Almost everything is a grind: 1) Having to do dungeons and raids over and over for gear 2) Having to do Garrison follower missions over and over 3) Having to do Garrison mining over and over 4) PvP for gear means grinding Arena matches, BGs, or suffering Ashran over and over 5) Que's for BGs, Arena, Dungeons, Raids, Ashran
I don't hate it. Many of my friends play WoW and I feel a little bit apart when they start talking about it. WoW is great but not my cup of tea - by right now -
The only people who seem to hate wow are the people who have played it to the point of exhaustion because there's nothing else that competes with it outside of possibly Final Fantasy XIV. I played the game for probably 7 years and finally called it quits during the Thunderking in Mists of Pandaria. I might hop back in with Legion, though, as my attempts to really get into Final Fantasy XIV has led to some personal peeves with the game system. Namely, inventory management and charging for retainers, thus increasing the monthly sub. Also, their housing system is complete tripe compared to Final Fantasy XI as you lose everything if you take an extended break from the game: Something players are definitely going to do once in a while.
Maybe they did have a bigger team around launch when the development team was still in WoW-mode, but you can't expect them to keep them all around for years post-launch, that's just not realistic.
I haven't really followed development of content patches in the last few years, but it seems to me they're still adding significantly to the game. Maybe I'm missing something, though.
Still, the game is more than 11 years old now. Would more content patches really make players truly happy with the game?
I doubt it.
I doubt it as well but I think more people would have been "satisfied enough" not to unsubscribe.
To fill you in they released 4 decent patches after MoP reasonably quickly and then went nearly 2 years with no new content prior to WoD. Post WoD - a paid expansion - they added 1 content patch. So 1 content patch in nearly 4 years. So either they have fewer devs or those early devs were hyper productive!
Actually we know they were down to c. 125 devs because they announced that they were doubling the team to 250. But even 250 though isn't that big - WS was still over 200 recently based on the reductions they announced; Bungie said they had 540+ working on Destiny etc.
If people pay a monthly sub and they release a patch every 2 or even 3 months then that gives people a reason not to unsub. The next patch will be the one. Honest! Go the best part of 2 years without a patch ...... people left.
And if they keep releasing patches then when people come back e.g. prior to an xpac they will be more likely to come back a month early to play through the patches released since they left. Prior to Legion - no need.
And for long term subscribers - once they leave the first time the second time is easier. People clearly bought WoD and treated it as a B2P game, played through the content, left.
We can but speculate: what if they had spent an extra $5M a month on a few hundred devs producing content patches only would they have averaged an extra 500k subs a month? AB speculated. And, imo, cut back too far.
And now I doubt that they will make players - as you say - truly happy whatever they do.
Maybe they did have a bigger team around launch when the development team was still in WoW-mode, but you can't expect them to keep them all around for years post-launch, that's just not realistic.
I haven't really followed development of content patches in the last few years, but it seems to me they're still adding significantly to the game. Maybe I'm missing something, though.
Still, the game is more than 11 years old now. Would more content patches really make players truly happy with the game?
I doubt it.
I doubt it as well but I think more people would have been "satisfied enough" not to unsubscribe.
To fill you in they released 4 decent patches after MoP reasonably quickly and then went nearly 2 years with no new content prior to WoD. Post WoD - a paid expansion - they added 1 content patch. So 1 content patch in nearly 4 years. So either they have fewer devs or those early devs were hyper productive!
Actually we know they were down to c. 125 devs because they announced that they were doubling the team to 250. But even 250 though isn't that big - WS was still over 200 recently based on the reductions they announced; Bungie said they had 540+ working on Destiny etc.
If people pay a monthly sub and they release a patch every 2 or even 3 months then that gives people a reason not to unsub. The next patch will be the one. Honest! Go the best part of 2 years without a patch ...... people left.
And if they keep releasing patches then when people come back e.g. prior to an xpac they will be more likely to come back a month early to play through the patches released since they left. Prior to Legion - no need.
And for long term subscribers - once they leave the first time the second time is easier. People clearly bought WoD and treated it as a B2P game, played through the content, left.
We can but speculate: what if they had spent an extra $5M a month on a few hundred devs producing content patches only would they have averaged an extra 500k subs a month? AB speculated. And, imo, cut back too far.
And now I doubt that they will make players - as you say - truly happy whatever they do.
540 developers working on Destiny? Talk about a lack of content compared to team size
But I see your point. I didn't know they'd reduced content output that much. That's a bit strange to me.
Maybe they have something up their sleeve to compensate?
Yes players shouldn't sit around waiting for content - they should and obviously are moving on; yes games can't keep up with consumption HOWEVER in simple terms you can throw money at content.
Post launch Blizz released a major content patch every 2 months for 2 years (so 12 patches) and then without dropping a beat they released BC. And then more content patches followed. Clearly they had a bigger team.
Companies do financial projections all the time and - somewhen - AB decided that spending less on development would only lose them X subscribers. Add in smaller annual paid expansions with a single content patch plus a film and it must have looked like a sure fire plan to greater profitability.
As they say: the best laid plans of mice and men.
Cutting devs and content is a spiral of death, yes. The thing however is that the game kept growing anyways for several years so I guess Activision thought that releasing that much content was a waste. However they eventually passed the critical mass and start losing players (yeah, that is simplifying it, there is also quality and the age of the game).
Clearly by now is that the current model isn't working anymore which means they either have to go back to the original model or milk Wow for all they can and then put it on life support. Guess what they will choose?
Hating Wow seems rather stupid though, not enjoying playing it is one thing but if you must hate something there are better things (like war, famine and Bieber).
Releasing content in a game like WoW does not help. Once they release a new expansion that raises the level cap, all of that work and investment is wasted. This is why we have these end-of Expansion lulls. It is not worth it for them to release a major content patch 4-5 months before Legion releases and bumps the level cap to 110 - completely steamrolling all the content they just developed.
They also gear reset at every expansion launch, and your stats get nerfed as you level up further... The value of old content is just not there in this game and many others due to how the developers coral you into the new expansion content.
It's not like EverQuest was, to give a counter-example, where you could use your Vex Thal in Plane of Time. How many people are still using their Legendary Cloaks? Shadowmourne?
WoW has tons of content, the problem is the content is useless once you get to/near end-game levels.
No one wants to kill Onyxia anymore because her drops are worthless. No one wants to go to Molten Core unless it's some upscaled WoW Anniversary version.
If they want to mitigate the end of expansion lulls they can do this easily by stopping the gear resets and allowing older content (Dungeons/Raids) to scale up (allowing max level players to run all of it) and drop appropriate items for those levels.
Similar to EQ[2] Fabled Stuff or Timewalking, but on a game-wide scale.
But that won't work if they keep gear resetting, as it will still leave people wondering why they're even bothering to waste 10 hours a week raiding this stuff if it's going to be useless in 3 months, anyways.
The biggest issue with WoW is that even if you have to seriously consider whether it's worth it or not to devote the time to progress through the raids because you know your gear is going to be deemed useless by an expansion launch and you'll always be starting from scratch.
They've turned the MMORPG character gear progression experience into a Hamster Wheel, and that actually contributes to burn-out in a lot of people.
Like many have said, you can't really blame WoW. If people like a game, and there is money to be made, then someone should by all means make that game. The problem I have is the effect it had on all of the Lemming studios that ran this industry into the ground to the point that anyone with an actual good idea for an MMO cannot even get funding. That is a cause for some distaste.
I think hate attaches itself to an emotional reaction. If you hate a thing then in essence you have an emotional attachment to that thing. Thus at one point I would bet you had some love for that thing at first.
Thought I would share that wisdom and yes I'm drinking Bourbon...
I think hate attaches itself to an emotional reaction. If you hate a thing then in essence you have an emotional attachment to that thing. Thus at one point I would bet you had some love for that thing at first.
Thought I would share that wisdom and yes I'm drinking Bourbon...
Now, I don't actually hate Donald Trump - more what he stands for.
So, are you saying I have an emotional attachment to the guy? Because that's pretty nasty.
I think hate attaches itself to an emotional reaction. If you hate a thing then in essence you have an emotional attachment to that thing. Thus at one point I would bet you had some love for that thing at first.
Thought I would share that wisdom and yes I'm drinking Bourbon...
Now, I don't actually hate Donald Trump - more what he stands for.
So, are you saying I have an emotional attachment to the guy? Because that's pretty nasty.
You must have some kind of weird love thing for Trump but you feel betrayed and now hate him hehe...
I think hate attaches itself to an emotional reaction. If you hate a thing then in essence you have an emotional attachment to that thing. Thus at one point I would bet you had some love for that thing at first.
Thought I would share that wisdom and yes I'm drinking Bourbon...
Now, I don't actually hate Donald Trump - more what he stands for.
So, are you saying I have an emotional attachment to the guy? Because that's pretty nasty.
You must have some kind of weird love thing for Trump but you feel betrayed and now hate him hehe...
I was about to do a WoW rescue quest and kill of a few baddies while doing it. Suddenly, the thought occurred to me - why am I doing this boring quest?
And then I look at Dark Souls 3 - It's an incredible world, an intriguing plot, interesting characters.
Can you see the difference?
yeah DS3 is a game people finish in a day or two and isnt an MMO. totally pointless comparison
Don't hate WoW but I wasn't a fan of the direction they started heading in. As someone else said once a new expansion comes out there really is no point to going back to any old content as its mostly meaningless now outside maybe a few achievements.
I loved that game so much in vanilla and up to end of BC, addicted even. Every class had a unique style, I played a mage and yes it was frustrating to go against warlocks back then, but it was fun. I really felt like a glass cannon, magic wielding class. Now...EVERYTHING is streamlined. Every class does the same thing with different sparkly effects. Im a mage but I can tank in pvp as much as a god damned plate class. What I read about that is that back then we had a thing called perfect imbalance or something; rock-paper-scissor classes and now everything has to be balanced because you cannot possibly be losing against the rock of your scissor, you'd get too salty and start rushing to the forums to complain. Sarcasm aside this is really what I think happened, some people who couldnt take the fair unfairness complained so much that blizzard caved-in (as they always do...butt censoring anyone) and made everything *fair* but tasteless. At the same time, PVE got hit by many mechanical changes that made all dungeons basically the same linear gear treadmill...and this is really a personal taste as I think most people didn't like it, but I loved having to group up with guildmates and friends and actually fight my way to a dungeon's entrance rather than sitting for hours waiting for a LFG queue to pop-up.
What made me hate WoW is...ironically what got them so many customers. Other game devs arent stupid and tinker their own game with the same mechanics...but thats why they won't ever be successful, because they won't ever create the kind of passionate gamer that did all that free advertising in the early days of WoW.
I wouldnt say hate, but I dislike the themepark grind, and WoW is a casual celebration fo that with pvp grinds, gear grinds and quests to reach the new end game content.
Im sure for every new expansions it makes the game fun for many people. However, for the casual pvper, the game is not necessarily fine tuned for their interests with reseting gear grinds for more linear content of pve/raids.
I am a pvper, and while I do enjoy a range of mmo elements including themepark, redoing pvp gear grinds as a pvper as the main attreaction makes me look for a justification, and sometimes its lacking and there lies the problem for me.
Sure there can be solutions of adding more content, and a draw and justification or shortening the grind, or making the gear less necesary more about unique passives or even abilities. But, for the most part, the status qou would leave me not interested as a long term themepark mmo player as a pvper.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
Interesting how the very things we're seeking (massive long-term replayability, a second full-time job having fun) are the very ones that lead to the burnout and ennui ten years later.
And we blame the game developers for that. Easier than facing the truth about ourselves.
I don't hate WoW, but I find it very disappointing that they've done nothing to advance the state of the art. They've got the budget of a small city, but the best they seem to ever offer up (systems, interactability, etc.) are neutered retreads of ideas from other, older games.
Seriously though, the game used to be good. Not so much anymore. There are much better games out now. When WoW was at its most popular point, there wasn't much competition. Now the market is saturated with MMOs. You can pretty much take your pick and all of them are less expensive to play than WoW. Blizzard is just greedy at this point. They have your money and they don't care about their players, as evidenced by WoD.
Comments
1) Having to do dungeons and raids over and over for gear
2) Having to do Garrison follower missions over and over
3) Having to do Garrison mining over and over
4) PvP for gear means grinding Arena matches, BGs, or suffering Ashran over and over
5) Que's for BGs, Arena, Dungeons, Raids, Ashran
To fill you in they released 4 decent patches after MoP reasonably quickly and then went nearly 2 years with no new content prior to WoD. Post WoD - a paid expansion - they added 1 content patch. So 1 content patch in nearly 4 years. So either they have fewer devs or those early devs were hyper productive!
Actually we know they were down to c. 125 devs because they announced that they were doubling the team to 250. But even 250 though isn't that big - WS was still over 200 recently based on the reductions they announced; Bungie said they had 540+ working on Destiny etc.
If people pay a monthly sub and they release a patch every 2 or even 3 months then that gives people a reason not to unsub. The next patch will be the one. Honest! Go the best part of 2 years without a patch ...... people left.
And if they keep releasing patches then when people come back e.g. prior to an xpac they will be more likely to come back a month early to play through the patches released since they left. Prior to Legion - no need.
And for long term subscribers - once they leave the first time the second time is easier. People clearly bought WoD and treated it as a B2P game, played through the content, left.
We can but speculate: what if they had spent an extra $5M a month on a few hundred devs producing content patches only would they have averaged an extra 500k subs a month? AB speculated. And, imo, cut back too far.
And now I doubt that they will make players - as you say - truly happy whatever they do.
But I see your point. I didn't know they'd reduced content output that much. That's a bit strange to me.
Maybe they have something up their sleeve to compensate?
They also gear reset at every expansion launch, and your stats get nerfed as you level up further... The value of old content is just not there in this game and many others due to how the developers coral you into the new expansion content.
It's not like EverQuest was, to give a counter-example, where you could use your Vex Thal in Plane of Time. How many people are still using their Legendary Cloaks? Shadowmourne?
WoW has tons of content, the problem is the content is useless once you get to/near end-game levels.
No one wants to kill Onyxia anymore because her drops are worthless. No one wants to go to Molten Core unless it's some upscaled WoW Anniversary version.
If they want to mitigate the end of expansion lulls they can do this easily by stopping the gear resets and allowing older content (Dungeons/Raids) to scale up (allowing max level players to run all of it) and drop appropriate items for those levels.
Similar to EQ[2] Fabled Stuff or Timewalking, but on a game-wide scale.
But that won't work if they keep gear resetting, as it will still leave people wondering why they're even bothering to waste 10 hours a week raiding this stuff if it's going to be useless in 3 months, anyways.
The biggest issue with WoW is that even if you have to seriously consider whether it's worth it or not to devote the time to progress through the raids because you know your gear is going to be deemed useless by an expansion launch and you'll always be starting from scratch.
What i hate are all the clones.
I hate the perception that for some reason every game must have 10 million kill x 10 times quests because WoW had them.
So i guess i hate people ripping off WoW and endlessly trying to copy and feed us the same thing.
Like many have said, you can't really blame WoW. If people like a game, and there is money to be made, then someone should by all means make that game. The problem I have is the effect it had on all of the Lemming studios that ran this industry into the ground to the point that anyone with an actual good idea for an MMO cannot even get funding. That is a cause for some distaste.
Thought I would share that wisdom and yes I'm drinking Bourbon...
So, are you saying I have an emotional attachment to the guy? Because that's pretty nasty.
Just sayin'
Now...EVERYTHING is streamlined. Every class does the same thing with different sparkly effects. Im a mage but I can tank in pvp as much as a god damned plate class.
What I read about that is that back then we had a thing called perfect imbalance or something; rock-paper-scissor classes and now everything has to be balanced because you cannot possibly be losing against the rock of your scissor, you'd get too salty and start rushing to the forums to complain.
Sarcasm aside this is really what I think happened, some people who couldnt take the fair unfairness complained so much that blizzard caved-in (as they always do...butt censoring anyone) and made everything *fair* but tasteless. At the same time, PVE got hit by many mechanical changes that made all dungeons basically the same linear gear treadmill...and this is really a personal taste as I think most people didn't like it, but I loved having to group up with guildmates and friends and actually fight my way to a dungeon's entrance rather than sitting for hours waiting for a LFG queue to pop-up.
What made me hate WoW is...ironically what got them so many customers. Other game devs arent stupid and tinker their own game with the same mechanics...but thats why they won't ever be successful, because they won't ever create the kind of passionate gamer that did all that free advertising in the early days of WoW.
Im sure for every new expansions it makes the game fun for many people. However, for the casual pvper, the game is not necessarily fine tuned for their interests with reseting gear grinds for more linear content of pve/raids.
I am a pvper, and while I do enjoy a range of mmo elements including themepark, redoing pvp gear grinds as a pvper as the main attreaction makes me look for a justification, and sometimes its lacking and there lies the problem for me.
Sure there can be solutions of adding more content, and a draw and justification or shortening the grind, or making the gear less necesary more about unique passives or even abilities. But, for the most part, the status qou would leave me not interested as a long term themepark mmo player as a pvper.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
And we blame the game developers for that. Easier than facing the truth about ourselves.
Seriously though, the game used to be good. Not so much anymore. There are much better games out now. When WoW was at its most popular point, there wasn't much competition. Now the market is saturated with MMOs. You can pretty much take your pick and all of them are less expensive to play than WoW. Blizzard is just greedy at this point. They have your money and they don't care about their players, as evidenced by WoD.