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Better than Vanilla make Full retail traditional ?
delete5230
Member EpicPosts: 7,081
Just a question, simply a stab in the dark and hypothetical.
How would you feel about full retail going traditional ?....... Hypothetical because it could be impossible.
I lost all desire after "The Burning Crusade".
- Because of "Cross Realm".
- Even more so with "Easy" ( combat, talent trees )
Not an opinion because I'M NOT ALONE, millions have stopped playing.
Would this bring back millions ?
Would it loose more than bring back ?
Would you yourself enjoy it more ?
Would we even need Vanilla ?
What's your opinion ?
How would you feel about full retail going traditional ?....... Hypothetical because it could be impossible.
I lost all desire after "The Burning Crusade".
- Because of "Cross Realm".
- Even more so with "Easy" ( combat, talent trees )
Not an opinion because I'M NOT ALONE, millions have stopped playing.
Would this bring back millions ?
Would it loose more than bring back ?
Would you yourself enjoy it more ?
Would we even need Vanilla ?
What's your opinion ?
Post edited by delete5230 on
Comments
These are all personal opinions of mine below, just stating what I think feel free to shred the post if you want lol =D!
1. Get rid of the Dungeon Finder for people in guilds = The dungeon finder to me is a double edged sword. It is great for the reason that it can be hard to find groups, but, on the flip side it completely kills the social aspect of guilds, making them not really needed basically. So I think there are a few things they could do here to make it more reasonable if they want to keep it. First get rid of rewards for using it. Second, make it so that if you are in a guild you cannot use the DF unless it is a non heroic or level up dungeon. (Basically you can only use it while in a guild for leveling an alt and for doing the starter dungeons at max level).
2. Bring Crafting back = Crafting in wow is a joke, it actually use to have a reason to exist, now it seems, that crafting is just a place holder. I remember making flasks for the raids, the buckles for sockets, food for raids, gems for gear, enchants all over the place etc... etc... Now what do you actually do with it? There may be a couple things that are useful, but, there is really no utility use for it really and serves no purpose to be there as there is no actual need for it. This really kills the economic aspect of the game. Guilds use to help each other farm the mats for raids and had specific crafters that would help them prepare. I knew of some guilds that actually had people in there guild that would not go to the raids, but instead focused on the support part to help the guild prepare for them, by making flasks, food, gems for newer gear, and so on.
3. Talent trees need to come back (or something akin to it) = The talent trees are WWWAAAYYYYYYYY to dumbed down, this is something that wow really needs a rework on, cause there are so many things they could do that would be better then what they have. There are a ton of other games they could look at for reference if there not really sure how to go about it, just, there really is no making a toon your own anymore or expirementing with builds.
Gonna stop here, there is more I could type but to be honest these are the things that really stop me from really playing the game again.
1, 2 and 3
1) Dungeon finder, makes the game easy.
2) Crafting is useless if the game is extremely easy in all games. ALL GAMES !
3) Simple Talent trees coincides with extremely easy.
Extremely easy in the "common denominator".
I don't know how many would come or go but for me it would be a dream come true.
The millions that left before BC, the ones that left after BC, or WotLK ...
Remember WoW has sold over 100 million. Maybe full retail should be MoP? (Due to the popularity in China perhaps).
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
This is an impossible question to answer. Everyone has a different tolerance level. Detrition level was a slow process starting after BC.
How can you chart FORCED CHANGES.... Could 6 million be 12 million ?
Perhaps the real issue is why you continue to play when others clearly have seen fit to stop? And when I say stop, they really do stop, as in they have NEVER returned to the game nor are they inclined to.
Those are the millions that have left the game... you are not one of them. You are part of the subscription numbers that peak whenever a new expansion is released. You are that player. You are that player that gets bored of the game, but not enough to stop playing it indefinitely. You are that player that seeks to find a way to get others to play the game with him. This is not someone who has stopped playing the game. Far from it. Modern WoW was created just for you, not the players that have left, but for the players who continue to play. And you will continue to play... no matter what.
The idea of "recapturing an old playerbase", as it is being discussed in relation to WoW, assumes that if you enjoyed a product 10 years ago and left, you'd still enjoy the old product today. This is completely wrong in my opinion.
If a person picked up WoW 15 years ago, they did so because of their experiences, passions and expectations specific to that era. Perhaps they were a tabletop RPG fan bringing their fantasies digital for the first time. Perhaps they were a Warcraft 2 fan, or an Everquest player curious about something new. Or maybe someone trying mainstream gaming for the very first time, as gaming still was quite niche back then.
All of these archetypes won't be possible today. The same person will have a completely different environment today. If they return to a vanilla WoW server (or anything similar), it will be for completely different reasons to their initial WoW purchase a decade ago.
So I think the premise is flawed. People often think "If we return to an old product, some fraction of the new people will leave, but some fraction of the old people will come back. Which fraction is bigger?" This is not an accurate representation of what is going on. People should think more along the lines of "If we released an old product today, how would our old playerbase respond to it? And how can we use the old product to capture the new interests of our ex-playerbase?"
You have to look at the old playerbase as a new group that you have to capture again. Not as some pool of people that will automatically respond to an old product.
To bring it back to the OP, I think shifting the whole game to vanilla would be extremely risky. The fact that WoW still retains a huge chunk of the population today means they are doing something right. They managed to adapt their product in a way that lets them keep their playerbase interested. If you were to revert everything, you'd likely lose most of your current playerbase, and the old playerbase wouldn't actually come back.
I think the best solution is to move the product in a third direction - new to the current playerbase and new to the old playerbase. That way you have a strong chance of retaining what you have, while recapturing the new interests of your old players.
At this point it would be too risky, more importantly to hard to re-tool, that's why it's hypothetical.
The damage is already done...... I say damage because I really believe its true !...... The game was at it's peak when they decided to change the format to "easy and lobby" for no good reason. So I have to say would 6 million be 12 million?
It's 100% impossible to chart.
We will get World of Warcraft 2. Blizzard is too established to let the company fade someday.
I'm sure they have a full draft ready to execute already.
In any case I don't think anything they do with a 13 year old game would make it up to 12M again, only a sequel could do that.
Changes could certainly bring back some old players and stop the slow bleeding for a while but it is a very old game by now and old MMOs tend to slowly bleed players no matter what you do.
If I were Blizzard would I secretly work on Wow 2 and announce it when Wow drops below 3 millions instead of trying to change things back. Just get Kaplan as lead designer.
I have to say I made up 6 million because player base is classified for Blizzard eyes only, no civilian knows the real answer. Also take into account many variables are at work.
Actually, your guessing 5 or even 4 ?....... Very good chance even less !
Years ago, when players were saying population was high. I created a new character on every popular server and did counts.... I really did this ! .... The results were not very high.
It would have taken a week to get a true count, but the time I spent didn't look very good as for what people were saying.... Not even close.
Like I say, Blizzard has a draft for WoW 2, much like governments don't spend money on contracts until it's needed.
Blizzard's mainstream, new games are completely built around meta marketed, cross audience development. They want every single player to cross over and play all of their games to maximize profit.
Classic will be an anomaly and not a return to niche gaming. Their game designers have no pull. They lost their artistic driven approach long ago when they sold out to venture capitalism.
The only SLIM chance we do see a return to niche marketed game design is if a team is allowed to operate under a nearly artistically autonomous subsidiary that branches off to make such games (it would have to be a different bread of developer than their current crop of modern meta marketing kool-aid drinkers). What perhaps could spawn something like this is if Classic truly takes off or another indie mmorpg's success attracts the interest of Activision Blizzard ... and they copy the concept as they always do.
I'd lose my shit if something like that happened off their own success of Classic Wow due to the sheer irony of it.
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