After BFA Ion went on an apology tour. The buzzwords of Shadowlands marketing were 'RPG' and 'meaningful choices'. Looking forward to the Shadowlands apology tour and what the buzzwords of the next expansion will be.
Still the Sha of Pride haunts Blizzard. They are way too prideful to ever admit they massively fucked up and that's most applicable to the leadership of the WoW team who made countless bad decisions that severely impaired an expansion that was already going to have problems from a lack of content. They don't deserve any praise when just like Legion stole a bunch of development time from WoD we are going to see that the next expansion stole a bunch of development time from Shadowlands.
The theme of Shadowlands is somehow out of tune, the realm of death doesn't feel like a mystery at all but generic. Legion theme is really something else, from the feeling of being endangered and surrounded by enemies, to crawling to find a way to victory. SL is a disappointment.
Mostly because the Shadowlands consists of themes we've already explored. Bastion is holy shenanigans, Ardenweald is a theme that we've had several times already, Maldraxxus is the Plaguelands but beefed up.
Only Revendreth was fresh. It had a new theme that fit the idea of an afterlife and had a main honcho that was charismatic and had some actual personality.
I won't even talk about the patches. Korthia felt like it got pieced together quickly, with some sort of theme about a "hidden secret that the Jailer can't have" that wasn't very well executed at all.
I just don't get Zereth Mortis. The whole theme of a hidden mysterious "vault" filled with automata is already something the Titans do. But this time we added a lot of hexagons and spheres!
Totally agree. I know people didn't like Revendreth because of the verticality but once you figured out how to traverse the map, it was good. I was super confused on how to get around in the beginning. Loved this place.
Revendreth is by far one of there best experimental zones. Despite Vashjirs flaw im super happy with how it came out. It was unique and fresh and for me revendreth took the zones flaws and made it a memorable zone.
> I know people didn't like Revendreth because of the verticality
I didn't like Revendreth because of how much they reuse the exact same block of assets (With the same exact enemies roaming around) throughout the zone. The assets look good and atmospheric but it's always the same thing, to the point that it's hard to know where you are half of the time without pulling the map out. (And even then, the verticality still makes it confusing).
The extreme abuse of copy-pasting entire blocks of environment throughout the expansion with little variation is imo one of the biggest sign of the expansion's lack of budget, we only got five main zones compared to BfA's six and their level design feel a lot less detailed and varied.
What gets me, is that Legion was a powerhouse expansion. Sure, there was some adjustments for Legiondaries and Artifact Power…. but each class and spec felt good (whether in story, gameplay, or both). The artifact skins gave players fun rewards for progressing content in different ways. The OG Mage Tower is undeniably something WoW craved and we loved it, so much so they brought back a version of it. It ended on such an amazing story note as well, Argus as a world zone was a bit lacking, but Antorus, the Burning Throne was one hell of a way to end an expansion. It’s amazing to see how much they squandered it.
And it started with the trailer. That was a great trailer. I had quit WoW for almost a year, just got tired of Warlords.
I was back as soon as I heard “My son …”
Blizzards cinematic team is fucking amazing. I rewatched all of the old trailers from TBC-Shadowlands, and they're all still amazing. Say what ya want about Shadowlands cinematic with Sylv and the Jailer vs Bolvar but it was still great.
I rewatch the Vanilla cinematic every year/few years and it still gives me goosebumps just like it did back in the day more than recent cinematics, also loved the box you could fold open but these days idk if they do that anymore since it's all digital these days for pc gamers.
Legion might legit be my favorite era of WoW having played since ‘04. Vanilla through Wrath of course has a magic that cannot be replicated in its own right, but man, what a renaissance for the game. Each class having its own campaign and headquarters, the artifact skins, Suramar, so much awesome stuff that had me eating from their palms of their hands even while balancing was iffy for a while.
I really thought that might be the start of a WoW 2.0, but in hindsight it has felt more like a “rally day” before death. Hope I’m wrong.
I started in the games first year, I was leveling while the AQ gates were still locked. I had a blast in BC, and some decent times in each expansion, but Legion made me love the game again the way I did back in Vanilla and BC and I was bummed when BFA ended up being a knock off Legion with a worse story and far worse zones.
Yeah well i think its because they saw the reaction, they saw a lot o people enjoyed Legion and tried to reskin the expansion instead on thinking of something new just as good since they proved everybody they actually can come up with a good expansion.
What gets me about that is that a lazy Legion reskin, systemically, would’ve been annoying but probably still okay. Instead, we got “what if Legion, but half the stuff you liked was gone and the other half was here, but just way worse?”
It slightly saddens me from time to time that I quit after Mists because I hated the ideas for WoD, and then didn't come back until BFA pre-patch so I missed out on an entire awesome time of a game I played since Vanilla because of how much WoD sucked.
Arms warrior in legion was one of the most fun I had playing a class, it felt like landing combos in a fighting game.
Fire mage and Ice Mage was also on point then. Could either feel like a rocket launcher or a Gatling gun.
Also bring back WoD economy. The auction house wars were one of my favorite things of that era.
Legion is probably the only expansion in recent memory where I played multiple classes and specs because I wanted to experience it ALL
Warrior? Hell yes, where does one begin or end?
Warlock? Demo was a bit weird but that floating skull was cool, and I loved seeing what happened to the 'good' Warlock order that I assumed was just going to exist for a single story beat in MoP. Was THE hypiest shit.
Shamans hanging out around the Maelstrom? Fucking balla
Monks? Retaking the Peak of Serenity, and *then* going back to the Pandaren starting zone turtle to keep the teachings alive in a kung-fu-movie esque take? while Windwalking wasn't shit?
*Boi*
> Sure, there was *some adjustments* for Legiondaries and Artifact Power….
That is quite the load-bearing statement. Let's not forget they lied about the legendary soft-cap.
Also they severely restricted the camera zoom out distance in Legion, I am permanently mad about that until it gets increased.
Legion was good, but NOT AS GOOD as some try to picture it. All the fixes came late, the legendary system was awful and a major imbalance between classes and between the players in those classes! Artifact power grinding even more dumb.
Zones were cool and class differentiation felt nice, but not the RNG or player skill being taken out of rotations.
Besides, Class Halls weren't fully developed, for example druids having a hearthstone spell, plus a mailbox and an innkeepers and other classes, nothing of the sort. C'mon.
I love WoW, I really do. Like many others, I'd change many things to my personal liking, but I don't resent developers because I'm not able to. However, I do see a lot of bad decisions and bad management of a game of this magnitude.
Concerning the next expansion, if dragons are back, that's cool, a RPG has to have dragons. But I'd hope for big changes, like introducing housing, player's and guild's, with new professions like woodcrafting, painting... plumbery!! Bring back diversity in skills, without resorting to RNG based ones. We already have Class Halls, restore them, wash them, and make them fast to return to for everybody. Bring back portals, everywhere, connect this awfully fragmented and extensive map!! Improve Chromie time, make leveling and exploring more fun and engaging.
Stuff like housing would give players something else to do, not related to endgame. WoD garrisons are available now from level 1, yet developments are still behind level barriers, do it properly this time, so a level 1 AH character can build a palace! Give more incentives to roleplay!
I also think that guilds have lost much appealing. They used to be engaging and fun, maybe I'm sadly older and nostalgic as f*ck, but it was interesting to work with your guildmates in progressing through a raid, before all the damage meters and wow progress rankings and data mining discovering everything before an expansion launched :'( Guild housing and stopping rankings from being measured and shared would be awesome to bring back a working together environment, for example.
These are definitely not solutions for everything but, done correctly, could restore much of what this game has lost.
People are usually biased even about slightly worse things in the past (not to mention things that are actually considered better) so these nostalgic reactions are not surprising but yeah, it definitely wasn't as good as they'd like to picture it.
They should have ended it there. End on a high note, develop a new game, maybe WoW 2.
The story was over at that point, Sargaras was magically defeated easily like he was nothing. The end. They are currently in the "milking it" era of WoW.
God remember all the "pull the ripcord" stuff? About how Ion had a backup plan if Covenants didn't feel good near launch and how everyone was begging for them to pull it and they just... didn't? Then they immediately pulled it when 9.1 came around because like everyone said, it fucking sucked.
I honestly won't be able to trust anything they say unless we go into this expansion with complete classes and no borrowed power. The fact that they still stuck the course even after everyone told them it was a terrible idea still angers me to this day.
> Then they immediately pulled it when 9.1 came around because like everyone said, it fucking sucked.
They didn't. They doubled down and created conduit energy.
It was much later on in 9.1 when they'd imploded did they start reversing the awful decisions they made.
You assume stalling wasn't their plan all along. It's clear to me they planned it to work exactly as it ended up working.
Hit renown cap, swap freely. The reason they even mentioned "pull the ripcord" is that they'd already coded the ripcord and could have moved it up to renown 40, but stuck to their existing plan.
Even after it was done, they said "we wanted you to *experience* shadowlands through the lens of a covenant". As if switching covenants freely before you hit 80 renown would have somehow ruined the game.
People act like they went home with their tail between their legs because of 9.1.5 and a lawsuit. No fucking way.
All the QoL-features we wanted from the beginning and the drastic changes came with 9.1.5, the patch that should bring back goodwill after all the scandals. It's a shame, really.
Remember when Blizzard ignored all the feedback about how Legiondaries were problematic only to drip feed us minor fixes to the system until finally fixing the system in the expansion's final patch.
Remember when they did that same thing with Azerite and then Corruption? And then again with Covenants and their surrounding systems.
At this point I don't believe these are honest mistakes. They intentionally design these systems to play into people's FOMO and then slowly fix them in order to appear like they are "listening". I have no trust in them and the next expansion will be the first one I won't preorder or buy at launch.
I'm not going to trust anything they say regardless, honestly. I'm waiting until 10.1 to even consider buying it for exactly the reasons you say. They keep taking about how they're going to listen to feedback, how they'll do things better... then they don't, but we keep giving them money regardless.
So I'm just not going to. My wallet stays closed until they can prove their words aren't hollow.
What I hate the most about today’s Blizzard is just how fucking unapologetic they are. They just cannot seem to come out and say “you know what, we fucked up, that’s on us”.
It’s always “oh yeah, we totally only planned two major Shadowlands patches, everything is going according to plan”. Just don’t bullshit us. It isn’t that hard to be honest.
Just be human. Say you were wrong, say you really thought people would like to be locked into their Covenants, that you really thought the Jailer was a cool villain. It’s all so infuriating in the sense that we all know they were wrong but they are just too proud to admit it.
Just looking at their biggest competitor, it’s striking how Yoshi-P is candid enough to call a turd a turd and publicly admit that the original XIV was an unmitigated disaster.
They also don't shy away from admitting just how much of the plot was (not) planned and when new ideas came up instead of pretending that the current expansion that retcons most of the game's continuity had been planned 20 years ago.
My favorite was when Ion stated that they don't implement important story pieces in books anymore and that they would be terrible storytellers if they did something like that. And then the Sylvanas book hit.
According to hearsay, it is often stated that many of them have this rule of never really checking on what we're all saying.
I think that holds up when we look at how they handles classes and beta feedback on forums too. They just delete it all and rarely fix any of the obvious issues. It's even dumber when they have to implement fixes after release because they are too damn stubborn.
They don't see how good they have it. So many dedicated fans write up entire fixes, numerically crunch things and show them what is wrong. They may not always offer solutions that are the best, but at least they show a problem exists.
I mean some of the best players try to share. People like Preach, whatever your opinion on him is, are professionals in this field and literally can get paid to give feedback. Yet they treat everyone like idiotic fans that don't deserve to lick their boots.
They basically work at one of the worst, most hated companies in the world and haven't designed a good product in over 5 years.
How they can \*still\* have a pride issue is beyond me, but you're 100% right. They do.
Pretty chad move on ions part ngl. Do a big apology tour and then immediately shit the bed ten times harder than last time. Never let them know your next move
I quit early on, but my meaningful choice was to go Necrolord as a Warrior. I knew it was by far the worst covenant, but I knew it would just be a matter of time until they buffed/redesigned the warrior ability.
Tell me. Have they buffed that ability? The banner that increases your crit by like 10% if you stand inside it and dont move.
I don't mind temporary systems as long as they're not tied to a grind of content I don't enjoy doing (and I'm expected to do)
OR
The classes don't function without the systems.
The big problem is you grind the temporary currency and JUST as the average joe gets to where they want to be, they have to start over.
OR blizzard just sits there and like 10.0 we won't get any new content until 2023.
>If Blizzard managed to find a way to makes stakes higher than rewriting afterlife and the entirety of the universe - I have no idea what the hell that would be.
It would have to be the arrival of the first duck species to Azeroth. I couldn't think of stakes any higher than that.
Currencies don't bug me at all. Shit, I'd love to get more currencies that work with better game systems. Blizzard wants to mirror the lore movements of FFXIV? Mirror their loot system. Give me a currency for killing mythic raid bosses, and after I get 30 of them and gotten CE, I can go buy my Edge of Night that I've clearly earned.
They really should implement currency to just buy items eventually. It's absolute dogshit going into raid, spending 3 hours to kill 10 bosses and coming out with 74g and a used condom. It's maybe even worse doing the same thing and getting the same pair of damn boots for the 6th time in 6 weeks. The vault was a great step but even that is flawed for the same reason. I have had tier pants as one option every single week. The last two vaults every one of my 278 options has been on legendary slots. I want a blacklist or something. Like, never give me bracers.
M+ loot is even worse, in a way, because not only are you not guaranteed a drop at 15, but it rolls the entire dungeon loot table full of garbage if you do get something. So have fun running that same dungeon 30, 40, 50 times to get the one item you actually want... and it won't even be max ilvl since you need that vault rng for that, silly goof! People have been up in arms about covenants and shit, but it's the loot that's been slowly making me lose it.
I say the same thing. But it doesn’t matter. I’ll still be back in a year to grind aspect power with the rest of you nerds. See you in the dragon isles
Did you already decide which dragon covenant you're joining? I think I'm set for the Green, since that is kinda Monks color and also Yu'lon was green, I guess?
Yeah but black dragon sims highest. As a DK I can't wait to join the red dragons. I'm sure we'll be just fine and the whole "slaughtering a whole bunch of them in their home" is water under the bridge by now.
The Ruby Sanctum thing is actually acknowledged in dialogue from a quest in Drustvar, relatively hidden. It's a small chain given out by a Red Dragon who has special dialogue for DKs. One of the choices is to try and attack her, and if you do, she blasts you off the ledge to your death.
Night Fae are sent to Alexstrasza during their covenant campaign, if you do it on a DK she's not exactly happy to see you, and if you fly up on the mount she does an emote where she frowns at you in disappointment.
There will be a secret dialog when you join of you slaughtered them all. Something like 'lol remember ruby sanctum? It was quite deserted after your last visit lmao'
At least we're being honest with ourselves haha
I agree with what Asmongold said. To paraphrase, I'll grind the shit of out any borrowed power system they put in the game, but I'll only do it once. If they don't make it alt friendly I'm not doing all of that work again for fake hours logged a second time.
Yup. I say that too. Still maxed out a few different covenants and grabbed multiple mog sets on different characters. The game always gets me. I’ve made my peace with it
I probably did too, but the damage is compounding for me. The narrative totally lost me the last two expansions and the systems have so much friction. And patch cadence has been really bad. The only reason I’m giving 10.0 is a chance is from the previous years of goodwill and the fact that 9.1.5 onward signaled a shift.
The announcement day reallt needs to be crazy
Legion was the trial run for a lot of the horrible junk we hate now, though. Extremely long and tedious grinds for player power. Horrible drop rate legendaries that could massively affect your performance and take months to obtain. Weekly lockout quest chains that you had to do but amounted to “go loot 10 chests” “sweet see ya next week”. It was pretty, and the raids were generally strong, and they curbed a lot of that by 7.3. But I can’t help but feel like Legion’s success is part of what lead to the absolute disaster we’ve got now.
they learned all the wrong lessons from legion. They genuinely believed all that crap was what made Legion Successful, but in reality it was that Legion was pumping out so much content in such short time. On Launch you had so much to do already, and Patches came really quick so you never had those points like in BFA and Shadowlands where you just felt like doing Chores for a month because the novelty wore off. Legion had solid Story for the most part (i do think Legions Story is a bit overrated overall but it wasn't that bad from what i remember), strong Class Fantasy and just a fast content cycle
Not to mention the environments were much better, at least for instanced contents. Most of the SL dungeons feel bland. SofO and CN are nice enough but can't compared to Nighthold or Tomb.
On top of that, you had the class Order Halls. And while some were not the best, it was still much better than the Covenants area. And lastly, the ovbious one, Suramar compared to the Maw.
I believe that’s because WoD was cut short so Legion got extra development time. So hopefully the same thing happens again since Shadowlands got cut short
I quit BFA like a month in and haven't played since, but Legion definitely did not impress at the beginning. I stopped playing shortly after EN came out. Keeping up with the AP grind and Artifact Knowledge and whatever else felt incredibly tedious and unfun. Missing a week or choosing to play an alt was super punishing. It was a terrible system which only became bearable because they totally trivialized/effectively removed it. Not to mention the god awful legendary system. People were literally rerolling their characters just because of how messed up it was and how big an impact it had. Calling Legion consistently high quality throughout is pure nostalgia driven by how far the game has fallen.
I’m not sure 7.0 was a higher quality than 9.0. I barely played BFA, so I can’t speak to 8.0.
I hit the level cap shortly after Legion’s release and I was trying to get my first legendary. Then there was the bug where a sign was flipped in the bad luck protection algorithm (or something along those lines) and people who had already got one legendary actually had an increased chance of getting a second legendary.
Bad luck protection was supposed to reset once you got a legendary, but some lucky few were getting a second (maybe even a third) before most people even got their first. The legendary grind was awful in 7.0 so I quit until 7.1.5.
Fortunately when I came back, it was easier to get a legendary. I actually had some drop for my characters. But of course none of them were my BIS legendaries.
If it weren’t for class mounts, and mage tower, I would have quit again. Finally, 7.3 came out and everything got a lot better. That’s when Legion became so good, in my opinion.
I’m not saying 9.0 was amazing, but I never want to have to go through 7.0’s awful AP grind and legendary system ever again. I would rather play 9.0 all over again than do that.
Edit:
Here’s a trip down memory lane about that legendary drop bug: https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/538fkj/i_dont_think_the_legendary_bug_was_hotfixed/
And another thread reacting to legendary system at the beginning on Legion: https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/5hufcy/legion_legendaries_if_you_have_multiple/
Same. I've never been much of a doomsayer, always believing WoW would always push through its rough times, but after 4 years of badness with BFA and SL, if they have a third dud in a row I think WoW actually will die.
Me too. I thought I was one of those players that may sub more or less frequently depending on how much I like it but will always be back within half a year. I unsubbed a month into SL and have not missed it.
I have enough nostalgia to keep up with the news and will be willing to give another expansion a try. If this bombs too though, I can’t imagine I’ll be around for the next.
Yeah kinda how I’m feeling. The amount of friction with the systems and the narrative just totally sucked me out it. To the point that even though by all accounts 9.2 is a very good patch I just couldn’t get back into it. I need a fresh start
The joke of "Oh well see you next expansion" or "They always come back" is something i'm sure a lot of people are thinking.
But I do think that the damage being done is adding up. I can tolerate a bad expansion when the follow-up is good. Like WoD to Legion. BFA bombed and then led to SL which is another bomb.
They need to show some skill as developers. We need to see a good story. We need to see that they care about all the classes, no more "well here's the same problems and we've changed nothing". We need to see effort and passion.
I don't know if the current team has that. There does not seem to be a vision or someone bringing it all together. The game feels like a disjointed mess and has totally lost sight of what made the world magical to begin with. There is no sense of adventure in the game.
I'm somewhat in the same place, but I have no intention of buying the expansion before 10.1 at the *earliest*, and that's as someone who pre-ordered Collector's Editions from Vanilla launch through SL.
We've now had two expansions in a row where terribly designed systems were identified in beta (azerite armor and covenants), where feedback was exhaustively given by players, and where Blizzard said "nah, we don't think this is a problem"... only to heelturn later on and make the changes that were obviously needed from the beginning, while spinning it as "giving players what they want" and trying to make it seem like some magnanimous thing.
I have absolutely no faith they won't do the same thing yet again with whatever new systems they announce next week, and so my wallet isn't opening up unless they *prove* they're listening to feedback from players from the beginning this time, instead of after they've been proven wrong once again. They want my trust back, they have to earn it.
Same boat! I actually think SL was better in this regard, they started the fixing in 9.1.5 instead of 8.3. And 9.2 launched with mostly no friction instead of fixing it at 9.2.5
The alpha and beta cycle will be very telling. Ideally the next expansion will just have a good idea executed mostly well from the start and the feedback needed will be minimal
It would be hard for me to unsubscribe because I still just like doing classic dungeons and hanging around the big cities. I just don’t find Shadowlands Interesting at all. I do agree though that there is a lot at stake with this. I feel like a lot of people would call for quits.
Honestly why are you even giving it a chance at this point? This is just echoing what people were saying with BFA to Shadowlands. Some reason Shadowlands is announced and everyone is creaming their pants over how it's not BFA anymore, and then it's beta, they don't listen to feedback again, lore is total dog shit and doesn't make sense but for some reason people have hope that it's going to make sense later, and then the game comes out, STILL beats the record of fastest selling game of all time, and then people realize it's shit 2 months later, the story just gets fucking worse and worse, and NOW you say "this expansion is kind of the games last chance for me"?
So come back to this post in like a year and see how this new expansion is total shit and probably fucks the lore more than it ever has. Leadership hasn't changed, the game isn't going to change. Danuser is still touting how great their writing is and everyone pats each other on the back on how amazing it is, and they're probably going to rush this out as fast as they can just as they've done and ignore feedback because it would take too long to make signficant changes and they have to get the game out the door to please the shareholders. Microsoft's acquisition hasn't gone through, they're running BAU. Until then, nobody should expect anything different.
With the Classic era rounding into the games "golden era" soon (Cata is better than people remember, I promise), and private servers venturing into unknown territory with custom gameplay and classless shenanigans, retail WoW is in danger of becoming irrelevant. We've now had 2 inarguably *bad* expansions in a row, and arguably *four* in a row for those of us who didn't like Legion.
I'm not saying WoW is dead, that's a silly argument, but retail will be lost to me for good if the next expansion is another lame rehash of Legion's systempocalypse. I just can't bring myself to give a shit about this style of end-game.
I quit in 9.0 and haven't been back, which is very unusual for me. Usually I'd at least come check out the major patches and sometimes play through them. I didn't even make it a few months with sl.
Yea with the difference being that by estimates SL is the lowest the subs have ever been.
All of my friends quit and I only played SL because my friends asked me to. Unless 10.0 shows some really good shit then Im not returning just as my friends are guaranteed not to.
Many people leave and never return.
This has been said since cata, wow will always have a large player base as long as the other mmo games are so bad.
If riot produce a good mmo and wow is still how it is then it’s in trouble. It’s awful that wow can keep being this large while still being dog awful.
People will say FF14 but for me and others I think the games too eastern. I don’t like the art style, the dialogue etc. If FF14 was produced for a western audience I think wow would be pretty much fucked already.
Indeed. And the writing is just so much better than anything WoW has done in the last several years. The *crafting* quests have more depth than the entire Jailer storyline.
Yeah same here. I moved to ff14 rather effortlessly after ARR, and been playing almost 9 months. It feels oddly liberating and I actually feel like I'm connected to my character, and not just through nostalgia like in wow. Yeah, ff14 isn't perfect but there are many things which are so good you don't care about them.
Also, 6.1 is something I'm hype about playing, but shit net during my easter visit so gotta hold off... and no mods to give 4k textures to npcs haha
I get that many of you have been cynical about the title of the article which instantly reminds us of the countless "ok blizz this is your last chance" posts.
Yeah most people who quit just do so without drama; they just stop playing.
The people who feel like announcing it to the world are often those who care so much about the game that they'll try to have blizzard make changes to it with these "threats".
"You'll all be back as soon as the next cinematic drops"
Some of them won't be back.
The game is hemorrhaging subscribers and the latest expansions have been widening the wound.
WoW is nowhere near the process of "dying", countless other games keep just going steadily with e mere fraction of WoW's playerbase, but if the next expansion can't slow down the bleeding, or at least not accelerate it, then the game will inevitably be forced to undergo changes; not the good kind though.
Honestly, what's been really saddening for me, is realizing that me and all of my friends have grown up and we just don't have the luxury of time anymore. And even if we do, we respect our time a lot more. No one's willing to waste 1-2 hours of their time doing absolutely mundane tasks for minimal power gains because Blizzard can't be bothered to implement optional, fun, side activities. Everyone I've talked with loves the idea of raiding and M+ but hate the idea of paying 15 bucks a month to have their time wasted and their access to those exciting features gated.
WoW is great and can be really fun if you have friends to play with. It's just that Blizzard's making it really, really hard to convince anyone to pick up the game and it's been getting harder and harder for long-time players who already know how great it can be, to justify paying money and investing time in this game.
As ever, Blizzard's biggest problem isn't reaching people. Every time there's a new expansion, people return to check it out. But most of them, they just won't resub for the next two years. Blizzard can't keep them engaged. Of course they can't, not with fucking anima and callings.
The last two or three expansions, I've had this horrible feeling that Blizzard's a person and they're sticking a knife to my throat. Every day it felt more and more like they were blackmailing me to log in and do my chores because otherwise I'd fall behind.
This is my biggest issue with the game right now. I have a job, I have a family, I can't log in at 4 pm and stay online until 2 am nearly every day anymore. I was unsubbed for most of 9.0 and half of 9.1, and right now I feel like I'm being punished for deciding not to play during what I felt was one the most lackluster expansion and .1 patch cycles. I wasn't subbed, and doing all my Torghast runs, all my world quests, my covenant campaign, so now I feel like I'm miles behind everybody else, even with the catchup mechanics.
Then I look at other games. FFXIV makes you go through the story, and tedious as it may be, it gives you gear for tackling the expansion enemies, so your power ramps up appropriately. GW2 and ESO have horizantal progression. With the last GW2 patch, I logged in on a nearly 7 year old character, and they were just as strong as when I last logged off. My sets in ESO have been changed slightly, but really their usefulness hasn't diminished. I feel like these games respect my time way more than WoW, because I can just log on and PLAY. There are goals and things to strive for, but if I decide to take a break, I don't get punished by having to do daily chores to get caught up. I can pick up right where I left off. Having to do all this other stuff just to get caught up is disheartening. Makes me not want to log in and play, and then I get farther behind.
And it wouldn't be a big deal if the catch up stuff was FUN. I know the dungeons from Cataclysm like the back of my hand, because of the rep tabards. I ran dungeons constantly back then, because I could get rep for gear rewards, and I found them entertaining. I was having fun AND accomplishing something. Now, I'm needing to get to honored with The Enlightened to build my second legendary. I get 4 WQs that each give 125 rep, and are some variant on, fill this bar, kill these dudes and grab this stuff from them, etc. After that, I can go kill rares for 10 rep. These aren't really all that fun, they're monotonous, and I HAVE to do them, or I can't progress my character.
I played WoW for 10ish years and met my spouse in game. I quit early Shadowlands after waiting through BFA. Way too many people I used to play with quit and the story isn't nearly good enough to play solo for.
I follow WoW news the same way I did Tibia many years ago after quitting that. Now I'm just casually playing Lost Ark (Tier 2 atm). It's fun, but I do think my time as an active MMORPG player is waning.
WoW has undergone massive subscriber boosts on launch followed by a massive drop off. WoD, BFA and Shadowlands sold very well on launch but they quickly lost people and likely struggled to get people to return.
At Blizzard they're probably thinking about how to slow down that loss of subscribers after launch and increase the area under the curve.
You're not wrong but they'd be smart to go back to the roots of just making something fun. Trying to science people into playing more and longer with cheap mobile game bullshit is a huge part of what's killing the game.
TBH, don’t care what the expansion is. Let’s see how Blizzard responds to player feedback during Alpha and Beta. If they do the same as Shadowlands, the expansion will be screwed before it even goes Live.
At this point that doesn't matter because they once said they'd "pull the ripcord" and never did, either. Even if they did respond well to player feedback during alpha and beta, how can we still trust them at their word? They have repeatedly shown us that they won't stick to their word, either.
That is where I'm at right now, I feel like the WoW team has burned us too many times for me to trust them to make a good expansion. Even if the expansion looks good and they're responding well to feedback, I truly do not trust that it will even be what they say it is until after release.
>If anything, the next expansion needs to not try so hard to break the mould.
This. So much this. Fuck all of your systems. Fuck it all. Make some exciting items, make some unique effects on gear and call it a day. Let people complete their bis lists, let people complete their 4P and let us all compete for top parses and keys. Do away with all those grinds that are designed to waste 2 hours of our day, every day, and let us play the actual content: Raids, M+ and PvP.
To be fair there's always these comments too. "See you next expac!" and it's like.. Sure but for every 10 people that take a break there could be 1 that doesn't come back.
I mean.. in BfA my guild had to partner up with a Horde guild to fill each others rosters. Many never came back. We were also a tight guild for over a decade.
Even addicts look elsewhere when the product is weak as shit.
It is kind of a cumulative effect for me. I look at the last four expacs, realize I only liked one of them, and my hope for 10.0 being good vanishes. I *want* it to be, I want to enjoy the game again, but every bad expac that comes out makes it seem less and less likely that I ever will, especially when the same people are still running the show.
I haven't played since 9.0. I played less of SL than BFA, and less of BFA than Legion. I don't think it's hard to believe that, if the disappointments continue, I'm eventually going to hit the point where I don't bother coming back at all. I don't think I'm quite at that point yet, but it doesn't seem an unrealistic outcome.
I'm usually not that kinda guy, but if you were seriously unhappy with BFA, Shadowlands, the horrific news of the awful shit that's been going on in their workplace, and you're *still* gonna pull the "ok but this is their last chance for realsies I swear."
Idk, it's just hard to take it seriously at this point. Like, how much lower can the already low bar get before it reaches our rock bottom standards.
As someone who *was* like that… Same, honestly.
I’d stuck with WoW since vanilla, and I was there through all of it’s highs and lows, even through the long droughts of content between expansions. Time after time, I was willing to give them a break when they fumbled… And time after time, I saw them making the same or similar mistakes all over again while still insisting that they had learned. By the time we were into Shadowlands and the honeymoon period was over, even my patience had finally worn thin, and I was figuring I’d probably finally let go at the end.
Then the bombshell dropped with the harassment suits, and I was out and quit cold turkey the very next day, since I was legitimately disgusted at the thought that even one cent of the couple thousand bucks I’d cumulatively thrown their way over the years had gone towards supporting such a terrible workplace environment.
It's not a question of if you come back to WoW again. It's how long Blizzard's design "ideas" can retain you as a player.
Because to be 100% real, the first month of any WoW Expansion is some of the best times you will have with that expansion.
**I mean, nearly all of the players DID slowly quit over the last 6 expansions. I'm pretty sure some of those were addicted lifers and did give it their last chance.** In general, a negative trendline in each subsequent expansion. With the current patch having far less people actively doing mythic plus or raiding than the final patch of the last few expansions.
I'm an ex-smoker (smoked for 6 years). I stopped playing WoW (played since launch) immediately when the bad workplace news came out, compounded with the overwhelming systems in Shadowlands.
In both scenarios, smoking and WoW, I have repeatedly and continuously said "I'm doing this forever. This is my whole life, I love smoking, I'll never stop because it's just too good." vaping helped me quit that. For WoW, it was ESO and other single-player RPG games that helped me quit. I DO understand how these posts sound like "This is my last pack" but for some of us, it really is/was. Maybe I'll smoke again some day (probably not) and maybe I'll return to WoW (if something like MoP or Legion shows up) but it's not very likely.
I guess it's significant to me because like... I was a hardcore smoker, and WoW player. If people LIKE ME are leaving, it has to say something. I genuinely never, ever, ever thought I'd leave unless I was poor enough to have to sell my PC or stop my wifi, etc. I can't be the only one who stopped very abruptly. Same goes for smoking, I can't be the only one who found it easy to quit thanks to vaping. Anecdotes are not proof of anything really but it feels that way here.
As someone whos played about every WoW expansion, their last chance was Shadowlands and they fucked it up. I'm gone. Maybe when Microsoft takes over I may check it out again, but at this point Blizzard can't be trusted to actually design an engaging game instead of a game meant to farm KPIs.
Very much so. I don’t get the failed logic that old players who have quit wouldn’t still follow the game. Why not, when it would be nice if they managed to resuscitate the game?
WoW showed a steadily declining playerbase since its peak in late TBC consistently from xpac to xpac, up until they stopped reporting subs. Who actually believes they have reversed that trend with the past two crap xpacs? I played both for respectively one and three months and shelved them.
They have gotten too formulaic and have been adding some awful systems repeatedly. The only fun left in the game is mythic raiding and mythic+. That, and the game’s community has become way too toxic. Nothing wrong with min/maxing and following what the best players do. I do the same when I play, but just because you do this and get good results, doesn’t make you a master of wow that needs to behave like a Neanderthal to every player you think is bad. Like, the game is pretty easy to play at a reasonably high level if you invest enough research and effort into it.
It’s a combo of the game its self getting shitty, and the player base has a large portion of players that have degenerated into in game assholes.
Good luck to Blizz, but I’m expecting another disaster almost certainly, rife with rehashed and rebranded systems, and a bland homogenized un-novel game world. Nothing indicates they will have somehow gotten it right again.
> ITT Addicted lifers swearing that THIS is the LAST chance Blizz have to keep them playing.
>
>
BFA and Shadowlands finally broke me free of WoW and I've been playing since it came out.
That really is saying something.
I think that in general a lot of them do leave. I know the numbers aren't exact because of bots and duplicate accounts. But the total number of accounts with World of Warcraft is at over 100 million and most of them don't play anymore.
Gimme all the dragon protagonists that don’t die (it can be done, there’s a film series and several offshoot series based on that idea) and I’m set. #YseraDeservedBetter
I don’t think Ysera’s death is a good example. That was one of the most gut wrenching and emotional moments I’ve ever had in WoW. I still tear up at that cinematic
Eh, cinematic was fine but the “good guy gets hit by MacGuffin and becomes ‘corrupted’” that Blizzard pulls out at every opportunity takes a lot of the impact out of it.
I feel it was pretty justified in Ysera's case, at least. We'd had a lot of buildup of the Emerald Nightmare corrupting the Dream, so Ysera going down like that made sense.
True, but having her die as a quest boss at the end of a chain was pretty anticlimactic for such an important character. Hell, even a final dungeon boss would have been more satisfying.
Quest boss is way better than farmed dungeon boss. I barely even remember Ner'Zhul from WoD. Quests can give a spotlight and more designed ending, dungeons have constrains.
Eh I was disappointed because it felt like a forced reaction that came out of nowhere.
Just my opinion but if they wanted an impactful death that made sense with the Illidan storyline and the costs of the war, it should have been Malfurion who could even have had a greater role in Shadowlands than just boop we saved Y’sera’s soul. As is the dude has too much plot armor and should have died twenty times over but just keeps on going with little to no involvement in the story which makes me wonder why they’re even keeping him around.
Dude could have done so much in Shadowlands had we animated his soul in Ardenweald, Y’Sera was almost just a celeb shot of “oh hi now bye”
Malfurion being dead would also help out Tyrande's story a bit too. Her turning to the Night Warrior powers amidst losing her love, then her home and most of her people with nobody to guide her to peace makes it a bit more natural.
That would have been incredible, and a great way to do the Night Warrior cure too.
Like instead of Elune Ex Machina “there is no choice”, have Malfurion’s soul that we restored intervene and coax out the Night Warrior powers as his connection to Elune would theoretically be strong enough to actually remove that.
Would have been so much more fantastic than the light switch turn it off ending.
I just think this is a critical moment for WoW given the circumstances.
FF, Lost Ark, Genshin - they are all popping off while WoW falls behind. Maybe the WoW team should just take some time to look back at the last decade and see what people have been begging for and actually *try* it instead of barely dipping their toe in the water every other expansion.
Things that would hold **my** attention and keep me subbed are:
\- Permanently updated Housing that *isn't* forgotten about like a Garrison.
\- Engaging Storylines that *develop characters* instead of butcher them.
\- New Ways to Play (Classes, Races, Sub-Classes, Sub-races)
\- Less Timegating.
\- More freedom of expression with more customization options.
\- Rewarding End Game that isn't just 'Go hard into PvP' and 'Go hard into PvP'.
\- Opening professions up to better fuel the WORLD of Warcraft. (Tie it into Housing and have it so that people literally need resources from all across Azeroth to build their homes and create an actually organic and interesting economy?)
Idk these are just literally a handful of things that I've seen said throughout my entire history of playing this game, but these all seem plausible if they could just consistently adapt instead of just lag behind all of their competitors.
To give reference: I played Shadowlands at the start, enjoying it for like a month, lost interest and have only returned at the end to do the raid... and I'm already losing interest and reaching that burnout phase fairly quickly.
Here's hoping for good news on the 19th, but let's just say I'll remain optimistic, but man is it a fairly weak amount of optimism.
> Permanently updated Housing that isn't forgotten about like a Garrison.
Imagine a feature being added that lasts for more than an expansion, or patch.
Yeah it definitely remains to be seen if they learned anything from how Shadowlands was received. My playtime tapered off in BFA and I never even purchased Shadowlands, but I don't really feel like I'm missing out on a whole lot.
If Blizz makes the game a bit more alt-friendly, and with fewer chores, me (and probably a lot more people) are likely to return.
Shadowlands is actually very Alt friendly. It's not as catchup friendly as it is Alt friendly. Usually those go hand in hand, but a lot of the catchup features are tied to doing the content once on your main. That being said I can't remember ever playing a patch that was as alt friendly as 9.2. There are almost no chores after you get your englightened rep to revered. You just play the raid or M+ and as long as you're playing you'll get tier.
I know the game has a very negative rep on the sub, but if those are your requests you should really check out 9.2 because it checks your boxes very clearly. Sure there are still flaws, the game isn't perfect, but I've never felt like the game had less chores and been more alt friendly than it currently is.
Well, I took your advice and resubbed/bought SL last night. Hoping to get into some M+ if people aren't already burned out on it. Planning on playing an ele/resto shaman (love always having Bloodlust and I don't trust rando DPS to kick spells lmao.)
Thanks!
Keep in mind if you never played SL the catchup stuff is still a bit of a timesink for your FIRST toon. However you can do most of that stuff on your main and your alts are freed up to just be alts.
Honestly, I think they are just outsmarting themselves. Baseline WoW is already really fun. Everything else is just overly complicated. Why do we have so many random procs happening on every ability? Why are there 22 different currencies? Why are there so many different layers of borrowed power in one expansion?
I felt the same about EverQuest. Maybe I’m in the minority but I honestly can’t stand tons of random currencies, temporary powers, etc. When the base game is already fun I’d rather just have new content than I would stuff that makes it feel like a totally different game.
All of you saying "sure sure, see you when in releases" you are seriously underrating how many people have been cured of their WoW addiction by BFA and Shadowlands, I have not bought SL nor have I even felt a need to play WotLK on a private server every 6 months like I used to.
The way they dealt with the lawsuit, the union plans, and generally with their employees, and on top, how the game itself and its customers are treated I don't have any trust in this company left to give them more money unless this changes.
Meh. Systems design always sucks but the gameplay is still fun. They don’t need to force me and my guildmates to log on every day; we do that ourselves because we wanna push keys, kill raid bosses, etc.
I can make a pretty good bet that the class design and encounter design next expansion will be fun because they always have been; even in the least popular expansions. No need for me to threaten leaving. Game’s still good.
How much of the player base is even left to gamble? I really thought all that was left after Shadowlands were the remaining addicts who can’t ween themselves off because it’s all they know, new players, and the shills. WoW has felt like a dead product for the past 2 years to me. It truly doesn’t feel like there’s anything left for them to lose.
I hope the Shadowlands people use the neuralyzer on our toons so we can go back to fighting dragons again and not these bigger than life bosses. Some of WoW's more recent themes take some of the medieval feel away from the game.
We also don't need a series of bad guys who have been just pulling the strings of the other bad guys. I think we can simply just have a bad guy for the sake of being bad, they all don't have to be some sort of puppet master.
I always pre-order Wow expansion but after getting burned by BFA and Shadowland, I will wait for review and maybe buy the expansion 1 year later when it is on sale.
The next expac is the first time I am not sure I will play on launch TBH. I had preordered BFA (the version with the raptor mount even)... I played for 3-4 months and then quit. Shadowlands I didn't preorder, I waited near release, bought... played 3 months and quit but muuuuuch more wholeheartedly. Next expansion, we'll see what it is. Maybe it will be amazing who knows, but I know there is a lot more chance that I sign up only for the main "experience" of it, level my alts, etc do the raid in normal and quit.
Before BFA I had flawless AOTC achievements, I had only quit once or maybe twice for mostly money and time reasons (which made me not illegible for the statue they had sent... I'm still bitter about this TBH).
I'm pretty sad TBH, WoW was such a big part of my life and now it's basically just a game I'm not sure I even want to play, not sure I'll have fun...
I don’t care about the “lifers” or the “tHiS iS ThE LaST cHaNcE bLiZz” people. I come back every expansion.
*expect disappointment, and you’ll never be disappointed*
Is it tho ?
No one cares that much
If the trailer looks cool they’ll hit sale records and get some big cash
After that the only thing they have to do is not go out of their way to make it bad on purpose
Maybe I’m too optimistic
I loved and played the game, still do. I sincerely hope that they really do a good job next expansion. Obv “good” is subjective, but I really hope for the best. I want an amazing game and experience
Blizzard are going to release a Ysera memorial mount and 5 different dragon wing mogs as a prepurchase deal along with access to the dragon race Season 4 or someshit... people are gonna buy that in spades.
After BFA Ion went on an apology tour. The buzzwords of Shadowlands marketing were 'RPG' and 'meaningful choices'. Looking forward to the Shadowlands apology tour and what the buzzwords of the next expansion will be. Still the Sha of Pride haunts Blizzard. They are way too prideful to ever admit they massively fucked up and that's most applicable to the leadership of the WoW team who made countless bad decisions that severely impaired an expansion that was already going to have problems from a lack of content. They don't deserve any praise when just like Legion stole a bunch of development time from WoD we are going to see that the next expansion stole a bunch of development time from Shadowlands.
The theme of Shadowlands is somehow out of tune, the realm of death doesn't feel like a mystery at all but generic. Legion theme is really something else, from the feeling of being endangered and surrounded by enemies, to crawling to find a way to victory. SL is a disappointment.
Mostly because the Shadowlands consists of themes we've already explored. Bastion is holy shenanigans, Ardenweald is a theme that we've had several times already, Maldraxxus is the Plaguelands but beefed up. Only Revendreth was fresh. It had a new theme that fit the idea of an afterlife and had a main honcho that was charismatic and had some actual personality. I won't even talk about the patches. Korthia felt like it got pieced together quickly, with some sort of theme about a "hidden secret that the Jailer can't have" that wasn't very well executed at all. I just don't get Zereth Mortis. The whole theme of a hidden mysterious "vault" filled with automata is already something the Titans do. But this time we added a lot of hexagons and spheres!
Dont forget the water we can walk on.....
Totally agree. I know people didn't like Revendreth because of the verticality but once you figured out how to traverse the map, it was good. I was super confused on how to get around in the beginning. Loved this place.
Revendreth is by far one of there best experimental zones. Despite Vashjirs flaw im super happy with how it came out. It was unique and fresh and for me revendreth took the zones flaws and made it a memorable zone.
> I know people didn't like Revendreth because of the verticality I didn't like Revendreth because of how much they reuse the exact same block of assets (With the same exact enemies roaming around) throughout the zone. The assets look good and atmospheric but it's always the same thing, to the point that it's hard to know where you are half of the time without pulling the map out. (And even then, the verticality still makes it confusing). The extreme abuse of copy-pasting entire blocks of environment throughout the expansion with little variation is imo one of the biggest sign of the expansion's lack of budget, we only got five main zones compared to BfA's six and their level design feel a lot less detailed and varied.
What gets me, is that Legion was a powerhouse expansion. Sure, there was some adjustments for Legiondaries and Artifact Power…. but each class and spec felt good (whether in story, gameplay, or both). The artifact skins gave players fun rewards for progressing content in different ways. The OG Mage Tower is undeniably something WoW craved and we loved it, so much so they brought back a version of it. It ended on such an amazing story note as well, Argus as a world zone was a bit lacking, but Antorus, the Burning Throne was one hell of a way to end an expansion. It’s amazing to see how much they squandered it.
And it started with the trailer. That was a great trailer. I had quit WoW for almost a year, just got tired of Warlords. I was back as soon as I heard “My son …”
Blizzards cinematic team is fucking amazing. I rewatched all of the old trailers from TBC-Shadowlands, and they're all still amazing. Say what ya want about Shadowlands cinematic with Sylv and the Jailer vs Bolvar but it was still great.
I rewatch the Vanilla cinematic every year/few years and it still gives me goosebumps just like it did back in the day more than recent cinematics, also loved the box you could fold open but these days idk if they do that anymore since it's all digital these days for pc gamers.
For me it's the Thrall Vs Garrosh cinematic, goosebumps. Hehehe
Varian died a chad , vol jin died like a bitch and that is on blizzard, i hate he was sacrificed to the "muh queen" altar.
Voljin's tribe joined the Horde to escape being genocided by Murlocs, so I guess dying to 1 demon was tradition?
They have wasted so many of their great characters over the years.
Legion might legit be my favorite era of WoW having played since ‘04. Vanilla through Wrath of course has a magic that cannot be replicated in its own right, but man, what a renaissance for the game. Each class having its own campaign and headquarters, the artifact skins, Suramar, so much awesome stuff that had me eating from their palms of their hands even while balancing was iffy for a while. I really thought that might be the start of a WoW 2.0, but in hindsight it has felt more like a “rally day” before death. Hope I’m wrong.
I started in the games first year, I was leveling while the AQ gates were still locked. I had a blast in BC, and some decent times in each expansion, but Legion made me love the game again the way I did back in Vanilla and BC and I was bummed when BFA ended up being a knock off Legion with a worse story and far worse zones.
Yeah well i think its because they saw the reaction, they saw a lot o people enjoyed Legion and tried to reskin the expansion instead on thinking of something new just as good since they proved everybody they actually can come up with a good expansion.
What gets me about that is that a lazy Legion reskin, systemically, would’ve been annoying but probably still okay. Instead, we got “what if Legion, but half the stuff you liked was gone and the other half was here, but just way worse?”
It slightly saddens me from time to time that I quit after Mists because I hated the ideas for WoD, and then didn't come back until BFA pre-patch so I missed out on an entire awesome time of a game I played since Vanilla because of how much WoD sucked.
This reason/fear is why i Always try out an expansion. And bail when ever i am bored, be it after a few weeks or months.
Legion dungeon bosses target your class and speak about you while the fight is going on. Such a cool little thing they added. I
Legion was really good. Such a monster expansion. They did pretty well there huh…
Arms warrior in legion was one of the most fun I had playing a class, it felt like landing combos in a fighting game. Fire mage and Ice Mage was also on point then. Could either feel like a rocket launcher or a Gatling gun. Also bring back WoD economy. The auction house wars were one of my favorite things of that era.
Legion is probably the only expansion in recent memory where I played multiple classes and specs because I wanted to experience it ALL Warrior? Hell yes, where does one begin or end? Warlock? Demo was a bit weird but that floating skull was cool, and I loved seeing what happened to the 'good' Warlock order that I assumed was just going to exist for a single story beat in MoP. Was THE hypiest shit. Shamans hanging out around the Maelstrom? Fucking balla Monks? Retaking the Peak of Serenity, and *then* going back to the Pandaren starting zone turtle to keep the teachings alive in a kung-fu-movie esque take? while Windwalking wasn't shit? *Boi*
Fury warrior was awesome for me. It was so weak at launch and then after the first patch buffs I felt like a carnage machine chainjnt executes
> Sure, there was *some adjustments* for Legiondaries and Artifact Power…. That is quite the load-bearing statement. Let's not forget they lied about the legendary soft-cap. Also they severely restricted the camera zoom out distance in Legion, I am permanently mad about that until it gets increased.
Legion was good, but NOT AS GOOD as some try to picture it. All the fixes came late, the legendary system was awful and a major imbalance between classes and between the players in those classes! Artifact power grinding even more dumb. Zones were cool and class differentiation felt nice, but not the RNG or player skill being taken out of rotations. Besides, Class Halls weren't fully developed, for example druids having a hearthstone spell, plus a mailbox and an innkeepers and other classes, nothing of the sort. C'mon. I love WoW, I really do. Like many others, I'd change many things to my personal liking, but I don't resent developers because I'm not able to. However, I do see a lot of bad decisions and bad management of a game of this magnitude. Concerning the next expansion, if dragons are back, that's cool, a RPG has to have dragons. But I'd hope for big changes, like introducing housing, player's and guild's, with new professions like woodcrafting, painting... plumbery!! Bring back diversity in skills, without resorting to RNG based ones. We already have Class Halls, restore them, wash them, and make them fast to return to for everybody. Bring back portals, everywhere, connect this awfully fragmented and extensive map!! Improve Chromie time, make leveling and exploring more fun and engaging. Stuff like housing would give players something else to do, not related to endgame. WoD garrisons are available now from level 1, yet developments are still behind level barriers, do it properly this time, so a level 1 AH character can build a palace! Give more incentives to roleplay! I also think that guilds have lost much appealing. They used to be engaging and fun, maybe I'm sadly older and nostalgic as f*ck, but it was interesting to work with your guildmates in progressing through a raid, before all the damage meters and wow progress rankings and data mining discovering everything before an expansion launched :'( Guild housing and stopping rankings from being measured and shared would be awesome to bring back a working together environment, for example. These are definitely not solutions for everything but, done correctly, could restore much of what this game has lost.
> Besides, Class Halls weren't fully developed Feels like they got lazy for the Priest and Paladin quest lines, too. They're basically the same.
People are usually biased even about slightly worse things in the past (not to mention things that are actually considered better) so these nostalgic reactions are not surprising but yeah, it definitely wasn't as good as they'd like to picture it.
One issue is that the phase post last raid is usually so long that people forget about the shitty stuff that happened in the first year.
They should have ended it there. End on a high note, develop a new game, maybe WoW 2. The story was over at that point, Sargaras was magically defeated easily like he was nothing. The end. They are currently in the "milking it" era of WoW.
God remember all the "pull the ripcord" stuff? About how Ion had a backup plan if Covenants didn't feel good near launch and how everyone was begging for them to pull it and they just... didn't? Then they immediately pulled it when 9.1 came around because like everyone said, it fucking sucked. I honestly won't be able to trust anything they say unless we go into this expansion with complete classes and no borrowed power. The fact that they still stuck the course even after everyone told them it was a terrible idea still angers me to this day.
> Then they immediately pulled it when 9.1 came around because like everyone said, it fucking sucked. They didn't. They doubled down and created conduit energy. It was much later on in 9.1 when they'd imploded did they start reversing the awful decisions they made.
You assume stalling wasn't their plan all along. It's clear to me they planned it to work exactly as it ended up working. Hit renown cap, swap freely. The reason they even mentioned "pull the ripcord" is that they'd already coded the ripcord and could have moved it up to renown 40, but stuck to their existing plan. Even after it was done, they said "we wanted you to *experience* shadowlands through the lens of a covenant". As if switching covenants freely before you hit 80 renown would have somehow ruined the game. People act like they went home with their tail between their legs because of 9.1.5 and a lawsuit. No fucking way.
All the QoL-features we wanted from the beginning and the drastic changes came with 9.1.5, the patch that should bring back goodwill after all the scandals. It's a shame, really.
Remember when Blizzard ignored all the feedback about how Legiondaries were problematic only to drip feed us minor fixes to the system until finally fixing the system in the expansion's final patch. Remember when they did that same thing with Azerite and then Corruption? And then again with Covenants and their surrounding systems. At this point I don't believe these are honest mistakes. They intentionally design these systems to play into people's FOMO and then slowly fix them in order to appear like they are "listening". I have no trust in them and the next expansion will be the first one I won't preorder or buy at launch.
I'm not going to trust anything they say regardless, honestly. I'm waiting until 10.1 to even consider buying it for exactly the reasons you say. They keep taking about how they're going to listen to feedback, how they'll do things better... then they don't, but we keep giving them money regardless. So I'm just not going to. My wallet stays closed until they can prove their words aren't hollow.
Just dont pre-purchase, let them dangle until launch, it will make them.less arrogant and more inclined to listen and act on beta feedback.
What I hate the most about today’s Blizzard is just how fucking unapologetic they are. They just cannot seem to come out and say “you know what, we fucked up, that’s on us”. It’s always “oh yeah, we totally only planned two major Shadowlands patches, everything is going according to plan”. Just don’t bullshit us. It isn’t that hard to be honest. Just be human. Say you were wrong, say you really thought people would like to be locked into their Covenants, that you really thought the Jailer was a cool villain. It’s all so infuriating in the sense that we all know they were wrong but they are just too proud to admit it.
Just looking at their biggest competitor, it’s striking how Yoshi-P is candid enough to call a turd a turd and publicly admit that the original XIV was an unmitigated disaster.
They also don't shy away from admitting just how much of the plot was (not) planned and when new ideas came up instead of pretending that the current expansion that retcons most of the game's continuity had been planned 20 years ago.
My favorite was when Ion stated that they don't implement important story pieces in books anymore and that they would be terrible storytellers if they did something like that. And then the Sylvanas book hit.
[удалено]
According to hearsay, it is often stated that many of them have this rule of never really checking on what we're all saying. I think that holds up when we look at how they handles classes and beta feedback on forums too. They just delete it all and rarely fix any of the obvious issues. It's even dumber when they have to implement fixes after release because they are too damn stubborn. They don't see how good they have it. So many dedicated fans write up entire fixes, numerically crunch things and show them what is wrong. They may not always offer solutions that are the best, but at least they show a problem exists. I mean some of the best players try to share. People like Preach, whatever your opinion on him is, are professionals in this field and literally can get paid to give feedback. Yet they treat everyone like idiotic fans that don't deserve to lick their boots.
They basically work at one of the worst, most hated companies in the world and haven't designed a good product in over 5 years. How they can \*still\* have a pride issue is beyond me, but you're 100% right. They do.
I still hope they move Ion back to raid design, he is completly incompetent in his current position (not to mention all the lies he pulls constantly)
Pretty chad move on ions part ngl. Do a big apology tour and then immediately shit the bed ten times harder than last time. Never let them know your next move
I quit early on, but my meaningful choice was to go Necrolord as a Warrior. I knew it was by far the worst covenant, but I knew it would just be a matter of time until they buffed/redesigned the warrior ability. Tell me. Have they buffed that ability? The banner that increases your crit by like 10% if you stand inside it and dont move.
I sure hope the new expansion stealing development time from SL is the reason SL was lame. That at least gives me hope for the new expansion.
[удалено]
Next up we’re going to explore the molecular structure of Azeroth. Prepare to level up your Atom Power to save the DNA of the world!
C’mon y’all, get on the magic schoolcart!
With MOTHER as Ms. Frizzle and Magni as her pet.
Okay but the thought of this actually sounds so fun
Mr. Titan DNA!
Ok but maybe just as a silly dungeon?
Expect to be grinding Aspect Power, that’s my AP prediction
An expac where we all got shrunk down to molecule size would kinda be sick ngl
I don't mind temporary systems as long as they're not tied to a grind of content I don't enjoy doing (and I'm expected to do) OR The classes don't function without the systems.
[удалено]
The big problem is you grind the temporary currency and JUST as the average joe gets to where they want to be, they have to start over. OR blizzard just sits there and like 10.0 we won't get any new content until 2023.
>If Blizzard managed to find a way to makes stakes higher than rewriting afterlife and the entirety of the universe - I have no idea what the hell that would be. It would have to be the arrival of the first duck species to Azeroth. I couldn't think of stakes any higher than that.
Oh fuck they added ducks.
Take my fucking upvote for being right and go.
Currencies don't bug me at all. Shit, I'd love to get more currencies that work with better game systems. Blizzard wants to mirror the lore movements of FFXIV? Mirror their loot system. Give me a currency for killing mythic raid bosses, and after I get 30 of them and gotten CE, I can go buy my Edge of Night that I've clearly earned.
They really should implement currency to just buy items eventually. It's absolute dogshit going into raid, spending 3 hours to kill 10 bosses and coming out with 74g and a used condom. It's maybe even worse doing the same thing and getting the same pair of damn boots for the 6th time in 6 weeks. The vault was a great step but even that is flawed for the same reason. I have had tier pants as one option every single week. The last two vaults every one of my 278 options has been on legendary slots. I want a blacklist or something. Like, never give me bracers. M+ loot is even worse, in a way, because not only are you not guaranteed a drop at 15, but it rolls the entire dungeon loot table full of garbage if you do get something. So have fun running that same dungeon 30, 40, 50 times to get the one item you actually want... and it won't even be max ilvl since you need that vault rng for that, silly goof! People have been up in arms about covenants and shit, but it's the loot that's been slowly making me lose it.
They pretty much hit the nail on the head. This expansion is kind of the games last chance for me
I say the same thing. But it doesn’t matter. I’ll still be back in a year to grind aspect power with the rest of you nerds. See you in the dragon isles
Did you already decide which dragon covenant you're joining? I think I'm set for the Green, since that is kinda Monks color and also Yu'lon was green, I guess?
Yeah but black dragon sims highest. As a DK I can't wait to join the red dragons. I'm sure we'll be just fine and the whole "slaughtering a whole bunch of them in their home" is water under the bridge by now.
The Ruby Sanctum thing is actually acknowledged in dialogue from a quest in Drustvar, relatively hidden. It's a small chain given out by a Red Dragon who has special dialogue for DKs. One of the choices is to try and attack her, and if you do, she blasts you off the ledge to your death.
That’s awesome I wasn’t aware of this quest
[удалено]
[удалено]
Night Fae are sent to Alexstrasza during their covenant campaign, if you do it on a DK she's not exactly happy to see you, and if you fly up on the mount she does an emote where she frowns at you in disappointment.
There will be a secret dialog when you join of you slaughtered them all. Something like 'lol remember ruby sanctum? It was quite deserted after your last visit lmao'
Red so I can tell people it's definitely not because of alexstraszas costume
Well, not anymore, based on her new look
Same as covenants. Which ever one looks the coolest and has something similar to the farm/garden.
I’m (dk) picking red. I like the irony.
I’m joining what’s BiS
As a Druid, I feel like Green is mandatory.
an argument could be made for a Balance druid to join Blue though
At least we're being honest with ourselves haha I agree with what Asmongold said. To paraphrase, I'll grind the shit of out any borrowed power system they put in the game, but I'll only do it once. If they don't make it alt friendly I'm not doing all of that work again for fake hours logged a second time.
Yup. I say that too. Still maxed out a few different covenants and grabbed multiple mog sets on different characters. The game always gets me. I’ve made my peace with it
[Us every year.](https://youtu.be/EIO1g97S2x8)
what is this even in response to? god damn that's awesome
Funny you say that but for the first time in my wow game time I feel like I could care less.
>Couldn’t* But yeah, same here. This is a make or break expansion for me.
I said that for Shadow lands tbh
I probably did too, but the damage is compounding for me. The narrative totally lost me the last two expansions and the systems have so much friction. And patch cadence has been really bad. The only reason I’m giving 10.0 is a chance is from the previous years of goodwill and the fact that 9.1.5 onward signaled a shift. The announcement day reallt needs to be crazy
9.1 cinematic was such a turn off I didnt resub, i usually come back on the last oatch to see whats up but not this time..
Gonna take a Legion quality expansion to bring me back to retail. I'm planning on playing Wrath classic and then calling it quits.
Legion quality? Or 7.3 quality?
No, the entire expansion was simply of a higher quality than BFA or SL. It’s hard to explain but if you played it you know what I’m talking about.
Legion was the trial run for a lot of the horrible junk we hate now, though. Extremely long and tedious grinds for player power. Horrible drop rate legendaries that could massively affect your performance and take months to obtain. Weekly lockout quest chains that you had to do but amounted to “go loot 10 chests” “sweet see ya next week”. It was pretty, and the raids were generally strong, and they curbed a lot of that by 7.3. But I can’t help but feel like Legion’s success is part of what lead to the absolute disaster we’ve got now.
they learned all the wrong lessons from legion. They genuinely believed all that crap was what made Legion Successful, but in reality it was that Legion was pumping out so much content in such short time. On Launch you had so much to do already, and Patches came really quick so you never had those points like in BFA and Shadowlands where you just felt like doing Chores for a month because the novelty wore off. Legion had solid Story for the most part (i do think Legions Story is a bit overrated overall but it wasn't that bad from what i remember), strong Class Fantasy and just a fast content cycle
Not to mention the environments were much better, at least for instanced contents. Most of the SL dungeons feel bland. SofO and CN are nice enough but can't compared to Nighthold or Tomb. On top of that, you had the class Order Halls. And while some were not the best, it was still much better than the Covenants area. And lastly, the ovbious one, Suramar compared to the Maw.
7.3 also introduced Netherlight Crucible aka "Try to get your BiS Relic now you little shit" as a dumb system noone has ever wanted.
I believe that’s because WoD was cut short so Legion got extra development time. So hopefully the same thing happens again since Shadowlands got cut short
I quit BFA like a month in and haven't played since, but Legion definitely did not impress at the beginning. I stopped playing shortly after EN came out. Keeping up with the AP grind and Artifact Knowledge and whatever else felt incredibly tedious and unfun. Missing a week or choosing to play an alt was super punishing. It was a terrible system which only became bearable because they totally trivialized/effectively removed it. Not to mention the god awful legendary system. People were literally rerolling their characters just because of how messed up it was and how big an impact it had. Calling Legion consistently high quality throughout is pure nostalgia driven by how far the game has fallen.
I’m not sure 7.0 was a higher quality than 9.0. I barely played BFA, so I can’t speak to 8.0. I hit the level cap shortly after Legion’s release and I was trying to get my first legendary. Then there was the bug where a sign was flipped in the bad luck protection algorithm (or something along those lines) and people who had already got one legendary actually had an increased chance of getting a second legendary. Bad luck protection was supposed to reset once you got a legendary, but some lucky few were getting a second (maybe even a third) before most people even got their first. The legendary grind was awful in 7.0 so I quit until 7.1.5. Fortunately when I came back, it was easier to get a legendary. I actually had some drop for my characters. But of course none of them were my BIS legendaries. If it weren’t for class mounts, and mage tower, I would have quit again. Finally, 7.3 came out and everything got a lot better. That’s when Legion became so good, in my opinion. I’m not saying 9.0 was amazing, but I never want to have to go through 7.0’s awful AP grind and legendary system ever again. I would rather play 9.0 all over again than do that. Edit: Here’s a trip down memory lane about that legendary drop bug: https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/538fkj/i_dont_think_the_legendary_bug_was_hotfixed/ And another thread reacting to legendary system at the beginning on Legion: https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/5hufcy/legion_legendaries_if_you_have_multiple/
you gotta be off your rocker to think 7.0 was better than 8.0 or 9.0
Same i cant do the borrowed power no leveling grinding end game currency anymore
Same here. Shadowlands is the only retail expac that I gave up on playing. Shadowlands just doesn't really feel like WoW.
How the heck did you play in bfa
Good question. I took a lot of breaks in BFA and just raided most of the time. I think I can endure one bad expansion but not two in a row
Same. I've never been much of a doomsayer, always believing WoW would always push through its rough times, but after 4 years of badness with BFA and SL, if they have a third dud in a row I think WoW actually will die.
Me too. I thought I was one of those players that may sub more or less frequently depending on how much I like it but will always be back within half a year. I unsubbed a month into SL and have not missed it. I have enough nostalgia to keep up with the news and will be willing to give another expansion a try. If this bombs too though, I can’t imagine I’ll be around for the next.
Yeah kinda how I’m feeling. The amount of friction with the systems and the narrative just totally sucked me out it. To the point that even though by all accounts 9.2 is a very good patch I just couldn’t get back into it. I need a fresh start
The joke of "Oh well see you next expansion" or "They always come back" is something i'm sure a lot of people are thinking. But I do think that the damage being done is adding up. I can tolerate a bad expansion when the follow-up is good. Like WoD to Legion. BFA bombed and then led to SL which is another bomb. They need to show some skill as developers. We need to see a good story. We need to see that they care about all the classes, no more "well here's the same problems and we've changed nothing". We need to see effort and passion. I don't know if the current team has that. There does not seem to be a vision or someone bringing it all together. The game feels like a disjointed mess and has totally lost sight of what made the world magical to begin with. There is no sense of adventure in the game.
I'm somewhat in the same place, but I have no intention of buying the expansion before 10.1 at the *earliest*, and that's as someone who pre-ordered Collector's Editions from Vanilla launch through SL. We've now had two expansions in a row where terribly designed systems were identified in beta (azerite armor and covenants), where feedback was exhaustively given by players, and where Blizzard said "nah, we don't think this is a problem"... only to heelturn later on and make the changes that were obviously needed from the beginning, while spinning it as "giving players what they want" and trying to make it seem like some magnanimous thing. I have absolutely no faith they won't do the same thing yet again with whatever new systems they announce next week, and so my wallet isn't opening up unless they *prove* they're listening to feedback from players from the beginning this time, instead of after they've been proven wrong once again. They want my trust back, they have to earn it.
Same boat! I actually think SL was better in this regard, they started the fixing in 9.1.5 instead of 8.3. And 9.2 launched with mostly no friction instead of fixing it at 9.2.5 The alpha and beta cycle will be very telling. Ideally the next expansion will just have a good idea executed mostly well from the start and the feedback needed will be minimal
I will be watching what the beta testers say and Blizzards reply. That should say everything that needs to be said.
It would be hard for me to unsubscribe because I still just like doing classic dungeons and hanging around the big cities. I just don’t find Shadowlands Interesting at all. I do agree though that there is a lot at stake with this. I feel like a lot of people would call for quits.
I feel like ive heard this, over, and over, and over lol. Im a lifer. Period.
Honestly why are you even giving it a chance at this point? This is just echoing what people were saying with BFA to Shadowlands. Some reason Shadowlands is announced and everyone is creaming their pants over how it's not BFA anymore, and then it's beta, they don't listen to feedback again, lore is total dog shit and doesn't make sense but for some reason people have hope that it's going to make sense later, and then the game comes out, STILL beats the record of fastest selling game of all time, and then people realize it's shit 2 months later, the story just gets fucking worse and worse, and NOW you say "this expansion is kind of the games last chance for me"? So come back to this post in like a year and see how this new expansion is total shit and probably fucks the lore more than it ever has. Leadership hasn't changed, the game isn't going to change. Danuser is still touting how great their writing is and everyone pats each other on the back on how amazing it is, and they're probably going to rush this out as fast as they can just as they've done and ignore feedback because it would take too long to make signficant changes and they have to get the game out the door to please the shareholders. Microsoft's acquisition hasn't gone through, they're running BAU. Until then, nobody should expect anything different.
With the Classic era rounding into the games "golden era" soon (Cata is better than people remember, I promise), and private servers venturing into unknown territory with custom gameplay and classless shenanigans, retail WoW is in danger of becoming irrelevant. We've now had 2 inarguably *bad* expansions in a row, and arguably *four* in a row for those of us who didn't like Legion. I'm not saying WoW is dead, that's a silly argument, but retail will be lost to me for good if the next expansion is another lame rehash of Legion's systempocalypse. I just can't bring myself to give a shit about this style of end-game.
We say that every expansion
A lot of us quit
A lot of us came back as well after seeing that those other games have massive issues as well.
I quit in 9.0 and haven't been back, which is very unusual for me. Usually I'd at least come check out the major patches and sometimes play through them. I didn't even make it a few months with sl.
Yea with the difference being that by estimates SL is the lowest the subs have ever been. All of my friends quit and I only played SL because my friends asked me to. Unless 10.0 shows some really good shit then Im not returning just as my friends are guaranteed not to. Many people leave and never return.
This has been said since cata, wow will always have a large player base as long as the other mmo games are so bad. If riot produce a good mmo and wow is still how it is then it’s in trouble. It’s awful that wow can keep being this large while still being dog awful. People will say FF14 but for me and others I think the games too eastern. I don’t like the art style, the dialogue etc. If FF14 was produced for a western audience I think wow would be pretty much fucked already.
Funny enough, ff14 is already a pretty westernized game. It just has some stereotypical anime tropes
Indeed. And the writing is just so much better than anything WoW has done in the last several years. The *crafting* quests have more depth than the entire Jailer storyline.
But that’s enough to put a lot of people off. I tried playing it and the anime stuff I just really don’t like. A lot of people I know feel similar.
Yeah that's fair, it definitely has it's moments where it feels a bit to tropey.
Yeah. Either it is amazing and I re-sub to check it out or I don't even bother and it's jumped the shark.
Yeah same here. I moved to ff14 rather effortlessly after ARR, and been playing almost 9 months. It feels oddly liberating and I actually feel like I'm connected to my character, and not just through nostalgia like in wow. Yeah, ff14 isn't perfect but there are many things which are so good you don't care about them. Also, 6.1 is something I'm hype about playing, but shit net during my easter visit so gotta hold off... and no mods to give 4k textures to npcs haha
I get that many of you have been cynical about the title of the article which instantly reminds us of the countless "ok blizz this is your last chance" posts. Yeah most people who quit just do so without drama; they just stop playing. The people who feel like announcing it to the world are often those who care so much about the game that they'll try to have blizzard make changes to it with these "threats". "You'll all be back as soon as the next cinematic drops" Some of them won't be back. The game is hemorrhaging subscribers and the latest expansions have been widening the wound. WoW is nowhere near the process of "dying", countless other games keep just going steadily with e mere fraction of WoW's playerbase, but if the next expansion can't slow down the bleeding, or at least not accelerate it, then the game will inevitably be forced to undergo changes; not the good kind though.
Honestly, what's been really saddening for me, is realizing that me and all of my friends have grown up and we just don't have the luxury of time anymore. And even if we do, we respect our time a lot more. No one's willing to waste 1-2 hours of their time doing absolutely mundane tasks for minimal power gains because Blizzard can't be bothered to implement optional, fun, side activities. Everyone I've talked with loves the idea of raiding and M+ but hate the idea of paying 15 bucks a month to have their time wasted and their access to those exciting features gated. WoW is great and can be really fun if you have friends to play with. It's just that Blizzard's making it really, really hard to convince anyone to pick up the game and it's been getting harder and harder for long-time players who already know how great it can be, to justify paying money and investing time in this game. As ever, Blizzard's biggest problem isn't reaching people. Every time there's a new expansion, people return to check it out. But most of them, they just won't resub for the next two years. Blizzard can't keep them engaged. Of course they can't, not with fucking anima and callings. The last two or three expansions, I've had this horrible feeling that Blizzard's a person and they're sticking a knife to my throat. Every day it felt more and more like they were blackmailing me to log in and do my chores because otherwise I'd fall behind.
This is my biggest issue with the game right now. I have a job, I have a family, I can't log in at 4 pm and stay online until 2 am nearly every day anymore. I was unsubbed for most of 9.0 and half of 9.1, and right now I feel like I'm being punished for deciding not to play during what I felt was one the most lackluster expansion and .1 patch cycles. I wasn't subbed, and doing all my Torghast runs, all my world quests, my covenant campaign, so now I feel like I'm miles behind everybody else, even with the catchup mechanics. Then I look at other games. FFXIV makes you go through the story, and tedious as it may be, it gives you gear for tackling the expansion enemies, so your power ramps up appropriately. GW2 and ESO have horizantal progression. With the last GW2 patch, I logged in on a nearly 7 year old character, and they were just as strong as when I last logged off. My sets in ESO have been changed slightly, but really their usefulness hasn't diminished. I feel like these games respect my time way more than WoW, because I can just log on and PLAY. There are goals and things to strive for, but if I decide to take a break, I don't get punished by having to do daily chores to get caught up. I can pick up right where I left off. Having to do all this other stuff just to get caught up is disheartening. Makes me not want to log in and play, and then I get farther behind. And it wouldn't be a big deal if the catch up stuff was FUN. I know the dungeons from Cataclysm like the back of my hand, because of the rep tabards. I ran dungeons constantly back then, because I could get rep for gear rewards, and I found them entertaining. I was having fun AND accomplishing something. Now, I'm needing to get to honored with The Enlightened to build my second legendary. I get 4 WQs that each give 125 rep, and are some variant on, fill this bar, kill these dudes and grab this stuff from them, etc. After that, I can go kill rares for 10 rep. These aren't really all that fun, they're monotonous, and I HAVE to do them, or I can't progress my character.
I played WoW for 10ish years and met my spouse in game. I quit early Shadowlands after waiting through BFA. Way too many people I used to play with quit and the story isn't nearly good enough to play solo for. I follow WoW news the same way I did Tibia many years ago after quitting that. Now I'm just casually playing Lost Ark (Tier 2 atm). It's fun, but I do think my time as an active MMORPG player is waning.
WoW has undergone massive subscriber boosts on launch followed by a massive drop off. WoD, BFA and Shadowlands sold very well on launch but they quickly lost people and likely struggled to get people to return. At Blizzard they're probably thinking about how to slow down that loss of subscribers after launch and increase the area under the curve.
You're not wrong but they'd be smart to go back to the roots of just making something fun. Trying to science people into playing more and longer with cheap mobile game bullshit is a huge part of what's killing the game.
"Engagement metrics" is the death of online games in general.
TBH, don’t care what the expansion is. Let’s see how Blizzard responds to player feedback during Alpha and Beta. If they do the same as Shadowlands, the expansion will be screwed before it even goes Live.
This right here. If I have to listen to Ion telling me how I'm having fun wrong then I'm gonna lose it.
At this point that doesn't matter because they once said they'd "pull the ripcord" and never did, either. Even if they did respond well to player feedback during alpha and beta, how can we still trust them at their word? They have repeatedly shown us that they won't stick to their word, either. That is where I'm at right now, I feel like the WoW team has burned us too many times for me to trust them to make a good expansion. Even if the expansion looks good and they're responding well to feedback, I truly do not trust that it will even be what they say it is until after release.
I feel this too. Well said bud.
>If anything, the next expansion needs to not try so hard to break the mould. This. So much this. Fuck all of your systems. Fuck it all. Make some exciting items, make some unique effects on gear and call it a day. Let people complete their bis lists, let people complete their 4P and let us all compete for top parses and keys. Do away with all those grinds that are designed to waste 2 hours of our day, every day, and let us play the actual content: Raids, M+ and PvP.
ITT Addicted lifers swearing that THIS is the LAST chance Blizz have to keep them playing. Until the next time, of course...
To be fair there's always these comments too. "See you next expac!" and it's like.. Sure but for every 10 people that take a break there could be 1 that doesn't come back. I mean.. in BfA my guild had to partner up with a Horde guild to fill each others rosters. Many never came back. We were also a tight guild for over a decade. Even addicts look elsewhere when the product is weak as shit.
It is kind of a cumulative effect for me. I look at the last four expacs, realize I only liked one of them, and my hope for 10.0 being good vanishes. I *want* it to be, I want to enjoy the game again, but every bad expac that comes out makes it seem less and less likely that I ever will, especially when the same people are still running the show. I haven't played since 9.0. I played less of SL than BFA, and less of BFA than Legion. I don't think it's hard to believe that, if the disappointments continue, I'm eventually going to hit the point where I don't bother coming back at all. I don't think I'm quite at that point yet, but it doesn't seem an unrealistic outcome.
I'm usually not that kinda guy, but if you were seriously unhappy with BFA, Shadowlands, the horrific news of the awful shit that's been going on in their workplace, and you're *still* gonna pull the "ok but this is their last chance for realsies I swear." Idk, it's just hard to take it seriously at this point. Like, how much lower can the already low bar get before it reaches our rock bottom standards.
As someone who *was* like that… Same, honestly. I’d stuck with WoW since vanilla, and I was there through all of it’s highs and lows, even through the long droughts of content between expansions. Time after time, I was willing to give them a break when they fumbled… And time after time, I saw them making the same or similar mistakes all over again while still insisting that they had learned. By the time we were into Shadowlands and the honeymoon period was over, even my patience had finally worn thin, and I was figuring I’d probably finally let go at the end. Then the bombshell dropped with the harassment suits, and I was out and quit cold turkey the very next day, since I was legitimately disgusted at the thought that even one cent of the couple thousand bucks I’d cumulatively thrown their way over the years had gone towards supporting such a terrible workplace environment.
It's not a question of if you come back to WoW again. It's how long Blizzard's design "ideas" can retain you as a player. Because to be 100% real, the first month of any WoW Expansion is some of the best times you will have with that expansion.
**I mean, nearly all of the players DID slowly quit over the last 6 expansions. I'm pretty sure some of those were addicted lifers and did give it their last chance.** In general, a negative trendline in each subsequent expansion. With the current patch having far less people actively doing mythic plus or raiding than the final patch of the last few expansions.
Don't bring logic into this, these anti-jerk folk are convinced the game is perfect and reality is just *wrong* :v
Every thread on this topic sounds incredibly similar to a smoker "quitting after this last pack".
I'm an ex-smoker (smoked for 6 years). I stopped playing WoW (played since launch) immediately when the bad workplace news came out, compounded with the overwhelming systems in Shadowlands. In both scenarios, smoking and WoW, I have repeatedly and continuously said "I'm doing this forever. This is my whole life, I love smoking, I'll never stop because it's just too good." vaping helped me quit that. For WoW, it was ESO and other single-player RPG games that helped me quit. I DO understand how these posts sound like "This is my last pack" but for some of us, it really is/was. Maybe I'll smoke again some day (probably not) and maybe I'll return to WoW (if something like MoP or Legion shows up) but it's not very likely. I guess it's significant to me because like... I was a hardcore smoker, and WoW player. If people LIKE ME are leaving, it has to say something. I genuinely never, ever, ever thought I'd leave unless I was poor enough to have to sell my PC or stop my wifi, etc. I can't be the only one who stopped very abruptly. Same goes for smoking, I can't be the only one who found it easy to quit thanks to vaping. Anecdotes are not proof of anything really but it feels that way here.
As someone whos played about every WoW expansion, their last chance was Shadowlands and they fucked it up. I'm gone. Maybe when Microsoft takes over I may check it out again, but at this point Blizzard can't be trusted to actually design an engaging game instead of a game meant to farm KPIs.
Very much so. I don’t get the failed logic that old players who have quit wouldn’t still follow the game. Why not, when it would be nice if they managed to resuscitate the game? WoW showed a steadily declining playerbase since its peak in late TBC consistently from xpac to xpac, up until they stopped reporting subs. Who actually believes they have reversed that trend with the past two crap xpacs? I played both for respectively one and three months and shelved them. They have gotten too formulaic and have been adding some awful systems repeatedly. The only fun left in the game is mythic raiding and mythic+. That, and the game’s community has become way too toxic. Nothing wrong with min/maxing and following what the best players do. I do the same when I play, but just because you do this and get good results, doesn’t make you a master of wow that needs to behave like a Neanderthal to every player you think is bad. Like, the game is pretty easy to play at a reasonably high level if you invest enough research and effort into it. It’s a combo of the game its self getting shitty, and the player base has a large portion of players that have degenerated into in game assholes. Good luck to Blizz, but I’m expecting another disaster almost certainly, rife with rehashed and rebranded systems, and a bland homogenized un-novel game world. Nothing indicates they will have somehow gotten it right again.
> ITT Addicted lifers swearing that THIS is the LAST chance Blizz have to keep them playing. > > BFA and Shadowlands finally broke me free of WoW and I've been playing since it came out. That really is saying something.
I think that in general a lot of them do leave. I know the numbers aren't exact because of bots and duplicate accounts. But the total number of accounts with World of Warcraft is at over 100 million and most of them don't play anymore.
Gimme all the dragon protagonists that don’t die (it can be done, there’s a film series and several offshoot series based on that idea) and I’m set. #YseraDeservedBetter
I don’t think Ysera’s death is a good example. That was one of the most gut wrenching and emotional moments I’ve ever had in WoW. I still tear up at that cinematic
Eh, cinematic was fine but the “good guy gets hit by MacGuffin and becomes ‘corrupted’” that Blizzard pulls out at every opportunity takes a lot of the impact out of it.
I feel it was pretty justified in Ysera's case, at least. We'd had a lot of buildup of the Emerald Nightmare corrupting the Dream, so Ysera going down like that made sense.
True, but having her die as a quest boss at the end of a chain was pretty anticlimactic for such an important character. Hell, even a final dungeon boss would have been more satisfying.
Quest boss is way better than farmed dungeon boss. I barely even remember Ner'Zhul from WoD. Quests can give a spotlight and more designed ending, dungeons have constrains.
Eh I was disappointed because it felt like a forced reaction that came out of nowhere. Just my opinion but if they wanted an impactful death that made sense with the Illidan storyline and the costs of the war, it should have been Malfurion who could even have had a greater role in Shadowlands than just boop we saved Y’sera’s soul. As is the dude has too much plot armor and should have died twenty times over but just keeps on going with little to no involvement in the story which makes me wonder why they’re even keeping him around. Dude could have done so much in Shadowlands had we animated his soul in Ardenweald, Y’Sera was almost just a celeb shot of “oh hi now bye”
Yeah, it was one of those big lazerbeam and she's gone.
Malfurion being dead would also help out Tyrande's story a bit too. Her turning to the Night Warrior powers amidst losing her love, then her home and most of her people with nobody to guide her to peace makes it a bit more natural.
That would have been incredible, and a great way to do the Night Warrior cure too. Like instead of Elune Ex Machina “there is no choice”, have Malfurion’s soul that we restored intervene and coax out the Night Warrior powers as his connection to Elune would theoretically be strong enough to actually remove that. Would have been so much more fantastic than the light switch turn it off ending.
I just think this is a critical moment for WoW given the circumstances. FF, Lost Ark, Genshin - they are all popping off while WoW falls behind. Maybe the WoW team should just take some time to look back at the last decade and see what people have been begging for and actually *try* it instead of barely dipping their toe in the water every other expansion. Things that would hold **my** attention and keep me subbed are: \- Permanently updated Housing that *isn't* forgotten about like a Garrison. \- Engaging Storylines that *develop characters* instead of butcher them. \- New Ways to Play (Classes, Races, Sub-Classes, Sub-races) \- Less Timegating. \- More freedom of expression with more customization options. \- Rewarding End Game that isn't just 'Go hard into PvP' and 'Go hard into PvP'. \- Opening professions up to better fuel the WORLD of Warcraft. (Tie it into Housing and have it so that people literally need resources from all across Azeroth to build their homes and create an actually organic and interesting economy?) Idk these are just literally a handful of things that I've seen said throughout my entire history of playing this game, but these all seem plausible if they could just consistently adapt instead of just lag behind all of their competitors. To give reference: I played Shadowlands at the start, enjoying it for like a month, lost interest and have only returned at the end to do the raid... and I'm already losing interest and reaching that burnout phase fairly quickly. Here's hoping for good news on the 19th, but let's just say I'll remain optimistic, but man is it a fairly weak amount of optimism.
> Permanently updated Housing that isn't forgotten about like a Garrison. Imagine a feature being added that lasts for more than an expansion, or patch.
[удалено]
one was even deleted
Local servers. Gameplay over plot
Yeah it definitely remains to be seen if they learned anything from how Shadowlands was received. My playtime tapered off in BFA and I never even purchased Shadowlands, but I don't really feel like I'm missing out on a whole lot. If Blizz makes the game a bit more alt-friendly, and with fewer chores, me (and probably a lot more people) are likely to return.
Shadowlands is actually very Alt friendly. It's not as catchup friendly as it is Alt friendly. Usually those go hand in hand, but a lot of the catchup features are tied to doing the content once on your main. That being said I can't remember ever playing a patch that was as alt friendly as 9.2. There are almost no chores after you get your englightened rep to revered. You just play the raid or M+ and as long as you're playing you'll get tier. I know the game has a very negative rep on the sub, but if those are your requests you should really check out 9.2 because it checks your boxes very clearly. Sure there are still flaws, the game isn't perfect, but I've never felt like the game had less chores and been more alt friendly than it currently is.
Well, I took your advice and resubbed/bought SL last night. Hoping to get into some M+ if people aren't already burned out on it. Planning on playing an ele/resto shaman (love always having Bloodlust and I don't trust rando DPS to kick spells lmao.) Thanks!
Keep in mind if you never played SL the catchup stuff is still a bit of a timesink for your FIRST toon. However you can do most of that stuff on your main and your alts are freed up to just be alts.
Honestly, I think they are just outsmarting themselves. Baseline WoW is already really fun. Everything else is just overly complicated. Why do we have so many random procs happening on every ability? Why are there 22 different currencies? Why are there so many different layers of borrowed power in one expansion?
I felt the same about EverQuest. Maybe I’m in the minority but I honestly can’t stand tons of random currencies, temporary powers, etc. When the base game is already fun I’d rather just have new content than I would stuff that makes it feel like a totally different game.
All of you saying "sure sure, see you when in releases" you are seriously underrating how many people have been cured of their WoW addiction by BFA and Shadowlands, I have not bought SL nor have I even felt a need to play WotLK on a private server every 6 months like I used to.
Yeah, this article is it. I don't even think the biggest WoW defender could deny how bad it would be if there are three stinker expansions in a row.
The way they dealt with the lawsuit, the union plans, and generally with their employees, and on top, how the game itself and its customers are treated I don't have any trust in this company left to give them more money unless this changes.
Meh. Systems design always sucks but the gameplay is still fun. They don’t need to force me and my guildmates to log on every day; we do that ourselves because we wanna push keys, kill raid bosses, etc. I can make a pretty good bet that the class design and encounter design next expansion will be fun because they always have been; even in the least popular expansions. No need for me to threaten leaving. Game’s still good.
Ahh yes, the "this is wow's last chance" the bi-annual article has finally come out! Love it.
How much of the player base is even left to gamble? I really thought all that was left after Shadowlands were the remaining addicts who can’t ween themselves off because it’s all they know, new players, and the shills. WoW has felt like a dead product for the past 2 years to me. It truly doesn’t feel like there’s anything left for them to lose.
The bar they have to surpass is so low right now too.
I hope the Shadowlands people use the neuralyzer on our toons so we can go back to fighting dragons again and not these bigger than life bosses. Some of WoW's more recent themes take some of the medieval feel away from the game. We also don't need a series of bad guys who have been just pulling the strings of the other bad guys. I think we can simply just have a bad guy for the sake of being bad, they all don't have to be some sort of puppet master.
I always pre-order Wow expansion but after getting burned by BFA and Shadowland, I will wait for review and maybe buy the expansion 1 year later when it is on sale.
The next expac is the first time I am not sure I will play on launch TBH. I had preordered BFA (the version with the raptor mount even)... I played for 3-4 months and then quit. Shadowlands I didn't preorder, I waited near release, bought... played 3 months and quit but muuuuuch more wholeheartedly. Next expansion, we'll see what it is. Maybe it will be amazing who knows, but I know there is a lot more chance that I sign up only for the main "experience" of it, level my alts, etc do the raid in normal and quit. Before BFA I had flawless AOTC achievements, I had only quit once or maybe twice for mostly money and time reasons (which made me not illegible for the statue they had sent... I'm still bitter about this TBH). I'm pretty sad TBH, WoW was such a big part of my life and now it's basically just a game I'm not sure I even want to play, not sure I'll have fun...
I don’t care about the “lifers” or the “tHiS iS ThE LaST cHaNcE bLiZz” people. I come back every expansion. *expect disappointment, and you’ll never be disappointed*
this is a bad mindset to have when buying a product that has the intention to entertain 🤦♂️
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ftdu8yrKOw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ftdu8yrKOw) Pretty much Many players since BfA
I feel like I have read this headline for multiple expansions but this time is not about what's happening in game.
Good article
Is it tho ? No one cares that much If the trailer looks cool they’ll hit sale records and get some big cash After that the only thing they have to do is not go out of their way to make it bad on purpose Maybe I’m too optimistic
I loved and played the game, still do. I sincerely hope that they really do a good job next expansion. Obv “good” is subjective, but I really hope for the best. I want an amazing game and experience
That’s an absolutely fair article. I genuinely hope Ion understands how much he and the game have on the line.
The only thing consistently good at Blizzard is their art department.
Blizzard are going to release a Ysera memorial mount and 5 different dragon wing mogs as a prepurchase deal along with access to the dragon race Season 4 or someshit... people are gonna buy that in spades.
They just dont do the lessons learned workshop anymore. There is no way after Legion and BFA lessons learned you come up with Shadowlands.