Heroic raiding dosn't really interest me, it's alot more effort for gear that's only slightly better, i can pretty much solo any content pre cata, i don't need more gear, so i have no reason to do heroic raiding.
Agreed it does not but fun should not be the primary focus at work which is what Kotick was saying and that caused you to go off on your very bizarre and completely inappropriate rant about how he should die a painful death. You do realise that people have found themselves before a court for making such remarks?
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They must have been fucking miserable when they made the Timeless Isle.
Considering your baseless labeling, I find this statement ironic as shit.
Bitching about game quality being disposed of in favor of accessibility does nothing to imply an elitest attitude. Your assumption is pure shit.
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Because the environment that Paarthurnax spoke of is in the realm of yesteryear.
Wasn't my point at all. I'm saying they are a business. Subs first game second. If something gets in the way of subs, you can bet your bottom dollar it will be changed or something new will come out to appease the masses to bring the subs back. Are they ever going to get back to where they were? Probably not. It's not impossible just not likely. I think a lot of people got tired of the game for whatever reason and just left. They had their day in the sun. I think it could have lasted longer with some key changes, but hey nobody expected it to realistically get as enormous as it did. So overall from a business perspective they did good. From a players perspective I think they did good. Is it the best? No but it's sufficient and far better than most other games.
Kotick said, "...was to take all the fun out of making video games." ALL. ALL. This man cares nothing for the culture of gaming. All he cares about is can he get your money. If he could do that by selling you a steaming pile of shit, he would.
As for wishing people a painful death. Yes, there are many people that I think make the world a shitier place to live. I would be very happy if they were removed from this world and even better if it was not a nice exit.
Also, not threatening here. Having fond thoughts about someone getting their due is not illegal. If making that comment about Kotick would get you in trouble, half the gaming internet would be in trouble.
Anyway, I've drug this way too OT. I just think that the more the developers can subvert Koticks wishes the better.
Last edited by cabyio; 2014-01-13 at 09:33 PM.
Id wager they did notice, but back then there was content just out of reach for allot of the wow population and getting to BT/Sunwell required you to work your way up through previous tiers (i won't say that method is better then what we do now). But it creates a sense of progression and personal journey. Player retention is about getting people invested in their character progression and what progressing means to that person. When you have to work hard for something the reward is that much sweeter.
Blizzards knee-jerk reaction to the Cata debacle is ultimately where most of our problems lie, WOTLK make content more accessible then ever to everyone, while we didn't have LFR you could pug 10 man pretty easily and see LK dead with your own eyes before the expansion was over, we also were in ICC for over a year so people had time. Key thing was that is the only way to see LK die, form a group have the gear and knowledge and then go kill him, not hit the queue button and be semi-conscious and still kill everything. The whole system worked, it had its flaws but it worked.
Cata took allot of that free stuff away initially and made people REALLY work for it and the intro raids while well designed were just too hard for most players and people left in a hurry, ever since then Blizz has been throwing stuff at that demographic to keep them from leaving but in giving them what they wanted (to see all the content at their own pace/difficulty) they hurt the game in the process as the vast majority of the player base has nothing keeping them subbed during the lull between content patches.
And thus the content difficulty/release schedule arms race begins.
Paarthurnax | Peijing"I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."--Bilbo Baggins
How in the hell is killing the current tier end boss in LFR "all the content there is to see in the game"?
If that's what a player thinks, fine, but that's just willfully ignorant.
If you're expecting people to take that argument seriously, you have some perspective problems of your own.
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You seem to have a profoundly incorrect understanding of Bobby Kotick.
People interested in raiding noticed. I completely agree with you that the key to player retention is character progression the problem is that Blizzard are trying to funnel everyone into raiding and raiding, whilst being very successful at retaining raiders, is not holding onto the more casual majority.
The big problem with difficulty is that often players find themselves having to rely on others and they can be unsuccessful no matter how good they are and how well they play. In turn this encourages players to seek players of similar ability to play with rather than playing with friends and lesser skilled players often find themselves left out in the cold.
Yes. And the more finely Blizzard slices the difficulty, the more gradually they ramp it up so that people are playing closer to the limit of their abilities, the stronger the incentive becomes to ditch those who aren't as good as you are.
The other pernicious effect of this is to make it very important to gear up as fast as you can. If your gear falls behind, you have a greater chance of being ditched. The game design incentivizes players to consume the content at top speed.
"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
"The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
"Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"
And that justification for the elimination of heroic raiding as a whole? I highly doubt that will fix the issue. I do agree that guilds and personal relationships in game also play a big part in keeping people in game and playing. Raiding 12 hours a week with a bunch of people you like elevates the game to another level. Where as doing random LFR/flex content is some random social guild almost hurts your chances of moving on to harder content.
I think the combination of eroding game community and content anyone can fully see even w/out putting forth any real effort doesn't lend itself to long stays.
Paarthurnax | Peijing"I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."--Bilbo Baggins
For players that care only for the story, it is. Story wise there is no difference between LFR/Heroic. Problem is those doing it in LFR would not do the content otherwise. He seems under the impression that just having this un-obtainable apple dangling out their was some kind of motivation for players to stay. I say that is bullshit. 3 out of every 4 players quit during Vanilla/BC and possible Wrath. I forget exactly were the 35million cut off was. I actually expect better player retention now, than in vanilla/bc.
Last edited by gamingmuscle; 2014-01-13 at 10:00 PM.