Did casuals ruin WoW and if so how?

[Draahl]

Casuals did not ruin wow, bad players with big mouths did. I really hate how easy it has become, that its trivial to achieve anything in the game nowadays PvE wise.

[Tomana]

Casuals did not ruin wow, bad players with big mouths did. I really hate how easy it has become, that its trivial to achieve anything in the game nowadays PvE wise.

twitch.tv/draahl - Watch me suck at virtually every game!

I find those two paragraphs ironic

[McTurbo]

A definition of casual vs hardcore is going to be nearly impossible to ever fit because there are to many types of players that simply dont fit the mold of one or the other.

Newbie.
Just picked up the game doesnt know where most things are.. are in the process of leveling thier first toon. knows nothing nearly nothing about mods, external websites. or what a raid is.
Casual.
Plays wow for fun with family and friends. doesnt know enough about external websites, mods to really care. plays to have fun but is mostly ignorant of important mechanics, messes around with alts and dungeons, and heroics dungeons when thier friends or guildies are on..
Normal Player
Plays wow for fun as a serious hobby probally logging 2-5 hours a night. between pet battles, multiple alts, friends and family members that have invited them into a guild. knows enough of the game to get around. probally knows about raiding and has hit up lfr a bit. I wouldnt say they were clueless but are less commited to improving themselves they play the game as a game and dont take it serious enough to stress about how high thier dps is or laughs if they and thier friends die
Newbie Raider
has played some lfr or got brought into a guild raid. doesnt understand the terms or mechanics. most would lable them bad but inexperianced and overwhelmed would be a better word. probally learning about needed mods, rotations and important websites from other guildies who have been helping them in heroic dungeons/scenerios.
Casual Raider
Has done LFR multiple times. but are the kind of people you see who die from standing in fire. not horrible players but unable to concentrate on multiple things at the same time. (do you want me to dps or move!) :P they are able to maintain thier job in a raid.. but generally are the first to die to something they didnt see coming.. i like to call these the response players.. they never anticipate, never prepare.. they just press buttons occasionally moving with the group till they die then are the first to ask.. what happened.
Normal Raider
They know thier rotations or are improving. they have the right mods but may struggle in the chaos of reading the right bar thing from them. less likly to research a boss fight and rely on being told what to do in a fight. they are typically solid players but still have trouble anticipating things happening as such they get caught and die.. (then gripe at the healer!) they are the ones that die around the last 25% of a boss to that one mechanic they know is coming.. but.. well.. you know..
Experianced Raider - the dependable one!
They know thier stuff. they know the fights. occasionally get caught out of position. generally good enough to compete on any meter someone wants to run. may not always be on top but are in a respectable possition.. knows how to read the mods (dbm) knows thier rotation though my not have "mastered" it. are normally there for every raid with flask and food. (on occasion they get .... grumpy at the newbies and normals most especially cant stand to be called out by said newbies and normals)
Raid Leaders & Harcore Casual players.
Your raid leaders for the lower normal guilds tend to be the normal's for the typical hardcore raiding guild. (notice i didnt say world first guilds they are a breed of thier own)
these are the people that do the research. know thier class, your class and pretty much every boss fight in the game. they can quote you mod settings, dbm timers, spell names from bosses and generally know everything they need to know about a raid from composition, to who's messing up and why.

Everyone above this position are the true hardcore. they show up. they know thier stuff. they are ready. they anticipate instead of reacting. when its time to react they do so swiftly with little fuss. they understand that occasionally they may get bumped on a boss the raid is working on for certian classes. (or will switch to the needed class) its hard to lable above this. but generally from raid leaders up people know what they are doing and are willing to take action to get things done.

Time and Skill are individual attributes that while play a role in any of the above titles are only important as you climb that scale. a person can fit anywhere on that scale as long as they have said time and skill.

[HoopyFrood]

Honestly I believe the casual revolution is designed to stabilize subs and not necessarily bring in new players, but to bring back old players. Emphasis looks like it was based on guys straddling the line on whether 15 bucks a month was worth what time they could get out of the game.

LFR/Flex is designed to accomodate those who will/can not dedicate certain times of the week to organized raiding. I do know there are ways to find a guild if you're even remotely willing/able to dedicate 1-2 nights a week, but that in itself takes time which a casual doesn't neccesarily have to invest in order to get "progression".

And someone put out something about spoilers, guides and the existence of addons for everything and it does play into the casual mentality so an old player can come back, get geared, and do most of the endgame with only gating of raids and weekly lockouts to worry about. All the while they are still putting out 15 bucks a month while playing a fraction of game time of the dedicated Arena teams and Heroic raiders. It's really good business actually, if not a bit annyoing for those who basically participate in all the PTR's and are on the top of their craft.

I'm an ex-player, and a happy one at that, and I'd like to believe I see both sides of the argument about Casual play vs Dedicated (See how I replaced "Hardcore"). Dedicated guys push the content to evolve and the Casuals get to try it out, but even this I believe is gonna be short lived. Even with everything fast tracked for returning players this solution is only transient as WoW, as with all things, is getting old, and I think that the Dedicated players will get their old stuff back when WoW finally drops off.

I'd like to think that it's the market, and how developers respond, that's changing MMO's, especially WoW

[Ronduwil]

The current state of wow is what you "90%" casual crowd wished for and begged blizz for all these years. And yes its dry and dying. Hope you're happy with it.

Really? Casuals wished for a game that's all raiding and dailies with no challenging Heroic Dungeons and no new ones since expansion release? That's news to me?

[melodramocracy]

Really? Casuals wished for a game that's all raiding and dailies with no challenging Heroic Dungeons and no new ones since expansion release? That's news to me?

Casuals didn't (don't) spend years pining for leveling and other stuff that "doesn't matter" to be made quicker / easier / less time consuming? They don't subscribe to the idea that dungeons should be short, brainless, and require minimal effort?

You must be reading an entirely different set of forums.

Vorkreist is correct, the most vocal aspect of the playerbase has gotten more or less what they've asked for, and are now mystified as to why people aren't sticking around.

[Deleted]

Casuals didn't (don't) spend years pining for leveling and other stuff that "doesn't matter" to be made quicker / easier / less time consuming? They don't subscribe to the idea that dungeons should be short, brainless, and require minimal effort?

You must be reading an entirely different set of forums.

Vorkreist is correct, the most vocal aspect of the playerbase has gotten more or less what they've asked for, and are now mystified as to why people aren't sticking around.

I'd say it's almost a certainty that if you are on a forum, you aren't all that casual.

[Ronduwil]

Casuals didn't (don't) spend years pining for leveling and other stuff that "doesn't matter" to be made quicker / easier / less time consuming?

No, they didn't. Raiders asked for that because levelling is "boring" and they want to just get to the end game. That feature was not geared towards casual play.

They don't subscribe to the idea that dungeons should be short, brainless, and require minimal effort?

If they had then MoP would be the pinnacle of heroic dungeoneering and this failure to engage casuals wouldn't exist.

You must be reading an entirely different set of forums.

Link a few posts please.

[vesseblah]

Subs still dropping in a 9 year-old game? Who would have thought that? Heck, original WoW devs probably didn't even expect the game to last this long, much less be the leader on the market after 9 years.

When WoW launched EQ was biggest game in west with ~550k subs and Lineage 1/2 in east with about 2M. I doubt that Blizzard ever thought they'd hit 5M in a year, but instead something closer to EQ numbers.

[SodiumChloride]

They don't subscribe to the idea that dungeons should be short, brainless, and require minimal effort?

As a non-raider, call me causal if you like, BC and onward dungeons are pure fail.

From "real" dungeons in vanilla that have layouts that resemble "real places" to the corridor dungeons of BC and onward. This killed the immersion, it killed the feel of adventure and it killed the feeling that WoW is a "real place".

[Galluccio]

Sup everyone so ive been playing WoW since about the start of BC and I know back then it was harder trying to clear content and the game in itself was a lot harder since there was no LFR or group find for anything plus you had to flyout to the actual instance. So basically if you werent in a hard core raiding guild you werent going to see any content. Ive seen a lot of posts on other forums talking about how WoW has been dumbed down to the point where its unplayable now and everyone is blaming the casual player for this. My question is how exactly did the casual "ruin" WoW?

The problem with wow is it started out as hard core. Now, that they are trying to appeal to the masses the hard core are crying. The 99 percent of the player base which are casual has provided the money to keep the game going.

[Notnicebb]

Blizzard ruined the game, not casuals. After all, they do design the content.

[vesseblah]

From "real" dungeons in vanilla that have layouts that resemble "real places" to the corridor dungeons of BC and onward. This killed the immersion, it killed the feel of adventure and it killed the feeling that WoW is a "real place".

What a load of bullshit.

MoP is the first time when instances actually take 1:1 space from the outdoor game world, before all the way from vanilla to cata those didn't really exist anywhere and in most cases didn't take any space. Karazhan is prime example of this TARDIS syndrome when it's bigger on the inside than outside. UBRS/LBRS, BWL, BRD, BoT, To4W etc are other fine examples that completely break the immersion.

[SodiumChloride]

What a load of bullshit.

MoP is the first time when instances actually take 1:1 space from the outdoor game world, before all the way from vanilla to cata those didn't really exist anywhere and in most cases didn't take any space. Karazhan is prime example of this TARDIS syndrome when it's bigger on the inside than outside. UBRS/LBRS, BWL, BRD, BoT, To4W etc are other fine examples that completely break the immersion.

I think you not quite getting what I'm trying to say.

Matching with the outside world is fine and dandy. Should be done I agree.

But inside, from the start of any BC (and onward) instance to the end, it is effectively one straight linear path. Compare that with BRDs, it actually feels like a city, with various paths connecting various (logical to have) places. It even had a switch you can use to open and close a huge door which also at the same time closes and opens the pathway, literally, on top off that door! It had a freaking bar!!! BRDs is a place I feel I can actually hang out in if it wasn't filled with mobs trying to kill me.

[afhald]

Sup everyone so ive been playing WoW since about the start of BC and I know back then it was harder trying to clear content and the game in itself was a lot harder since there was no LFR or group find for anything plus you had to flyout to the actual instance. So basically if you werent in a hard core raiding guild you werent going to see any content. Ive seen a lot of posts on other forums talking about how WoW has been dumbed down to the point where its unplayable now and everyone is blaming the casual player for this. My question is how exactly did the casual "ruin" WoW?

Yes they ruined the game.

[Lumineus]

MoP is the first time when instances actually take 1:1 space from the outdoor game world

Actually I believe that Utgarde Keep was the first dungeon to be realized as 1:1 scale. Not that it matters much because most of those places you listed are either underground, or in another dimension (To4W). BoT entrance is just a portal that links to god-knows-where. I'd say BWD is a much bigger offender than all of those because there is pretty much no way it can fit where it is, given everything else that's already established as being inside Blackrock Mountain.

But actually if anything is immersion-breaking it's the fact that the Pandarian instances do exist in the outdoor world, yet when you go inside... no mounting! No flying! Shado-Pan Monastery is the biggest offender. Invisible walls everywhere! Good luck getting to the secret ledge unless you're an engineer.

[melodramocracy]

Actually I believe that Utgarde Keep was the first dungeon to be realized as 1:1 scale. Not that it matters much because most of those places you listed are either underground, or in another dimension (To4W). BoT entrance is just a portal that links to god-knows-where. I'd say BWD is a much bigger offender than all of those because there is pretty much no way it can fit where it is, given everything else that's already established as being inside Blackrock Mountain.

But actually if anything is immersion-breaking it's the fact that the Pandarian instances do exist in the outdoor world, yet when you go inside... no mounting! No flying! Shado-Pan Monastery is the biggest offender. Invisible walls everywhere! Good luck getting to the secret ledge unless you're an engineer.

OT, but your sig is awesome.

[Metallikiddd]

Blizzard ruined the game, not casuals. After all, they do design the content.

Only 1 person at Blizzard ruined the game...and no its not GC.

[Grimble]

The current state of wow is what you "90%" casual crowd wished for and begged blizz for all these years. And yes its dry and dying. Hope you're happy with it.
The casuals and here i mean the "carebears" that get offended if someone criticizes their play in any way, the people that cba to learn the class and the game altogether and lots of other issues, the ones that whined years after years to blizzard "blizzz gaem 2 hard, we want epics and legendaries to rain from the sky while i afk", the people that foolishly believe easier access to content means "growth", the people that can't understand how mandatory challenge is in any kind of game.
I'm glad I played in the times when everything wasn't dumbed down and thrown in your face, when I couldn't see all the content so easily but that pushed me more to get better at the game to reach that.
The point where the train derailed must have been wotlk because I really can't remember in tbc tons of people complaining about the game. Most people where too busy playing it and enjoying what they wanted. Tons of guilds only managed to clear Kara and that was enough and quite the amazing experience in itself. Nobody felt like, hey, am bad, lazy but I'm entitled to faceroll the end game raids because "I have a life blizz, i have 10 children crying for food so I can play only 30 mins per week please tailor the game for meh" spam posts.

Back when Ultima Online came out, you could PVP kill anyone almost anywhere in the world, take every last bit of their gear, and call them filthy names if you wanted. This was, needless to say, a controversial feature and was nerfed after a few years. Meanwhile, coincidentally, shiny new competing games seemed to launch every six months and eventually UO's subscribers began to decline as is usual in any aging game.

Why am I talking about this?

Because to this day, this very day, twelve years or so post-nerf, if you go to the right forums, you can still find people who haven't played the game in a decade whining about not being able to kill people and take all their shit. To hear them tell it, being able to kill everyone and take all their shit provided CHALLENGE to the game, and COMMUNITY because everyone was supposed to band together to defend themselves. In their mind UO didn't eventually decline because it got old and a ton of other games came out, it declined because easymode carebears were able to farm monsters and such in contentment without the risk of being ganked and looted. They liked to pretend that their obnoxious and near-sociopathic little community added something to the game, while in reality no one else agreed.

So they whined and whined and whined and whined for years and years.

Nobody involved with the game ever listened to them.

Nobody ever made a new MMO for them that wasn't a laughable shitty flop.

They just kept haunting those forums, with nothing better to do since they were no longer a viable MMO audience. Occasionally they would bitch and agitate for their own "classic server" to play on, but that was always more trouble than it was worth and never happened either.

Does all this sound familiar to anyone? Disenfranchised hardcores, I present you your present, and your future. Enjoy.

[RickJamesLich]

Actually it ultimately is the developers problem. The players have ZERO responsibility to the game and can leave at a whim. The developers have a responsibility to the company or presumably they do at any rate. I guess they could not give a fuck that johnny casual leaves but I mean they won't last long if they do. They'll be replaced shortly by somebody who does and will bring increased revenue back into the game. Or hell at this point stems the bleeding.

The point of an MMO is that you have to put time into your character to progress - anyone that plays WoW pretty much knows that. If you're expecting something where you just go around and kill Illidan and Arthas after your first 30 minutes of playing, yes you will definitely be disappointed. You're essentially playing an MMO, and hoping that they change it so it's no longer an MMO.

- - - Updated - - -

I played at the start of Cata, and I saw many players leave. They typically mentioned something like, "The difficulty in this game is just too insane for me to deal with at the end of my day. I'm going to check out SWTOR for a bit and then come back. Then again I may not." More often than not they didn't come back. I don't know of a single one of those people who posted an "I Quit" letter on the Blizzard forums. They just let their subscription lapse and went about their business.

I saw tons of people crying about Cata dungeons (in this thread even) myself. And while those people left, people are still leaving the game even after the dungeons have been nerfed so hard that there's no point in doing them now lol. Essentially people don't want stuff like challenges to be in an MMO - which I is kinda silly if you ask me. It's like people want WoW to be a vastly different game than what it is, despite wow being the biggest MMO ever.

- - - Updated - - -

Not really when you understand how it happened. It was rushed into the game at the last minute to prop up the subscriber numbers for the last patch of Cataclysm. It was originally planned for MoP which is why it was such an unfinished mess when it was originally released. I'll leave it to someone else to look up the links for that but they're out there somewhere.

Raid design without LFR will certainly be less than it is now. Probably much less.

My point was, with LFR being introduced, we got the lamest raid of all time (according to many on this forum) - so it didn't make raiding any better. If you know anything about blizz, they rarely make last minute decisions, especially on something so huge in the game. As for whether or not Blizz can make good raids if they get rid of LFR, 8 years of experience suggests that they definitely can. Not sure why people keep saying this when literally all of the evidence suggests they definitely can make quality raids still.