It’s not a new game. They purchased Proletariat in 2022 then repackaged their game with a wow skin and called it new.
I don’t think it’s a hint of their design direction. Just a way to test this “new” product on an audience during a downtime of content.
Yeah. If they had been way clearer about who this mode was for though, I think it would have gone over way better. If they had just said “Yeah, it’s a PvP thing” I’d have just shrugged and moved on. That’s basically what I did anyway, but I’m still trying to shine a light on their poor communication.
I’m not side stepping, I’m giving you context from a 3 or 4 day old quote i keep getting trolled with.
I agree. Had they not kept it secret while packaging it as a wow content patch, I wouldn’t even have an issue with it being attached to the retail character select.
They hyped it as a wow patch and then it’s just a different game that just further divides the playerbase.
They shot themselves in the foot with the approach.
Exactly. I’m not even mad. They are just giving me secondhand embarrassment.
Sounds like a failure in the making then, but it still doesn’t change my statement.
This isn’t a real test.
well i dont think plunder is actually that bad tbh. its more aimed for pvpers if anything bc pvp is so dry. not everyones gonna like the new stuff that comes out. i HATE torghast but i mean it was somewhat popular apparently lol.
but i guess they could add a pve mode. it’ll be have to be something blizz needs to see if ppl are really that interested in. more content is always good its a shame they limited time a lot of their stuff a lot lol.
They can take chances when they aren’t so out of touch with their players.
I don’t think they are all that out of touch with their playerbase…the main issue people don’t get is THEY aren’t the primary playerbase.
Blizzard has long since pivoted themselves as an esport and MMO hybrid. They’ve always had a community that all but worshipped tryhards and saw themselves as temporarily embarassed versions of them who live and die by whatever the spreadsheet dorks say when it comes to talents and gearing choices. Even today, it is expected to come into content already prepared to perform. The worst crime you can ever make in this game if you have any aspirations to go beyond queue content is falling behind the curve.
The LFR champions and world quest heroes? They’re not important and not the target audience for Blizzard. The 20 year vet who can still recall their first raid and has an account loaded with achivements and collectibles galore? They’re more hooked than a junkie a few hours from their latest hit.
Look where the money truly is and who Blizzard snuggles up to. Esports. When is the last time you seen a tournament held for pet battles? Feels like everytime we turn around, there is yet another competition between the sweatlords and it isn’t the LFR heroes getting first priority beta invites and access to private forums where actual devs discuss issues and tweak the game with their feedback in mind.
Plunderstorm is an experiment and we’re giving them free alpha/beta testing for what possibly would be a fleshed out game mode or even a full game in the future while propping up engagement metrics with a FOMO cosmetic grind. I can all but guarantee if Blizzard just released Plunderstorm standalone, the vast majority of players in any given match wouldn’t be there and as the weeks drag on, less and less will be virtue of giving up or getting all the stuff.
This also is certainly not going to change under MS either. Fleecing us with more microtransactions, rigging engagement metrics with FOMO “once in a lifetime” collectibles, tried and true hamster wheel content and occasionally experiments that may become evergreen or last for a season/expansion and be abandoned.
Up to you (everyone reading this) if that currently does and continues to deserve that $15 a month or whatever gold.
The company needs to infuse the game with modern ideas pertaining to game concepts. The reason the game has lost so many players over the years is because Blizzard is bogged down by ancient game theory.
Risky in the sense it’s something they haven’t tried before? Absolutely.
Risky because it’s something out of left field that was created with zero testing of waters? Absolutely not.
If you’re going to do a surprise patch, you have got to be reasonably certain it is going to land well. 5 seconds after I heard “Warcraft’s Battle Royale” I was laughing, 10 seconds after I realized my brother was seriously reading an actual article headline and not pulling my leg I was like “Oh god no. They can’t be serious.”
But housing? What people have been hammering on for years? That is the surprise that would have me feeling like I had just woken up on Christmas morning as a kid.
Lets get real risky. Since Final Fantasy is top mmorpg and Wow is second. Blizz should consolidate with FF and produce a new mmorpg called “World of Final Fantasy.” Lol.
I read somewhere that the history of FFXIV is actually really fascinating in that when it first launched, it was an absolute trash tier game and it was scrapped and started over from scratch (hence the “a realm reborn” in their version of “vanilla” name) and the guy in charge specifically had his people play WoW as a foundation feel.
I haven’t got to play the latest 2 expansions, but having played what I have, FFXIV very much blows WoW out of the water on any comparable facet EXCEPT when it comes to the hardest objective game mode…mythic+. Even their simplest classes are mechanically harder to execute than some of the hardest WoW versions…not to mention they actually respect the “RPG” part of the “MMORPG” genre instead of transitioning themselves off as a hybrid esport/MMO like WoW has (which, to be fair, I understand and agree with since WoW is too long in the tooth to compete in arenas with newer contenders).
I think the sad reality is that most here are addicted whales in the truest of senses and WoW continues to survive and “thrive” simply due to inertia. I know that is one of my biggest downsides in contemplating going back to FFXIV is that I’ve already got such an amazing and fleshed out WoW account with literal decades and thousands upon thousands of hours of playtime already sunk and it feels just straight up bad being the essentially new guy in a different game which, at its core, has a lot of the same fundamental problems that WoW shares in that falling behind the curve and not having a social network to give you that leg up really feels bad and like you’re just wasting your time in the dredges of playerbases in content that should otherwise be beneath you.
People do this all the time. The dictionary is even updated on occasion to add the new meaning to the original definition.
Maybe a mixed bag. Introduce new content stuff like you said while adding some familiar stuff to fall back on should the new stuff fail.