Has Casual Gaming Killed The Mmo Genre (including WOW)?
A trip down memory lane researching into how Blizzard have betrayed their roots and have gone after the big money in appealing to attract more casual gamers.
So picture this, I’m grinding blood elves in vanilla WoW in Azshara before Blizzard made Blood Elves into some annoying playable class. Paladins were Alliance, Shamans were Horde, people had tier 3 due to Naxx just coming out and I was in blues and epics that I worked hard for and was proud of. I was a casual gamer, my gear reflected that and I didn’t mind. Then.. Burning Crusade came out.. and thus begun the descent down the long slippery slope down for the game I adored into one I have the utmost contempt for.
World of Warcraft is the most successful MMORPG of all time, fact. Before WoW many people had never even played a MMO before and it was their first introduction to the genre that was much loved by a small niche of people that have as brutal a stereotype as a Dungeons & Dragons fanboy would have. However, World of Warcraft attracted a lot of people of many different backgrounds, even FPS players made the hop from something like Counter-Strike of Call of Duty to farming boars in Durotar. These were weird times indeed, but exciting ones.
However, to give a political analogy of the current situation you can think of World of Warcraft as formally the United States of Warcraft with rolling hills of freedom and with that freedom came lawlessness and unfairness. Recently it is now the People’s Republic of Warcraft. Blizzard now inflict their will onto players with many nerfs and buffs that are frustrating to keep up with and favour Blizzard’s scheme of getting as many subscribers as possible while pedalling WoW as some kind of new e-sport.
There are a few basic elements of the classic MMOs that World of Warcraft got right but have since completely gone the opposite direction with:
PVP
Yes, classes were not balanced before. A mage could polymorph you for a ridiculous amount of time, as could a hunter trap you, as could a rogue sap you. A warrior could two hit you with the right gear and a shaman had windfury. Now, this seems like a huge problem and minor tweaks were generally welcomed by all.. but the point was that every class had its particular strength to work with and they had their own particular anti-class. The problem with what Blizzard has done is that they’ve now gone hugely hands-on with giving everyone an inordinate amount of health, resilience and other sorts of ways of turtling PvP into some psuedo-sport that’s meant to require skill. For instance, arena players moan about RNGs (Random Number Generators) so Blizzard take one of the most typical RPG elements of random statistical occurrences such as stun-resists and alter it in a awkward way to cater to arena players. In fact, regarding PvP, anything that remotely gives you a statistical advantage is taken away and you’re left with some empty shell of a RPG where everyone wears the same gear and has very minor differences between them. Certain class combinations reign supreme until the next patch where people will re-roll class in order to maintain their rating. PvP apparently rewards skill now. Although no.. you’re not allowed to be rewarded with anything that will give you any form of advantage over someone… so have a pretty mount instead. There’s a good Orc.
Epics
Epics now mean nothing. A common complaint but a perfectly valid one. The days of old with 10 man UBRS raids just to get blues are long gone, you literally can get many epics as soon as you ding to the cap that are all extremely powerful and cost the player hardly any effort. People who work hard for their gear barely get any reward any more, legendary quests have been abandoned and epic PvP gear is far too easy to acquire. Many people are against the days of High Warlord/Grand Marshall epics, the rank system and legendary quests, but is today’s WoW really better? I hear people say about how these things were just time-sinks and didn’t reward any skill but since when was an MMO about rewarding ’skill’? (bear with me here). MMOs reward dedication and working with your guild to obtain each other better gear and to progress as friends and guild mates. But Blizzard now are trying to please everyone by giving everyone equally good loot, this simply does not work. If there is no incentive to work for your gear then why should you? I am not saying that I do not understand people frustrated at the time-sinks and want a more efficient way of being rewarded, but this simply doesn’t work very well in an MMO.
The Death of World PvP
Nowadays you aren’t allowed to actually interact with the world, there is no sense of wonder and the sheer scale of the world has been reduced to putting yourself into queues for battlegrounds, arena or raids. Everything is organised, there is no possible way of you having an impact on this world whatsoever. You are just another player, another number. Long gone are true world bosses, battles at hillsbrad and any form of interesting involvement between the Horde and Alliance outside of some instanced boxed in game. Tell me, what’s the point in actually making people level up to the cap in order to play the end-game content? Most people can agree the most interesting times in any MMO are the ones that the players make for themselves. This is what I desperately wanted in an MMO, which is what games like Ultima Online tried to give players, a truly interactive role-playing experience where you could make an impact on your surroundings. But alas, people moaned and then Blizzard make knee-jerk changes without thinking of the consequences. For instance, having the battlemasters in respected cities in order to queue up seemed a clever choice.. however.. this meant that the actual portals to the games are now redundant and no-one even bothers visiting there any more. PvP outside of battlegrounds has been systematically eradicated.
Now, I understand that Blizzard are a company and are out to make money. This is why I have stopped playing World of Warcraft as I am simply not wanted. But nowadays every company wants to take WoW’s formula to take in lots of money, no one ever wants to create a true MMORPG. I guess I should play E.V.E Online or something, but I did love World of Warcraft and the entire universe but now I fear it’s too late and the ship has long since sailed.
Farewell Blizzard,
whywowisdying
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You will see me on top of the ladder if there is one, surely.
A trip down memory lane researching into how Blizzard have betrayed their roots and have gone after the big money in appealing to attract more casual gamers.
So picture this, I’m grinding blood elves in vanilla WoW in Azshara before Blizzard made Blood Elves into some annoying playable class. Paladins were Alliance, Shamans were Horde, people had tier 3 due to Naxx just coming out and I was in blues and epics that I worked hard for and was proud of. I was a casual gamer, my gear reflected that and I didn’t mind. Then.. Burning Crusade came out.. and thus begun the descent down the long slippery slope down for the game I adored into one I have the utmost contempt for.
World of Warcraft is the most successful MMORPG of all time, fact. Before WoW many people had never even played a MMO before and it was their first introduction to the genre that was much loved by a small niche of people that have as brutal a stereotype as a Dungeons & Dragons fanboy would have. However, World of Warcraft attracted a lot of people of many different backgrounds, even FPS players made the hop from something like Counter-Strike of Call of Duty to farming boars in Durotar. These were weird times indeed, but exciting ones.
However, to give a political analogy of the current situation you can think of World of Warcraft as formally the United States of Warcraft with rolling hills of freedom and with that freedom came lawlessness and unfairness. Recently it is now the People’s Republic of Warcraft. Blizzard now inflict their will onto players with many nerfs and buffs that are frustrating to keep up with and favour Blizzard’s scheme of getting as many subscribers as possible while pedalling WoW as some kind of new e-sport.
There are a few basic elements of the classic MMOs that World of Warcraft got right but have since completely gone the opposite direction with:
PVP
Yes, classes were not balanced before. A mage could polymorph you for a ridiculous amount of time, as could a hunter trap you, as could a rogue sap you. A warrior could two hit you with the right gear and a shaman had windfury. Now, this seems like a huge problem and minor tweaks were generally welcomed by all.. but the point was that every class had its particular strength to work with and they had their own particular anti-class. The problem with what Blizzard has done is that they’ve now gone hugely hands-on with giving everyone an inordinate amount of health, resilience and other sorts of ways of turtling PvP into some psuedo-sport that’s meant to require skill. For instance, arena players moan about RNGs (Random Number Generators) so Blizzard take one of the most typical RPG elements of random statistical occurrences such as stun-resists and alter it in a awkward way to cater to arena players. In fact, regarding PvP, anything that remotely gives you a statistical advantage is taken away and you’re left with some empty shell of a RPG where everyone wears the same gear and has very minor differences between them. Certain class combinations reign supreme until the next patch where people will re-roll class in order to maintain their rating. PvP apparently rewards skill now. Although no.. you’re not allowed to be rewarded with anything that will give you any form of advantage over someone… so have a pretty mount instead. There’s a good Orc.
Epics
Epics now mean nothing. A common complaint but a perfectly valid one. The days of old with 10 man UBRS raids just to get blues are long gone, you literally can get many epics as soon as you ding to the cap that are all extremely powerful and cost the player hardly any effort. People who work hard for their gear barely get any reward any more, legendary quests have been abandoned and epic PvP gear is far too easy to acquire. Many people are against the days of High Warlord/Grand Marshall epics, the rank system and legendary quests, but is today’s WoW really better? I hear people say about how these things were just time-sinks and didn’t reward any skill but since when was an MMO about rewarding ’skill’? (bear with me here). MMOs reward dedication and working with your guild to obtain each other better gear and to progress as friends and guild mates. But Blizzard now are trying to please everyone by giving everyone equally good loot, this simply does not work. If there is no incentive to work for your gear then why should you? I am not saying that I do not understand people frustrated at the time-sinks and want a more efficient way of being rewarded, but this simply doesn’t work very well in an MMO.
The Death of World PvP
Nowadays you aren’t allowed to actually interact with the world, there is no sense of wonder and the sheer scale of the world has been reduced to putting yourself into queues for battlegrounds, arena or raids. Everything is organised, there is no possible way of you having an impact on this world whatsoever. You are just another player, another number. Long gone are true world bosses, battles at hillsbrad and any form of interesting involvement between the Horde and Alliance outside of some instanced boxed in game. Tell me, what’s the point in actually making people level up to the cap in order to play the end-game content? Most people can agree the most interesting times in any MMO are the ones that the players make for themselves. This is what I desperately wanted in an MMO, which is what games like Ultima Online tried to give players, a truly interactive role-playing experience where you could make an impact on your surroundings. But alas, people moaned and then Blizzard make knee-jerk changes without thinking of the consequences. For instance, having the battlemasters in respected cities in order to queue up seemed a clever choice.. however.. this meant that the actual portals to the games are now redundant and no-one even bothers visiting there any more. PvP outside of battlegrounds has been systematically eradicated.
Now, I understand that Blizzard are a company and are out to make money. This is why I have stopped playing World of Warcraft as I am simply not wanted. But nowadays every company wants to take WoW’s formula to take in lots of money, no one ever wants to create a true MMORPG. I guess I should play E.V.E Online or something, but I did love World of Warcraft and the entire universe but now I fear it’s too late and the ship has long since sailed.
Farewell Blizzard,
whywowisdying