Just came across this alleged ancient WoW dev video

Community General Discussion
1

This was allegedly (I haven’t verified it) from the DVD that came with the OG CE. Some key takeaway from where the devs started and where Blizz Dev 2.0 is at today…and why WoW has an identity problem that’s fueled by elitist players who have hijacked what WoW was and could have been. This was definitely an interesting listen so if you have the 13 mins, I recommend it.

Dev 1:
“Every time that you log in to the game, you can accomplish something. Even though you might not achieve a new level that night of gameplay, you might finish one or two quests, or you might earn a new rank in a trade skill or explore a new zone. And that was something that we really tried to hit on, that way you’re not so focused on the experience bar the entire time you’re playing. Your only goal in the game is not necessarily leveling up, but its completing quests and visiting new areas, and learning new skills. Sort of always developing your character and often times players find that they level up and they don’t even realize that they’re close to leveling.”

Experience today:

  • “WoW has never been about the journey, it’s always been about the endgame and raiding, this is how the devs made the game.”
  • “GOD I hate leveling! Is there going to be a catch up mechanic for the catch up mechanic for people who JUST want to rush to endgame to raid log?!”
  • “Oh em eff G, I need to time my +15 key or I’m a loser! Pffft, this guys pathetic, parsing grey, what a casual! LOL, you don’t raid? Why even play this game, this is how WoW has always been lul, top kek.”
  • “LUL, u want player housing? bro that’s so dumb omg, wow has always been about dungeons and raiding! go play the sims if u want that crap!”
  • “LUL, you’re a necrolord as a fire mage? declined from low level key group”

Dev 2:
“What you’ll notice when you start playing World of Warcraft is that the user interface is somewhat minimal. You don’t really need a manual to play the game. Everything about the interface is really towards keeping you in the game. We really don’t like to have to have players go to the manual or go to the website just to figure out how to play the game.”

Experience today:

  • “<<insert conduit powers, anima, shards, renown, mission boards, 20 currencies, etc. etc. >>”
  • “Wdym you don’t know where NPC 1 is or what these convoluted items that dropped do? Just go to Wowhead…”
  • “LUL, peopls still play with the old UI, imagine not having DBM, RIO, ELVUI. Never mind that my screen is an indiscernible amalgamation of numbers and bar charts to make me feel better about playing a game.”
  • “HOW DO YOU NOT PLAY WITH DBM?! WDYM u don’t have a damage meter addon?!”

Dev 2:
"One of the challenges of developing an MMORPG, is how do you get people to start grouping in the game. How do you get people to really take part in the community? Well the attack that we took for this was to try to make sure that players could always solo in the game. They could always advance by just playing by themselves. But really try to make sure that there’s plenty areas in the game that only can be done when you group up with other players.

Experience today:

  • “HUH, WoW has never had a solo experience, it’s always been a group activity if you’re trying to play solo in WoW you’re not experiencing it how the devs designed it, no wonder you’re not having fun!!!”
  • “lel wat? ur getting denied keys or arena groups? just host ur own key lel. WoW has always been about grouping so if u want solo go play skyrim lul.”
  • “<<insert 90% of the endgame content today is literally all mandatory group content>>”

There’s plenty more meme potential, but I’ll leave it here. Kudos to the vets who saw this game change for the worst and made the difficult decision to part ways. To those who still remain and enable this mess, you are also a part of the problem.

32 Likes
2

This is 100% wrong. For instance you have never been able to solo a dungeon. You could only reach a specific point solo which was always under where dungeons start.

In fact the game is much much more solo friendly than it ever has been in the past.

3 Likes
3

First off, you’re absolutely wrong here. There’s nothing solo friendly about having to group to run 2/3 of the Ions “core 3 pillars” of WoW. And even the 3rd (PvP) is partially gated behind mandatory grouping if you want to participate in Arena’s.

Additionally, you can’t say “tHiS iS 100% wRoNg” to what a dev is literally saying was their design methodology behind making the game.

17 Likes
4

What’s wrong here here is the assumption that dungeons are the heart of the game which is what the OP was referring to, that is to say, the content created has lost sight of the overall image of how the game was originally designed.

Brad McQuaid who made EQ had very similar comments on what made his game feel very similar. It was a world where when you log in you may not be getting the best gear but exploring the world around you made you feel like you were progressing as a character in a persistent world.

WoW differed with EQ in the regard of this line here:

EQ you could not do this in original EQ with certain classes that were must-haves for end game content. WoW Devs decided that everyone can solo for 90% of the game, with dungeons and raids comprising a smaller amount. But as time went on the only way people figured out how to keep people excited was via the instanced content for loot. Which is why you’re in the position you’re in now and mainly why MOBAs, and Survival games are running the gambit of most dominant games right now. Exploration, and PvP have branched off into other games solely focused on them and as a result a game that once had 12 million active users is probably hovering between 2-3 million now.

3 Likes
5

Except you don’t have to unless you intend to push further into any of those three pillars.

There’s still plenty of content and plenty of reward out there for players who aren’t intending to raid, PvP, or do M+.

6

Ummm… not quite true.

Back in… err… Cata? or so… when BOA gear was stupidly OP. I used to solo dungeons with a leveling toon, Paladin. Prot.

1 Like
7

Content that doesn’t matter you mean. The content the devs design here that isn’t instanced is universally hailed as crap.

7 Likes
8

I wouldn’t call Korthia “universally hailed as crap” whatsoever. I’ve seen more positive reception to Korthia than negative, which is saying a lot considering how much of a vortex of negativity these forums tend to be.

4 Likes
9

Yeah, where exactly? Because I can also subjectively say the exact opposite experience using my incredibly small sample of the total population… :roll_eyes:

1 Like
10

Only Tashavesh I’ve seen been praised. Korthia I’ve seen more negative reviews about how it looks, the lag, the bugs, and how small the “zone” is from all over the web.

3 Likes
11

I don’t think the argument was literally that dungeons were ever meant to be solo’d.

The point was that solo-play was originally a rewarding experience with it’s own progression system. Chiefly speaking in terms of always having reputations to work on, that provided gear, recipes, and mats, for example. As time went on people were able to farm other things for solo progression as well, such as daily quests for various rewards, and then WQ’s, and so on.

In the listed quote “always solo” doesn’t mean “solo everything” it means “playing by yourself was possible, viable, and had a continuous progression for the players who wanted to play that way.”

I’d certainly argue that with the way everything is streamlined into getting you into mythics and raids, at warp speed, solo players run out of “things” to do very quickly. Outside of cosmetics it’s a crapshoot. Professions are in the worst state they’ve ever been, generally agreed upon, and while Legion did hit a sweet spot for casual players, BfA and then SLands really ate away at that until casual play was even more cosmetic than before .

6 Likes
12

Very well said.

13

Some of your points have a bit of merit, but 16 years have passed. Honeymoon period is gonna be long dead in any instance and without resorting to an end game heavy model its unlikely they’d have made it halfway to that 16 years.

Also the solo part can piss right off. Stop ruining multiplayer games and their mechanics by forcing them to cow-tow to people who cannot operate a PC web store well enough to locate the single player RPGs.

1 Like
14

You could’ve just read the entire thing instead of ranting about something that wasn’t said

16

Dude… I quoted you for the other guy, I wasn’t replying to you.

Other guy was all “no that’s not true, not everything was soloable, dungeons never were” when the part I quoted clearly states that there are parts who can’t be done solo, making his entire rant redundant.

2 Likes
17

There’s no need. They existed peacefully side-by-side until approximately WoD, which everyone hated for the lack of anything but instanced content. Most people agree that WoD’s instanced content was great, but it lacked anything to do outside of instances (i.e. solo content) to the point that it was a complete failure.

Then you had Legion which not only evolved group content even more than WoD did (satisfying the player who wanted to do nothing but run dungeons), but it basically threw a Paris Hilton level party directly at solo players in the form of meaningfully rewarding world quests, acceptable (but not perfect) reputations, rewards from reputations being at least interesting “enough,” and solid solo player assists in the form of the whole Broken Shore contribution system.

BfA showed up and it… well the solo content dried up a bit. Not so much that it was completely gone. The issue was partly that, but also the complete farce of a story that was going on (which overwhelmingly matters to solo players, and while dungeon farmers/high end raiders likely care, it’s not the motivating reason they’re playing usually).

Now we have Shadowlands with basically nothing of import to the casual player. It’s all cosmetic and gear so poor it’s hardly worth doing. 9.1 rectified that a tiny bit with the new gear token things, but it’s basically too-little-too-late.

The sad part is that the people who want to run dungeons until their eyes bleed, and really only do solo content as much as the social group requires, genuinely think they’re the majority. They’re not, and they never have been. Back in MoP ~40% of players completed normal raids, and less than 20% completed flex/heroic. Upwards of 70% completed LFR, and yet that still leaves 30% who simply never engaged that content at all; they were either PvPing, soloing (completely viable in MoP), or collecting things and gearing up via professions and such (and those professions would upgrade every raid tier).

Maybe stop trying to tell people how to enjoy games. It’s as bad as people who get mad when people sequence break games (I got shield-weaver armor by level 12 in Horizon: Zero Dawn because I enjoyed breaking the game, for example), don’t play it the way that “the developer envisioned” (Animal Crossing in early 2020 was basically a cesspool of “time travelers are scum, sinners, and don’t deserve to have anything”). People love to dictate how other people have fun, and if you’re having fun with something in a way you don’t like, well… they’ll let you know.

All I can say to that mentality, and the “stop soloing in my MMO” mentality, is:

11 Likes
18

And it’s not like the cosmetics are actually compelling content, either. Each slot has maybe one or two models with endless recolours. Same with mounts. Same with pets. Low-effort phoned-in “content to keep the casuals busy” and little more than that, while all the dev energy gets poured into the raids.

Hate to break it to you (and it’s amazing how many times this needs to be said), but the MMO genre does NOT mean “mandatory grouping.” An MMO is a game with a persistent online world populated by a large number of other players. That’s your “multiplayer” right there - just being in the game world.

9 Likes
19

It never fails to amuse me when people talk like group content is the only thing that makes an MMO. I mean… any online FPS game is an MMO, then. It’s all grouped instanced content, right?

Most of my friends this last 18 months or so wanted nothing more than to just go outside and be around people. Not just hang out with friends, but just go to the store and feel comfortable, around people. People wanted to go out to eat, they wanted to be able to congregate even without directly knowing anyone.

That’s the experience an MMO provides. The ability, in a game, to exist with other people. Even when you’re not doing things with them. You always could, of course, but you don’t have to. Just like I could always talk to someone at a coffee shop, but I don’t have to. Just knowing there are people around is part of being human.

Edit: To clarify I suppose any sufficiently large game, even something like Call of Duty, could be called “MMO” if the servers were large enough. The point was to delineate the idea that “all of us doing one task” is not essential for an MMO, but rather “we all exist in a world and have our own goals.”

8 Likes
20

Goodness gracious I think I’d have to write a post as big as OPs just to

:weary:

what’s even going on in this post? Is OP comparing what Devs said in the video to what players are saying now? If so :man_shrugging: who cares? Certain players have always made the same complaints since the dawn of the game and there’s no reason why they would stop now.

2 Likes
21

Don’t project your feelings on the whole community. Some of us really like World of Warcraft and don’t agree with everything that is said by the players who basically hate the game.