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The Changing Face of World of Warcraft
Back in March Blizzard released patch 2.4 and significantly altered a good portion of the overall gameplay and provided a much more casual experience. Since then Blizzard has continued to make the game more approachable through new dungeons and removing attunements and other restrictions throughout the game. While this may open up a lot of new content to the masses and help the game's overall appeal, does this continuing trend promise to alienate the high-end players who thrive on new challenges? Should Blizzard care?
one of the oldest guild Death and Taxes disbanded today, citing such change as one of the reason. (http://www.worldofwar.net/n/413578/death-and-taxes-disband)
does this continuing trend promise to alienate the high-end players who thrive on new challenges?
The high-end players got to be high-end players through thousands of hours of grinding. They don't thrive on new challenges, they thrive on the same old ones.
They released the Sunwell at the same time, a 25-man highest end raiding dungeon. I'd hardly call that something for any but the most hardcore pve players.
...it's gotten a lil chubbier... *sigh* Time for some exercise!
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
The latest patch has been great for me. I'm more of a casual player and now I'm able to level up with just a couple hours of gameplay. Before it would take me a good couple days to increase just one level, which got increasingly frustrating and became the main reason why I canceled my subscription last year. I'm also a big fan of soloing and now I'm able to do that in more areas of the game (I usually do the party quests and dungeons during the weekends when all my friends are able to connect at the same time).
Overall I think it was a good move for players like me. I don't know what the "old-timers" would think about it, though...
game companies.. need to put some real loot in the game.... gas discount cards, fun tickets to go to the movies or discounts on outdoor activities. At least that would give some players a better reason to log on than mindless hours of grinding and crafting. Sure , that would shoot them in the foot. Not really I say, then you get a player wins a gas card.. they are on the road not logged in but stll are paying 14.99 month for something they do not use. Sounds win-win for the game company.
It seems to me that they make more money off Casual players since they require less server time and their subscription ends up bringing in the same dollars as hardcore users that are online 24/7.
MABASPLOOM!
Similar to xbox's system, an arbitrary system of achievement will keep players playing more for attaining arbitrary goals even beyond the point where they find the game boring and tedious. As the baseline of top tiered items becomes easier, the top-tiered players will simply change what they consider to be the elite. As long as Blizzard maintains the ideology of making things time consuming to attain, regardless of the difficulty of achievement, the "hardcore" players will ultimately continue to attain it and complain about it later.
There was zero negative impact when they removed attunements for Black Temple, Hyjal, etc. End game raiders whined that it cheapened their accomplishments (whatever that means in a videogame anyways), when it didn't change a thing. In fact, that change plus the new badge loot helped "casual" players as much as the end-game raiders, in that it became significantly easier to find quality recruits to help stem membership turnover. In the end, it's the same story you see everywhere. Change happens and those who don't like change will whine to try and keep the status quo -- even if the status quo needs changing.
Making things more accessible is bad... how? Ubers feel less uber? It's in Blizzard's interest to have everyone max geared in BC gear before Lich King is released. Maybe they took it a bit too far by removing "all" attunements, e.g. the Karazhan key quest wasn't really that hard to do, so removing it seems a little silly, but in general why shouldn't people have access to all the content they've paid for?
rooooar
Full disclosure: I play Warcraft in a raiding guild.
Anybody who cites the removal of attunement from a high-level raid instance as a reason to give up raiding is a complete and total idiot. The fact that you can set foot into a raid does not in any way mean you can beat it. The only thing attunement gives is a way for raiding guilds to weed out the complete and total idiots. Honestly.
For those of you that don't grasp this, here's how it was before the patch:
Level to 70. Replace gear with low-level dungeon loot, and complete a quest while you're doing that. Raid one thing and get better loot. Raid the next thing and get better loot. Raid the next thing and get better loot. Hooray, you beat the game, go outside.
And here's how it is after the patch:
Level to 70. Replace gear with low-level dungeon loot. Raid one thing and get better loot. Raid the next thing and get better loot. Raid the next thing and get better loot. Hooray, you beat the game, go outside.
Guess what. It doesn't matter if there's no attunement. Everybody still had to spend the identical amount of time and effort getting better loot to even survive stepping in the front door of Illidan's house.
Just another "DOJ fascist authoritarian totalitarian bootlicker" -- Zeio
Given the very high (and still growing) number of people who play these games, I think game companies are already giving the gamers what they want.
Why do we expect that one game should be everything to everybody? Blizzard should cater WoW specifically to the audience of people who like fantasy grinding MMO's. Nothing more, nothing less.
People who play these games don't seem to mind the "mindless hours of grinding and crafting." I would venture a guess that many of them take solace in the high number of relatively low-stress challenges with a steady stream of rewards that are valuable into the future of their gaming experience. It offers a nice change of pace from the real world, where things get much more hasslesome and the rewards are much less predictable.
Grinding isn't for everyone. It never will be. Why stick extra rewards on it to try and make it be for everyone?
If you want to see new content, you cannot do so as a casual player. I was far beyond a casual player (2 RAIDs a week, several hours of farming) and still noticed, that i was falling behind on the content scale.
New instances were added faster i could complete them. Going through SSC and TK literally took months. The RAID had several crisis meetings, weaker players were encouraged to seek their fortune somewhere else. In the end, we made progress and were inside the black temple, but the fun was left behind. In April i quit after playing my Rogue for more then 2.500 hours.
Quitting hurts... as intended. But there was no choice. You can either do the easy instances again and again or try new content. There you need two things: equip and error-free playing. I loved the game, but it was becoming a second job. No need for that :-(.
The desertion rate is currently high. In the month after i quit, the RAID lost 4 more players with 3+ years under their epic belt. There are still new players coming in (still got 330$ for my Rogue), but WoW is loosing a lot of experienced players currently.
All the things done for casual players considered, the R&D of Bliizzard is still focussed on the power gamer (Nihilum&Co). 90% of all instanced content (SSC and higher) will only be seen by a small minoritry of all players (~15%).
Please don't missunderstand me: The game was fun till the last minute. But to continue and make progress it would have required more time of me, that i was prepared to give. The content for the casual player (daily quests, small isntances, etc) didn't appeal to me.
CU, martin
This article or section is written like an advertisement.
I'm more about the storyline and I can't muster the manpower or the time for raids, so one of the things that my friends and I have been doing is going back to older dungeons and raids. For example, the content in the Scholomance instance hasn't changed much since Burning Crusade, so 3 of us go into it playing as level 70s just to experience the content.
Blizzard probably doesn't have the manpower but what I think would be exciting would be to refresh some of the content in Scholomance and link it back to (new?) quests that occur or overlap in the Outlands. Perhaps a book is on a shelf in Scholomance or a portal to a plane where you have to collect an item of power through a previously inert portion of Dire Maul. This idea would allow them to reuse (and refresh) existing content.
Currently this still sort of happens with class-specific quests, like the Paladin or Warlock epic mounts.
you bet it does. and not high end players even.
what would you feel ? you get subjected to months of grind to do this, to do that, and you do, because game says so. and you achieve those stuff in the end and catch up with your guildmates so that you can get into stuff.
then what happens ? a faggot in management decides that they should make things more easier to get more subscribers to bring in more bucks, and voila - all new players take less, and on occasion NO time to get access to what you have toiled months for.
how would you feel ? anything less than totally screwed ?
Read radical news here
Blizzard are considering the future and managing their resources based upon that. Some of the profit from WoW goes to maintenance, some to developing new patches and content; and some undoubtedly goes to future projects (World of Starcraft/The New World of Warcraft, or whatever they have up their sleeve). Also they are considering how to keep the larges majority of their players from changing to Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, Generic New RPG/FPS/RTS/BIG-BROTHER-STYLE - MMO. New products will continue to hit the market and as they learn and improve in quality serious challengers to the dominance of Blizzard will arrive.
I think Blizzard are willing to risk alienating one group of their players if it means holding upon another; if indeed those are mutually exclusive. Whatever happens I am sure in the end serious competition will force Blizzard to improve or die.
The Long Now Foundation
That's the amount of time vodka spent on it over the course of 2.5 weeks. Casual-friendly indeed.
Anyone else find it amusing that there have been at least two World of Warcraft articles appearing on Slashdot and elswhere today, when today is also (coincidentally) the release date for Age of Conan?
I think it's part of Blizzard's viral marketing campaign to deflect attention away from Age of Conan.
(Didn't work, mind you; I bought my copy today.)
Hey dumbfuck, did you notice that you are in the gaming section?
The OP apparently isn't up to date on the latest about the next WoW expansion (Lich King). ALL raid instances will be playable as both a 10-man and 25-man; the differences will be loot and difficulty. I'm a casual player - I haven't been in a 20-man raid since Burning Crusade came out. I would probably have quit the game soon, except for this news. I enjoy all the stories and quest lines woven into the game, and now, FINALLY, I will be able to participate in "the big ones," even with "only" a 10-man raid.
...and I blame the dailies, mostly. The actual content they provided wasn't fun. At all. If not for the competition issues, you had to content with serious burn-out problems from doing the same EXACT thing over and over again, day after day. The problem with skipping this grind lies in the massive gold inflation caused by them. Your gold pieces were getting smaller by the day.
Of course, you didn't have to grind away on dailies. You could always grind badges instead. Or grind PvP by getting your weekly beatings in the arena.
The point was made up above, but I'll reiterate it: Play has changed to a combination of the best gear and a complete mastery of the metagame.
And frankly, if you're lacking in either of those areas, this really sucks the fun right out of it - ESPECIALLY when mindless repetition is your only way out of the deficit you're facing.
Oh, and when that next patch hits, you're now even further behind. Gratz!
Essentially the surge of WoW players is one of the reasons I think that EQ2 was dumbed down. It's one of the reasons that my interest in EQ2 didn't last long after some changes were made and ultimately the reason that Sony lost a subscriber.
At this point I'm kind of set off by MMORPGs. Just like Hollywood, the gaming industry has a way of creating cookie cutter results. What fun is it going to be for a real gamer if they start to dumb down in order to draw in the casual player? Not that I play 60 hours a week or something but I certainly don't mind a challenge. How many more MMORPGs will be dumbed down to follow WoW's lead?
Also, as a side note; Age of Conan came out today. I took some interest until I found out that it was 50 USD without ever stepping foot in the game and the games website seemed to have little content (not that I spent much time there). Why is it that a gaming company still thinks that we should shell out bucks to buy a game that we need to subscribe to? I'd be much happier and more likely to try it if I could download the content and play for 15 USD a month. I'm a hell of a lot more willing to pay 15 to see if I like a game instead of 50 for a game that I can't play without shelling out another 15 if my interest in it wanes for a few months.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Gaming has always been nerdy.
- Hardcore players had high end instances on farm status for many months now and are already regarded as excellent players.
;) ) you don't have time to mess around getting an entirely new character attuned for this or that. You usually have friends geared enough to run the raid with you and carry you for about a month until you're relatively geared.
- Less than 10% of the wow population ever tried Naxx, a pre-BC raid due to gear and bad timing of the release date corresponding with the BC expansion. Hence why it's coming back in WoTLK.
- New players: Not many people play in the old world anymore. Hence why most zones were made non-elite and many quests were made solo-able. Between the levels of 20-58 it's hard to find groups larger than 2 people. When they finally reach 70 everyone else is so far ahead of them gear and content wise they need the new badge gear or farmed pvp gear to even get glanced at for raiding. I know a lot of players that are naturally good, yet under-geared therefore given less priority.
- Most people in wow have 2 or more characters, many tasks become monotonous after raising one. My guild raids 4 days a week for 4 hours at a time. For most people that have a life ( few and far between
- In 6+ months when WoTLK is released high end gear will only determine how slow you swap out your gear for leveling.
- Even though attunment was removed for places like Hyjal, most guilds will only make it past the first boss before they are forced, gear-wise, to do previous content until they're ready to go back and actually accomplish something. A pretty good example are the hyjal rings that are only obtainable by killing the previous tiers end bosses. For one or two people it may not matter but for 25 people it may improve your raid 2-5%. A huge difference between wiping and staying alive. Same with the Medallion of Karabor that is pretty much essential in Black Temple. Both involve past content that mediocre guild will try and skip but will have to come back to.
In the end Blizzard is trying to make the game a bit more casual. But it's most likely a trend they will use to help people see end game content before the next expansion. I would wager that you won't see any easily obtainable pvp or badge gear immediately in the next expansion. The hardcore players will have the edge for about the first 35-50% of the expansions life before Blizz starts to lower the standards like they did. Well.. Hopefully.
The only that that really bothered me is that there was a giant monkey in STV, that would eat your soul and serve it as left overs the next day to pretty much anyone who would stumble upon him. My guild had much fun killing this monkey and always made a large event of it, but now he is just like any other monkey, but bigger. Nothing special, he is not tough, not elite, and its kind of silly now to ask for help with him. It was a sad day for monkies everywhere and our guild wore black tabards with monkies for a week to mourn the loss of such a powerful foe.
about making a game that keeps making them money. The vast majority (something like 86%) of their player populace considers themselves "casual" which basically means that they will play the game as long as it's still fun to them. 8% of players (that's the last number I heard, anyway) are involved in regular runs of end-game raiding. Clearly, they do not represent a significant portion of World of Warcraft income; yet, their voices have had a significantly inordinate impact on game play for much of the life of World of Warcraft. The remain ~6% are "hardcore PvPers" who went through their own (shorter) period of inordinate influence over gameplay; yet, again, we can see that they are not a major source of income for the game. Blizzard is now starting to recognize that they can reduce their overall churn rate by conctrating on that 86% of players who want to play for fun and comradery and do it in the 2-10 hours a week that they wish to set aside to play. And if you play 40 hours a week? Well, you should probably go hit the gym because you are probably raising the rest of our health insurance rates.
I'm a nitpicking bastard for saying this, but I think you're confusing a World of Warcraft "raid" with RAID, the acronym that means "redundant array of inexpensive disks" to the IT industry and computer users. While it's possible for a person to save screenshots of their WoW raid to their RAID volume, saying you can't wait to join your guild's RAID makes it seem like you're just shouting the word "raid" for some strange reason. :)
In all fairness, this wank-fest is also on the front page.
The problem with many players is that wow becomes a source of self-esteem, rather than entertainment. And who can blame the people who invest that much time into an artificial reward system. Gotta justify it somehow.
"then what happens ? a faggot in management decides that they should make things more easier to get more subscribers to bring in more bucks, and voila - all new players take less, and on occasion NO time to get access to what you have toiled months for."
This would only bother you if too much of your real self-image is invested in your WoW persona.
I would have to agree - I used to start new characters and guilds because the mid-level grind after 20 was just way too boring for someone who:
a. has a full time job
b. has a life
c. has a kid
But now I can frequently just pop on and get a level or two with the few hours I can spare, so I've stopped creating new characters and am leveling my existing ones in preparation for the expansion(s).
Besides, I always wanted to be a runecrafter.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
We saw this with the last expansion, this is just a refinement. At end-game level before the release of first expansion, you had tons of people at level 60 but with wildly different gear levels. Maybe you were still trying to down the first MC boss or maybe you were uber and were clearing Naxx. You were not equal. Then TBC hit, we went to outland and within 3 levels we had all been equalized by green quest rewards that were better than the best we could get in the old world. It was a great big reset button and everyone got to start over. People complained about working so hard to get their Tier 3 stuff only to DE it at level 63. This time, their giving raiders, casuals and PvPers ways to get roughly equal gear in advance of the new expansion, to cushion the shock, I'd guess. It's the reset button again. We'll race to level 80 from roughly equal footing, the 25 man content will be hard, there'll be new raiding guilds and casuals will be locked out of the best gear again. Until the NEXT expansion, at which point they'll nerf things and hand out epics to equalize everyone once more. It's a reset button. Just consider it the start of Season Three. :)
PVP and welfare epics killed the game.
A lot of people cheered when the complex attunement quests were removed, opening up SSC, TK, Hyjal and Black Temple to anyone with a level 70 toon. Along with this, Blizzard introduced a lot of new badge reward gear that is almost equivalent to Tier6. This is a HUGE slap in the face to raiders. Badges are insanely easy to get, and for a little effort you too can walk around in T6. The attunement quests were a gear and skill check for raiding guild to see if they were capable of handling the upcoming content. The path to the Black Temple was a very long one, requiring killing Vashj (one of the hardest bosses in the game), and Kael'thas (one of the most technical fights in the game). This also meant having to do full clears of SSC and TK. But not anymore. Just badge up and waltz into BT, sail through the easy bosses and say hello to Illidan!
By opening up the game to more casual play, Blizzard has really devalued the amount of effort that the more serious players have put into the game. There is little to no difference between a raider who has worked his way up through the 25-man raids and earned his T6, and someone who has just done lolheroics all day long.
I'm missing the part where someone is holding a gun to your head, such that you "have to grind out" anything.
I played SRO a while ago and about 90% of the updates were for high level players only cuz they either raised the cap or made new areas with top level monsters available that 95% of the players couldn't step foot in without dying. So pretty much everyone was pissed cuz the top level people run around stomping on everyone most of the time anyway so everyone hated them. Any updates that are good for lower level and mid level characters in any game is way better than cap raises and that sort of thing.
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The Burning Crusade expansion was already the beginning of the end for the 'serious' raiders. When they decided to not introduce more 40-man instances they killed a lot of raiding guilds, including mine. The day they announced that fact people I knew started leaving in droves. I stuck around for a couple months after TBC came out, but I just couldn't do it.
By forcing smaller groups, they caused both an increase in smaller, tighter cliques of players, alienating many on the outside, as well as limiting the likelyhood of non-cookie-cutter classes and builds from getting into raids. This further alienated even more players.
If they ever release a lot more 40-man content I *might* consider re-subscribing, though a high price for buying the expansion will likely stop that. There's also the whole issue of "I already have a job, I don't want to play like I have two," which was a large factor in me quitting.
He's saying that in order to do something new or something that you enjoy within the game you are forced to grind first. It would be like if Tetris required you to get 100,000 points in single player everytime you wanted to do multiplayer.
I never wanted to raid or do any of that stuff. I leveled to 70, doing instances along the way to get better gear. Now I'm at the point where to get better gear than what I have I either have to a) grind badges b) get PUG to do heroics lasting 3-5 hours and *maybe* get a drop I can use c) grind PVP d) grind dailies. I love doing the quests, but none of the quests will give me any gear upgrades any more. The dailies were fun initially, but seriously they get old fast. I just canceled my account.
WoW has been doing this since the game began. As they release new content they make the older content more accessible. If they didn't do this, new players starting the game would have to spend incredibly long periods of time in order to catch up to people who started before them. It is a structured and planned out process designed to keep pulling new players into the game and to help advance Blizzards #1 goal which is profit.
What he said...
As someone who's been playing wow since the first month of release, I'm continually awed by their good decision-making. People have to understand that the game changes because it's dynamic in the real world too. Farming is waaayyy more of an issue now than it was in the past (whether the farming is done by a bot or by someone in a foreign country...)
I personally think the introduction of dailies is brilliant, because it draws a distinction between doing a "job" to make money, or making money on your own terms. Likewise I like the change of raid size from 40 to 25. 40 was too many! 25 achieves the same effect (having to coordinate your efforts with a lot of people) but shifts the group effort from "add up our damage and maybe it'll be greater than the hp of the boss" to, if anyone in the raid screws up, we're all dead - whether it's dancing around (some fights are like the hokey pokey, others are like musical chairs). All of it adds up to a very brilliant system that yields rewards both tangible (if loot be a tangible thing) and intangible - namely, comraderie. It's unlikely you'll be taking down Kael unless you're with a group of people you've formed a bond with, each of whom is familiar with and can trust the others.
And remember, the highest end loot in the game isn't just there to reward the d00ds with the most free time on their hands (trust fund kids, students). Blizzard wants those people wearing that gear in public as a carrot on a stick to other players. That only lasts for so long, and then you have to ease the restrictions on other players so they can get a taste.
Attunement's purpose is to control the pace at which players can enter higher end content, like a governor on an engine. When Blizz releases new content like Sunwell, they take the governor off because the maximum speed of the engine has been raised. Capisce?
I still say gamers who complain about wow mostly are upset because once they get to the top, they can't sit on their laurels forever. Sorry dudes, this isn't a static game, it's a world. You want your high score at the top of the list forever? Go play space invaders... it's cheaper
-ac
There shouldn't be ANYTHING in the game that requires killing more than 100 of the same thing to get. If I want to try some item or try making something please don't make me gather 21000 rep points by killing the same damn thing hundreds of times. That isn't fun, that is assembly line work. Sure I don't have to grind, but if I don't I miss out on good sized chunks of the game.
I've been both a casual player and hardcore raider. Currently I'm a casual player. The switch back and forth is driven by my real life, not the game, which is holding remarkably stable despite some changes that sound big on the surface. The point made about daily quests and gold inflation is right on, as is the comment about the transition to 25 man raids from 40 leading to the breakup of guilds.
As for the changes in 2.4...the big change was the attempt to reduce leveling time between level 30-60. This was simply a balance for the increase in level from 60-70 that occurred with the release of The Burning Crusade expansion. Time to level a character is still around 8 days of playing time.
The removal of attunements was simply a way to allow skilled players to rapidly level new characters and get back into the raids they were already familiar with. Getting in doesn't mean beating...but at least those players don't need to go back to farming 5 man or 10 man dungeon content just to make attempts on the Lurker in SSC.
My take is that the changes are evolutionary and have little or no impact on the number or quality of players that raid. The real change happened a long time ago with the introduction of arena play in place, or more accurately, in addition to battleground PvP play. The arena PvP environment is an attempt to create a Half-Life/Quake/Counterstrike type environment in WoW. Any player can easily get the PvP gear within a few months of casual (~1-2 hours per day) play. Even bad/novice players earn points in the arena system, points that they can use to buy gear that equals the gear hardcore raiding guilds will spend months pursuing. I recently leveled a second character to 70 and I'm already 2/19ths of the way to outfitting that character to be the equal of 75% or more of the other players on the server...that's just with some casual PvP play.
So no, the sky is not falling on WoW. It's changing slightly but not that much and the biggest change is the addition of the arena PvP system, which is a more regimented version of the old battleground PvP system.
And those hardcore gamers that do leave WoW will either be the impetus for the next great MMO(RP)G or they'll be back in WoW before long, or maybe they'll just go outside and pickup mountain biking instead...it's all good.
How do you sell a character, yet mitigate the risk of identity theft? When I consider that my Blizzard account has both credit card information and personal information about me (name), I'm hesitant to sell my character -- especially as the backing of gold/character selling sites are often of questionable origin. However, the prospect of Getting Out is tempting -- while I do enjoy some aspects of play, the money (and the chance to jump at a new game?
Any advice on this would be interesting.
What's the cheapest way to make new content? Not make new content. Thus, the casuals will get to play whatever the raiders played only later. As for the wear and tear, that's natural as the most intense grinders to nothing but eat, sleep and grind (and usually not enough of the first two). After a few years sanity should return to them as is natural, usually related to something like "get a job you lazy college-dropout, you got rent to pay". MMORPG characters are like a stock bubble in progress, you can make money passing it off to the next guy but there's no lasting value. A character left for dead for a few years would be ages behind on levels and equipment and nearly worthless. Ah well, I don't care either way as I spent way too many years hacking away at dungeons as teenager, the appeal is dead. I do think that if I was born 10 years later, I might have been a WoW grinder gone WoW burnout by now.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
One of the problems with these persistent, massively multiplayer games, like EVE, or WoW, is the barrier to success seems to be immense. I downloaded the 15 day trial for EVE. It seemed very cool. But it also seems like in order to become a big deal in the game you'd have to put in thousands upon thousands of hours. Thus such games have little appeal to me because I don't have the time to invest.
So I can understand the motivation to make the game more appealing to casual players in order to gain market share.
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The reason raiders are angry is not because casual content is being added, but because the focus is being switched mid-stream. Not only with the new content coming out, but with changing of the old content as well. It's basically pulling the rug out from under the raiding community which Blizzard had supported well to this point. And the raiders also have a lot more invested in their characters. It's basically killing raiding overall, because the more casual players getting into raiding now tend to lack the determination to wipe for many nights learning bosses. They expect them to all fall over dead in 3 attempts, and after the first week where they have to spend 5hrs attempting one boss they're ready to quit. (And usually blame the guild for "sucking")
...about expansion packs. Of which to date there has been only one.
Nerfing the base level game will make the harder gamers (the ones looking for new challenges) more interested in future expansions. Casual players (like me) won't care about the expansion packs as much (whee, a blue-colored race, and 10 extra levels that I'll never reach!), but the gamers looking for more will be even more interested in them.
Otherwise, a few $20 expansions later, the hard gamers will start to get burned out on buying expansions. But now they will want the expansions to retain challenging gameplay.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
It's really rather hard to say, but I'd be willing to bet that the casual gamers bring more money in. However, it does depend on their economic situation. I'm a casual player of WoW and spend maybe a few hours here and there during the week/weekends, but I pay largely so that I have the game available as an entertainment fallback in the event I grow bored of other hobbies. If my guild is any indication of this demographic, we have a large number of working professionals who keep their accounts active solely for the purpose of having it available. I've been a paying customer since release and have never once cancelled, but then again, I haven't played nearly as much as some of my friends who are hardcore raiders.
I think much of the development effort goes into the hardcore segments simply because they are the most vocal. It's also possible that they receive more of the attention because casual gamers might look to them for the "next big thing." Failure to keep the hardcore gamers entertained well enough, and they are much more likely to dump the game for something else that comes available on the market. I recall that many of the hardcore sort from my realm dropped WoW as soon as LotR Online was released. Some of them dropped LotR Online within a few months and returned--others, well, I assume the remaining segment for which no rumors persisted must have grown up and gotten jobs or went off to university.
But, this is all contemplation based upon anecdotes. It certainly is possible that Blizzard develops most of their content for the hardcore segment because they might bring in the most steady amount of revenue (the 80/20 rule might apply here: 20% of the customer base brings in 80% of the revenue). On the other hand, it's also possibly a case of the squeaky wheel getting the grease. The market segment which is most noisy is the one that a) consumes the most resources (bandwidth, server time, etc) and b) requires the most development time. Thus, I really don't see how the casual gamer market would necessarily be a losing battle--if they pay for time and bandwidth they never use, it's at least 90% profit for Blizzard.
Looking back on it, I think it might be more applicable to compare WoW to ISPs (usage patterns do depend on the demographic and communities served, however). There's a significant number of users--although I'd wager it's less than 30-40%--who may pay for the lowest tier connection they can get away with but they use it only for e-mail and seeing pictures of the grandkids. Are casual gamers the "grandparents" of WoW who just log in periodically for a brief fix? It's hard to say, and I'm sure Blizzard would be wise to keep such numbers a closely guarded secret. Thus, one can only conclude either (or both) of the following: a) hardcore gamers bring in the most revenue, thus content is developed with a focus on them or b) casual gamers bring in a fairly significant chunk of cash and require the least amount of development time, therefore it is prudent to develop some content within easy reach of the casual gamer.
Keeping this in mind, think about some of the recent announcements regarding WotLK. It is rumors that even the Arthas encounter is going to be a 10-man instance with an option for better loot and a 25-man raid. I'm wondering if this change is intended to help casual gamers or smaller groups of an expected dwindling hardcore population? Regardless of which of these might be true, Blizzard is probably very well aware that its audience isn't getting much younger. My realm is a good example of this: Most players are working people and professionals now, whereas when it started, most of us were either just starting university or graduating high school. Now, however, most people are starting to move on in their adult lives and have little extra time to deal with (some are also going into graduate student programs). While this is only representative of my realm, I'd imagine it's a general trend across the entire playerbase. If Blizzard doesn't appeal to casual gamers, it's going to lose them to games that do.
He who has no
I've seen (sub) games where the challenge WAS clicking (on a particular thing). I'm thinking of a macintosh word/math/puzzle game from the mid '90s, whose name I forget... had something to do with the journey of the number '3' from some file, and getting lost in the system...
That particular puzzle was that the maguffin would run from the cursor when the mouse was up, but was just fine when you had the mouse down...
But this is entirely irrelevant to everything but the troll above... To which I say,
"you don't want me, you want my big brother! He's got much more content than me, and he'll be passing by this thread any comment now!"
Did I mention it runs on Linux?
There are 11 types of people, those who know unary and those who don't.
Actually, I rather like the last changes. The dailies make it much easier to cover the costs of raiding (which haven't gone up much, even counting consumables and enchanting mats); getting badges from raid bosses means that it's not that hard to get a few badge items to fill those annoying few slots you never get drops for, and grinding enough honor for one or two pvp items doesn't honestly take that long.
Basically, what 2.4 comes down to for me is that it's now much less of a chore to pay the expenses. This actually reduces the amount of mindless repetition i have to do, so no complaints.
Of course, it does help that I'm in a semi-endgame guild - we cleared BT for the first time two weeks ago (and we've been slowly progressing towards it since the burning crusade first hit). There's no "mindless grind" because there's a definite, if slow, progress from week to week, and yet we're slow enough that it's possible to keep up (and we don't run out of content).
Besides, your last point falls a bit flat - it's never been easier than today to catch up to the late-game (though not the absolute endgame - sunwell is harsh). Leveling was made faster, heroic keys easier to get, the badge loot lets you gear up to a higher level than ever before before you ever enter a raid, and you don't even have to do any attunements anymore.
About EVE online... if you want a challenging MMORPG.
In 2.4 Blizzard released the Isle of Quel'dollar. Apparently it is the island where all the gold farmers go when they die, because without an epic mount or even a functional cognitive system you can do quests that give you hordes of gold. These quests range from "kill this type of thing" to "fly on this and bomb that" with an occasion al "zap this, or kill that to get this item". Not saying I expected a lot or wanted it but I wouldn't say this was a huge patch for non-raiders. In fact it was sadly the first added content patch (major one at least) that I can remember that didn't have a significant world event associated with it (Diremaul was met with little fanfair). AQ and the scourage were both rather neat, and I really enjoyed the missions to go out with friends and kill invading NPCs. Now the invading npcs are permanent, but you're only going to encounter them on QD and they aren't particularly threatening. It was basically the Burning Crusade opening all over again with about 1/100th of the effort applied.
You're playing an MMO. You have a job, a family, and friends (it's possible). You have one level 70 (whatever the end game cap is). Given your time constraints you do not have time to level another toon, but you'd like to explore the majority of the game as a different class. What pray-tell is the reasoning of making someone go through the first 20 or 30 levels without access to most of the abilities and a mandatory tutorial experience to get another end game character? I killed every boss in ever dungeon before end game, do I really need to kill them again on my priest/mage/warlock? I won't being wearing any of the stuff five levels past when I got it. Do I really have to be a whipping boy on PvP servers for disillusioned 70s who need to take out their excessive amounts of free time camping my 40 level lower toon for the duration of my leveling experience?
If there was a means for me to play all the classes towards the end game (where players actually can still be found in the double digits, "Barrens chat...is anyone there?") I'd play the game probably ten years because I would have a variety if characters and play styles to utilize when I'm not working, on vacation, sleeping etc.
On another note...Hey, look at that, we have 25 people online to raid, but no healers, or no tanks or, whatever. We do have them? Fantastic. Can we play the raid dungeon on a non-heroic (easy) mode first to get the feel of the encounter? Ah, I see, well then, glad to know a sense of realism is kept in place where I can talk to gnome named after a star trek character and standing next to a teleporter. Wouldn't want myself to actually play the parts of the game I paid for now would I?
But also it is probably the case that most people subscribed today were hardcore at one point, invested a lot of time and money and refuse to let their character go because of that.
Why do people need to grind to see the ecounters end game? Why can't (for fun, remember fun?) they just have a scalable difficulty for raid dungeons? I don't want them to tweak the number of people that can go in, I want gear proportionate to the effort put in by those involved. Instead of one or two epics ( a crime even on the normal setting) an easy mode should drop a ton of blues, truly each boss in a raid should drop enough loot for at least a third of the people in the raid to get geared up, if not half (a far more reasonable number).
There is more complex, rich, and RPG content that is completely inaccessible to most people at the end game than there is in the rest of the world. It's a damn crime.
I mean honestly? After you got to 70? After you got to 60 and had to wait for 70? During all those days you couldn't raid or see new content because of drama, lack of people, lack of gear. Did you really enjoy most of your gaming experience? Was it fun? Take away the boss kills, the hard fought ones, and factor in everything else.
Though seriously, are you worried about the dumbing down that comes with being "casual" or being "an idiot". I have met some seriously hardcore retards that played for more hours a week than I thought was possible for anyone but a 27 year old-millionaire-paralyzed-asocial-eunuch. Ensuring that people have to be basically competant at lvl 70 or 60 or whatever by requiring them to spend days of their life getting gear to do something at the end game is pretty sad. Computer games do have an element of skill and WoW was never all that steep. Situational awareness, key-bindings, spell choice, were all fairly dumbed down for everyone but the most insane PvPers, and that was always the case. Being "casual" and competed was never a problem, it was being "stupid" and addicted that killed the game for most.
Blizzard owns you.
No doubt a lot of people quit WoW and never return, this increase in subscribers is obviously bigger than the number who quit, so churn is a good word to use.
If a new game (maybe AoC) gets a good rep then all the new blood will be going to it, new WoW subscribers will dwindle, the exodus from WoW will increase and they will start talking server mergers.
Nothing lasts forever.
I have done my time in Raids (Pre-BC as well as up to TK in BC). Sure i got nice loot but each time I stopped and quit mostly because it simply was just not as fun as questing with 2 or three of my friends. Sure I might not get to topple some 6-story tall monster, but I get enjoyment from my interaction and it doesnt feel like I just punched in for my other job.
I think Blizzard got it right with Kara and Heroics. Now I only need a few of my friends together, and get some nice loot while having fun.
This is the core of the WoW community and the raiders should be secondary to that.
Looks like WoW has transformed Slashdot into a Thottbot comment page. "Huntah itam?" *runs away scared*
If you're not hacking/exploiting, your MMO successes fall within the scope of the designers' vision, and there isn't anything to be very proud of in the first place. You've merely completed the exercise.
If you're bothered when lower-end game content is re-contrived for a different audience, then I bet you're just envious and/or ashamed about your sunk costs.
But you'd be right that challenges acquire importance by not having a planner make them achievable for you. You're just having trouble accepting that that was the case for your own apparent challenges too.
I guess I'd accept that downing pre-nerf M'uru is about as significant as devising a slightly personalized way to tie your own shoelaces ... but what getting a life really means is taking on all the challenges that are hard by lack of design.
Many people tend to go outside than playing videogame when summer comes. I understand, if some people to fail to understand this though.
The HC guilds on each server actually drive the casuals more than I think people realise. The HC guilds give everyone something to look up to and aspire to, not to mention release the "epic" patterns and materials to those who cant reach them yet.
... now its akin to a mark of dishonor and "zomg you have no life".
Currently there is a drain of skilled players (yes they do exist) in most HC guilds, to the point that my old server is about to collapse with 2 of 3 SWP guilds about to fold due to lack of membership.
Old hands are continually frustrated by people that have no idea about the game mechanics coming into the guild to enable them to raid with sufficient numbers, which in the end spend most of their time wiping the rest through retarded mistakes. The social and progression cohesion that used to be part of WoW has been irrevocably lost. You could argue that this is down to the many paths scenario that has been opened, where players can gear to end game levels through running "crap" instances repetatively (anyone who has played for a while had 500+ badges laying around doing nothing at the last patch), or via PvP easy rewards.
The whole game has lost its liniation and devolved into many many many guilds creating and recruiting JUST to run Karazhan and get badges. There is no real character progression when someone who has no idea how to hold a bow or use a pet turns up with equivalent t6 gear (huntards I am looking at you).
Instance loot used to be a "badge of honor" showing your progress and ability within a team
It isn't like WoW raids are that difficult anyways. Between CT Raid Assist and Ventrilo, mediocre guilds are good raiders having that kinda crutch.
I think whatever changes Blizzard makes are an effort to attract more accounts. Losing five percent of your subscriber base isn't a real big deal. Not providing content for the remaining 95% is a big deal.
But as for the likes of MMOs that eat away tons and tons of time, I think Blizzard would be morally correct to actually provide an "ending" in whatever form it would be to get high level players off this game. Really, it has been a small factor in destroying more than one person's life that I know. Not to say it's Blizzard's fault, but it is something they should consider.
A real marathon analogy would have you forced to stop at 100-500 yards (or force you onto a treadmill at that point, never to progress beyond it), while the remaining xx miles is 'hardcore'-only content.