World of Warcraft: Current Year

Chris · Oct 21, 2021

Neranja said:
This sounds like defeatism. Although I would recommend for Blizzard to play into their own strengths instead of trying to compete with FFXIV in story and presentation. Especially when their game is clearly not made for machinima-cutscenes, especially those close-ups where the awful looking mouth flaps are visible.

If Blizzard wants to compete in presentation with FFXIV they have to catch up with their cinematography tech first.

Cut scenes in games are generally bad and get in the way. FF14 is bloated with them and succeeds despite them because you get stuff like Final Steps of Faith, or the Amerout/Hades finale in Shadowbringers which is the best sequence in MMO history if you paid attention to the story. Even in FF14 those moments are between Dungeons and Raid Bosses so you actually play them.

WoW at it's height had in game text/voice when you had control of your character and two actual cut scenes (Wrathgate and Lich King Death). I remember when they started in engine cut scenes in Cataclysm and it was dogshit.

Final Fantasy is strong in story and wildly inconsistent in gameplay, Warcraft was strong in gameplay but now it's bad at everything trying to be good at story.

Secrets · Oct 21, 2021

Chris said:
Cut scenes in games are generally bad and get in the way. FF14 is bloated with them and succeeds despite them because you get stuff like Final Steps of Faith, or the Amerout/Hades finale in Shadowbringers which is the best sequence in MMO history if you paid attention to the story. Even in FF14 those moments are between Dungeons and Raid Bosses so you actually play them.

WoW at it's height had in game text/voice when you had control of your character and two actual cut scenes (Wrathgate and Lich King Death). I remember when they started in engine cut scenes in Cataclysm and it was dogshit.

Final Fantasy is strong in story and wildly inconsistent in gameplay, Warcraft was strong in gameplay but now it's bad at everything trying to be good at story.

Warcraft hasn't been strong in gameplay since Legion... and even then, that was a fluke.

I don't think you'll ever see competency from Blizzard again in the likes of what was previously seen. There's likely a ton of technical debt just from losing key people.
Even if they were abusive people, they probably held the fucking ship together more than the likes of Ion and Kotick.

Now that Ion/Kotick are the only semblance of notable folks left, it's clear they had nothing to do with the games' success, and it was all the key people who now have impending lawsuits against them (or they straight up left the company years ago)

Mist · Oct 21, 2021

Secrets said:
There's likely a ton of technical debt just from losing key people.

WoW definitely has a lot of technical debt, but that's not what that word means in the context of how you're using it.

Mist · Oct 21, 2021

Secrets said:
Now that Ion/Kotick are the only semblance of notable folks left, it's clear they had nothing to do with the games' success, and it was all the key people who now have impending lawsuits against them (or they straight up left the company years ago)

WoW really hasn't been good since Kaplan was moved off of it.

They hired a bunch of crunchy systems guys from the elite playerbase who ultimately ruined the game the more and more systems they added to the game. They just could not seem to realize that systems were not a substitute for content crafted out of love for the franchise.

Secrets · Oct 21, 2021

Mist said:
WoW definitely has a lot of technical debt, but that's not what that word means in the context of how you're using it.

If you lose people who 'know systems' and they're gone because fired on the spot, they didn't have time to transfer the data to new hires that replace them.

It's absolutely technical debt to sludge through limited documentation. I would know because I've worked on 3 projects that basically bankrupted the companies that acquired them.

It was a nightmare talking to former employees, so I just would ignore them and made my own notes.

Neranja · Oct 22, 2021

Jox said:
How are you drawing any conclusions about people having fun now in ff14 DURING SHADOWLANDS, to how good Legion was?

Because you are shitting out one-liners without explaining your argument, that's why. So I put in you in the pile of "FF14 isn't as good as WoW, why are people leaving?" copium pile.

If you don't like it then communicate your thoughts and don't be like an SJW with "educate yourself", which is basically your whole counterpoint to my post.

Neranja · Oct 22, 2021

Chris said:
Cut scenes in games are generally bad and get in the way.

These sweeping generalizations are almost always wrong. Warcraft 3 had nice cutscenes and people loved that game. WoW players on the other hand expect story to be window-dressing for their eternal grind, and cutscenes take time away from the grind. You have AP to farm, dailies to do, Torghast to run, do the current reputation for sockets etc.

WoW has become an "be efficient" game, where you try to get your wizard chores out of the way so you can have "fun". Even worse, the WoW Token has incentivized Blizzard to ramp up the grinds and farms (e.g. legendary crafting, consumables) while also reducing gold sources to boost their token sales.

FF14 gets away with its cutscenes because it a) doesn't have that much grind (except your weapons), and b) it is a primarily story-driven game. Like WC3 once was.

Neranja · Oct 22, 2021

Mist said:
They just could not seem to realize that systems were not a substitute for content crafted out of love for the franchise.

Yes, but do you really want to see the "content" those people create? The very same ones that replace women with bowl of fruit?

Because from the reduced amount of content between Legion and Shadowlands (as in: dungeons, quest zones and lines, side activities, tradeskills etc.) it looks like they lost around 30-40% of the employees who created said content.

Mist · Oct 22, 2021

Neranja said:
Yes, but do you really want to see the "content" those people create? The very same ones that replace women with bowl of fruit?

Because from the reduced amount of content between Legion and Shadowlands (as in: dungeons, quest zones and lines, side activities, tradeskills etc.) it looks like they lost around 30-40% of the employees who created said content.

I'm talking much earlier than that. Kaplan was moved off WoW in 2009, and that's when they started hiring these people who wanted to systemize everything.

xmod2 · Oct 22, 2021

Wrathgate was pretty well received. There are enough lorefags from the original batch of WoW gamers who don't mind a cutscene now and then. The trailer cinematics are always popular too. Post wotlk, the story kind of went into the who gives a shit territory, but by Legion is was semi-interesting, once you accepted the whole COMMANDER/CHAMPION bs. The problem is that bfa and shadowlands were really bad and the already anemic story was drip fed over way too long a cycle. All of shadowlands feels like 7.2 with the disjointed "do two quests and see you next week" style of storytelling that is just nothing a person who enjoys story wants. 14 gives you the whole story for the patch when it comes out and you can do it at your own pace. Wow is like someone offering you a junky young adult novel, but they will only let you read a few paragraphs a week. No thanks.

The proper way to play wow as a casual is to wait until ~2 weeks before the next patch and then sub and play through all of the previous patch content. It's great, there is no limit to your renown and you can just consume as much per day as you want. Once you hit the renown cap and hit the time gates, it actually feels gross and you can quit again.

Juvarisx · Oct 22, 2021

Legion wasn't even that great a story. Roll a new character and try to play through it its so fucking boring leveling through Legion. Off the top of your head what was the story during the war campaign in Suramar during the finale of the Nightbourne War? Why was Tyrande moody about the whole thing? Do you even fucking care? K cool now tell me the story about the finale of the Dragonsong War in patch 3.3. Bet you remember that if you played it. The ironic thing is Heavnsward is pretty good but is nowhere near as good as the best shit in FF14, and Legion was the "best" story in WoW.

Springbok · Oct 22, 2021

LMAO are people actually comparing the WOW story to the FFXIV story? In a serious way?

FFXIV isn't GRRM or Tolkien, but it's a great story - by far the most compelling MMO story ever and it's not really close to anything else. In fact, that's probably the best and most interesting part of the game. Only MMO I've ever played that I actually wanted to sit through the cutscenes and little player moments without skipping through them, but perhaps that's only because I enjoy JRPG's in general? Not sure- there are a number of things WOW does quite a bit better than FFXIV, but story and general plot from game to game isn't one of them. That Legion is considered the best story xpac of WOW is damning in and of itself

Neranja · Oct 22, 2021

Since we had a giggle in the FFXIV thread:

Jox · Oct 22, 2021

Neranja said:
Because you are shitting out one-liners without explaining your argument, that's why. So I put in you in the pile of "FF14 isn't as good as WoW, why are people leaving?" copium pile.

If you don't like it then communicate your thoughts and don't be like an SJW with "educate yourself", which is basically your whole counterpoint to my post.

M+ defined Legion. M+ in Legion was extremely fun because the dungeons were fun and classes were fun and you were rewarded appropriately. Small group but high difficulty content like that accentuates class skills and players ability to think about how use those skill correctly. So what can compare in ff14? Heaven on High? LOL

xmod2 · Oct 22, 2021

Blizzard has always taken systems from other games. It used to be they polished them and gave a well executed, simplified version of those systems (now it seems they just take them to 'have' them). FF14 does the same thing and has borrowed a lot from WoW. Admittedly since YoshiP is seemingly still a blizzard fanboy. The idea of Bahamut being the catalyst for ARR was inspired by Deathwing/Cata, etc.

So yeah, of course their ripped off, stream-lined version of it wasn't as good as the one they were ripping off. It was good enough for wow though, which is all that mattered, since everything else wasn't as trash as it is now.

I always felt like the draw of story from Warcraft 3 -> WoW was understated in why it was so popular. War3 and TFT were pretty cool at the time and the idea of 'playing a unit' in Warcraft had a similar appeal to playing a ghost in a Starcraft FPS. Once they burned out the storylines from Warcraft 3/TFT, they kind of didn't know where to go with the story. With no new RTS or games feeding them players/ideas, they had to come up with their own shit. Unfortunately they were never able to recreate anything as interesting as Arthas and even now are just kind of looping back around to try and retcon/revisit those stories. The funniest part is that the Arthas storyline of 'oh no good prince bad now' is not even that great a story, but it didn't need to be for people to care about it.

Cybsled · Oct 22, 2021

They also wasted storybeats by squandering S-Tier threats, like Azshara

Neranja · Oct 22, 2021

Mist said:
Kaplan was moved off WoW in 2009, and that's when they started hiring these people who wanted to systemize everything.

I think he wasn't "moved", most senior developers at Blizzard went to Project Titan in hopes to make the next big thing.

On the other side, I would like to know if those EJ system designers were hired as exactly that. I have this pet theory that the system designers were hired as replacements for the senior developers on Titan, but they then withdrew from developing any interesting content into system design because of their lack of creativity.

Cataclysm/MoP would fall into this timeline I guess, and from what I remember those expansions didn't have overbearing systems. It was only with WoD and their mobile game mission table that system design went too far.

Neranja · Oct 22, 2021

Jox said:
Small group but high difficulty content like that accentuates class skills and players ability to think about how use those skill correctly. So what can compare in ff14? Heaven on High?

So the most interesting thing in Legion was greater rifts copied from D3? Because some time ago people started complaining about the Diablo'fication of WoW. And I thinkg right players got tired of M+ on the WoW side: Being forced to play both fortified and tyrannical for KSM, not getting comparable loot up to M+ raids, and having to deal with some shit mechanics.

At the same time the WoW high end raiders can't stop drooling about FF14 trials and ultimates. Mostly because they are interesting, don't require you to grind for a month to get a toon raid ready, and with 8 players you don't need to field a bench, unlike a 20 man M+ raid does.

So what can compare in WoW? Torghast?

Jox · Oct 22, 2021

Neranja said:
So the most interesting thing in Legion was greater rifts copied from D3? Because some time ago people started complaining about the Diablo'fication of WoW. And I thinkg right players got tired of M+ on the WoW side: Being forced to play both fortified and tyrannical for KSM, not getting comparable loot up to M+ raids, and having to deal with some shit mechanics.

At the same time the WoW high end raiders can't stop drooling about FF14 trials and ultimates. Mostly because they are interesting, don't require you to grind for a month to get a toon raid ready, and with 8 players you don't need to field a bench, unlike a 20 man M+ raid does.

So what can compare in WoW? Torghast?

You are once again talking about the state of things in Shadowlands, can't find some streamer to link so you can't form your own opinion?

Neranja · Oct 22, 2021

Jox said:
You are once again talking about the state of things in Shadowlands, can't find some streamer to link so you can't form your own opinion?

Once again you are posting in the Shadowlands thread. Can't find your way to the Retard Rickshaw?

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World of Warcraft: Current Year

Chris

Potato del Grande

Secrets

ResetEra Staff Member

Mist

Eeyore Enthusiast

Mist

Eeyore Enthusiast

Secrets

ResetEra Staff Member

Neranja

Neranja

Neranja

Mist

Eeyore Enthusiast

xmod2

Juvarisx

Florida

Springbok

Karen

Neranja

Jox

Molten Core Raider

xmod2

Cybsled

Avatar of War Slayer

Neranja

Neranja

Jox

Molten Core Raider

Neranja