World of Warcraft: Current Year

Neranja said:

Did I mention that the current copium meme on 4chan is 26M MAUs (as if those were all WoW players) and 900k M+ runs per week?

Punchline: When Shadowlands started they had over 3 million M+ runs in the first week. It looks like two thirds of the playerbase just outright vanished and never came back for 9.1.

Also, the ex-CEO of Carbine Studios (WildStar) got hired. Yeah, the one who introduced CREDD, their token gold/gametime exchange system:

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People are mostly just laughing at this and bucketing it with the other shitty recent hires theyve made but I think it's a true picture of where the game is heading. They didnt hire him because he was a shitty MMO dev and that's all they can hire now - they hired him because he's a shitty MMO dev experienced with grafting MTX onto a dying game. Every MMO goes through this cycle where they go F2P and milk whales with microtransactions as their last grasp. Why would WoW be any different? WoW Token? Gold sellers? No need! Just buy gold direct from these goblins over here! Can't buy a M+ carry anymore because all the raiders quit for another game? Dont worry, we've got an AI team for that! Just pay $9.99 to rent them for a week

Caeden said:

Fair point. But I see shit like Trion and Carbine and I get the impression of dev retreads. I’d rather hire passionate watch dude who does design in his spare time. Maybe mediocre isn’t the right term.

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Big difference between giving new, hungry people a shot and hiring proven mediocrity

Kirun said:

For me it isn't about watching them "game" (I always hated "watching" people play and would typically steal the controller from my friend when he'd want to play FF7). For me, it's more about watching them discuss mechanics/systems/lore/etc. and interacting/debating them on those topics. It's why I don't really watch "big" streamers, because you can't discuss shit.

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Asmongold does do a really good job of picking things out of his chat. As chaotic as it is, he typically is able to latch onto a discussion in chat that people want to hear discussed.

His interactions are a part of his success as a streamer.

Right, the most enjoyable streamers are the ones that interact or entertain while playing.

Why would they rename it? That post seems like a bunch of bs. It would make more sense for them to just close it down, and for Activision to continue/shutdown future games as they see fit. The only reason Blizzard is around is because it had brand name value.

I play sports. I watch people play sports.

I play games. I watch people play games.

I like sports and games.

Neranja said:

I don't know if you noticed, but Blizzard is caught in something like a MeToo campaign, and everyone with a grievance west of the Atlantic ocean is going to try to have a piece of the pie when the lawsuit is going to ramp up.

On the other hand, Bobby Kotick WILL make Blizzard more profitable, one way or the other.

Remember Sierra Online? They, too, thought that their brand had some value.

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Activision/Blizzard is one corporation. They are going to get sued regardless if the Blizzard name is around or not.

Big Phoenix said:

Streaming needs to be reviled because it creates yet another utterly useless class of celebrity.

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Gaming needs to be reviled because it creates yet another utterly useless class of mindless children and adults

The problem is not the medium, the problem is humans in general. The real solution is not to take away but to fill it with something useful, i.e. deprogram your kids from groupthink

These days, most kids say they want to grow up to be a streamer. But the answer my nephews gave in school was Astronaut because I make time to engage with them about greater things

Big Phoenix said:

Yeah the masses have proven thats never going to be the case. When given the choice on who to elevate and focus on they chose the same stereotypical vapid morons that the media pushed 20 years ago.

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I’m not sure I buy that. I think conservatives were caught off guard by the insidious psychological nature of mass communication coupled with liberal ideology. Conservative distrust of law enforcement agencies and military institutions is probably at an all time high when previously they would simply defer to these institutions in the name of order.

It’s time for liberty-minded people to actually do something rather than ASSUME that self-evident truths will be victorious

Elidroth said:

I don't understand why people watch other people play games at all.

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I never understood it either, but Dota2 pro games can be more entertaining and dramatic than your typical regular season "Soccer" game (in fact I only watch my club play, I generally don't watch other teams). Especially when there's millions of dollars at stake

As for Asmon, at the start of classic when he had 3-4 full guilds and was constantly having to deal with inter guild drama, it was pretty funny to watch highlight summary clips of people sperging out over nonsensical stuff

Bubbles said:

Bellular will probably stretch this out to about 5 different videos before realizing it was posted by 1 post troll

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Really liked Bellular's coverage just before the scandal hit and the WoW to FF14 exodus started.

But once the scandal hit he just gives the news 2 days late on three different channels, a stream, a stream clip and then again as a news show that's exactly the same as the stream so why bother?

He has all these lore video scripts lined up and a staff to make the ingame graphics so he can't pivot to FF14 even though he really should.

Today he compalined about not being able to just play FF14 like a streamer does and he's been saying he wants to experience the MSQ privately. He is insane just leaving that money on the table.

Someone else is going to come along and be the FF14 lore channel...

Neranja said:

That "leak" LARP has some good ideas:

Blizzard Entertainment will become Insight in 2022 (Leak/Spoilers)

Blizzard Entertainment is being dissolved early 2022. It is going to be replaced by a new team called Insight that will be a more direct part of the renamed Activision Insight. Much of Blizzard, though not all, will be sacked and replaced with new employees for Insight. Diablo is considered...

www.mmo-champion.com

A new WoW 2, "going to be developed by a majority new team than those who made and worked on WoW. It is not a sequel but a total reboot with new lore".

I'd support that.

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Called it and just waiting for Insight to be a licensed subsidiary now.