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One of the most upvoted Reddit threads I've ever seen - "A Letter to Blizzard Entertainment"
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Not news exactly, but a great post has popped up on the World of Warcraft Reddit that is one of the most highly upvoted posts I've ever seen. It's been upvoted over 25,000 times in well under a day and has earned a ton of Reddit currency.
Penned by "Alizbee", the writer reflects on his years as a Blizzard fan and how the company mantra used to be "gameplay first". His lament is that it's simply not that way any more and that Blizzard has lost its way...maybe forever.
Truthfully, if you're a WoW fan or just a general Blizzard fan -- or WERE at one time -- it's a letter you won't want to miss.
Penned by "Alizbee", the writer reflects on his years as a Blizzard fan and how the company mantra used to be "gameplay first". His lament is that it's simply not that way any more and that Blizzard has lost its way...maybe forever.
Truthfully, if you're a WoW fan or just a general Blizzard fan -- or WERE at one time -- it's a letter you won't want to miss.
You stopped making an MMORPG years ago. Instead, you turned WoW into an elaborate fantasy-themed casino replicator. It's a third-person looter-shooter designed to string players out like addicts looking for a fix. Your other titles are just animated shopping carts that feature mini-games people can play in between opening loot boxes.
We are not your enemy Blizzard. We are your loyal supporters. The luke-warm, fair-weather fans are gone and they are not coming back. We are all you have left. And frankly, when it comes to MMORPGs, you are all we have. Please stop ruining World of Warcraft. Please stop designing it around KPIs, MAUs, and other marketing bullshit. I'll play the game if it's fun. And right now, it's not fun. The people designing and developing the game look tired. Maybe it's time for them to "move to other unannounced projects". Or maybe you just need to let them remember what "gameplay first" means.
But I do know Blizzard games. And I know that whatever it is you are producing recently, are not Blizzard games.
We are not your enemy Blizzard. We are your loyal supporters. The luke-warm, fair-weather fans are gone and they are not coming back. We are all you have left. And frankly, when it comes to MMORPGs, you are all we have. Please stop ruining World of Warcraft. Please stop designing it around KPIs, MAUs, and other marketing bullshit. I'll play the game if it's fun. And right now, it's not fun. The people designing and developing the game look tired. Maybe it's time for them to "move to other unannounced projects". Or maybe you just need to let them remember what "gameplay first" means.
But I do know Blizzard games. And I know that whatever it is you are producing recently, are not Blizzard games.
![[Deleted User]](http://wa.vanillicon.com/v2/a5231d9a9017cdf5f82125ccaf807f8f.svg)
![[Deleted User]](http://w5.vanillicon.com/v2/537a0faa795d15e9aae394dbb97fbb8e.svg)
and 2 others.
Comments
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Man, Googling that and there's like 30 of them... :
https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/a7rrmy/a_letter_to_blizzard_entertainment/
Sorry @Ikeda
https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/a7rrmy/a_letter_to_blizzard_entertainment/?utm_source=reddit-android
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
While I still hope Blizzard finds themselves back on track, I feel like they are going the way of the DoDo.
Game companies I used to rely on were ones like Bioware, Blizzard, Bethesda. Look at them in the news lately. These were what I would consider stable bedrocks of gaming. Yes, they didn't produce annual CoDs but when games came out, you bought them. Heck, I'd buy them FULL price (and not wait for a sale).
Now companies are driven by stock prices. And the only people who make money off of those are banks and CEOs. The low-people don't gain from it. All they hear is "we have to make revenue". So if a company misses it's forecast by $.01 their stock prices tumble $40-30-20. Which is silliness. In what year, (accounting for inflation) do you expect year over year growth perpetually?
I can hope the system changes, but all the accepted microtransactions and F2P and other various "knock-off" garbage... they aren't fun anymore.
Maybe, it's because I'm getting older but I pine for those days. But thinking about trying to take it up now... I'd rather just get under a blanket and read a book. (e, of course, no filthy paper anymore :P)
Their stubborn insistence on moving forward with systems that received a resounding negative response reminds me of @Superman0X's comments about these pubs and devs drinking too much of their own koolaid.
Devs can't fathom that courting a passionate fanbase is more important than courting every. Single. Gamer. On. Every. Single. Platform. Possible.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I'm hoping some new indie companies can come out and make a big impression now that Blizzard is out of the way.
Sometimes, I still cannot believe I'm actually watching the end of WoW, but I guess the saying holds true, "You either die the hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain".
"game play first" is his statement on what Blizzard USED to be like?Seriously?
Wow is a LINEAR questing game,COPIED off of Everquest and nearly identical to EQ2.
They create a MMO but design it like a SINGLE player game,no i would say if anything Blizzard doesn't GET IT and have no clue about game play.
I can skip years of failed design and go straight to SCALING,sop after creating a single player design,let's also ruin immersion,no question they do NOT get it.
AUTO group finder that also instantly warps you to the zone...sigh,just really sad how they can butcher a mmorpg.
Sadly the majority of mmorpg gamer's this is all they knew,this is the game advertised to them an they all jumped in BLINDLY.They didn't know any better so Blizzard had it easy street with a BAD game design and a poorly run business.I can say poorly run because when i saw the numebrs they were spending a LOT more than Square Enix with far less games.Then they only have ONE large game "Wow",so how did they spend all that money?
Then all these people sticking by a game that has had MANY people LEAVE blizzard over the years to start their own games and acting like it has always been the same TEAM,the same people,well it has NOT.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Aloha Mr Hand !
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/Mostly it's 'cause I'm used to writing news thingies, not posting forum topics.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
MisterZebub said:
He waxes nostalgic about the early Vanilla days, yet IMO, he was playing the game wrong. (Or for fun, which is still wrong is my book) He didn’t replace his robe until BC? Then he wasn’t 40 man raiding like I was, when we got full new gear sets with every raid dungeon we mastered . (And re-ran ad nausem)
He never looked up anything offline on how to do things? Then he was just a noob to the genre and didn’t have a clue. (Or didn’t care, I play FO76 that way now, blithely wandering the wasteland, not looking up much ever)
I recall looking up quest locations all the time, and when it came to raiding and even general game play I downloaded tons of mods to make the game play more efficient.
He logs in to play with friends, I moved from one raiding guild to another, always on the search for ones which could best help me meet my progression goals, no use for others, especially if they hold me back.
Yes, you are correct, I have very few friends which is probably a good thing because by my defininition, a friend is someone who you would die for, or would be willing to die for you. It’s a pretty small list for most folks I would imagine.
WOW wasn’t perfect back then, it isn’t now, and he’s correct about one thing, the new classic servers will show people the one Dev lead was right, they think they want a vanilla experience, but they really don’t, or something like that. I believe he’ll be proven correct in the long run.
So yeah, gaming in general sucks today, especially from the bigger publishers, one reason why I’ve discontinued playing MMORPG’s for quite some time, even my favorite EVE has lost it’s luster due to the march of unwanted change. (Without reasonable compensation) Now that Pearl Abyss owns them, I expect things to get worse, not better.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"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
What ever happened to generation Y ?
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
There was always gated content, that required time be put in (as all MMO's have otherwise the monthly fee wouldn't be paid). Attunement, dailies, rep grinds. It was all in Vanilla, and BC.
He also contradicts himself quite a bit throughout the post, he wants blizzard to put polish on content, and seems nostalgic about the whole "it isn't ready so we won't release it" mentality blizzard used to have, but then complains later on in the post that a race wasn't added into the game because "it isn't ready".
You can very well play the game the same way you used to. People aren't forcing people like this guy into playing for gear, doing the treadmill of endgame content. But if he for even 1 second thinks that it wasn't this way before, he is severely wrong. I remember the rep grinds. I remember having to do dailies for weeks just to get enough rep to do things. I think that as an MMORPG player, his mentality changed, I don't think the gameplay loop is all that much different. It's just more blatant now.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo