Why would Blizzard change the game design, if not for the players. I dont see why the sub number should have increased either. Most players thinking wow is interesting had already tried it at some point within the 4 years it existed at that point. It was more about staying attractive for the majority of players, because most games drop players after they get older, even if the quality stays the same.
The argument that just because the game became more attractive for players, who already pay for the sub, the sub number should have gone up, is not something I can follow. It wasnt communicated by Blizzard that the game became âmore casualâ, so new casual players would get attracted in the first place. It was mainly that the existing players kept playing, because it was fun to play the game. Some âsocial onlyâ players left, some new people joined and pretty much evened themselves out, but the core of players stayed the same.
Spite is something that sould be reserved for people who try to harm you to actually just harm you.
To maximize profits of course.
But we have seen so many game developers in the past make so many mistakes, I find it quite easy to believe that Blizzard might have had the intention to make the game better, but destroyed something accidently.
I firmly believe, that blizzard tried to make the game better by adding the RDF. I liked it at first too. And the feature clearly has benefits. What nobody knew back then, was what problems it will cause. And that includes me. I never anticipated how this little, convenient feature could change the game so much.
Letâs not forget that Blizzard invented the RDF back then too. No game before or existing at the same time had such a feature.
So yes, Blizzard changed the Game for the Players. But nobody anticipated all itâs effects.
Someone must have left. There is always someone who is leaving. And someone must have joined. Someone who wasnât there before.
I donât find it very believable that the game just stopped getting new players and everyone just kept playing. That never happens. So the only explanation of a steady playerbase that I have is that one group leaves and one joins.
But if that is the case, the design of WotLK must have brought some people into the game that were not there before (and kept them) while some things made other people leave.
Thatâs a really weak argument. Barely an argument at all. One that we can easily turn around:
Before Blizz made it official that there will be no RDF, every single last one of us were expecting RDF to actually be in wotlk at one point or another. So I would dare say that you could very well play this game with RDF in it, and that is the lowest common denominator.
That change isnât so much the gamesâ fault. A big part of it has more to do with the increased and easier access to internet and all the various social media online. This is what has caused a very real change in human online behaviour overall, both out of the game and within the game.
So what do you think happens in wow classic now. Does a relevant big number of players constantly quit and new players starting, or is the majority of players staying there for a long time? To answer your question, the majority of players stays the same, just like back in the day.
Wotlk wasnt much different from tbc for new players that just starting the game. How should have anyone not playing the game before have perceived a noticeable design difference? Since it wasnt communicated to the new customers that the design changed, we can be fairly sure that it wasnt to attract exactly new players. Heirlooms are also something to encourage players, that already play the game for quite some time, to make new characters and keep playing.
You are right about one thing though. Players who liked to socialize more than to play tended to quit more likely and players who liked to play the game for its gameplay tended to keep playing. The decisions of wotlk design were made to keep the majority of players happy and playing.
You couldnât. Because I expected RDF to be there and planned on quitting the game once WotLK hit.
I highly doubt it. These days games have a very hard time keeping players. Or rather back in the day. The only game that managed to keep a big audience over many years is⊠you guessed it: WoW Vanilla, TBC and WotLK. And while Vanilla and TBC managed to grow the Playerbase, the more casual friendly WotLK didnât.
You know⊠itâs kind of in the name âcasualâ.
This again is not how it works.
There was always an influx of new players and old players are leaving. People try out the game, find something they like or not and then, according to their experience, leave again or keep playing.
A social gamer that tried out the game would have found a very silent environment where talking to each other was something out of the ordinary. Something that wasnât like that in Vanilla and TBC, because there it was pretty much expected that you talk to others to find a group. And by âtalkâ I mean the absolute baseline of âWanna go to Maraudon?â and that stuff. Not telling others how your day was.
So with this experience a certain group of players stay and a certain group doesnât find anything interesting enough and leaves again. The social players donât find any social interaction anywhere as grouping up mostly just happens in dungeons and RDF-Dungeons are mostly done in complete chat-silence. Even worse they might, as a new player, even get kicked from a party, because they are ânot good enoughâ. That kind of experience makes them quit the game again. They tried it, but the game couldnât keep them playing.
Meanwhile the casual player that does not care about the social aspect gets a rush of dopamine from getting some loot and doesnât care whether itâs social or not. He stays for longer. That way the game attracts one kind of player, but not the other.
The Heirlooms are quite irrelevant for this topic.
The design decisions where most definitely made to keep the majority of players happy. But it didnât work. What many might have hoped was just a little bit of a bad phase in WotLK became more obvious during Cataclysm. The first expansion that actually lost many players. As I explained before, what kept a lot of people playing were the guilds.
What gets people into guilds is the social aspect. Because once you asked someone, whether they want to join your dungeon group, you already started a conversation and can go from there. And the topic of joining someones guild might come up, if youâre without a guild tag.
So now the casual players stayed for longer⊠but not as long as the social- and guild players.
But you were loosing the latter two aswell. With casuals joining as much as leaving, social players only leaving and the whole thing snowballing, because the more social players leave the less you can keep other social gamers playing, itâs quite obviously a recipe for decline in subscription numbers.
The decisions to keep the majority happy did not make the majority happy.
Really, because if you just somewhat like RDF you also like scaling zones, accountwide achievements, everyting starting at max level, laughable levelling, pitiful professions, everything handed on a silver platter and all the other crap that you find in retail.
Please. This is just SO wrong?
⊠and this could of course not be caused by any of all those other changes implemented at the same time?
Patch 3.3.0 was the patch where everything was dumbed down and made easier:
- all classes were getting more or less the same abilities,
- all specs and talents were being streamlined,
- all players suddenly were able to overpull and survive,
- we got bribes for completing dungeons,
- Questhelper was integrated into the map
just to mention a few.
LFD is only a symptom of the illness and as you canât cure Corona by doling out Paracetamol for aches, pains and fever, you canât cure Wrath by remowing LFD.
I played back then, and I remember how I suddenly went from carefully pulling mobs one or two at a time and grouping up for the red Quests to freeing Metzen in Tanaris in low level Quest greens, killing 8 or 10 at-level mobs without problems. You could suddenly either do anything by yourself or collect no matter whom to help you, no need to gear up, no need to prepare, no need in short to THINK!
I just gave you one.
Unless things drastically changed with Shadowlands then people are exaggerating the negatives of the mythic LFG-tool, much like how they exaggerate that the social aspect of Classic is âdeadâ. The LFG-tool was actually a step back in terms of convenience; not only did you need to form groups yourself, you also had to once more walk to the dungeon entrance. In my experience it did promote some sociality. The retail LFG-tool has more in common with the design of Classic than the RDF-tool does, in spite of it being a newer feature.
If thereâs one thing I find negative about the design of Mythics then it would be the timed challenge. The design is very unforgiving when it comes to wipes, and the timed challenge itself discourages written communication. But as far as grouping is concerned? I think the tool is great. Iâve never had to deal with gatekeeping personally. Not in Mythics, nor in Classic. Not saying those issues do not exist, but I do have the power to avoid such circles. And I gladly exercise that power.
I greatly enjoyed Mythics in retail, but not normal/heroics. In Legion I started late into the expansionâs life cycle, and so no one had time for a blue-eyed newb to marvel at the environments and boss designs. I could follow along easily enough, but I only really played the dungeons in order to finish certain mandatory quests.
But even in BFA and Shadowlands where I was in from the start, people still tended to rush through the content. The only way to appreciate dungeons for the first time was to play with friends. I did so in BFA â but in Shadowlands I played solo. And the random dungeons were so anti-fun that I only ran one before I stopped playing.
And this is at the heart of the issue for me. The game incentivises me to play dungeons by flashing rewards in my face and it is so unappealing that Iâd rather avoid it â and yet in Classic I found myself running dungeons even when I stood to gain little to nothing from it. The main reward was the fun Iâd experience.
You may have a point, but with the Dungeon Finder youâll find people who seem to be only bothered by any attempts at socialisation. And personally I feel way less invested in others when I know that they donât really care about me so long as I donât screw up. And if I do screw up it feels as though it is mostly met with an air if annoyance.
Also forgive me for not giving you the detailed response your post deserves â Iâm typing this on my phone and itâs a slow and largely grueling exercise. But I did not want to leave your post ignored and drowned out by the usual suspects.
It absolutely is.
People are transported instantly to dungeons. Just this details is part of removing the world in world of warcraft.
When it was originally put into the game in 2009 I noticed a change immediately. The game had already stagnated (WOTLK was first addon not to see increase in players, just flatten the huge increase that had been constantly from vanilla through BC).
RDF is a major contribution to the mess retail is today
Isnât the dungeon the way better and engaging part of the world, than being stuck on a griffon though?
How does it impact the social aspect in any way? You mean because people have to wait so long before reaching their dungeon, they are forced to talk to each other?
Ever since it was introduced it has been pointed out that it destroyed the social aspect of so many levels.
Just the simple fact that you meet random people that you know is not on your server just does something to behaviour.
You can argue as much as you want. I was there in 2005 and also in 2008 and Im still here KNOWING it ruined the game and Ive hated it since 2009 together with lots of other devestating features they introducing messing up the game to what Retail is today. Blizz knows it too thats why they removed it. Nuff said.
I too noticed the change - but I was still far from max level, so I noticed all the other changes, that patch 3.3.0 brought:
- all classes were getting more or less the same abilities,
- all specs and talents were being streamlined,
- all players suddenly were able to overpull and survive,
- we got bribes for completing dungeons,
- Questhelper was integrated into the map
just to mention a few.
I played back then, and I remember how I suddenly went from carefully pulling mobs one or two at a time and grouping up for the red Quests to freeing Metzen in Tanaris in low level Quest greens, killing 8 or 10 at-level mobs without problems. You could suddenly either do anything by yourself or collect no matter whom to help you, no need to gear up, no need to prepare, no need in short to THINK!
And this - the thinking and planning part missing from the world - was way more destructive to WoW than any RDF.
People got used to being OP, to getting everything here and now, to not dying from misjudgements or carelesness.
Of course they wanted easier from here, as they liked being OP - path of least resistance and all that.
It wasnât really pointed out, it was stated and reiterated as an opinion but never proven in any way. Iâd certainly agree that cross-realm would lessen any social impact, as there are no consequences to bad/positive behaviour and display of skills, and on the end of the journey you have to say goodbye and you canât be invited to do other things together.
But how that is linked to instant teleports ruining the social aspect is beyond me. Iâd say the opposite should be true:
Less travel time = more time for the actual dungeon = you can do more dungeons = more time spend together = more social interaction.
That might have been true when people were 12 and played wow for first time âoh my good look at this cool whirly thing I foundâ âŠ
Reality is that people are just slacking for 10 minutes until 2 people do the legwork, well just afk for 2 minutes on taxi, and then just summon everyone right to the entrance âŠ
If that was true then low lvl dungeons would be super active since everyone would love to explore the world, yet the only runs on old world are SM and strat boosters âŠ
And it will be the same on WotLK âŠ
also
Dont even try to tell me that you believe blizz cares about you xDD ⊠dont forget blizz also wanted to remove dual talents and removed disenchant button because âthey listened to the communityâ
I am not trying. I am telling you. Because they actually DO KNOW⊠simple as that.
Its even worse than I thought xD
Ouch, itâs almost a religion.
What is, faith in RDF ruining everything, or trust in Blizz doing the rigth thing?
The blind faith in which any notion of critical thinking is lost, âthey know, because they know, simple as thatâ.
You can always argue why something is bad, including RDF, but the answer should never be: it is because it is.