Please keep in mind that Diablo Immortal and WoW Classic (and even Wow Classic and Wow Retail) are maintained by completely different teams.
You are right but you can clearly see a trend from WC3 → WoW → Heartstone → Overwatch → WoW Shadowlands → Diablo : Immortal. If WoW would be well maintained I/we wouldn’t draw the conclusion that game quality only got worse over the years. And Blizzard wouldn’t bleed 2 Mio. Customers per quarter.
The WoW Classic team is not responsible for the Diablo immortal decisions
Also true and I also don’t think they are responsible for higher up management decisions. But we are heading in a direction at Blizzard where money > everything. Diablo is just the tip of the iceberg where Blizzard is thinking 100000 $ is a good price for “end game” - They completly redefined Pay 2 Win - At Blizzard it is now Pay 2 Progress. And I belief that they are heading in the same direction with WoW Classic - monetisation is just different probably due to the additional fee. In order to progress you have to be on a big server and if you are not one of the lucky ones who started there you shall pay for it. I do believe it is not in the interest of the developers either, however if nothing of this intent is reaching the customer I cannot give them a free pass.
Aggrend wrote that they are still “watching” some realms and Kaivax wrote that the “full” list of realms to be retired is yet to come.
Haven’t seen that. From what I’ve read they will monitor the server “going into Wotlk” and hope server issues solve themselve.
I don’t belief that. We lost 50% of our remaining population since may. I mean how many patience shall I proof to behave before I am allowed to speak against those practices and there hesitancy?
I hope for your sake that Patchwerk is on it (I was already thinking if we can just swap the names on our realms unnoticed, so that they merge Patchwerk and leave Celebras alone joke
)
Probably too late - My guild is ready to bent the knee. People want to play the game. Patchwerk is like a Shattrath simulator. If you are not one of a lucky with an arena teammate you can’t basically do anything anymore. No raids (the last remaining BT pug stopped 3 weeks ago), no dungeons nothing. People are bored to death. And I don’t get Blizzards approach - Do they think people will forget about this stuff. A happy satisfied customer will be loyal, but they are literally destroying their reputation with stuff like that.
I think the devs do NOT intend to frustrate players into transferring away in exchange for money. I am 100% sure about that.
Yes and no. I’ve seen devs defending the current management decisions in the community council threads in the us forum. If I am not agreeing with my employer I would keep my mouth shut in order to show solidary with the players. I belief in the good heart of most developers but tbh nothing reaches me. Resources needed to fix critical game parts are spent on swapping paintings ingame or rename NPCs. And even if the classic team is small, how can it be that private servers are so much better in reacting to community feedback? I don’t think they had a big team either.
But that’s exactly why I think the current devs deserve a chance, and don’t deserve the distrust (“they’re just doing this to hurt us so we’ll pay”).
Well - Yes they listened but how much do you think is due to player pressure? We all agree that years back subscriber count was much higher. Blizzard could afford to loose players. I don’t think thats the case anymore. They need Dragonflight and WOTLK to be a success otherwise the entire franchise may be in danger. In the end the monetary success of the predecessor also dictates the production budget for the next addon.
Ofc it can be that the tide has shifted and management cannot overrule every (pro-player) developer decision but tbh I think alot of the feedback and communication right now is PR for the expansions. Before they only communicated when it was really necessary. Now they inform you about every step and try to make you feel listened thus you are hyped on the expansion. There is nothing bad in that per se but I am concerned the communication will deteriorate ones the addon launches. A good service is not determined by the behaviour before the purchase but by the aftersale.
Anyway, I hope that Blizzard also listens to you, so that you finally get help on Patchwerk.
The problem is the communication is lackluster at best. Alot of people asking if they should pay now the price for a server trans or pray they get help in the future. Sorry but that’s predatory. There is nothing that prevents Blizzard to put their server health metrics in a script and automate (faction specific) free transfers activation. It is not wanted - And again I will never blame the individual developers for this practice. But I won’t turn a blind eye to those at the top of Blizz’s food chain. And I include lead devs like Brian Birmingham because they are technically not developers anymore but managers of the game.
I am a friend of active,honest discussion. Nothing prevents Blizz from talking to us. People would probably much more understandable if they would do that. But hearing the excuses over and over and to top it of also shift the blame on the playerbase won’t make me sympathise with them. I mean the forum would probably be full of complains if they didn’t have already 2 free transfer rounds. But what changed effectively since then? The problems are still the same - only the percentage of players who is affected by them temporarily decreased.
that they try to satisfy the players as good as it can be, I am 100% convinced
I think that too but that doesn’t help if the management has the last word.