Blizzard Hopes Faster WoW Expansions Will Halt Sliding Subscriptions

[Sartan0]

I find this position by Blizzard highly humorous.

I am sure someone already said this in the comments but I will say it again here: You make the game easier then why are you surprised when people blow through it and get bored? Why is it a shock that (Some) people know how to play the game faster after six years on top of this? Laughable.

I am happy to have quit WoW.

 

[Dogstile]

But man, the actual content that's there? Is some of the best there's ever been. I can't believe that there are people who actually want to go back to the crappy environment of pre-BC. That was horrible, yo

Did you even SEE the burning peninsula? Dear god, that eyesore made me want to KILL MYSELF.

OT:

Honestly though, I think they need to stop charging so much for expansions. They're why I quit. I've been paying my subscription for you and you want me to buy a box so I don't fall behind? Fuck you Blizzard.

(Edit: You know, I dunno if we can swear on these forums or not, but psh, if we cannot, just ask me to edit it mods)

 

[ionveau]

The game costs over $100+Sub fees for new members

Gosh, I wish I'd known that before I spent £20 to buy and play the game for 90 days (which was plenty), and had more fun and played for longer than with Dragon Age 1&2 combined.

And i bet you enjoyed having your face stomped by level 85s, And you cannot tell me you spent 90 days leveling from 1-60, if you did then i assume you played on week ends only.

Ya i remember when i was like you i got the game and i though it was the best game ever, its ok reply to this post in 1 years time and tell me how much you still love wow

 

[ionveau]

Biggest Fails of Cataclysm:

Butchering the talent tree to half what they used to be, forcing cookie cutter to be mandatory. There is no room for creativity or individualization any more. Just because it's easier to balance.

Snip

10 man content used to be much easier than 25. Now, 10 man is much much harder because losing even 1 or 2 people will very likely commit you to certain doom unless when you're guild is new to the content and doesn't over gear it by a good margin. Also you have less a selection of skills and classes available to aid in dealing with specific difficulties.

Cutting down the trees didn't force us into cookie cutter specs, we have always been in cookie cutter specs because they have the highest functionality. Just like before, you might have a few points to throw where you want, but overall certain talents have always been too important to pass.

10ms were really only easier if you over geared them. Losing a single person in a 10m would be like losing 3 in a 25m, and certain fights were definitely harder with less people. I'm looking at you Sarth+3... The bosses had less health and the required DPS average was lower, but 10m raiders had less stats on their gear so it balanced out.

Side note: How do you figure we have fought Onyxia 3 times? The first was obviously the raid in vanilla, and I will allow you to claim the second as Blizzard's gift to us for the anniversary, though it was meant to be a fun throwback raid, not "new content". But I can't figure out the third...

remember tank spec paladins that would heal? yaaa......too much creativity or i hope you enjoy how every item is copyed into the next patch but gets +30% stats with a new name?

honestly WoW just stopped caring because the player base will eat poop if it has Warcraft written on it.

 

[Dragonpit]

The problem wasn't that. The dungeon finder has actually enabled players to access dungeons anytime, anywhere, with anyone. Therefore, they are leveling faster than before. That is one of the biggest problems.

 

[Hectix777]

DON'T LISTEN TO THEM!!! WE'VE DONE TESTS, WOW IS POISON!!! Even fellow gamers, articles on this site, and national TV say it's poison! SAVE YOURSELVES, DELETE IT AND SAVE YOUR PHYSICAL WELL BEING!!!

 

[Ghengis John]

Won't forcing people to level and gear up again in faster cycles only frustrate a great number of them?

 

[ionveau]

The game costs over $100+Sub fees for new members

Gosh, I wish I'd known that before I spent £20 to buy and play the game for 90 days (which was plenty), and had more fun and played for longer than with Dragon Age 1&2 combined.

And i bet you enjoyed having your face stomped by level 85s, And you cannot tell me you spent 90 days leveling from 1-60, if you did then i assume you played on week ends only.

Ya i remember when i was like you i got the game and i though it was the best game ever, its ok reply to this post in 1 years time and tell me how much you still love wow

The game costs over $100+Sub fees for new members

Gosh, I wish I'd known that before I spent £20 to buy and play the game for 90 days (which was plenty), and had more fun and played for longer than with Dragon Age 1&2 combined.

And i bet you enjoyed having your face stomped by level 85s, And you cannot tell me you spent 90 days leveling from 1-60, if you did then i assume you played on week ends only.

Ya i remember when i was like you i got the game and i though it was the best game ever, its ok reply to this post in 1 years time and tell me how much you still love wow

It's very good Bang4Buck

Ya...only wow players use that line and i find it very idiotic considering you wasting over $15 a month, my internet provider would give me an extra 100gb on my limit for $15.

You know whats a good bank 4 buk? playing flash games they tend to be free

 

[Sean951]

Biggest Fails of Cataclysm:

Butchering the talent tree to half what they used to be, forcing cookie cutter to be mandatory. There is no room for creativity or individualization any more. Just because it's easier to balance.

Snip

10 man content used to be much easier than 25. Now, 10 man is much much harder because losing even 1 or 2 people will very likely commit you to certain doom unless when you're guild is new to the content and doesn't over gear it by a good margin. Also you have less a selection of skills and classes available to aid in dealing with specific difficulties.

Cutting down the trees didn't force us into cookie cutter specs, we have always been in cookie cutter specs because they have the highest functionality. Just like before, you might have a few points to throw where you want, but overall certain talents have always been too important to pass.

10ms were really only easier if you over geared them. Losing a single person in a 10m would be like losing 3 in a 25m, and certain fights were definitely harder with less people. I'm looking at you Sarth+3... The bosses had less health and the required DPS average was lower, but 10m raiders had less stats on their gear so it balanced out.

Side note: How do you figure we have fought Onyxia 3 times? The first was obviously the raid in vanilla, and I will allow you to claim the second as Blizzard's gift to us for the anniversary, though it was meant to be a fun throwback raid, not "new content". But I can't figure out the third...

remember tank spec paladins that would heal? yaaa......too much creativity or i hope you enjoy how every item is copyed into the next patch but gets +30% stats with a new name?

honestly WoW just stopped caring because the player base will eat poop if it has Warcraft written on it.

Yes, because using a tank spec to heal was totally intended. It was creative, I will give people that, but specs should do what they are designed and balanced around. Besides, it was a PvP thing, and I really wish WoW would just give up trying to balance PvP and focus on PvE.

Also, no, not every item is copied. Some of my favorite items are only available in TBC. I found the LKs focus on axes and maces annoying as I prefer the aesthetic of a sword.

 

[John Funk]

I think it's funny that on the one hand you have people saying that the game is TOO HARD which is why they're leaving, and on the other people saying it's TOO EASY which is why they're living. When you're making a game for 12 million people, pleasing everyone is nigh impossible.

But man, the actual content that's there? Is some of the best there's ever been. I can't believe that there are people who actually want to go back to the crappy environment of pre-BC. That was horrible, yo

We got to kill giant flying eyeballs in vanilla WoW.
Where it was challenging.
These days you can't kill no eyeballs, but you get to roleplay as
*drumroll*
A FISHERMAN!

YAAAY!
The sad thing is that I really like WoW, I played it as a kid and I mostly played Vanilla WoW, it would break your balls man, but it felt so great when you got those purple boots that took you 3 days of raiding.
These days then WoW is way to easy, you can do a couple of heroics, maybe 1 or 2 raids and then BAM!
Full gear.
But I want to see a return of the 40 man raids, raids that actually beat your ass until you're so bloodied that you will somehow slap it into submission.
Raids that are actually, well tough.
What WoW needs to do if it wants to save face is to release content which isn't stale or boring, I mean, common.
I'm even considering on going into Warhammer online because it is a bit more gritty and I play Warhammer my self.


WoW is a cancer and it's about to get cut out.

The day WoW brings back 40-mans is the day WoW is dead. 40-mans were, and are, a cancer on MMOs.

In what sense?
If you've ever raided MC with a full raid or AQ with a full raid, then you know the experience.
The thing is that everything comes to an end, so I will guess that WoW will be dead in about 2 years.

I've been playing WoW since uh... geez, early 2005, with a few breaks here and there (like after TBC came out). I did all the hardcore stuff in the day; my guild killed Rag, Nef, C'Thun and made headway in Naxxramas.

You couldn't get me to go back to that if you paid me. I have fond memories of Classic WoW as anyone else, but the design then was absolute CRAP compared to now.

 

[Discrodia]

Speaking as an ex-WoW player (I played until Cata, maxed out, then quit) I have to say that the content that keeps players playing is the leveling stuff. Endgame works for some people, but at this point the time investment-reward ratio for endgame content is rocketing up exponentially. My suggestions to Blizzard are as follows:

1. People like to progress. But they don't like useless timesinks. I'd suggest a revamp of the current Profession system, perhaps with minigames and the like to keep the grinders from giving up. I'd also suggest that they return to the old 10 levels / expansion style, as with only 5 levels in cata (in spite of the massive increases each of those levels provides) you only get to hear that nice level up sound 5 times and then you're at the endgame.

2. Reduce the barrier of entry to endgame. As we've been adding progressively insane gearscores and the like to determine capability to compete. And this is a real deterrent to casual players like myself. The fact is, I don't want to spend weeks running skinner boxes to get the gear so I can run months of raids to compete in the endgame. Similarly, the requirements for endgame PvP entail hundreds of hours of play, that many people just don't have.

3. Consider making the endgame PvP. I've played a lot of MMOs over the past year, and I have to say that one of the most fun endgames came from Mythic's Warhammer Online. The fact that the core of the game is PvP centric helps as well, but the entertaining battlegrounds and seiges helped break up the bland PvE. The fact that PvPers could also compete in PvE also helped.

4. Try adding public quests. The afore-mentioned WAR and WoW-clone Rift both have extensive area PvE content, where players can work together to face PvE challenges without having to wait in long instance queues or even communicate. This sort of 'casual dungeon' has a lot of appeal, and with WoW's huge player base these quests could be on a truly epic scale.

Just a few ideas.

 

[meepop]

I think it's funny that on the one hand you have people saying that the game is TOO HARD which is why they're leaving, and on the other people saying it's TOO EASY which is why they're living. When you're making a game for 12 million people, pleasing everyone is nigh impossible.

But man, the actual content that's there? Is some of the best there's ever been. I can't believe that there are people who actually want to go back to the crappy environment of pre-BC. That was horrible, yo

We got to kill giant flying eyeballs in vanilla WoW.
Where it was challenging.
These days you can't kill no eyeballs, but you get to roleplay as
*drumroll*
A FISHERMAN!

YAAAY!
The sad thing is that I really like WoW, I played it as a kid and I mostly played Vanilla WoW, it would break your balls man, but it felt so great when you got those purple boots that took you 3 days of raiding.
These days then WoW is way to easy, you can do a couple of heroics, maybe 1 or 2 raids and then BAM!
Full gear.
But I want to see a return of the 40 man raids, raids that actually beat your ass until you're so bloodied that you will somehow slap it into submission.
Raids that are actually, well tough.
What WoW needs to do if it wants to save face is to release content which isn't stale or boring, I mean, common.
I'm even considering on going into Warhammer online because it is a bit more gritty and I play Warhammer my self.


WoW is a cancer and it's about to get cut out.

The day WoW brings back 40-mans is the day WoW is dead. 40-mans were, and are, a cancer on MMOs.

In what sense?
If you've ever raided MC with a full raid or AQ with a full raid, then you know the experience.
The thing is that everything comes to an end, so I will guess that WoW will be dead in about 2 years.

Because trying to gather 10-25 people can be a chore, and they had to balance 40m raids around 25-30 people anyways, because they knew some people would be filler, some would have bad internet/computers, and only th rest would care. They changed it a bit in Naxx because it was a safe assumption that the guilds who were willing to do that content were made of the people who cared. That said, the fights were still largely crap. Four Horsemen? You needed 6-8 tanks for that fight, and they had to have... I think it was the 4-piece set bonus from t3 so their taunts were sure to hit. That is terrible design. Besides, it is so much cooler to be a part of a small group that is strong enough to take down the top baddies in lore.

Well that may be, but the lore itself does not stand up for one simple fact in WotLK(I know full well we are now in Cata 4.1): 10 or 25 people (That are lower level than guards in major cities, mind) brought down some Undead bastard who slaughtered hundreds of thousands of others! Yes, they were npcs and yes it makes the content significant because you can't call it WotLK if you don't fight him, but (And maybe it IS just me) it seems like a massive plot hole that a group no larger than some of the raids in Vanilla could bring down this mother-fucker.

OT: I played WoW for a long time, a few months after BC came out. I played a little bit before I heard about TBC and then installed it. I remember those old days when you had to get to forty for a mount and it cost what was back then considered to be half a level 60's bank savings.

I grinded so much, because I couldn't play much during a week, finally got the mount as a Warlock because money in that game was like water in my hands. And then Blizz had to be a bunch of dicks and say "Welp, we're switching it down to thirty for all the new-fags! No more working to forty to get a mount!" Ever since then and then switching it down to 20, I've been slightly miffed with WoW. It was the greatest thing since sliced bread in TBC, and then in WotLK it felt improved. At first with Cata I was like "OMG NEW STUF OMG!!!1"

While this is just my opinion, I think they dumbed down WoW too much for the people who complained about it taking too long to reach seventy or eighty(five) with no real new stuff besides y'know spells, talents, gear...Oh wait.

People have also complained that Blizzard just wants more money which, while it may be true, could also be a bad thing. Do you have any idea how much time, effort, and money it takes to keep an MMO as big as WoW running? You need people on phone service, people running tech support, keeping servers maintained, you need Dev teams working on stuff.

TL;DR
Blizzard is a massive company and WoW is like it's lifeblood, because it's the only game they have a subscription for; the idea of making more new content quicker is a great idea but isn't that somewhat like what VALVe wanted to do with HL:2 and failed? The company needs money to function properly, I understand that, and while yes new content is a good thing it needs some time to be worked on. Blizzard, give us the old way of leveling with new content and I'll be fine. Working for stuff is what makes it sweeter. Doesn't the expression go "Nothing in life is free"?

 

[TsunamiWombat]

What, only have 25.9 billion players instead of 26 billion players now, Blizzard?

Good, maybe another game can get market share now.

 

[ionveau]

snip

Ya...only wow players use that line and i find it very idiotic considering you wasting over $15 a month, my internet provider would give me an extra 100gb on my limit for $15.

You know whats a good bank 4 buk? playing flash games they tend to be free

yeah, i'm paying $15 a month, and i'm playing the game for more then 15 hours each month. $1/hour played is good value. and with a few excellent exceptions, the quality of flashgames is nowhere near world of warcraft.[/quote]

This painting is $3,000
If i stare at the painting for 5 hours a day it will pay off.

Unlike you i dont care how long the game lasts over how good the game actually is, if i bought games biased on how much time they would suck out i would call myself a very sad person, shouldent you be playing games to have a little fun rather then kill time?

Try this instead of killing your own time everyday log in and start reading history or learn a programing language or DO ANYTHING.

This is why i hate WoW players they dont play the game for fun they play in order to waste time.

 

[ZehGeek]

Meh, 99% of people will blow it out of proportion IMHO. Whatever they do, they shouldn't rush things. That was always the thing about Blizzard, they wouldn't mass produce meaningless game after meaningless game. They take there time, and make really awsome stuff. Wouldn't be Blizzard if they rushed things.

 

[BabyRaptor]

Blizzard would do well to at least try and make raiding more accessible. Take the newest legendary. Who will get that out of the player base? The no lifers who will discard it the moment bigger stats appear.

I keep seeing people saying this, but what more can they do? Blizzard can't do anything to change the playerbase's attitude, and that's the only actual issue ever listed. They can't really make the gear grind any easier...It takes about 3 days of instances to get a raid-ready gear set. Dumbing the instances down anymore is going to cause them to bleed accounts like they did in Wrath. (And it won't fix the issue of people being jerks.)

So..Seriously. What do you expect them to do?