Big Phoenix
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
- 44,659
- 93,330
Imagine a game where they didnt completely reset gear/mechanics every 1-2 years and instead spent the resources used doing said resets on building new dungeons and new raids?
- 1
World of Warcraft: Current Year
- Thread starter hodj
- Start date
What works is to add new mechanics and content that provides more choice in power rather than flat increases.
Path of Exile is a model for this. They release content updates that introduce new layers of game play while keeping the existing content viable. Imagine if this was WoW's model for all these years.
Path of Exile is a model for this. They release content updates that introduce new layers of game play while keeping the existing content viable. Imagine if this was WoW's model for all these years.
- 1
Kuro
Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
- 8,365
- 21,292
Wombat
Trakanon Raider
- 2,021
- 791
The smartest way to play the game, for years, has been to sub for a month at launch, sub for a month at the tail end of Expansion.1 / beginning of Expansion.2, another month at tail end of Expansion.3/Expansion.4, repeat. Unless you are really in love with raiding or haven't broken your "Collect-em-all" tendencies for mounts/toys/pets/whatever, Wow hasn't been worth playing everyday for years.
But no, there isn't an MMO opening. People fail to realize that, much like RPGs, MMOs have gone from a genre to a flavor. There are no RPGs because levelling systems have been built into everything, from Call of Duty to sports games. Similarly, there are no new MMOs, because nearly everything has online hooks to other players, whether strictly single player games having leaderboard tracking and ghost runs, to most games having multiplayer links (even Zelda types, in Genshin Impact) to shared hub worlds/overworlds (Destiny, Anthem, etc.), even if most of the game is running on your computer.
But no, there isn't an MMO opening. People fail to realize that, much like RPGs, MMOs have gone from a genre to a flavor. There are no RPGs because levelling systems have been built into everything, from Call of Duty to sports games. Similarly, there are no new MMOs, because nearly everything has online hooks to other players, whether strictly single player games having leaderboard tracking and ghost runs, to most games having multiplayer links (even Zelda types, in Genshin Impact) to shared hub worlds/overworlds (Destiny, Anthem, etc.), even if most of the game is running on your computer.
- 3
Fucker
Log Wizard
- 11,566
- 26,175
Probably because the powers that be realize all their talent left the company long ago and any large investment would crater. I mean, these retards are recycling old content and still fucking it up. Classic is still a joke, and that redux was a flop.
The problem with Ion and Blizzard is that there's nothing fresh and new for them to rip off, and they have no creativity of their own, so all they will be doing from now until the end of time is recycling the work of talented game designers who have long since departed the company.
The only thing keeping WoW's lights on is Classic, and I wonder how many times they can spank that chicken until the players realize they are bored and quit.
- 1
jayrebb
Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
- 13,934
- 13,789
Was because of Titan.
The losses on that MMO were tremendous and Activision will never take that risk again.
Catastrophic.
Activision inherited Titan in 2008 and the bleeding wasn't stopped until 2013.
- 1
- 1
Rime
<Donor>
- 2,638
- 1,613
They need to just do what EverQuest does. Set it up almost automated, so every two years or so, a new 'Time Locked Progression' server comes out. Every 3/6 months, it upgrades to the next expansion. Until it catches up with retail. Then it gets folded into one of the numerous nearly dead servers.
- 2,605
- 4,143
I, too, was pretty hyped for Torghast. But I know the roots in the Palace of the Dead/Heaven-on-High in FFXIV, and cutting the "how low can you go" from the design dehyped me on it instantly.
It was the same with the "Defense of the Alehouse" BG they teased ages ago. They sometime have good ideas, but they never follow through.
- 1
Big Phoenix
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
- 44,659
- 93,330
There is a serious culture of horrific mismanagement at Blizzard. For some ungodly reason that mentality has never been culled.
When a smaller project like Ghost gets canned you can chop it up to whatever, but when a project that should be your bread and butter gets canned that should be a come to Jesus moment but nope. Continue on like normal, who cares about the practices that lead us down the road of continuously investing lots resources into xyz only to canceled it midway through.
- 2
Rezz
Mr. Poopybutthole
- 4,486
- 3,531
I actually really liked WoD; it was definitely the best expansion post WotLK imo, at least from horde side... up until the shitty jungle. I honestly didn't like TBC very much; I thought Legion was just more fun in general (plus it had DKs. TBC was lacking that). Cata/MoP were not great imo.
I'm already pre-ordered and looking forward to the xpac, and definitely not worried about which covenant is the l33t. Going Revandreth.
I'm already pre-ordered and looking forward to the xpac, and definitely not worried about which covenant is the l33t. Going Revandreth.
- 1
Rime
<Donor>
- 2,638
- 1,613
WoD had so much potential. But they rushed it to try and tie-in with the movie and then dropped it when they could not make deadlines. So we never got the Shattrath raid and we ended up with the whole 'Orc sorry, everything better' ending. At least with the Mag'har Allied Race quest, you get to see that... yeah, that did not cut it.
a c i d.f l y
ಠ_ಠ
- 20,060
- 99,460
Even at a company like Dell, $10bil, we still constantly iterate and generate new software/services. Though most of it goes partially developed and abandoned, and what does get released doesn't ever have a long term support plan unless it pulls in ass tons of cash.
A company with the cash flow like blizzard should have at least spit out a dozen games by now. Even shitty games. Or small games. WOW isn't what they're investing most of their development time on. That game has most of its support structure automated. Which allows them to deploy patches on a reliable cadence. They even outsourced their mobile Diablo game. Where's any new IP? Not even a hint to enflame investors.
Springbok
Karen
- 9,028
- 12,608
Castle Nathria Boss Guides — Questionably Epic
Castle Nathria kicks off Shadowlands with a ten boss raid in the heart of Revendreth. Castle Nathria Council & Sire Denathrius coming soon.
questionablyepic.com
Decent one page boss guides for the 4 people posting here that are actually going to play
- 1
jayrebb
Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
- 13,934
- 13,789
Activision said these exact words. Question is why did Activision give them so much rope into 2018?
Titan collapses, leaving Blizzard without an MMO successor due to mismanagement-- and Activision didn't pull out with "Dems da brakes boys" until six years later.
Shadowlands was produced entirely under the new balance sheet requirements. I almost want to purchase out of morbid curiosity and compare to BFA..
If lean and mean suits Blizzard or not.
On the fence about whether to buy the expansion or not? This might help you:
They're selling shit like this for money now:
Twenty bucks
They're selling shit like this for money now:
Twenty bucks
- 1
- 1
- 1
a c i d.f l y
ಠ_ಠ
- 20,060
- 99,460
And they used the assets to create Overwatch. What did they do with it? Sandbag? Overwatch 2? Seems insanely shallow. Even with as popular as that game is. It is still 1/100 of what a game should be. Then monetized with thousands of bullshit.
The whole argument of scope being outside development is bullshit. I know what that means. They lost funding for not producing a workable product in a time line determined by investors, which clearly didn't align with the actual development time line.
Scope can always be reduced. Usually is. They likely reduced scope on significant aspects that were likely 6-12 months out, and executives said fuck off to save their own asses instead of seeing what it could have become. Success takes time. Which with investors looking at a 6 month time frame consider as too much of a risk within their short, hopscotch careers.
- 2