ActiBlizz, take a note from GGG and Path of Exile

Community General Discussion
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Yesterday, their launch flopped. Hard. They had some human error server migration issues and gave priority to streamers and content creators while the rest of us sat in a 50k person, 5 hour queue and then DC’d constantly all night.

But…they owned up to it. They posted about it, told the community about it, fixed the issue, apologized, explained why they did what they did, and admitted their wrong doings.

I was upset at first, but I wasn’t ‘screw this company and game’ upset. I felt like ‘okay, they messed up, but at least they were transparent about it’.

That’s your biggest issue anymore. No communication. You take no feedback or criticism (positive or negative) from the very community that pays this game to still be online.

You just do what you want to do with this almost smug hardheadedness and then patch out some knee-jerk reaction to the backlash you caused by just NOT LISTENING and not being open to your paying customers and people who genuinely enjoy your game and want it to succeed.

And I’m a harsh critic of this game now. Coming from Vanilla 16 years ago, I blast this game on the regular. Not because I hate it, but because dammit I want it to be my game again. I want to feel excitement at work thinking about getting home to WoW it up. And it’s gone.

You stacked so many arbitrary systems on top of systems on top of time gates to drag out the content and force MAUs to go up to please the shareholders that it doesn’t feel like the same game.

It feels like I’m playing a corporate MAU simulator. What new system can you devise to force me to keep logging on daily or risk falling behind?

You have so many threads in GD and on Reddit and I’m sure on your many subscription cancellations as to why this game isn’t good anymore. And I know the usual herd of WoW defending forum trolls who never sleep and prowl here looking to derail negative threads will come lurking saying “not good for YOU, I’m having fun”, but I would bet anything more people dislike the convoluted mess of grinds and systems far more than the people who enjoy it.

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luckily you can play vanilla now

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whats ggg?

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Still do, it’s why I’m subscribed. But I still have some small hope for retail being good again.

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People like to hard focus on all the things they think are negative and make long hyperbolic posts about it, when what they really need to do is put the game down and take a break.

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I feel like these are the type of narratives people come up with in their heads because of the WoW dev’s lack of transparent communication.

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If the company didn’t be as transparent people would still play. If the game was garbage people wouldn’t play. If it’s good people would still play. What percent of people really care enough about transparency that they went from “I’m not going to play” to “ah shucks, I’ll give them another try”?

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What part of my post was exaggerated or hyperbolic?

Their communication with their gaming community is non-existent. They take no feedback until after they’ve already launched what they wanted to launch. They have inflated play time by adding time gated content and numerous extraneous character power grinds.

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Just started PoE myself right in time for ultimatum league start… damn that game is fun.

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That’s what the creepy dude in family guy says - giggity-giggity-giggity.

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The issue i think is you are just old now. This game hasnt changed you have.
I used to find pokemon fun but now i dont.

Alot of the people have grown out of WoW. they go back into the game thinking it will offer the same level excitement but it doesn’t.

I remember the sense of immersion and adventure i felt when i walked to goldshire in elwyn forest. I went to this kobold camp as a fire mage having just learnt flamestrike it felt awesome. I went and cleared the kobold camp south of goldshire, after that i headed south a bit more and saw a river. Across the river there was a dark forest called duskwood. Massive spiders and wolves were waiting there for me, their level unkown marked as a skull. I tried to fight them and died. it made me want to level more so i could see what was going on. I stayed up all night finished questing in westfall, headed into duskwood, played a bit there and then wen to redridge, took a flight from redridge to Ironforge and flew over burning stepped. My god it felt amazing to fly over this volcanic place with dragons and giant lizards. again their level was skull so i didnt know what level they were. I was level 25 mage in grey green gear. i wanted to know how hard they hit so i flew back to RR and walked north into burning steppes and bang 1 shot by non elite dragon. It was funny to me and it felt exhilarating. this happened for every zone to me. A sense of accomplishment every new spell i learnt, every zone i cleared. the amazing feeling when I went into the outlands and Northrend. Then after i hit 80 i learnt about the lich king. this big bad boss that was wiping guilds left right and centre. I wanted to try i wanted to see what it was like. I wanted the purple gear everyone was wearing standing in SW on their mount.

now its mostly the same but I do not feel that excitement because its all the same. level-new abilities-new raid boss, gear up etc Those of us who have done it for so long dont feel that excitement anymore.

The games not old. We are

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I won’t say they don’t listen, but yeah, some companies are pretty quick to react and take PR control of screw ups.

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The game has changed. But I agree that there just won’t be that same excitement that seemingly people want recaptured. It’s this lack of the dopamine hit that starts to irritate/anger/w.e them when they see nothing works.

But the game has definitely changed.

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Devs of Path of Exile, had to look lol.

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Wow, that’s pretty terrible, excluding normal customers so you can get free publicity.

So they straight up admitted to doing this, that’s gotta be pretty damning for them.

Oh so them coming out and saying they picked streamers and content creators over other paying customers is okay cause they said “I’m sowwy”

Blizzard gets reamed for things, even some imagined, but this company openly admits to screwing customers over and you’re okay with that while you spend several paragraphs chastising Blizz?

I must be in the Berenstein universe and not that Berenstain one anymore…

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not really.

You level up
You gear up
you kill bosses.

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That’s a very barebones way to look at it.
That’s like saying all cars are the same and haven’t changed…
If you were going with the barebones take then yeah I agree. Otherwise no, the game has changed.

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wow jeese i didn’t play path of exile and i probably never will lmao they can go pound sand

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i guess you skip over the whole Q&A streams and various blue posts that address the community and also the instances where they have apologized or made statements about things in the past where they did mess up during those streams or blue posts or live on stage at Blizzcon or Gamescom.

Rather it is clear you want them to apologize for something which in your personal opinion, you do not like, i.e. the current in-game systems, which not everyone dislikes. I for one am one who is fine with the current in-game systems, I never had any issues or problems with them.

It’s silly to expect a game company to apologize for something that is not broken or in their eyes is “working as intended” all because you personally do not like them or they aren’t made for you. So rather than complain about something that is working as intended, maybe you should try another game from time to time (like I do), then realize WoW is infinitely better and come right back.

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Blizzard can’t communicate on this platform anymore. The people on this forum are too rabid and will complain about anything and everything.

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