I could have sworn they said they weren’t going to time gate content in Shadowlands.
But Blizzard controlling how people play their game is infuriating.
If nothing was gated you would run out of things to do even sooner, just saying.
They could buy us all unicorns too. I’ll take a little timegating.
There are other games out there if you want that. I’ll take the stuff designed by actual game designers, thanks.
Let me tell you about a little game called quake. The devs once almost patched out a physics bug that allowed bunnyhopping. This bug was discovered and used by players to move faster. It added an emergent gameplay to the game that no dev had anticipated. Players played ctf style user created mods like TF and used bunnyhopping to move faster. It got very popular and launched the entire team shooter genre to extreme popularity. It’s no lie to say that had bunnyhopping been patched out, we would likely have never had Overwatch or TF2 or any of this style of games.
The success of TF led to new games being made like TFC, and then community mods like CS.
Many of the most popular games ever created, such as DotA and CS, were originally user created mods. They were not designed by “game designers”. They were the product of raw creativity and innovation.
When you let the community be creative you will be amazed at what will emerge. Novel and emergent gameplay is the key to escaping a stagnant corporate industry.
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There’s a big difference between players using the existing design in a novel way, and opening the floodgates to rivers of user-made crud. WoW does have examples of bugs/interactions that were found to be fun not being patched out.
Not really. Most are patched out asap. Blizzard takes an iron fist to any type of emergent gameplay.
The company has consistently failed to embrace the community. They really dropped the ball not buying DotA. They should have seen what was driving the WC3 sales. Everyone who played WC3 knew why people played. Toward the end, WC3 was hardly relevant. Everyone played for DotA.
DotA was possible because strategy games come with editors. What does that have to do with a MMORPG?
Mobile Gaming, they are slowly pushing us further and further towards it until they can start selling time skips like most mobile games do.
Low effort low cost to make and much larger returns because people buy time skips rather then quit the game for some reason.
What if we had user generated dungeons and raids that could be voted on by the community and eventually implemented? Endless content.
If it is truly too costly to hire new devs (I doubt this very much), then this is another natural possibility.
There is a massive fanbase for WoW. There are many talented and creative people who would love to help.
I hate it to but if they gate stuff it forces you to play for weeks which means more money for them as you stay subscribed.
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The Avowed rep isn’t gated. LOL
Even if they were to somehow do this, it would just be put alongside timegating, not replace it. Those dungeons you voted on would still be M0 for the first two weeks, and those raids wouldn’t be Mythic until the first month or two. So this wouldn’t solve your grievance even if they were to allocate the considerable resources needed to allow for community-created content, curate/moderate it, and make sure the voting systems aren’t susceptible to cheaters/bots etc. (Keep in mind that they’re struggling to even keep these out of the game itself.)
And I have a lot less faith in the community than you do; people vote for what they already always liked, which is why nostalgia is so popular on crowdfunding and even hollywood these days. So we would just see constant remasters of BRD and Deadmines et al. at the top of the list, instead of anything truly new or innovative like Tirna Scithe.
Why not stop the weekly timegating? Gate monthly and by raids. It’s pointless and frustrating. They have my month’s worth. What is the issue?
It’s communism.
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I don’t understand how that would help you, instead of being capped at renown 3 you would instead be capped around renown 10. Which means you got yourself like 3 days of additional content so next reset instead of looking forward for new content you would have nothing new for 3 weeks. Also if they were monthly time gating the raid would open in Jan not now so no M+ no rated pvp or raid till Jan.
Monthly timegating sounds good to you because you dont see how that would change the timeframes.
I mean yes everyone would be full 184 geared by Jan ready for the raid if it was monthly but they lose the enjoyment of heroic week (and the associated m+ spam).
I’d rather get stuff done and come back for the raid. Then gate the first thing for 2 weeks and then do it by month. It should be raid gated and not this weekly stuff.
Now see… this is the part that we don’t know because we haven’t completed it yet… but given their track record for time-gating and repetitive-content grinding I’d say it doesn’t bode well.
Comming back to this for FInal Fantasy has made me realize just how much that game has spoiled me for how they pace their content.
Yes, I know that if all the gates were open people would ravenously devour everything and then whine about having nothing to do. But on the other hand, I’ve just gotten used to cramming everyhing the second it’s available and then walking away contentedly after I got it done.
The way this is paced feels just…bad. I feel like I’m just twiddling my thumbs waiting for when I can continue to do what I would have done anyway.
The fact that there’s even a built in catchup mechanic for alts for Renown just has me just struck dumb as to why this was even gated as thoroughly as it was. The Main campaign ends in such a non conclusionary way, and now it feels like I’m better off spending my time playing something else while everything opens up properly and I can blitz through it at something resembling a decent pace.
Blizzard needs to remember they’re not the only game in town anymore, Other games exist and if you just stall your players they’re gonna just wander off and do something else.
Yeah, it’s definitely got me questioning how long I’ll wait it out. There’s the rush to mythics and raids but I’ll get to them when I get to them. I started leveling up alts because the mission table and renown cap is just … well, not good.
I do like doing some Torghast but even that is going to be gated… and the grind for soul ash - ooooh boy. I don’t like that I only get soul ash rewards by doing a first completion.
My experience has been quite the opposite. I feel there is so much to do that I haven’t yet hit a time gate. I feel like I’ve been playing alot this week, given it’s a holiday week and we’ve had more free time, and I have yet to hit a gate. I don’t imagine that I will. I’m a completionist and I think that style of gameplay doesn’t hit the same wall as others.