Pretty sure anyone who has more than two posts on the subject has contradicted themselves in one form another. Im guilty of it as well - I said “RDF isnt coming to Wrath” quite a bit even though I had dozens of posts to the contrary.
You’re giving Blizz way more credit than I ever did. I was convinced they just couldn’t be bothered and latched onto what they thought would be an acceptable cop out.
Now that its coming with the correct patch Im even more convinced that was the case but I can never actually claim correctness there.
I reckon more than 90% of the “design decisions” the classic team makes are done on the basis of convenience. How convenient would it be to implement, and is the difficulty of implementing it less convenient that the inconvenience of managing popular opinion and fallout on forums and social media.
WoTLKC has been more about the squeaky wheel getting the oil than actual “game design”.
They attributed the decision to implement an rdf due to “player feedback”. Additionally the fix to munching for mages and warriors, the ret buff, the feral buff, the feral buff removal, and the feral rebuff were all attributed to “player feedback”.
Some of these decisions have been fair enough and some downright messy. Generally the way they’ve gone about changes since Birmingham left has been chaotic.
That said, I think this decision is a good one. I just question how they’re reaching these decisions.
Google it (not trying to be rude). It’s there, but I’m on a mobile right now and can’t really be bothered. No offence. Just not that interested in this line of discussion to follow up sources that are publicly available.
This is kind of off-topic because it goes outside of the RDF decision and into the whole game.
Blizzard has also said now they are fine with changing Era, and they are already starting to do that, while they also have their new “Vanilla” hardcore servers and their seasons. So Era really is the last place that should be touched.
They also say “player feedback” but it seems like some players such as streamers get a way louder voice.
Did you take a headcount? Got a spreadsheet somewhere? See how ridiculous you sounded?
As they should be for their support for ruining what this was supposed to be.
If they want to lose money and have an unhappy customer base… sure. You could get out of the army by shooting yourself in the foot… but you still shot yourself in the foot.
The geniuses at Blizzard should have learned after the how many times have they provided failure to the playerbase?
I was using your logic against you. You just called that logic ridiculous. That was my intent - to show you what you said was ridiculous - and you agree. That’s why I advised you not to focus on ridiculous commentary of one side because if we turn that light back on to the other side it aint pretty there either - so you might not want to bring it up.
That’s a totally subjective and not to mention elitist opinion. No one here has to answer to you for their thought crimes. Wanting RDF and not wanting RDF is the same thing as arguing which is better, pve or pvp? Blizz made a game change some people wanted, they didnt bring justice to your petty beliefs.
Yeah every half wit here thinks they got a better handle on ActiBlizz’s finances, operating expenses, profit margins and customer satisfaction practices. You can’t even tell me what the monthly electrical bill is to keep the servers up but you know RDF is making them money and making everyone happy. You don’t know jack squat about how much money is or isnt being made on Classic Wrath - I dont need your wild and vague speculation which means no one else does either.
What failure? You’re not calling the shots here, I hate to tell ya. Retail is an absolute farce of an MMORPG yet its still a win for Blizzard. People begged for microtransactions for Classic and got them and now RDF so I don’t see why youre complaining now. Better late than never. Just go do your victory lap guy.
To paraphrase Steve Jobs, people don’t know what they want until you give it to them.
Noone ever innovated a thing via focus groups.
I firmly believe Blizzard should listen less to streamers and just focus on making the game as good as they can. They’re the Devs and they should have the experience and expertise to know how to give us something we want, without flip flopping based on “player feedback”. Classic lacks a design vision currently. There’s a middle ground between listening to the customer and designing the game via popular vote.
No, you werent. You were just being snarky to be snarky.
I dont need your advice, never asked for it.
So you agree that the commentary of the anti-RDF side was ridiculous.
examples?
So be it, they still should be.
Then they shouldnt put their thoughts out there to be judged.
No its not, and you can even argue if pve or pvp is better objectively which has been done.
Doing a change some people wanted and the majority didnt want is not a smart business practice. There are several companies out there that are in the spotlight right now panicking because they did exactly that.
Seems like we do since its just an never ending stream of unhappy customers across all IP’s
thats completely irrelevant to losing money due to unhappy customers. Such a bad take… seriously.
Not enough, I can tell you that much. You cant count a monthy sub because that monthy sub is for retail which you get access to classic servers for nothing extra. So that comes down to the tokens, and classic wrath services. I highly doubt people are getting name changes, factions changes or even server transfers at a high rate.
You havent been paying attention as of late? Overwatch 2, Wrath Classic, D4… all failures.
Its too late… like people have been saying since it was “announced”.
This is wrong, entirely wrong. Its time to give Mr. Baker his chemotherapy for that cancer he has… but hes dead… BETTER LATE THAN NEVER!
But they can tell you, and they can tell you what they dont want as well. There are even beta and alpha tests, the playerbase can usually tell your ideas are bad without even having to see it… like Azerite Traits for example. They didnt have to play with what was proposed to see it was going to be bad, Blizzard said “its not finished its not finished” and when it was released it was what was proposed and it was bad.
They had that. They already had a successful product which was Wrath of the Lich King and even if they didnt listen to the streamers I think they dont like what the previous devs created so they want to change it. There is a difference when they have that community council meeting and how they were talking, specifically about RDF being brought back, and how the original devs were talking about Death Knights. They original devs that worked on death knights were so hyped to talk about death knights and how they came to be its like night it makes that woman just look miserable that their team failed like everyone said it would in keeping RDF out for so long.
I have no idea how many subscribers Blizzard has right now so I can’t tell how big the risk of dividing their player-base is. That said, I feel like their was an audience for a “no changes”* version of each of the first three games. Wrath was my favorite expansion and the one I wanted most to relive - so I’m disappointed that it got the most changes. I think there’s a time and place for iterating on the classic design - but I think that time and place is after a complete purist run of the first storyline cycle.
*obviously it’s impossible to release the classic games without any changes but the design philosophy of keeping the gameplay environment the same would be the driving force.
They laid the groundwork with Classic and then SoM. First, release an authentic version. Or…as authentic as possible. Then start tinkering.
I wouldn’t care what they do to a SoM version of Wrath. Go crazy with it. But offer an authentic version first. And then an eternal version of that that remains. Consolidate servers if they need to.