In January of 2011, I made the bold and outrageous claim that Blizzard’s Cataclysm was the worst MMO expansion in history. From the vantage point of a player experiencing the pre-level cap game, I was unimpressed at what Blizzard had done to WoW; I felt they had watered down and trivialized their own MMO which was from the outset already too easy and simplistic. I viewed Cataclysm as the inevitable culmination of years of expedient game design that pandered to the lowest common denominator of players. For my efforts, I was demonized by some and applauded by others.
Last week during a shareholders conference call, Mike Morhaime revealed that WoW has lost 600,000 subscribers since Cataclysm’s release. At roughly $15 per subscriber that’s a loss of $9 million dollars per month in revenues. Given this bleak news, I feel somewhat vindicated. I was one of the few if only MMO commentators to have the courage to take on the 800 pound WoW gorilla loved by 12 million fans and tell it like it is.
The conventional wisdom that explains how Blizzard faltered can be found on a detailed blog post on Gamasutra by Greg McClanahan. Many of his explanations are entirely plausible. I do agree that much of the problem is self-inflicted as Blizzard keeps tinkering with risk vs. reward formulas players have become frustrated and don’t know what to expect or how to play.
What really struck me is that he discusses WoW in the typical analytical and clinical way most players now talk about WoW these days: content and gear. It such a shame that MMOs have become so singularly focused on stats, loot and progression that nothing else really matters. What a sad and banal thing that MMOs have become.
Churn Baby Churn
Even more conventional wisdom comes from Blizzard as they admit that they need to increase the speed of content to prevent “churn”. Churn in a MMO context describes the rate at which new players are entering versus existing players that are leaving. Blizzard seems to be saying that existing players are getting too good at WoW and consuming content far quicker than developers can create it. McClanahan goes on to rightly contest this explanation as he makes the case that Cataclysm dungeons and raids are far more difficult than the previous ones contained in Wrath of the Lich King expansion.
I disagree with Blizzard’s analysis. I believe that much of the churn problem is that at its core, WoW is shallow and lacks real depth. The result is that players don’t feel connected to anything or anyone in WoW — so they stop playing. One could even make the case that WoW itself is an accurate reflection of the shallowness and incompetence of the people who have been at its helm.
Abraham Lincoln was right:
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
What is happening is that a significant number of players are finally realizing the emptiness of WoW and MMOs in general and they can’t be fooled any longer.
The Wolf at Blizzard’s Door
Blizzard has been quite lucky for many years. It’s truly amazing that WoW has lasted this long without a major player revolt. In the business world the proverbial wolf is always at your door — nothing is certain and nothing is forever.
For years I have advocated a design philosophy that gets back to the basics — instead of the achievement orgy that MMOs like WoW have become. Even while vigorously pointing out the shortcomings of WoW, I have promoted long neglected foundational elements like exploration, socialization, community, role-playing and player freedom. The insular development team at Blizzard has chosen not to listen to me or anyone else with a differing opinion and now like the foolish little pigs that built their homes with straw and sticks the inevitable wolf has come to blow their houses down.
What WoW Could Have Been…
Maybe if Blizzard cared about creating a good community of players they wouldn’t be hemorrhaging an unprecedented 600k subscribers a few months after the release of Cataclysm. Perhaps if they gave players a reason to socialize and put a value on social skills there would be deeper and more intimate player relationships that would keep them subscribing. If only Blizzard had created resources and activities available to players that would attract more diverse player archetypes to WoW this exodus of players might not have happened.
Outside of killing monsters and taking their stuff, what else is there to do in WoW that is meaningful and of any consequence?
Mechanics like player housing, player events, and dynamic events would surely make Azeroth would a better and more interesting place that engenders a sense of pride and loyalty among its players. But Blizzard was too busy patting themselves on the back and counting their millions to care about implementing any of these features.
Conclusion
There are many reasons that WoW is finally showing concrete signs of decline. A fair analysis of this situation would be that the aging WoW is starting to suffer the death of a thousand cuts. In other words, there is no single reason that WoW is failing, rather it’s a multitude of reasons that I and others have been pointing out for years now. The problem is unhappy people rarely stick around to make things better.
The most important thing a game designer can do is to give the MMO player a real reason to care about their virtual world.
Players need to feel like they belong in your world. For far too long all that mattered in Azeroth was loot to the exclusion of most everything else. This obsession with achievement that has been promoted at every turn by Blizzard is at the root of why people are leaving WoW. I doubt anything can be done to fix WoW as this stage.
Even though they may not understand why, more and more people are bored with WoW and everything that it stands for. Empty marketing slogans that “it’s more than a game…it’s a world” will not save them. They can attempt to release expansions faster but it won’t solve the inherent problem that is at the root of WoW: players have no sense of ownership and connection to their virtual world. Like the next piece of gear that will be soon be upgraded, WoW is a transient and empty experience that is fleeting at best and never truly satisfies.
When they write the epitaph of WoW many will rightly say that Blizzard got the MMO infrastructure right with high production values, impeccable attention to detail and polish, beautiful stylized artwork and fluid animations. Even though WoW was very successful it is just a shame that they played it so safe and didn’t do more to push the envelope. Instead they shrunk the envelope and turned a complex wine into sugary grape juice.
In the end, it seems Blizzard forgot what MMOs were supposed to be about and could be about; then they squandered the brilliant legacy that they were given. Somewhere along the line Blizzard became arrogant and victims of their own success as they figured they’d always own the goose that laid the golden eggs.
The good news is that players have finally voted with their dollars! It is no longer business as usual. There is nothing like declining revenues to light a creative fire under an organization. Expect some personnel changes at Blizzard and some big announcements of the future of WoW at BlizzCon 2011. We live in interesting times.
-Wolfshead
The question is: “Why now?”
After all, most, if not all, of the faults and flaws you listed were present in previous expansions, as well.
Not to get clinical on ya, but my guess would be that its the same reasons the abused are often reluctant to leave the abuser: the hope that things will get better, that the thing/person that you once loved is still in there somewhere, but you need to find it. I don’t know, but I’d imagine the answer is something like this.
Plus, the game is really just old at this stage. Unfortunately, it wasn’t looking like a granny dressed up like a 20 yr old before like it does now. It seems like the more “refreshing” they try to do to the game, the older it actually feels.
That blog : http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/GregMcClanahan/20110515/7634/WoW_in_Decline_and_Blizzard_in_Denial.php thinks that it might be because in vanilla getting epic was rewarding in itself even with the difficulty. In BC, it was the same but better implemented (hard content, but you were happy becaue loot was significant). In WotLK, loot was not quite rewarding but the average player had enough content to be happy. In Cata, it’s now hard AND not rewarding to get gear.
To answer the question above, I would like to point out that over the years Blizzard has been able to simply, REPLACE customers who had left WoW for whatever reason. Given the limited supply of potential customers, this was bound to happen eventually given Blizzards business practices.
Furthermore, I would argue that through the years, WoW has unarguably become easier and easier. Blizzard pandered to the lowest common denominator in its customers. Through simplification, Blizzard had shooed away some of its most loyal customers during TBC/WOTLK… people who had been with the game since launch. To combat this lose, they decided to move along the path they had set down and along the way, they scooped up new players who they eventually made the game even easier for. Then some genius in Blizzard Headquarters decided it was time to “win back” those players who had left WoW over the years. They knew these people desired more than what the current incarnation of WoW had to offer so Cataclysm was dreamed up and a “new experience” for new and old players alike was born. Only thing is, by making dungeons more challenging and re-visioning much of Azeroth, Blizzard has effectively scared away those new customers that have gobbled up along the way. No longer was the game what they had joined. No longer was Azeroth “enjoyable” or “fun” for these new players to enter. So for every 1 player returning to seek the “challenge” Cataclysm boasts, 3 players who have grown to love their virtual pez dispenser have left.
Eventually, these players who have returned to WoW will grow just as bored and tired (for exactly the same reasons as before) of the soulless world of Azeroth and leave for good once more. Subscriptions will be lost even faster, and faster, and faster, until eventually, Blizzard will no longer be able to boast their numbers as some sort of MMO Trophy.
Bottom line is, Blizzard simply doesn’t have any clue as to who they are designing a game for anymore. In vanilla, Blizzard had promised a better, more refined “raiding experience” and virtual world than the current market had to offer. In many ways they were right. Then came TBC – It was now obvious that Blizzard was ready to market their product to customers who had never considered MMOs before. They lowered the learning curve, and developed the game with them in mind. Again, for all intensive purposes, they seemed to be successful. And finally, WOTLK came out and it had seem Blizzard had jumped the shark. Raiding was now accessible to anyone who wanted to get their feet wet. Because Blizzard now catered so heavily towards the lowest common denominator, leveling had become so mundane and simplistic that it resembled a hollow shell of what it once was. Then Cataclysm… and this.
TBH – I’m happy Blizzard finally got their comeuppance. They never used their power within the industry for forward innovation. They sat upon their royal throne and did nothing as the genre collapsed around them. And eventually, they too will fall… just like everyone else.
Very well said Jason! People need to realize that Blizzard essentially reinvents WoW with every expansion. One expansion they decide to make WoW more accessible, the next they seem to want to go back to more hardcore players. There is no real consistent vision for their MMO. I wonder if they even bother to re-read the original WoW design document.
Much of this is due the changing of the guard at Blizzard from Pardo to Kaplan to Chilton. Also it’s worth noting that many of the problems at Blizzard are attributed to the fact that the “A Team” is working on Titan and the “B Team” is left working on WoW. Another factor is that many of the original WoW team are not even working at Blizzard any more.
I bought in with the battle-chest, which came with some outdated manuals / guides. I still read them from time to time, just to imagine how it use to be. The game has been twisted and like a sponge, they’ve soaked it, rang it out, dried it, and soaked it some more. Eventually the trend will be predictable, but if the “speed” of their expansions increase, will is be a quarterly soak,squeeze,dry,repeat? I think that would be to overwhelming to new players and to annoying to old.
LOL – Good comment, and pretty accurate analogy.
I, too, have a battered but beloved original WoW handbook, with maps of the place before it got ‘upgraded’. Even with all the goodies being offered to rejoin, friends who still play all sending me Scrolls of Rez in hopes they’ll get some sort of new mount, I haven’t really been tempted yet. There’s something quite off-putting about being offered an automatic level 80 (or 85, or whatever it is now) for a toon, just shows how little respect is left for actually earning your way up the food chain there is anymore. *sigh* I miss Olde Worlde WoWe…
It’s incredible how limited toolset Blizzard uses to fix these issues. All problems somehow need to be resolved with tweaking the difficulty of quests, raids and arena/rbgs.
Most of the players fresh to the MMO scene that try the game out have very different expectations. I, for one, was lucky enough to play the game in the early Classic when a great majority of the players wouldn’t even understand the concept of raiding. The world was alive and very MMOlike.
At some point the design focus shifted dramatically to favor linear themepark “endgame”, and the world died around. Most of the players like us had only few gameplay options to choose from. Either you did arena, raided or left the game.
Was the engine too weak to sustain such vast population randomly condensing into various zones? Was the economics behind that design too unsustainable in terms of tech upgrade needs to subscription costs that everything had to move to this instanced gameplay?
I don’t know, but the heck it was like watching a good friend drop a bag of diamonds down the drain, one by one, patch by patch.
This is pretty much why I left. It started to feel more and more like a generic game.
And as I have said elsewhere, when they changed my paladin mount to the elek I knew I was done. I made effort to quest for the mount when I found it would be purchasable. I didnt want to just buy it, I wanted to earn it. So while I still had an achievement from the quest, I had lost the only thing that connected me to game and Azeroth in some way.
Great post! I posted something very similar last week, but your post was much more eloquent & really hits the nail on the head.
I stopped playing WoW because A. there’s just not enough fluff/interactive/sandbox elements (player housing/wardrobe/appearance tab/dyes/collections/etc) to keep me interested and B. because with the new on-rails questing, I don’t feel like Betsea the Dwarf Priest, but like Random Player Character # 3489201. I don’t care as much for the “new” Azeroth, because it doesn’t really give you the freedom to write your own story within Azeroth. Once those ties were cut between me and my character, I completely lost interest.
It feels like smaller MMOs are the ones doing all the innovating, while WoW tends to rely on the same old formulas and coast on it’s previous success.
While I would like to think that the loss of 600k subscribers will be some form of a wake-up call and that it will do something to spark some form of rebellion with customers and maybe even with the company, I really worry that nothing is going to change or nothing sizeable is going to change.
I truly believe (and most of their more devoted customers do) that Blizzard thinks they’re too big to fail and in a sense, they are. They know that if they lose 600k people, they’re just going to lure in that many more or find ways to increase costs with the customers they do have to compensate. It’s not going to stay a deficit for long. They know this and that’s why they’re probably not sweating this. I’m not saying it’s right and I’m not saying that I agree, but it’s the truth.
I think 600k is a great start, to indicate that the customer base is unhappy and needing something else, but it’s not enough.
Yet 600k subscribers is huge. Half of WoW’s subscribers are from China. It’s not an apples to apples comparison in that Chinese players pay substantially less to play than non-Chinese. I’ve always questioned the true value of 12 million subscribers.
I can guarantee you that Blizzard will be implementing a customer loyalty program in short order.
“I’ve always questioned the true value of 12 million subscribers.”
And it’s always been a given that the vast majority of WoW’s profits come form the Western market; sure, they receive a hell of a lot of money from China but, relative to WoW’s Western income, it’s tiny.
I’d say that 1 western subscriber equals 20 Chinese subscribers. Yet Blizzard puts them all into the same bag and uses the “12 million subscribers” slogan as a way to leverage social proof that their MMO is superior. Sorry Blizzard we’re on to your clever little ploy.
At least they actually do release sub numbers; apart from CCP, virtually every other major MMO dev gives cryptic hints (DCUO’s sub numbers are “very good,” LOTRO activity is “quadruple what it was pe-f2p,” RIFT has “1 million registered accounts” etc etc.)
It’s sad but telling that only the leader in each sub-genre of MMOs (sandbox and themepark) even has the confidence to release numbers, good or ill. Frankly, I’d be cheering if any other devs were even half as honest with their sub numbers as Blizzard are.
I don’t think the ratio is quite as high as 20:1. I believe they get a few dollars for each Chinese subscriber — but that’s pure profit, since NetEase has already skimmed off their take to pay for operations there.
@Jason: While I won’t argue that WoW has become “easier” (whatever that means; no one ever defines “difficult” and WoW was easy, mundane and simplistic to level up back in vanilla) because I left (and meant it; I’ve never returned, unlike most) on TBC launch day. But for all the grizzled, jaded vets who complain how “easy” it’s become, wasn’t each alt you leveled “easier” than the last anyway? You learn the zones, you learn the mobs, you learn all the class abilities, mechanics, and so on until eventually you’re not learning anymore and just going through the motions. That happened before any expansions. Just something to consider.
But I have to wonder if after EQ topped off at what, 500K or so players at its peak, if you all were laying these identical claims at SOE’s feet too?
Did Blizzard cater to the lowest common denominator? Most likely, since that’s who’s paying the most. Blizzard has the sole distinction of having more players worldwide than any other MMO, and therefore access to an awful lot of data. The 600K subscribers they’re down is twice the total playerbase of most other (western) MMOs out there. WoW also got a lot of non-gamers to join up because of word of mouth and the game’s self-sustaining momentum. Not many other games can claim that.
Raiding was now accessible to anyone who wanted to get their feet wet. This is somehow a bad thing? Oh, you must be one of those guys always telling the girls how hard your core is, right?
I’m happy Blizzard finally got their comeuppance. Did they? There was no weeks-long server outage like SOE just went through. Every MMO has its ebb and flow of players. WoW is no exception. Blizzard is one of the few studios even in a position to be talking numbers. 5% of their players is taking a break. As I mentioned above, that 5% alone could make up the total playerbase of two current western MMOs. How many players are taking a break from other MMOs right now? We don’t have the numbers, but those of us playing non-WoW games can see it. I wouldn’t exactly say Blizzard has had their “comeuppance” when they still have 11.4 million players world-wide. Is WoW perhaps finally on its permanent downslide? Quite possibly, it’s 7 years old now which is eventually going to be more a factor than how “easy” it’s become. While all of you have been waiting the “WoW Killer” game, it instead should have been obvious that the only “killer” would be… time.
They never used their power within the industry for forward innovation. Whoah. Really? Ok, let’s take a look. Blizzard used their “power” to create WoW in the first place. EQ was from a smaller studio with no power before being absorbed into SOE right?
* The WoW team had, if I remember, several EQ raiders on the team who wanted to “innovate” over EQ and other pre-2004 games. Gone were the MUD-like keyword conversations with NPCs we saw in EQ and “interaction” was distilled down to simply right-clicking. I’ll bet if I went on a search for old posts, I’d find the EQ vets complaining how this was dumbing things down to the lowest common denominator and so on, right?
* I seem to remember cross-server PvP back in vanilla, that was certainly “innovation” to keep PvP active (able to get players). The Dungeon Finder is the next iteration of that, isn’t it, only with a few more variables for grouping. Neither is or was perfect, but when you get down to it, I don’t think what amounts to a matchmaking system is going to work “perfectly” in any MMO where the levels and gear matter as much as they do. But I would indeed call implementing those systems “innovation” because no one else had them, they’re still in use today, and have influenced other studios to implement similar systems.
* Did any MMO prior to WoW have Lua scripting? Even in the seven years since WoW’s release only a handful of others have it. I’ll bet you don’t raid with a default UI, do you? Innovation.
* One area where WoW still has the lead is character control. No other MMO before or since has even come remotely close to WoW’s control responsiveness. WoW is the only one out of the bunch that controls like a “real” video game instead of like an MMO. Innovation — one that other studios seriously need to pay attention to.
Now, were any of these huge game-changers? No. The type of “innovation” I suspect you think Blizzard “owes” you isn’t “innovation” it’s outright “change.” As much as we humans love to ask for change, as a general rule we don’t like it so much when it actually happens. WoW is designed as a vertical progression Diku-based MMO. You level, you get gear, you replace gear, you run dungeons or raids when your XP bar stops. You’re not going to get “change” or “innovation” from that within the same game. What you will get is small evolutions or innovative sub-systems within the pre-existing context of the game’s design. To do anything more drastic would instead provide a New Game Experience. And we all know what happens with those, right?
But where we just might see Blizzard use their “power in the industry” to push some “forward innovation” is exactly where we should see it: their next MMO. While everyone else is trying to copy what Blizzard did in 2004, while throwing in a few little innovations of their own here and there, it’s entirely plausible that project “Titan” won’t be yet another Diku-based MMO, and will “innovate” a new type of game with a new play style. Anything’s possible when you have that kind of money to assemble a team with.
They sat upon their royal throne and did nothing as the genre collapsed around them. Wow. Now Blizzard is responsible for the entire genre? That is quite the pedestal you’ve placed them on…
“But for all the grizzled, jaded vets who complain how “easy” it’s become, wasn’t each alt you leveled “easier” than the last anyway? You learn the zones, you learn the mobs, you learn all the class abilities, mechanics, and so on until eventually you’re not learning anymore and just going through the motions. That happened before any expansions. Just something to consider.”
It goes beyond Alts. I was never one for them to be perfectly honest. For us “grizzled vets” who speak of games becoming easier, it speaks to the encounters increasingly becoming more predictable and ultimately less difficult by design (HP is lowered, special raid events are boring and stale, and other such factors). By your own admission, you have not played since the launch of TBC therefore, for you to argue about something you know little about is simply nonsense. As I mentioned in a previous post on another thread – you are arguing things you have little experience in.
“Raiding was now accessible to anyone who wanted to get their feet wet. This is somehow a bad thing? Oh, you must be one of those guys always telling the girls how hard your core is, right?”
Resorting to name-calling is a great way for people to take you seriously. Good work, my friend.
“They never used their power within the industry for forward innovation. Whoah. Really? Ok, let’s take a look. Blizzard used their “power” to create WoW in the first place. EQ was from a smaller studio with no power before being absorbed into SOE right?”
Other than one thing, the Dungeon Finder, you named nothing NEW about WoW since its launch. Innovation is innately built into the development phase of any new title. And if you had read my post more thoroughly, I openly admit to Vanilla WoW (and to an extent – TBC) being successful for what they sought to accomplish. Furthermore, one could argue that The Dungeon Finder can be as detrimental to the MMO industry as it is beneficial. I will not go further on that as it is something that has been discussed since its inception.
“To do anything more drastic would instead provide a New Game Experience. And we all know what happens with those, right?”
Couldn’t you argue that Cataclysm is, in fact, a NGE. They revamped all starter zones, changed the game UI, and revamped entire class builds. And yes, we DO know what happens when drastic changes are made without thoroughly thinking through the repercussions of the actions… you lose 600,000 customers. (and counting).
“They sat upon their royal throne and did nothing as the genre collapsed around them. Wow. Now Blizzard is responsible for the entire genre? That is quite the pedestal you’ve placed them on…”
You’re damn right I hold them to a higher standard than other companies. It is their obligation as a leader in their industry to help drive and maintain the quality of product that finds its way to the market. What if Microsoft sat idly on their first incarnation of Windows? We would never have ME/2000/XP/Vista/7! Yes, some of them failed. But through failure, Microsoft LEARNED from their mistakes and gave a better product the next try. It was their obligation to the industry to provide its customers with newer and better products. However, what we see with Blizzard is that they are okay with the stagnant design that was released in 2004. They constantly add “fluff” improvements, and neglect innate problems within their design.
Of course, I would not expect you to agree with my sentiments here. this is not meant as an insult however, someone who has hardly had any experience with the game in so long should not argue about what he knows so little about. Instead, you throw childish insults and throw the almighty “WoW has X 10+ million subs” argument at me. If that is your argument, by all means, you are entitled to it… just don’t expect me or anyone else with similar views, to accept your word as gospel simply because you can scream louder.
“Instead, you throw childish insults and throw the almighty “WoW has X 10+ million subs” argument at me. ”
The thing is, that’s not his argument, that’s YOUR argument.
“Other than one thing, the Dungeon Finder, you named nothing NEW about WoW since its launch. ”
“It is their obligation as a leader in their industry to help drive and maintain the quality of product that finds its way to the market.”
So, according to you, doing nothing qualifies you as a leader in the industry. Why would you ever say that? What’s your argument for Blizzard being a leader in their industry? Ah yes, they have 10 million subs. Like I said, that’s your argument, not his.
At least you fit in here, Wolfshead is constantly crying out how Blizzard’s subscription numbers obligate them to design games the way he wants them to. There’s nothing preventing anyone from claiming anyone else is obligated to do something, and there’s nothing preventing everyone else from continuing to not care.
I agree with Wolfshead in that I would like to play the same game he would like to play, but I don’t believe anyone is obligated to make it for me.
No. Blizzard is not obligated to do anything. They SHOULD however, be held at higher standards than other companies because the repercussions of their actions weigh more heavily upon the genre. If you had read the other post of mine below, I had already argued this.
And no. Stating subscription numbers is not proof that they are a leader in the industry. What DOES qualify them as that, is that they are unequivocally looked upon by their peers as the prototypical mold of the genre. This is by their own admission AND the admission of other companies over the years.
And while Tesh may be right in arguing that these lost players may be extra accounts / gold farmers / etc., it is still a sign in a declining product. But as the first post asked, “Why now?” – Why all of the sudden? Something in their business model has obviously driven people to unsubscribe… if even a small fraction.
Sadly, to blindly throw a loose argument that my own statements contradict each other is a poor tactic. Multiple people have already stated that 600,000 is a drop in the bucket because of WoWs subscription numbers as argument that its a non-factor in the decline in the game. And after much thinking, I agree with them to an extent. Of course, this goes without saying that I can’t help but believe it isn’t a GOOD sign for the future of the game.
I can say what I have said because it is a well-known fact that Blizzard is the top dog in the industry. That is all the proof I need. Arguing otherwise is a poor attempt to look smarter than you really are.
Why is it Blizzard’s fault that their “peers”, as you so aptly described them, are unimaginative, greedy and stupid? Why should they have to take all the hate that people seem to have for MMOs in general?
It’s simply a delusion people have constructed that, because they’re the biggest, they have some obligation to keep the genre moving when, in fact, they’ve already moved it along leaps and bounds by allowing funding to go to many other MMO ventures that, previously, wouldn’t have even made it to the drawing board. What these new devs do with the investment that WoW has indirectly provided for them is *entirely up to the new devs.* If the new devs are idiots and try to copy WoW, it’s hardly Blizzard’s fault for making a superior product. The new devs could look at EVE, solve all of its (many) problems at the drawing board stage, and create the ultimate space sandbox. But they don’t.
Also: mayhaps in your fairytale world figures don’t matter, but in the real world they sure as hell do. iTunes isn’t the best music download service, or even the cheapest, but it’s still the market leader because it has a large market share. What other companies think is largely irrelevant when you’re raking in the cash.
I hate it when I agree with Scott, but what he said except raiding isn’t as accessible as it was in Wrath. There are a lot of casual guilds still struggling with raids.
We lost about four people who had been on our 10 man raids to another guild where they are raiding and I think they only just beat Magmaw with that guild.
Raids aren’t as accessible as people think. ICC had a growing raid buff, Cata doesn’t.
Append ‘vehicle’ type mechanics and phasing to the list of innovations. Some of the quests were way out there too… best one was hopping from dragonback to dragonback as you beat frost giants. I have yet to see the diversity of quests that WoW has in any of the other games as of yet. Yes, they’re simple and similar to grocery lists or gathering, but it’s done differently, in interesting and amusing ways (imo).
That is actually what I was arguing. Raids had become so accessible over the years (TBC and WOTLK) that for Cataclysm to make them so shut off was such an insanely stupid business move. Blizzard in essence, shot themselves in the foot by trying to cater to too many demographics. They should have known that the remaining customers are TYPICALLY more casual-minded players who enjoy the ease of access WoW offers. By increasing the difficulty of raids in Cataclysm, they effectively shut these people out of an activity they were once used to. What Blizzard failed to know about “gamers” is that once the bridge has been burned, there is little chance that it can be mended. You see this all the time when game launches are labeled “failures.” Gamers are an unforgiving breed…
I agree with the sentiment, but I’m just not sure it was a case of them shooting themselves in the foot in Cata as it was that they did it in WotLK. TBC, to me, had the perfect balance between accessible and inaccessible. After Ulduar, they fled the train tracks altogether …and now in Cata they are trying to get back on it. There’s just no going back on something like that. They shot themselves in the foot years ago, especially with the kind of dungeon difficulty they want to go with now.
I otherwise agree with Jason’s points here.
The emerging narrative from the hardcores seems to be that if WotLK hadn’t been so easy, the casual/bads would have been happy with the table scraps, like they were in Vanilla and BC, and Cataclysm wouldn’t be having these problems.
I beg to differ. After BC, I looked at how much raid content I had done — and how much I hadn’t — and decided that if WotLK had been like that I was going to stop playing. Well, WotLK wasn’t like that, at least most of it, and I continued to play for 96% of the expansion.
Now along comes Cataclysm. I knew they were ramping up the difficulty, but I wanted to see for myself. After two months the negative impression was amply confirmed and I could quit without second thoughts.
Had WotLK not been easy, the decline you see now would have started two years ago. Pandering to the casual/bads is what kept the game afloat then; abandoning them is now causing it to sink.
This is what I was talking about before… Blizzard had become the bastion for casual gameplay design (And I’ll admit: A damn good one at that – even if it isn’t what appeals to me). The current developers should have known that the most intense of hardcore players have already jumped ship. Catering a new expansion towards a player-base that Blizzard should have known was such a minority (in their game) just goes to show they have zero clue who to market their game to anymore. WoW has amassed and maintained 10+ MILLION players, largely known to have more casual, solo-friendly play styles yet; they release a new expansion geared towards more difficult content. It makes no sense at all.
Now, I guess you can argue they thought they could “win back” some more players they had lost due to years of soloifcation, while still maintaining the subscriptions of those who have grown to enjoy the game as it is… Obviously not.
I blogged about this recently, but I agree that the core issue isn’t how easy the game has begun, or how accessible it is, or isn’t, but is more what Wolf is getting at — we, the players, have so little reason to become personally invested in our characters anymore. We’re invested in the game, but not the characters, and that’s a huge distinction. Our characters represent a series of checklists we’ve cross off, rather than a series of experiences.
Look at it this way. What is the single most important thing that drives almost every activity in Warcraft? Gear, right? And how do we make decisions about gear? On it’s stats. Sadly, stats should be the least important factor about gear, instead of the most important. Stats really don’t make your character unique. Your gear in a fantasy game should tell a story about you, and be a part of your character’s history. In Warcraft, it’s just a placeholder; a means to an end. Which in reality is just a means to another means, and so on.
I recognize these are generalizations sprinkled with my opinions, but the bottom line is that the one element that drives almost everything else — gear — is not something that we actually care all that much about specifically. Combine that with the increasingly diminishing number of things we can make meaningful choices about, along with the cookie-cutter approach to character development, and you have a recipe for a decline in subscriptions.
All that said, I also agree with Scott, above. Time is the WoW killer, much more so than any one or two poor design decisions. Blizzard has created something pretty damn awesome, and they did a great job of it! Not perfect by any means, but great. I really tire of reading comments like Jason’s, which while somewhat valid in a couple points, is mostly just Blizzard bashing by the end. Some of the choices, I’m sure they wish they could go back and do differently, but this (gigantic) ship has sailed, and it doesn’t turn so easily anymore. And as much as we cry for changes, we cry even louder when some of them are actually implemented. I don’t envy their customer service department, that’s for sure!
While it’s self-gratifying to attribute this decline to doomcasting and blaming WoW for not being the game you want it to be, the decline follows established and predictable patterns based on the life cycle of MMOs. It just happens on an exponentially bigger scale due to WoW’s massive subscriber base.
It’s like saying to your brother “I told you that car was a piece of junk” when the engine starts to give out after running great for 300,000 miles. Has your point really been proven?
I will concede that the age of the game could attribute to some sort of “burn-out effect.” However, the loss in subscriptions is suspiciously close to the release of Cataclysm. It is openly known that subscription numbers change constantly. Typically, a small decline can be shown the months before a new expansion, followed by approximately a year of higher counts. SOMETHING is not “business as usual” for Blizzard this time…
Mmm …you have somewhat of a point, but not quite. Unless you believe that if the game was more socially cohesive and that if Cata had more (and accessible) content they would still be bleeding subs. But you would have to believe one or both of those things to have a point on the subscription decline due to age.
I think they are all part of the thousand cuts Wolf aptly mentions. But I lean more on the side that if the game was socially and thematically stronger, the dip would not be so huge. It might not be a dip at all.
Nobody can really prove something is the “worst” or “best” as it’s a subjective and personal opinion. All one can do is state their opinion and make a case with observations, facts and theories. I’m sure there have been worse expansions than Cataclysm from lesser and fringe MMO companies but Blizzard’s indisputable dominance in the industry means they deserve greater scrutiny and critical analysis.
The TLDR version: the bigger they are, the harder they fall.
While the reasons I have stated may not be directly responsible or even provable, the decline of Blizzard’s fortunes regarding Cataclysm speaks to a bigger more systemic problem of bad management and oversight. In short, I don’t think the current Blizzard WoW team knows what they heck they are doing and the numbers prove it.
Sorry if my snappish meter went a little overboard, that happens when I post before coffee. What I mean by raiding being open to more players being a good thing is… well, actually, exactly that. I remember when Naxx was the penultimate raid and barely anyone saw it. If you only limit yourself to your little insular group of players, what happens when some of you start taking breaks or even quit the game altogether? Even the hardcore raiders may not have started the game (context: this being their first MMO and no preconceived notion or concept of “raiding” or anything else) being “hardcore.” Maybe they just leveled up and over the course of leveling and doing the various instances during that time decided they liked it and wanted to move into the raid scene. That’s how I got into it back in the day too, and I doubt I’m the only one.
So I do firmly believe it is important to have raiding (or any activity) accessible so that all of us have access to the most amount of players we choose to interact with, however we choose to interact with them. Now, it’s also nice (well, in my opinion) to have some means (preferably more than one) of adjusting the difficulty so casual or unskilled (interesting how often we assume those are synonymous, but that’s another topic) players can still get into the raids, get some enjoyment and satisfaction, and hey, hopefully even improve their overall ability as players while also providing those who are already skilled or who seek the highest challenge to also have that. I don’t know that anyone, ever, has hit on the right formula for that. To a degree, I like the general idea behind scaling but sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, and if scaling arbitrarily boosts the NPC’s abilities beyond a certain point then those unskilled players can no longer continue. Some MMOs have included “difficulty settings” prior to entering the instances, which I guess is fine until a better solution is available. At least it’s better than in “normal” videogames where historically the only thing higher difficulty did was give the enemies more health and maybe give you less health.
For us “grizzled vets” who speak of games becoming easier, it speaks to the encounters increasingly becoming more predictable and ultimately less difficult by design (HP is lowered, special raid events are boring and stale, and other such factors).
Reducing the HP, etc. made them (to a degree) more accessible, however, is also what I seem to be getting out of a few of the comments here. As for special raid events, those will always be hit or miss. Even in vanilla there were some raids that, while I enjoyed being with my raid group and seeing the sights, the boss encounters just didn’t do much for me. Others enjoyed those but didn’t care for the ones I liked. As for stale, I’m inclined to place some of the blame for that on the Trinity first, and the general tech MMOs have used second, nothing to do with WoW or any other specific MMO. Take an idea you (or another game) had and tweak it to make it “new.” How many versions of “don’t stand in the fire” have we seen in various games? And so on. Too many “tank n spanks” and we complain, but if every encounter is “special” we complain too.
Other than one thing, the Dungeon Finder, you named nothing NEW about WoW since its launch. Innovation is innately built into the development phase of any new title. The second sentence is precisely what I talked about, and even said roughly that in the previous article Wolfshead posted also. “Innovation” does not only equate to “new features post-launch” which by the way, cross-server PvP was. Apparently I’ve pissed you off so you’re intentionally talking around me even when we seem to agree? Even Smakendahead (/wave lol) added the new types of quests that showed up in TBC (and I’m presuming the later expansions as well) plus the phasing tech as innovations. It’s rare in any other MMO to see any innovative means of providing — and playing — quests.
Couldn’t you argue that Cataclysm is, in fact, a NGE. They revamped all starter zones, changed the game UI, and revamped entire class builds.
Absolutely not. Revamped starter zones? So? LOTRO did that as well, all for the better. Revamped class builds? So? We *claim* to want these ongoing, *changing* dynamic virtual worlds, but again, the second anything changes or we have to change our spec in the slightest we bitch to high heaven. Do you want to pick a single build/spec/whatever and never alter it over the entire lifetime of the game?
I just reinstalled SWG last night and logged in this morning. It’s one thing for WoW to revamp (ok, on a much more drastic scale than anything LOTRO has done, but from a certain perspective aren’t the new zones just putting on a new coat of paint?) the starter zones. But when you strip away all the fluff, the core game of WoW is the same as 2004. You still click NPC’s with a ! to get a quest for XP/loot/gold. You still Kill Ten Rats or Fedex. You still level UP (vertical progression) and tier your gear UP. The underlying core fundamentals are all still there, and that is not the case with SWG post-NGE. SWG had its entire core game (ie. how the game is played) stripped out and replaced with something completely new. If CCP said “hey guys, we need more money so we’re converting EVE to a WoW-like vertical progression and you’ll have to “raid” for epic purple ships” now *that* would be an NGE because that’s essentially what was done to SWG.
It is their obligation as a leader in their industry to help drive and maintain the quality of product that finds its way to the market. What I’m saying is that WoW is not “the genre.” It’s just one game within the genre. It’s the 800lb Gorilla, but still, not the entire genre. So when I disagree that Blizzard is responsible for “the genre” (which they did not create anyway) it’s because it’s almost implying the Blizzard has some “duty” to also ensure that SOE, Turbine, EA or whomever also releases quality MMOs into the marketplace. And… that’s just not the case. Reading into your Microsoft comparison how they’ve learned from the pros and cons of their various OS’ over the years, I’d infer you simply mean that Blizzard owes it to Blizzard (ie. to WoW) to do the same, but doesn’t that mean they have to have their hits and misses as well? Also, taking that analogy further, Windows 95, 98 and ME were all built upon a single core OS. 98 could be seen as an “expansion” of 95. ME could be seen as… well, an aborted mess, but still, a failed “expansion.” I could apply that same logic to WoW and it’s expansions. Or any MMO and its expansions for that matter. Each builds a little bit onto the original while also making a few tweaks to “how things work.” But XP was kinda a step beyond 95/98/ME, just like Vista was an entirely different product over XP. That’s where I say to a large degree Blizzard cannot alter the core game formula from 2004 ala an NGE with major changes. Tweaks, revamps, additional stuff built onto that core is fine and is what we expect from MMOs as they grow even though we complain about the new changes. Where we’ll see Blizzard (hopefully) push their envelope is with a new product, like switching from Win98 to Win7.
However, what we see with Blizzard is that they are okay with the stagnant design that was released in 2004.
But it’s not just Blizzard, it’s nearly everyone. EQ used the Diku-influenced core RPG system, was the first MMO to get publicity and “fame” and that’s what everyone else has gone with. The few outliers are just that so far: outliers. Even SW:TOR which will be released 8 years after WoW’s release is still using that RPG system. Too many players reject “new” design. Again, we as players whine and cry and demand “change” but that stomp our feet and refuse to acknowledge change when it’s delivered to us. Is it any wonder that we keep getting handed variations the same dish when we keep ordering off the same limited menu?
I remember plenty of tabletop RPG’s went through the trouble of creating entirely unique RPG systems for each game. Even early CRPGs and JRPGs did the same, just as modern CRPGs do. Yet we shift into the MMO sub-genre and we keep seeing the same system used again and again and again. It’s like all MMO devs were brainwashed by GURPS. I miss having the variety of RPG systems to learn and play with. Now everything is the same system. Boring.
Well put and I completely agree with many of your points. Let’s just agree to disagree on many of these topics, I suppose.
What I would like to embellish on a bit more however is that whether Blizzard likes it or not, other companies have taken their design and emulated it to the nth degree. So while I agree that “Blizzard owes it to Blizzard” to improve upon their product first and foremost; they also owe it to the industry to be the shining example of “innovation.” Granted, this is not a responsibility they had asked for, and probably never even wanted, but unfortunately it is theirs nonetheless. It’s like the classic sports athlete debate: Given their fame and notoriety, do they owe it to the general public (and the children that look up to them) to act in an ethical and responsible manner? They never asked for this responsibility yet, many would argue that they owe it to their loyal fans to act in certain ways. This is why many athletes have conduct clauses placed inside their contracts. Now, I will concur that Blizzard legally owes nothing to anyone yet, for the sake of their industry, they should want to lead others in the “right” direction.
“But it’s not just Blizzard, it’s nearly everyone.”
This is what upsets me most about the current crop of MMOs on the market. Everyone looks up to Blizzard as the Big Brother business in which they emulate, and when they introduce game advances (such as the Dungeon Finder) and don’t thoroughly think through the repercussions of their actions, it circulates throughout the genre. Now this goes with my above paragraph… Did they ask for this responsibility? No. But it is theirs nonetheless.
Of course the entire blame for the copy-and-paste tactics of other companies should not be placed squarely upon the shoulders of Blizzard. Companies like SoE, Turbine and Cryptic all have equal blame in the problem. Yet, I still blame Blizzard the most simply because they effect the industry exponentially more than the others.
Where did those 600,000 accounts go, and what were they? Were they dual box accounts? Gold sellers? Bored veterans? RIFT babies? When did they leave? Were they level capped? Were they one-monthers who didn’t want to buy three more boxes and pay a sub to keep playing?
We don’t have enough information about why people leave WoW to start pointing fingers within the game design with a good level of accuracy.
…I tend to agree that their stated bandaids don’t really address structural problems with the game, but they *do* have more information than we do when it comes to making decisions.
I think it’s safe to say that Blizzard will never divulge the real reasons why those 600k players left. They have an extensive “survey” system when you close an account so I’m sure they know full well why people have left but they will never tell us.
Well said Tesh. WoW has a large share of “armchair quarterbacks”. I agree with much of Wolf’s Sentiment.
Tesh – all good questions, and you are correct; without a more specific breakdown on what sort of players are leaving, it’s hard to pinpoint causes.
That being said – anecdotal evidence admittedly – my noobie partner played for about four months, topped out his toons at 60 on vanilla and decided not to go any further. Reason? He was bored. My 16 and 14 year old boys, who have been playing for several years, deleted several 85 toons, started leveling over, anything to maintain their interest but eventually drifted away (thankfully) to other interests. Reason? They were bored. I’m a mature woman who has played now for about three years, quite casually, for fun, and to have a bit of connection with the kids. I’ve met some great people on WoW, maintained those friendships outside the game, and came back when BC became a freebie for vanilla players. At the end of the month, my sub expires and I don’t intend to renew it. Reason? I’m bored.
The reason quite a few of my mates who also have played WoW and are dropping it is the same: They’re bored.
I cannot tell you why. I’m not enough of an expert to analyse what elements in the game have changed, or judge whether or not Blizzard knows or cares. Every interaction I’ve had with their game masters has been positive and despite the fact that Blizzard, like any company, exists to make money and as much money as they can, it seems for the most part a fairly benign entity. But the reason given for the variety of people I know – noobies, kids, long-term gamers, casuals – comes back to one basic complaint. They’re bored.
One of my hard-core gaming friends told me this weekend that the new expansion will be dropping two player and multi-player quests. I was saddened, if this is true. The days of noobies in Elwynn Forest calling out, ‘Anyone want to do Hogger?’ seem numbered, and that’s a pity. The two-player quests were good for bringing people together to work in teams – now, I don’t need any help, and I can literally play the game with one hand while talking on the phone or eating a sandwich. That’s not the old WoW I remember.
And, yes, Blizzard did ask me when I cancelled my sub for my reasons, which I gave – I was bored. What they do with that information, I can only hope for the best. They created something fun, and unique, and should be applauded for that. But by ‘making it better’, they’ve destroyed something that possibly is too ephemeral to quantify. I just hope someone smarter than I am figures out how to put the Old Magic back into any New Wow.
Gotta agree with Tesh on this one…This is a numbers game, you lose 600k of 12 million subscribers…meh. Any other MMO loses 600k subs, their shutting things down.
Say what you want, but WoW has been here for almost 7 years, and still got over 11k subscribers. It’s still the benchmark that all other MMO’s are measured.
Yeah bunch of dummy’s working over there.
Well i just wanted to say that, Yeah maybe the 600 k arent all players, but the half (i think), 300 k could be… Still like Mr. Tesh Pointed out:
“Were they dual box accounts? Gold sellers? Bored veterans? RIFT babies? When did they leave? Were they level capped? Were they one-monthers who didn’t want to buy three more boxes and pay a sub to keep playing?”
We dont know, but i can bet half are players, maybe a littel more… still… its to hard to throw random numbers.
The post on -http://kotaku.com/5800175/world-of-warcraft-suffers-post+cataclysmic-drop-in-subscriptions- says: I wouldn’t dig a grave for World of Warcraft any time soon, however. Considering there are big-name MMO titles out there operating with one one-hundredth of the subscriber base, the world of Azeroth will be in fine shape for years to come.
Blizzard still has alot of players, so i think the… “That´s all Folks”
is a littel to rushed Wolfshead, but could be the start… after all, everything can happen, we live in a Changing World.
The 600K loss may be worse than it sounds. They are going to spin the numbers in a telecon to sound as good as possible, within the constraint of not lying. So, why did they lump all subs around the world together? Probably because the losses were dominantly in the high value markets (NA/EU), and the gains in low value ones (China, which is playing WotLK now).
If NA/EU lost 600K, that’s a 12% decline there. If China picked up some, the decline in NA/EU could be even larger. Activity tracking shows NA/EU activity down by about 1/3 since the Cata peak. Yes, take that number with a hefty dose of skepticism, but if it really does reflect sub losses then NA/EU losses might be upwards of 1.5M.
This is my opinion as well. I have a lot more confidence in 3rd-party activity charts from warcraftrealms than I do in Blizzard’s official numbers, simply because they’re not biased. Anything from Blizzard will be spun in the most positive possible manner.
Those charts show activity on US/EU realms down about 1/3 since the post-Catalcysm peak. Of course, raw sub numbers don’t mirror this exactly but it’s not hard to infer the overall trend – which leads me to believe strong gains in China where WoTLK is still relatively new are offsetting huge US/EU losses.
While I agree that Blizzard has definitely dug their own hole, I think it’s important to realize what they’ve done right and what they could not change.
MMO games, by their nature, are highly complex systems. And like any complex system, while they may seem to be functionally marvelous at their start, stresses internally start to form cracks until after years of build up they explode or, more aptly, implode causing the foundation to collapse and everything to fall down upon it. I think this is why sandbox games are just as difficult to create, if not possibly more, than theme park games. In effect, instead of spending time creating content like a theme park game, you’re ensuring the creation of sustainable and meaningful interaction that has to self-generate its own continuous enjoyable experience.
So WoW as a theme park game was probably doomed from the start because no matter how much we wished for changes to the game, there were things that they could simply just not do due to the foundational limitations of the game. I mean I remember constantly wanting Realm vs Realm action in WoW with territorial control but I know now that it would have been almost impossible to implement that in their system, due to its foundational mechanics. So if anything, I’m kind of happy that they did dig their own hole because it’s hopefully letting us transition to the types of games we do want to see much faster.
Now with regards to what they’ve done right, I think most of the people here, including Wolfshead himself, can’t disregard the quality and polish the company has at least done right in the MMO arena compared to other companies and games. And that if anything is what has sustained the stresses within their complex system for as long as it has. In effect, that polish and quality is like a suit of armor that is protecting them, not externally from forces outside but internally from the weaknesses in their own system. But like all armor, it can only sustain so much damage before it eventually falls apart.
Last but not least, I completely disagree that Blizzard doesn’t listen to their community. If anything, I think they maybe listen a little too much sometimes. Again though, as I mentioned above, there is only so much you can do with a flawed system. I think they realize this and are “working within their means”. I think where you will see them finally put to use their collective years of community knowledge is in their secret project, Titan. That’s where they will go out on a limb and truly risk everything because they have the opportunity to build a new system foundation from scratch. And if anything, they’ll realize that if they don’t build it right from the start, they’ll run into all of the same problems they experienced before. That’s why I think it will be years before you’ll see Titan released because they’ll probably do a ton of intensive testing for at least a year or two to fully test the limits and stresses of the system in a variety of different ways.
PS. Quite an appropriate post considering I just cancelled my WoW account today. 🙂
I believe you are right in many ways. I’ve said this before but I really believe that Blizzard is saving their innovation for future MMOs such as Titan. I think the plan with WoW is to milk it for as long as possible and expend the least amount of resources for the most amount of profit.
There is no way that Blizzard is reinvesting a significant amount of their profits from WoW back into WoW in the form of research and development — it’s all going to fund future projects. Yes I’ve been flogging a dead horse regarding WoW for years now but waiting for innovation from Blizzard in the form of Titan is far too long. Given the glacial speed of development Jeff Kaplan will be a grandfather by the time it’s released. 🙂
Also what infuriates me is that Blizzard’s version of innovation is going in the wrong direction as it focuses on making things more streamlined and easier such as the Dungeon Finder tool or Cataclysm newbie to level cap.
I think if someone put up a stall just outside BlizzCon 2011 later this year, they’d make a fortune selling rotten vegetables to throw at the panels. The dev team has some ‘splainin’ to do.
“Also what infuriates me is that Blizzard’s version of innovation is going in the wrong direction as it focuses on making things more streamlined and easier such as the Dungeon Finder tool or Cataclysm newbie to level cap.”
This is where we get in trouble with those people who support the current direction of MMOs and their increased ease of access. While I completely agree with you on the matter, I believe it is important to stay away from such black and white statements, if only for the fact that current subscribers tend to take offense to such statements. You can see this in multiple responses to my posts above. While I could care less about being considered an “elitist” (because I acknowledge I am at times), I also know it is important to keep good relations going between the “casuals” and the “hardcore.” Typically, the former group tends to get in an uproar when their style of play is questioned, and communication between the two sides instantly is shut down. This is why a game that caters towards both groups is nigh impossible… Barring a miracle in gaming design, a game can simply not cater fully towards the two groups. In my experience, TBC was the closest we have come to this, and I will still admit, I thought TBC was quite simplistic and yawn-spitting.
Now, I will admit that “casuals” are the vast majority of gamers in this current generation of MMOs (if only because there simply is no place to call home for a lot of us). There is a significant population of people who would enjoy a new gaming experience. Furthermore, one has to wonder whether the needs and wants of these casuals truly does equal those of a hardcore gamer who throws in 3x+ the amount of time and effort into his or her experience? (Now, I already know I will get a response of “Who are you to tell me your style of play is more important than mine?!?) However, this by no means, was written to be an insult to anyone. I am simply contemplating whether time (game time played) holds any weight in a developers mind.
If Yes than Wolfhead’s statement above would be considered true… MMOs are simply moving in the wrong direction. But if you are of the belief that MMOs should be easily accessible, log in and out, short bursts of fun, then you would completely disagree. Those of this mind then in a sense, would consider MMOs to be heading exactly where they should be.
Ultimately, MMOs are made to reflect the needs and wants of its players. This is where Blizzard falls a bit short. I truly believe they don’t have any clue who they are marketing to anymore.
It just seems that the requests of one group has simply gone unheard through the years; which is why these debates have become so commonplace over time.
I am simply contemplating whether time (game time played) holds any weight in a developers mind.
Only if these are signs that the customer is more likely to subscribe for a long time, or is more likely to buy value-added services like server transfers.
Perhaps hardcore gamers should support micropayment business models, since a company will pay more attention to them if the hardcore gaming style involves sending the business additional money.
I really don’t know if micro-transactions are something we should focus on simply because someone plays “more” than the average consumer. That would suggest “penalizing” players who chose to spend more of their free time inside their virtual world of choice. Remember, in a subscription model, subscribers who log on more often are simply weighing their options and deciding that time inside of a game is better spent than another activitiy… opportunity cost.
Of course, this is assuming that you’re under the general thought that casuals will spend less than a months subscription via a microtransaction payment method than the typical “hardcore” gamer, who will spend approximately a current months subscription. However, through my experiences in hybrid models, “casuals” are more likely to purchase fluff items and Cash Shop items than the typical raider…
So in essence, my original question has been answered. Business execs simply value profits over time devotion (brand loyalty). *I could go further and argue that if time = money, than why are actual monetary profits preferred over time? BUT – I will stop myself here*
I am only implying that I wish there was a coorelation between time played and developer attention, rather than the current trend of money spent vs. developer attention. I am not oblivious to the fact that game manufacturers are in the business of making money though… Which is why this is a simple WISH that I do not see coming true anytime soon.
I did it one week before.
PS: I played five years
@Wolfshead: I wouldn’t look at Blizzard’s examples of innovation in WoW as any sort of indication of the innovation you’ll see in Titan, unless Titan uses the exact same world view mechanics as WoW. If it did, why even bother creating a new game when you can build upon the mechanics in WoW right now? But we’ve seen this numerous times already, creating a WoW-like game with a few tweaks to it changes nothing. Even though the visuals may be breathtaking and the content theme may be different, everything feels the same because the game mechanics or functionality is exactly the same. We don’t need new visuals or content themes (i.e. sci-fi world vs a fantasy world), we need new world views that utilize completely different game mechanics and methods of interaction.
@Jason: I believe that casual and hardcore can exist together. Actually I believe it’s one of the core foundational elements for a great lateral sandbox MMO, that being the more diversity, the better the gameplay and interaction between people. That said though, it doesn’t mean you can do anything you want as a casual player. In effect, certain roles or interactions will be better suited for casual players and other interactions will be better suited for hardcore players.
For example, if the sandbox game allowed player controlled areas with varying levels of social status within a realm, it would be almost impossible for a casual player to play a king of a realm (or even get to that status), especially if they only logged on once a week. In comparison, a role of a merchant within a town, particularly if you could hire an NPC to sell your goods would be an optimal role for a casual player, as they could log on once a week, check their stock, purchase new supplies, and then log out, letting their NPC handle daily transactions.
Actually the NPC could even be replaced by another player, especially if that individual was a hardcore player who loved social interaction and the chance to haggle on prices with customers. Sure a hardcore player who loved combat would probably say, “Gods, how boring! You sit on your arse all day!” Yet from the socialite hardcore player’s perspective, they see it as a means to interact, swap stories, and possibly gain valuable information that might come in handy later, especially when adventurers are seeking quests within the area or rulers are looking for valuable information that might relate to political intrigue or potential conflict with neighboring realms. Remember, markets are conversations at their core.
Again the whole emphasis here though is to take advantage of the massive human manpower available and the diverse interests of those playing but done in such a way that it creates this beautiful web of interconnectivity and interdependence amongst everyone, so that even the lowliest of interactive roles is valued by the greater web of society because it is an integral part of it.
Finals are over, and I had a legit “Please come back to WoW we’ll even give you a week free!” e-mail sitting in my inbox (shocker, I know with all the scams going around), so I reactivated and played for a couple of days. I was tired of drama and baggage so I rolled a brand new prot paladin on a fresh server. No heirlooms, no money, no connections, no nothing. I had six years of on-and-off experience with the game but nothing else to distinguish me from a total noob.
I played two days, got to level 35, uninstalled. Now, you’ll say I’m old and burned out and that’s true, but I can say with complete certainty there’s structural problems with the low-level game that are preventing genuine noobs (and not just fake noobs like me) from subbing. Old-timers leaving is only half the problem – old timers have always been leaving. I’ve leveled alts from scratch before, but in the past Blizzard went out their way to alleviate the “screw-you”‘s that plague so many other MMOs.
I’ll just go down my list of leveling gripes, in no particular order.
First off would have to be RDF. Don’t get me wrong, I love being able to push a button and go to a dungeon – I don’t think I ever waited more than 20 seconds. The problem with RDF in Cataclysm is it keeps noobs out of heroics and raids.
In the past, you ran dungeons with people on your server. You ran heroics with people on your server. If you were good, you got a good reputation, invited to a decent raid guild, and then you went on into the end-game. It wasn’t an easy process but it was a smooth one.
In the current system, nobody knows anyone. You roll your face on the keyboard for 80 levels, then you go into more challenging dungeons, then heroics. The problem is that with such an anonymous system is that it’s impossible to act with anything resembling coordination, there’s no reason to be any nicer than the minimum required to not get kicked (which usually means saying nothing at all), and there’s absoultely no way to build up the network that eventually got you out of having to pug everything before RDF.
Nobody knows anyone and there’s no way for anyone to know anyone. Guilds either spamrecruit everyone in an attempt to level faster (which isn’t any better than pugging) or have strict gear/progression requirements just to apply (again, because nobody knows anyone, which includes the big raid guilds). Either way, there’s no way out of RDF until you’ve geared up completely from heroics. I tanked a few RDF pugs on my old main, you cannot pay me enough for that kind of aggravation again, especially since I’d have to do it for a couple of months before I could get out (since no decent guilds ever recruit tanks I’d planned (if I resubbed) on collecting a Holy set once I hit the heroics). I don’t blame the other players, I blame Blizzard for creating a system that sets people up to fail when it’s used as intended.
Also, they spent all this time and money revamping the old world. But then they sped up leveling so much that it’s impossible to actually see most of it. I only left Thunder Bluff to farm herbs and minerals for money (more on that in a bit) after level 15. You get a non-trivial amount of XP for everything now. You could pick your nose and probably get XP for it if there was a slash command. Not that that’s bad, but it’s so fast that even if you were only questing everything would grey out before you actually finished it (didn’t do this myself but I’ve seen it on the forums enough to know it’s real).
And, as a minor nuisance but worth mentioning is Inscription. Unlike other profs, WoTLK glyphs weren’t obsoleted. Glyphs are permanent, now, but the books and mats are only found in Northrend, so as time goes on fewer people are able to make the old glyphs, there’s fewer for sale, and those that are for sale command prices that I had trouble saving up for (EJ ‘recommended’ glyphs are ~200g, the other ones about 50g) and would be totally out of reach to someone just starting out for real.
And this reply has gone on way too long so I think I’ll just stop typing now :D.
Finals are over …
you’ll say I’m old
You sound like you’re about as old as my younger daughter. 🙂
I totally agree with the DF being at the core of their problem, I think it was a dangerous idea to implement and its function now is to just divorce new players from the community.
As you say there is now no mechanism where a new player meets and gets to know other players, Greg removed them all
– No own server dungeon runs
– No overland heroic content requiring a group
– No group quests (well I didn’t see any 80-85, maybe there are lower ones?)
Returning to the game during the SOE downtime I have to say I have not experienced a more wretched community in a game as I did using the DF. People swore, ridiculed, degraded each other in the majority of groups I joined, really the best groups were the silent ones 😛
I wonder how they can fix the problem, both cross server and the anonimity seem to be at the heart of the problem. The producer there got things wrong before (at the end of TBC I remember him saying how he thought aggro was not a good mechanic as it made the tanks feel bad when they lost it), he did an about turn there, but here it seems very hard to smoothly turn things around.
I’ve just quit WoW myself. Bored to death with it. But I’d like to know what the alternatives are? I’m not too saavy when it comes to MMO’s, but are there any that break away from the WoW mold? Like, what does Wolfshead play? Any recommendations for current MMO’s that don’t follow the same old tired formula? I’m open to try any game at this point!
Puzzle Pirates. Great business model, great multiplayer, player skill based, and loads of fun. Also very, very different from the DIKU vertical progression ding train, and better for it.
Thanks for the recommendation! I’m checking it out now. I’ll also be downloading EVE tonight to give that a try. This article resonates with everything I’ve been seeing and feeling about the current state of MMO’s in general. I hope some real change is on the way!
Don’t bother with EVE. I’ve tried it 8 times now (as of yesterday, in fact. I’m a sucker for Steam sales) and it’s still unwieldy, dull and mostly non-interactive.
The lure of “oooh, you can choose your own destiny” is overshadowed by the fact that, despite all its supposed drama and player politics, nothing much happens, even during combat. All you’re doing for most of it is auto-orbiting around the target whilst auto-attacking until one of you dies.
So dull. So very, very dull.
I played EvE for about three years (longer than any spell with WoW, actually), and the above poster makes a good point.
EvE’s experience is entirely cerebral. A single battle in a large-scale conflict can last days. The factors that influence smaller gang (or even solo) fights are determined almost entirely before anyone starts shooting. If you choose to live out in unknown space (like I did for my last few months) you’ll have to haul out supplied yourself because there’s no NPCs to help you out. As a rookie, you get dropped into this huge (and often hostile, even in high security space) world with precious little to go on. Everything you own will be destroyed eventually (which if you’re into crafting is great, since crafted gear is always in high demand) and you need to keep this mind when choosing what to fly and where to fly it at.
It’s very much a love it or hate it experience. I don’t know anyone who ever tried EvE who said “Yeah, it was alright and I stuck around a couple months”. With that in mind I’d suggest trying out the trial first before you spend any real money.
Quitting a game / not paying their sub any longer is indeed the only true statement you can make as a (unhappy) customer. People have criticized WoW’s decline for years, but as long as they keep p(l)aying, nothing can truly change in that department, can it?
To pick up on one thing you said about not buying Blizzard’s explanation on “existing players are getting too good at WoW and consuming content far quicker than developers can create it” – I have to agree with you fully and it sounds incredibly hollow. If anything, they’ve made content harder than it’s been for a long, long time in places (no doubt as a reaction to the same reasoning and fear that the players would otherwise progress too fast and hence, bore too fast) and a big part of the player base has opposed this (not just heroic 5mans difficulty but raid encounters becoming more and more complex). so if higher difficulty / stalling players was the way to fix their issues, Cata should have been a success, at least a lot more successful than WotLK for example.
They still haven’t gotten the point it seems: they can keep throwing harder and faster content at their customers as long as they like, it’s not about people being too skilled at this point – it’s about people looking for quality instead of quantity. You can only eat so much candy until you puke.
At the same time, I see a LOT of whining about how easy the game is and how fast it is. Maybe it’s harder in the endgame Heroics, but it seems to me that the argument that the game is too easy is pretty common.
It’s an argument I think is silly, since it’s trivially easy to go off the beaten track and challenge yourself instead of waiting for challenges to come to you, but it’s a very common screed nevertheless.
I think many people who say the game is easy are lying, either to us or to themselves. And, there is a selection effect: how many people want to come out and admit the game is too hard for them?
The game is undoubtedly much easier than it was as launch. Sure raid bosses have gotten progressively more uniquely scripted and unique over RECENT years, but this is compared to what? WoW 2 years ago or during Vanilla? It’s all a matter of perception. If you are comparing the current incarnation of the game to something like EQ2 game mechanics of 2006ish, then the game is undoubtedly easier (DMP or Tarinax anyone?). But if you are comparing current WoW to WOTLK WoW, then the game has openly gotten “harder.” Yet, still the game is a hollow shell of what it used to be. Moreover, the genre is infinitely easier to master than earlier years.
The real question is not a comparison to some imagined ideal of a past, but to the desires and abilities of customers today.
It cannot be disputed that raid participation in Cata is way down from WotLK, as the content has become harder. The simplest explanation for that decline is that large numbers of players find the current level of difficulty too hard. If you look back at 25 man completion percentages, even WotLK was too hard for the majority of raiders to complete on normal mode.
I have to second Paul here – it makes little sense to compare cataclysm to vanilla WoW or anything for that matter; a big part of today’s playerbase, probably the vast majority, has not played or raided in vanilla WoW. what makes most sense in terms of comparing the “right now” and trend, is to compare to WotLK of course – and from that PoV Cataclysm has simply started a lot tougher and still is. Blizzard did very openly state this intention too and have realized it in parts. that doesn’t mean some players won’t always talk about WoW being ‘easy’, I don’t claim it’s hard myself, but it’s different from WotLK definitely.
And hence the reasoning makes little sense that the players are losing interest because they are burning through Cataclysm content too fast – they’re not. I doubt this very very much. unless of course, we don’t even count dungeons and raids as an integral part of the game anymore – in which case they’re right of course, there’s very little left in WoW today besides those..
Is it trivially easy to go off the beaten track? If you go to Mount Hyjal before doing any of the quests, you can walk about in an almost completely empty zone — most mobs in the area are phased, and you cannot interact with them at all until you get to the “appropriate” place in the zone storyline. Likewise, after completion, most of the mobs are again gone.
You can find some places where you can break what the development team wants you to do, but it clear that (from Bliz’s dev team’s PoV) that you are “doing it wrong” if you do so.
The game is now written to support a very, very linear form of play. This may or may not be a good thing, but it is very different than the game that existed prior to Cataclysm. Likewise with raiding — Cataclysm raiding has much, much more “platformer” style play than was true even during Wrath.
I’m not surprised to see the dropoff, as many people that enjoyed the pre-Cata playstyle find that they own a game built with an entirely different design goal. The real question is “will the new style of play attract a big audience?”
I’ve had my fill of WoW, and MMORPG’s in general. It will take something thats equally as fresh and groundbreaking, as WoW was when it first came on the scene, and i’m not holding my breath for that to happen.
@ Dril (above)
“Also: mayhaps in your fairytale world figures don’t matter, but in the real world they sure as hell do. iTunes isn’t the best music download service, or even the cheapest, but it’s still the market leader because it has a large market share. What other companies think is largely irrelevant when you’re raking in the cash.”
And where are your numbers proving that iTunes is a”leader becuase it has a large market share?” You speak in generalities then boast that numbers matter.
Simply put, you can state (with certainty) that iTunes is a leader in the market because it is a well known assumption they are. Without proper evidence, you claim something like this because it is a widely known fact… Not because you have numbers to back up your claim. (For all we know, the Zune Marketplace can be the largest music download program).
Furthermore, I never claimed numbers don’t matter in the real world. You put words in my mouth for sake of your argument. I simply said SUBSCRIPTION numbers mean nothing in terms of determining who is the “top dog” in the MMO industry. It is widely inferred that Blizzard holds this honor – and that is all I need to make such a claim.
And one more point: Just because they opened the market up for newer games, does not mean they have driven the genre forward. They tapped the vast potential of what MMOs CAN be (in terms of subscription numbers) yet, the core game mechanics still sit in the proverbial Stone Age.
Since you insist:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9177395/Apple_controls_70_of_U.S._music_download_biz
There’s one place quoting it as 70%.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/04/03itunes.html
It’s from 2008, but I doubt it’s no longer true.
Now, if you want to start having a little hissy fit about those being somehow incorrect: prove it. Prove to me that I’m wrong that iTunes is the market leader. But don’t tell me my generalisations are wrong without your own sources. Zune is clearly not the market leader. Okay? Good.
You’re directly contradicting yourself. Subscription numbers are, I believe, fairly indicative of market share, and MMO market share exists in the real world as well as the blogosphere. Now, go ahead, argue somehow that having roughly 10 times the subscribers that other MMOs have in the West (here’s the source, before you make a little jab about it: http://mmodata.net/) doesn’t matter if everyone thinks Darkfall is the market leader, but the fact is, perception is irrelevant compared to facts.
And: explain to me how bringing funding in doesn’t drive the genre forward? Just because WoW “hasn’t innovated” directly (it has, people are just too ignorant to realise it) doesn’t mean it can’t indirectly but positively drive the genre forward.
Great. Sources. Fun.
Are you seriously arguing with me that Blizzard is somehow NOT the leader in the MMO marketplace? Subscription numbers or not, it is a known fact that they are. I have already stated subscription numbers mean little because it’s already a known fact. You’re preaching to the choir…
As far as I’m concerned, you are the one throwing a hissy fit here. Numbers mean nothing when discussing known facts. Did you previously even know iTunes owned exactly 70% of the market share or was that an assumption made by you to back your claim that numbers mean something in your original counter-argument? Congrats. You correctly knew iTunes was the largest of all music download sites… along with everyone else. To argue that you need numbers (as you did in your original post) to prove common knowledge is idiotic.
I quote my above post: “Without proper evidence, you claim something like this because it is a widely known fact… Not because you have numbers to back up your claim.”
**Now I know you will say, “I knew this before hand…” and all that jazz but bologna! You made the statement prior to having any real evidence; just the common knowledge that it was true. Well, no duh!**
As far as claiming, “It’s simply a delusion people have constructed that, because they’re the biggest, they have some OBLIGATION to keep the genre moving when, in fact, they’ve already moved it along leaps and bounds by allowing funding to go to many other MMO ventures that, previously, wouldn’t have even made it to the drawing board.”
Really? Think bout this for a second. Do you hold politicians to higher standards than the general population… Even if you didn’t vote for them? They are encouraged to perform and act in a specific manner simply because they influence a large populous of people. If one is caught in any “wrong doing” they are typically removed from office and/or reprimanded for their actions. Now, even if the action is technically legal, these politicians still face scrutiny for their actions. Why? Because they are largely responsible to the well-being and future of their citizens. As such, they are obligated to set a proper example for those that look up to them.
Despite the obvious fact that these politicians accept this responsibility when they are sworn into office (which I will admit Blizzard never signed up for any of this), how is this any different? Is Blizzard perfoming any “illegal” actions (remember politician reference) by allowing the genre to remain stale and unimaginative for so long? That’s debatable. Nonetheless, it is an obligation placed upon them to help prevent this. However, to date they have done nothing but foster bad gaming behavior and unimaginative game design.
Is it fair to place this on them? Probably not. But it’s just how it is.
“Great. Sources. Fun.” You asked for them. I gave you them; don’t somehow try and turn this into me going off on a a tangent.
Direct quotes from you:
“you speak in generalities”
“Without proper evidence”
“For all we know, the Zune Marketplace can be the largest music download program”
There, see, I’ve addressed all of those *and* proved that perception doesn’t matter if the market share is so low. “What DOES qualify them as that, is that they are unequivocally looked upon by their peers as the prototypical mold of the genre.” It’s just not true. It doesn’t matter what people think, that’s just a side effect of them having a huge market share. Market share is what defines people as the market leader, not perception; perception that they are the market leader comes from the fact that they have the largest market share.
Is that clear enough for you?
“To argue that you need numbers (as you did in your original post) to prove common knowledge is idiotic.”
Apologies for wanting to argue a point on a factual point. As I suggested earlier, perhaps in your world numbers don’t actually matter, it’s just what people think. Everyone knows McDonald’s is crap, right? And if everyone knows that, it must only be both stupid AND poor people who go there, right? There’s no way it’s as big as it’s claimed.
“Do you hold politicians to higher standards than the general population…” Not really, actually, because it’s only severe breaches of trust while in office that bother me (like, say, taking bribes and fiddling parliamentary allowances.) There’s a case going on here in Britain, where, I believe it was some time ago now, one of our ministers deflected a speeding ticket off himself. People do that all the time, but now they’re calling in a huge criminal investigation squad. Do I care? Not at all. I’d much rather they dismissed all the MPs who were fiddling their expenses, not the ones who have minor speeding offences.
And again, you us the tired old argument that Blizzard have done nothing. There’s a great many things I could list that they’ve actually innovated or changed to be so much better than all the rest, but frankly there’s quite a few and I’d like to go give EVE another shot to impress me.
It is not Blizzard’s fault that the idiotic devs around them can only produce shoddy knock-offs of WoW. That’s where the innovation should come from. Go rant at them for being unimaginative cretins (particularly Trion) but don’t rant at Blizzard for producing the game to beat.
There’s something interesting about WoW. My two brothers and I played EverQuest way before WoW. We were waiting for a good substitute (which never arrived) we tried WoW we didn’t like it. The funny thing is that my two OTHER brothers who are not into gaming got hooked with their children and wives. Also, my brothers who enjoyed EQ their children were hooked with WoW. We, the people who played MMORPGs a decade before they did are not playing WoW.
I’ve noticed a lot non-gamers played WoW for a long time. All my friends who are not known to be gamers played WoW. Where the real gamers, hardcore or casual, they never liked WoW. I played WoW for awhile just because my friends were playing it. My non-gaming friends. But if it wasn’t for my friends I would have never touched it. It was never an MMORPG for me since day one and I don’t see anything changed in it (at its core) now to be honest.
Losing 600,000 subscribers is nothing. WoW is a successful MMORPG money wise. It’s over, it’s done. It’s successful. Nothing can erase that. Even if it shuts down tomorrow, WoW will remain the most successful MMORPG (money wise). No one can ever say “Ha! See, I told you it will fail!” because that’s not true. Unfortunately, it is not true. WoW aimed for the non-gaming, mainstream audience. It created an audience for something that didn’t exist. It hijacked our genre and openned it up to the masses. House wives, kids, average joes who have no interest in games or role playing.
That is the secret behind WoW success. It is the McDonnalds of restaurants, the Britney Spears of music. It did what it was supposed to do.. make money. But for us real fans of the genre. My brothers and I who ARE MMORPG players…. we were disappointed.
I think that’s it. Well said!
Agree entirely, just quit WOW and will not be going back, Cata raids are harder than WOTLK but nothing compared to the EQ days of 74 man raids and 8 clerics trying to keep the tank up up with a Complete Heal chain. WOW is not deserving of the serious raiders time, played most of the MMORPG’s since 1999 and I only have real affection for EQ.
If only SOE would create a classic EQ sever up to Luclin or Planes of Power I would happily stay on there forever.
As it is, us veterans wait for the next step forward in the genre.
RIFT NOW HAS A 7 DAY FREE TRIAL. IT IS AMAZING!
I agree with what you say about the game, to me they got rid of so many of these things that made no sense in gameplay terms, but in making their “game” cleaner they made the real point of the MMO worse and worse.
As for the deathknell I don’t think it has to be, but the real big problem Ghostcrawler has with WoW IS that it is the 800lb gorrilla in the room. A smaller MMO could take a chance and go for something radically new, but would any sane CEO do that with something that has 11 million players?
Personally I think things won’t collapse there, but they will be constrained by that fear of losing what they have in the speed they can fix things (assuming they understand their problem).
Funny where this leaves Rift though, a game that has slavishly copied so much of WoW now has to share exactly the same problem, but with a far smaller userbase. We will see, but I have a hunch that there is a heck of a lot of churn now in their free trial and a lot of people scratching their heads trying to work out whats wrong, afterall they copied the winning formulae and implemented it well enough…
One thing though I disagree with is that MMO’s are dead, the idea of an MMO is still great, but these simple loot games that call themselves MMO’s are.
Any of the existing MMO’s can become a pure real world simulation+game like an MMO is supposed to be, they all have the persistent world implemented, they just need someone with the imagination to make that world come to life.
I’ve wondered about that, actually… do they lack imagination and vision, or are they just risk-intolerant, in part because these things are stupidly expensive to create and maintain and someone else holds the pursestrings?
…maybe it’s a bit of both, but I do think that good game devs dream far bigger than they can actually produce, simply because of real world limitations.
WoW was my first MMO. WoW will most likely be my last MMO. At one point in time, players did feel connected to the world. That was back in vanilla and TBC days. The game was not perfect, but it was fun and had a certain charm and appeal, especially to people like me who had never played an MMO before. Maybe that’s just me looking through rose-colored glasses, but I can’t deny my experiences then versus my experiences now.
As the years wore on, WoW eventually became a revolving loot wheel. What is the point of playing at end-game if the only reward is gear that will be easily replaced when the next expansion comes out? Add on top of that the perpetually unbalanced PvP where one or two classes/specs/arena combos dominate every expansion, and that leaves very little to do.
Exploration is not rewarded because every area in WoW has a purpose now. That might sound strange, but back in the Vanilla days there were lots of areas that were unused or were intended to be used for future stuff that you could access that didn’t necessarily have anything to do with questing, but may have had an NPC with some flavor text or even *gasp* a world treasure chest you could open. None of that stuff ever made a huge impact on the world, but it was fun (certainly a lot more fun that fishing). Blizzard has taken that fun exploration aspect out of the game. Because questing is “streamlined” (read: mindless), each zone’s questlines take you through nearly every area of the zone, leaving nothing to explore on your own that is of interest.
I’ve said before that they set a precedent of difficulty with Wrath that they can’t go back from. Toning the difficultly way down, then turning it way back up in Cataclysm could only have one result. I am not going to say one way is the right way or wrong way, but Blizzard needs to pick one game and stick with it.
I didn’t even bother buying Cataclysm, and it’s highly unlikely I’ll ever play WoW again. I have played two free 10-day trials and it has not compelled me to pick it up. It just seems like a mess of a game anymore. And if your stats or achievements or gear or enchants or whatever aren’t “the right way” then you’re a baddie and a noob and whatever else.
I for one quit WoW for RIFT, and even though I may not think the graphics are as sparkly and shiny as wow I love the game so much more. Blizzard spent to much time catering to the casuals and now most of their better more devoted players are leaving as a result. I have been unsuccessful to get most of my rl friends to come to WoW with me though, due to the time they got invested or the other players they’re friends with. The problem imo is blizzard knows this as well and so therefore aren’t worried about the steaming pile of dung they layed with Cata. I just put it to said friends that tell me that like this… if they want to keep sucking blizzard’s titty in the hopes that the milk will taste a little bit less sour the next or future patches they can go ahead, I for one aren’t going to keep investing time in a game I’m unsatisfied with to not lose all the precious time I spent playing the game. I’m thankful WoW kept me entertained all those years but am not going to hope the game will get better when the simple fact is it will never be once it once was. The reason it won’t is because as blizzard keeps catering to baddies they’ll just keep losing more and more good players and so as a result a lot of the things players are frustrated with now are just going to keep getting worse. It’ll take a while, but WoW is already on the downward slope towards it’s eventual death.
Oddly, I went to Rift for exactly the opposite reason. 🙂
It seems you’re correct!
http://www.gametrics.com/
Sorry for language confusion. The list at right top of the site shows gaming revenue(?)(how much time people spent playing what games) in PC gaming cafe, South Korea. Currently, Aion(아이온) keeps #1 while WoW(월드 오브 워크래프트) has 8th place with 3.66% for now.
Actually, WoW had unbeatable #1 rank on that table in 2009-2010 which was why NC soft trying to copy the game mechanics with more more grinding in Aion. Yet, WoW began to lose its rank, sharply, after Cataclysm release. Although this table cannot reveal true number of valid subscriptions by excluding home PC player(along with gold farmers), regarding Korean gaming culture, it reflects what happened on subscription base quite well. At least in Korea.
I just found this article today. I had several reasons for leaving, but the bigggest one was I thought they made the game too hard. I know that was the plan, but I felt they took it too far. I was a healer, so queue times weren’t long for me, but the cata heroics took too long to get done because they were so difficult, if you got them done at all. A lot of the groups were fail. Everyone said go with your guild, but if it was that simple, the random dungeon finder would not have been created in the first place—it was difficult to get 5 people together on your server, even in your own guild. Ultimately, I just didn’t have enough time.
I had a problem with the direction on the Forsaken’s story. I loved Sylvanas Windrunner. She was one of my favorite npc’s in the game, but I feel Blizard has betrayed her character in Cataclysm. I dislike the forsaken now, and anyone will tell you, if you dislike a race, you won’t play it.
Statements such as “In the end, it seems Blizzard forgot what MMOs were supposed to be about and could be about” are really ignorant. Wow is a game just like any other. It is made how they wanted to make it. An MMO isn’t supposed to be a “certain way”. I feel that statements such as these are made by people who played EverQuest but are now angry that Wow basically killed what Everquest used to be. While I actually agree with you on what you think a good and fun mmo should have, doesn’t mean they should all be like that. There is actually a game called Shards of Dalaya that is old world EverQuest Essentially. It is a Donations based game and has everything you just stated you enjoy in mmos, So why not check it that game out.
I have a strong feeling that the primary reasons people are leaving WoW are three-fold:
1. Age
2. Not enough content. BC introduced dailies that kept people logging on. WotLK brought about a whole new achievement system that brought about a whole new way to play. Cataclysm had nothing new and groundbreaking.
3. End game is actually too hard rather than too easy. Sure leveling might be easy, but majority of players are not actually looking for a real challenge (combat-wise) during leveling. The truth is, hard games in general are a niche market.
Logically, you should look at it this way. For everyone of those 600K+ subscribers that left cataclysm, they each left a short list of reasons for why they decided to unsubscribe. It’s pretty clear that most of them were not complaining that it was too easy, seeing as how they are actually nerfing all their dungeons and raids heavily for the next patch.
I hope im allowed to say something here. At the official forum i was mistreated by quite some people that seem to have nothing better to do than badmouth anyone that comes along with criticism (i saw other ppl with critics were treated the same way by forum ‘campers’). That’s 1 grievance i have and blizzard doesn’t seem to care. They just closed my topic(s)
I made suggestions on how to improve the game. Cause its getting really boring to grind yet another 20000 mobs to get exalted@sillyname, or hope for hyacinth macaw to drop. Its also utterly frustrating that the chars are made are virtually raped every time blizzard thinks a patch is needed. They don’t seem to understand that they are my toons, i pay for them (yes legally they can do what they want). There’s a patch now, that’s y i went out there to look, but what the f are they patching? I made numerous tickets about bugs whenever they fix one, ten more spawn. The patching comes down to an attempt to ‘balance’ classes (!?) but don’t they understand that this can never be balanced? Fi, pvp is totally different than pve, yet they want the classes to be ‘balanced’, Its like a barber at a cooking contest, or vice versa. It cant be balanced. But tomorrow i have to check the talent trees and gear and check dps and rotation of all my lvl 85’s, which will take weeks to get used to and the patch b4 this one isnt even 2 months ago…
Im getting so sick of it.
I made suggestions that it shouldnt be about fighting all the time. That u have all these players and it is, or should be a virtual world. An example i gave; Make poker tables in Inns… u could raise with your gold and win some. And what are inns for neway?
They dont seem to understand and they dont even listen.
Instead u get a panther cub if u do what they want u to do. But i dont want to do what blizzard wants me to do. I friggin PAY for this.
Oh yea, maybe they did pick up, cause they made a quest on Hiyal where your knowledge is tested. “Do rivers flow upstream?”Y/N. They have about 20 of those in the random pool. Im not retarded Blizzard.
And there is 1 problem. Im 50 and i meet plenty of 13 year olds playing this. They want all of us to do the same content. That doesnt work blizzard. Its not the 80ies or 90ies nemore where there was – on average- a specific kind of players. This is 2011, everyone is connected.
And oh those dreadfull cinematics they added, a crime it is! Once, ok, i press escape within 2 seconds cause i dont care for their childish animations and storyline. But ffs i have put 9 85’s through there now and im sick of it u hear!?
There are many many things wrong about tis game. I could go on for days. WTF am i still playing it?
Oh yea.. i had no life to begin with
But there must be better ways to waste my time.
I think ill be exit wow soon, when i reached my personal goals. And then ill spend all my gold on all sorts of rare mounts and companions, so there is nothing to hack when im gone, cause that stinks too Blizzard.
Ahhh where to begin.
Well first the game is going to get easy period. You learn the mob and where to stand its a cake walk.
Leveling…. Its a grind.
The story line to me was the only thing interesting. But Cata was lacking huge.
Was cata hard? Hardly, first week I was finish main content and finished all dungeons on heroic. Was it easy? Yes it was, all the best players I was running with on these first times through after the first month when the less experienced players made it to the hard modes it was tough. But I as a tank pally was able to pull through most players to finish the dungeon because I was a hybrid tank. But blizzard killed that. That is the reason why I left.
The pally hybrid were great to play, could nicely off set for a player that was not quite as good as they should be.
A couple weeks in they hot fixed WOG to remove aggro so we would stop using it. Some did, but us really good hybrids adapted and still continued to use it. Then 4.1 came along and nerfed it all to hell. Making PvP as a pally tank useless as well in the process.
This to me blizzard is saying “We don’t like how you people are playing, you have to play the game our way.” You know what I said to that? Take your game and shove it, I play a game to have fun and do what I want to do. I am not some npc you can control. So I cancel my subscription and deleted my wow account.
No game is hard when you finally understand its mechanics, people bitching that TBC was better because it was hard. I really have to laugh at them, it was easy too. Vanilla was just as easy.
So for me story line and introduction of new features are very nice,
WoTLK had both so did TBC. What did Cata have? Nothing at all, bad story, no new features and archaeology has to be the worst profession ever. All archaeology is a ring on ring on ring grind fest.
I think the problem is Activision, Activision since its early days should have died as a game company. But they played the odds game, they are the pump out as many games as possible company without putting much work into it. Activision is a leech video game company. They sign deals based on other peoples IP in hopes they can turn a profit even though the game might be bad. So I can probably safely say they had pressured blizzard section into pumping out a piece of garbage fast.
Everything in Activisions history has turned to crap. They are a publishing company that is geared to their share holders. Share holders are short sighted and only view the world in short term profits.
So until Vivndi dumps Activision I most likely wont buy another blizzard game, why? Because they most likely will be crap. Craptvision will always push out crap games.
And now… 300K more lost in Q2. And since Morhaime said China accounts went up, that means they lost even more in the high value markets.
Pull up, pilot, pull up!
Another month to go for the q3 numbers, but I suspect they are going to be bad. US/Europe certainly will be, china it is hard to get anecdotal anything on but what I have read is that the 25/10 lockout issue is a problem there as well. Should be possible to extrapolate rough US/Europe losses from non-deferred revenues, though.
Whether blizzard gets the message or not, I think their hands are tied on how they respond. The ‘Accessibility’ theology demands easier content, and even the non-85 game is as easy as it is possible to imagine it, they will probably find some more ways to further implement the grand design of a game every living human can play and succeed at. More seriously, the current playerbase won’t react well at all to any ratcheting up of difficulty (see the reaction to 5-man heroic tuning in january)
They’re trying to respond with the new LFR. Judging from the noises coming from the PTR, it’s going to be a major fiasco. I’m glad they’re trying it out in 4.3 so they can abandon the idea before the next expansion.
BTW, I’m expecting a final blog entry over at us.battle.net: “Wow, keeping your job is hard!”
And yes, Q3 was bad. Revenue makes it look like they lost maybe 300K in non-China, 500K in China. The loss in China after the Cata release there confirms the failure of the expansion and the design philosophy behind it.
Looking forward, I don’t see this trend abating. It feels like they’ve cut back on investment in the game, probably because they were thinking it was going into decline, and this has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Activity continues to deflate on warcraftrealms. There is very little buzz about the upcoming final raid tier, or the upcoming expansion. What there is sounds like people trying to convince themselves they will be good.
If they had continued with the accessibility of Wrath in Cata, I don’t think things would be nearly as dire. Why did they change? Did they honestly think harder would make them more money? Or did they talk themselves into that because content was so sparse they had to make it harder to try to stretch it out? Swerving back now to easy is not really going to solve things, since they’ve “baked in” changes (like proc-based dps rotations and mana-starved healing) that make the game inherently less forgiving of poor play.
Oh well. “If it’s not broken, fix it until it is” is not the best method of maintaining MMO dominance.
I read through a good portion of the comments and no one said what was on my mind when I read about the loss of subs: “Good.” I don’t think WoW is dying. I don’t think this is the beginning of the end. I have been playing this game for 5+ years, and while the stereotypical insult at this point in these arguments (while simultaneously disregarding what I have to say) is “oh it’s just another fanboy,” I simply consider myself a fan. If something better comes along, I will play it. I have tried the other MMOs that have come out, and only really got into DC Universe, but it isn’t a “hardcore” enough game to be rewarding for me. What I mean by that is, you can get to max level very quickly, and there really isn’t much else to do but level again and try another set of powers. It’s kind of funny dogging WoW for being so easy, when other games are a lot easier and shorter. But now back to my main point and off my tangent, I still enjoy WoW. Whatever the actual number happens to be, 11 million or whatever other people still do too. They still find something redeeming in the game to continue to play it. For me, that is raiding. I still like logging on a couple times a week and doing something mildly challenging and fun with a good group of people who have a great time playing the game. So when I see how unhappy everyone is with the game, all the flaws pointed out, and how they are quitting, I just say, “good.” I am glad. The game is overcrowded and full of douchebags with no manners or social skills anymore, as many of you have pointed out with the addition of the dungeon finder and such, so I get happy when I see 600k people stopped paying for their sub. Hopefully it is some of the bad mannered lazy douchebags, some of the elitists complaining how easy the game is in trade all day, or the veterans saying it isn’t as good as it once was, so that I can play a less populated game with more like-minded people who still find something about it they enjoy.
Good article.
We all have our favourite times in WOW, before some change came along and ruined it for us.
I think Blizz would do well to have servers at different patch levels. How great would it be to have a server that was at vanilla, just before BC? Or BC just before WOTLK? New players could experience WOW the way some of us did years ago. Players who don’t like the current expansion could play content they like, the way it was supposed to be. Players could play their classes the way they were before they were gimped. There would be money to be made in server transfers as people moved around to play content in different ways.
On this line of thinking, if Netease finds a similar response to cat. as the western world gave to blizzard, would they ask blizzard to be allowed to run 3.3.5 servers, or to run from 3.0.2 and incrementally upgrade the main version from time to time? It would have to be an obvious approach to them. I can only assume we would never know because blizzard would say no.
Wow! All the Eclessiatical comments. WoW is a virtual litmus test of the real world. As a new solo player, WoW was by far the most awesome game I ever played ( and I’ve played em all since Space Invaders). And, like real life, some are more inclined to be humane will many are just out for themselves. I have enjoyed very fun community in WoW, but more often than not, short lived because of conflicts with speed demons or retards ( according to my perceptions). And, after all, that’s where most conflicts come from; speed of processing and communicating. Maybe if Blizzard cared about the prosperity of our gaming world more than their profits….oh wait, Blizzard is in a business for profit? Oh yeah, well, that figures. But I’d have to say it has been disappointing to see certain forms of plunder, just like the real world: Gfarmers from developing countries, Gdkp’s gutting slower less apt players, super-smart hackers, etc. So how to adapt in a virtual world let alone the real one? Make your own community of like minded people. Perhaps casual versus “hard-core” servers themselves. Or allowing free server transfer for those who have rotating schedules. Or maybe a Battle.net tool similar to http://www.wowprogress.com. Tools to help people find thier best fit. Well, I’ve adapted just by playing less, way less of wow, and more of other games. Yeah it’s sad, been it has been a great ride. Thanks Blizz and also no thanks, unless you can see that the prosperity of your virtual community is not like the attitude of plunder that you ended up valuing or should I say- devaluing? But then again, I guess that would be relative.
Firstly i have to say this is a great thread, well written and great replies.. im so used to reading forums where people come up with rubbish comments but all are valid and put across well..
i thought id add my comment, partly as a vent to my frustrations with the game but as 1 voice in 600,000. i apologise in advance if its a massive ramble but i kind of want to get stuff off my chest..
i never liked role play games until i played elder scrolls on xbox360.. i was then introduced to WOW and instantly fell in love with it.. initially for me it was the sheer numbers of people levelling. i felt this massive sense of mateship and helping people out even from opposing factions.. i was invited into a guild by the guy at work (he was level 50 at the time) and instantly i found new friends.. helping me level, finding things out. got dungeon runs (i remember with great fondness deadmines) with people that must have laughed (but refrained from doing so) at my inept warrior playing but hey it was learning… basically i was addicted i couldnt stop playing…
to cut out the middle ground.. i enjoyed playing through BC and lich – during lich i had a child and real life came in… i continued playing but couldnt give the time.. although i could kick butt in dungeons my lack of playing meant not getting raid spots in the guild i was in (which to a degree was fair enough).. the lull kicked in pre cata. when cata came out i was on as soon as the servers went live, creating a worgen along with 100’s of others running around, i felt the lifeline of wow kick in again levelling.. but i still had my 80 warrior to get to the end so i swapped back to him.. the problem i had is i ran through 5 levels quickly without any dungeons.. i then found i couldnt do BRC (or the other one) as too high spec, but had no experience with the new format.. my child at this point was demanding more time and therefore i couldnt play as much.. and this is where it ended for me.. i understand the dungeons are a lot harder with more teamplay (like a mini raid) and i simply couldnt get the time to do it so i could forget about raids.. i was also confused with the ever changing specs and stats/buffs of characters.. my warrior kicked ass, then didnt, then kind of did again and i had no idea whether a fury warrior was ever wanted in a raid.. i was getting the impression i wasnt.. i had friends too that were warrior tanks, 1 of which was being paid to run end game raids due to his experience and commitment. he quit the game with his opinions.. i think what i jumped onto was giving up because of other people giving up.. i wasnt enjoying it anyway and sometimes would log on to check mail then had nothing to get excited about and logged off.. friends in the guild quit the game and the game that held my interest for so long, had slipped from my interest… its a real shame for me.. it was part of my life, whether right or wrong it was my hobby and i started hating it.. i tried creating a new level 1 character but with no-one in the old world quickly realised that levelling is just a massive grind, no wonder people would consider paying levellers..
i think blizz should have either giving it that much of an add on to level to 100 and extend the whole levelling experience again and make it longer time to get to 100 or just knock wow on the head and just add raids. no more levelling to keep existing die hards.. i still find it funny seeing the $2 disc to start playing wow.. i would be disappointed but maybe people are still starting brand new.
i tried RIFT too and got the vibe back of levelling but… it aint wow, although i wish it every success.
there was lot to love about wow and lot to hate about wow but im not sure blizz really know what they want.
sorry about the massive sob story, my quitting of wow prompted their question why which i replied “bored, lack of time i cant commit to the time needed”… would be nice to get some form of reply.. ive never received an email from blizz.. although every week i get 4 or 5 phishing emails from pretend blizz.. their legacy lives on
So my 2 cents on this issue is this: Blizzard does not want to hear from us, they do not want to implement changes we ask for . If the old forums were up you could see posts there form people like Ghostcrawler and others that tell people to learn to play, when they were complaining about mechanics or game play. In fact, whenever there was a thread that was active with many replies on something like says Guild Halls, they would reply(amazing I know) and say that it wasn’t “their idea of the game”. They have repeatedly demonstrated to everyone that they have their own ideas of what they will and will not do with wow regardless of what their paying customers ask for. They after all need to maintain their integrity and not bow down to the “kids” they cater to. That’s how they see us all, younger or older, we’re just kids and they know what’s best…….even when a lot of people say things like “pvp and pve need to be seperate” which has been said a lot. And pointed out that you can’t have different stats for pve and pvp (resilience), mix it in with opposite talent requirements for pve and expect it to work, it won’t, hasn’t yet, not gonna so drop it. But they have their idea of the game right? Well they might have maintained face by not giving the paying customers what they want or ask for, but they are paying for it and will continue to do so until they learn the biggest lesson any business that is operating and making a profit has to learn……your customers matter and what they think and say is important.
Another issue is the lack of accountability in the community. They utterly refuse to have live GM’s in game, (another request made long ago) with every excuse you can think of from it’s not cost efficient to they can’t find qualified people. If that’s truly the case then why not implement a system where the community itself maintains things like this… a council that votes on someone’s bad behavior in trade chat for example and they decide if that person is banned or what not…oh wait we know the answer to this already don’t we? It’s not their idea of the game.
I say good riddance to a very poor leadership team, very poor customer service and what they will get and are just starting to see in drops in their monthly cash flow is well deserved.
If you do the math on the loss of subs they’ve had so far they have lost around $4 million a month….but they don’t care about that, right? I’ve read other posts that say “they won’t even blink at that”. Well all I can say is that any business that thinks $4 million a month is nothing is so well off they really don’t need to be dealing with people at all, if they don’t need our money, why give it to them?
More like $15 million per month.
This sentence in your article just jumped out at me: ‘…foundational elements like exploration, socialization, community, role-playing and player freedom….’
I’m probably one of a very significant proportion of WoW players – casual. I’m an adult, with a professional career, and have a life outside my laptop that demands a good deal of my time and energy. I started playing WoW because my kids did, a nice way to connect to their world in a ‘cool’ manner (and to be sure it was a safe place for them, as well, but don’t tell them that). I continued to play WoW because at the end of a busy day it was a good way to unwind, relax, chat with people – some of whom have become more than ersatz friends – and just kick around the neighbourhood having a bit of fun. I once, for the hell of it, at about level 17, swam around the entire circumference of Kalimdor, just sightseeing. Exploring. Killing monsters and taking their stuff was secondary. Raids? Never been on one outside a holiday event. Battlegrounds, kinda fun, but too chaotic and sometimes bad-tempered for my liking. Random dungeons were quite often a good place to have some fun and meet interesting people, and I had regular mates I teamed up with to go questing. I didn’t care about reaching any particular level, or ‘achieving’ anything – I just wanted to go out into a big virtual playground and be an overgrown kid playing with my friends. It’s really that simple.
Four years later, and without being able to articulate exactly why – being just a casual player – I’m bored. The guild I used to like is down to about three people these days, most of whom are die-hard raiders and speak to each other in a sort of gibberish I can barely follow. There are so many level 85’s running about that the ‘goal’ of leveling has been watered down too far to be impressed any longer – worse, there are fewer and fewer lower level players to actual, well, play with. I don’t know what the hell anyone was thinking when they introduced that stupid ‘movie’ type thing, where you’re trapped in a long narrative and can do nothing to get out of it but wait, and passively watch. What was the point??
I don’t care about the overarching story. I just want to be able to
explore, socialize with people, feel like part of a casual community, and have the freedom to play my own role the way I want, not locked into a linear framework like cattle herded down chutes.
After a four month hiatus, one of my WoW playing friends emailed me, saying vanilla now had BC tossed in for free. So a week ago, I bought a month’s sub to give it a try. Fun for about three days, now I’m bored again. At level 60-ish, I can take on four or five baddies two levels above me and kick their non-existent arses – what challenge is there in that? I can join a guild that will let me level ever faster. What fun is that? Worse, it seems they’ve dumbed down the game to appeal to a far younger set, and in doing so, my teenaged boys are bored, bored, bored, bored, bored. (Which I’m not too displeased with, to be honest, I’d rather they did something more productive with their time anyway).
Blizzard likely doesn’t give a damn, a 600k exodus is a drop in the buck of their mega revenue. But I, and a good many of my WoW mates, are actively looking around for something else to play. At the moment, Blizzard has it pretty well sewn up; there’s not much else in competition. But I suspect that the moment some smart cookie figures out the formula isn’t just a matter slick graphics or dumbing it down to a lowest common denominator, or constantly coming out with ‘New! Improved!’ expansions, but concentrating on building a solid world with the underlying reasons people don’t just come to play, but STAY to play, is exactly what was pinpointed here – exploration, community, socialization, and player freedom – Blizzard will see a mass exodus out of WoW.
At the end of this month, it will be 600,001 players quit, because while I’ve enjoyed my toons, and had some good times with nice people… I’m just too bored to bother with it anymore. I’ve gotten more enjoyment out playing far less slick games and puzzles off Engineering.com than I have in Azeroth lately.
But thanks for a coherent and intelligent article I fear Blizzard employees are never going to read. And if anyone finds an alternative game that could give Azeroth a run for the money… let me know.
I enjoyed your article, and I very much agree, although I come from a different perspective of it. I also, at the time of Cata’s release, said it would be their undoing. Not necessarily for my own personal reasons, but for the overall mismanagement of the release and the attitudes of the developers in general.
I started playing mmos, as healer only, with a little rinky-dink, simplistic F2P mmo. Simplistic but still very difficult in it’s own way. Every monster aggroed and they hit hard, and you didn’t get your first aoe healing spell until level 40, so it was single healing most of the way. Buffs, most of which were given out by the healers, lasted 3 mins and they mattered. Without them, the party would die quickly. I learned to manage buffs in between heals, anticipate dmg, and move fast, sometimes even allowing certain party members to die in order to save the rest if things went that bad, although I hated for that to happen. I took pride in no one dying in my groups. I did all that, and I still threw in attacks when I could. 😛 It was great fun.
Then I came to wow in October of 2009. Healing in it was easy compared to my former experience, but the was so much more depth and versatility. I joined a lot of LFG groups as healer, but I was never bored because, even if they didn’t need healing, I supported them with attacks. Over the course of the next year, I also tried many other specs in order to increase my healing skill. In order to heal a class efficiently, it’s better to know how they work. So I tried Rogue, Warrior, Mage, and Hunter. Out of the 4, I quickly dropped Rogue and Warrior. I disliked how they played. I played mage to level 20, but deleted it at that point. In the end, I only kept the hunter, and liked her alright.
But although I started out primarily doing quests and healing in LFGs on a Disc Priest, I quickly changed my focus when I discovered the Paladin. Ret Paladin to be more precise. The lore and the sword wielding really appealed to me, so I tried it with a true interest. The first week, I couldn’t stop playing… and it stayed that way. I never took her in any dungeons, I just soloed quests and explored the countryside… and I LOVED it. I grew very, very attached to her. I spent hours upon hours and gold and whatnot specing her and testing it out to get her at a place I wanted. I did very little research for this; I wanted to discover and explore all this on my own. I DID think that her skills could use a little work, but I always saw potential in them, a depth that hadn’t been tapped out yet. I had no idea about any stigma with paladins, or debates on “easy-ness” or anything of that nature, and I didn’t, wouldn’t, and still do not care. She was FUN, the best fun I ever had.
When I reached level 60, I didn’t wait very long before I went and bought Burning Crusade. I wasn’t really finished exploring the new lands when I went ahead and got Lich King so that she could continue leveling. I got as far as level 71 when pre-cata hit.
For me, it was complete shock. I barely even got wind that Pallies were changing at all, and even when I did, it never occurred to me that they would make changes outside of the established paladin mechanics. Overnight, my beloved Pally didn’t exist. I took the blow like I would if I lost a pet, and I’m still mad about it (although less so with time) to this day.
The day pre-cata came out was really the day wow lost me as a customer, it just took a little time for reality to catch up. I stormed to the forums, a place I barely knew existed previously, where I was called all sorts of names, wrath baby, FOTM, and whatnot by people who didn’t know a single thing about me… but I stuck to my guns. I didn’t really care what they thought, only what the devs thought… and I figured that out soon enough with GC’s statements. Although I tried hard to give him the benefit of the doubt, I could only come to the conclusion that he was as much “elitist jerk” as many of the forum goers.
I stopped playing a little while, came back and had just started settling into playing Priest again, when the healing changes hit. I had no desire to sit on my thumbs conserving mana. Between that, the ridiculously easy and fast questing, and the attitude from the devs, I was done. I left, and as yet have no desire to come back. And, although maybe not so many people left for my reasons, I saw enough of the explosion of anger on the forums to see the mess the devs had created for themselves. One person even made a “joke” about setting GC on fire (he was promptly banned). So no, I am not shocked by this decline. If there was somewhere else to go, I think it would have been bigger.
A couple of months after my cancellation, something did come along by the name of Rift, and people did leave. I tried it, and I’m still subscribed, but it’s only been marginally better than wow. At least I get to make my own melee healer. But now, I’m far more interested in FFXIV, which I have played since launch, and unlike WoW, I’m keeping informed about everything. I like the game, most of the direction they are taking it, and most of all, the communication between the dev team and the players. I still to this day, however, have not been able to form a close emotional attachment to my characters. Fool me once, shame on you… but really, it’s not a good thing. Emotional attachment would have kept me playing WoW for years to come. FFXIV is shaping up to have that depth you are talking about, although it will still be years before it is completely realized. Maybe in that time, I will come to trust the devs enough to love my characters again.
The best (or maybe worst) part of it is, most of the things I said about holy power are now being complained about all over again on the forums (I still read them on occasion). I, and a host of other likeminded people, just got the shaft because I knew my mind instantly instead of months later. GC and co, really, made a host of changes for no real good reason, and failed to add any kind of depth to the game exactly as you described. Pick a direction, and keep it. Build on it, don’t yank it to pieces. I see WoW like a big Jenga tower, about to topple for having so much of it’s foundation pulled apart. If I hadn’t liked what was there when I started, I wouldn’t have kept playing in the first place, and I wouldn’t have invested (and lost) so much time and money, and emotional attachment.
I loved WotLK because got to try Heroics with my alt(s). I was perfectly happy doing the 5 mans with an alt and raiding with my main. I never got to try the Lich King and I hope I will be able to give it a go when I return.
Regarding, Cata, it Sounds like I may not like it very much.
I have been gone from WoW for more than a year. I hope I can get back into it.
Every empire rises and descents. Maybe blizzard want her game to fall down in order to work on their next aim. Also Blizzard was quite smaller company than it was 7 years ago. It’s natural for a company with such success to suffer personality changes. Take for example Google, Microsoft, Blizzard, apple, whenever money is involving, greed is coming. To conclude I think the are constructing a base where people will join and play for few hours per week for the non-hardcore players.
I realize I’m late to this party, but I thought I’d put my two cents in. I’m not an expert, this is just an average player’s opinion.
Like NetFlix, Blizz became extremely arrogant in recent years, convinced their golden touch was infallible and it was their way or the highway.
Ultimately, they’ve played their game so much, they became elitist snobs and were at a loss why beginners and casuals couldn’t play their convoluted game. Nor why the casuals didn’t have the time to spend an entire evening building up a migraine trying to finish one daily.
Ghostcrawler posted his article “WOW! Dungeons are Hard!” in January 2011 and talked about how not every Heroic is guaranteed success. Basically, telling the casuals the Heroic difficulty is supposed to be a monumental challenge and Blizz is going to cater to the minority hard core elitists.
Not surprisingly, Ghostcrawler came back a month later with a mea culpa article discussing the upcoming nerf, just 2 months after the release.
His mea culpa seem to hint at a mass exodus, the likes of which they’ve never seen. And it was well deserved, given the numbers indicated a consistent bleed off, well past the nerf.
Now on to Cata which was an abomination to start off with.
I started playing WoW in 2008 because I got tired of waiting for Blizz to release Starcraft 2 and got fatigued re-playing WarCraft 3. After signing up, I was soon addicted to the virtual WoW environment; amazed by the expansive world they’ve created.
I loved the game so much, I rolled the complete list of classes and maxed out their levels. It took a lot of time, but it was easy and fun to do given their new dungeon system.
Eventually, I got into a good guild and was able to finally get some answers and conclusion to WC3 by killing the LK.
Cata and Deathwing was announced and I was lukewarm to it. As we really had no connection to DW from previous games and their was no real emotional investment. DW was just a huge dragon to me.
Anyway, Cata was released and it was fun leveling up from the get go and running regular instances with the guild. But once we hit heroics it was a dead stop.
The difficulty of the Heroics destroyed many guilds with infighting and elitism, including mine (which existed during the vanilla days.)
WoW was no longer fun to play anymore, it was a daily chore designed to make elitists feel special. I can’t tell you how many hours were spent trying to run a single successful Heroic. Hours that no person with a job and family has time for. Plus, it effectively brought out the worst in people and made WoW so hostile and intimidating to newcomers. Who could blame them for quitting?
People can accept challenges, but Blizz’s mistake was that there was no progression. I get that they must always challenge the player otherwise they get bored, but it shouldn’t have been raid-style play in the Heroics. The Heroics are supposed to be the next phase in being raid-ready, not actual raids themselves. What Blizz did was create a model of sheer cliffs to the top, instead of a smooth incline to raid preparation.
What was done to the casuals was just plain sadistic.
In addition, their once great customer service ended up going down the toilet.
When I went to relay my concerns on the message boards about what I was witnessing, I did the cardinal sin of actually criticizing the developers. My message kept getting deleted and eventually was prohibited from posting by some pimply-faced moderator on a power trip.
Given they weren’t going to permit criticism on the boards which were DESIGNED to improve WoW and the fact that I didn’t have the time to run my alts, which Cata was very hostile to, I said that was enough and quit in late February 2011.
I was so upset with Blizz’s cavalier attitude towards my concerns that I made it a point to not buy any future Blizz products (which will hurt once SC2 expansion is released.)
And it takes a lot to get to that point, but I have to stand on principles. I spent a few years of my life on their game and bought every damn pet they had available. They should’ve shown me more courtesy.
Further, I must admit, I had a moment of schadenfreude when I saw BlizzCon 2011 on YouTube. Compared to the previous year where the same developers where getting into pissing matches with the players during Q&A. It was fun to see them very low-key and respectful to the questions this time around.
And it was a delight to see they were making amazing offers to retain WoW subscribers locked in for a year.
Reed Hastings may get the headlines for biggest business blunder of 2011, but imo, it was Mike Morhaime and Blizz. Well…technically, it should’ve been 2010.
I’ve been a player since Wrath and I’m done with the game now. Why? Because I see people joining who’ve never played before, they don’t have a clue about the game or how to play their class (timewarp before the battle even starts, or on adds) but they get to 85 inside a week, get into LFR with pvp gear then win gear they don’t know how to use. They’ve never even set foot in say tanaris or places like that.
My guild did a wrath heroic the other day – soloable by any 85, one 85 died, but today he killed deathwing in the LFR, go figure!
The game is too simple, they really do cater to the lowest common denominator of players, there should be realms with age limits, like adults only, more focus should be put on exploration and an actual experience, At the moment I’m sick of it, I’m looking for something else and taking most of my guild with me.
timewarp before the battle even starts
That’s not ignorance, it’s deliberate griefing. Like the hunters who leave Aspect of the Pack on.
I loved reading this blog/post. I am glad I am not the only one feeling the way I do, I don’t want to leave WOW I am addicted but I find myself more and more not wanting to log on for all the reasons stated above my post.
One post described it perfect for me we are only a number not a person anymore. We no longer work as a team and develope reletionships in game . You get to 85 with out knowing others on your server except the loud ones in trade chat. (The ones you don’t want to know)
Everyone is looking to join the lvl 25 guilds and when ppl leave that guild no one cares they are just a number Most of the time when I see someone GQUIT’s, I see the comment “who was that” or “no Loss”
I guess I play this game more for the social aspect but that is gone.
Leveling is much to easy and you miss the content of game- sure I can do the content still ,but why would many want to if theres no experience or challenge.
I have not made it to DS yet because I want to go as a guild not as a random, but then I see a post that during patch day this week they are going to be nerfing it to make it easier. WHy???
Many complain its to easy (the Game) when something comes along that takes a little practice and know how, others complain and it seems Blizz caves in for those ppl.
I know we can not go back to Vanilla and not sure I want to, I understand Blizz wanting to help people who can not commit to long sessions of the game so things were achieveable for those players but I think they just swung the pendulm to far in that direction.
Its all about instant gratification now a days in game and outside of game.
You all made some great points and I love the fact that no one really bashed another’s opinion.
I want a game a game similair to what WOW once was:
1) A game you learn and practice your skills as you learn them.
2) Content you can enjoy at the correct levels (not doing it all at 85 for achievements)
3) Social aspect-meet and play with others your level on your realm.
4) Challenge, bring back the use off crowd control no more going in and AOE’ing everything.
5) Professions that are good as you level them. Where you can sell what you make not vendor it. So basicly Useable crafted items at all levels. I find leveling a profession now is useless till you get to the lvl 85 items or pvp items , no one needs the lower items because they level to fast to really use them.
I know many ppl play the game for so many diffrent reasons, some of the changes mnight be good for those ppl, but it seems the vast majority still want the game to be a little more substantial, less fluff.
WOW isn’t a game its a religion, f**k Jizzard and all its fan boys and girls.
Its obvious, Blizzard wants to keep thier monopoly and they are failing on it.
And OFC for the years Blizzard keeps showing us the same stuff expansion after expansion over and over again and ofc people get bored…..
I have played WoW for years now, and today.. i still need to cap my conquest for the week.. but i have no real Will to even log on..
most of my friends have long since quit and i have just been playing for pvp for the past year now- and it seems.. i dont know the word im looking for.. but it all feels the same every battleground, every arena.. im just loseing intrest in it all together
things that would bring me back–
i would like to see a new style of pvp
where you arent fighting Just players but players with npcs in a war-like style
mabye massive groups of people 100v100 (i hope)
this sounds VERY crazy and stressful but i would like it.. somthing has never been done like this-
New idea!
your fighting other players in siege tanks or somthing in that nature!
BUT… if wow is really ending.. i would LOVE for them to make a final war sort of thing.. horde leaders vs alliance and horde players ve alliance players in a finnal battle to help with closeure with the game that we all loved for so may years.. ending.
imo wows failure is actually more simplistic.
1. Besides making the game too easy which have began with the wotlk, each expansion supposed reinvents the game and places players in a new world. However there could be a change in strategy for blizzard which focuses on monkey making rather then innovation leading to wow’s incoming decline. Therefor each expansion which is coming is done so for maximum financial profits and limited innovation (note the lack of content from each expansion after wotlk. This entire problem could have arisen from the wotlk where some time after the expansion people began to leave and blizzad had little time to create an expansion to recover the losses therefor lack luster content was created.
2. Wow is essentially at its core the same fucking thing over and over again. Therefor wow is currently reaching the decline stage of it’s product life cycle. Not only is blizzard in-able to add any meaningful new content, but it is also unable to improve the repeating process of raiding looting etc.
3. Wow feels broken, people may have a psychological emotion with the game. For example we can feel what stage the game is at and weather it is improving or in decline. Eg. The decline of subscribers during the end of cataclysm.
Old areas such as ashenvale, Azshara , barrens etc where once where activity was focused on during pre bc . This areas carry a community memory within the players and with each expansion Azeroth feels more broken as these areas are more and more out of reach of capped players. Blizzard MUST fix this problem as any expansion would just delay the core problem. Creating content with social implications is also vital. eg. Guild houses.
4.A majority of hardcore gamers are what is driving wow in decline, some hardcore detest any prospect that the game should turn a different direction leading world of warcraft to reflect their poor tastes. A good example. a pre litch king event was the 2nd scourge invasion. For many people this event was one of the best that occured in wow. Players could be zombies and infect others and everything felt like 28 weeks later. Hardcore gamers ofc had to complain about how they werent making gold or they were unable to farm mats. The event and anything similar never happened again.
5. The world of warcraft expansions cataclysm and mist of pandaria is basically trying turn crap into something that can be sold. The core of cataclysm is based on elementals, a annoying cult run by an ogre and a shitty dragon that no one really cares about. Dungeon and raid designs were fair however everything had to be focused on deathwing, a character who has no real depth in personality.Pandas….. enough said.
6.Blizzard is lazy and doesnt care about you thats why they are creating all this crap.
Besides making the game too easy
Stopped reading right there. Their problem is actually they haven’t made it easy enough. For some bizarre reason they think top players should be preferred customers, like their money is greener or something.
Well I finally joined the 600,000 player to quit WOW.
MoP had some great content,both quest and the look and feel, but sadly within 2 weeks all quest were done after another month or so I am as geared as I can get thu rep/valor and LFR without real raids. I hung around looking for raiding guilds on my time or close to my time and found nothing.
My point is basicly that blizzard takes aprox a year between expantions but the content is eaten up by us gamers in less then two month, so there is nothing to play so to speak till the next expantion.
I have deff. gotten my money’s worth out of the game and the subcription fees, I have met many great ppl. But the game is no fun when I have to log on and do the same quest each day for valour and rep that is no longer needed. It is not Blizzards fault that I can not find a raiding guild but without one I have accomplished all I can.
If a company knows they will only come out with an expantion once a year and want to make the most $$ from it- Make the content a little harder or make it take some time to complete for all players. It should not be something that players can get thru in a matter of 2 months. I know more patches are coming but its not enough anymore these will come out and within a day that content will be goobled up as well.
It is still one of best games I have played and maybe I will return in a year to see the new expantion for a month or so