From a business stand point, Old School players too

delete5230

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 ?

 

jesteralways

Hardcore expansion? to get about 5-10K players who will drive away 5 million? yeah never happening.

dorugu

wouldnt it b better to introduce a hardcore difficulty settin on  the dungeons n raids?
in that way they could have the best bof both worlds

Octagon7711

I'm all for giving players a choice.  STO and some other MMO's have a hard setting and it seems to work because you get better rewards.  But you can play the games without using them.  Fun for all.

ArcticLorden

One thing is for sure: if this keeps going on, with them failing to add content to the expansion (wod), or if they keep making the game for simpletons (no offense intended). Ever since tbc all they've done is take away stuff that made it what it used to be. Sure, I loved wotlk, cataclysm was quite ok, mop sucked, wod was fun only for a moment. The memories remain of the fond moments, but for that reason alone it's wrong to continue. 

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. 

CrazKanuk

ArcticLorden said:

One thing is for sure: if this keeps going on, with them failing to add content to the expansion (wod), or if they keep making the game for simpletons (no offense intended). Ever since tbc all they've done is take away stuff that made it what it used to be. Sure, I loved wotlk, cataclysm was quite ok, mop sucked, wod was fun only for a moment. The memories remain of the fond moments, but for that reason alone it's wrong to continue. 

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). 

azmundai

vanilla wow is old school now?

"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.

gervaise1

DMKano said:

why they haven't done it already - because their market research shows that putting out expansions that attract 3-5miklion players for 4-6 weeks is more profitable than making an expansion that will cater to less than 1mil players for 3-6 months.

remember that these decisions are made based on actual research numbers, not forum posts, not a bunch of Blizzard execs and devs talking in meetings.

if there is no data to back up a decision for a multi million dollar project, its not done no matter what devs think should be done.

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.

CrazKanuk

gervaise1 said:

DMKano said:

why they haven't done it already - because their market research shows that putting out expansions that attract 3-5miklion players for 4-6 weeks is more profitable than making an expansion that will cater to less than 1mil players for 3-6 months.

remember that these decisions are made based on actual research numbers, not forum posts, not a bunch of Blizzard execs and devs talking in meetings.

if there is no data to back up a decision for a multi million dollar project, its not done no matter what devs think should be done.

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. 

Lyrian

delete5230 said:

Blizzard is pumping out expansions at an alarming rate.

Alarmingly slow rate.

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.

CrazKanuk

Lyrian said:

delete5230 said:

Blizzard is pumping out expansions at an alarming rate.

Alarmingly slow rate.

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?

Loke666

jesteralways said:

Hardcore expansion? to get about 5-10K players who will drive away 5 million? yeah never happening.

I get the impression that OP think that vanilla Wow was "old school hardcore" and going back towards that part might not be a bad idea. Clearly has the direction Wow moved to the last 2 expansions not worked particularly well.

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.

CrazKanuk

Loke666 said:

jesteralways said:

Hardcore expansion? to get about 5-10K players who will drive away 5 million? yeah never happening.

I get the impression that OP think that vanilla Wow was "old school hardcore" and going back towards that part might not be a bad idea. Clearly has the direction Wow moved to the last 2 expansions not worked particularly well.

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. 

ThumbtackJ

Eh. Nostalrius.

Loke666

CrazKanuk said:

Loke666 said:

I get the impression that OP think that vanilla Wow was "old school hardcore" and going back towards that part might not be a bad idea. Clearly has the direction Wow moved to the last 2 expansions not worked particularly well.

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. 

Yeah, I don't think that will be enough. Blizzard needs to figure out what made the game such a huge hit from the beginning and start to get that back into the game. 

danwest58

Loke666 said:

jesteralways said:

Hardcore expansion? to get about 5-10K players who will drive away 5 million? yeah never happening.

I get the impression that OP think that vanilla Wow was "old school hardcore" and going back towards that part might not be a bad idea. Clearly has the direction Wow moved to the last 2 expansions not worked particularly well.

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.

I would agree with Loke on this.  Going back to Vanilla/TBC WOW would gain WOW more people back and far more people back than they would loose.  Even if WOW didnt do the 40 man raids again but they did something format like 10/20, the old skill tress, the way dungeons were in the first 4 years (Pre-WOTLK), No LFR, Do a normal mode raid which is for 10 people and do hard mode raids which are completely different than the 20 mans for the hard mode.  Make the gear better in the 20 man than the 10s.  The low end epics drop from Heroic Instances that were tough like in TBC.  This could also be the casual non raider's gearing path.

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.

FomaldehydeJim

Lyrian said:

delete5230 said:

Blizzard is pumping out expansions at an alarming rate.

Alarmingly slow rate.

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 think that introducing biannual expansions would bleed more players. WOW has clearly marketed each expansion as an "event" released in time for Christmas, and this has kept player interest and maintained sales. Were they to devalue expansions by making them smaller in scope and more frequent, then people would feel less inclination to purchase them.

Mendel

Loke666 said:

CrazKanuk said:

Loke666 said:

I get the impression that OP think that vanilla Wow was "old school hardcore" and going back towards that part might not be a bad idea. Clearly has the direction Wow moved to the last 2 expansions not worked particularly well.

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. 

Yeah, I don't think that will be enough. Blizzard needs to figure out what made the game such a huge hit from the beginning and start to get that back into the game. 

I don't know exactly why WoW was such a huge hit, but I think there were some major factors.

• 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.

Antiquated

"Old school" players burned themselves out on raiding a decade or so ago.

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.

waynejr2

azmundai said:

vanilla wow is old school now?

"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.

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.

Albatroes

They already released numbers around the time of WoD stating that not many people do hardcore stuff like raiding at higher tiers. Who's to really say that the older content of WoW was the most successful? A handful out of a few million? Everyone plays WoW for different reasons. Paying attention to a handful (few thousand) saying that the glory days of wow were in TBC only amounts to a subjective opinion when you have millions still playing and do not voice their opinion. Why should Blizzard listen to speculation on how they COULD be better when they have the facts of what works and what doesn't right infront of them. We dont know all of their data, only what they choose to disclose.

FomaldehydeJim

For me the highlight of WOW was vanilla. (I think its height of success was WotLK.)

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. 

mark2123

danwest58 said:

Loke666 said:

jesteralways said:

Hardcore expansion? to get about 5-10K players who will drive away 5 million? yeah never happening.

I get the impression that OP think that vanilla Wow was "old school hardcore" and going back towards that part might not be a bad idea. Clearly has the direction Wow moved to the last 2 expansions not worked particularly well.

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.

I would agree with Loke on this.  Going back to Vanilla/TBC WOW would gain WOW more people back and far more people back than they would loose.  Even if WOW didnt do the 40 man raids again but they did something format like 10/20, the old skill tress, the way dungeons were in the first 4 years (Pre-WOTLK), No LFR, Do a normal mode raid which is for 10 people and do hard mode raids which are completely different than the 20 mans for the hard mode.  Make the gear better in the 20 man than the 10s.  The low end epics drop from Heroic Instances that were tough like in TBC.  This could also be the casual non raider's gearing path.

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.

The casual players are the largest market so it makes sense to go for that.  Gamers have more money than 10 years ago and subs/games costs less in real terms over ten years.  What people have less of is time as those of us that grew up with traditional computer games i.e. played on a PC, have lots of commitments on our time.  I'm glad that companies cater for us casuals so that I can dip into a game for an hour and still enjoy myself and get something out of it.  I don't have time to wait for a raid to form.  There's plenty of people doing casual things on phones and ipads now so the competition is high and what we don't want is to be offered games that take 3 hours to play at a time because of families, jobs etc.  That's the majority i.e. those who grew up with computers and now have different needs.  Good on companies for recognising that - something that Wildstar failed to fo.

DarLorkar

Heh. they made like millions and  millions on sales alone off of expac.  I would say that they will not want to change how they are working at all until that is no longer true.

Ya fluctuating subs not great...but making hundred million + off expansions take lot of the worry out of those sub number fluctuations.

CrazKanuk

Mendel said:

Loke666 said:

CrazKanuk said:

Loke666 said:

I get the impression that OP think that vanilla Wow was "old school hardcore" and going back towards that part might not be a bad idea. Clearly has the direction Wow moved to the last 2 expansions not worked particularly well.

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. 

Yeah, I don't think that will be enough. Blizzard needs to figure out what made the game such a huge hit from the beginning and start to get that back into the game. 

I don't know exactly why WoW was such a huge hit, but I think there were some major factors.

• 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.

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. 

delete5230

DarLorkar said:

Heh. they made like millions and  millions on sales alone off of expac.  I would say that they will not want to change how they are working at all until that is no longer true.

Ya fluctuating subs not great...but making hundred million + off expansions take lot of the worry out of those sub number fluctuations.

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 ?