People who had spent hours upon hours figuring how the fuck to kill M'uru and Kil'Jaeden in Sunwell Plateau were met with....Naxxramas 2.0. Naxxramas 2.0 was when I literally started tanking with 1 hand. I vividly remember telling my mates at the net cafe "Ey boys, look at me, Im tanking Patchwerk with 1 hand" while I was holding + smoking a cigarette with my right hand. I also remember how achievements being introduced gave you SO much stuff to do, and I instantly made a stable guild-group to farm Glory of the Dungeon Hero and get our Red Proto-drakes. Because dungeons were THAT easy. WOTLK heroics were so easy that we could do the Glory meta-achievement for them when they were current, as intended.

The "problem" with WOTLK was Arthas on the box cover. Most of the Old Guard left during WOTLK, but there was SO much new blood in the game that the subscriber base saw a net increase. But don't continue harping on about how successful WOTLK was - it wasn't. It had 1 good raid (Ulduar) and 3 good bossfights in ICC (Prof HC25, BQ Lanathel HC25 and LKHC25).