...WoW's users are building up a tolerance. Players are consuming new content at an ever increasing rate, and with the latest expansion Cataclysm, which took the better part of two years of development effort, many users have consumed the content and quit (again) after only six months or so.
An increasing number of people appear to be becoming tired of the same old recurring end-game structure of 10/25 player raids and working week after week on the next boss fight mechanics in order to slowly replace all of their equipment from the last tier of content with gear from the current content which will eventually get replaced again in the future.
The subscriber base has dropped significantly since it's peak shortly after the Cataclysm release, and Blizzard are now trying lots of things like giving away free copies of the original version of the game, allowing their "refer-a-friend" program to work up through level 80, and now the unlimited free trial period offer here.
Ultimately though the problem is that Blizzard has not been able to think outside the box enough to invent new and compelling *kinds* of content, and their players are increasingly unimpressed with the same cycle of leveling/raiding.
It is likely at this point that WoW has seen its peak in terms of subscriber base and relevance in the gaming world. I think they will always be able to maintain a subscriber base measured in millions, and may well run indefinitely, but if they want to grow again they need to get some fresh talent into their design group.
//////
I think this reinforces the sense that all of the senior dev talent has moved on to the new MMO.
Actually that is sooo wrong. Cata has so much new mechanics even in 5-man heroics and the raid heroics are a totally different game...
With all due respect, I could not disagree with you more. Yes, the boss has a new way to kill you, and now you have to stay out of blue fire as well as green fire, and also don't fall through the hole or step on the mines, but that's just a souped up version of what we have done for years. Cataclysm doesn't have much in the terms of new content, and the fact that they are literally taking old low level dungeons and level 60 raids and remaking them into 5 man heroics (Now with a laser that you cannot touch or you wipe!) only says that WoW is (And I hate saying this) starting to die. If they had some new ideas (like Rift's zone-wide invasions or DCUO's multiple levels and layers of dungeons (Not just normal and heroic, and not just 5 man dungeons) for example) they could pull themselves out of this slump. Likewise, smaller expansions more often, in my opinion, would help them keep their player base's attention.
Anyway, yea, the new mechanics are more-or-less just mechanics that were forgotten about in Wrath and brought back in Cata.
There was...four? Invasion events in the life of WoW? None of which were able to take over a town like Goldshire or Razorhill.
There was...fourteen? Invasion events today on Rift. Considering that there are people that level up through the invasion events (as opposed to leveling through dungeons, through quests, or through grinding) that is a good thing, as it gives another avenue of play for the players. (Plus it's actual war, unlike the no-war in World of Warcraft.
Besides, that's just an example. Point is, there isn't much new in Cata.
I couldn't agree with you more than LinkX. WoW players need a new mechanics cause WoW has basically become this game of endlessly grinding of the same things with different pictures and names, which is what drove me away from it.
What about they make it free monthly? No? Not ripping us off is not a good idea?
Oh, well. I bought the boxes and used almost 200$ on the game. I'm never going to spend another penny on it.
What I always hated about WoW is raiding: I pretty much came around for WotLK, and then you realize, all those dungeons pre-60, and all those 60 raids, and those 70 raids... you'll never do them. You'll never experience them. (except with a character that can solo them).
The only progression we have in WoW is an illusion, since it means nothing. You're at 80, you'll get gear for better 80 dungeons, but no matter what you do, you'll eventually be useless.
Nevermind that raiding sucks in WoW because of the community. Either being stuck in a clan and being put a huge responsability on your ass, and if you stop for 2 weeks you're "behind" and can't join anything anymore. Had to rely on public raids, and boy was that shit.
There never was any improvement on any of this, really. Nothing in WoW holds any value, and your work is just the grinding that everybody puts that just makes you like everybody else, trying to then make your place in the shittiest gaming system on Earth. Nevermind that the way up to high level is pathetically easy (it wasn't in the original WoW, but I recall they nerfed every single tough quests and encounters, even nerfed most elites and made them WEAKER than normal enemies around it), unless that changed in Cataclysm but I really doubt it did.
WoW is the example of ripping people off done right.
Also, they talked about the possibility of F2P in the future. I'm sure it'll happen eventually. Realizing how paying monthly is a rip off no matter what you think, I'd actually like it if they went F2P. I'm never paying monthly for a game ever again, and I wish people thought the same so they would stop that shit.
I'll be ignoring all paid content if it goes F2P, other people will pay their bills. They could keep the requirement to buy the game but remove the monthly fee, and stick to paying for content you can either get in the game, or cosmetic stuff. That model works elsewhere, too.
And yes, we pay 15$ a month for a service that doesn't nearly cost that much per player. You can't say "I've paid 200$+ on a game and its not a rip off". No matter how or what.
I could see them going F2P for everything except the latest expansion here a year or two. For example, you buy the game and can play Vanilla, BC, and WotLK for free, but to get the Cata content, you have to pay like 10 dollars a month. Then when the next expansion comes out, Cata content would become free and the new expansion would cost 10 dollars a month.
I think that system would work wonderfully personally.
If they want to stay p2p, they need new ideas and new talent, and considering Titan is on the horizon, I don't see that happening. Granted, we are all just speculating so who knows.
It is not possible since many people already paid for a year subscription for Diablo 3! Moreover, Blizzard loves money
That, and people will continue to play, so there's no reason to change this if they will still make money from subs.
I've been playing since vanilla, and I don't quite get why so many others are surprised the game is slowing down and how Blizzard is running out of ideas - it has been 8 years after all, it was bound to happen.
I'll be ignoring all paid content if it goes F2P, other people will pay their bills. They could keep the requirement to buy the game but remove the monthly fee, and stick to paying for content you can either get in the game, or cosmetic stuff. That model works elsewhere, too.
And yes, we pay 15$ a month for a service that doesn't nearly cost that much per player. You can't say "I've paid 200$+ on a game and its not a rip off". No matter how or what.
True but press /played
The amount of hours compared to what I've sunk in probably turns out to be an acceptable ratio. This will be the first expansion I won't be purchasing due to many factors...
- The monthly fee... I don't get my money worth since I don't have unlimited time to put into the game anymore.
- 8 years of the same old same old, I hear GW2 is a fresh change of pace mechanics with no monthly fee I'm willing to try it out.
- Pandas.... I’m not playing a fucking panda while I try to punch an Orc in the face.
- The community has turned into a sad panda
- I simply grew out of the game, I've quit many times but they were for 6+ months. I swore it off for good 14 months then ran into an old friend I hadn’t seen in years and started playing again, we just basically PvP now… that’s wore off too.
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Playing Diablo since 97. I know nothing and having nothing good to say, I be a troll.
I look foward to GW2, I only layed it for about 4-5 hours during beta, and I'm hooked already, it is a great change of pace, the world is huge, you don't have to run everywhere you just gotta find the waypoints and spend some coins, I found the skill swapping to be extremely nice, The only issue I had was the 2hand weapons are much weaker compared to duel-wielding one handers, but thats the only issue I had while playing, that could all change later on in life.
I also love how you earn your skills by shooting (at least for engineer) and the next skills are unlocked by the amount of times you shoot an enemy rather then levels.
On to WoW, Mop looks fun I won't lie, will I buy it? probably not, Been playing beta since it started, and honestly...I don't see anything that is different besides poke battles, which is fun, but not 2 years worth of fun, the story is Meh, I might come back to kill Garrosh, I think everyone will, and that was probably there plan since they introduced him.
I wish people would stop with the doomsdays stuff.WoW will never be killed by anything but itself and if it will go F2P, it will when the last expansion pack's last tier is over for like 10 months or smth. Prolly after that. Cause if they arent going to make another expansion, might aswell let people who dont want to pay monthly to enjoy the game. But we will see, we still have like half of MoP to get through and then we have either the last expansion or the expansion before that, so that's gonna take a couple of years imo.
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http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2281662&cid=36615996
...WoW's users are building up a tolerance. Players are consuming new content at an ever increasing rate, and with the latest expansion Cataclysm, which took the better part of two years of development effort, many users have consumed the content and quit (again) after only six months or so.
An increasing number of people appear to be becoming tired of the same old recurring end-game structure of 10/25 player raids and working week after week on the next boss fight mechanics in order to slowly replace all of their equipment from the last tier of content with gear from the current content which will eventually get replaced again in the future.
The subscriber base has dropped significantly since it's peak shortly after the Cataclysm release, and Blizzard are now trying lots of things like giving away free copies of the original version of the game, allowing their "refer-a-friend" program to work up through level 80, and now the unlimited free trial period offer here.
Ultimately though the problem is that Blizzard has not been able to think outside the box enough to invent new and compelling *kinds* of content, and their players are increasingly unimpressed with the same cycle of leveling/raiding.
It is likely at this point that WoW has seen its peak in terms of subscriber base and relevance in the gaming world. I think they will always be able to maintain a subscriber base measured in millions, and may well run indefinitely, but if they want to grow again they need to get some fresh talent into their design group.
//////
I think this reinforces the sense that all of the senior dev talent has moved on to the new MMO.
With all due respect, I could not disagree with you more. Yes, the boss has a new way to kill you, and now you have to stay out of blue fire as well as green fire, and also don't fall through the hole or step on the mines, but that's just a souped up version of what we have done for years. Cataclysm doesn't have much in the terms of new content, and the fact that they are literally taking old low level dungeons and level 60 raids and remaking them into 5 man heroics (Now with a laser that you cannot touch or you wipe!) only says that WoW is (And I hate saying this) starting to die. If they had some new ideas (like Rift's zone-wide invasions or DCUO's multiple levels and layers of dungeons (Not just normal and heroic, and not just 5 man dungeons) for example) they could pull themselves out of this slump. Likewise, smaller expansions more often, in my opinion, would help them keep their player base's attention.
Anyway, yea, the new mechanics are more-or-less just mechanics that were forgotten about in Wrath and brought back in Cata.
There was...fourteen? Invasion events today on Rift. Considering that there are people that level up through the invasion events (as opposed to leveling through dungeons, through quests, or through grinding) that is a good thing, as it gives another avenue of play for the players. (Plus it's actual war, unlike the no-war in World of Warcraft.
Besides, that's just an example. Point is, there isn't much new in Cata.
Oh, well. I bought the boxes and used almost 200$ on the game. I'm never going to spend another penny on it.
What I always hated about WoW is raiding: I pretty much came around for WotLK, and then you realize, all those dungeons pre-60, and all those 60 raids, and those 70 raids... you'll never do them. You'll never experience them. (except with a character that can solo them).
The only progression we have in WoW is an illusion, since it means nothing. You're at 80, you'll get gear for better 80 dungeons, but no matter what you do, you'll eventually be useless.
Nevermind that raiding sucks in WoW because of the community. Either being stuck in a clan and being put a huge responsability on your ass, and if you stop for 2 weeks you're "behind" and can't join anything anymore. Had to rely on public raids, and boy was that shit.
There never was any improvement on any of this, really. Nothing in WoW holds any value, and your work is just the grinding that everybody puts that just makes you like everybody else, trying to then make your place in the shittiest gaming system on Earth. Nevermind that the way up to high level is pathetically easy (it wasn't in the original WoW, but I recall they nerfed every single tough quests and encounters, even nerfed most elites and made them WEAKER than normal enemies around it), unless that changed in Cataclysm but I really doubt it did.
WoW is the example of ripping people off done right.
Also, they talked about the possibility of F2P in the future. I'm sure it'll happen eventually. Realizing how paying monthly is a rip off no matter what you think, I'd actually like it if they went F2P. I'm never paying monthly for a game ever again, and I wish people thought the same so they would stop that shit.
And yes, we pay 15$ a month for a service that doesn't nearly cost that much per player. You can't say "I've paid 200$+ on a game and its not a rip off". No matter how or what.
I think that system would work wonderfully personally.
If they want to stay p2p, they need new ideas and new talent, and considering Titan is on the horizon, I don't see that happening. Granted, we are all just speculating so who knows.
That, and people will continue to play, so there's no reason to change this if they will still make money from subs.
I've been playing since vanilla, and I don't quite get why so many others are surprised the game is slowing down and how Blizzard is running out of ideas - it has been 8 years after all, it was bound to happen.
True but press /played
The amount of hours compared to what I've sunk in probably turns out to be an acceptable ratio. This will be the first expansion I won't be purchasing due to many factors...
- The monthly fee... I don't get my money worth since I don't have unlimited time to put into the game anymore.
- 8 years of the same old same old, I hear GW2 is a fresh change of pace mechanics with no monthly fee I'm willing to try it out.
- Pandas.... I’m not playing a fucking panda while I try to punch an Orc in the face.
- The community has turned into a sad panda
- I simply grew out of the game, I've quit many times but they were for 6+ months. I swore it off for good 14 months then ran into an old friend I hadn’t seen in years and started playing again, we just basically PvP now… that’s wore off too.
I also love how you earn your skills by shooting (at least for engineer) and the next skills are unlocked by the amount of times you shoot an enemy rather then levels.
On to WoW, Mop looks fun I won't lie, will I buy it? probably not, Been playing beta since it started, and honestly...I don't see anything that is different besides poke battles, which is fun, but not 2 years worth of fun, the story is Meh, I might come back to kill Garrosh, I think everyone will, and that was probably there plan since they introduced him.
https://www.deviantart.com/aerisot
If it were actually free to play I'd be playing for that alone. Raiding and PvP in WoW doesn't interest me at all anymore.