Does Blizzard actually like RPG?

[Deleted]

Well, everyone has their reasons for quitting, but this one seems odd. Care to elaborate?

Sure. I didn't want to put my raiders in a position where they faced buying gold using the wowtoken to get upgrades to be eligible to raid.

Example - little timmy is in college, he's a bit hard up right now. I set an ilvl of 100 to join the next HC raid. He has ilvl 97 and no gold. Easiest thing for him to do is go and get a token sell it and buy an upgrade. it was one more thing I would have had to pay attention to in order to be as fair as possible to everybody and i just noped out.

I don't like pay2win in genera, either. Buy/sell tokens, buy carries. buy/sell tokens buy gear. That's not what entering aan alternate reality game should be about, just imo. Everyone should start off equal and from their skill and effort and organisational ability etc should make the difference. yeah, theres people with better PC's etc but this isn't the game explicitly letting those with real life cash to waste have a better shot at everything.

I ramble, i ramble.

[SodiumChloride]

It sure did. Accessibility, more-so than just raiding, was WoW's RPG down-fall though.

Oh, things like the "elemental wheel", key quests to unlock stuff, and gearing correctly vs particular mobs (i.e. Resist gear) ... etc. are accessible. Just not to raiders that have to find herd 40/25/10 people at a time.

Because Blizzard see raiding as the be all and end all, they just dropped those because they can't be used in raiding, ergo, "not important".

WoW for the longest time had NOTHING outside of raiding. Garrisons is a start - but just that a start.

That reminds me, the crafting system. Gather mats, push a button. Can't get any shallower than that.

[Deleted]

510]

Hardly. Exploration was mostly because the quest guidance was so shiity back then the quest half the quests gave absolute dick for information about where you could expect to find certain things. There were plenty of cool what's this thing and just as many holy fuck where the god damn omther fucking shit is this stupdi fuck quest fuck god damnit I guess I have to go to thottbot.

Well there is that. Exploration has been replaced by GPS. But it was as dangerous as fuck, no matter what you think the reason was. Go over a hill and suddenly something 20 levels higher than you would charge over and murder you.

And it's true, you are just saying because the time period I'm describing didn't have any of the metrics you were talking about. The time period with the best "numbers" was WotLK. Most of my rants have been about vanilla and about the only real point you have that WoW had then but doesn't have now is comparable 10 man's. The wrath leveling experience also wasn't slow by any means, especially relative to other expansions, and I'd argue it was the quest experience and 5 man experience that set the stage and is most closely mimic'd by the successive expansions.

I did say expansion and growth and bets numbers. Best time for expansion and growth were vanilla and TBC< obviously. In those eras hardly anyone got to endgame and raiders, dungeon delvers were rare and raiders were an even rarer beast.

And even in TBC and wrath, those who did manage to get to endgame didn't do the larger raids, they did 5 mans or maybe ten mans (kara, 10 man naxx etc)

Your continued statements really make me wonder what your actual point is and makes your previous declarations that it's weird that blizzard hasn't followed the money even more confusing.

Most players were solo/small group focused for the entire history of the game.

WoD has made it so that only large scale raiding has any sort of progression.

If blizzard had followed the money, they'd have capped mythic raids at 10 man, for example, not 20. There'd be a load of 5 mans and a small raid tier, levelling times would be significantly longer etc etc

[Gevoth]

This is the aspect of a game I'm always looking for. I feel like most MMORPGs touch on the RPG elements, but they all fall extremely short when it comes to the immersive RPG I'd like to be playing. I attribute this mostly to the influence Warcraft's success has had on the genre. Not saying that Blizzard should cater to me, but that maybe some of the failed MMORPGs of the last ten years should have gone their own way and captured a different piece of the market. I think a lot of the arguments about the game between players are because most of us are very different people looking for very different gaming experiences all playing the same thing. Not because we want to, but because market success has dictated the standard model.

[Deleted]

I dont like how 'Fun' has to equal 'Fast', but only in MMORPGs.

Wanting a slow, immersive adventure is a very downtrodden idea today. It's sad.



There's an open mind if I ever saw one. Why bother even posting when you're just going to berate feedback instead of instigate with it.

Those usually work better in single player rpg's where you don't have other people yelling at you to move on.
In FFXIV the story is build in the "raids" and you got cinematics every boss in a certain one, which usually ends up in everyone killing the boss when you are watching the cutscene.

I would say play single player rpg's for slow immersive adventures. It is a good time for it as well with old school text heavy rpg's coming back like Pillars of Eternity and Wasteland 2. Of course there also newer style ones like Dragon Age Inquisition and the upcoming Witcher 3.

RPG's haven't shone like this in a long time.

[clevin]

I'm so glad you pulled that argument out of your butt because now I get to flip it right around on you. Where are your friends? No one to que LFD with you? No friends? No guildies? Why don't you juts do something else and wait for them?

Sigh. I was talking about TBC. That was 8 years ago. You asked if I always had friends to play with then and, by and large, I did. Then. Many of them have quit over the years. Change happens. Many of us played on and off through MoP but most left during the SoO downtime and haven't come back.

If you're gonna try and be an asswipe and accuse me of social ineptitude might wanna make sure your own whining can't be taken apart by your own terrible point.

Oh grow up. And learn to a) quote and b) use logic.

I remember the good along with the bad, you choose to only remember the good. And who knows maybe you actually were lucky enough to get only the good, guess what for most people that wasn't the case. By your own admission guilds and friend's lists weren't enough even for you the paragon of social adequacy. Your answer doesn't give the customer what they wont. Your answer is basically "It works for me, who gives a fuck about anyone else?"

Again, if you couldn't make friends in game that's your issue. No one else's.

Go learn to use English... I'm tired of wading through your whining.

[Deleted]

No. Clearly Blizzard is a gestalt entity that has a unified, binary hatred towards RPGs without any wavering opinions.

[Goradan]

See the funny thing is that blizzard actually love RPG. What they also like is satisfying the most people. Sadly enough, a huge portion of the playerbase love convenience, easy to apprehend and quick content. Once upon a time, Alterac used to last for hours (or even days). Raids needed you to invest so much time around it (acces quests, resist gear, consumables etc) Even crafting needed so much more effort.

But guess what ? SO many people hated those. So they changed their philosophy.

Lately they realised the future of earning money and making a name for the masses is the F2P route (funny how one of the best way to earn money is a free to play ahah) and there they go. Hearthstone, HoTS and Overwatch all are following this format. Easy to play, for everyone, quick.... and of course so many ways to entice you into spending money.

I'm pretty sure everyone at Blizzard actually love RPG it's just that - if you either want to please everyone, or if you just want to make money - in both cases : you don't always do what you personally want/like.

Blizz should be as close the line as possible. all of these conveniences have more or less ruined the enjoyment of the game. I feel the the game's value is has been degraded to suit people that don't really care about the game, I am not saying that a caring player is an hardcore player. But rather that the game overall has lost it's magic in order to accommodate the masses and is pretty much a "dead man walking on live support".

But at the same time I think that convenience only will get players so far before the game becomes "soft".

[SodiumChloride]

the game overall has lost it's magic in order to accommodate the raiders

FTFY.

Going into battle with the right gear load out (e.g. Resist gear ...)? Gone, because raiders don't want to farm and cried about it. Now all gear is "universal" v.s. mobs.

Consumables? Pretty much nerfed into worthlessness because raiders don't want to have to buy them.

Mobs with elemental resist and immunity? Gone, because there will be benching of players.

Unique and interesting abilities? Gone, again because of benching of players.

Attunements. Long ass chain quests that introduce the raid. Gone, because it got in the way of being "raid ready".

The RPG was beaten out of the game so as to accommodate raid balance. So much was sacrificed to make raiding more "convenient" and the sad thing is, Blizzard could have worked around a lot of the aforementioned instead of just ripping them out of the game - which comes as no surprise, as anything that isn't raiding isn't important to Blizzard; for over a decade they had next to zero non-raid end-game content.

[wych]

I'm sure lots of people at Blizzard love RPGs, at their hearts most of them are nerds who probably grew up playing D&D, roleplaying etc...


The real question is "Does the market like RPG?" which I think is a no. Look at the most popular games now, LoL, FIFA, Call of Duty, Iphone apps. People want bitesized, fun content. Not narrative driven long games.

(I love RPGs by the way)

[Sansnom]

Blizzard haven't done a good RPG in years, probably not enough profit for the work it requires.

Have they ever done a CRPG? Diablo is not really a RPG. It was an action adventure game. A good one but not a CRPG as I see it.

WoW is a mix of Diablo and Warcraft.

[SodiumChloride]

Have they ever done a CRPG? Diablo is not really a RPG. It was an action adventure game. A good one but not a CRPG as I see it.

WoW is a mix of Diablo and Warcraft.

Diablo is an elaborately decorated slot machine.

[Deleted]

RPG is yet another term that gets thrown around far too often in the gaming industry and a lot of people don't seem to know just what exactly an RPG really is. Personally I think that a lot of video games that have the RPG tag aren't even real role playing games, including Blizzard's.

To me RPGs are games where you create your own character and your actions have a meaningful impact on the outcome of the story, nothing else. Very few video games actually manage to achieve that and I've never seen that in any of Blizzard's games, past or present. It's always been kinda their style to just lead you through a story set in stone while focusing more on the gameplay itself.
WoW only makes the character creation possible and even that is very limited. Most of the role playing is actually done outside the games and inside our minds, but that can be done with almost any game, even non-RPGs.

What I'm trying to say is that Blizzard and the gaming industry as a whole brand their games wrong, at least in my opinion. A lot of RPG games should be considered adventure games instead, since they do take you on an adventure, but they give very little choice regarding the story.

As for the question, I'm sure a lot of people at Blizzard love RPGs, but they have yet to make a real one.

[Arasys]

I'm sure lots of people at Blizzard love RPGs, at their hearts most of them are nerds who probably grew up playing D&D, roleplaying etc...


The real question is "Does the market like RPG?" which I think is a no. Look at the most popular games now, LoL, FIFA, Call of Duty, Iphone apps. People want bitesized, fun content. Not narrative driven long games.

(I love RPGs by the way)

I agree with wych... After I unsubbed before 6.2, started playing Pillars of Eternity and I must say I really missed RPGs.. I doubt there's huge potential for hardcore rpg mmos anymore, especially thinking of how systems across different MMOs changed and became somewhat "convenient" nowadays. Those that follow the old school approach probably target a specific target segment as a niche now..

Remember UO crafting system years ago? Wow and so many other mmo developers probably assume "too much" detail may deter a lot of their player base. Nowadays I think Blizzard is somewhat suffering from losing some of its rpg fan player base, but they probably understand from a business perspective numbers > depth at this point.. It's very sad.

I wish we had a new MMO like Asheron's Call 1, where we could explore the map, run across secret quests and have so many options for endgame involving a frequently evolving world and active community..That's what I hoped for during vanilla years, but each patch showed that developers were focusing on mostly raiding and static design approach. I believe wow's past success shaped the mmo market, making it a lot more static than it was..

[Fedexkilla]

Blizzard doesn't build/design your traditional RPG because frankly it doesn't need to, the traditional RPG was much loved and had great cult like followings for years. This alas has ended when for a lack of a better term the "gaming community" switched from being gamers to being consumers, this meant that ultimately the values upheld and the time and effort put forth by game developers mean nothing anymore because "I don't want to raid the same content for a year". It's the gimme gimme gimme complex and its been happening for nearly a decade.

To be honest if we allowed companies the time it takes to make a real quality RPG like the ones real gamers used to play no one would buy it, they would have moved on long ago. Until people as a whole can get over their gross fixation on instantaneous gratification and stop acting like back seat developers I say keep feeding this style because it's still selling. One day today's poor excuse for a gamer will not walk up to that feeding trough and push the food pellet button and bitch about what comes out one day....

[Deleted]

Undead holy priests, death knights and hunters.
Blood elven and gnomish warriors.
Faction locks.
Removal of warlocks quests with besting demons before you can summon, removal of taming course.
Removal of ammunition.

RP-what?

[ringpriest]

Blizzard doesn't build/design your traditional RPG because frankly it doesn't need to, the traditional RPG was much loved and had great cult like followings for years. This alas has ended when for a lack of a better term the "gaming community" switched from being gamers to being consumers, this meant that ultimately the values upheld and the time and effort put forth by game developers mean nothing anymore because "I don't want to raid the same content for a year". It's the gimme gimme gimme complex and its been happening for nearly a decade.

To be honest if we allowed companies the time it takes to make a real quality RPG like the ones real gamers used to play no one would buy it, they would have moved on long ago. Until people as a whole can get over their gross fixation on instantaneous gratification and stop acting like back seat developers I say keep feeding this style because it's still selling. One day today's poor excuse for a gamer will not walk up to that feeding trough and push the food pellet button and bitch about what comes out one day....

With respect to WoW, it wasn't "the gaming community" that decided that all that pesky, immersive and challenging content that ate up tons of player time should be bypassed, or removed in favor of risk-free instant gratification via menu.

[melodramocracy]

With respect to WoW, it wasn't "the gaming community" that decided that all that pesky, immersive and challenging content that ate up tons of player time should be bypassed, or removed in favor of risk-free instant gratification via menu.

I'd say that a good portion of the community actually wanted all those things to happen.