This site makes extensive use of JavaScript.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser.
Live
PTR
10.2.7
PTR
10.2.6
Beta
Where did Blizzard go wrong?
Post Reply
Return to board index
Post by
dumac
Well vanilla was more or less a game for people who needed time and really could commit, the community was closed knit due people on a server had to talk and socialise to get somewhere in the game. Raiding took a lot more effort to organize and run smoothly in a guild due the 40 man/20 man number, gear was really important to this stage and if you had epics and raided you was in a minority on your server.
An example for raiding in my guild, was around 10 months in the game we was doing MC. Raid started at 1800 and lasted to 2400 at least sometimes 0200, we perhaps got one boss down after several runs.
We raided around 4-5 days a week.
And this was not even a server best guild, we was close to them but we was around 10th rank on the server. The time needed to invest was around 8-10 hours daily to get into a such a good state I could raid pro. We had no dailies, no lfd and no summoning to the instance. An instance took at least an hour to complete, many times more. The cost for raiding was not cheap, so most people in my guild was relatively poor due repairs, special gear needed, enchanting gear and potion/flask/food/other buff sources. We organized guild bank to gear up the tanks first and they got priority on loots.
Vanilla was basically something for the few who had the time to invest in it, sure you could be a noob back then. Even though most noobs would never see the higher raids due commitment needed to make it there. Vanilla was great for us who could get high up in the Game basically.
BC was really a fun expansion, they made drastic overhaul in raiding so more people was invited into that scene. They made classes who had a different specc be able to choice it. They still made the game unique enough and hard enough for people like vanilla to enjoy it well. You may not like BC, but it was defiantly a sort of peak while not being mainstream like wotlk for us raiders. I do think BC was the best expansion overall, I never was bored then I played in BC and you could have some serious fun at least on my server with strangers.
When Wotlk came, many people liked arthas so blizz saw it chance to turn the game into serious mainstream game. Now you could more or less say the game changed dramatically from that it was before. So from Wotlk World of Warcraft was reborned more or less.
I will not say it was bad, just saying I can get how people from vanilla/BC era felt some. The changes was necessary for blizz as a company to grow and we will never go back to be a new game we was in vanilla or somehow feeling that epic hero feel in BC.
I am now in Cataclysm and enjoys playing it still, will have some nostalgia over my Vanilla days and Burning Crusade days. I remember the bad stuff and the good stuff, even with the bad stuff I was generally happy to play the game and loved it.
The only thing i hated with wotlk and forward was that the social side of the game took a heavy beating. Most people I met are so self abosorbed they will not talk to me in say and if I whisper them they block you on sight. An hello can equal a slap in the face for this crowd.
Sorry for the long text and whatever spell error may occur:)
TL:DR
Vanilla was for the dedicated few.
BC was a drastic overhaul and my favorite expansion.
WOTLK was then game got mainstream, it was necessary for blizz growth.
I do enjoy the game, but miss some of the social aspect from the start.
Post by
omglaserzpewpew
I've been leveling a few toons, and as I've been blasting through Northrend I realized that I really did enjoy Wrath. There were ups and downs, but for the most part I had a good time. I believed then, as I do now, that most of my woes were a direct result of guild drama and people I knew leaving for other servers. I enjoy Cataclysm, but really I think that Wrath and Cata have taken a lot of undeserved flak over the years.
And I could never play for 8-10 hours a day for more than a few days in a row. I have a wife, a job, and other hobbies besides WoW. Yes, I enjoy a marathon gaming session from time to time, but I couldn't stand to play
that
much for an extended period of time.
Post by
Kailhun
Wow has approx 11.4 million subscribers (down from 12 million). Even though 11.4 million is less than 12 million, having 11.4 million subscribers would seem to indicate that Blizz is not doing something wrong.
I tried to find information on the number of subscribers to other MMO's. This was the most recent I could find:
* World of Warcraft – 12,000,000 (2011)
* Aion - 3,400,000 (mid 2010)
* Runescape – 1,300,000 (2009)
* Lineage – 750,000 (2009)
* Lineage II – 750,000 (2009)
* Dofus – 520,000 (mid 2010)
* Final Fantasy XI – 350,000 (mid 2010)
* Eve Online – 325,000 (2011)
* Lord of the Rings Online – 210,000 (mid 2010)
* City of Heroes/Villains - 125,000 (2009)
* Age of Conan – 120,000 (mid 2010)
* Ultima Online - 100,000 (2009)
* Everquest - 100,000 (mid 2010)
* Warhammer Online – 80,000 (2010)
To what degree these numbers are reliable is anybody's guess.
Read more:
http://www.brighthub.com/video-games/mmo/articles/35992.aspx#ixzz1Y73gg67R
Post by
836277
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
836277
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
375421
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
877949
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Azazel
Now, in the stream of bad in Wrath, they did do one thing right. Hard modes. I loved the way they did hard modes. I.E Sartharion 3D, Flame Leviathan 1-4 tower, Firefighter... deffinantly firefighter. Best hard mode ever... and Yogg 0-3 watchers. Algalon as well. When they introduced Heroic 10 man and 25 and stopped doing Hardmodes, I was angered. Main reason I also didn't like Wrath.
(Bolded for emphasis that I didn't hate wrath entirely)
Fail as well. HC dungeons were introduced in TBC, not Wrath :)
You are mistaken iala, he is talking about hardmodes, as in
raids.
Not dungeons.
Post by
lonewarrior
Sorry, OP, you fail. Before stating where something went wrong, you first have to prove it went wrong.
Cheers.
Well last I checked
losing subs isn't a good thing
nice try though
idiotic response. Loosing 10 elitist jerks like OP who ragequit because others get a shot at actually using content they think should be "reserved" for elitist jerks is a very good thing if it brings in more than 10 more casual players (or causes more than 10 of those to hang around who'd otherwise quit), which is exactly what Blizzard does.
Subscription numbers ALWAYS fluctuate over a year. The fluctuation might seem high to you who've got no understanding of numbers, but they're not. Half a million out of 10 million is only a few percent, that's nothing at all.
And it's a natural movement brought about by new releases temporarilly pulling people away, holiday season meaning people let accounts lapse as they go on long trips, etc. etc.
Even were it permanent, it'd be pretty irrelevant given the size of the customerbase.
Sorry, but it's you who fails to understand the numbers...not sure how old you are but take it from someone who played the market...numbers don't fluctuate on a dime. A company is either growing in market share or shrinking and when it happens the trend tend to be long term and no shrinkage is ever seen as irrelevant.
WoW has always been a word of mouth game since the start. As the old example goes"one friend told 2 friends and they told 4 friends and so on..." WoW grew in this fashion and slowly the tide has turned.
They still have time to right the ship...but not that much time.
As for those "elitist jerks"...they are the one's who make the videos so you can have a heads up on how to fight a boss...they are the one who make the addon's that make the game better for you to play..etc. I wouldn't be in such a rush to see them go.
Post by
Monday
Now, in the stream of bad in Wrath, they did do one thing right. Hard modes. I loved the way they did hard modes. I.E Sartharion 3D, Flame Leviathan 1-4 tower, Firefighter... deffinantly firefighter. Best hard mode ever... and Yogg 0-3 watchers. Algalon as well. When they introduced Heroic 10 man and 25 and stopped doing Hardmodes, I was angered. Main reason I also didn't like Wrath.
(Bolded for emphasis that I didn't hate wrath entirely)
Fail as well. HC dungeons were introduced in TBC, not Wrath :)
You are mistaken iala, he is talking about hardmodes, as in
raids.
Not dungeons.
^
Perhaps you failed?
Post by
Erethzium
Badge system was crap. If they kept heroism from heroics and 10 man Naxx, EoE and Sarth. Valor from 25 man Naxx, EoE and Sarth and random heroic in small amount. Conquest from Ulduar. Triumph from TotC and Frost from ICC only. Then it'd be fine.
Fine, FOR RAIDERS ONLY. And even then, only one toon. If the badge system was never updated, every single fresh 80 in 3.3 would have to do this:
pug naxx for a month to gear up
pug ulduar for a month to gear up
pug totc for a month to gear up
before getting to ICC. Either that, or be dead weight in ICC in 5man blues and get completely carried until geared enough. Sounds like "fine", eh?
But they chose the "everyone should see everything" demographic which I didn't like.
Why not? I'm very sure Blizz didn't want another naxx40 where only 10% of guilds even saw the inside of it before BC. If I was a developer, I would not want to take months and months developing content for a small portion of players to see my hard work.
I can't count how many heroics, which were just as easy as the rest of the expansion besides ICC 5 mans
So you want Heroic 5mans to be ridiculously overtuned and near impossible for pugs until you're in full raid gear? If you say so.
Anyways, on the topic of "vanilla was awesome", it's purely nostalgia and the game being new. I hear about vanilla from my guildmates who have cleared all vanilla content, and really, it sounds horrible. The only reason people liked it back then is because it was new, and there was nothing better, WoW was the best at the time. People QQ about "world is old, nothing new anymore", well DUH it's going to be old when you've been playing the game for six years and done everything already!
Post by
334295
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
161859
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Azazel
Now, in the stream of bad in Wrath, they did do one thing right. Hard modes. I loved the way they did hard modes. I.E Sartharion 3D, Flame Leviathan 1-4 tower, Firefighter... deffinantly firefighter. Best hard mode ever... and Yogg 0-3 watchers. Algalon as well. When they introduced Heroic 10 man and 25 and stopped doing Hardmodes, I was angered. Main reason I also didn't like Wrath.
(Bolded for emphasis that I didn't hate wrath entirely)
Fail as well. HC dungeons were introduced in TBC, not Wrath :)
You are mistaken iala, he is talking about hardmodes, as in
raids.
Not dungeons.
^
Perhaps you failed?
Heh, I saw that earlier but couldn't be bothered editing it. I don't know where he got the dungeon thing from lol.
Post by
870547
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
lonewarrior
WoW grew in this fashion and slowly the tide has turned.
They still have time to right the ship...but not that much time.
I don't think there is much Blizz can do to change that. People are bored of the game after playing it for so long. Nothing they do to the game will change that. WoW has passed it's prime, and that's just the way it works.
Any drastic changes will make even more subscribers leave. Small changes won't affect the current situation much.
imho - I think Blizz should really focus their efforts on new games. Of course, due to the large sub base, they still need to maintain WoW. However, I doubt you'll see any major changes that will make older/bored people more interested in the game while maintaining the ones who currently like the game.
I just beg to differ and here's why...
Using references outside the game like bowling, golf, chess leagues..etc..these are endeavors people play for years on end. They never get bored of it, it's an enjoyable pass time.
Myself...I use to play paddleball every weekend like clock work for over 15 years.
But the courts I played on died out and when I went to other courts, I found the new players attitude to be the equivalent of LFD. I lost interest.
This is what's happening in WoW.
The players I came across during my early days played WoW as a pass time. They enjoyed the company. The had a mature outlook no matter the age. Sure people came and went, life has it's dictates, but rarely was it because of the game.
To me, this was the secret to WoW's success. The game itself is redundant from level one up but the community had a staying power. A game that allowed players to code addons that all of us could utilize. We could improve the game. Frickin brilliant. Think of all the websites and everything else that cultivated into a culture around this game. We were a community.
Somewhere along the line Activision decide to imprint their vision on this game and their usually targeted market.
It was akin to introducing the game of chess into a pool hall. :P It doesn't mix.
Does that mean there weren't numnuts back from the start..of course not but here's the difference.
Back in Van/TBC days, players had to conform to the etiquette of decency if they want to progress or they got ostracized...today it's the other way around. A player of etiquette has to conform to the rudeness of LFD and the general shoddiness of dungeon/raids/BG's if he wants to progress. An earnest player can only take that for so long.
Blizz has to have the vision once more to tap into this community. It's still there. They have to accept longevity of a smaller fan base over the headlines of big numbers...because those players treat this game as they do any other xbox/PS game, with a definite shelf life as the sub numbers are showing.
Post by
xaratherus
Using references outside the game like bowling, golf, chess leagues..etc..these are endeavors people play for years on end. They never get bored of it, it's an enjoyable pass time.
But here's the flaw in the analogy: Bowling, golf, chess, table tennis - those are not forms of entertainment that grow or change frequently. There's not a new version of chess being released every two months. Bowling doesn't have to compete with "Super Bowling 2", with a better lane and a ball that offers increased spin control.
So while WoW and those games are similar, in that they are both forms of entertainment, to overlook this difference in order to make an analogy renders the analogy's usefulness limited.
Within the same genre of entertainment, however, there are very,
very
few - I'll hazard a guess to say
none
, actually - games that keep even a majority of its original audience for such an extended period of time.
By genre, of course, I mean "video game". Are there people who still play Pac Man or Super Mario Brothers or Team Fortress 2 or Counterstrike? Yes - but that's not the point.
Do as many people now play those games as originally played them?
No, they don't. I may pull out Myst occasionally and replay it, or download Secret of Mana to my Wii so that I can toy around with it again, but the size of the audience that does that pales in comparison to the size of the audience the game had when it was new.
Decline of audience is a natural part of this particular medium of entertainment. Has Blizzard made choices that people don't like? Yes. Have people left because of them? Yes. Based on a careful review of the life span of entertainment within the genre, can I make an educated guess that more people have left due to the age of the game? I feel safe in doing so.
It was akin to introducing the game of chess into a pool hall.
Actually, in the early 1900s, having a chess table in the back of a pool hall was pretty common. A number of authors writing for that time period mention them. ;)
Post by
Carukia
I would call myself a WoW addict.
Addiction in any form is a personality flaw and a problem that needs to be dealt with. It has made you become more emotionally involved with a game than is healthy. I'm glad you are able to recognize and admit your addiction. It seems you are having trouble kicking your habit though, and you need to sever all ties. That means no Wowhead. This was a step in the wrong direction for you. You may need the help of a psychologist.
Post by
Kuru
I started playing in the final week of TBC, so I can't really say how things were then.
However, once I managed to stop getting spawn camped by people going zombie and afking in leveling towns, .. and then once I managed to stop getting spawn camped by DK's, I absolutely adored Wrath. I simply chose the wrong time to start playing. I loved most of the leveling zones, and to this day Howling Fjord is my AFK spot of choice. I very much enjoyed the AOE type dungeons, (I migrated to WoW from the 12-sky games, where massive amounts of AOE grinding are required for leveling, so it was pleasant for me on a habitual level).
Wrath raiding had a very nice balance between casual and hardcore. Heroic was for hardcores, while normal was for casuals. I enjoyed most of the gear. Plate was made out of metal; leather made of leather; ect. Weapons were interesting, and pretty appropriately sized. Not smacking people around with needles, not with rainbows, and not with weapons of similar dimension to a telephone pole.
Then Cataclysm came.
Blizzard was quick to cash in on the modern hollywood trend of nuking and mutilating familiar, iconic imagery and locations.
Suddenly, my warrior's plate wasn't made of metal, it was made out of a rock. And my other choice was to become robo-cop. I was very disappointed. Personally, I've been pretty dissapointed with almost all gear to come out in Cataclysm. Seems to be about 85% recycled, (shamelessly in the category of troll gear), and the remaining 15% seem to just be random in-game objects, retextured slightly and attached to the face and shoulders of your character.
Suddenly, trade was gone. The two factions of WoW were divided into hundreds of fractions. Pun intended. Now, community is restricted to guild. Guilds that do any form of raiding are highly exclusive, and most guilds seem to just be cash farms for individuals.
Gold/Time value of gear became exponentially higher. Casual raiding is a joke, to the point where you're required to have a gear level that's higher than the gear in the raid you'll be running. And to make that worse, you're required to have an achievement, as if you'd need to run the raid more than once, if you already outgear it.
To even get to the point of raiding, you need to do one or more of: Farm troll runs for 6 weeks to get valor gear. Farm dailies for equal weeks to buy AH gear. Or buy from one of the rising amounts of gold sites. There's a dead zone between the item levels of 355~ and 365 that's just morbid, and I'll most likely be cancelling my subscription on this alone.
The free play option. Massive, massive increase in gold spamming. Suddenly, the one remaining perk this game had over every free-to-play game out there was gone.
The overall game style is getting old. Everyone's done it. Everyone's seen it before. Everyone out there who can manage to find this website has no doubt logged hundreds of hours on the same basic concept of WoW, whether from a FTP wow clone or WoW itself.
Or, in brief instead of that whole soapbox there;
WoW was great once. But today, WoW is simply good. It sets the standard that every new MMO must compete with, both on a player's level and a business level. However, it's not particularly enjoyable to me as an individual anymore, it's simply a time sink. Something in my gut tells me that she's going to just keep hanging on, but I doubt that it'll ever rise in the ranks of what's good on a 'today' scale again. There's going to be something newer to take another bite out of wow, and eventually, wow will be gone.
Post by
138638
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post Reply
You are not logged in. Please
log in
to post a reply or
register
if you don't already have an account.