Seriously, everyone talks about RDF if that made WoW great when at the point it was added WoW was already declining from its prime.
Was it just a lucky fad like Fortnite? Is it, like the case of Cat Stevens’ Tea For The Tillerman, catching lightning in a bottle and if it had been released today would have failed? What made WoW so successful?
For those who LOVE RDF and the game without it is a deal breaker, did you dislike the game or not enjoy it before RDF? Let’s take it a step further, did you not enjoy TBC Classic or Vanilla Classic because of no RDF? Or did RDF spoil you and change your perception of the game over time, and if it did, why are you posting from a level 70 you’ve mained for a year and a half?
What made people like this game in the first place? Because if you look at the subscriber count and it’s cultural significance, it sure as hell wasn’t RDF, so why is everyone so up in arms wanting to quit over something that really didn’t contribute to the games’ success in the first place?
If we’re going by subscriber count, the decline didn’t begin until over a year after RDF was added during Cataclysm. In fact, the subscription count would still go up a little bit more after RDF was added.
I’m not one of those people who are gonna say they’ll quit without RDF, but I think it’s a viable solution to the dead server problem.
A lot of people aren’t going to want to transfer there and risk not being able to do content when most of us figure that the population is gonna drop within a month after WotLK fully drops and the queues will sort themselves out.
and for the really dead servers, it’s not as though there is much of a community there to preserve.
Personally I think more than RDF the dungeons themselves hurt any chance at socialization. WotLK heroics are so braindead easy that there isn’t even any down time to actually talk to your group. By the time you’ve said hello, your tank has pulled half of the first room.
WotLK heroics become all business because we’re just chain pulling.
Retail didn’t let people queue up for Mythic+ dungeons. They have to manually find a group and fly out to the dungeon, and it’s the same thing there. People aren’t talking, they’re chain pulling everything and spamming abilities.
We used to like each other more. Thats what made wow great. Is was like the face book of yesterday. Very few people cared about raids or min/maxing. It was just a cool place to hang out. Now the community cant stand to be around each other, unless theyre on the same side of whatever the current reason to be pissed at blizz is.
I’ve never played a game that keeps me coming back like WoW Classic. It’s fun. Why I think it’s fun and therefore successful? Easy: the community I found.
We say “community” all the time but it’s hard to define. After leaving to play ESO, GW2, FF14, and playing Retail WoW since Legion I think I understand.
You can’t do it alone. I mean you can, I guess, but not like ESO, FF14, or Retail. WoW is hard to achieve goals solo. Even a lot of quests are impossible alone. A perfect example is the warriors quest to get that weapon.
The rewards for being a good player and for finding good players, and for treating other players well, is the reward of overcoming challenges in the game. This goes back to (1) because it rewards us for being good to others, at least in the long term.
The memories that you share with others which are far more powerful than the memories we share with just ourselves. It’s that time and experience we have with other players, not necessarily the experience itself, that makes the fond memories.
Friends. No other MMO that I have played have I made more friends. Part of it is the near requirement to do so to succeed.
Responsibilities. I know we have enough of these in our lives, but I think there is more pride in ourselves, our time spent playing, and our achievements because the social aspect requires we be responsible for others.
Talent systems are great. I think ESO does a slightly better job with their morph system because every talent can change to add variaty but nothing feels more RPG than spending talents in a talent tree. It’s what Cyberpunk 2077 did really well too.
I play an MMORPG because I want an MMORPG. I don’t want a solo game, I have Skyrim for that. I think WoW classic of all the major modern MMOs is the only one that forces the MMO experience. Or at least makes it the most required.
I think that’s what made WoW Classic re-release so popular.
Back in 2008, there was very little open world games as clean and polished as WoW to feel emersed inside.
Think back on all the games in the market, and you wont find any with the massive pop WoW had. Part of the magic was feeling an attachment to your character since every spell and new gear felt a sense of progression.
You dont feel that anymore when you done the same thing millions of times and know everything about the game. Now its just the familiarity of the gameplay that keeps you hooked which isnt as powerful as exploring it for the first time.
How about fixing servers rather than trying to sweep the problem(s) under the rug? This is the same problem when it came to same faction BGs. Ultimately Blizzard should have applied pressure to get a balanced setting on servers but, instead did nothing.
Again, another server problem that Blizzard should accomodate for. If we get another PvP server ghost town experience like we did in Classic the people managing servers should force balance.
Admittedly I’m an ICC wrath baby. I dabbled know tbc but I was too young to play it properly.
I started just as RDF was added. And it opened up dungeons for me because at that stage in wrath if you didn’t know what you were doing you didn’t get an invite. I learned how to tank in normals. Then started clearing heroics slowly but surely. Finally made my way up to raid tanking for my guild. I still loved tanking rdf heroics when I was bored. Even if I was over geared.
I just want a compromise. No rdf or lfg until ICC. Then rdf comes in
In a nutshell? Funding. Blizzard had in-game GMs to monitor things, and take appropriate action against rule-breakers. Blizzard had funding to market to a broad range of people - they brought in celebrities.
WoW CAN be solo content in any way - you can literally pay a company to carry you through each and every raid (through self-play or ‘piloted’ options)
No longer exist. Reputation no longer matters with the ability to change your gender, facial construction, name change, realm change, etc.
There isn’t a lot they can do if people are adamant they don’t want to transfer because of the risk that in 2 months you wont be able to run content anymore.
Sure they should have taken steps to prevent what happened earlier, but they didn’t and this is the situation we’re stuck with now.
Having RDF on those servers would give people a little more insurance that they’ll be able to play the game in 2 months. That will encourage people to transfer more, which is all they can really do considering they’ve already locked the megaservers.
I suppose they could forcefully transfer people off against their will, but that’d kill Classic WoW faster than RDF ever would. It would be the absolute dumbest thing they could do.
There is a simple solution to this. Offer free transfers for dead servers onto a joined one or simply force two servers into one another. Sitting on their hands and saying pay me shouldn’t be an option. Nor should they add a feature that will just lead to further problems once the same people are unable to raid on their dead servers.
Why would it be dumb? If a server is officially dead and a complete ghost town why keep it alive? Why not merge them together? This same problem existed in Wrath because of their unwillingness to make hard decisions. If they forcefully merged 5-10 servers together to make them medium population all of the problems related to these dead servers would be alleviated.
Instead we later receieved CRZ and LFR to further accomodate the problems on these ghost towns.
Another thread made by someone who didn’t play the game when it was released, and definitely no mmos before that.
What made WoW successful? Accessibility and convenience. That’s what made it super popular. And that’s exactly what RDF delivers. And it’s authentic to Wrath too.
Merging/Linking (CRZ) shouldn’t happen unless done properly. I offered a solution to this the other day that could fix and make megaservers be a possibility entirely. This would remove the need for CRZ/LFR/RDF while giving the player access to everyone within the specified server type.
Ideally for these megaservers the population should be distributed and the servers should’ve been locked at a certain threshold. Just as they’ve done for Grob you’re not allowed to make a new character unless you’ve already had a character on that server. This a Blizzard failure and altering the game because of their failure shouldn’t be the solution.
Yes RDF was the downfall of not just WoW but all MMORPGs. Every MMORPG for the next 10 years would copy WoW and make their own RDF button and most would fail. WoW and most others turned into Lobby games and MMORPGs became a thing of ancient history with just a few sandbox titles carrying the torch of the old MMORPG feel.
I mean… advertising no doubt played a part! They had some pretty big advertisements with well known people, like Mr. T, Will Shatner, and a few others.
I think it’s hard to point to one specific thing, and maybe it was a combination of many things, but it’s still actually pretty darned successful.