I think that’s a “popular myth,” since forum feedback clearly influenced major decisions about the game directly (i.e. their attempt to remove flying).
Blizzard has failed multiple times in the past by mistaking “the data” and “engagement” for player happiness.
“They have all the data” hasn’t really been working out so well for them from WoD onwards, has it? That’s, what, seven years of a 17-year run where “the data” and engagement metrics have failed them. You’d think that’d be ringing alarm bells…
I mean, my metrics in 9.0 would show that I was grinding out that anima 24/7 (hyperbole…but it was a lot).
Thing is. I HATED IT. It’s what made me unsub until 9.1 and it’s what made me decide never to buy or play an expansion until the catch up mechanics and flying were in. So, what data are they looking at to make the decision. The fact that I spent an inordinate amount of time grinding anima so I must have liked it? Or, the fact that I unsubbed and told them in my feedback that it was because of anima?
It’s hard to say. I mean, ultimately, I won’t be playing any Blizzard products at all because I uninstalled all of them and canceled my sub again. It’s only partially because of the lawsuit. The lawsuit was really the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’ve been a fanboy from 2005 - 2020. By January of 2021, I started having major issues with them, and there doesn’t seem to be any changes on the horizon. And, as the OP mentioned, the white knights on the forums (and even those who weren’t white knights but had some strange desire to be continuously toxic, and they receive no repercussions for doing so, yet innocent people get flagged for no good reason) - Well, they certainly helped drive me away. If the community is this toxic, it doesn’t help Blizzard at all, and I’m not sure why they allow it because it only hurts the game. If I were new to WoW and checking out the forums, there’s no way in heck I would buy this game and the reason wouldn’t be because of the valid complaints people have, it would be because of the toxic nature of people on the forums. If that’s indicative of the community, I want no part of it.
There’s so much they need to fix that goes far beyond the game itself.
From whales and other games, maybe. But player numbers are clearly way, way, way, WAY down - and a game can’t survive forever on whales.
Yep. It’s like when they proudly announced, after the low-effort experimental MoP patch 5.4, that their data showed that EVERYONE was playing Timeless Isle content, therefore their decision to move from carefully-designed zones and quests (5.2) to a zone that was literally copy-and-pasted assets from Jade Forest with a whole bunch of time sinks and nothing else was “what the players wanted” because players were playing it.
When it was literally the only relevant world content to play.
It was 5.3 (with its experimental “world quests”) where the future direction of the game was set, and ever since then they’ve fallen back on “the data” to reassure themselves that a whole series of bad decisions are working and popular.
Data is useless without context. Yes, even if you’re Blizzard.
Data can be used to support pretty much any premise, the problem is the people at the top care about 1 number and thats profit this year.
Sure they are negatively impacting profits next year and into the future but for today they can tell upper management “everything is still good profits are up boyz”.
y’all need to lighten up and just take wow in small spurts like i do now they ain’t doing nothing to change anything right now anyway. were stuck with this for quite awhile it just came out guess we will see how bad it can really get near the end of 9.1. we all know people will never quit buying tokens and mounts and boosts the tbc boost probably made tons. and if they stick with being happy with this well guess nothing will change.
Look at Official WoW Youtube videos(like dislike ratios), reddit threads, Twitter, etc. It’s not exclusive to the forums.
People literally used this same logic to insist people didn’t want to play Classic and it literally was so beyond Blizzard’s expected of demand they had to make MORE servers to fit everyone. How much longer do people plan on sticking their heads in the dirt like ostriches?
Yes, they compensate for people not liking the game/quitting with more cash items/Facebook games, FOMO/getting behind objectives. It’s not indicative of the popularity of the game.
Yes, and that was a thing in Vanilla, TBC, WoLK, MoP and Legion, the difference being servers were flourishing whereas BFA and SL have killed so many guilds so quickly and my nearly full friends list is barren, without the need to replace many because I’m not seeing new players anymore, and with WoD you literally got to see how having a terrible expansion affects your subs as they released sub counts back then.
You’re more than welcome to lick Blizzard’s boots, but don’t try dismissing opinions that don’t mirror your own on this sort of argument. It’s legitimately embarrassing
Honestly all of these things wouldn’t even matter if they didn’t slap 15$ a month plus 50$ per expansion hit, people call the players entitled non stop, but they don’t realize how much most players have spent over the years for the game (In the thousands).
If we’re going to have capitalism, and paywalls, the least you can do is do it right, maybe stop Bobby from buying another yacht and put that money into a good company culture.
I agree with you that things have not been great and to be honest I am considering jumping ship as well but it all depends on how the next x pack turns out.
“You think yourselves exceptional, gifted. But you will learn humility.”
People are still on copium.
OOF. You’re even insulting paladins. DOUBLE OOF.
Personally, I want them to expand more on Legendary powers and Conduits. But I can totally see why people don’t like them. My serious gripe with the systems nowadays that they’re not permanent and are going away at the end of the expansion.
That doesn’t feel like an expansion to me honestly, but at the same time, I could see the powercreep it makes that’ll end up like Path of Exile which doesn’t sound like a bad thing if devs bother to keep things under control.
Want more proof?
They get caught with a working culture that reeks of high self thinking, master mentality and the ever present “how dare you question me” attitude and there only response so far is… Its you the players fault. You’re too toxic.
For sure
