Just something which has been stewing in my head over the past few days, but I think it has become increasingly clear that WoW has been moving slowly but surely in the wrong direction. In fact, you can start to see the signs of this VERY early on in the game’s overall history.
But of all the people who has left the game over all these years, no one person has ever been able to wholly articulate the problem. However, many of them have found a piece of the puzzle; just haven’t put all the pieces together. I guess this could be another attempt, possibly in vain, try and explain it.
So with that pre-amble over with, what is the issue?
WoW is a game made BY hardcore players.
FOR hardcore players.
The evidence of this is written all over the place, and not really all that surprising:
- Several lead developers over the game’s life had a notable history for being former (and occasionally current) players who have favoured the top-end of the difficulty scale. This includes the current lead developer.
- Ever since Vanilla WoW, and only becoming MORE apparent over the years, is the glorification of the endgame.
- Something which is a more prevalent in recent expansions, but the way the non-endgame content is structured seems tailor-made to push players towards the endgame. All those catch-up mechanics over the years aren’t exactly hiding their purpose.
Probably doesn’t sound that bad, especially if you enjoy the high-difficulty endgame… but just think for a second, what about everyone else?
Now, a common argument that likes to get thrown around is that “Casual players have ruined WoW”. But this notion is fatally misconceived, by both developers and a huge chunk of the playerbase. Specifically, the non-casual / hardcore portion of the playerbase. In fact, both groups have the same issue – they simply do not understand casual players.
The game is made BY hardcore players, FOR hardcore players… but the developers are still aware that they have a significant casual playerbase to contend with, that they seem convinced that they have to appease.
And they’re screwing up the whole game trying to do so.
The current tactic for appeasing casuals seems pretty simple:
Made the endgame as accessible to everyone as possible.
The methods are myriad:
- Increasing the base item level of “casual content” to make it easier to get the necessary gear to access the endgame. The Warforging/Titanforging system is another tool which pushes this.
- Adding more tools to make the endgame content easier to get into. This includes the LFD tool (and later LFR), a the pre-made group finder.
- Attempts to simplify and streamline the gameplay so that it isn’t quite as daunting to perform “well enough” to get into the endgame.
- The lower end of the difficulty scale is SO easy that it’s entirely unable to present a threat, theoretically giving players more confidence to try the endgame content.
There’s just one SLIGHT problem with that particular approach.
Ever consider that casuals DON’T want to do endgame content?
This is the crux of the problem, they’ve made world content so easy in an attempt to funnel players towards the “good stuff” which is the endgame content. They also have a penchant for favouring systems which modify content and use existing resources to get more longevity out of it instead of creating new content, but that’s a debate for another day.
But again, casuals aren’t looking for endgame content.
In fact, they generally tolerate the bare minimum of group content.
So what do casuals actually want?
They just want good non-endgame content and good gameplay.
As a general rule, that translates into enjoyable world content and solo content.
They also like a decent challenge, nothing too crazy but not too boring.
And lastly, they like to have an ending they can work towards.
… and as far as it can be seen, no one is really attempting to give Blizz enough trust to even really consider trying their new content to see if it’s any good because this misconception has carried on for so long.
So what does Blizz have to do to correct this issue?
I see two possible solutions.
- Completely change the direction of the game to making more content instead of trying to add systems to funnel players towards the endgame and “enhance” the endgame.
- Completely revamp the marketing of the game to go the full Dark Souls route and make it plainly explicit that it’s only intended for the hardcore audience, allowing the game focus on what it already does well.
Because with the current route, they’re not just alienating casuals but their hardcore playerbase as well.