It can for years to come. Even with far less players earnings are up. Of course the employees see nothing from the extreme profits.
Unlikley for this game. It’s not the case and it won’t be for a long time.
We know their earnings.
Or course not.
There is simply nothing positive about this perspective.
If. Blizzard hired union busters. They are prepared. It’s sad, but it’s Like that.
Modern Blizzard is not capable of worldbuilding or good storytelling, but only of destruction of things people love.
And at this point, after they have been doing this for nearly 4 years, nobody can tell me that this is not intentional anymore
With the Night Elves now gone and their disrespectful downfall and general treatment, the thing I loved most about the game is now gone, and nothing Blizzard is willing to do will ever bring them back, and there’s also nothing I as a Night Elf Player could’ve done to prevent it, despite providing so much feedback over the years.
The Night Elves were doomed from the day Teldrassil was burned, and nothing players did or say seemingly had any positive impact on the Night Elf story at all… it was hopeless all along.
It’s just sad, and I’m sad about it but Blizzard simply doesn’t want me or people with similar interests as me to play or enjoy their game anymore.
Curb Your Enthusiasm theme starts playing
Also Kaz, you are coming in super hot with a lot of super misplaced hostility. It’s not really impressive, you just look like a mouthy buffoon.
There is nothing wrong with what I wrote. Baal is coping with this take. The story forum won’t make any difference. Even a lot more of players won’t affect much.
Also: if the employees would actually be paid fairly the point would at least seem better and not so dark.
But of course Blizz hiring a union busting lawyer firm is letting me look bad. Sure. 
The copium continues.
Kinda @Te,
i mean, this narrative beat the crap out of us all, we are such brats to each other that “petty” isn´t even the right word anymore to descripe our own behavior in the term of Lore-Discussions and how we try to gave this story a meaning and failed horrible after every canon reveal again and again and again…
Most of the time we talk about our own Intepretation from a narrative that makes clearly no sense and maybe will never make any sense in the first place.
in other words, we talk about our headcanons and push against each other “Which headcanon is right”
the story from a POV is a nice story-Telling tool, but blizz use this tool so poor, that we can even find an common point anymore.
I hate the internet.
Dosen’t make me wrong.
It’s really that simple and the sad truth is. You all know it. All of you are smart enough to regonize it and that the compy we supported for so long is abusing their employees.
There is no good side to this.
I agree with your point about how it’s not on the players to ensure that employees are paid and treated fairly.
If players are unhappy with either the quality of the product, the company or the treatment of the employees, then it’s their right to leave the game.
Customers shouldn’t be the ones to blame themselves for something that they have no influence on. They shouldn’t feel pressured to keep paying for something that has been made unenjoyable for them just because they feel like they need to care about a very specific portion of the employee’s (not even all of them).
If it ever comes to that point, then there’s way way way too much wrong with the company and the game and this shouldn’t be encouraged by paying customers any longer.
You can burn me for that take… but it’s just how I see it.
I wouldn’t call it boring. Personally, i find it refreshing that haft the forum ins’t about NE anymore. The story forum looking less polarising since few people like Kyalin left and other one like Vuldezi have been silenced. I wouldn’t call 3 years arguing about the same thing ‘‘fun’’ or ‘‘exited’’.
This is the only expansion, ever, where I haven’t been totally hyped for some aspect of the storyline. There’s nothing in Shadowlands that really grabs me. A plot event or character here pique my interest a little, but in a muted fashion. It’s the only expansion where I’ve ever quit for more than a month. When I came back… for the first time ever it was because of friends, not the story. I think in a big way it’s because of this:
The fact is, those of us who have grown to love Azeroth and its story have, to some extent at least, connected with certain races/cultures within that universe. Every playable race we’ve ever been given, with the sole exception of Vulpera, have at least some relation to or involvement with races and stories of the Warcraft franchise that actually predate WoW. They’ve got extensive backgrounds and histories that link together into the world we all came to know and love: Azeroth (with Outland/Draenor/Argus being places of import within that paradigm)
Shadowlands on the other hand made us leave our world and everything in it pretty much entirely behind. They’ve wiped the slate clean, made something entirely new, and tried to put a small sampling of Azerothian lore characters in there to make it seem relevant… when it so far just doesn’t feel that way.
We’re essentially presented as a lone outsider in 4 wildly different cultures that don’t even feel like real afterlives (like we can apparently kill the denizens and make abominations out of them still. 
). We have no reason to be invested in them. Kyrian are blue humans, with none of the fascinating human backstory of WoW. Necrolords are the answer to the question nobody ever asked; what would happen if the Scourge and Grommash Hellscream had a baby? They have none of the rich and fascinating backstory of the orcs or undead of WoW. Ardenweald is a night elf wet dream where the trolls are invited for some reason… but with none of the rich backstory of the Kaldorei or trolls. Venthyr are WoW’s answer to vampire lords, and get a resounding “eh” from me.
At the same time it feels frustrating to have the Jailer be presented as a bigger threat than both the Lich King and Sargeras with no lead-up to it. A one-expansion villain who we’ve never even heard a hint of up to this point becomes this super-threat that we’re meant to believe is bigger and scarier than villainous factions who’ve had literal decades of development… I feel you need at least SOME lead-up to that.
I dunno, Shadowlands is, in theory, an interesting enough concept. But I feel they’ve chucked us in without much development and the whole thing feels disjointed. Only WoW expansion to date that I’ve actively disliked overall. Even lack-of-content WoD had some cool stuff and memorable moments.
It’s even more frustrating when you think about how they EASILY could have built up the individual realms more - I think they’re fascinating in themselves, but they’re superseded by the subpar story about the living characters they decided to tow along for some reason, and the vague Infinity War knockoff they wanna tell. But what’s even more egregious is not only are we taken OUT of Azeroth, but Azeroth as a whole is just spat on by Shadowlands existence.
There’s already a comment on in it in this thread, but Elune is painted as a bumbling fool that let her children die. Tauren have the whole of their spiritualism torn apart as complete nonsense for the sake of the Shadowlands. The Forsaken have had their leader slowly pulled away to facilitate the existence of the lackluster villain that is Zovaal.
Pretty much every part of what we understood about WoW’s bigger picture is now discarded for the sake of this one expansion that’s going to come and go, and it is nowfar worse from it all. They screwed their own world over.
Ah optics. Funny that’s usually your thing. Let’s see if there is any substance.
No substance, got it. If you feel the need to write some nonsense next time try it with my points.
I didn’t say he was making excuses for Blizzard. I wrote unmistakenly it is a coping mechanism.
This take is stupid because it puts blame on to unhappy customers that don’t feel like supporting this company right now.
It’s silly to even think some players leaving would make any difference. Take a look at their last earnings report.
If you disagree fine, one more bad take from you.
Activision’s major money maker is not Blizzard, let alone World of Warcraft. The earnings report means absolutely nothing.
Sure, the game probably won’t die. But objectively, it is doing worse, partly in light of the recent news. That is what we’re referring to when people mention the employees already struggling. Nobody is using that as a “coping mechanism,” because there’s nothing to cope with there - most of us have already unsubbed, and hearing that the employees are struggling (awful as it may be) doesn’t mean we’re going to resub. We’re just pointing out the horror of the situation. Hell, Baal even said that they weren’t saying that they weren’t doing well to blame the customers or to try and guilt people into subbing again - he was just pointing out what was going on, from the word of their mouths. In fact, I’d wager that the majority of Blizzard’s plummeting decline nowadays stems from the quality of their game, not a boycott.
It’d be better off if you stopped talking. You don’t know what the hell you’re trying to overzealously accuse, and you’ve decreased the overall intelligence in the room just by your presence.
That’s not what Baal said at all.
Oh well.
Not in tearms of revenue it is making.
I have to reach down to your level.
Despite all our infighting we can all be dissapointed in Blizzard together.
So my birthday was three days before the news came out about Blizzards terrible treatment of it’s workers and for my birthday my family bought me a six month sub…
A week later my guild died and my raiding team quit WoW.
big oof.
Let it rot.
Blizzard has needed to fall for years now.
We’re just lucky it was a lawsuit that finally pegged them to the ground.
Well well, let’s give them some credit here and acknowledge that they have been working hard to make their game awful in most aspects… even before the lawsuit.
It honestly feels like the writing team is protesting against Blizzard by making the story atrocious, but that would be a team effort over several years so doubtful.
I don’t think it can be stressed enough how damaging the drip-feed method of story-telling has been to the story as a whole and to the story forums in particular. It doesn’t help that we have these internet famous personalities that come up with these convoluted theories based off of a few lines of dialogue that then get disproven after months of such speculation and anticipation. When all the fans have to tide themselves over between micro-bursts of story is rampant speculation they are just going to be constantly disappointed when it turns out the writers never have and never will be as deep or dedicated to player satisfaction as the players imaginations.
Which is a short way of saying people are burnt out on speculation and there’s nothing about the current story that’s particularly interesting to speculate about. Whatever marvelous fan theory you might come up with will probably be disproven several months from now. Even if it’s not, and you guess right, then chances are it will just be some throw away lines in a ‘stay awhile and listen’ dialogue tree after the next cinematic that does little but have two characters discuss principles of moral relativism.
The game is currently all talk and very little action. What is there to be excited about?
Maybe Yrel and her armies appear before Orgrimmar and lay waste to it, building a Path of Glory with Horde skulls as they march towards Thunder Bluff?
I guess Jaina will probably lead the Alliance forces sent to save Baine.
That would be some good old fashioned action.
Honestly at least Tyrande roasting Thunderbluff in retaliation would have been something.
Ugh that’s a new low.