This isn’t in classic
Ok, what are a few of the data points you’d use to determine whether a game is good if sub numbers are out as a data point?
Did I use a word not in your vocabulary? That isn’t at all surprising.
This isn’t specific to WoW but I will use WoW examples for sake of argument.
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Public Vs Private
- Some of the best games ever are passion projects from private developers. Halo, WoW, Half-Life, Valheim. Built by gamers for gamer.
- Most would go on to be purchased by public company’s and milked. Wrath was the first fully public company run Xpac - which was pumped by marketing, which drove player subs.
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Financial Structure
- Single Purchase/Subscription/Cosmetic Transaction/Microtransaction
- Wow started off singularly as a subscription mode. It later devolved into a model of Subs+Cosmetics+Miscotransactions. Wrath original was relatively contained with just Sub + Cosmetic, although you could argue that automated character xfer’s and name change charges are predatory.
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Customer Experience
- Original wow had a robust system of in game GM’s, free authenticators & Customer service lines. Wrath started to cut costs under new management and gut some of those enjoyable features. Reduction in GM staff and closure of customer service lines despite growing player base.
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Development. Innovation vs Change for Change
- In the early days WoW was constantly being updated, fixed, experimented, etc. Some of the changes and bug’s were frustrating but we knew the developers at the time were actual gamers so it progressively got better.
- Wrath started to hit managerial red tape. The focus shifted from evolving a cool game to “manage the happiness of the sheep.” While we got a lot of amazing innovations like the Ulduar structure, that was quickly thrown in the trash for cheap “change for change” design which you see in ToC/ICC and retail of the same content multitier system.
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Competitive Scene
- Wow shifted heavily into the E-sports market with TBC, which for a lot of players was the most fun Arena experience. It was new and innovative, despite having balancing issues. It welcomed PVP & PVE players, and offered rewards to help you excel in both.
- Wrath did a terrible job at innovating/maintaining this, and almost felt like they abandoned it. 2v2 did not have rating, death knights were impossible to contain for the majority of the run, and the esports popularity somewhat fell off.
- They are still attempting to update PVP, as you saw with the recent changes to boost engagement as it was so poorly designed.
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Foundation/Networking
- This is where you would analyze the game based on things like server quality, population dispersity’s, game balancing, etc.
- Wow started off with terrible networking/servers as it was a small company. But had a neat in server only mentality. TBC they did some changes to open up battlegrounds but still kept it contained within battlegroups.
- Wrath further homogenized this by consolidating battle groups, focus on charging for xfers, opening up random dungeon finder.
- This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, its more so a subjective preference, but they leaned heavily on the “pay us for a service” instead of handling for free on their end. A financial opportunity outside of subscription revenue.
- RDF was originally implemented due to their own server mismanagement troubles in terms of population size. Most player’s were already well established so it was a system to help newer players to the game (gotta get those subs up!) to catch up, and get involved for the already in development (we need to sell xpacs!) Cataclysm.
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Market Size
- Vanilla/TBC was a very niche game for a unique type of player. Computer games weren’t terribly popular and it attracted a smaller market of player’s, but the game was built for them.
- Wrath saw the biggest boost in player size. While that is good for revenue, the needs and desires of players start to widen to a point where no one really gets what they want.
- Features started to be added for the endless forum drones, If something was added for the original player base - the new players would complain. If something was changed for the new player base, the old players would complain.
- It rapidly portioned to an unmanageable experience in terms of expectation that continues to today.
- Dragonflgiht has been praised for its changes, BUT is not nearly as financially successful. LESS players but a better game (foreshadowing)
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STORY
- This is entirely subjective as to what genre/story draws you in.
- Wrath had a cool story and we finally got to kill arthas from the WC3 days.
- Retail wow, in my opinion, has lost its story and they are ticky tacking on bad guys just to keep the lights on.
- Same thing can be said for the story of the original 3 Halo’s vs the Modern day money grab Halo Infinite.
I am sure I could come up with more, but these are some primary metrics that come to mind.
1 Like
I look at it simply like this. If the battleground que is able to be put into play, then why not the RDF? There are to many times than not that I see people spamming the LFG and to no avail because “their gear score” Or people are wanting to see logs. And yes, this is for the Titan Rune Dungeons. In the beginning of Wrath Classic going live, I get it, I truly do. This would be the reason it was not introduced until later on into Wrath. I feel as though it has been quite long enough.
Now with Ulduar out and the Titan Rune Dungeons. This should simply be a must have. The LFG tool just does not work the way it was intended.
8 Likes
3 Likes
If PVP is in the game I have to use it. Please remove PVP.
2 Likes
This is not classic. The patch we are on had LFD. This does not, making it something other than classic.
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you are playing in 3.4.1. RDF came out in 3.3.0. it should be in the game.
4 Likes
they can easily program it to NOT bypass the lockout. It truly is not that hard. They can also make it so that you’re only awarded the currency on ONE dungeon pull of each dungeon. There are many ways to make RDF better than it was. Facts are, we are at a dead point with certain things regarding the older content. Why not make it feasible again by putting RDF back in place? Maybe not for H+ but for others, sure.
7 Likes
We don’t need RDF. We just need them to fix LFG and stop doing nothing with Classic. LFG worked fine before the heroic + garbage idea.
2 Likes
I don’t understand wanting Blizz to remove reasons for players to do content. What kind of ridiculous design is that? Blizz should want players running dungeons. There should be reasons and incentives. That’s what was fantastic about the original Wrath dungeon experience.
Do we really need just another raid log version of WoW?
3 Likes
Even if you make the change to currency where its only one per thats still a daily log in currency for player power system.
If it is knocked down to when you’re in heroics or h+ and you get into a specific dungeon with the RDF and it does the same kind of once per run a day lockout, how is that powering people through anything with the currency? It is virtually the same as spending hours trying to find a group and then being able to do it. This just makes it easier for people to run the content that they also pay a sub for. Especially for casuals. Casuals should be able to have the same right to that kind of content that the HC players have. Now gear on the other hand is another story. But if you’re locked out, why does it matter? From that point forward you’re not getting the badges. Sure they’ll have opportunity for BoE’s and what not, but the lockout still in place has no bearing.
3 Likes
It didn’t really by pass the daily lockout anyways, people who claim it did are just making up issues or have no idea how it actually worked.
3 Likes
What are you even talking about, RDF only let you get the good currency once per day just like the current daily does.
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Been so long ago it is very easy to forget that kind of stuff. But yes, looking back I do remember it locking out and not allowing you to run those dungeons that you were locked out of for the heroic que.
3 Likes
You couldn’t queue directly for them. But you could get them again with using the random heroic function of rdf.
1 Like
The random choice let you bypass the daily lockout. Not sure what Ziryus is inferring.
Maybe that you need to do all dungeons first before you can do the same one again. Which I don’t think is accurate. I have memories of getting the same dungeon twice in a row without doing all the other ones first. But I’m not 100% about that.
It did and you know it. Were you able to queue the same heroic endlessly? No. But you could still get the same heroic based on queuing for a random heroic with some luck
And this is how it worked. Queuing for the random heroic didn’t care about lockouts.