Who's at fault for WoW's decline? The community or the developers?

Community General Discussion
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Depends on the year. From 2009-2014 it was both of them. From 2014-2018 it was the developers solely. 2018 to now is basically back to both.

2009 to 2014 was largely developers being leaned on to further sell the game now that WoW was popular in the mainstream to be playing. There was a large wave of people who never touched the internet really and got roped in around the social media boom. That was when things like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter all really began to explode because I guess you could say normies started to use the internet they figured was a waste of time and dying fad the previous decade because Facebook was trendy to have at a time. Then later died when all the boomers jumped on board and made it lame.

This led to a lot of arguably beneficial, but long term negative changes to the game. The most prominent of these being the splitting of raid difficulties. LFD gets too much credit, and it did feed into the problems today, but the splitting of raid difficulties I think was probably the most impactful. What this did was set a precedent that the game was no longer about accomplishment, earning, etc. You didn’t need to get better to kill the boss anymore because one difficulty was designed so you shouldn’t wipe to it. Raids were easily pugged on normal, you could raid on mostly your own terms. We started with one, now we have 4 because apparently normal mode is still too hard for some, or they’re just really unmotivated and opt for the trolley difficulty. LFR really is like one of those carts at amusement parks that just drive around and show you the stuff then give you a comically large sucker afterwards.

2014-2018 they decided in WoD to call their own shots and keep players in the dark. This backfired in a myriad of ways. They of course abandoned this expansion. Legion having the development of two expansions launched favorably and was well received despite having a lot of glaring flaws at launch, the most prominent not even being fixed until the literal final content update.

2018 to now is back to both of them being problematic for different reasons. Blizzard is to blame because they make the game this way. Players are to blame because they may whine, kick, and scream but end of the day they come crawling back and won’t go anywhere. This basically gives Blizzard free reign, though if you have a kid that says they’ll run away and is back inside after pouting outside for 3 hours multiple times, naturally you don’t consider the threat legitimate so nothing changes thinking it’s just players pouting again.

Additionally you have a lot of people that are gleefully buying tokens to get carried which makes the game profitable. Giving the development team no real incentive to fix actual issues alienating players. At this point they’ll be glad when they get rid of everyone who isn’t a whale and just cater to them with cash shop stuff since to them the game doesn’t need to be good, it just has to make them feel happy playing it. These are two very different objectives in practice yet sound similar in theory. A game can be garbage, but you’ll be happy playing it if it keeps rewarding you and supplying dopamine. You may not enjoy WoW for its faults, but you’re generally happy to get loot, mounts, etc.

You’re really only seeing them now pull out the big guns because players have demonstrated they will leave, and now they actually have options with the idea MMOs other than WoW existing has been normalized. It doesn’t take a genius to piece together what happened. Player drops after expansion launch are normal and have been for some time yes, but other times were absent of a key detail. LOTS of news surrounding the decline and the meteoric rise of competition. Put it this way, if XIV didn’t inflate 9.1.5 might literally have just been open covenants, some new stuff for events, story. Though because it did, they’re addressing literally every criticism of the expansion when generally they tackled a big one, then another toward the end. AoE cap probably was intended to be removed with 9.3.5 plans and they pushed this up. Character customizations were dropped immediately then conveniently given a second thought after WoW was very clearly in some boiling water.

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Sirran the Lunatic says ‘What?! Now you’ve done it! The bunnies are angry! ANGRY I TELL YOU!’

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After research I’ve taken and numerous videos I’ve observed on Youtube. It’s a perfect combination of both.

There are two different types of RPG communities that enjoy WoW, the players who enjoy the combat and those who enjoy the community competition.

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I full heartily believe the Ds are at fault in this one, they control the content and story, we pay to play it. When we don’t like what they are doing we leave simple. Their job to keep ALL of us interested and provide interesting content for EVERYONE. They do have time to change course and change their ways, but not much of it, people are waking up and seeing there are more MMOs out there that put the customer first. (imho)

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308

The game is already a mess of compromises due to the Shareholder influence.

The Director should have final sign-off, but other elements of the game should have someone in charge of them that has a passion for that content, not someone who looks at them and says “Meh” as Ion has for so much of the games activities.

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309

Only the devs can be blamed. It’s their job to make something people want to play.

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310

I think it’s a mixture of both. Yeah, the developers have made some truly garbage content - but they’re likely basing it on what they think the community actually wants. So maybe it’s the line of communication between community and developer that’s the problem. Somewhere along the channel, between community and developer (because we know they’re not directly connected - there’s a whole sh** storm of crap in between), what the community wants is often misinterpreted.

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Activision, Blizzard, and their competitors.

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Not really. Pages upon pages of feedback on the beta that just got ignored.

Follow that up with them literally saying “you think you do, but you don’t”. They have thought they’ve known what’s best for ages… Ignoring most feedback until the .2 patch of each expansion when it’s already too late.

99% of the fault lies with Blizzard.

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313

This, how many Beta’s and theory crafter’s have said “This is bad” and all they got from beta test was “we look into it” and “will be fixed in later date”

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The community has no agency in the direction of the game’s development. The devs have total agency over the direction of the game’s development.

This is not a valid question. The community can not contribute, at all, to WoW’s decline.

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315

Shrug

Both, I guess.

Blizzard has certainly struggled to top Legion, and whenever they try it doesn’t go well.

On the other hand, WoW players have a tendency not to be careful what they wish for, and complain bitterly when they get it.

But the biggest culprit is simply…time. This is a game that is probably older than half of it’s playerbase at this point. There isn’t much that can be done with the engine and encounter design that hasn’t already been done.

No MMO lasts forever.

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I would find that fascinating, if true. I would assume that the median age for World of WarCraft players is around 36-40.

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Developers.

A community can be curated by both how the developers approach the game, and their attitudes towards moderation. WoW has turned extremely hyper-competitive over the years, combined with over two decades without actual moderation, and well… the recent lawsuit just makes the attitudes those at the top have towards people in general pretty well known.

People can say it’s just the internet, or every game is like this, but that isn’t true. Certain places on the internet are like that because of the lack of moderation, or because they’re intended to be. I play several other games - MMORPGs included - that do not have a rampant toxicity problem, and they also have their competitive game modes and ladders.

In the past, if the developers wanted to foster a better community, they would have actually hired moderators, and separate their competitive/esports elements to either external tournaments entirely, or just had their influence on the ability to obtain things in game be minimal. Other RPGs with ladders and actual tournaments do this, and people don’t have to subject themselves to the toxicity in those communities unless the want to. (WoW, you’re pretty much forced to or you’re likely missing out on something forever. FOMO is very much so leading to toxicity, btw.)

xiv - WoW main competitor - has mostly tackled the in game toxicity issue; you cannot be an obnoxious twit in that game without suffering consequences, and that’s the way it should be.
The only part of the game that has real FOMO to it combined with a competitive feature is The Feast, and they’ve acknowledged there’s issues and there’s apparently going to be changes to their arena/pvp system in Endwalker.

And frankly, the game also better encourages people to just play together of all skill levels, with the main breath of content being around what Heroic is in WoW. WoW? Not good enough, you don’t get to go. Especially in PvP which is the worst of it all combined. (…and also the feature having the most issues with population now.)

If you’re not good enough to do Ultimates, they are always there for you. Everything is intact. And just off that alone, I’ve already gotten multiple offers to go join some friends on their Ultimates once I get a better grasp of the game - and this is despite me explaining that I’m starting to go blind, and that some mechanics on Mythic in WoW are a bit much for me now, and I have issues with the XIV UI being absolutely atrocious. Every single group did not care and was just happy to see another higher experience player come over from blizzard hospice.

(That stereotype about xiv players not letting people say bad things about their game? Likely made up by people who can’t stand the fact another MMO is doing just as well, if not better, and usually based off community alone.)

WoW? Well, I had to stop playing the race I like on the faction I like to do the equivalent, got burnt out quick and quit, started talking about the issue, and get swarmed by literal sociopaths whose sole hobby is to just be as miserable and neckbeardy as possible.

I will never raid Mythic again in WoW after seeing the difference between the two communities first hand.

FF isn’t the only game where the developer mindsets have encouraged better communities, but it’s the best one to use right now.

Pokemon is another big one that has a toxic community, but at no point playing any of those games are you locked out of something because you aren’t playing on ladder, or doing the competitive modes. And that game’s e-sports scene?
Well.
Pokemon GO has higher viewership than MDI or AWC. And GO PvP is very niche.

This is all fixable, but only with a mindset swap.
And frankly, if I have to explain what that mindset swap is to somebody, they’re usually part of the problem. Yoshi-P and Masuda both know that accessibility matters more than narcissism, and that hardcore and competitive minded players will enjoy their content even when they’re not the focal audience. They made their own enjoyment out of what’s presented.

Also, anybody who thinks that a community can’t cause issues for a game needs to look up a little game called Wildstar. The PvP community killed itself there, and then raids followed shortly after. And there was no “difficulty” wall for PvP like PvE had that led to participation issues.

tl;dr:
this is a forum not a chat room, and if this offends you, you’re part of the problem.

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It doesn’t seem they have that in Ion. And when I say “doesn’t seem”, I mean totally not.

I don’t think they can have any single player represent the opinions and needs of entire playerbase.

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319

The community is responsible.

because they are not stupid enough to stick around and play a garbage game.

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320

Agree :100: %

No, no, not the playerbase. No inmates running the asylum!

A professional developer who loves the whole game and has a vision for the whole game.

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Everyone has a little fault. Nothing is 100% one of the other.

Everytime you or I leave someone out of a m+ grouo cuz he/she/ it is not META we have the blame

Everytime no one aswers our questions for whys and whats. They are to blame

Imho

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Time? It’s a 20 year-old game almost. It’s impressive it’s still as popular as it is.

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“Lets optimize for player experience rather than what we think will make more money.” ~ Ron Carmel

“The pinnacle of game design craft is combining perfect mechanics and compelling fiction into one seamless system of meaning.” ~Tynan Sylvester