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The buck always stops at someone.
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This is my best guess at what holds the WoW team back significantly. They can’t even get more customizations in the expansion that used them as a selling feature, even though some would take an intern fifteen minutes with a hue slider.
That just tells me that every single change to the game, no matter how minor, is probably going through fourteen sub-committees before it even crosses Ion’s desk. It’d explain why nothing gets through. They’ve basically become Congress.
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I agree whole heartedly, I would still be playing retail if your ideas were indeed part of the game
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Makes me wonder which one has lower approval rating
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We essentially had player housing in Warlords, but people cried that it made everyone anti-social and unwilling to do group content and now everyone wants housing again. We are such a confused bunch.
Just make PvE content scale in the same way that vanilla did dungeon scaling. Then we… kinda have something to do, and it peaks into PvP or collectathons, after a long grind. Not only that, but you sit atop your throne with your sweet armour peices and weapons that clearly indicate that you’ve done what other players have not. Stepped foot in the raids and dungeons that other players couldn’t attempt.
Bring back attunement, make it a worthy, lengthy progression. LFR is the embodiment of the worst parts of WoW, and why WoW needs an honour killing. I need 40 guys with metalcore haircuts (and girls with short purple hair) to kill WoW, or get to work on the next expac.
Player housing won’t save this tire fire of an expansion. It needs to be pulled, reverted back to bfa, a public apologoly in video form, developers need to be fired and the executives need to be told to put a sock in it is what really needs to happen.
Thank you for conceding you didn’t read the OP or any post in this thread
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You’re in luck, TBC just launched
It wasn’t really housing though. You didn’t have the freedom to design, decorate, and build to your liking. Garrisons were essentially a glorified mission table with prefabricated structures and plots that provided an even more extreme illusion of choice in a game riddled with hand holding and devs telling us where to go and what to do.
If concerns about people spending time in their house are the problem, then just give people a reason to interact with other players using this system. You could have special vendors in player homes or shops that offer discounts off crafted items they put up for sale (e.g., an older MMO, SWG, had this), players could host events inside their home and players would be rewarded for attending via a periodic daily quest (e.g., RDO moonshine shacks), you could also have to interact with other players who are architects to purchase blueprints or even carry out the construction process–something that cannot just be achieved by going to the AH. Point is, there are many different ways to ensure this system isn’t anti-social, and even if it is, how would that be different from the plethora of other systems in the game other than it actually being fun and lasting for more than one expansion?
In the original dev team photo, you can see that WoW was originally powered by a much higher ratio of hair length. Also beer and powerful hand signs, like a closed fist. With the back of the hand facing the camera, and the thumb and pinky finger sticking out both ways. It makes me want to raid a player’s in-game funeral.
I’ve seen the 25th anniversary photo of the Blizzard Dev team, and there is only one exquisite specimen on the very left of the image, clearly carrying the whole team on his back draped with luscious locks.
i dont know… isn’t wow the perfect single player game for loners lulz?
That “someone” is the entire development team is my point.
I managed a bookshop for a number of years. It wasn’t my shop, it was part of a group and there were people above me in the chain of command up to the Managing Director who made company-wide decisions that would certainly impact on my shop.
However, I was responsibile for running the shop, for organising its systems, its staff, its stock, displays, customer relations, new product and direction, etc.
So while I agree that Ion is an employee, I believe he is also manager of his shop and he makes decisions relevant to the operation of his shop. He will likely create a type of Profit and Loss Statement showing his expectations for income generated and an expenditure statement which is basically “give me this much to make it happen”.
His bosses may ask him why, to justify it and provide a broad plan but beyond that, the minutae of how it is all put together will be up to him. His bosses won’t want to know how the parts all function, just that he believes they will function. And as long as his shop keeps providing a decent profit, it will probably continue that way.
The development team are the staff of his shop. They have little or no responsibility except to carry out the plans he decides on.
Now all of the above is obviously my opinion, but I think it probably broadly works that way. In a smaller independent company where people sit around workshoping and brainstorming its a lot different. There it is a cooperative venture.
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Some companies run that way but not Blizzard from what I have read - at least when times to gameplay decisions. That said, the higher ups likely do see Ion as their “point of contact” but I think even they know that the Blizzard division uses collective decision.
PS: This is both good and bad. Good, varied and diverse points of view. Bad, no cohesive vision.
Wow doesn’t need saving. It’s doing fine.
It doesn’t really matter whether it’s a corporate dictatorship or committee that decides these things, they just need to make player housing happen… the right way. If they’re having trouble figuring out what that is, there are a plethora of other MMOs with less expertise and funding that have successfully implemented this, much to the delight of their players.
Especially considering the time and resources wasted on all of these detested temporary systems that could easily be redirected towards building a lasting feature that most players would love, or at the very least, prefer over azerite, corruption, and soulbinds.
I think the only possible reason Blizzard doesn’t want to implement housing would be the resources required to implement the feature - it’s going to be a lot of work, especially on the technology side; look how much it cost them to do something like Garrisons.
Blizzard is probably also afraid of it failing and they needing to support a failed feature perpetually - this is why they like temporary systems so much; if a feature is DOA they can just toss them next expansion.
I’m not against it. Frankly, I would welcome more sandbox features - which Blizzard seem allergic to. It will help smooth out the sub numbers during content droughts - let players make their own fun.
E.g. The guild system should be expanded upon. A guild should be able to have sub-guilds within it - supported by the game’s systems. Guilds should be able to order services from other guilds and individual players with contracts that are enforced by the game - with penalties for non-delivery. There should be “guild quests” that are decomposable with pieces assignable to others to complete on the guild’s behalf.
Turn WoW into a living world instead of just a theme park. Blizzard doesn’t seem interested though. I’m fairly certain they have thought about all the stuff I just posted above and decided they will not do it - ideas are cheap; it’s implementation that’s the killer.
Warcraft 4 is all that can save warcraft. And Starcraft 3 is all that can save Gizzard 