What pisses you off greatly in WoW?

[NineSpine]

How is the endgame mostly built around m+? People always say this despite the fact that the raid clearly eats up the vast majority of dev resources and offers the best gear. This seems as if it will continue to be true in Midnight with the crest and gear track changes.

I mean, TWW introduced delves, so if you don't care about having full mythic you don't even need to raid or do dungeons. You can end up with 4 heroic tier pieces and a bunch of mythic crafted stuff.

People looking for an MMO don't want more instanced, difficulty scaled content to farm bland disposable gear that is reset the next season anyway. You are just fundamentally misunderstanding the complaint.

[Just Passing through]

So you don't believe in math, you have intuition that's just on it so you don't need data or proof because you simply know.

Cool.

Too bad the rest of us aren't gifted with supernatural cognition and have to rely on actual, tangible information, I guess. Sucks to be us.

Well, since you're the only person with access to this amazing way of merely feeling what's going on, that unfortunately means nothing you say has any meaning to anyone but yourself, and your position has no discursive purchase or persuasive power - i.e. no one should believe a word you say, no one should listen to your suggestions, and no one should pay any attention to your conclusions, as they're not demonstrable or transferable to anyone other than you yourself.

Glad we cleared that up.

Well, the guy posts as what is probably called "anecdotal evidence" - and I get it. My anecdotal evidence is that the RNG is shite, because I seem to get a crazy amount of trinkets. On the other hand I am aware that there ARE a crazy amount of trinkets (for example in delves) but only AFAIK only 2 items for every other slot (well, maybe 4-6 for the ring slots) - so trinkets would probably mathematically drop more often. Yet I mostly remember the times when I do 8 of the highes delves in a week and have 3 trinkets in the vault for word activities. Instead of praising that I can also get hero tier sets (and in fact have completed full tier sets of all 4 difficulties on 6 classes and the RF / Normal sets on 6 more classes)

The other thing is ofc that the guy you quoted has claimed for years that he doesn't even play anymore...pretty much since he created his account....so I tend to avoid getting into discussions with him.

- - - Updated - - -

People looking for an MMO don't want more instanced, difficulty scaled content to farm bland disposable gear that is reset the next season anyway. You are just fundamentally misunderstanding the complaint.

The problem is that we ofc do not REALLY know what "People looking for an MMO" want or do not want. If that were so easy - somebody would have made that kind of MMO and everyone would be playing it.

So the question is...is WoW that MMO that does it for you...and if not..which one would you recommend (assuming you are in fact also playing that MMO and not WoW)

[NineSpine]

The problem is that we ofc do not REALLY know what "People looking for an MMO" want or do not want. If that were so easy - somebody would have made that kind of MMO and everyone would be playing it.

So the question is...is WoW that MMO that does it for you...and if not..which one would you recommend (assuming you are in fact also playing that MMO and not WoW)

There's two issues here:

First, we know what the promise of the MMORPG is, it's that it will be a massively multiplayer role playing game. That implies a shared online world with a significantly large number of players simultaneously, and the world will operate on role playing game mechanics and philosophy. To be clear, this is not about the specific words and breaking down their meaning, it's just the obvious promise of the genre when you look at it broadly and think what people will imagine when you tell them a game is massively multiplayer and an RPG.

If you have someone that has never heard of an MMORPG before, but they know what an RPG is, and I tell the there are massively multiplayer ones in shared worlds, their default assumption is not that they will be spending the bulk of their time in instances with a handful of other players or alone, or that you are going to be having your progress constantly reset by seasons, or that the design will do everything it can to eradicate emergent gameplay Those things all run counter to the MMO part, the RPG part, or both.

It's like if I describe to someone what a platformer is. If I do that and then I hand them a game with no verticality whatsoever, they are going to be like "This really wasn't what you described." If I describe fighting games and hand someone Tetris, they will be mighty confused. I can make pedantic arguments all day like "Well you can kind of sort of fight other players in vs mode in Tetris" but we clearly know what the promise of these genres are and what is expected by them on their face.

If I want to describe WoW to someone, it is more accurate to tell them it's a multiplayer seasonal looter with RPG aspects than to tell them it is an MMORPG. This doesn't mean that you can't call it an MMORPG. It's just not the most accurate way to describe it anymore. It would be misleading.

Second, we do have MMORPGs which lean more into being MMORPGs. The easiest example right now is probably OSRS, which has 250k people logged into it right now as I type this. That's not total players. That is just concurrent players right this minute. Total players is therefore easily in the millions, because it would be unreasonable to expect that more than a quarter of all players are logged in at a given time, especially given that it is currently night in a large amount of the world.

So, why don't we have more of those types of games? Because of WoW. WoW dominated the market in its early days so hard that by the time companies were trying to replicate it they were trying to replicate Wrath or Cata. I can tell you from an insider perspective that part of the reason the supposed WoW-killers kept being duds is because their development would keep getting monkeyed with by executives who would demand that their game be more like whatever WoW looked like at that time, so it was this never ending chase that produced dogshit games with no identity. These games typically take 5+ years to make. They'd start designing them based on what WoW looked like, then at year 4 executives would be screaming at them to make it look like what WoW looked like at that moment. It was an impossible chase that drove the design of the games into the toilet.

Because of this, we never got the games inspired by WoW's initial design or piggybacking off of Everquest, and the handful of exceptions we can point to were put out way too early and felt pre-Alpha, like Vanguard, because the development was just too expensive. In short, every WoW-kiler was a dud because WoW's design from Wrath forward was shit, and that's what everyone was replicating. If WoW originally launched and was like Cataclysm, it also would have failed. It just had so much institutional momentum that it kept going.

On top of that, WoW is now the icon of the genre, so when people say "I want to try an MMO, that sounds cool" they go play WoW. And then what do they get? Do they get that promise of an MMORPG I talked about earlier? No, they get a lame multiplayer seasonal looter with boring gear that looks ripped straight off a spreadsheet, a bunch of narrow overly granular gameplay systems, and a proscriptive gameplay style that snuffs out all emergence and feels like an endless hand holding exercise. That's not why the idea of an MMORPG sounded cool to anyone, so they try it, it sucks and doesn't fulfill the promise, and they say "Well, I guess MMORPGs aren't for me if that's the best one". That cycle has killed the genre.

[Osmeric]

Even if you were right, it has no bearing on the conclusion: They changed the core game design, and the subscribers stagnated and declined.

Correlation = causation, right?

Perhaps the causation was in the other direction: they saw they were not retaining customers, so they changed the game. Perhaps not always successfully, admittedly.

[NineSpine]

Correlation = causation, right?

Perhaps the causation was in the other direction: they saw they were not retaining customers, so they changed the game. Perhaps not always successfully, admittedly.

To stay on topic and avoid the subscription issue: I think there is ample evidence that there was a philosophy change and a strong sense of arrogance. If you look at conversations with the original developers, such as Kevin Jordan, you will find that the things later developers treated as weird oversights or mistakes were very intentional and when those things were changed the ripple effects were predictable. A great example of this is how much downtime, travel, upkeep, etc. there is during leveling in vanilla. People who are less competent at game design say "Well these activities are boring so let's remove them" but the reality is that when you remove those activities, you fuck the whole pacing up and it ironically makes the quests themselves more boring.

Game design is about managing human psychology, or at least it is to good game designers. To bad game designers, it is about solving logic problems in spreadsheets. The original game was designed by the people doing the former, the changes were made by people doing the latter. They thought very little about the psychology of playing the game, and a lot about making the math work as elegantly as possible, but at the end of the day, the vast majority of players don't care about your neat little math trick. They care about how the game feels.

[Kellorion]

housing making us replay 20 years worth of content, because, evergreen.

[Ironhorn]

The complete lack of respect for the story. Gamers DO care about the story. The reason Warcraft 3 is still so beloved is because it had great stories. Story can kill a franchise look at Star Wars its very important.

[WowIsDead64]

They thought very little about the psychology of playing the game, and a lot about making the math work as elegantly as possible, but at the end of the day, the vast majority of players don't care about your neat little math trick. They care about how the game feels.

Bingo! This is what I also wanted to say, but decided not to do it, cuz I knew, what answer would be. Many people here would say, that your psychology - is "you" problem.

[MoanaLisa]

Disjointed illogical stories and plot twists. An inability on the part of the developers to make content and let players decide what is and isn't epic. A serious and still ongoing misuse of the amazing world they've created. Most trips out of expansion zones now aren't story-related at all. An inability to see that lore and story is an important part of the game and story being relegated to backseat for gameplay purposes I think misses the point of what an MMO should be. It's their game and their choices. Just not mine any longer. I yearn for a deeper experience that's not to be had in WoW.

It's not at the level of pissing me off. It's more a sense of disappointment and sadness that so much of the game is wasted.

Late edit (several hours later): I should add that I'm a 2-3 month per year player so perhaps my experience is suspect.

[Relapses]

To keep this clearly on subject, per our instructions:

Yes or no, did the core design of wow change from being an MMO first to being a seasonal looter first?

This is just going to derail the thread into a semantic tailspin about our opinions of what constitutes a MMO. And before you "answer for me," I frankly just do not care to debate you on this point. We clearly have different opinions about this and it's probably better for everybody if we just let it be.

[Just Passing through]

....

On top of that, WoW is now the icon of the genre, so when people say "I want to try an MMO, that sounds cool" they go play WoW. And then what do they get? Do they get that promise of an MMORPG I talked about earlier? No, they get a lame multiplayer seasonal looter with boring gear that looks ripped straight off a spreadsheet, a bunch of narrow overly granular gameplay systems, and a proscriptive gameplay style that snuffs out all emergence and feels like an endless hand holding exercise. That's not why the idea of an MMORPG sounded cool to anyone, so they try it, it sucks and doesn't fulfill the promise, and they say "Well, I guess MMORPGs aren't for me if that's the best one". That cycle has killed the genre.

Yes WoW is much different than it was - but even in 2005..when I was one of the people who didn't know what an MMO was (I only played D2 with max 4 friends) I initially did a lot of stuff alone. Sheer luck that a guy from D2 found me on my server. Had a blast in my guild, but even then I levelled 95% alone and really didn't like doing 5 mans. Evewntually raided a lot (8 years), but now I am back to a lot of soloing and at most LFD and LFR.

So again..while it is anecdotal evidene...I wouldn't generalize with millions of people.

Did WoW actually "kill" the genre? How much of it is the devs and how much of it is the players. I mean...it is not like there aren't studios who try and bring that "old" MMO feeling back. If players desperately want that...they should be able to find their game.

[Biomega]

Did WoW actually "kill" the genre?

Social media did that. It offered a virtual space to socialize without the gaming baggage, meaning socializing in virtual gaming spaces became much less attractive - and those games went back to being games first, social second. Player preferences shifted towards demanding more mechanical QoL rather than complications eased by social interaction - instead of wanting to play with people all the time, people preferred to primarily play alongside people most of the time, and only with them every now and then, for specific purposes.

That shifted the general vibes of both the "massively" and "multiplayer" parts of MMO by changing what people wanted out of those respective components, and in what way. With a focus on the game-mechanical aspects and time spent with the game, people began to lean towards more and more streamlining and optimization of the gameplay experience, leaving the social one by the wayside. The seemingly paradoxical idea of a "single-player MMO" emerged directly from that: the idea that even in a shared world populated by many players, people don't necessarily want to directly engage or interact with those players - while also not necessarily wanting those players to be gone. Instead they increasingly began treating them like NPCs: there to fulfil a personal desire as needed, and more or less treated like backdrop otherwise.

This is a natural evolution arising from the changes in gaming as a general form of cultural production and cultural engagement. It's not WoW's fault nor invention, it's just what was going to happen to a genre faced with significant changes in the underlying paradigms of its definitional framework.

[Just Passing through]

The seemingly paradoxical idea of a "single-player MMO" emerged directly from that: the idea that even in a shared world populated by many players, people don't necessarily want to directly engage or interact with those players - while also not necessarily wanting those players to be gone. Instead they increasingly began treating them like NPCs: there to fulfil a personal desire as needed, and more or less treated like backdrop otherwise.

That sounds so much like RL - no wonder the game(s) evolved into that.

[Biomega]

That sounds so much like RL - no wonder the game(s) evolved into that.

The two are not unrelated, for sure. And it goes both ways, with mutual developments of an exaggerated sense of self-importance in a world increasingly interconnected through various forms of media. "Main character syndrome" isn't just run-off-the-mill narcissism, it's definitely something that can only exist in the context of a world-view paradigm influenced by gaming and social media.

[NineSpine]

Social media did that. It offered a virtual space to socialize without the gaming baggage, meaning socializing in virtual gaming spaces became much less attractive - and those games went back to being games first, social second. Player preferences shifted towards demanding more mechanical QoL rather than complications eased by social interaction - instead of wanting to play with people all the time, people preferred to primarily play alongside people most of the time, and only with them every now and then, for specific purposes.

That shifted the general vibes of both the "massively" and "multiplayer" parts of MMO by changing what people wanted out of those respective components, and in what way. With a focus on the game-mechanical aspects and time spent with the game, people began to lean towards more and more streamlining and optimization of the gameplay experience, leaving the social one by the wayside. The seemingly paradoxical idea of a "single-player MMO" emerged directly from that: the idea that even in a shared world populated by many players, people don't necessarily want to directly engage or interact with those players - while also not necessarily wanting those players to be gone. Instead they increasingly began treating them like NPCs: there to fulfil a personal desire as needed, and more or less treated like backdrop otherwise.

This is a natural evolution arising from the changes in gaming as a general form of cultural production and cultural engagement. It's not WoW's fault nor invention, it's just what was going to happen to a genre faced with significant changes in the underlying paradigms of its definitional framework.

This is a narrative that gets repeated a lot but has no teeth. Social media is not used for “socializing” in any way that meaningfully crosses over with how wow ever worked. Forums and chat rooms existed in 2004. Talking to people online wasn’t new or novel.

Just to put a point on it, here is a list of when other things released, since people here always want to act like WoW was the first thing that ever released on the internet:

BBS (first message boards): 1978
MUD1 (first multi-user dungeon): 1978
BBS Multi-User Chat (first chat rooms): 1979
IRC (first popular chat system) : 1988
Islands of Kesmai (first online MMO): 1985
WWWBoard (first web forum): 1995
Meridian 55 (first graphical MMO): 1996
ICQ (first modern instant messenger): 1996
SixDegrees (first social media platform): 1997
Ultima Online: (first mass market MMO based on an existing IP): 1997
Everquest (first large scale MMO): 1999
Myspace (first large scale social media network): 2003
World of Warcraft: 2004
Facebook opens to public (first massive social media network): 2006
Twitter: 2006
The Burning Crusade: 2007

The the time TBC came out, MySpace had tens of millions of users, Facebook was blowing up, and Twitter was just finding its feet. People had been chatting and posting online for a decade, and that is only looking at popular usage, not early technology for people who had special access. MMOs also had existed for a decade, and Everquest was seven years old.

WoW was not some social revolution that predated everything. It was just an exceptionally well designed game.

[WowIsDead64]

That sounds so much like RL - no wonder the game(s) evolved into that.

Bingo again! People here seem to start understanding things better and better. What players don't want to play - is RL simulator, that is even worse, than RL itself. MMOs are something for downshifters? Probably for sportsmen. Problem is - 99.99% of people as in beer league. Again. Whole RL is about making life more comfortable. Not opposite.

Another thing - we aren't expected to become IRL friends with checkout boy in McDonalds to eat hamburger. We have friends. We have relatives. We need peoples' help just because we can't do everything by ourselves. We don't need 100500 friends. MMO should be about possibility to become friends. Not requirement. As simple, as that.

[Al Gorefiend]

The pre-WoW MMOs were clunky, bad, boring & grindy. They were absolutely pivotal for WoWs success because they set the desire for games like this - just done well.

[MORGATH99]

those 8 plus hrs maintenance , like how the actual @@@ you cant have like internal test or something to prevent this from happening , since DF there been a massive amount of 8 hrs maintenance reset days , we lost like a month or something like that just waiting for servers to come back online

[NineSpine]

those 8 plus hrs maintenance , like how the actual @@@ you cant have like internal test or something to prevent this from happening , since DF there been a massive amount of 8 hrs maintenance reset days , we lost like a month or something like that just waiting for servers to come back online

The alternative is significantly worse than you think it is.

[WowIsDead64]

those 8 plus hrs maintenance , like how the actual @@@ you cant have like internal test or something to prevent this from happening , since DF there been a massive amount of 8 hrs maintenance reset days , we lost like a month or something like that just waiting for servers to come back online

You must be new here. You don't remember old times, when you paid sub for 7 days/week, but could play for 6 only.