"What Happened?" One week left on Azeroth

Community General Discussion
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This has been the first time I’ve unsubbed to WoW since I went to basic training back in 2013. I love WoW. I love the people I’ve met. I met my ex fiancé on WoW and because of the game, we had an amazing relationship for a couple years before it sadly ended. I met one of my best friends in the whole world on Azeroth.

For all of this, I want to thank every individual who had a hand in making it all possible. The veteran dev who worked tirelessly to perfect the system mechanics. The engineer who designed the tools for the devs to work with. The night clean up guy who emptied the trash cans at people’s desks. Thank you for year after year of dedication and always putting US, your fans, your die hard crowd, your PLAYERS first…in the past.

So as someone who loves the game and everything you guys did and someone who wants DESPERATLEY to be on your side…I have only a week left on my game time and with that limited time I feel the need to ask…what happened?

What happened to the vibrant world that was alive and full of the joy that each dev had in making it that was only one “enter world” button away?

What happened to not meeting the bar of quality and fan service, but setting it?

What happened to the buzz and energy of every dev on stage at blizzcon?

What happened to reaching the END of something, slapping your name on it and knowing YOU made that goal happen?

What happened to that item you’ve wanted for weeks finally dropping, but because it’s only in its base form, it’s not good enough?

What happened to QUALITY over QUANTITY?

What happened to my…no…OUR WoW?

It truly DOES pain me to not feel the desire to play something that I’ve turned to over and over for enjoyment/comfort/social time etc. and not recognize it. Now, most of us are adults, we know that EVERYTHING changes with time. No one can look at themselves or anything from years ago and say that they are the same. I want so desperately to keep supporting you monetarily, morally and emotionally. However, I just CAN’T justify the 15$ a month to watch a product be put out that’s half finished and wait a few months for it to be “completed.” Idk if you’ve really become just another business and you’re meeting some quota because you’ve become another cog in the industry of avarice that the gaming world has become. Idk if you’re just tired of being pushed by the corporate marketing leeches that is Activision. Idk so much about you, but we hear you in your work. We hear your heart and your soul in the world we play in every day and we feel for you.

I could be totally off point in all of this. However, as another creative, I know the parts of ourselves we put into our work. We put the good, the bad, the pain, the joy, so many different aspects go into it and our work. Our art is nothing more than a reflection of us. This reflection is painful to look at. I’m not asking you to be perfect or be the greatest developers of all time. I’m not asking for a perfect product or a perfect game. I’m not asking for a personal account of every single developer that has read the forums with a heavy heart after making something that they were proud of and thought would go over well. I’m only asking, “What happened?”

Thank you, fellow player and blizz associate alike for reading. Here’s to the future and keeping big business out of OUR industry.

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It’d probably be hard for them to answer “what happened” when you don’t really go into specifics as to what’s making you unsub. Not to take away from the sentiment you’re trying to convey here, but a lot of this reads like grandstanding.

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I don’t think his questions being unanswered is the biggest worry they have right now…how about answering ANYTHING or responding to feedback

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Activison happened. Also, the original devs are long gone.

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Thanks, man. I’ll be much more concise in the future.

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Times change. The game slowly shifted bit by bit for years from a traditional rpg to a much shallower action rpg game.

Linear difficulty was replaced with rng. Complexity with simplicity.
Grinding and time gates over progressively increasing difficulty.

These systems have been slowly creeping into the game from the sunwell patch in tbc. Bfa was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.

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Poor camel D:

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Yeah, i feel sad for the camel too

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You think you do but you dont happened.

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Simply put Activision happened, and squeezed out the old team, took the best to put on mobile, and left us with a C team skeleton crew, to try and milk a few more dollars out of WOW. Well not my dollars anymore.

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Casino phone app games happen. WOW is slow money. It’s days are numbered one way or another.

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What happened?

Just another opinion in an infinite sea of subjectivity but…Activision happened.

If you take a look at all the things Activision has acquired you will notice a pattern. And I don’t think it is entirely the corporate greed style they have, although that is a big factor. I would say it is more the way the suits and higher ups seem to think they are better off chasing lightning than sticking with traditional game design.

Call of duty was one of those lightning strike titles that caught on and has brought great success in the FPS genre. I think the upper management sees the numbers from a successful title like that and then starts making comparisons to other games because all those numbers are really all that matters to them.

Overwatch too. They want to see growth charts and profit margins and compare it to last year’s revenue long before they will even begin to think about caring if you are having any fun playing the game.

This sort of mentality trickles down from the top. Suddenly you see creative design being stifled by quota driven thinking. Metrics get created to try and measure how long something can keep a player playing.

Like WoW tokens for example. You take a group of your customer base who has a lot of time to play but not a lot of money and you utilize their time to bring in more money from the part of your customer base who has more money but less time to play.

From a business perspective, its genius. But for the players, well. It simply lends itself to the degradation of the spirit of the game.

And I think that is really all it comes down to. The spirit of adventure is being lost. Too many suits who don’t play games have a hand in how things are getting designed. Devs that are too far down the ladder are having to come up with ways to appease the guys who are signing their paychecks rather than having the freedom to focus on what makes a game like WoW fun to play for the majority.

Plus, add in the sheer toxicity rampant within the community. This community is impossible to please. Big groups of complaints about one thing today and big groups of complaints about how it was fixed tomorrow is now so consistent, people would be surprised to not see it on this forum.

Pretty sure any of us who went to work and felt that no matter what we did, there would be people complaining…publicly…we wouldn’t really care that much about trying to please the unpleasable.

Anyway, just an opinion. Doubt anyone will even read my wall of text so I’ll just stop there. Things change my friend. It sucks.

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I read it. Would be a solid read if not for you being alliance scum but that’s the waaayyy the news goes.
Thanks for your thoughts, man.