On Timegating: it’s Lazy Game Design
The problem with Blizzard and time gating is that Blizzard considers TG to be JUST as important as the content itself.
Players can play through and consume content far faster than Blizzard can create.
And so WoW’s developers use Timegating to slow down individual player progression.
The current issue with WoW these days is that over time so much Timegating has been put into the game such that no new players are willing to invest the time needed to join even the current casual players already invested into the game.
WoW is LITERALLY DRIVING AWAY any and all new customers due to the overreliance of TG on and by WoW’s Blizzard developers.
The quite literal cutoff of new players joining WoW is at least part of the sub losses of Shadowlands after it was the single best selling game in one day, nearly all time.
That SL shipped with so many TG’s throughout, including Torghast and the Covenants, to buy the developers the time to have put out 9.1 on time, failed, and then have done little better content wise than the SELFIE camera and twitter tying patch…
Timegating is not content. It’s a limiter to players on their fun and time in game.
TG is also not able to apparently buy the lazy developers enough time of late to keep WoW healthy and alive overall.
The Timewalking Mage Tower was poorly handled. The content was as released different from the PTR, and this is a bad PR move as well as irresponsible by the Dev’s. The PTR is how many assume the game will go live. That there was any difference at all is glaringly bad.
What I don’t honestly get is that as WoW continues, going into 2022, after now more than 17 years of WoW’s existence, rather than growing sub’s above, past, and beyond Wrath’s high of 12 Million, it is entirely possible that with Shadowlands it’s sub 1 Million. Across Retail, Classic WoW, and WoW TBCC. All three might well be needed to get to the current sub numbers.
I for one haven’t really seen enough new players being brought into the game in nearly a decade.
WoW should be in direct competition with FFXIV in terms of servers almost all being topped out population wise as well as new customers attempting to join up at rates that force even Blizzard to not sell the game right now to keep people from buying time and not being able to use it in game.
WoW COULD be in the above state, however, WoW is most certainly not!
And it all goes back to Blizzard considering Timegating to be a worthy substitute for substantive content and fun, playable content within the game of WoW.
Timegating is not content. Timegating is no substitute FOR content.
Blizzard, please find a fun, player friendly vision of and for WoW. Gameplay wise, story wise, content wise, fun wise. And then build the everloving FUN out of WoW and Azeroth.
Azeroth inside WoW used to be a fun place to go visit. Once Timegating became a “feature” of WoW, the game has become a chore.
And all the borrowed power needs to stop. HARD stop. I don’t find it fun, no one I play with or actually plays the game reports BP to be fun. It’s a waste that just vanishes the next expansion.
Another thing, “Evergreen content,” or content that survives from one expansion to another, and stays always relevant, is fun to think about in game. At no time ever in WoW’s history have we, the players, ever had the chance at this always fun stuff to do.
What strikes me as the most interesting part of WoW is that Garrisons were not player housing, they were a forced and required content filter and gating system that kept players inside the Garrisons.
Player Housing should be both entirely optional and yet provide at least as much opportunity as possible should players choose to invest into said PH.
I’d also extrapolate Guild Halls from Class Halls design wise, and allow Guilds to connect to individual player housing and also allow PH within itself, as a military base with the main structure, said Guild/Class Hall, and then allow other plots of land that the Guild can customize with individual Player Houses, or Apartments, if that’s what it takes, along with Profession and other Better than Garrison like structures to support and supplement Guilds being able to put in the work to improve raiding preparedness.
Simply put, Guild Halls should be a different and better Class Hall, customized for any normal guild type to build out their base for the purposes of progression, raiding, PVP, PVE, etc., as they as a guild see fit.
And, I’d ask to toss in either a Skyhammer or Zeppelin for either faction so they can go get to a raid in style. Maybe even put in some PVP encounters of the two factions throwing down between their ships in the air in some PVP zone.
Truly innovative ideas for WoW are possible.
Blizzard, please for the love of WoW stop thinking of Timegating as a reasonable content substitute!
Edit: Blizzard has chosen to use timegating to replace meaningful content.
This is driving away both new as well as current players in droves.
And Blizzard just chooses not to see it.