What caused WoW’s decline?
TL;DR, Dailies and raid tiers.
The actual answer, the relationship between the WoW subscription model and itemization.
RPGs have one universal trait among them that seems to be present in all games; periods of growth or tests of strength.
The interaction between both periods of growth (pogrowth) and tests of strength (tostrength) is complex and complicated. They can be intricately woven together, and vital towards the accomplishment of the other. What is true though is that they are distinct features from one another. If you were to ask someone what is a pogrowth and what is a tostrength, most people would be able to identify the difference. (*Note, individual player skill is separate from these two classifications.)
Periods of growth can be identified as the “workhorse” aspect of RPGs. It offers significantly less in entertainment value, but is incredibly rewarding and immersive for the player. Players are naturally drawn to this style of gameplay (most commonly utilized in Sandboxes) as it often drives a player need for accomplishment. While rewarding, this aspect of gameplay is often time consuming and quickly dropped once the goal has been accomplished. Players tend to minimalize their time in this state.
Tests of strength involve risk, an attempt to prove one’s ability to overcome a challenge, usually from effort accomplished by pogrowth. This state is likely the most entertaining as it involves challenging battles, player versus player combat, other similar events, and could be considered a more vindicating experience.
How does this pertain to WoW subscription models and itemization?
Subscriptions are payments over time, more time subscribed is more money. There is a direct financial incentive to keep players playing longer. Thus gameplay is designed for retention; dailies keep players coming back each day, reputation keeps players for the duration until they reach maximum reputation gain. Even command command tables are designed to increase time played. This is commonly known as the “Rep grind”, and is specifically designed to keep individuals playing regardless of entertainment value. I suspect a majority of the player base can attest to the damaging effect of dailies to gameplay enjoyability. What players may not understand is the damaging affect this has on raiding.
(*Note, before I make my next point I want to make it clear there is a popular theory that WoW failed because it catered to “casuals” and not “elites”, this is simply
a bigoted take on the matter and will not be taken seriously.)
The “Golden Age” of WoW (TBC + WotlK) is thought to be the best time to play WoW, both story-wise, community, and gameplay wise. Regardless of how true this statement is one thing is true. WoW’s subscriber base increased substantially from TBC to the end of WotlK. The most notable aspect is the rise of subscribers even with a low percent of the player-base playing “end game” content. Why did popularity soar even though end game was available to a small percentage of players?
This is because raids were treated more akin to tests of strength rather than periods of growth.
Blizzard at the time was trying to figure out how to make content more accessible, they changed three mechanics:
- Dailies & Reputation grinds, to allow catch up mechanics and for special gear enhancement.
- Raids were given multiple difficulties, thus changing focus from tests of strength into longer periods of growth.
- De-emphasis on crafted itemization.
These three changes were specifically designed to funnel new and old players into raiding. In this regard it succeeded, more players participated in various forms of raids (eventually with the implementation of LFR).
This came at the cost of other important aspects of WoW. Dungeons became stepping stones. “Story” was implemented in large (and admittedly cringeworthy) amounts to compensate for the lack of immersive gameplay outside of raids. Crafting professions became niches to fill, rather than important gameplay that sustained the game economy. Tests of strength became grinds, the most entertaining aspect of WoW became the part people wanted to keep limited.
The fun tests of strength were thus transformed into grinds. The periods of growth were turned into soulless slogs.
If WoW wants to grow it needs to turn away from uninspired dailies, and grindy “tests of strength” (more like periods of growth) such as multi-tiered raids. The pogrowth need to be interesting aspects of gameplay, not daily slogs. Crafting is one way WoW did this in the past, making craftable items not just meaningless stepping stones, but actual end game items that represent something important.
My advice to Blizzard’s developers is to understand that raids are not the end-all-be-all of WoW. The game is valuable outside of these, and that you should care about the periods of growth being a meaningful experience in an RPG as much as you care about the tests of strength. Developers should also keep pogrowth separate and distinct from tostrength as they are able. Though completing a tostrength should be rewarding, it should not turn too heavily into a repetitive grind else the player will be conditioned to dislike it.
Make tests of strength vindicating, and periods of growth a meaningful, rewarding experience. (Maybe cutback the filling dead air with story, too.)
As a player since the beginning, that’s my analysis.
