It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
This is non-biased. Many here know I'm an Old Schooler. HOWEVER THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ME. This has everything to do with a smart business decision !
We all know Blizzard lost millions of traditional players, no one can possibly dispute that with a straight face. We have :
- Millions that love World of Warcraft.
- Millions that are putting up with World of Warcraft because of End Game and friends.
- Millions that come and go like turning a switch on and off.
- Millions that hate what it had become.
- Millions that hate the game and always will.
Often we see topics to bring back Vanilla. This is not happening. But you would think blizzard would like to capture the old schoolers in one way or another !!!.............You and I both know Blizzard has Executive meetings with managers, marketing, developers and stock holders. In these meetings how can the topic of NOT trying to capture the hard core players too not come up ?
Blizzard is pumping out expansions at an alarming rate. Blizzard increased the size of the worlds along with new races, starting areas, and changed the games demograph several times. This shows anything can be possible.
Why not have expansions with Hard Core old school content. Balancing issues you say ?.....Yes, I agree.....However Blizzard is not stupid, they have a large Think Tank of developers and designers to make this happen. IT'S NOT OUR DISCITION ON HOW, this would be up to them. This would by far increase profits, and too much to not explore and put into motion.
The question is why haven't they done it already ?
Comments
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
in that way they could have the best bof both worlds
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Perhaps the time has come for the World of Warcraft to end. At least I don't think I would ever subscribe to play it again.
Ding ding ding ding!!!! Not that you're right, but that this is the exact reason why they'll never look back. The target audience that you're talking about is the audience who have been soured on WoW. The original WoW players who have endured many expansions and the ultimate dumbing down of the game in general. Even if there was a vanilla WoW released today, re-capturing these subscribers becomes a monumental, and costly, task. In the end, it doesn't really matter. It's such a small market segment that it, literally, has no bearing on the continued success of the game itself. There are plenty of other things that they could be doing in order to maintain their player base, because there are over 10 million players subscribing for each expansion, so it simply becomes a matter of sustaining over making drastic changes that alienate their current market (and piss off everyone who's ever played WoW).
Crazkanuk
----------------
Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
----------------
"We all know Blizzard lost millions of traditional players"
we do? sound like conjecture to me. any facts to back that up?
no one like Blizzard is going to make an old schoolers game. we are a fickle bunch who, even if we know what we want, wouldn't be able to agree about what we want with more than one other person if our lives depended on it.
its over. move on.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
Granted their financial projections probably showed WoW doing better post-WoD however I would go further and suggest that their market research suggested they make more Hearthstone!
And Destiny in its first 12 months will probably generate more revenue than WoW in the 12 months from WoD (not profit since it is a Bungie game).
And now that subs WoW subs have dropped it will be harder to justify "new expenditure". They will have updated their financial projections and the best case will (I think) assume a slight uptick prior to Legion and a big fall post Legion. Any boost from the film being excluded (imo) from the baseline, maybe baked into a stretched targets. And the tomorrow's projected revenue is what will drive today's expenditure.
What makes you believe that this isn't something that's anticipated? Each of WoWs last 4 expansions has seen subscriptions surpass the 10 million mark. So why would they EVER anticipate a "slight" uptick. Shit, if we wanted to go THAT far, even BC had it's day in the sun over the 10 million mark albeit a short one (right before Wrath released). If WoW isn't the single-most predictable IP in gaming at this point, then I don't know what is. EVERY expansion they go up over 10 million. EVERY expansion they begin to see an ever-declining subscriber-base after the 4 to 6-month mark following release. WoW is basically as Blue Chip as they come in gaming. If they were a stock, it might as well be Google. EVERY expansion has seen 10 million subs.
Crazkanuk
----------------
Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
----------------
For the most successful MMO of all time (money wise) they should be putting out an expansion on a 4 to 6 month rotation in order to keep their subs up at the 12 million mark consistantly. Unfortunately they got into the process of a long content cycle focusing on repetitive behavior and throughout all those years eventually dumbed down the content to its present state.
I agree!!! I'm sure there must be something else behind this that we simply can't comprehend. There are a couple things that I know. 1) There are sometimes really, really smart people making decisions for really, really good reasons that most people can't comprehend; and 2) There are sometimes really, really dumb people who you think must be really dumb, and they are! And they're the ones making multi-million dollar decisions!!! I guarantee it's either one of these two things, or somewhere inbetween.
The real question here is cadence. Can they bring themselves up to speed enough to shorten their delivery times, without increasing staff?
Crazkanuk
----------------
Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
----------------
We who think of EQ, M59 and UO as old school hardcore do of course see that Wow moving towards that wont get millions of players (but I think 500K is far more likely than 5-10K). That wont happening.
Going back to it's roots is a good choice when you start to loose players fast. Going far beyond the roots in the opposite direction you moved a long time isn't wise since you will turn off your current players and you can't be sure the new intended audience will play the game anyways.
Going back towards vanilla and TBC would also turn away mor ethan a few new players but you would also get back some old ones, possibly fr more than the new ones you loose.
Hey, if I could have skill trees back, I think I'd be a happy camper I don't have nearly enough games which require me to use my superior Excel skills any more.
Crazkanuk
----------------
Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
----------------
That I would go back to. Today's WOW is shit and all the people who think it's great fine but the game is dying.
Problem is Blizzard cannot take a risk like this because they want to make it fun for the most casual player just so they can get new players.
- First, Blizzard had an immense following with its RTS games. They were able to leverage that much larger market and convince them to give the MMORPG genre a try. No other popular IP had that same advantage. Not LotRO, nor Star Wars, despite having more recognizable (and arguably larger) IPs.
- Second, WoW's major competitors in the 2nd Generation MMORPGs was EQ2 and Vanguard. Both of those had massive issues at launch. Blizzard was able to fix the problems they faced in a much quicker time, attracting new customers.
- A third contributing factor was the fact that Blizzard advertised their game, not only in the gaming magazines, but in other media. The first generation competitors never bothered with large scale marketing, and that trend mostly continued into the other 2nd generation games. But Blizzard was willing to put some revenue into promotion, and it attracted customers.
None of these factors were the overall reason why WoW was successful, but I think these contributed something to that formula.Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Moving from the specific (me) to the general (Old School Broad Brush Group Identification), this statement is one hundred percent accurate.
By the same metric, so is the original post.
Context. The context is world of warcraft the mmorpg NOT ALL MMORPGs in the history of MMORPGS. So old school in the context of World of Warcraft, which would be vanilla wow.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Why did I like it then? The top 3 reasons are:
1. The world was smaller and traversed by players so it felt populated and alive. Now everyone sits in a hub town waiting in queues.
2. The community was closer knit and guild's were people I wanted to spend time with because I enjoyed their company. Now you just pick the best gearscore to get you through the dungeon/raid.
3. I was younger then with more spare time, and I was also less world weary (or MMO weary).
For me, is WOW ever likely to recapture the magic of vanilla? No, but I am happy with that and have little desire to return.
Ya fluctuating subs not great...but making hundred million + off expansions take lot of the worry out of those sub number fluctuations.
First, they definitely did have an existing fan base, and I'm sure that helped. I'm not sure to what extent, though. Remember that paying a monthly subscription for a game back they seemed pretty ludicrous, not to mention the stigma that went along with it (like having to sell your soul to the game).
Secondly, Everquest 2 was a direct competitor from day 1, or you're saying that WoW was a 2nd generation MMO itself (with which I'd agree). The point, though, seems moot. No subsequent "generation" of MMO has taken any subs from WoW.
Third, EQ advertised their game on TV as well, like the original EQ. That was nothing new.
WoWs biggest advantage has always been, and continues to be, their polish, IMO. There have always been issues surrounding these games, but WoW was, generally, pretty smooth. It was also very accessible. Like they "ungeeked" it. However, these days there's very little differentiation between games, so it makes it more difficult to really separate yourself from anyone else. Any release today is, essentially, "WoW-esque". You're "WoW-in-space", "WoW-in-the-old-west", "WoW-Star-Wars", "WoW-Clone". That also does give power to WoW too. When you're the meter stick, you're the one people think is the original or the best or the standard.
Crazkanuk
----------------
Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
----------------
True, why mess with a good thing right ?
HOWEVER, they could offer an alternative path to the existing one. Have both.
- Alternative zones that have harder content if you chose to enter.
- Dungeons starting at low level that are hard and long, where you have a choice to play or not.
- New servers having the harder content within the same game. This could cause havoc, everyone will switch. The way I see it........It would be worth it with millions of returnees.
If I alone sitting here in the dark at 5:30 AM can come up with a few ideas, just think what Blizzard can do.
Blizzard can take their Gold Mine and double it.....How can they not see that ?