Would you still play WoW if it was totally single-player?

[WowIsDead64]

Have you ever looked into the development history of D3 and why the planned second expansion 'King in the North' was cut and cancelled?

Money. That's what it came down to. You can google it up. After the RMAH was a total bust and before Loot 2.0 was even implemented, the investors and execs lost faith in it being profitable and pulled their budget to focus on other projects. We know about this.

https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Diabl...g_in_the_North


Another issue was Diablo III's revenue model.[2] Reportedly, Blizzard was reluctant to commit to a second expansion because Diablo III lacks a steady revenue stream (aside from its Asian, free to play model), whereas most of its other games involve either a subscription fee (e.g. World of Warcraft) or microtransactions (e.g. Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm), therefore the game has low profitability compared to other Blizzard games in most regions (Asia being a notable exception).[3] This made it difficult for Blizzard to support a team of 100 people working on the game. John Hight begged Morhaime and Blizzard's other executives to wait until Reaper of Souls was shipped before making any final decision on the second expansion, but his requests were denied.[2]

It's about efficiency. Any business is about efficiency. Nobody needs business, that gets paid for doing nothing. Yeah, it's so nice to charge sub fee for listening music instead of selling it. Cuz you can make one track and earn money forever. Yeah, people die and new ones are expected to buy everything from scratch. Well, not everything. That's why it doesn't always work. But at the end we want to pay for product. That's why it's bad, when companies try to turn their products into services to switch to sub fee model, when it isn't justified. It means, that they're ineffective. They have offices, they have to pay rent for, they have employees, they need to pay to, they have investors, who want their dividends, but they don't produce anything useful. They just exist. Hence it's called "existence tax".

I know, that they expected RMAH to become their source of infinite "sub fee" and it failed. But their expectations were set way too high. They saw D2's item black market and wanted to control it. They could release D3 as purely SP game and switch to B2P model, but it just wouldn't have been so super-profitable, as sub fee. They just didn't want "small" money. They wanted big money. Blizzard are well known as ineffective company, that gets super-profits while barely releasing any new games. Do you think, it's good?

[Ielenia]

Again. Dunno why, but SP game devs are obsessed about making brand new games from scratch instead of making DLCs. That's, what makes SP game development ineffective. Example? Diablo 3. Only one DLC was released for it,

Are you talking DLC or expansions? Those are not quite the same, here. When I heard 'DLC' I think of something extra but small for the game, such as Mortal Kombat's new fighters, but when I hear "expansions", I think of Reaper of Souls for D3, or WoW expansions.

And what then? Pointless infinite seasons? Another problem - is devs, wanting so called "existence tax". It's about being jealous about making games, players buy once and then able to play forever.

Wow, making up BS terms now? Can't use reality to back your arguments, now you're making shit up?

They think it's unfair, that you play something, get fun, but don't pay for it.

What do you mean? People do pay for it. They bought the game, after all. What you're describing there is called piracy.

It's unreasonable to pay for something, if money aren't invested into creating new product.

Wrong. That's not how it works. You're paying for a game that you get upon purchase, you're not making am investment for future games. If I go to the grocery store and buy a can of corn, it's because I have the intention of buying a can of corn, not because I want to invest in the canned corn industry to make more corn for me to pay in the future.

[Triceron]

It's about efficiency. Any business is about efficiency. Nobody needs business, that gets paid for doing nothing. Yeah, it's so nice to charge sub fee for listening music instead of selling it. Cuz you can make one track and earn money forever. Yeah, people die and new ones are expected to buy everything from scratch. Well, not everything. That's why it doesn't always work. But at the end we want to pay for product. That's why it's bad, when companies try to turn their products into services to switch to sub fee model, when it isn't justified. It means, that they're ineffective. They have offices, they have to pay rent for, they have employees, they need to pay to, they have investors, who want their dividends, but they don't produce anything useful. They just exist. Hence it's called "existence tax".

I know, that they expected RMAH to become their source of infinite "sub fee" and it failed. But their expectations were set way too high. They saw D2's item black market and wanted to control it. They could release D3 as purely SP game and switch to B2P model, but it just wouldn't have been so super-profitable, as sub fee. They just didn't want "small" money. They wanted big money. Blizzard are well known as ineffective company, that gets super-profits while barely releasing any new games. Do you think, it's good?

If not for the system in place, you wouldn't have any WoW singleplayer content in the first place. The multiplayer-centric subscription model is why Warcraft still has a story mode. RTS had become non-viable for them, in fact for many companies since the genre isn't at the height of popularity it used to be. If not for multiplay-centric business model, the singleplayer story mode would be as gone as Warcraft Adventures, and current Warcraft existing as non-story centric, like we already see with hearthstone and WCRumble. Cuz even games like Overwatch are released without a Story mode at all.

That has put players like me in a tough spot too. I don't actively play WoW anymore, yet I still come to places like this and WoWhead for news and updates because I am still interested in the story, and WoW is the only place to get it. I am otherwise a daily WCRumble player, a game that I only play since they put Heroes of the Storm maintenance mode with no new content updates. I am a lore enthusiast, and it sucks having to get it through novels, compendiums, online wikis. But that is the state of things.

The best solution IMO is a separate singleplayer RPG. Not changing WoW, but a new game that runs parallel, much like how Diablo 4 and Immortal both run in the same universe. Or even different universes, if WSS ends up going multiversal. A Solo RPG tackling historic events in depth would be fine, IMO. Like fighting as or alongside Varian to uncover Onyxia's plot in an all new lore definitive adventure. Cover all of WoW's greatest moments and untold adventures (like that of the novels or comics) in a brand new game. No need to fuck with WoW or its current story and gameplay. But there are definitely issues in the way of having this greenlit within Blizzard, it's hard since even WC Adventures Lord of the Clans tried this and utterly failed. The game was practically complete too.

[WowIsDead64]

The best solution IMO is a separate singleplayer RPG. Not changing WoW, but a new game that runs parallel, much like how Diablo 4 and Immortal both run in the same universe. Or even different universes, if WSS ends up going multiversal. A Solo RPG tackling historic events in depth would be fine, IMO. Like fighting as or alongside Varian to uncover Onyxia's plot in an all new lore definitive adventure. Cover all of WoW's greatest moments and untold adventures (like that of the novels or comics) in a brand new game. No need to fuck with WoW or its current story and gameplay. But there are definitely issues in the way of having this greenlit within Blizzard, it's hard since even WC Adventures Lord of the Clans tried this and utterly failed. The game was practically complete too.

This is exact mistake, devs constantly make. Separate game would be too expensive to make -> not viable. Devs don't understand several concepts about DLCs. That price should be adequate for amount of content, they provide. I.e. that they shouldn't be way too greedy and therefore try to sell 20% of game for full price. And some even try to sell one skin for that money, yeah. That DLCs should have new content - not content, ripped from main game. This is unfair and players don't like it. DLCs should be optional. Player may like some of them, but nothing bad, if he doesn't like them all. And the most important thing - more DLCs = better. New player doesn't have to buy them all. But once he runs out of things to do, he goes to DLC list and sees 30 DLCs available. What he thinks about it? Man, this is lot more things to do! And he is very likely to buy them all at some point. Game becomes exponentially more profitable. Devs just shouldn't be lazy, greedy and impatient. DLCs will pay off with time.

[Mysterymask]

This is exact mistake, devs constantly make. Separate game would be too expensive to make -> not viable. Devs don't understand several concepts about DLCs. That price should be adequate for amount of content, they provide. I.e. that they shouldn't be way too greedy and therefore try to sell 20% of game for full price. And some even try to sell one skin for that money, yeah. That DLCs should have new content - not content, ripped from main game. This is unfair and players don't like it. DLCs should be optional. Player may like some of them, but nothing bad, if he doesn't like them all. And the most important thing - more DLCs = better. New player doesn't have to buy them all. But once he runs out of things to do, he goes to DLC list and sees 30 DLCs available. What he thinks about it? Man, this is lot more things to do! And he is very likely to buy them all at some point. Game becomes exponentially more profitable. Devs just shouldn't be lazy, greedy and impatient. DLCs will pay off with time.

Man its a mistake and people keep buying it so......

I mean if you think a mistake is winning at capitalism then they should obviously make more mistakes

[AudibleEscalation]

price should be adequate for amount of content, they provide.

Unfortunately we don't live in utopia.
How much content was your $90 AH brutosaur?

[Tertullian72]

WoW has retained its popularity over the years because it doesn't force either multiplayer or solo play on its players. You can focus on the pure multiplayer modes if you choose, like Mythic+ or high end raiding, but you can also dip your toes into dungeons, pick up raids, casual PvP, etc. and still enjoy playing through the rest on your own. It's not one or the other, and trying to make it that way would be a great way to kill their subscription numbers.

This has always been true for WoW, even in the vanilla days. In 2004, World of Warcraft was the solo-friendly game compared to Everquest and its sequel, Dark Age of Camelot and the rest of them. All of those games effectively forced you into groups in order to progress beyond the starter areas. WoW didn't do that, and it was a huge part of its success.

[Triceron]

This is exact mistake, devs constantly make. Separate game would be too expensive to make -> not viable. Devs don't understand several concepts about DLCs. That price should be adequate for amount of content, they provide. I.e. that they shouldn't be way too greedy and therefore try to sell 20% of game for full price. And some even try to sell one skin for that money, yeah. That DLCs should have new content - not content, ripped from main game. This is unfair and players don't like it. DLCs should be optional. Player may like some of them, but nothing bad, if he doesn't like them all. And the most important thing - more DLCs = better. New player doesn't have to buy them all. But once he runs out of things to do, he goes to DLC list and sees 30 DLCs available. What he thinks about it? Man, this is lot more things to do! And he is very likely to buy them all at some point. Game becomes exponentially more profitable. Devs just shouldn't be lazy, greedy and impatient. DLCs will pay off with time.

You still run into the problem of a singleplayer RPG having finite content, leading you to wait months or years between content updates. What would be the difference to just treating WoW the same way?

Like if each WoW expansion and major content patch for a singleplayer RPG, would you be complaining about not playing the singleplayer RPG every day? That the DLC takes time to be releaded?

[WowIsDead64]

You still run into the problem of a singleplayer RPG having finite content, leading you to wait months or years between content updates. What would be the difference to just treating WoW the same way?

Like if each WoW expansion and major content patch for a singleplayer RPG, would you be complaining about not playing the singleplayer RPG every day? That the DLC takes time to be releaded?

Does Wow actually have lots of content? Remove all repeatable tasks and it's content would be completed within 2 hours. Why can't SP game have the same replayability mechanics? Daily quests, callings, etc.?

[Mysterymask]

Does Wow actually have lots of content? Remove all repeatable tasks and it's content would be completed within 2 hours. Why can't SP game have the same replayability mechanics? Daily quests, callings, etc.?

That's Roguelikes like Hades and Binding of Issac those have daily quests and is made to be repeatable, you could argue the loot system from FFX where you had to grind the coliseum mobs for endgame loot but jesus christ I can bitch about FFX's post game cause literally its one of the most annoying thing in Square's history and I LOVE Final Fantasy X.
There's also The Avengers, Gotham Knights and Suicide Squad which was mostly a singleplayer live service game with daily quests and repeatable content and you can see how well that did (hint they failed and failed hard DESPITE having giant IP's attached to them)