Just as a reference, I own all the expansions and don't play WoW and probably never will again.
In my opinion, there are a few different types of people that play WoW. Keep in mind that people from each type may dabble in the main acitivity from other types, but their focus will be on the activity that defines their type.
Type 1 are the players that care most about the solo questing. They keep playing as long as they have a character to level and new content to quest through when expansions release.
Type 2 are the players that care about challenging group based PvE (dungeons and raids). These people loved vanilla WoW, because it was a challenge to collect Epic gear and to complete the dungeons and raids. TBC made raids even harder and these players loved it. WoTLK ruined the difficulty of dungeons and raids to pull the first type of players into that content, but ended up upsetting the people that played WoW for this reason. So Cata went back to making things difficult, pleasing this crowd once more.
Type 3 are the PvP oriented types. They loved world PvP the most, and got used to BG's when they released after complaining about them for months, and some still do. Each expansion, in my opinion, ruined this portion of the game. At first, new PvP additions were received with mix emotions, but as the novelty of the new BG's, arenas, and etc. wore off, these players have become increasingly unhappy.
You missed people like me, I dabble in everything for the achievements!
Over the past few years there has been a deliberate promotion of an "orthodoxy of play".
YOU WILL be active in a guild.
YOU WILL level to max level and participate in endgame.
YOU WILL satisfy your PvP needs in instanced bgs or arenas.
YOU WILL live in a plastic compartamentalized world.
YOU WILL submit to artificial hierarchies and bask in the glory of artificial achievements.
YOU WILL be satified with only two meaingfull professions.
YOU WILL be forced at every level of the game to cooperate with others.
YOU WILL grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind !
A wise man once said, "nothing breeds success like success" which seems to be the case with WoW. You make some rather opinionated points here. After my second account hack I gave up on WoW but remember the ol days in AV where the game did not end until one of the gernerals died. I once played a game for 3 hours with players coming in and out. It was the best of times...it was the worst of times.
Nevertheless, if you have any stats to back-up you writting it would make for a better thread.
The culmination of the PvE endgame is the 25 player raids. Prior to WLK, only a few players got there; for example, only about half the number of players who killed a boss in Karazhan ever killed a 25 player boss, and less than 5% defeated the final boss of the expansion (Kil'Jaeden). In vanilla WoW, less than 2% of all players ever entered Naxxramas (the original version).
The silent majority that play and you never hear them complain make up a good portion of the game population. Blizzard has stated that people leave and come back all the time and that its normal and expected. The way they put it is that they just keep expecting people to act this way indefinitly.
I "believe" people leave and return due to the new games released tending to be poorly made or content lacking clone style games that lets face it...pay to play the "new"game and start over that "feels" like wow or just go back to the one you know are comfortable with and have alot of "time" invested in.
Problem for WoW is there is looking to be some real games that a HUGE number of poeple are looking at that are getting released within the next year. Pop on you tube and pull up some ToR vid's with almost 2 million hits on them. It isnt the Chinese checking out you tube it's the NA and EU markets that are looking. GW2 is the same thing. there are others as wellbut those are the BIG 2 atm.
WoW has done alot of things right and alot of things wrong in many peoples opinion but IMO they just got there first. They were the First BIG BIG commercially successfull game. You have a leg up then cause now everyone is trying to copy you and copying someone elses work while trying to feel unique is a losing proposition.
Dunno about a WoW killer ever coming out but Activision/Blizzard might shoot themselves in the foot at the WRONG time for once and lose a Substantial portion of their player base. GOOD
I hope they put in the premium charge real id. I hope they make the raid content so narrow people are done with it in a week in 4.2. I hope they start selling gear and everything else shitty you can think of to keep pissing their players off. GOOD.
Time for some fresh ideas and fresh concepts and fresh blood in the MMO world. WoW wasn't my first car so to speak , but i'm ready to upgrade from my Pinto to preferably at least a Camaro.
YOU WILL grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind !
Amen. This is the creed of every MMO.
/goes back to playing shooters/rts
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Nothing lasts forever and you'd be stupid to think a computer game will.
That said, WoW isn't going anywhere in the next few years at least. Heck we still have UO and that's how old?
WoW ran its course for a lot of people (including myself) but new non-MMO-playing gamers will most likely choose WoW as their first MMO cause MMO = WOW to a lot of people. It is a bit like Facebook in that there are other social sites, but to most people; social site= Facebook.
Gdemami - Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
WoW ran its course for a lot of people (including myself) but new non-MMO-playing gamers will most likely choose WoW as their first MMO cause MMO = WOW to a lot of people. It is a bit like Facebook in that there are other social sites, but to most people; social site= Facebook.
There are other social sites besides Facebook (everyday stuff), Twitter (follow stuff you like) and LinkedIn (for professionals)?
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
The servers in the early days couldn't handle large scale world PVP, not to mention it interfered with newbies leveling which cost them a few accounts, I'd wager (not alot, but still...)
So, they implemented HKs.
That wasn't enough, so then came battlegrounds to coral the PVP freaks off into separate instances away from leveling players.
Battlegrounds were a huge success in all aspects (as much, or more as world pvp was in the early days) - but people complained about long AV games, long queue times - guilds and teams of bros ruined the ranking system (I played 18 hours a day for several months and couldn't break rank 11 due to some guilds controlling 11/12 in 24/7 played character WSG farm teams.)
So they kicked AV's timesink features to the curb, implemented crossrealm battlegrounds.
Crossrealm battlegrounds killed the formation of communities straight off - no longer were you playing with, or against, the same people for months on end for the majority of the games max-level "idle time", forming friendships and rivalries.
People complained about fast kills, being one, or two shot.
So they threw in resilience for TBC, which very effectively disallowed PVE gear in PVP under most situations, while implementing arenas.
With a new-found hardon for the arena (e-Sport, LOL) they worked towards coercing the playerbase into it for their PVP fix, which, while it was successful for awhile, didn't progress or take well past season 4 or so. Willfully interfering with classes PVE performance and abilities for the sake of arena only a small portion of the playerbase has a interest in? Idiots.
Though vanilla 40m raids were a thing of the past (due to the difficulties in finding 15 core members and 25 warm bodies that could follow basic instructions) five mans picked up greatly in popularity come TBC, most people got to see up to Karazhan at least, for the most part, everyone was satisfied that could or would ever be, even though they were strangling battlegrounds for the sake of arenas.
Fast forward to WOTLK.
Arena might as well be extinct, 5mans are still the primary "end game" - they attempt to coax more max level players into "serious" PVE - see Naxx for a warm up, the quality of Ulduar and the easy mode crap of ToC, not to mention the joke of ICC.
Since most people are hardcore farming 5 mans for emblems and what not, they finally implement crossrealm dungeons to keep people busy - fast queues, easy reward vs. effort, heirlooms for idiots that'll spend three weeks grinding low level gear to level their alts "faster." This finally seals the deal, so to speak, for any hopes of community or stability.
Cataclysm comes out with the overall worst instances (Quality wise) created, since they spent most of their effort and development time on revamping the old world (Which should've been done BY TBC release at latest) - the 5mans are vanilla level difficulty, with a playerbase trained on WOTLK content - there is no community, people don't want to work together or play with one another, they simply want their rewards for doing said instances.
The only relevant (skill wise) players are the people pushing into raid content within a couple weeks of Cataclysm release, I'm assuming they hoped uping the difficulty would not only slow progression and burnout down, but train the playerbase to be a little more capable - which backfired, for the most part. People are burnt out regardless, forcing them into actually difficult (relatively) 5mans with idiots they do not know AND they're expected to carry (see vote kick restrictions) is enough to push a reasonable chunk of the playerbase away in frustration.
Now they're toning 5 mans down steadily, after already taking a population hit from burnout and failure to deliver or realize what the progression of expansions would do to the playerbase, while implementing nonsense features in hopes to compensate for the missing portion of the population.
TLDR:
WoW isn't dead, nor will it ever really die, but it's growth has now came to stand still, yes, Cataclysm cost them a bit of their playerbase, but they're still clutching the Cashcow's teet and yanking for all their might.
If anything, I think the real downfall of WoW is confusion and communication. Specifically, lack of communication. Look at the big Feral nerf(shapeshift roots and other nerfs). Now look at the current DK outrage on the forums. What do they share? Confusion and lack of communication. More and more, Blizzard has decided to comment less and less on their changes. Even hotfixes get little actual info. GC stopped posting at all. I, honestly, was never a fan of his posts. But, it was communication. Now all we get is a Blog. Specifically designed to cover topics that most people aren't asking for with zero chance for comments or questions by the players. You can only take the discussion to the forums, where he will not reply or post anymore.
The changes are drastic and not understood by the players. The changes are "game changing" in that they have a large impact on the play style or ability of the class/spec. Blizzard refuses to even discuss them at all now. No explanation at all. This leaves players scratching their heads and getting angry. People start out with simple questions of why. Those posts get locked or deleted without a word. So people get angry and alienated. And still, nothing gets explained. To top it off, they address all of these things with an air of superiority. They always post with a "we don't owe you anything" style or just paste forum guidelines that sometimes have little to do with it but provides a 100% "I win" in all situations to them.
I used to tell Blizzard in posts and emails that they are wasting their forums. They have a direct line to their customers. It's already being paid for. They claim the forums are the vocal minority, but refuse to ever refer people to them or link them in game. It's like they go out of their way to avoid communication with their customers. While there are some legit counters they use to say why they don't, almost all of them can be explained by their own actions. IE: People nitpick at their words because they go out of their way to be vague about actual answers to anything or actually explain anything.
The last time that I can think of that Blizzard actually explained anything really was the rage generation formula. And, even then, they threw in an insult that they figured people wouldn't be able to understand it. It's insulting because they know about all of the player made tools used in WoW and all the simulators for damage based on your gear and level that are available and work. Entire sites designed to theorycrafting. But how could we the lowly dense players ever comprehend their secrets...
Treat people like children? Why be surprised when they act like a child.
This guy constantly creates new topics then leaves. He rarely sticks around to discuss anything. Why would someone take the time to create a topic, present your point of view, request a discussion, then never really bother to reply? Before you know it, hes creating a new thread about something else. I wonder, whats the point?
It's called trolling, and he's one of the best at it on MMORPG.com.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
WoW isn't dead, nor will it ever really die, but it's growth has now came to stand still, yes, Cataclysm cost them a bit of their playerbase, but they're still clutching the Cashcow's teet and yanking for all their might.
There is one issue in that. Gaming companies think short term. They think that when they make a new product and use the same tactics from their previous one, it will all have been forgotten. They think people won't remember how they are treated. While it's true that some people who must be either very young or have alzheimers will jump on "the next big thing" without a thought, even they will tire faster of the same treatment in the new game. At some point there will be someone from Blizzard who will in an interview say "We learned a lot from WoW and we will put that to work in [new game]". What exactly will they use from WoW in that new game? Whatever you paid them for. The more you let them get by with, the more they will use it in the new game. At some point, you have to be honest with them and yourself about it all. You have to do whatever it takes to let them know how you stand on things. Posting on the forums has little to no influence on that.
YOU WILL grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind !
Amen. This is the creed of every MMO.
/goes back to playing shooters/rts
The problem is the result of that grind. The formula for the grind requires that you are gaining something from that grind. When you don't feel like you are gaining anything. When the gains are even repetitious(same every time). When you say to yourself, meh...it won't make that big of a difference if I do this. That's when the grind fails. If you aren't gaining anything of importance from the treadmill, you're just running in place.
Originally posted by page To make a long story short they should have left the old world vanilla, and should have created another Continent instead of screwing things up
agree at 100%, even new planted will work, but not try to puch old players into redo whole game, it just silly.
if you don't redo all you have like 2 months to play before you got bored of new content or find it too hard & long.
try before buy, even if it's a game to avoid bad surprises. Worst surprises for me: Aion, GW2
To make a long story short they should have left the old world vanilla, and should have created another Continent instead of screwing things up
agree at 100%, even new planted will work, but not try to puch old players into redo whole game, it just silly.
if you don't redo all you have like 2 months to play before you got bored of new content or find it too hard & long.
To me, it's another speaking out of both sides of their mouth. They took all that time to redo the 1-60, but have expressed time and time again that end game is where they want everyone to be. You often level out of a zone well before you complete it. It's not made to take time anymore. They want to get you to end game as fast as possible. Which, is made even faster for alts because of heirlooms. Throw in that you can also BG for experience, and you level so fast that you regret taking time to get any one item or spend money on hard to find old world best enchants when you will outgrow them in a couple of hours.(non heirloom items) So, why did they spend so much development time on content you aren't really ever supposed to hover over or spend any meaningful time on? I'm not saying they didn't do some good by fixing problems with certain specs being horrible at low levels(remember leveling a feral with having no feral attacks or stealth for a long time?), but a lot of it is wasted when you don't spend any time there and don't really have time to finish the lore of an area. Blizzard has NEVER been good at scaling. The low zones are no exception. Lastly, some people miss the things they took out when they redid low levels. So making them want to go back and do it again will only create moments of dispair/depression at that loss.
I played WOW for the PvP, but once they added Arena gear and no way to progress through the BGs it was basically pointless for me to play. I don't enjoy being one shot at max level by someone who has a weapon 3X more powerful than I will ever obtain.
Add the fact that the BGs(and most content) never get updated its a slap in the face to the subscribers who've made WoW successful.
It feels like WoW is/was being infiltrated by the SOE devs who drove their plethora of games into the ground.
There is one simple reason for WoW's downfall - the slow erosion of it's community on each server.
Cross-server battlegroups were the first step, LFD came next, and now you don't even have group quests (outside of the Crucible thing in Twilight). I've said this in a few threads before on here and the official site; I would make a serious guess that the rate I used to add new folks to my friends list in game has gone from around 1-2 a week, to MAYBE 1-2 every couple of months. I mean, where am I supposed to meet people in-game on my own server? The people AFK in ORG/SW waiting for a queue pop? There is hardly anybody out in the world anymore. There isn't that random guy/gal asking for a group to do a 3-5 man quest. There aren't 3-5 or more groups forming in trade chat for a few heroics or a Kara, Gruul, ZA run (sometimes even Mag) where you may make a few friends that you group with for the next 2 years.
It's just gone. WoW has become very hollow to me, and everything is a quick fix. It's quite sad that I don't even recognize a majority of folks on my own server anymore, because we never really get the chance to do anything together in game. I remember switching servers way back when for my own reasons, and it didn't take more than a few months before you would quite famiiliar with the majority of the players/guilds on your server (both factions).
I was reading this thread about 5 minutes ago on the official site: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2593042452?page=1 The OP has a lot of fair points of what I really miss about the game. It's supposed to be WORLD of Warcraft - it does not feel like a WORLD (virtual) to me anymore. It's a lobby/console game with those stupid anal jokes popping up every couple of hours.
The community is all but gone! Sad but true - no matter how immature it was, at least it existed.
There is one simple reason for WoW's downfall - the slow erosion of it's community on each server.
Cross-server battlegroups were the first step, LFD came next, and now you don't even have group quests (outside of the Crucible thing in Twilight). I've said this in a few threads before on here and the official site; I would make a serious guess that the rate I used to add new folks to my friends list in game has gone from around 1-2 a week, to MAYBE 1-2 every couple of months. I mean, where am I supposed to meet people in-game on my own server? The people AFK in ORG/SW waiting for a queue pop? There is hardly anybody out in the world anymore. There isn't that random guy/gal asking for a group to do a 3-5 man quest. There aren't 3-5 or more groups forming in trade chat for a few heroics or a Kara, Gruul, ZA run (sometimes even Mag) where you may make a few friends that you group with for the next 2 years.
It's just gone. WoW has become very hollow to me, and everything is a quick fix. It's quite sad that I don't even recognize a majority of folks on my own server anymore, because we never really get the chance to do anything together in game. I remember switching servers way back when for my own reasons, and it didn't take more than a few months before you would quite famiiliar with the majority of the players/guilds on your server (both factions).
I was reading this thread about 5 minutes ago on the official site: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2593042452?page=1 The OP has a lot of fair points of what I really miss about the game. It's supposed to be WORLD of Warcraft - it does not feel like a WORLD (virtual) to me anymore. It's a lobby/console game with those stupid anal jokes popping up every couple of hours.
The community is all but gone! Sad but true - no matter how immature it was, at least it existed.
I agree. In vanilla-WoW and in some other MMO:s there is a virtual world that is fun to explore. Its about adventure and you find new friends and discover new things in the world every day. You dont need to be a hardcore elite raider to have fun that way. Or a hardcore PvP player. And its also about the journey and you dont have to rush to max level as fast as possible.
When everything worth doing is instanced and you can join everything standing in a city that part of the game and play style is gone...
It was a serious mistake to change WoW like that. Im sure they get new players that like WoW the way it is 2011. And subscription numbers and statistics are probably still OK. And they are amazing compared to all other MMO:s... But they are certainly loosing players that dont want to play a lobby game. Players that focus on adventure, exploring and finding new friends in an open living virtual world.
There is one simple reason for WoW's downfall - the slow erosion of it's community on each server.
Cross-server battlegroups were the first step, LFD came next, and now you don't even have group quests (outside of the Crucible thing in Twilight). I've said this in a few threads before on here and the official site; I would make a serious guess that the rate I used to add new folks to my friends list in game has gone from around 1-2 a week, to MAYBE 1-2 every couple of months. I mean, where am I supposed to meet people in-game on my own server? The people AFK in ORG/SW waiting for a queue pop? There is hardly anybody out in the world anymore. There isn't that random guy/gal asking for a group to do a 3-5 man quest. There aren't 3-5 or more groups forming in trade chat for a few heroics or a Kara, Gruul, ZA run (sometimes even Mag) where you may make a few friends that you group with for the next 2 years.
It's just gone. WoW has become very hollow to me, and everything is a quick fix. It's quite sad that I don't even recognize a majority of folks on my own server anymore, because we never really get the chance to do anything together in game. I remember switching servers way back when for my own reasons, and it didn't take more than a few months before you would quite famiiliar with the majority of the players/guilds on your server (both factions).
I was reading this thread about 5 minutes ago on the official site: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2593042452?page=1 The OP has a lot of fair points of what I really miss about the game. It's supposed to be WORLD of Warcraft - it does not feel like a WORLD (virtual) to me anymore. It's a lobby/console game with those stupid anal jokes popping up every couple of hours.
The community is all but gone! Sad but true - no matter how immature it was, at least it existed.
My last real main was named Kuju on three different servers, and the one before that was as well.
There is one simple reason for WoW's downfall - the slow erosion of it's community on each server.
Cross-server battlegroups were the first step, LFD came next, and now you don't even have group quests (outside of the Crucible thing in Twilight). I've said this in a few threads before on here and the official site; I would make a serious guess that the rate I used to add new folks to my friends list in game has gone from around 1-2 a week, to MAYBE 1-2 every couple of months. I mean, where am I supposed to meet people in-game on my own server? The people AFK in ORG/SW waiting for a queue pop? There is hardly anybody out in the world anymore. There isn't that random guy/gal asking for a group to do a 3-5 man quest. There aren't 3-5 or more groups forming in trade chat for a few heroics or a Kara, Gruul, ZA run (sometimes even Mag) where you may make a few friends that you group with for the next 2 years.
It's just gone. WoW has become very hollow to me, and everything is a quick fix. It's quite sad that I don't even recognize a majority of folks on my own server anymore, because we never really get the chance to do anything together in game. I remember switching servers way back when for my own reasons, and it didn't take more than a few months before you would quite famiiliar with the majority of the players/guilds on your server (both factions).
I was reading this thread about 5 minutes ago on the official site: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2593042452?page=1 The OP has a lot of fair points of what I really miss about the game. It's supposed to be WORLD of Warcraft - it does not feel like a WORLD (virtual) to me anymore. It's a lobby/console game with those stupid anal jokes popping up every couple of hours.
The community is all but gone! Sad but true - no matter how immature it was, at least it existed.
My last real main was named Kuju on three different servers, and the one before that was as well.
. I've been using this name since I started playing a certain MUD back around the year 2000. At the time, I had actually been under the impression I made it up lol. I try to use it when I can, but it seems to get harder and harder to "tag" it. I've got another one in my bag though that usually is always free.
Making the game LESS casual frendly? lolwhat. The game is now so casual friendly that unless your doing heroic raids, everything is ridiculusly easy. Class balance is whack and pvp is very limited. Pvp outside of instanced battlegrounds is pretty much non-existent any more (even on pvp realms) since everyone either flys everywhere or teleports.
In vanilla wow actually felt like an MMORPG, with no flying mounts the world felt huge and you actually had battles between horde and alliance in the outside world.
If your out leveling a new alt (because actual new players are few and far between now), you don't even need to move out of the capitol because you can just spam 5 man instances right up to the level cap. If you actually go out and quest everything is soloable. Wow is now more like a 3d chat lobby where everyone is either in a raid instance, a 5 man instance, a battleground instance, or idling in a city.
Vanilla was by far the best experience in WoW or any other MMO in that matter ever with epic world pvp and the GM grind was just epic also the PVE was better imo then it has been the last 3 xpacs. Yea you can argue GM grind took no skill but does Arenas really take skill or just class combinations?
Flying mounts should never been implemented in a PVP game it destroyed world PVP which is why I got interested in WoW in the first place quiting FFXI which was a great game back in 2004.
CAT put me off MMO's for a while I am slowly returning to other games but if I go anywhere near a WoW client.. meh, I won't be paying a sub to WoW again so should be safe from it's nickel and diming. Probably.
But because WoW has produced a reaction like that in me, and apparently other subbers since they saw a loss of subs recently, then it could be a sign of things to come in terms of downfall.
Comments
You missed people like me, I dabble in everything for the achievements!
Over the past few years there has been a deliberate promotion of an "orthodoxy of play".
YOU WILL be active in a guild.
YOU WILL level to max level and participate in endgame.
YOU WILL satisfy your PvP needs in instanced bgs or arenas.
YOU WILL live in a plastic compartamentalized world.
YOU WILL submit to artificial hierarchies and bask in the glory of artificial achievements.
YOU WILL be satified with only two meaingfull professions.
YOU WILL be forced at every level of the game to cooperate with others.
YOU WILL grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind !
YOU WILL stay in Q until the day you die.
The culmination of the PvE endgame is the 25 player raids. Prior to WLK, only a few players got there; for example, only about half the number of players who killed a boss in Karazhan ever killed a 25 player boss, and less than 5% defeated the final boss of the expansion (Kil'Jaeden). In vanilla WoW, less than 2% of all players ever entered Naxxramas (the original version).
http://www.wowwiki.com/Raiding_for_newbies
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
The silent majority that play and you never hear them complain make up a good portion of the game population. Blizzard has stated that people leave and come back all the time and that its normal and expected. The way they put it is that they just keep expecting people to act this way indefinitly.
I "believe" people leave and return due to the new games released tending to be poorly made or content lacking clone style games that lets face it...pay to play the "new"game and start over that "feels" like wow or just go back to the one you know are comfortable with and have alot of "time" invested in.
Problem for WoW is there is looking to be some real games that a HUGE number of poeple are looking at that are getting released within the next year. Pop on you tube and pull up some ToR vid's with almost 2 million hits on them. It isnt the Chinese checking out you tube it's the NA and EU markets that are looking. GW2 is the same thing. there are others as wellbut those are the BIG 2 atm.
WoW has done alot of things right and alot of things wrong in many peoples opinion but IMO they just got there first. They were the First BIG BIG commercially successfull game. You have a leg up then cause now everyone is trying to copy you and copying someone elses work while trying to feel unique is a losing proposition.
Dunno about a WoW killer ever coming out but Activision/Blizzard might shoot themselves in the foot at the WRONG time for once and lose a Substantial portion of their player base. GOOD
I hope they put in the premium charge real id. I hope they make the raid content so narrow people are done with it in a week in 4.2. I hope they start selling gear and everything else shitty you can think of to keep pissing their players off. GOOD.
Time for some fresh ideas and fresh concepts and fresh blood in the MMO world. WoW wasn't my first car so to speak , but i'm ready to upgrade from my Pinto to preferably at least a Camaro.
To make a long story short they should have left the old world vanilla, and should have created another Continent instead of screwing things up
Amen. This is the creed of every MMO.
/goes back to playing shooters/rts
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Nothing lasts forever and you'd be stupid to think a computer game will.
That said, WoW isn't going anywhere in the next few years at least. Heck we still have UO and that's how old?
WoW ran its course for a lot of people (including myself) but new non-MMO-playing gamers will most likely choose WoW as their first MMO cause MMO = WOW to a lot of people. It is a bit like Facebook in that there are other social sites, but to most people; social site= Facebook.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
There are other social sites besides Facebook (everyday stuff), Twitter (follow stuff you like) and LinkedIn (for professionals)?
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
The servers in the early days couldn't handle large scale world PVP, not to mention it interfered with newbies leveling which cost them a few accounts, I'd wager (not alot, but still...)
So, they implemented HKs.
That wasn't enough, so then came battlegrounds to coral the PVP freaks off into separate instances away from leveling players.
Battlegrounds were a huge success in all aspects (as much, or more as world pvp was in the early days) - but people complained about long AV games, long queue times - guilds and teams of bros ruined the ranking system (I played 18 hours a day for several months and couldn't break rank 11 due to some guilds controlling 11/12 in 24/7 played character WSG farm teams.)
So they kicked AV's timesink features to the curb, implemented crossrealm battlegrounds.
Crossrealm battlegrounds killed the formation of communities straight off - no longer were you playing with, or against, the same people for months on end for the majority of the games max-level "idle time", forming friendships and rivalries.
People complained about fast kills, being one, or two shot.
So they threw in resilience for TBC, which very effectively disallowed PVE gear in PVP under most situations, while implementing arenas.
With a new-found hardon for the arena (e-Sport, LOL) they worked towards coercing the playerbase into it for their PVP fix, which, while it was successful for awhile, didn't progress or take well past season 4 or so. Willfully interfering with classes PVE performance and abilities for the sake of arena only a small portion of the playerbase has a interest in? Idiots.
Though vanilla 40m raids were a thing of the past (due to the difficulties in finding 15 core members and 25 warm bodies that could follow basic instructions) five mans picked up greatly in popularity come TBC, most people got to see up to Karazhan at least, for the most part, everyone was satisfied that could or would ever be, even though they were strangling battlegrounds for the sake of arenas.
Fast forward to WOTLK.
Arena might as well be extinct, 5mans are still the primary "end game" - they attempt to coax more max level players into "serious" PVE - see Naxx for a warm up, the quality of Ulduar and the easy mode crap of ToC, not to mention the joke of ICC.
Since most people are hardcore farming 5 mans for emblems and what not, they finally implement crossrealm dungeons to keep people busy - fast queues, easy reward vs. effort, heirlooms for idiots that'll spend three weeks grinding low level gear to level their alts "faster." This finally seals the deal, so to speak, for any hopes of community or stability.
Cataclysm comes out with the overall worst instances (Quality wise) created, since they spent most of their effort and development time on revamping the old world (Which should've been done BY TBC release at latest) - the 5mans are vanilla level difficulty, with a playerbase trained on WOTLK content - there is no community, people don't want to work together or play with one another, they simply want their rewards for doing said instances.
The only relevant (skill wise) players are the people pushing into raid content within a couple weeks of Cataclysm release, I'm assuming they hoped uping the difficulty would not only slow progression and burnout down, but train the playerbase to be a little more capable - which backfired, for the most part. People are burnt out regardless, forcing them into actually difficult (relatively) 5mans with idiots they do not know AND they're expected to carry (see vote kick restrictions) is enough to push a reasonable chunk of the playerbase away in frustration.
Now they're toning 5 mans down steadily, after already taking a population hit from burnout and failure to deliver or realize what the progression of expansions would do to the playerbase, while implementing nonsense features in hopes to compensate for the missing portion of the population.
TLDR:
WoW isn't dead, nor will it ever really die, but it's growth has now came to stand still, yes, Cataclysm cost them a bit of their playerbase, but they're still clutching the Cashcow's teet and yanking for all their might.
If anything, I think the real downfall of WoW is confusion and communication. Specifically, lack of communication. Look at the big Feral nerf(shapeshift roots and other nerfs). Now look at the current DK outrage on the forums. What do they share? Confusion and lack of communication. More and more, Blizzard has decided to comment less and less on their changes. Even hotfixes get little actual info. GC stopped posting at all. I, honestly, was never a fan of his posts. But, it was communication. Now all we get is a Blog. Specifically designed to cover topics that most people aren't asking for with zero chance for comments or questions by the players. You can only take the discussion to the forums, where he will not reply or post anymore.
The changes are drastic and not understood by the players. The changes are "game changing" in that they have a large impact on the play style or ability of the class/spec. Blizzard refuses to even discuss them at all now. No explanation at all. This leaves players scratching their heads and getting angry. People start out with simple questions of why. Those posts get locked or deleted without a word. So people get angry and alienated. And still, nothing gets explained. To top it off, they address all of these things with an air of superiority. They always post with a "we don't owe you anything" style or just paste forum guidelines that sometimes have little to do with it but provides a 100% "I win" in all situations to them.
I used to tell Blizzard in posts and emails that they are wasting their forums. They have a direct line to their customers. It's already being paid for. They claim the forums are the vocal minority, but refuse to ever refer people to them or link them in game. It's like they go out of their way to avoid communication with their customers. While there are some legit counters they use to say why they don't, almost all of them can be explained by their own actions. IE: People nitpick at their words because they go out of their way to be vague about actual answers to anything or actually explain anything.
The last time that I can think of that Blizzard actually explained anything really was the rage generation formula. And, even then, they threw in an insult that they figured people wouldn't be able to understand it. It's insulting because they know about all of the player made tools used in WoW and all the simulators for damage based on your gear and level that are available and work. Entire sites designed to theorycrafting. But how could we the lowly dense players ever comprehend their secrets...
Treat people like children? Why be surprised when they act like a child.
It's called trolling, and he's one of the best at it on MMORPG.com.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
There is one issue in that. Gaming companies think short term. They think that when they make a new product and use the same tactics from their previous one, it will all have been forgotten. They think people won't remember how they are treated. While it's true that some people who must be either very young or have alzheimers will jump on "the next big thing" without a thought, even they will tire faster of the same treatment in the new game. At some point there will be someone from Blizzard who will in an interview say "We learned a lot from WoW and we will put that to work in [new game]". What exactly will they use from WoW in that new game? Whatever you paid them for. The more you let them get by with, the more they will use it in the new game. At some point, you have to be honest with them and yourself about it all. You have to do whatever it takes to let them know how you stand on things. Posting on the forums has little to no influence on that.
The problem is the result of that grind. The formula for the grind requires that you are gaining something from that grind. When you don't feel like you are gaining anything. When the gains are even repetitious(same every time). When you say to yourself, meh...it won't make that big of a difference if I do this. That's when the grind fails. If you aren't gaining anything of importance from the treadmill, you're just running in place.
agree at 100%, even new planted will work, but not try to puch old players into redo whole game, it just silly.
if you don't redo all you have like 2 months to play before you got bored of new content or find it too hard & long.
try before buy, even if it's a game to avoid bad surprises.
Worst surprises for me: Aion, GW2
To me, it's another speaking out of both sides of their mouth. They took all that time to redo the 1-60, but have expressed time and time again that end game is where they want everyone to be. You often level out of a zone well before you complete it. It's not made to take time anymore. They want to get you to end game as fast as possible. Which, is made even faster for alts because of heirlooms. Throw in that you can also BG for experience, and you level so fast that you regret taking time to get any one item or spend money on hard to find old world best enchants when you will outgrow them in a couple of hours.(non heirloom items) So, why did they spend so much development time on content you aren't really ever supposed to hover over or spend any meaningful time on? I'm not saying they didn't do some good by fixing problems with certain specs being horrible at low levels(remember leveling a feral with having no feral attacks or stealth for a long time?), but a lot of it is wasted when you don't spend any time there and don't really have time to finish the lore of an area. Blizzard has NEVER been good at scaling. The low zones are no exception. Lastly, some people miss the things they took out when they redid low levels. So making them want to go back and do it again will only create moments of dispair/depression at that loss.
I kind of agree with the OP.
I played WOW for the PvP, but once they added Arena gear and no way to progress through the BGs it was basically pointless for me to play. I don't enjoy being one shot at max level by someone who has a weapon 3X more powerful than I will ever obtain.
Add the fact that the BGs(and most content) never get updated its a slap in the face to the subscribers who've made WoW successful.
It feels like WoW is/was being infiltrated by the SOE devs who drove their plethora of games into the ground.
Kind of, yes.
There is one simple reason for WoW's downfall - the slow erosion of it's community on each server.
Cross-server battlegroups were the first step, LFD came next, and now you don't even have group quests (outside of the Crucible thing in Twilight). I've said this in a few threads before on here and the official site; I would make a serious guess that the rate I used to add new folks to my friends list in game has gone from around 1-2 a week, to MAYBE 1-2 every couple of months. I mean, where am I supposed to meet people in-game on my own server? The people AFK in ORG/SW waiting for a queue pop? There is hardly anybody out in the world anymore. There isn't that random guy/gal asking for a group to do a 3-5 man quest. There aren't 3-5 or more groups forming in trade chat for a few heroics or a Kara, Gruul, ZA run (sometimes even Mag) where you may make a few friends that you group with for the next 2 years.
It's just gone. WoW has become very hollow to me, and everything is a quick fix. It's quite sad that I don't even recognize a majority of folks on my own server anymore, because we never really get the chance to do anything together in game. I remember switching servers way back when for my own reasons, and it didn't take more than a few months before you would quite famiiliar with the majority of the players/guilds on your server (both factions).
I was reading this thread about 5 minutes ago on the official site: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2593042452?page=1 The OP has a lot of fair points of what I really miss about the game. It's supposed to be WORLD of Warcraft - it does not feel like a WORLD (virtual) to me anymore. It's a lobby/console game with those stupid anal jokes popping up every couple of hours.
The community is all but gone! Sad but true - no matter how immature it was, at least it existed.
I agree. In vanilla-WoW and in some other MMO:s there is a virtual world that is fun to explore. Its about adventure and you find new friends and discover new things in the world every day. You dont need to be a hardcore elite raider to have fun that way. Or a hardcore PvP player. And its also about the journey and you dont have to rush to max level as fast as possible.
When everything worth doing is instanced and you can join everything standing in a city that part of the game and play style is gone...
It was a serious mistake to change WoW like that. Im sure they get new players that like WoW the way it is 2011. And subscription numbers and statistics are probably still OK. And they are amazing compared to all other MMO:s... But they are certainly loosing players that dont want to play a lobby game. Players that focus on adventure, exploring and finding new friends in an open living virtual world.
My last real main was named Kuju on three different servers, and the one before that was as well.
Making the game LESS casual frendly? lolwhat. The game is now so casual friendly that unless your doing heroic raids, everything is ridiculusly easy. Class balance is whack and pvp is very limited. Pvp outside of instanced battlegrounds is pretty much non-existent any more (even on pvp realms) since everyone either flys everywhere or teleports.
In vanilla wow actually felt like an MMORPG, with no flying mounts the world felt huge and you actually had battles between horde and alliance in the outside world.
If your out leveling a new alt (because actual new players are few and far between now), you don't even need to move out of the capitol because you can just spam 5 man instances right up to the level cap. If you actually go out and quest everything is soloable. Wow is now more like a 3d chat lobby where everyone is either in a raid instance, a 5 man instance, a battleground instance, or idling in a city.
Vanilla was by far the best experience in WoW or any other MMO in that matter ever with epic world pvp and the GM grind was just epic also the PVE was better imo then it has been the last 3 xpacs. Yea you can argue GM grind took no skill but does Arenas really take skill or just class combinations?
Flying mounts should never been implemented in a PVP game it destroyed world PVP which is why I got interested in WoW in the first place quiting FFXI which was a great game back in 2004.
Eleanor Rigby.
CAT put me off MMO's for a while I am slowly returning to other games but if I go anywhere near a WoW client.. meh, I won't be paying a sub to WoW again so should be safe from it's nickel and diming. Probably.
But because WoW has produced a reaction like that in me, and apparently other subbers since they saw a loss of subs recently, then it could be a sign of things to come in terms of downfall.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nDjEZjkWVc