World of Warcraft Needs "Casual-Centric Features" To Survive

[Vrach]

The game went (or rather, started going) down the tubes with WotLK imo. There were just piles of bad game design choices happening from there on and they haven't stopped, quite the opposite, they just keep pushing it more casual. At this point though, it's their best option. The game is too old now and they should jump ship and get whatever that secret project of theirs is done as soon as possible to get their next cash cow primed. This one is dying and there's nothing that'll save it at this point, though they would be wise to go F2P at some point to drain some of the remaining cash out of it.

 

[anthony87]

What really killed it for me was the depth that the world lost with the new expansions. Mounts at 20 so you just run past everything to get to the next quest. Flyers at 60 so you just fly in straight lines to get to the next quest. LFG so you can run in straight lines to the next quest while also being matched up to a group in which you run in straight lines to the next mob and completely destroy enemies while not saying a single fucking word to the other players in your party. What's that? You're not having fun? Here, let's remove many of the interesting class quests and remove the need for you to ever party with another player outside of LFG again! WHY ARE PEOPLE LEAVING?!

Also: Let's give guild XP bonuses to players stacked on top of BoA gear xp bonuses! Damn, why are people getting so burned out on endgame? It couldn't be the fact that we're almost dragging them to 90 could it?

I've seen arguments like this come up a few times and all the time my thought is the same: "Don't like it? Don't use it"

You get a mount at level 20, nobody is forcing you to use it. You get a flying mount at level 60, nobody is forcing you to use it. Don't like the Dungeon and Raid Finder tools? Don't use them. Simples.

Although I do wish it wasn't as focused on the endgame as it is. I wouldn't mind leveling a priest or resto shammy but after my 3 max level characters I'm just burnt out on leveling because it's always the same.

 

[Bostur]

I always get confused when Blizzard talk about casual and hardcore. They keep adding bland time-consuming features, that feels pretty hardcore to me - in a bad way.

I liked the casual style of TBC. Do a few dungeons every week, one or two raidnights every week. Nowadays you have to do hardcore grind for months to catch up with others.

These days WoW is for players with boatloads of time, and no willingness to learn or even try.

 

[chiefohara]

Played it for ages, i didn't mind playing the subscription fee, but the community put me off.

Wow players are among the most toxic bile ridden petty people i have ever had the misfortune to multiplay with. Wow and the guild i miss, but the endless array of internet hardmen and drama queens doing their utmost to wreck everyone else's game i don't miss.

 

[chiefohara]

Double post, please delete this mods.

 

[Nexxis]

What really killed it for me was the depth that the world lost with the new expansions. Mounts at 20 so you just run past everything to get to the next quest. Flyers at 60 so you just fly in straight lines to get to the next quest. LFG so you can run in straight lines to the next quest while also being matched up to a group in which you run in straight lines to the next mob and completely destroy enemies while not saying a single fucking word to the other players in your party. What's that? You're not having fun? Here, let's remove many of the interesting class quests and remove the need for you to ever party with another player outside of LFG again! WHY ARE PEOPLE LEAVING?!

Also: Let's give guild XP bonuses to players stacked on top of BoA gear xp bonuses! Damn, why are people getting so burned out on endgame? It couldn't be the fact that we're almost dragging them to 90 could it?

I've seen arguments come up like this few times and all the time my thought is the same: "Don't like it? Don't use it"

You get a mount at level 20, nobody is forcing you to use it. You get a flying mount at level 60, nobody is forcing you to use it. Don't like the Dungeon and Raid Finder tools? Don't use them. Simples.

Although I do wish it wasn't as focused on the endgame as it is. I wouldn't mind leveling a priest or resto shammy but after my 3 max level characters I'm just burnt out on leveling because it's always the same.

To be honest, I also place part of the blame on the revamped starting zones. I think the content is ok, but the pacing is too fast. You out-level a zone before completing a quest chain. If you choose to stick around and finish all the quests in the zone, then there's a good chance that the next zone will give you even fewer rewards as you'll be close to out-leveling that one as well. So, to get anything out of it, you HAVE to breeze past content or else you're doing quests that give you no useful rewards. I rolled alts and experienced that problem without any sort of leveling boost. Then you hit the level 60 wall with the Burning Crusade stuff and you're leveling moves painfully slow. In WotLK, it seems to move up to a decent pace, in my opinion (except for the starting zones, I didn't play Cata content). I'm not sure if any of this is changed in MoP, but I haven't heard anything about leveling changes. It seemed like they're starting to have this focus on getting people to the end game as quick as possible which may be why they focused on it more.

 

[fieryshadowcard]

As opposed to what, becoming a niche game that can still hold value with current and future players as it ages?

...Really, what's wrong with aiming for a smaller/more niche audience in a MMO? I've felt like I've said this too many times, but please, please developers, get rid of the mindset that the word "massive" in MMO is supposed to refer to the number of players that's supposed to be playing your game. Let it instead define the kind of experience the player may have, or the size of the world, the amount of social interaction, or god forbid the level of depth within the game!

Stop playing the "grab the most people" game, and as a result past MMO players might once again take the genre seriously enough to revisit it.

I've honestly gotta ask this. What on earth is niche about anything in WoW, regardless of the size of its population? And I ask this as someone who sunk 3 years into that game.

 

[Nilanius]

The game went (or rather, started going) down the tubes with WotLK imo. There were just piles of bad game design choices happening from there on and they haven't stopped, quite the opposite, they just keep pushing it more casual. At this point though, it's their best option. The game is too old now and they should jump ship and get whatever that secret project of theirs is done as soon as possible to get their next cash cow primed. This one is dying and there's nothing that'll save it at this point, though they would be wise to go F2P at some point to drain some of the remaining cash out of it.

Yeah they made some bad design choices in Wrath of the Lich King. Mostly it was how every character was immensely overpowered for their own good. And just handing out raid gear and letting people skip raid progression just to hit 80 and shoot straight to ICC, was a pretty bad mistake. But I believe their worse mistakes began in Cataclysm. It was at that point that Ghostcrawler and the new developers took over WoW and they lacked any semblance of imagination for story telling and chose instead to utilize the powers of sue, and plagiarize other sources for their zone reworks.

And I am gonna say it, at this point, there is no repairing their image as an game developer that "Only releases stuff when it is ready". As with the case of CRZ, the bugs related to it, were reported during the beta test, and ignored by the developers and implemented live regardless. In their treatment of their player base, the butchering of their own game, and the destruction of their own image as a game developing company, Titan wont even be able to bring in hardly anyone. It sucks that things had gotten that bad. But they have no one to blame but themselves for losing so many loyal players all in the name of a buck.

 

[Charli]

By stemming the flow of leaving subscribers by implementing the casual features like pet battles and the farm, scenarios and the like they've ALSO NOW retained the ability to make really kick ass raids and features for the hard core. I still oppose the LFR aspect of it (but that's how they justify dipping that far into the budget to create such large raids) but here's hoping flex modes take off.

So... yeah. I agree.

The biggest dip in subs started with the dawn of Catacylsm. The supposedly hardcore friendly. (first patch)
And guess what. EVEN THE HARDCORE HATED IT! MONTHS of raiding just to reach the final boss and it wasn't fun, it was punishing, grueling. Barely 200 guilds had Sinestra (The hardest boss of the launch raids) down by the launch of the next raid. The atmosphere in servers dropped, the casuals who uphold the community sought their kicks elsewhere, and most of them either rolled alts and were 'away' from the fray, or just left outright due to seeing nothing at the peak for them to accomplish within reasonable means.

At end game you need more features. MORE things to do, whether that is casual OR hardcore. And as a hardcore (heroic raider, I suppose that qualifies me) I am still NO elitist. I know WoW needs all of it to survive. Pandaria offered all of that, hard and casual/fun for people to do.

They also stated quite alot that the 'free to play' model would be likely tested in Asia first if it came to that. Since alot of laws out there, require smaller increments of fees to play games like WoW due the the cult of 'internet cafe' players.

Oh and in response to the thread, I never left, but I feel like an IDIOT for not unsubbing during Cataclysm. The end game content was shameful. Pandaria feels like alot of love was poured into it and I would not be surprised if they gave up half way through Catacylsms development to make it.

 

[wulfy42]

I played WoW in beta and for a few months after Beta. Since then I came back once briefly for about 2 weeks once....and have thought of coming back a few times since then.

What held me back is by the time I wanted to come back, there was a bunch of expansions I would have to buy and the cost to try playing the game again...and actually do anything new, would not be worth it.

I'd like, for instance, to try out the new monk class. That could be fun...and might be enough reason for me to play again.

But to do that I'd need to buy the original game again (with the expansions probably) and then Mists of Pandaria. I think the WoW chest thing is like $20 and if I could just get pandaria and not cataclysm or any other expansions it would probably only be like $80 or so...but still, I'd rather just be able to try out a monk for a week or something and see if I even want to bother. There are tons of similar MMO's to WoW out there for free, and even the original didn't keep me interested that long (got one character to max and the rest like to 40 or something).

Compared to other MMO's that I have played more then a week, it's probably on the bottom of the list as far as how long it kept me interested (ok Star wars the old republic is under it...but not by much). Titles like Dungeons and dragons online kept me interested and playing for years (dark age of camelot as well etc).

So if the game went FTP...at least to the extent of letting you try out things like monk classes etc and decide if you like them...then yes, I might try it again, and that might cause me to come back.

But I doubt that they would let you try the monk class without purchasing it...so I still probably wouldn't give it a shot.

 

[Charli]

Snip

Some interesting news for you, the Monk class is free to try out on a trial account, and it is actually hella fun.


I can't main one because I am the only raiding paladin left in my guild and they need it but Monks play hella smooth in all specs. I am jealous of those who get to main as a Monk.

 

[wulfy42]

Snip

Some interesting news for you, the Monk class is free to try out on a trial account, and it is actually hella fun.


I can't main one because I am the only raiding paladin left in my guild and they need it but Monks play hella smooth in all specs. I am jealous of those who get to main as a Monk.

Oh cool!! I guess I will give it a try then

Thanks!!

 

[caballitomalo]

Their only salvation: introduce a cat-race and add hats.

Well, they already added the hats XD.

I'm an active WoW player and I can tell you the game is the best its ever been (I began playing in BC). The truth is that this situation in which Blizzard finds itself is unexplored territory. Tell me, how many games have maintained an audience of, to go with the latest lowest number, 7 million users? Over a period of 7 years?

Ask yourself this. How many games from the PS2 era are still being actively played every single day by millions of players all over the world? The feat achieved by Blizzard with WoW can possibly be a one of a kind.

 

[Charli]

Snip

Some interesting news for you, the Monk class is free to try out on a trial account, and it is actually hella fun.


I can't main one because I am the only raiding paladin left in my guild and they need it but Monks play hella smooth in all specs. I am jealous of those who get to main as a Monk.

Oh cool!! I guess I will give it a try then

Thanks!!

Anytime, hey if you're EU lemme know, can earn bonus goodies for being a good little WoW-fanboy
:|

Urgh, I am a tool.

 

[wulfy42]

Snip

Some interesting news for you, the Monk class is free to try out on a trial account, and it is actually hella fun.


I can't main one because I am the only raiding paladin left in my guild and they need it but Monks play hella smooth in all specs. I am jealous of those who get to main as a Monk.

Oh cool!! I guess I will give it a try then

Thanks!!

Anytime, hey if you're EU lemme know, can earn bonus goodies for being a good little WoW-fanboy
:|

Urgh, I am a tool.

Sorry i'm from the US. Also already have..or thought I had an account. It shows up as starter account though for some reason even though I bought the original game (like 10 years ago or something at launch..but still). Not sure if I still have my old box/key codes hiding around here somewhere...but It'll let me try out the monk class without them, so I won't worry about it till I see if I actually enjoy it enough to bother.

Thanks again!

 

[Charli]

Snip

Some interesting news for you, the Monk class is free to try out on a trial account, and it is actually hella fun.


I can't main one because I am the only raiding paladin left in my guild and they need it but Monks play hella smooth in all specs. I am jealous of those who get to main as a Monk.

Oh cool!! I guess I will give it a try then

Thanks!!

Anytime, hey if you're EU lemme know, can earn bonus goodies for being a good little WoW-fanboy
:|

Urgh, I am a tool.

Sorry i'm from the US. Also already have..or thought I had an account. It shows up as starter account though for some reason even though I bought the original game (like 10 years ago or something at launch..but still). Not sure if I still have my old box/key codes hiding around here somewhere...but It'll let me try out the monk class without them, so I won't worry about it till I see if I actually enjoy it enough to bother.

Thanks again!

No worries, I think you're capped out at level 20 for the trial account and you have limited speech capabilities sadly (Or every gold bot spammer in the universe would never stop using it to spam their websites) So hopefully you like what you see. I did play on the US servers once and it's strange, the community surrounding WoW is very different from EU. It's tough to place but maybe I was just on a very hostile realm side, players were far quicker to be aggressive or talk down to you.

If you do find it interesting, make sure to find and dig out that old key, there's plenty new to do. (I really didn't think I'd be into the pet battling as much as I am)

 

[wulfy42]

Sigh, it won't let me try the monk. It says mists of pandaria is required for that class

I guess I could try playing again with one of the old classes to see if I like it...but I already played them all up to 40 at least back when the game launched....really only liked the druid, warlock and rogue back then.

It sure downloads fast though, so I guess it wasn't that much time wasted. Oh well

 

[klaynexas3]

Maybe they're just trying to kill WoW so when Titan comes out, everyone will want to play that instead. It will be the "glory days" returned, or whatever. I'm thinking I'm mostly done with WoW in terms of the game. I love the lore, but the game has grown stale, and feels too much like handholding now.

 

[Charli]

Sigh, it won't let me try the monk. It says mists of pandaria is required for that class

I guess I could try playing again with one of the old classes to see if I like it...but I already played them all up to 40 at least back when the game launched....really only liked the druid, warlock and rogue back then.

It sure downloads fast though, so I guess it wasn't that much time wasted. Oh well

Thaaat's ...odd the trial account linked with mine allows Monk class trials... I don't know what to make of that, apologies for wasting time (even if it was short).