Title says it all. The recent “changes” just drive home how out of touch Blizzard is with the community. In fact, beyond just being out of touch, I think everything from WoD onwards reveals that the WoW team actually just hates the people playing the game. Taking the last four expansions together, it’s pretty clear to me that Legion was some sort of cosmic fluke and that it easily could’ve been just as bad as BFA had blizzard not gotten lucky.
Every aspect of World of Warcraft is in a a horrendous state, and rather than FINALLY owning up to their failings and promising to listen to player feedback, they decide to scour the game for raunchy humor that most players have long since identified as part of the game.
Oh, I’m sorry? You’re taking old, well-remembered content out because you as a developer team feel uncomfortable with the content? Well, sorry, but I don’t give a damn. Players have had legitimate grievances with this game for over half a decade at this point dating back to Warlords of Draenor being a borderline scam with barely any post-launch content. Every positive addition to the game since then has not only been done begrudgingly after a long period of the developers ignoring feedback, but is also accompanied by several negative changes that manage to outweigh any good that is being done.
Case in point, Shadowlands. A great deal of the complaints with WoD-BFA were finally addressed, but in return we were given a borrowed power system that dictated cosmetics and aesthetics with said cosmetics being locked behind some of the most horrendous daily grinds the game has seen in years. The fact that it’s even less alt-friendly than Legion was is just the icing on the cake. And every. single. fault. with this system was meticulously pointed out and documented by not only regular players, but WoW oriented content creators on youtube and twitch during beta.
Anyways, I realize this has kind of been a meandering rant, but they only give you 500 characters on the unsubscribe survey and I wanted to get my thoughts out. Sorry, not sorry.
It just had lots of content at a reasonable pace. A lot can be forgiven if you get lots of content so it doesn’t have to be excessively grindy.
Class halls were neat but coming back to BfA after not playing WoD and legion, I much preferred leveling and playing in WoD and finishing my garrison. ( Tannan grind for flight did suck though )
8.2 was pretty good once you could fly in Nazjtar. But it seems like something happened internally right around 8.2 and it’s been a cascading mess since then.
I think artifacts were just more intuitive. They were very simple to understand and they only really touched player abilities, unlike Azerite that was tied to gearing, or Soul Binds which are tied to freaking everything.
8.3 was pretty sizeable. Personally, I think post 8.3 was when the sexual harassment stuff started coming to light internally, Shadowlands development being as hamstrung as it was kind of points to this. And honestly, I could forgive the slow development cycle of Shadowlands in light of that if the decision making was there, but it isn’t. And sorry, but ripping out things from the game in no way fixes, plasters over, or sets a new course for Blizzard’s internal company policy. Its a distraction, both for the players, and for the team itself.
If this company wants to win good will back from both its customers and employees then it needs to start listening to the costumers, but they won’t. They literally never will. This game isn’t worth the investment anymore. So, I’m leaving. And unless a miracle happens and the entire toxic culture at blizzard shifts, I won’t be back.
Read what I wrote again. They only listen begrudgingly, long past the point where they should have and its accompanied with bad changes. They’re “listening” to us right now because the player numbers are in the toilet. They have no choice. And them stripping stuff out of the game is coming along with whatever positive changes are being made. And make no mistake, next expansion will be more of the same behavior. Refusal to listen to beta feedback, a sneering condescension whenever they’re face to face with players, whether on stream or via social media, and a sudden reversal when the game’s player count hits critical low levels.
They need to get out of California and start paying competitive wages. The smug, above it all, attitude that the team leads have is peak california. Sacking Brack and bringing in outside leadership for the company is a step in the right direction, but it needs to be repeated within the WoW team.
And before anyone starts crying about me saying people should lose their livelihood let me clarify: That is exactly what I’m saying. If they can’t put out good work, they should lose their job, full stop. End of story.
I don’t have likes left so have a bumping comment.
Personally, I just think it’s stuped they’re removing the emotes, flirts etc. People dork around in raid all the time. Yanno, joking and all. You can ignore people which also ignores the emotes they do if people want to.
Other than the raid it was all repurposed content. But it was also very buggy, had the let down end cinematic, is were game play started to get really annoying with excessive CC and run out of circle nag mechanics, almost no new achievements, and corruptions that needed 50% nerfs.
8.2.5 had that sound change where they added a slide whistle to the match game world quest. In hindsight I think that’s were it was looking like the adults had left the room.
If we’re talking about adults being out of the room, BFA’s launch might have had a decent amount of content, but it was so poorly designed and wrong minded I can’t believe they thought it was the right direction to take the game. So much time wasted on Islands and Warfronts and both features were mind numbing wastes of time with barely any variance to them. Azerite would also be by far the worst feature added to the game if not for the fact that garrisons exist. And lets not even get into the abortion that was the BFA story.
It will take a miracle for the game to correct itself. I don’t have any faith in the leadership atm to do that. I think they’re pretty much set in their ways with the systems upon systems. I’d be shocked if the next xpac wasn’t another grind-fest.
I think the community speaks for itself. And there’s nothing imaginary about the changes they’re making. Your post belies an insecurity over holding a minority opinion, and your unwarranted aggression is a symptom of that. As for 9.1.5 making seemingly positive changes I’ve already addressed this twice. They always finally “listen” when they have no choice and the sub numbers are in the gutter. Next expansion they’ll be back to the same song and dance.
I’m really just getting tired of it all. I love WoW, and really don’t want to quit, but I feel like Blizzard is trying to get me to stop playing. Just so sick of their real-life drama bleeding over into the game.
People had started moving on from the lawsuit. The forums weren’t talking about it as much, and people were hopeful about 9.1.5. Then they go overkill with this sex witch hunt, and it just reminds me that the same backwards thinking people are still making the same mistakes, and making what players remain miserable.