Influencers got their will, Bliz listened to their feedback, yet noone plays game

[Deneios]

I think those 'discussions' turned into a negative feedback loop between communities & influencers; extreme views were reinforced and all nuance got lost. If I am to speculate I would say that did more harm than the actual design in some cases. Conduit energy might've been a somewhat annoying system but the negativity about it was insane (so insane blizzard pulled the emergency break). It also became apparent that no matter how the story of Sylvanas played out, people were determined to hate it. There's even a conspiracy theory about that story - that should be a serious indication how extreme these views were.

Nah the biggest FU was how they handled Arthas.

[Grimbolt]

I dont think anyone know what they want WoW to be in 2023.

Gaming culture changed a lot and Blizzard is trying to please too many groups all at once and have been for many years.

[Vampyrr]

I don't raid or do dungeons over and over. MoP kept me satisfied throughout the 14 month patch drought because of the sheer amount of things to do. There were 7 zone questlines and they were good, several extensive reputation storylines which were also good, the legendary questline, Timeless Isle was excellently designed (unsurpassed to this day), the celestial tournament, etc. There were also new PvP battlegrounds being added. The RP scene was also thriving and there were huge events being hosted out in the world and PvP wars. Later expansions didn't have anywhere near as much fun stuff to do that interested me. Also the RP scene (at least on my server) is dead-ish compared to the MoP days. No huge PvP campaigns anymore.

MOP was awful. I feel it fights for one of the worst expansions of all time. I dont want ANYTHING from mop era to return.

[czarek]

I dont think anyone know what they want WoW to be in 2023.

Gaming culture changed a lot and Blizzard is trying to please too many groups all at once and have been for many years.

Yes and no. No ones knows ? Not exactly. Some know exactly what they want but the problem is here - they want to please too many gropus at once obviously yes and thats prob the biggest problem not only gameplay wise but whole community, politics, gedner etc. TOO MUCH. And imo thats not just a WoW problem.

[Shadowferal]

On the plus side, maybe we've seen how low the game has gone.
On the minus side, I'm pretty sure it's about the status quo. The diehards won't quit. Toss in cheap and poorly written material and they still pay for it.

[RobertMugabe]

Where "day 1" includes "all presales". The latter can be pumped up by suitably prolonging the presale period and including incentives like mounts.

You're right, however this can be also applied to other expansions too.
Still, overall it can be said that all expansions have roughly the same day 1 sales, all things considered and this is no different for Dragonflight. Which concludes that Dragonflight wasn't a failure at all, it just didn't sell as much on day 1 as SL did.

- - - Updated - - -

But, to be fair, that is just a method to make numbers look good. By now probably most people buy the game digital and most probably preorder. So, of course, you are bound to have more day one sales than compared to a time where most people bought their expansions as a physical copy. Only freaks did those midnight sale things, most people bought their copy somewhere in the first week.
The downside of these great day one sales is probably barely any sales after that because everyone already got it.

I will have to try to find the exact figures, but IIRC before you could buy the expansions digitally (such as wrath), their "day one" sales figures were actually worded as "launch week" sales to make themselves look better back then. I know whenever Cata launched the midnight sales were in the hundreds of thousands (which was a record back then), but the ~3.5m sold copies figure came from somewhere else.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I will have to try to find the exact figures, but IIRC before you could buy the expansions digitally (such as wrath), their "day one" sales figures were actually worded as "launch week" sales to make themselves look better back then. I know whenever Cata launched the midnight sales were in the hundreds of thousands (which was a record back then), but the ~3.5m sold copies figure came from somewhere else.

the launch week number was only a thing for Mop all other expans were using sales in the first 24 hours.

Nice bit from the mop wiki page.

On October 4, 2012, Blizzard had announced that 2.7 million copies of Mists of Pandaria had been sold within the first week of its release (Cataclysm sold 3.3 million copies within the first 24 hours of its release),[37] with the global subscriber base passing 10 million subscribers.[38] As estimated by Carol Pinchefsky from Forbes.com, digital sales of the game outnumbered the retail sales by nearly 4:1 in the first week of sales.[39]

Subsequent comments by reviewers acknowledged that the sales of nearly 3 million in the first week would be desirable and an indicator of success for any other company in the gaming industry, but the reviewers said these numbers "still aren't looking good for the long-term future of Blizzard's wildly successful MMORPG" and "likely left some of the team at Activision Blizzard wondering where they went wrong". Pandaria's start has been slower than any other WoW expansion, with both Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm selling more copies in the first 24 hours than Pandaria did in its first week.[40][41]

As of October 14, 2014, Mists of Pandaria is included for free with the base game, similar to previous expansions.[42]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worl...%20subscribers.

[MORGATH99]

i feel like if you let yourself be influenced by carrygold or fake hair dude that said he never playing wow cause the studio treats ppl he never gonna meet bad and just realize that final fake 14 doesnt pay for more hair transplant you are stupid those 2 are just brain dead millennials that complain about everything.

[Uniteria]

I'm shocked that Blizz actually listened.

How many times have players given feedback on the PTR or other testing servers, only to see absolutely nothing change.

That's why i stopped giving my feedback after so many tickets and suggestions i wrote to them. Yet still this game is getting worse and worse.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

That's why i stopped giving my feedback after so many tickets and suggestions i wrote to them. Yet still this game is getting worse and worse.

Did you really believe that suggestions from one random player would have any impact whatsoever? Lol

Talk about entitlement!

[Delekii]

That's why i stopped giving my feedback after so many tickets and suggestions i wrote to them. Yet still this game is getting worse and worse.

I like the game more than I have in years, and I've played longer than I have the past 3 expansions combined. My guild remains active and plays together daily. The feedback I gave largely reflects the game in its current state in many ways, though not in many others; it would be nonsensical to think all the feedback (or even any feedback) from one specific source has a meaningful influence on the game's direction.

Because there IS an endpoint to farming and because I don't feel compelled to farm week in week out for an endless power grind, I don't feel like having a down week leaves me irrevocably behind and thus don't bother. The only borrowed power system in the form of the 10.0.5 ring I can grind out in a couple of hours and be done, and thus any alt I feel the desire to play I can actually play without weeks of meaningless lockouts to wait for.

Valdrakken is consistently packed, there are always people out in the world, and LFG groups don't have any problem filling nearly instantly. The doomsaying is utterly nonsensical.

/shrug

Different strokes for different folks.

MOP was awful. I feel it fights for one of the worst expansions of all time. I dont want ANYTHING from mop era to return.

MOP was wonderful. I feel it fights for one of the best expansions of all time. I want EVERYTHING from the mop era to return. The only exception is the daily system back then, which can suck a nut. That said; Isle of Thunder was awesome even WITH the dailies.

[MrFawlty]

Mop was the first expan to add a possible mount with purchase and it was also the worse selling expan with 2.7 million in the first week not first day.

Mounts being added is a none factor.

LOL Yeah they give you a mount for absolutley no reason what so ever.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

LOL Yeah they give you a mount for absolutley no reason what so ever.

They give you mounts because the mount editions cost like 15$ more so they get more money for every sale.

They aren’t for some scheme to front load day one sales or if they were they failed horribly at it.

[Vampyrr]

I like the game more than I have in years, and I've played longer than I have the past 3 expansions combined. My guild remains active and plays together daily. The feedback I gave largely reflects the game in its current state in many ways, though not in many others; it would be nonsensical to think all the feedback (or even any feedback) from one specific source has a meaningful influence on the game's direction.

Because there IS an endpoint to farming and because I don't feel compelled to farm week in week out for an endless power grind, I don't feel like having a down week leaves me irrevocably behind and thus don't bother. The only borrowed power system in the form of the 10.0.5 ring I can grind out in a couple of hours and be done, and thus any alt I feel the desire to play I can actually play without weeks of meaningless lockouts to wait for.

Valdrakken is consistently packed, there are always people out in the world, and LFG groups don't have any problem filling nearly instantly. The doomsaying is utterly nonsensical.

/shrug

Different strokes for different folks.



MOP was wonderful. I feel it fights for one of the best expansions of all time. I want EVERYTHING from the mop era to return. The only exception is the daily system back then, which can suck a nut. That said; Isle of Thunder was awesome even WITH the dailies.

Isle of Thunder was pretty much the only highlight for non pvp. Everything else was straight garbage. WoD ranks higher for me then MoP. Class balance though was in a pretty solid spot in MoP.

[Soon-TM]

I won't deny it, Ion going against his entire "casuals can't get nice things ever or servers will explode" stance (even if only partially) as of 10.1 makes me giggle quite a bit. Maybe he has seen the Light after all?

[Osmeric]

I won't deny it, Ion going against his entire "casuals can't get nice things ever or servers will explode" stance (even if only partially) as of 10.1 makes me giggle quite a bit. Maybe he has seen the Light after all?

I'm not paying any attention to what he's been doing since I have zero trust he won't stab the casuals in the back at the first opportunity.

I'll pay attention when he's been fired.

[VMSmith]

I won't deny it, Ion going against his entire "casuals can't get nice things ever or servers will explode" stance (even if only partially) as of 10.1 makes me giggle quite a bit. Maybe he has seen the Light after all?

As a very casual, non-organized player, I have to agree that gearing and the feeling of being rewarded for playing is the best it's been since MoP. But that's my feeling, others will vary, I'm sure.

[Talon8669]

For years influencers have complained about all the "main stream" issues about the game. Like "REMOVE BORROWED POWERS" and "REMOVE MANDATORY CONTENT".

Just to be specific, I am talking about people in this sphere:
- Asmongold
- Preachgaming
- Belluar
- T&E

Just to be clear, those influencers are just echoing how they see their communities talk, so it's more of a community thing. I am not trying to hate on the influencers.

Influencers have made video after video complaining about the same things and tunnelvisioned on certain things like

- no more borrowed power
- no more required content that force you to log in every day
- no more infinite AP grinds
- no more Sylvanas
- more focus on permanent systems like
* talent system
* battlepass system
* crafting system
* flying system
- more communication about the future patches and plans

We all know the list they dreamed of is kinda accomplished in Dragonflight.

Influencers no longer have anything specific to complain about. Great, I guess the game is so fun now?

Because to me it seems they all have never played the game as little as they do in this expansion.

And the influencers have just conveniently moved on to other games, while simutatiously have nothing to complain about. "I'm just not that into the game right now".

I seriously worry that Blizzard took the influencers feedback way too seriously to heart, but the reality is that following them does not make a game that people want to play.

What do you think?

So it's great that they listened, but end of the day they still made a poor game. I mean it was engaging for a while but honestly it's just boring. There isn't really anything I like about it so I unsubbed back in early Feb and have been playing classic...just not blizzard classic.

[MiiiMiii]

So it's great that they listened, but end of the day they still made a poor game. I mean it was engaging for a while but honestly it's just boring. There isn't really anything I like about it so I unsubbed back in early Feb and have been playing classic...just not blizzard classic.

I think your comment is really good.

[Rozz]

I think that the game and community are actually on the upswing atm. I'm happier with DF than the last two expansions. I'm not playing as much as I did in Legion or MOP, but that's because I'm given time to play other games and WoW without feeling behind if I'm not raiding.

I'd only say that it can be hard to do recently defunct content when it's "kill the mob with a billion health" after the number of groups forming for that specific content continues to decline. I guess playing on update week isn't the biggest ask, so I'm not too bothered. In a few patches, I can go back and solo it at my leisure.