World of Warcraft: Current Year

Secrets · Apr 14, 2022

Rogosh said:
Or sjw the game, according to their new community diversity manager.

To be honest, I could not give a single fuck what the office staffers look like as long as they put out a quality product. If a diversity officer helps them get the game not shit, and we see as players that it does, then great - hire as many as them as you need to make the game continue in that direction.

You haven't playing WoW because Alex or Ion may be groping women, or because they might've hired a black man, or because their CTO might be transgender, or their QA lead may a Trump supporter - whatever it may be, it isn't relevant to the game world they're building.

You'd play WoW if the game is fun, the lore is intriguing, and it caters to your style of gameplay.

Currently, the game's not there, and if the next expansion is revealed and looks terrible & a waste of time and money, I'm not playing on that principle alone.
Conversely, if the team responsible is not putting out a quality product and hasn't been for 2 expansion cycles, maybe it is time to start replacing the team. I don't care what that team's sexuality or favorite color is, I care that they're putting out a decent product that is enjoyable.

The solo daily rep grind, followed by time-gated content releases for content that's already done (Just release LFR entirely in one go on day 1, FFS!), the locked covenant restrictions and time gating for changing them, flying being gated by asinine requirements, removal of fun systems and legacy content that is conductive to a fun gameplay environment (just nerf rextroy and move on), and questionable lore decisions that undo the 'orcs vs humans' basis the game was founded on.. I could go on for days, really, and it doesn't take much to point this shit out.

I don't even play the game and haven't since SL launch, and I still know all of this is going on due to how involved people are with this game and how many people want them to succeed.

If none of that changes, it doesn't matter to me how diverse the office is. If they (as in, the team) collectively continue course in this direction on design, no one will want to play for that reason alone.

Having the office politics occur is just another reason to avoid the game on top of the primary point above. No one seriously cares who finishes the job, but only if the game's good. They care about office politics when the game's not. Fix the game, and you fix the company.

Rogosh · Apr 14, 2022

Secrets said:
To be honest, I could not give a single fuck what the office staffers look like as long as they put out a quality product. If a diversity officer helps them get the game not shit, and we see as players that it does, then great - hire as many as them as you need to make the game continue in that direction.

You haven't playing WoW because Alex or Ion may be groping women, or because they might've hired a black man, or because their CTO might be transgender, or their QA lead may a Trump supporter - whatever it may be, it isn't relevant to the game world they're building.

You'd play WoW if the game is fun, the lore is intriguing, and it caters to your style of gameplay.

Currently, the game's not there, and if the next expansion is revealed and looks terrible & a waste of time and money, I'm not playing on that principle alone.
Conversely, if the team responsible is not putting out a quality product and hasn't been for 2 expansion cycles, maybe it is time to start replacing the team. I don't care what that team's sexuality or favorite color is, I care that they're putting out a decent product that is enjoyable.

The solo daily rep grind, followed by time-gated content releases for content that's already done (Just release LFR entirely in one go on day 1, FFS!), the locked covenant restrictions and time gating for changing them, flying being gated by asinine requirements, removal of fun systems and legacy content that is conductive to a fun gameplay environment (just nerf rextroy and move on), and questionable lore decisions that undo the 'orcs vs humans' basis the game was founded on.. I could go on for days, really, and it doesn't take much to point this shit out.

I don't even play the game and haven't since SL launch, and I still know all of this is going on due to how involved people are with this game and how many people want them to succeed.

If none of that changes, it doesn't matter to me how diverse the office is. If they (as in, the team) collectively continue course in this direction on design, no one will want to play for that reason alone.

Having the office politics occur is just another reason to avoid the game on top of the primary point above. No one seriously cares who finishes the job, but only if the game's good. They care about office politics when the game's not. Fix the game, and you fix the company.

Sure, I tend to buy in for 2 months from balance for the last 2 expansions. Wow really hasnt grabbed my attention since Legion. But does this company even remotely deserve anyones money anymore? We may find out on the 19th. Doubt they have learned from the past 2 expansions.

Secrets · Apr 15, 2022

Rogosh said:
Sure, I tend to buy in for 2 months from balance for the last 2 expansions. Wow really hasnt grabbed my attention since Legion. But does this company even remotely deserve anyones money anymore? We may find out on the 19th. Doubt they have learned from the past 2 expansions.

The problem with them revealing /anything/ on the 19th, too, is unless there's a beta dropping the same day that shows their intent, no one who is disenfranchised will actually give the 'new, changed Blizzard' a go, for the sole sake of pattern through actions. Look at the earlier bits of the Shadowlands thread and how promising Shadowlands started, and then look at how the game broke most of its promises on launch.

I would take anything the team says with a grain of salt until they prove it through actions all the way through launch.

Expansion announcements are great for execs who want to see and generate interest in their product, then get their once-every-2-years expansion cycle out, make massive profits on the initial launch to critical acclaim / profits, and then go straight back into milking mode of remaining customers through time-gated bullshit. It's an established trend at this point, and unless they outright:
1) Acknowledge it happening previously
2) Promise to not do it again
3) Take ownership and follow through for the entire lifecycle of 10.x

Expect the launch of the game to look promising, but by 10.1, I bet you the game will look a lot different than promised.
I'd love to be proven wrong, because that would mean we'd have one more amazing game on the market.

Arbitrary · Apr 15, 2022

They might be able to squeeze some more dollars out of me but I need you nerds to have vetted whatever the new expansion is and then strongly recommend it. That seems like a really high bar at the moment.

Chris · Apr 15, 2022

They need to make some huge structural changes to the game to get me back this time.

Brain dead quest chain through a zone where it takes you to every sub zone which has two NPCs giving a handful of quests before you move on doesn't cut it anymore, every zone since Cataclysm has been exactly the same.

Toxic speedrun meta through dungeons and giant trash filled raids is shit too. As is the exact same PvP maps from years ago.

There's just nothing appealing at all in any of that to me.

Rajaah · Apr 15, 2022

Deathwing said:
Damnit, Afrasiabi strikes again! He can't keep getting away with it!

So when's he gonna show up around here again, now that he's free from the plantation?

Lunis · Apr 15, 2022

Having tried to get into retail a few times now I can say the absolute worst part of the game is how much ability/proc spam the combat has now. There is no RPG flow to the game anymore, its too much like an ARPG where everyone just aoe dps's everything with at least 5 damage instances per second. Your individual abilities don't really matter, it's the rotation that matters... which gives the game a gimmicky feel. It's both monotonous and straining at the same time.

Deathwing · Apr 15, 2022

Rajaah said:
So when's he gonna show up around here again, now that he's free from the plantation?

Doubtful that will ever happen if he has even decent legal advice.

Daidraco · Apr 15, 2022

Shadowlands DIDNT have a good reception on these forums, though? I was one of the few people that was trying to get people to play it and it was like pulling teeth getting people to play Shadowlands at launch. Bunch of us guilded and grouped together out of a pure desire to play the game with each other, but you could clearly see that no one had the same desire to play WoW as they did with Legion. I was under the assumption/illusion that Blizzard was following true to history with one bad expansion, one good expansion cycle, and just assumed people were just burnt by BFA. Took me a month and a half to piece together how terrible the game had became because I didnt play any of BFA and had not realized how terrible the game had became since I had left mid Legion.

WoW is definitely home. But its belonged to step mom that divorced dad for the lst 5-6 years now.

Rajaah · Apr 16, 2022

Lunis said:
Having tried to get into retail a few times now I can say the absolute worst part of the game is how much ability/proc spam the combat has now. There is no RPG flow to the game anymore, its too much like an ARPG where everyone just aoe dps's everything with at least 5 damage instances per second. Your individual abilities don't really matter, it's the rotation that matters... which gives the game a gimmicky feel. It's both monotonous and straining at the same time.

Yeah. I can't even tell what's going on during the battles a lot of the time. It's just all AOE spam and noise. It stopped feeling like a real RPG a while ago and it abandoned all pretense of being an EQ-like thinking man's MMO way before that.

Foggy · Apr 16, 2022

Weakauras are basically required now to play properly. Some specs aren’t nearly as bad as others but those are few and far between. All dungeon content being forced around a timer also hasn’t helped.

Foggy · Apr 16, 2022

If there was any talent left there, they would create a new M+ mode built with their torghast tech for “random” layouts and no dungeon map to force exploration instead of a race.

Chris · Apr 16, 2022

Foggy said:
If there was any talent left there, they would create a new M+ mode built with their torghast tech for “random” layouts and no dungeon map to force exploration instead of a race.

This is a game studio which had to relearn how procedural generation worked for Diablo 3 and posted a devblog about how clever they were, despite Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 having better procedural generation.

Torghast seems to be a shitty copy of FF14's two procedurally generated dungeons and new roguelikes like Hades, rather than an idea they had themselves to iterate based on Diablo.

Qhue · Apr 16, 2022

The last several iterations of the WoW dev team seem to have learned all the wrong lessons from the original development of the game.

Yes WoW has always had a theme-park feel wherein they cram a lot of story/adventure content into a relatively small space with an overarching theme, but the nature of that content has shifted from something that was elegantly constructed into something that is cut-n-paste.

I'm not at all sure they can figure out a new direction to go at this point...

Runnen · Apr 16, 2022

Qhue said:
Yes WoW has always had a theme-park feel wherein they cram a lot of story/adventure content into a relatively small space with an overarching theme, but the nature of that content has shifted from something that was elegantly constructed into something that is cut-n-paste.

The latest zone is literally the 3D printer of cut'n'paste content across the multiverse. The irony is probably lost on them.

Bondurant · Apr 16, 2022

Qhue said:
I'm not at all sure they can figure out a new direction to go at this point...

They don't necessarily need a new direction, they "just" need to look at the competition and double down on what they do right: raids and dungeons. In my opinion they really need to take a step away from all the eSport bullshit like AWC and MDI, let World Firsters gear their characters however they want and completely overhaul their writing / story department and philosophy. Tell cool player character-based stories and cut the overarching superhero / villain garbage. Build consistent and Warcraftesque combat gameplay for the long run, cut the borrowed power endless circle and make everything account-based.

Chris · Apr 16, 2022

Biggest improvement they can make is multiclassing.

You respec between 3 often totally different specs, why not let people respec between any spec from any class?

People will get content from unlocking new classes (reuse the Legion Order Halls to do this) and content from levelling the new classes to max level.

Then they will stop complaining about repeating grinds for alts too, works perfectly in FF14.

Secrets · Apr 16, 2022

Chris said:
Biggest improvement they can make is multiclassing.

You respec between 3 often totally different specs, why not let people respec between any spec from any class?

People will get content from unlocking new classes (reuse the Legion Order Halls to do this) and content from levelling the new classes to max level.

Then they will stop complaining about repeating grinds for alts too, works perfectly in FF14.

EQ could also benefit from this... lock a bag of gear to a specific class, and bind equipment/spells to specific classes once equipped/scribed, and adjust skill caps depending on class. Disable AAs if you're not that class.

Would give people a shit ton of XP/AAs to grind for on the same character.

Narac01 · Apr 16, 2022

They wouldn't have to nerf different AA acquisition methods like they did headshot or swarm kiting cause everyone could do it to get AA for any class.

Qhue · Apr 17, 2022

I think the success of Classic is actually part of the problem. A creative person might have seen that success as an opportunity to look backwards and see how it wasn't just novelty that drove people to enjoy those experiences. An MBA, however, sees it as as excuse to get lazy since they know they can still print money by recycling the old stuff for awhile.

I aslo wonder how supporting Classic as well as Retail has impacted the engineering team's ability to innovate.

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