When is enough enough?

[Sansnom]

Pandaria was the first in your face signal, whether you want to admit it or not.

It was pure pandering to China's massive pool of players.

Is that opinion or fact?

As the cold hard stats proved though, this was an expansion no one wanted, as it lost 25% of the player base over its entire life time, losing players from start to finish, to get them back only on the WOD announcement.

No one wanted that expansion? Again, is that opinion or fact?

No one really knows what the numbers are. Yes, Blizzard posted their active subs in the past. They also mentioned Blizzard had 100 millions accounts. Not all active of course and I do not if those includes the trial accounts or paid account.

So all these are just opinions based on limited information and people's own interpretation.

[ArenaDk]

What was right?

Naxx reused
Onyxia reused
Lfd was introduced
Attunements were removed
Multiply raiding difficulties
Easy as hell dungeons
Catch up gear.
First shop mount
And so on

[Eapoe]

With the sad news that hundreds of people will be losing their jobs very soon, i have to ask myself something: When will the diehard fans who blindly white knight all things Blizzard FINALLY accept what many (and i really do mean MANY) have been saying for a while now - Blizzard have lost their way, their trademark high production values are long gone, and they are in serious trouble.

This isnt just wow obviously, but their cash cow is not producing the milk it once was, confidence in the product is down, and i think this is yet another indicator that yes, subs are WELL down, the lowest since vanilla. Something has gone horribly wrong, and i just want to know why we cant just accept it and talk openly about it? How much proof do the defenders need?>

What would it take for some of the games defenders to accept that there is something wrong, and that even if they are enjoying the product, the majority of players have either moved on, or are close to doing so.

Moderation note: While not a fan of top-posting in case anyone is wondering what is being discussed here and hasn't seen the news post about it, please take a look at this article from Bloomberg. {MoanaLisa}

Who stated it’s WoW employees being fired. The article even specifically stated games like Overwatch and Hearthstone seeing declining sales.
Different people work on different games. The layoffs can range from a few employees from each product, to many from 1 and a few from others. Employees could also be in the marketing department, people that have very little to do with production itself.
There’s all kinds of things that could be happening that doesn’t directly affect WoW.
That said, of course there’s issues in Blizzard. The company is declining. Is that surprising in the light of things as mmorpgs becoming a niche gaming style, card games becoming a niche style, and FPS shooters becoming forgotten about as the next big thing comes out. Sure, there are outliers that still go strong, it Acti Blizz isn’t the only company who has a giant game at 1 point just to have it die off later.

[MoanaLisa]

Activision announcing that it's going to refund owners of Guitar Hero Live. They're really having a week. The thing is about all of the news yesterday and today that little of it really seems to be about Blizzard Entertainment. Tomorrow should be interesting. I wonder what it was like in ATVI HQ today.

https://variety.com/2019/gaming/news...ve-1203134260/

Given the news from EA and Take-Two Interactive 2019 is going to be an interesting* year for gaming. ATVI apparently without an answer at this point to either FortNite or Apex Legends. There's a good argument to make that ATVI has grown too much and has become unresponsive to market changes. Blizzard is part of it but strategy comes from the management group. ATVI reports earnings tomorrow (12th) as well.

Keep your browsers up.

*Ancient curse: May you live in interesting times.

[arkanon]

Who stated it’s WoW employees being fired.

That said, of course there’s issues in Blizzard. The company is declining. Is that surprising in the light of things as mmorpgs becoming a niche gaming style, card games becoming a niche style, and FPS shooters becoming forgotten about as the next big thing comes out. Sure, there are outliers that still go strong, it Acti Blizz isn’t the only company who has a giant game at 1 point just to have it die off later.

Good question - who DID state it?

The part in bold is what really bugs me - its just silly excuses. I see NOTHING to support your argument that FPS as a genre is becoming "forgotten" about? i mean seriously. MMORPG has never been a mainstream product, and that has not changed. Same with Card games - nothing there has changed.

- - - Updated - - -

The first question that comes to mind is: what is there to gain to accept or admit that? What is the goal of yelling this out in the open?

You sound like someone who hates Blizzard and want them to shut down entirely, you seem to get a hard on from anything bad that happens to them. What is your goal with this thread other than being toxic?

Like, I understand that this place is full of people who shouldn't be there (people who quit should just do that, quit, that includes the community and atuff, just gtfo if you don't play what's the point?) but what is this mentality of seeking revenge on a group of people who make a game you don't like anymore? I don't see you making threads about other games you don't like, they're all video games all the same, so why put so much effort into shaming Blizzard? That seems like a very social justice warrior thing to do.

I don't see what good can come out of a thread like this.

Thing is, you dont get to decide who should and shouldn't be here. This is especially important when you imply i should leave because i hate blizzard, i quit wow, and i need to stop coming to this forum.

All of those things are wrong. You got EVERYTHING wrong - i love Blizzard - i own every product they have - WoW is open right now, because i STILL PLAY - something that i have said 2-3 times in this thread alone. What i want is for some people to open their eyes a little, and understand that the part of the game they enjoy might be good right now, but it could very well be next on the chopping block, and that would most likely be because of the plummeting subs and players.

WoW is an ecosystem, and each part of the community relies on the others for support, even if they dont realise it. The game needs money coming in and enough subs for Acti to justify investing in it - otherwise EVERY part of the game suffers.

It seems to me you didnt read much of the thread at all, had no intention of having a discussion, but rather spent your entire post attacking me. I like your thinly vieled attempt at an insult by calling me a "social justice warrior", that was a nice touch. Also accusing me of "seeking revenge" on Blizzard? Im not sure, but you seem to be holding on to a LOT of anger. Could it be that you too are frustrated with the serious decline in all things Blizzard, and just dont want to accept it?

You'll feel much better when you do.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

Pandaria was the first in your face signal, whether you want to admit it or not.

It was pure pandering to China's massive pool of players.

As the cold hard stats proved though, this was an expansion no one wanted, as it lost 25% of the player base over its entire life time, losing players from start to finish, to get them back only on the WOD announcement.

Do you get off on trashing MoP? Is it more enjoyable when you make up things as well?

[Eapoe]

Good question - who DID state it?

The part in bold is what really bugs me - its just silly excuses. I see NOTHING to support your argument that FPS as a genre is becoming "forgotten" about? i mean seriously. MMORPG has never been a mainstream product, and that has not changed. Same with Card games - nothing there has changed.

- - - Updated - - -



Thing is, you dont get to decide who should and shouldn't be here. This is especially important when you imply i should leave because i hate blizzard, i quit wow, and i need to stop coming to this forum.

All of those things are wrong. You got EVERYTHING wrong - i love Blizzard - i own every product they have - WoW is open right now, because i STILL PLAY - something that i have said 2-3 times in this thread alone. What i want is for some people to open their eyes a little, and understand that the part of the game they enjoy might be good right now, but it could very well be next on the chopping block, and that would most likely be because of the plummeting subs and players.

WoW is an ecosystem, and each part of the community relies on the others for support, even if they dont realise it. The game needs money coming in and enough subs for Acti to justify investing in it - otherwise EVERY part of the game suffers.

It seems to me you didnt read much of the thread at all, had no intention of having a discussion, but rather spent your entire post attacking me. I like your thinly vieled attempt at an insult by calling me a "social justice warrior", that was a nice touch. Also accusing me of "seeking revenge" on Blizzard? Im not sure, but you seem to be holding on to a LOT of anger. Could it be that you too are frustrated with the serious decline in all things Blizzard, and just dont want to accept it?

You'll feel much better when you do.

Didn’t mean FPS as a genre, I meant specific FPS games having their moment to shine just to be forgotten at the next big one. Simply stating that all games die overtime.

[arkanon]

Didn’t mean FPS as a genre, I meant specific FPS games having their moment to shine just to be forgotten at the next big one. Simply stating that all games die overtime.

Counterstrike would LOVE to say hello.

[SirBeef]

Because its an MMO - Player numbers and community are a major factor - also, if numbers continue to go down, what do you think is next? Seriously, such a short sighted view - If profits are down, what do you think the next expac will look like? will they still be enjoying the game when its a mobile arena based card game with a BR mode?

The only community that maters to me is my guild. As long as we are together, been so since DS in Cata. Most of us are over 40, married, professionals or retired and raid with our spouses. It is like our poker/bowling/league night. As long as we are having fun, and WoW is still running, we plan on sticking with it. I'll be concerned when the game is no longer fun for me, or they shut it down, which will eventually happen at some point as it does with everything. No need worrying about the behind the scenes crap IMO.

So call it blind loyalty if you will, as long long as the games I play that Blizzard produces are fun, I'll keep enjoying them. Once they are no longer fun, I'll stop. That is all I care about.

[Chonar]

I just... don't... care. I enjoy playing World of Warcraft. I dont go on forums pretending to be an Activision-Blizzard shareholder and spend time eyeballing subscriber statistic under a microscope.

Just let me play the game I enjoy, and have enjoyed for 15 years, throughout all its changes and iterations. For the love of god.

[CptEgo]

Fixing WoW is both simple and complex at the same time:


Bring back complexity;

Unique talent trees
Extra spells & abilities not bound to rotation
Weapon skills, defensive skills, gear stat optimisation
Bring back funny toys and stuff to use in raids and outside them
Design quest lines and expansion lore towards being humble, I DON'T WANT TO BE A HERO OR A CHAMPION FIVE TIMES IN EVERY EXPANSION

• Stop spewing epic gear all around
• Stop further-handicapping gear obtained through trade skills
• Stop selling gold but instead fight harder against boosting services of all kind
• Stop limiting and ruling everything funny out of the game "because it wouldn't fit in eSports", THIS IS NOT A FUCKING ESPORTS IT'S AN MMORPG

WoW is a extremely complex game to understand, you might not think so but people who don't know MMOs don't understand WoW at all. You have like 50 buttons all over the screen, that's not complex enough for you? This whole 'complexity' argument is bullshit, the average WoW player is not a fucking math professor with autism.

[Gref]

I can clearly see some old-timer blizzard employee will finally come up with a crowd funding project aimed to "take back Blizzard!!!".
It will be the biggest crowdfunding in history and we will buy back blizzard. no activision or vivendi attached.
Then it will flop. I guess.

[kamuimac]

I can clearly see some old-timer blizzard employee will finally come up with a crowd funding project aimed to "take back Blizzard!!!".
It will be the biggest crowdfunding in history and we will buy back blizzard. no activision or vivendi attached.
Then it will flop. I guess.

i wonder which blizzard you want to take over again - because the last time blizzard was its own entity was when they released lost vikings. anything past this and they always belong to someone.

[Tsyplenk]

Naxx reused
Onyxia reused
Lfd was introduced
Attunements were removed
Multiply raiding difficulties
Easy as hell dungeons
Catch up gear.
First shop mount
And so on

Barely anyone completed Naxx back in the day, was a cool raid which was interesting to see. It was new to pretty much everyone.

Onyxia was an anniversary thing brought back just for fun, it was not a whole raid tier or anything..

LFD was a good introduction for people that didn't have guilds and had difficulty pugging, it had good and bad points but I agree, I prefer no LFD. A lot better than LFR, however...

Attunements were a load of crap, if you didn't play every tier due to whatever reason you were always scrimping around trying to get a groups together before you could even do anything as there was so many unnecessary ones. Glad they were removed.

Multiple difficulties allowing players to still complete raids depending on how much they wanted to play and gave them a chance to try a harder mode if they wanted too. Hardcore difficulty was still there for the best players, more variety meaning more content for everyone. How is that a problem?

Dungeons were not easy, MANY dungeons were hard before people completed raids, people that say this clearly never did them when they were current content and just aoe'd through them with raid gear.

Catch up gear? So? People that have had to take a break from WoW for whatever reason can come back and get ok gear that allows them to compete (but still not as good as raid gear)??? THE BASTARDS. Who gives a crap. This was in TBC as well btw.

Shop mount, yeah that's horse shit, I've always hated their shop with a passion.

[Gadzooks]

I can clearly see some old-timer blizzard employee will finally come up with a crowd funding project aimed to "take back Blizzard!!!".
It will be the biggest crowdfunding in history and we will buy back blizzard. no activision or vivendi attached.
Then it will flop. I guess.

Blizzard makes half a billion dollars in profit a year. I think that's just a skootch out of crowdfunding territory.

[ArenaDk]

Barely anyone completed Naxx back in the day, was a cool raid which was interesting to see. It was new to pretty much everyone.

Onyxia was an anniversary thing brought back just for fun, it was not a whole raid tier or anything..

LFD was a good introduction for people that didn't have guilds and had difficulty pugging, it had good and bad points but I agree, I prefer no LFD. A lot better than LFR, however...

Attunements were a load of crap, if you didn't play every tier due to whatever reason you were always scrimping around trying to get a groups together before you could even do anything as there was so many unnecessary ones. Glad they were removed.

Multiple difficulties allowing players to still complete raids depending on how much they wanted to play and gave them a chance to try a harder mode if they wanted too. Hardcore difficulty was still there for the best players, more variety meaning more content for everyone. How is that a problem?

Dungeons were not easy, MANY dungeons were hard before people completed raids, people that say this clearly never did them when they were current content and just aoe'd through them with raid gear.

Catch up gear? So? People that have had to take a break from WoW for whatever reason can come back and get ok gear that allows them to compete (but still not as good as raid gear)??? THE BASTARDS. Who gives a crap. This was in TBC as well btw.

Shop mount, yeah that's horse shit, I've always hated their shop with a passion.

Naxx was undertuned as hell. And if blizzard would release a raid which is a 1:1 copy today , they would be called cheap and saving money.

Onyxia was still a 1:1 copy again. Why not do it like they did in cata and make a new fight for her ?

Lfd nothing bad , but made the game more casual.

And the dungeons were god dam easy. Don’t lie. I ranked heroic without hitting def cap and I still had no problems.

And catch up gear is okay. If you couldn’t farm it from this easy as hell dungeons.

And let’s look at all raids.

Vault of archavon = only 1 Boss current and free loot for tier items and pvp gear. Mount was nice tho
The obsidian sanctum = only 1 boss and free loot. Only good thing was the 3 dragons mode at the beginning
The eye of eternity = only 1 boss but it was challenging for pug groups at the beginning, loved the fight tho
The ruby sanctum = only 1 boss which was a Filler but was challenging

Naxx copy and paste and undertuned.
Ulduar = good raid, even so 1-2 Bosses were not necessary in my opinion
ICC = okay, but sadly has only 2 good fights and gave free heroic loot away
Trial of the crusader = I don’t have to say anything or ? It was a raid tier which should have been a filler raid

[Vorkreist]

Arguing with Bfa defenders is like arguing with flat earthers. If you take them to space and show them the earth they'll just say they see a big blue circle.

[Vargulf the Happy Husky]

sometimes i wish this game (company) would tank. it would make way for something new, something always has to...fill the void ...

hell, it may even spur blizzard to get their shit straight again.

[Freshouttajail]

Good question - who DID state it?

The part in bold is what really bugs me - its just silly excuses. I see NOTHING to support your argument that FPS as a genre is becoming "forgotten" about? i mean seriously. MMORPG has never been a mainstream product, and that has not changed. Same with Card games - nothing there has changed.

- - - Updated - - -



Thing is, you dont get to decide who should and shouldn't be here. This is especially important when you imply i should leave because i hate blizzard, i quit wow, and i need to stop coming to this forum.

All of those things are wrong. You got EVERYTHING wrong - i love Blizzard - i own every product they have - WoW is open right now, because i STILL PLAY - something that i have said 2-3 times in this thread alone. What i want is for some people to open their eyes a little, and understand that the part of the game they enjoy might be good right now, but it could very well be next on the chopping block, and that would most likely be because of the plummeting subs and players.

WoW is an ecosystem, and each part of the community relies on the others for support, even if they dont realise it. The game needs money coming in and enough subs for Acti to justify investing in it - otherwise EVERY part of the game suffers.

It seems to me you didnt read much of the thread at all, had no intention of having a discussion, but rather spent your entire post attacking me. I like your thinly vieled attempt at an insult by calling me a "social justice warrior", that was a nice touch. Also accusing me of "seeking revenge" on Blizzard? Im not sure, but you seem to be holding on to a LOT of anger. Could it be that you too are frustrated with the serious decline in all things Blizzard, and just dont want to accept it?

You'll feel much better when you do.

I didn't "get everything wrong". I didn't say you hate Blizzard, I said you sound like someone who hates Blizzard, which is true, you sound like that regardless if you hate them or not, that was just the vibe of your post.

Dude, there's 16 fucking pages of clowns yelling at each other about a subject we've already seen 75 times over. Why THE FUCK should I, or anyone else, waste their time reading all of it? I don't need to go through it all to know it's 95% shit, I've been around here long enough to know most of what people say is just their whiny opinion, like yours. I'm not here to talk about the opinion of other people toward your opinion. I'm here to ask you a question, to which you didn't answer because you know there's no good answer, you know your post holds no value. There is nothing to gain from crying out loud "we accept that WoW is in decline". We all know know it is lol, I have no problem accepting it, I'm just asking what would you gain from seeing people saying it out loud?

You're just asking for social acceptance of your opinion, which is just pathetic.

The anger you feel from my post is just your own anger reflecting because you read my post from a point of offended viewer. Take a deep breath, calm down, and read it with a neutral voice in your head, that's how I wrote it. You'll feel much better when you do.

[Eapoe]

Counterstrike would LOVE to say hello.

Meanwhile CoD loses to Battlefield which then loses to the next CoD which then loses to the next Battlefield. Games like PubG come out and are raved about just to become niche titles as Fortnite is released. The same thing that is now happening to Overwatch.
As stated, there are outliers of games that still are played by many people, such as Team Fortress, but even those are shells of what they once were.
As previously pointed out, all games die. Some just hang around much longer.
At this point though, you are either just missing my point or you are being willfully ignorant to argue a point that you don’t need to make as it isn’t an actual arguement to anything I’ve stated.