Besides the RNG, WoW has always been this way for literally 15 years. Lots of ups and downs and people that hold on to the past like it was great. The fact is WoW is still the big boy because it is a fun game that few other games come close matching.
I keep seeing these games come out with “classless” MMORPGs, but who really wants that? Certainly not the majority. Classless games lead to the same builds for everyone with only cosmetic differences rather than real substantive game play differences that come with class-based games. People want to stand out, be unique, and feel like they’re playing a class with unique and interesting abilities, not some character that can do everything if they build to do so.
WoW can’t kill itself because at the moment there really isn’t anywhere else to go for fantasy MMORPG lovers. Most games don’t have the depth or features WoW offers. I’ve been trying to find a new game for years and nothing has yet come out to match WoW. Just a bunch of pretenders looking to offer all these things WoW players supposedly want like classless characters and non-linear game play, but WoW players still don’t flock there because most WoW players don’t really want that. They want time syncs and game features that blend together with story to create an engrossing and entertaining world with them playing a unique character.
I actually hate their users too.
Whiny, entitled, brats that would like this game to be some sort of slot machine where it comes up cherries every time so they can play for 10 minutes, get everything they want, and shut it off to go watch Netflix. And it’s not even the kids! This is people in their 30s, 40s and 50s that act like this!
The MMORPG genre has turned into a theme park wasteland.
Years ago, maybe.
These days? I’d say there’s at least two competitors who definitely fit the definition of “fantasy MMORPG”, those being FFXIV and ESO.
Unless what you’re looking for is hardcore endgame and PvP, because WoW has a stranglehold on those aspects of the genre… it’s a damn shame about the rest of the game, though.
I would imagine that the dev’s of those games are not subject to the abuse that they get here.
I recently stopped playing FFXIV because they DON’T listen to their community. Well, not the western one, anyways. They suffer the same problem many international companies based in japan do. They only really care about the feedback from the Japanese players.
That said sometimes they don’t even listen to THEM. The class design in Shadowbringers is the worst it’s ever been, and a majority of the “side content” they’ve been adding for 2 expansions now is complete garbage that everyone hates. Gameplay is too static and reliant on “just memorize the phases”, Blue mage was the silliest thing ever added.
I like the game, but I kept falling asleep due to being use to WoW gameplay.
That’s very deep facts which Blizzard didn’t foreseen. Every year of dissatisfaction of ignoring the community on very important issues such as pathfinder grind to fly, essence being account bound and more made players do quick decisions leaving to other others. WoW did die overtime and WoD is when many players truly left and never came back. If they did it was a short lived time.
I suppose it’s really debatable, but as of right now FFXIV side seems to be more brighter than it is on WoW. WoW could do a 180 and get right back on its track, but it’s up to these developers.
I do agree on that one considering Ghostcrawler and Bungie was kind of happy leaving Blizzard and Activision. Too much of a hot mess and a lot of in house disagreement / fighting.
Why would they listen to people that actively call the game bad and send insults to the devs or community managers which aren’t even in control of what the devs do, when they don’t get what they want lol. Some people that think they’re giving “Suggestions” usually isn’t that, just use it as a cover to hate a game that for some reason they also continue to play.
I mean, I criticize and complain BECAUSE there’s a lot of things about WoW I like. If I hated it, I’d just leave without a word.
This doesn’t speak for anyone else, but I complain because I care. The game could be better, and I want it to be better. I want it to do well. I want it to last another 15 years, I want it to thrive, not die.
(But also people need to be polite with their feedback, that’s important.)
I am still a fan of WoW and Blizzard overall.
But they could definitely do some things better.
Communication is a big thing, and they do a really bad job of it.
Here are some recent examples that stick out for me:
- We get undocumented(or stealth) changes in every patch, and players hate unexpected changes with no notice.
- They do questionable things like the Brutosaur mount, and the only time they communicate about it is after someone finds out via data mining, despite the time limit being attached.
- When they do communicate it is very sporadic and never feels like a dialog between Blizzard and the players, it always feels very one-sided and when they do respond to things like mega-threads or call outs on undocumented changes they pick and choose only small bits to respond to. This leaves many people left feeling unheard.
- They constantly over promise on things only to repeat past mistakes, like the time frame for Pathfinder part 2 in BFA being very similar to Legion after saying they “learned from their mistakes” when people complained about flight.
Having said all this I don’t think they are actively trying to kill WoW, but they certainly aren’t doing themselves any favors to win people over.
We are attributing malice when incompetence could just as easily explain a lot of things.
Being upfront and open about changes, even if they upset people, can only help in the long term(Brutosaur for example).
Good documentation during patches can only help(no more stealth changes).
Also I understand communicating with WoW players can be tumultuous at times, but for every angry, ranting player you have many more who are glad to see signs that you do acknowledge feedback even if you don’t please everyone(an impossible task!).
TL;DR Being critical doesn’t mean you hate something, I still enjoy this game and just wish to see it get better.
That dude is biased towards WOW, FFXIV got nominated Game of the Year for ongoing game and best community, their director got promoted, and Netflix will make live action series of their game.
They also do monthly live letter where they address community issue, they also balance class and introduce new ability mid expansion, do note that they do all of this without PTR or community/unpaid tester.
Personally I don’t think it matters how the feedback is given. Polite, rude, whatever. It’s clear that if they’re wanting to go a certain way with the game then it’s more than likely not going to change upon the communities request. There are some occasions for sure, but for the most part it’s a lucid dream to assume so.
Ehhh IMO people are less likely to listen to rude feedback, like when people make full on death threats it just makes EVERYONE who has that same feedback look bad.
But that’s the internet. Holding an opinion that’s the same as someone who wants to issue a death threat doesn’t suddenly make the opinion itself null and void. Within every group who is trying to make a difference there are knuckleheaded idiots who will more than likely take things too far.
But the thing that I think people need to understand is they are not having a 1 on 1 with Ion or any of the devs. They are trying to appeal to a company. And it’s more than likely useless as sad as that is to say.
You should see how Kaplan write his feedback to EQ devs.
Well yeah, no argument there, but sadly a lot of people don’t see it that way.
As for the second point, IMO if we don’t try then we have nobody to blame but ourselves. I wouldn’t feel right totally blaming the devs if nobody told them it was a problem.
Personally I find that it’s an exercise of futility trying to appeal to Blizzard anymore. Things that are obvious to a majority of the players is falls on deaf ears. How long did it take for Blizzard to listen to players about the pruning? How has the GCD not been reverted back after all the feedback that has been given? How do we still not have PvP vendors after pretty much a majority of the PvP community has said they want them back?
It goes on and on and on. Personally, I don’t have much hope for Shadowlands. I can already see a red flag with the Covenant system.
It’s mostly for attention.
That is a fair opinion.
It’s not how I personally choose to do things, but I also can’t be upset or anything with someone for feeling that way.
MMOs have specific niche elements. WoW did not create these. The only truly innovative thing WoW brought to the MMO genre was the widespread instancing of content because prior to that in EverQuest it was like world bosses are in Classic where they’re up but it’s whoever can get the tag and kill them first that will get the loot in addition to ridiculously long respawn timers reaching upwards of a few days to a week. I believe in later points they added instanced content for EverQuest but the first game to truly bring it as widespread as it is now was WoW.
However, an open world, dungeons, and mediocre pvp content are not ideas that Blizzard created and therefore games that employ these ideas are not WoW clones. They are simply MMOs as these are hallmarks of MMOs as a whole.
It is, it’s a good questline that has the right mix of seriousness and nonsense woven into it that it’s funny without feeling like Cataclysm questing in some zones where you lose interest in the quest because it tries to throw too many puns, references, and poor jokes at you to try and make it feel less monotonous. A good example of this is the main portion of Hillsbrad Horde questing where you have a throwaway quest to be a questgiver and see three very clear stereotypes of WoW players. Had they left it at that it would have been fine, instead they decide to double down and you’re saving Dumass from a mine because he’s stupid and need to escort him out. Johnny Awesome despite being a twink that talks a big game is the world’s biggest wuss, and the elitist orc is actually some dungeon clearing scrub because it wasn’t as dangerous as raiding. I found it a funny jab at the end of Wrath where you did heroic dungeons that were a cakewalk and got raid gear for it and a lot of people acted like they were legitimate raiders.
I think my breaking point for that questline was at the orc when he steps out of the outhouse and says “It appears the Lok’tar was cooking up a turd. . .” since he kept saying “CAN YOU SMELL WHAT THE LOK’TAR IS COOKING?!”