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?

Comments

Does it alienate players ?

[unity100]

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 ?

Why it hurts

[Jonasx]

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.