Why don't people treat WOW as an RPG, and who is the target audience?

I have been away from the game for a while as I play multiple MMORPGs, i.e. WOW, FF14, GW2 and ESO, and several other single-player story narrative games such as Dragon Age.

I have recently come back into the game and started a new character. I wondered why the player base is so fractured and why the only people genuinely enjoying themselves in the game are people who treat the game like a single-player RPG or a D&D campaign setting.

The thought came to me after I saw the Preach and Ion interview where Ion was describing a player who played every day to do World Quests. I don’t think he meant this literally, but I certainly think he was describing the RP crowd of the game who treat WOW how someone would treat a D&D campaign where the loot chase or dungeon/raid grind is not the actual game.

It got me thinking about what might be a fracture between experience motivated players and reward-motivated players. I saw this early on at the Beta stage of the Shadowlands. People were detailing the fact that they wanted to pull the Ripcord on the covenant system and wanted access to all the powers because they wanted to have the choice to be optimal. It was due to how it would hinder their progress in the content they wanted to do, such as Mythic + or heroic/mythic raiding. However, I also saw another significant portion of the community who wished to make covenants more fixed or permanent. They agreed with Ion that identity in the overall setting was being filtered out.

The conversation came when people were having a serious discussion on spec identity and the overall class fantasy of the game. This conversation leads to Blizzard reworking classes to give them a more diverse set of tools from other specialisations of their type, i.e. a frost mage could now use a fire spell.

It has left me wondering who the developers are building this game for and who is their primary audience. It’s easy to say that WOW is the best when it’s a broad church, but that’s not usually the case when it comes to products. Usually, it has no value or meaning if it’s not necessary, like bread or water.

I wanted to get other people in the community actual opinion on what seems to be different wants and needs. WOW has attracted and kept many diverging and engaging communities over its life who may want completely opposing things in the game and ask a genuine question who is the game for? Who should it be for, and how can we rectify this community problem when so many of us lack empathy or care for someone else’s needs or wants?

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I’ve been wondering aswell. I still cant find a legit answer.

Belluar and Asmongold have an amazing vision of what WoW needs and what is it missing. But thats not the problem.

The problem is you find some people agree and some disagree. On something that is obvious.

The more I look in the forums and read the community respond, the more I realize that this game has gained alot of people who likes doing solo content.

I do too , but this is going too far. They might just make WoW offline single player and buy patches with DLC.

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I’ve been playing since 2008 and as time has gone by I’ve become more used to soloing than doing group or raid content reason being is the toxicity of raiding and instances put me right off being with other players for an extended period of time and the incessant need for being the best DPS and so on does not help more so if you’re there for the sake of story or lore. I might eventually do some end game stuff with my own guild but outside of that I solo and I am much happier to be on my own in-game than with people.

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Mostly, I think, because its NOT an RPG
Actually there is a very few ā€˜real’ RPG around
You are on a fixed path, your choice and actions have 0 matter or inpact, you can’t controll your character’s Destiny or skillset, stats, heck not even the faction you wants to be, not to mention alignment, to be good, bad, neutral, etc
The lack of the freedom of… any kind makes its darn hard to treat it as an RPG
Its just a glorified Super Mario bros, except Bowser is always in another castle and change face and name

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RPG’s are a thing of the past. Most of the modern games are not even RPGs. Gaming has evolved into a fast paced gameplay from the slow - strategical one.

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How do you think they could rectify this, and what would be the steps in the future to make it more like a tabletop setting where you can control your own fate? More permanent choices when it comes to moral alignment and factions. Unique powers and cosmetics?

I fail to see how it is going too far when there is little (almost nothing) to do for the solo player in Shadowlands, BFA wasn’t much better either.

Currently it’s M+, Raid or PvP.

We can’t even go back and solo Legion Raids or BFA dungeons. Scaling is borked and the trash inside Freehold destroy this level 60 shaman. In Legion I did all the WoD Glory achieves, in BFA I did all the Legion ones. Now I can’t do the BFA ones.
Factions are all basically the same, do Callings of Fill-the-bar or WQs which are more or less the same. In the past we had Argent Tournament, Cloud Serpents, Netherwing, Tillers etc. all of which did different things for different rewards.
Questing is linear and has little replayability as you do all the same quests in the same order. We used to get Max level zones with plenty of quests in also. Suramar, Silithus, Icecrown, Netherstorm etc.
Professions haven’t been great since WoD, for me as a casual in any case. I’m sure some people enjoy it.
Simply going out and exploring the world is no longer really a thing. The maps are just obstacles densely packed with mobs. You aren’t looking around for treasures, you’re struggling to move 50 yards. There aren’t really things to find in any case. MOP had all sorts of lore, items and treasures hidden all over the place.
The world is tiny, four zones with five minute flights between them.

In BFA Islands needed three people. in Legion Invasions needed three people. In BFA you could do Visions solo but could most casuals really solo them? Same goes for Torghast, supposedly solo content but I doubt I’d manage Twisting Corridors layer 8 (not tried as I’ve read how others have struggled). 9.1 might improve Torghast, we’ll see.

I see the argument a lot on the forums ā€œIt’s a MMO, why are you here if you aren’t doing grouped content?ā€. Well these games used to be sandbox type games with all sorts of different ways of playing and finding enjoyment. Some of these ways could have involved grouping with other, maybe with friends or guildies or even with randoms. The random community is so toxic now that a lot of us have simply given up on a lot of grouped content altogether.
But for solo casual players it’s been getting more and more difficult. So I really can’t see how anyone would think the game is going too far for solo players.

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I am sorry to hear that you had that experience in the game. So it was a in a sense a failure of community moderation for you? How do you think Blizzard so go forward moderating the community so an experience like this wouldn’t happen or what would you like to see happen?

I agree , single player content is very short. And it kept getting worse.

But I wasn’t saying wether it was short content or no content at all , I meant in general players likes to do solo content. They dont wanna get into groups and meet new people. Y’know what I mean

So you want more open-world content in the game, would you like to see more dailies without them being tedious or chore-like i.e. WQ?

Would you like to see fewer reputations and more meaningful ones which offer you new and unique rewards and experiences as a player?

I don’t really know what we could do about factions as that seems to be dictated by the story but I would love to hear more of your thoughts about it.

I assume when it comes to questing you would love time walking to be baked in or an advancement on the Chromie levelling system and newer zones to be more like Suramar which focused on exploration and progression of that zone? As well as a more in-depth and unique crafting system.

As for things such as visions or Torghast do you think they should be more like deep dungeons or optional side content which can offer a player a challenge the higher they go and give unique rewards?

Because it isnt a single player rpg.

If i want a rpg i go play witcher 3, elex, skyrim, dark souls.

Is that simple, the game isnt meant to be played like a rpg.

Glad it works for you!

I actually like the game mostly as it is, I do play this game primarily as an RPG though, however as I play exclusively with my husband if this was made into a solo RPG with no multiplayer options it would take a vast part of the games enjoyment with it. We play this game, to play together, it’s a shared interest and topic of discussion and it has to be said nostalgia. We have played for over a decade discovered this game together and adore the world.

That said we rarely group with others, but we enjoy seeing you populate the world.

That is correct it isn’t a singe player RPG but it is a multiplayer online RPG, its an RPG with more people you still have to play it like an RPG. I guess the question then is what is it first an MMO or an RPG. FF14 solved the problem by stating it was a JRPG first MMO second.

Its more of a mmo. But @ a mediocre one in its current stateā€

I always take my time leveling, in a new expansion and pay attention to the lore and world.

But in the end its a mmo, and the pve/pvp aspecta are awfull nowadays.

The truth is, retail-tbc- wow its awfull this days.

Gluck man!

As someone who wants more of an MMO experience or a social experience in the context of pvp and PVE what do you think for you could be done to improve that experience?

That’s an oversimplification.

My main source of satisfaction in the game comes from the economy. Others are perfectly happy with their army of alts (which shouldn’t fall in the ā€œplay the game like a RPGā€ category) etc.

There are many ways to play the game and that’ one of its strengths imo, altho it causes tons of issues because of the conflicting expectations of each playstyles.

We have some of them in the forum so I’d rather argue he intended to talk about them.

The RP crowd has their own concerns and I don’t think world quests are one of them

Imo it goes much deeper than that, the playerbase is fragmented into a variety of smaller communities which each have their own vision of how the game should be.

If we look at the content then I’d say they focus on raiders as most of their resources seem to go in the new raid first and foremost. Casuals come 2nd with the new world content and then we have m+ which are mostly dealed with at launch and lastly PvP as it mostly maintain itself with limited content updates.

I’d say Blizz wants to satisfy everyone at once while keeping the cost at a minimum & keeping players subbed as long as possible.

The various communities also have a somewhat symbiotic relationship with each others.

The economy would struggle without an active playerbase doing high level content or casuals & farmers flooding the AH with items.

Imo the game should catter to as many playstyles as possible while limiting the conflict between their goals and expectations to a minimum.

Take the covenants for instance. Two biggest issues are being locked in your choice & conduit energy, the later being designed to counter very competitive players.

Is it worth limiting the ability to customise your character for most of the playerbase just so mythic raiders can’t go back & forth to their sanctum and swap conduits for each encounter ?

Not that most players actually suffers from it as they never reach the cap but is the benefit worth the inconvenience ?

In that example I’d say that catering to Mythic raiders bad behaviour isn’t worth it and just gives a bad image to Blizz.

One last thing I’d like to mention is how not every expectations should be listened to, even if it pleases more people.

For instance should the playerbase become massively composed of MOBA fans, should we listen to them and simply give everything to players on a silver platter upon logging in, or should we keep the core RPG roots of the game with leveling, gearing, talents, farming etc ?

The game should be designed to satisfy as many players and playstyles as possible, but this shouldn’t overwrite the core principles of the game.

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I’m sorry for over simplifying it, I was just trying to get feel for how people felt without going to deep.

I agree with the most of what you said.

In terms of dealing with the numerous communities in game how do you think Blizzard should approach the game from now on. Should they create a central pillar such as an MSQ or do you think they should take a more modular approach to the game?

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Well, hereā€s my wishes:

Shadowlands

I liked it at start and made 3 chars lev max.

1 disc healer, dps monk- mage.

The abusive aio

Im sick of thorgast and similar systems.

Pvp- boost fest and 0 balance.

Tbc

I joined for pvp- awfull que times-1hour at horde for 200honor- a piece is atleast 15k.

So for me, i would like a balanced pvp, less yhorgast, ap from bfa grind.

The pve side of wow -myth plus i like it- i hate aio , raids are cool- but we need moremcontent faster.

Gluck!

Thank you for the input.

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The best systems are the one that hinders neither part of the community. Good luck.