Originally Posted by
marathal
We see the comments all the time, the Warcraft player base is getting older, what can we do to get more people back in the game, etc. And it occurred to me. Yes the player base is getting older, people that played when they were 15 are now in their 30’s and those that were in their mid 20’s are now in their 40's (edited because I added incorrectly) with families, careers, and just don't have the time to commit to a level of play necessary to push anywhere near a high level of content progression.
So what if you changed the philosophy behind the game design. What if the endless cycle of adding more and more systems, adding more complexity, more challenges, higher levels of difficulty, endless grinds... And just stripped that all back to an earlier time when the game had a much simpler design. And go a bit further, go back to the core elements of what makes Warcraft what it excels at. Telling a story, exciting zones to explore (and not get killed by 57 mobs because you tabbed out to look something up) encouraging people to want to group up to complete things.
Look, I know for myself personally. I will be 60 at the end of the year, I've played video games since Pong and the Atari 2600. I enjoy playing games. I do not enjoy spending an hour completing a handful of quests because it takes me twice as long as other classes or better skilled players to do the same. I barely want to log in once a week. But imagine if things were a bit simpler, and mobs didn't one shot you because you missed that it has 230k health not 23k like the similar creatures wandering about. If things were a bit simpler, I would certainly be logging in more often because I would feel like I was able to progress. And if I was actually able to complete a zone or content, I might even consider rolling an alt to see it from the other faction, or try playing a tank or a healer. Right now it is too involved and requires too much time to commit to just trying to keep up with the game. And what do we see, subscriptions dropping every patch, year after year. So maybe it's time to look at it from a different angle, instead of trying to lure more younger people in to an older game, maybe try to keep those that have stayed for 10+ years, and get back all those that left because it became to much.