[WoW] $60 for a level 90!

[Uteunayr]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/3773-Character-Level-Boost-to-90-priced-at-60

Yeah...

About that...

Yeah...

There's no words.

[Swish]

Some people's rationale.... "Well like, the time it would take to level a character to 90. I could just work an extra shift at work and pay for it that way." (which completely defeats the point of playing the game to be honest)

No words though, I agree... Blizzard cashing in, worse than EA? Getting that way.

The things people do for an edge or a boost in a game, terrible.

[Ahldagor]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_gapvINEFyA/UfKCQPB0OhI/AAAAAAAAFFM/XbER2QNSACQ/s1600/WoW+Subscriber+numbers+001+jim+younkin.jpg

[Ahldagor]

The things people do for an edge or a boost in a game, terrible.

/nod

[triad]

i know its just talk and talk is cheap but arnt they talking about going back to "vanilla" style for the game ... idk how they can recover from a bs ploy like this one but i wouldnt mind seeing them do a progression server like EQ did just to play what i kinda missed ..but i wonder if their population would be as much of a shit show as our server

[Swish]

Why have a leveling system at all for the next expansion? Clearly too much for players to do another 10 levels on their main character when the community would rather shortcut with their credit cards.

People say the LoL community is toxic, but I'd rather be playing there than on Blizzard's servers :p

[Uteunayr]

They said that this previous expansion was meant to bring raiding back to the Vanilla days. All it did was scale up the raid difficulty, but it didn't bring it back to vanilla in the least. It just wasn't Lich King raiding easy.

[triad]

They said that this previous expansion was meant to bring raiding back to the Vanilla days. All it did was scale up the raid difficulty, but it didn't bring it back to vanilla in the least. It just wasn't Lich King raiding easy.

so its not the upcoming exp that is trying to make it go back to the old days?

[Uteunayr]

so its not the upcoming exp that is trying to make it go back to the old days?

It's every xpac that is trying to make it go back to the old days. That's rhetoric Blizzard uses to try and get people to buy back into WoW.

They said it for Cata, they said it for MoP, and they will say it for the next one too.

[Sturgeon]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_gapvINEFyA/UfKCQPB0OhI/AAAAAAAAFFM/XbER2QNSACQ/s1600/WoW+Subscriber+numbers+001+jim+younkin.jpg

That's a pretty scary graph.

I enjoyed WoW during TBC/WoLK/Cata. Half-way through Cata I realized the game had lost its touch and it was time to move on.

[Lune]

This is all connected to the death of the sense of 'community' during late WOTLK that moved players away from a more classical MMO environment, toward a game whose social interactivity was more like a Dota or call of duty. Elite quests were removed, so you never had a reason to interact with anyone out in the world. Dungeon finder was implemented, so you never had a reason to interact with your leveling cohort or server community. Instead of putting in the effort to find reliable individuals to do dungeons with, the matchmaking system sticks you with people from other servers, and you do the dungeon without saying a word, then leave and never see them again.

When all those systems were fully implemented during Cata, Dungeon Finder, Raid Finder, and a strictly single player questing experience, many players lost easy access to the 'social bonds' that are notorious for keeping somebody glued to an MMO. Coupled with total class homogenization, the game lost its social soul, and completely lost its appeal to me.

All those things happened right around the subscription decline, so I like to think those are some of the reasons why.

Also, time travel expansion. lul

[Quineloe]

So that's why they designed the game up to level 89 to be as boring and trivial as possible...

[Reguiy]

Smart of blizzard to do that. Honestly, WoW doesn't start until you're max level, so this doesn't really bother me. This also is undercutting the RMT I'm sure. And if you're going to come back and don't feel like leveling, you may as well buy an account. I might buy one if I didn't wanna risk getting addicted to WoW again.

[Swish]

I have to agree with the "death of the community" statement.

Can't count the number of trolls on my realm network who'd join for an instance and mess around, not take it seriously etc. If they were on my realm without the matchmaking they'd never get a group again.

There was too much focus on daily quests and grinding, and Blizzard chose to make matchmaking instances with other realms a way to help people do more grinding. Why not just take some of the daily grind away? Never understood that...they have mentioned it in hindsight.

[stormlord]

This is all connected to the death of the sense of 'community' during late WOTLK that moved players away from a more classical MMO environment, toward a game whose social interactivity was more like a Dota or call of duty. Elite quests were removed, so you never had a reason to interact with anyone out in the world. Dungeon finder was implemented, so you never had a reason to interact with your leveling cohort or server community. Instead of putting in the effort to find reliable individuals to do dungeons with, the matchmaking system sticks you with people from other servers, and you do the dungeon without saying a word, then leave and never see them again.

When all those systems were fully implemented during Cata, Dungeon Finder, Raid Finder, and a strictly single player questing experience, many players lost easy access to the 'social bonds' that are notorious for keeping somebody glued to an MMO. Coupled with total class homogenization, the game lost its social soul, and completely lost its appeal to me.

All those things happened right around the subscription decline, so I like to think those are some of the reasons why.

Also, time travel expansion. lul
Five to six years ago I would have been in line with you. Back then I wanted an EQ classic server. I too rationalized how EQ had took the wrong fork and went downhill thereafter.

What do I think now?

My explanation for it's more complicated now and uncertain, since almost every - if not all - MMO's die with age. If it were something as simple as getting the community right, I think there'd be more vampires. Vampires!!??? The reclusive MMO's that do not die!! Show me where they're? They shall remain legend.

You have things like this:
How to combat increasing content and power of higher skilled/leveled players?
How to combat declines in graphic quality?
How to combat declines in general quality, throughout the game?
How to keep players interested in the same game?
How to ensure your developer team is always the best?
How to combat the desire to spend money elsewhere on newer games?

I could probably go on forever. Some of these should be more correctly mixed together or omitted altogether. I've had so many posts on this I forget all of the points there're to make and how all of it's interwoven. Fact is, it's very difficult for me to relay all of it and I think I'm failing miserably.

The first and most important thing that comes to mind when I think about all this is how there's a need to always make new content for older players to keep them playing. As a side effect, this creates a mountain of content that all new players must climb. Because this mountain is always increasing in size, to make it climbable within a reasonable amount of time the designers inevitably manipulate the progression curve so at any particular point in an MMO's life it'll require the same amount of time to reach max level, given equal effort and aptitude. The outcome this produces - as the MMO ages - is new players will climb up the mountain faster and faster - something that's necessary to ensure they can reach the top in equal time. It's possible that in this process something inexplicable and hard to resolve happens and negatively affects the game.

And there're a plethora of other issues. One example, in my mind, is the MMO code tends to get more like spaghetti because new developers are joining the team and old ones are being lost. While sucky programmers can be to blame too, this makes it hard for the developers to find a middleground, since different developers have different habits and the code is always growing. They attempt to create common rules and guidelines, but even this doesn't stop the spaghettification that, like a leaky faucet, creates problems. It becomes more and more bloated, and it just seems to become more and more expensive to maintain.

And what about graphics? It's damn hard to keep a graphics engine always cutting edge. It requires so many other things in the game to be right for the company to justify the expense. And if you have a lot of old content, updating it all can be a major pain. This is especially true if you didn't plan on updating it in the first place. It's almost always easier to just leave the old content alone and make something new.

Bottom line, somehow it gets harder and harder to keep something OLD interesting and "new". Just as it's harder to keep a person growing older looking like they're 20 and much easier to just always find a new 20 year old. How many 70 year olds look 20 and how much money has to be spent to make them look that way?

What I'm saying is the reason they do it this way - the reason they abandon old decaying games - is the same reason we tear down old buildings rather than reworking them. It is cheaper.

[Tecmos Deception]

Why have a leveling system at all for the next expansion? Clearly too much for players to do another 10 levels on their main character when the community would rather shortcut with their credit cards.

Buying a level 90 is obviously something for players who already have played 1-90 before and don't care to do it again + something that will allow new players to catch up to their established buddies more quickly. It does not in any way suggest that current level 90s "can't handle" leveling up in a new expansion. Blizzard makes money in the process, but they ARE in the business of, ya know, making money (and, somewhat connected to that, keeping customers happy).

These forums are full of people bitching that leveling in wow is too easy, but then when Blizzard offers players a way to skip the part of the game that you think is retarded, you complain about that too? Not to mention the whole "it's ok to use RL money to incidentally obtain p99 xp pots, but if you pay for levels in wow "OMFG I CAN'T BELIEVE WOW WOULD DO SOMETHING SO HEINOUS!!!"? Lol.


I mean, I agree with the sentiment that WoW isn't for me anymore. But just because the game isn't what it used to be, or it isn't what YOU are looking for, doesn't mean it hasn't made decisions that made some sense (dungeon finder wasn't Blizzard secretly trying to kill MMO community; it was a fix for people playing on low-pop realms and them trying to bring more convenience to players... yeah it kinda was a double-edged sword, but what isn't?) or that it isn't still fun for a lot of people.

[Sturgeon]

P99 to implement a $60 fee to go from 50-60

[Uteunayr]

"it's ok to use RL money to incidentally obtain p99 xp pots, but if you pay for levels in wow "OMFG I CAN'T BELIEVE WOW WOULD DO SOMETHING SO HEINOUS!!!"? Lol.

I am against both. I do not believe that real life wealth, which is not strongly related to your effort and work, should translate into in-game benefits. The nice thing about MMOs before the F2P model started to build is that everyone pays in their $15, and from there, what you become is entirely based on your hard work. Two people that do the same work get the same benefit. RL money to obtain XP pots, whether it be for a kickstarter, or for a F2P model game, is something I am opposed to because it makes two people that do the same work get unequal benefits based on real life wealth. This may not permeate through the entire game, but it being present devalues the hard work some players will do based on the real world distribution of wealth.

I come to these games to get away from the bullshit in the real world. I'd like for my hard work to provide me the same benefit, nor more or less, than the benefit provided to a person who puts in more hard work. Or, in the same way, for someone to be able to do less work to achieve the same.

They are virtually the same thing, only differing in degree (the point to which you wrote), but they are both shitty systems.

However, to the defense of others who find WoW selling a level 90 relative to a F2P game selling XP pots, is that one model is a subscription, while the other (p1999 xp pots for example) is free to play, so they are not directly comparable without keeping the sub in mind.

[Tecmos Deception]

Jumping from 1-90 is not really a benefit in WoW anymore. It is either a hassle for a new alt or something separating a new player from playing with his friends who are already on the server. It's not something that can give a competitive advantage to one player over another or something that can be remotely construed as paying to win.

I'd be against paying to buy a level 50 character on p99 because it's against the spirit of classic eq primarily, but also because in a world of limited resources it wouldn't be fair to players to allow money to contribute to the control of those resources instead of just ingame efforts. But there aren't limited resources in WoW, and the spirit of classic WoW is dead anyway, etc.

[Uteunayr]

Jumping from 1-90 is not really a benefit in WoW anymore. It is either a hassle for a new alt or something separating a new player from playing with his friends who are already on the server.

The benefit is that most of the absolutely most incompetent players are not flooding the LFR and LFD system. There are enough stupid people in that system without accentuating it and making it worse. It was hard enough for me to continue doing LFDs and LFR, but I did it for the sake of the guild I operated as GM and raid leader for. I lead us to the top of my server, which I am proud of, but it was done primarily because general pugs at lower levels show some of the most stupid players around. Imagining them jumping up to the end game is just sad, and toxic to the community.

It is a benefit, a product of work, as you skip past about 2-3 days of worth of some intense grinding, 2 days of potentially learning something about your class. Blizzard doing these things is why I passed off leadership of my guild and quit a few months back.

[Tecmos Deception]

The benefit is that most of the absolutely most incompetent players are not flooding the LFR and LFD system. There are enough stupid people in that system without accentuating it and making it worse. It was hard enough for me to continue doing LFDs and LFR, but I did it for the sake of the guild I operated as GM and raid leader for. I lead us to the top of my server, which I am proud of, but it was done primarily because general pugs at lower levels show some of the most stupid players around. Imagining them jumping up to the end game is just sad, and toxic to the community.

It is a benefit, as you skip past about 2 days of work, 2 days of potentially learning something about your class. Blizzard doing these things is why I passed off leadership of my guild and quit a few months back.

Ok, this makes sense. This isn't what you said your reasoning was in your last post though. And this still isn't really them paying for a benefit to them as much as them paying being an annoyance to you, imo :p

I would expect that most of the people who would be buying a 60 are, like I said, people starting wow because they have buddies playing at max already or people who are skipping past stuff they've already done with other characters. Those people won't probably be polluting dungeon/raid finder with terrible play as much as learning/getting carried by buddies or being fine with the mechanics already cause they've already done then. But yeah, I can see that SOME more crappiness will exist in finders because of this, and that does suck.

[Uteunayr]

Ok, this makes sense. This isn't what you said your reasoning was in your last post though. And this still isn't really them paying for a benefit to them as much as them paying being an annoyance to you, imo :p

I would expect that most of the people who would be buying a 60 are, like I said, people starting wow because they have buddies playing at max already or people who are skipping past stuff they've already done with other characters. Those people won't probably be polluting dungeon/raid finder with terrible play as much as learning/getting carried by buddies or being fine with the mechanics already cause they've already done then. But yeah, I can see that SOME more crappiness will exist in finders because of this, and that does suck.

The rationale in my previous post, and the ones here, are not mutually exclusive, and the one in the last post directly builds off of, and responds to your critique of, the first one. The additional points about LFD/LFR are to emphasize the fact that people are already fucking stupid enough, without being able to pay past any learning experience. Any time you have a benefit, a product of work, and two people work with two levels of difficulty is an imbalance. A player needs to spend 2-3 days of intensive grinding (non-stop) to get to max level, whereas someone who pays for it gets there immediately. Two people get the same result, but have very different levels of work. This is fucked up (as per my first post, and elaborated in my second one).

I think you are giving way too much credit to the players in WoW. There are a lot of really fucking stupid players that cannot understand the basics of a rotation. I was also the main recruiter for my guild, and I hand selected every member that joined my guild... Nothing destroys your faith in people faster than taking up that role. So maybe I am negatively skewed, but I was also a tank that guided most groups, and people who cannot understand a concept like /follow just need to be beaten to death with a fucking brick.

I take a moral stance against this on the grounds that equal work deserves equal reward, and that getting to level 90 is a reward for a few day's work.

[Swish]

I do not believe that real life wealth, which is not strongly related to your effort and work, should translate into in-game benefits.

This, its never a level playing field if people are going to pump extra $$ into getting advantages/pay to win/pay to not grind items.

I ranked up on the vanilla WoW PvP system and went hard to get Rank 13 (Warlord) for the PvP armor set. I wanted to push for Rank 14 (High Warlord) to finish my character and get him a sweet looking 2h axe... but I couldn't afford to invest 6+ hours a day for 4 more weeks ensuring I stayed ahead of the other PvP grind (there could only be ONE Rank 14 per week).

Then 2-3 months later Blizz announced TBC, and all the hours and effort I'd put in was for nothing... all the scumbag WoW kids were wearing exactly the same gear for PvP, easy mode was turned on.

Downhill from there, and they made the same mistake at the end of every expansion - everything became worthless. This "pay $$" shit is just an extension of how easy it has become to have the right gear/mounts/other perks.

...and before anyone says it, yes - "confirmed mad" :p

[Uteunayr]

Your awesome gif sig is knocked out of the way by the quote.

[formallydickman]

I ranked up on the vanilla WoW PvP system and went hard to get Rank 13 (Warlord) for the PvP armor set. I wanted to push for Rank 14 (High Warlord) to finish my character and get him a sweet looking 2h axe... but I couldn't afford to invest 6+ hours a day for 4 more weeks ensuring I stayed ahead of the other PvP grind (there could only be ONE Rank 14 per week).

Then 2-3 months later Blizz announced TBC, and all the hours and effort I'd put in was for nothing... all the scumbag WoW kids were wearing exactly the same gear for PvP, easy mode was turned on.


I know the feeling. Almost all my buddies and I had a similar experience, but it didn't affect me as much as it affected you. I just turned into a terrible casual.

I usually resub for each xpac release with WoW. I have 6 max lvl chars that I level up (eventually) then exclusively arena and BG until one of my buddies I resubbed with burns out. The smoothness of the pvp usually keeps me entertained for about 3 months then I quit and call it good. I can totally see a market for people who have a similar play style as myself (though I personally don't need another max lvl char... have enough already).

I don't think its good for the game (which is pretty crummy already), but I do think they know what they are doing over there at Blizzard in regards to profit. They know the game's time is limited and they are going to draw each and every penny out of it while people are willing to sub. Kudos to them for that at least.

[Ahldagor]

This is all connected to the death of the sense of 'community' during late WOTLK that moved players away from a more classical MMO environment, toward a game whose social interactivity was more like a Dota or call of duty. Elite quests were removed, so you never had a reason to interact with anyone out in the world. Dungeon finder was implemented, so you never had a reason to interact with your leveling cohort or server community. Instead of putting in the effort to find reliable individuals to do dungeons with, the matchmaking system sticks you with people from other servers, and you do the dungeon without saying a word, then leave and never see them again.

When all those systems were fully implemented during Cata, Dungeon Finder, Raid Finder, and a strictly single player questing experience, many players lost easy access to the 'social bonds' that are notorious for keeping somebody glued to an MMO. Coupled with total class homogenization, the game lost its social soul, and completely lost its appeal to me.

All those things happened right around the subscription decline, so I like to think those are some of the reasons why.

Also, time travel expansion. lul

agreed on that. also, every class has become the same with just different named abilities. prot warriors with a heal? ok, now i'm invincible

[SamwiseRed]

people still played this after vanilla?

[BahamutDF]

Some people's rationale.... "Well like, the time it would take to level a character to 90. I could just work an extra shift at work and pay for it that way." (which completely defeats the point of playing the game to be honest)

No words though, I agree... Blizzard cashing in, worse than EA? Getting that way.

The things people do for an edge or a boost in a game, terrible.

LOL @ Blizzard selling level 90's.

And there's still people out there that defend Blizzard's handling of WoW. As if they weren't the most vapid gaming company in existence.

[dreama1]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_gapvINEFyA/UfKCQPB0OhI/AAAAAAAAFFM/XbER2QNSACQ/s1600/WoW+Subscriber+numbers+001+jim+younkin.jpg

7 Million is huge.. They still will be making a profit with a couple of million or even one million..

[BahamutDF]

They still will be making a profit

So is Justin Bieber. :confused:

[dreama1]

So is Justin Bieber. :confused:

Fail. You know what a gaming COMPANY is right? It's there to make money, their primary goal is to make you addicted & make money. They don't give a shit about you or your nostalgia.

This is not something new, and this will be a trend in the coming decades of MMORPG. Precedence was already set with EQ2 and its heroic characters.

Companies no longer care and will ever care again about the neckbeard, 30 year old + no -lifers. Indeed, they will soon be a minority in the gaming world. So get used to it.

Teenagers + Women are target demographics for gaming marketers from now on. There are so many females in EQ2 now and they are the ones that buy so much shit from station exchange for houses and fluff, that this, too, will be a common occurrence. Women gamers tend to play casual but long term, which is a marketer's dream, as they are relatively easy to please in terms of content.

Hardcore players were always a minority but they will eventually be ignored completely as companies don't care if you play 10 mins per month or 400 hours per month, which is why you see EQ live now trying to cater to new players. Although EQ live will probably tank, because it's been around too long & not enough marketing is there. WoW actually is a good business model, it caters to every gamestyle, i.e., you can level quickly but high ranking pvp rating etc are ways to differentiate hardcore vs. casual players.

People act as if noobs that are max level can't be excluded from gameplay.. There are many ways to weed 'noob' players out, with achievements, gear, guild etc.. Plus, I think people are overestimating how easy it is to play. You may have knowledge over the other people but seriously it's not that difficult with the web to figure out things all by themselves.

[Uteunayr]

Fail. You know what a gaming COMPANY is right? It's there to make money, their primary goal is to make you addicted & make money. They don't give a shit about you or your nostalgia.

These things are not mutually exclusive, and in your anti-anti-game company fervor, you seem to have missed that fact. AAA companies have, by and large, abandoned their primary fan bases due to the influx of bro-gamers into the market that either began, or was significantly accelerated with, Halo. They do this because they believe that it is more profitable to appeal to that market, and there may be something to that argument.

But being there to make money does not necessarily entail not giving a shit about nostalgia. Games like Terraria have made tons of cash as an indie game by appealing to nostalgia. Amnesia came into the gaming market at a time when AAA horror was all but dead because the gaming companies decided they were not the profit-hogging super games that would make millions of dollars. You see successful games like Serious Sam, and Shadow Warrior, appealing to the nostalgia for old Quake-style shooters that were ultimately phased about because a game controller cannot function well enough to handle such speed and precision requirements.

Then look at a company like Valve, that frequently states that their profit maximization is in fact a goal, but that profit maximization is not something that falls to one strategy. Certainly, you can be an EA and pump out tons of games that appeal to nostalgia, grab a quick buck, or you can make games that attempt to addict the player base, and extract more resources, EA has been doing that for a while. But EA's value has also been dropping consistently for a while.

Now, some would say Valve can talk that way as they are coming from a position where Valve's success isn't contingent upon their games, or their quality. But just look at Nintendo. If a company has ever existed that is solely based on nostalgia, that is Nintendo. Every console they release the same games, and people pay for them. It is easy enough to see why, people loved Mario back in the day, people love Mario now. Nostalgia is a powerful force, and it can sell Nintendo's products without any reasonable third party support.

It isn't only a fact that many companies do care about nostalgia, but it is a rational outcome of the fact that they are there to make money. If they are there to make money, and when some companies forbid the nostalgia appeal, you get other companies that fill that market. Some companies will merge nostalgia to grab old fans, with new content to appeal to new ones, and their success hinges on their ability to balance these two.

Markets do not solely focus on the most profitable centers, as there becomes a greater clustering of companies appealing to that market. Some companies will invest in niche, fringe markets, because no other companies are going after them, and they can get consistent monetary gain out of those players, since the chances of making a successful game for teenagers + women (as you put it, I have an issue with this over simplification, but we'll leave that) is incredibly steep given the vast competition, it can be profitable to hedge your bets on markets that others do not occupy. This isn't just me rambling, that's how a market system works. It is absolutely basic economics that is being ignored by your post in the idea that every game company must appeal to the clustered market center.

Do you really think Blizzard wont have an issue if WoW is down to 1 million players? Yes, they will be making profit. But to go from the top of the market to just one among numerous others would be devastating to Blizzard. Look at how SoE reacted when their MMOs, EQ, SWG, Planetside, and the bunch, all failed to compete with WoW when it came out. Look how they reacted when, although their games were profitable, they were not *as* profitable as they were. SoE lost market supremacy, and for a decade, they've been sulking. Yes, Blizzard would still make money, but they'd have a lot of issues if they dropped to just 1 million subs.

So, in other words, get off your pedestal. You're playing a 15-year old elf simulator and lecturing people about how nostalgia is meaningless, and slandering people as neckbeards? Hah. That's just fucking funny.

[Gadwen]

Don't EQ and EQ2 also offer this service now? or at least plan on offering it soon?

[Swish]

Don't EQ and EQ2 also offer this service now? or at least plan on offering it soon?

If Blizzard can introduce it, most likely everyone else will follow. Levels of scumbaggery in gaming companies are reaching new lows.

[Bamz4l]

ya watch this be the next pre-order bonus for some games

[mgellan]

Jumping from 1-90 is not really a benefit in WoW anymore. It is either a hassle for a new alt or something separating a new player from playing with his friends who are already on the server. It's not something that can give a competitive advantage to one player over another or something that can be remotely construed as paying to win.

Even getting a Death Knight or whatever when you hit 55 results in truly fricken awful Death Knights (I was one of them - couldn't be bothered to invest any more time in learning from scratch so stopped playing) ... I can't imagine what people who ground their way to 90 will think of a while bunch of totally clueless lvl 90s running around!

Regards,
Mg

[Uteunayr]

Even getting a Death Knight or whatever when you hit 55 results in truly fricken awful Death Knights (I was one of them - couldn't be bothered to invest any more time in learning from scratch so stopped playing) ... I can't imagine what people who ground their way to 90 will think of a while bunch of totally clueless lvl 90s running around!

Regards,
Mg

Seriously. Do dungeons from 1-90 to level up, and you'll notice a huge slump when you hit 58 dungeons (early BC, late vanilla) of all the bad DKs. You can really feel how bad it gets. This is what level 90 will be like, lol. And with brand new content? Holy shit.

[radditsu]

I had a ui during lich king that told me what buttons to press to maximize dps and tell me exactly where to go on every boss fight. How is that not the easiest thing that exists?

[stormlord]

Fail. You know what a gaming COMPANY is right? It's there to make money, their primary goal is to make you addicted & make money. They don't give a shit about you or your nostalgia.

This is not something new, and this will be a trend in the coming decades of MMORPG. Precedence was already set with EQ2 and its heroic characters.

Companies no longer care and will ever care again about the neckbeard, 30 year old + no -lifers. Indeed, they will soon be a minority in the gaming world. So get used to it.

Teenagers + Women are target demographics for gaming marketers from now on. There are so many females in EQ2 now and they are the ones that buy so much shit from station exchange for houses and fluff, that this, too, will be a common occurrence. Women gamers tend to play casual but long term, which is a marketer's dream, as they are relatively easy to please in terms of content.

Hardcore players were always a minority but they will eventually be ignored completely as companies don't care if you play 10 mins per month or 400 hours per month, which is why you see EQ live now trying to cater to new players. Although EQ live will probably tank, because it's been around too long & not enough marketing is there. WoW actually is a good business model, it caters to every gamestyle, i.e., you can level quickly but high ranking pvp rating etc are ways to differentiate hardcore vs. casual players.

People act as if noobs that are max level can't be excluded from gameplay.. There are many ways to weed 'noob' players out, with achievements, gear, guild etc.. Plus, I think people are overestimating how easy it is to play. You may have knowledge over the other people but seriously it's not that difficult with the web to figure out things all by themselves.
WoW still cares about hardcores and nostalgia. They keep saying their next expansion will bring back the old times. They even did a revamping of old content some time back where htey painstakingly tried to preserve the character of what was there. And even in your own post you mention how the high ranking pvp ratings are ways to differentiate hardcores from casual players. Well, I've made a couple posts here where I mention how they moved the grindy gameplay to the end-game in WoW to appeal to the casuals while not alienating the hardcore 24/7 players. This was easy to do because grindy gameplay is cheap and they used it to keep the neckbeards playing.

I agree they don't go out of their way to satisfy the nostalgia itch, nor do they go out of their way to make content for hardcores, BUT they do at least go far enough to rake in some cash. Generally, I have to agree with you that the market is moving towards woman and teenagers and also console players and this is like a tidal wave washing over the industry, but as another poster states, this doesn't leave everybody else abandoned. If there's an untapped market, even if it's niche and small, companies will go after it because that's how markets work. Even the big games will try to tap into those things in small amounts, just as WoW uses pvp rankings to keep hardcores playing.

Here're some examples of companies appealing to the neckbeards:

1) Wurm Online
2) Mortal Online
3) Xsyon (formerly known as Xyson)
4) Secret World
5) Entropia Universe (expensive mmo and real cash economy)
6) ArcheAge (1) and other asian MMORPG's (tend to be more hardcore)
7) DayZ
8) Demon Souls/Dark Souls (single-player/multi-player)
9) Dwarf Fortress (single player)
10) The Dark Mod (2) (standalone version of the Thief series single-player games)
11) Path of Exile (more like diablo 2 than diablo 3)
12) GoG.com (sells older classic games)
13) Hundreds or thousands of small scale single-player and multi-player games

(1) - http://nobodyplaysgames.com/forums/index.php?/topic/124-archeage-review-from-february-2013/
(2) - http://www.thedarkmod.com/main/

[Quineloe]

Smart of blizzard to do that. Honestly, WoW doesn't start until you're max level, so this doesn't really bother me. This also is undercutting the RMT I'm sure. And if you're going to come back and don't feel like leveling, you may as well buy an account. I might buy one if I didn't wanna risk getting addicted to WoW again.

Might as well do away with levels completely if that's the approach now.

[Ahldagor]

7 Million is huge.. They still will be making a profit with a couple of million or even one million..

not in terms of dollars. blizz is doing everything they can to stop a sinking ship and trying to get that number back to 12million. i think swish said it earlier that the game has just run its course.

[Swish]

The problem they've got now is that they've made it so easy, and put such stupid achievements in (do a quest, hail a mob type stuff) that if the next expansion turns really hardcore they'll risk losing the douchebag easy mode players who are used to being guided and ushered through quest after quest, raid after raid.

I blame the addons, as good as some of them were...everything turned insanely trivial (the quest walkthrough ones particularly).

[Uteunayr]

I had a ui during lich king that told me what buttons to press to maximize dps and tell me exactly where to go on every boss fight. How is that not the easiest thing that exists?

I guess to be fair to WoW, raid encounters are currently designed so such a mod is not possible, and most classes have been transitioned from a rotation based system to a priority based system (although a priority system still has addons to make it easier).

not in terms of dollars. blizz is doing everything they can to stop a sinking ship and trying to get that number back to 12million. i think swish said it earlier that the game has just run its course.

I do not think their issue is in the game simply having run its' course, it is something Blizzard has done. Okay, so here's my view on what happened with WoW.

WoW came about when MMOs were, by and large, difficult. It took a lot of time to do virtually anything, and it lacked direction. Now, WoW wasn't "easy" exactly, but it did offer a new type of MMO structure: the quest grind. This was incredibly directed. This made it easier to get into from the get-go. Additionally, WoW came around when the internet, and gaming, was by and large becoming more socially acceptable, or rather more common. Lastly, you have a lot of players who remember Blizzard for the Trinity.

So, when you combine these, you get something fascinating. You get a huge clustering of players that remember Blizzard's great games, and it is accessible. More accessible than previous MMOs. It is more socially desirable, so these fans are able to get their friends into the game more easily than was in the past, and those friends will stick because the game is more accessible.

Therefore, you have a huge bump in the game's population quickly. This creates the most extensive social network that existed at the time in video games.

Now, a truth about social networks is that the more complex they are, the more forces are acting on any actor within that system at one time. In other words, the community perpetuates itself. The large community ensures a continuation of the large community.

You see this as a recruiter in WoW, in which a portion of the population will quit the game. But when they quit, they will go on for a while, but they lose access to the social network, their friends. So after a while, they want to be back in that network, so they want to play a MMO with their friends. But to get back into that network, they must go back into WoW, as that is the only network that has a centralization of all their friends. So, they return to WoW.

As this player returns to WoW, another player is quitting, and will do the same thing. And so on. The cycle is one in which the community persists because the community is so centralized, so tight, that it is the only place many people can agree on to go to, because most people are already there.

So that is why, from the perception of a former guild leader, raid leader, main recruiter, of a top guild in the top 50 of WoW servers, that is why WoW has such a huge player base, and lasted for so long.

However, in more recent times, as I have played through the game's history, and I played most actively during the recent decline (LK->Now). Blizzard has acted as if WoW's success is based on their own design decisions, and that it is the quality of the game, rather than the strength of the community, which perpetuates the game.

In this, Blizzard started to do stuff that obliterates community, because they don't realize the community is what matters, but access to their content. So if they increase access to content, they contend, then more people will join. So you get the LFD system, and the LFR system, which abolishes any sense of community, or reputation in the game. This begins to make the game's community one that is nasty, and this is when the game started to decline (LK/Cata).

Further, Blizzard, still believing it is all about their content, rather than their community, they do things like the class changes. You see Blizzard not just nerfing classes, but entirely changing around their play style. You get Blizzard making it so Protection Warrior's rage system is now just energy, and instead of being a unique toolbox, for the sake of "active mitigation" they make all tanks except Death Knights work as: Use one of three abilities to generate resource. Spend resource on one of two short term CDs. They do this because they say it is "More Fun", without *any* support for this.

That isn't just a nerf, that's an entire change to the play style of the game, and they do it in their arrogance that it is "more fun", but it ultimately pushed away virtually every Protection Warrior, Bear Druid veteran. I saw major losses in my guild in terms of Warlocks, many of whom were disgusted by the entire class overhaul they did.

This is what will make WoW die. Blizzard's arrogance that WoW persists because of their game design, rather than because of the strength of community. Their design will only push away people from the game. Very few people saw their class changes and went "Wow, finally my class has been simplified to the point that I want to play it for the content!", instead, their veteran players (hardcore OR casual) were faced with drastic changes, and wanted to quit instead of keeping playing. Not even the strength of the social network was enough to keep people in, that's how bad their content is.

Hopefully when it does die, we'll see a resurgence of interesting and unique MMOs, as we have had way too much repetitiveness and lack of innovation in the MMO market for the past decade.

[Grimfan]

Hopefully when it does die, we'll see a resurgence of interesting and unique MMOs, as we have had way too much repetitiveness and lack of innovation in the MMO market for the past decade.

I've been saying this quite a lot, and I know it's getting old for a lot of people to hear, but I believe we'll be seeing some big changes when ideas like Project Spark and Storybricks are finished, or at least ready for an MMO market.

[Ahldagor]

Very few people saw their class changes and went "Wow, finally my class has been simplified to the point that I want to play it for the content!", instead, their veteran players (hardcore OR casual) were faced with drastic changes, and wanted to quit instead of keeping playing. Not even the strength of the social network was enough to keep people in, that's how bad their content is.


the overahaul of prot warriors made me quit, so much agreed on this.

[Ahldagor]

I've been saying this quite a lot, and I know it's getting old for a lot of people to hear, but I believe we'll be seeing some big changes when ideas like Project Spark and Storybricks are finished, or at least ready for an MMO market.

don't know either of those, but that's because i stopped keeping up with the mmo scene.i didn't even know elder scrolls online was a thing until i went to a friends house and he was playing the first beta. but what it's really going to take is a dedicated publisher that is patient and understanding enough to know that a really good game isn't going to be cookie cut, and that the player base of that game isn't going to be tens of millions of people.

[Uteunayr]

the overahaul of prot warriors made me quit, so much agreed on this.

Yeah... I stuck in after the Prot Warrior changes, and I went to Death Knight tanking. There was still a lot of skill that went into it, just like pre-MoP Prot Warriors... But it didn't have the same feeling. Charge is a drug, and being without it just hurts. But post-MoP Warrior wasn't Warrior, so it's Charge and be bored, or no Charge and have some challenge.

One thing they did, content wise, that was awesome was the Brawler's Guild. I don't know if you saw that, but in MoP, they released a battle arena of 1v1 of player versus enemy. Except they are powerful, and require strategies to kill, as you were limited to 2 minutes (after 2 minutes, you were instant killed). Challenging, but tons of fun. I managed to go 25-0 before dying for the first time when it first came out. I had only the knowledge of the fights from seeing others do them, not having done them myself or looked them up. This is my 25th fight (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5-vbsm-Vqs) in which you had a huge solo-DPS requirement, but the goblins shoot these rockets that fire every 1/2 second (they hit for about 500k, when I had around 600-750k hp, so getting hit twice = death), and they rotate between targeting you, and a random spot near you. So you would run around them, spreading the bomb fire that was aimed at you, on top of them, so friendly fire did the DPS work for you. Those fireballs at the end meant I was just about to be killed due to time.

But other than that, they really did fuck up a lot of the game.

[Ahldagor]

Yeah... I stuck in after the Prot Warrior changes, and I went to Death Knight tanking. There was still a lot of skill that went into it, just like pre-MoP Prot Warriors... But it didn't have the same feeling. Charge is a drug, and being without it just hurts. But post-MoP Warrior wasn't Warrior, so it's Charge and be bored, or no Charge and have some challenge.

One thing they did, content wise, that was awesome was the Brawler's Guild. I don't know if you saw that, but in MoP, they released a battle arena of 1v1 of player versus enemy. Except they are powerful, and require strategies to kill, as you were limited to 2 minutes (after 2 minutes, you were instant killed). Challenging, but tons of fun. I managed to go 25-0 before dying for the first time when it first came out. I had only the knowledge of the fights from seeing others do them, not having done them myself or looked them up. This is my 25th fight (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5-vbsm-Vqs) in which you had a huge solo-DPS requirement, but the goblins shoot these rockets that fire every 1/2 second (they hit for about 500k, when I had around 600-750k hp, so getting hit twice = death), and they rotate between targeting you, and a random spot near you. So you would run around them, spreading the bomb fire that was aimed at you, on top of them, so friendly fire did the DPS work for you. Those fireballs at the end meant I was just about to be killed due to time.

But other than that, they really did fuck up a lot of the game.


i quit just after the talent change before mop came out. like a week after if i'm recalling right. that brawler guild thing looks pretty fun, but not 15 dollars a month fun. i did do some of the long meta achivements like the seeker, what a long strange trip it's been, the cooking, the fishing, the reps, and, very likely, every non raid quest in the game up to mop, so i did see a lot of content. raiding was fun when i could, karazhan still my favorite one, but that raid finder thing was just retarded.

[Uteunayr]

i quit just after the talent change before mop came out. like a week after if i'm recalling right. that brawler guild thing looks pretty fun, but not 15 dollars a month fun. i did do some of the long meta achivements like the seeker, what a long strange trip it's been, the cooking, the fishing, the reps, and, very likely, every non raid quest in the game up to mop, so i did see a lot of content. raiding was fun when i could, karazhan still my favorite one, but that raid finder thing was just retarded.

Yeah, it isn't $15 a month fun. It isn't something to keep you in WoW, it is just proof that even a broken clock is right two times a day. Blizzard did manage to make some decent content, but the rest was just shit.

[Swish]

I had around 600-750k hp

http://static1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120311175631/random-ness/images/0/0b/Homer_hedge.gif






















I think my shaman was hitting for 250ish in vanilla pvp (without a windfury landing).

[Ahldagor]

http://static1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120311175631/random-ness/images/0/0b/Homer_hedge.gif


I think my shaman was hitting for 250ish in vanilla pvp (without a windfury landing).

hehe, the numbers did get ridiculous, but those recount readers loved em

[Grimfan]

don't know either of those, but that's because i stopped keeping up with the mmo scene.i didn't even know elder scrolls online was a thing until i went to a friends house and he was playing the first beta. but what it's really going to take is a dedicated publisher that is patient and understanding enough to know that a really good game isn't going to be cookie cut, and that the player base of that game isn't going to be tens of millions of people.


Project Spark is a world building tool where you can do some really basic AI customization but you're able to do it by going in and creating a brain for the NPC you're messing with, giving it needs and wants, actions and reactions, and other such things. There's a lot more to it than that, but the AI part is what interests me. Storybricks is a similar idea, without worldbuilding that just focuses on AI. You can make an entire action/reaction tree for an NPC very quickly, and the actions that your character makes controls how the AI feels about him in the future, so you can potentially have a very natural in-game faction system.

The Storybricks developers are working with Sony for EQ Next, and their AI building tools/scripts will be available in EQ Next Landmark for people to make their own NPC's.

[Ahldagor]

Project Spark is a world building tool where you can do some really basic AI customization but you're able to do it by going in and creating a brain for the NPC you're messing with, giving it needs and wants, actions and reactions, and other such things. There's a lot more to it than that, but the AI part is what interests me. Storybricks is a similar idea, without worldbuilding that just focuses on AI. You can make an entire action/reaction tree for an NPC very quickly, and the actions that your character makes controls how the AI feels about him in the future, so you can potentially have a very natural in-game faction system.

The Storybricks developers are working with Sony for EQ Next, and their AI building tools/scripts will be available in EQ Next Landmark for people to make their own NPC's.

that sounds interesting. have they said anything regarding adaptations for the ai scenarios?

[Grimfan]

that sounds interesting. have they said anything regarding adaptations for the ai scenarios?

They have not talked much about how it will work in EQ Next. Youtube has some storybricks stuff on it, but most of it is pretty old. Right now it seems they are keeping the technology pretty close to their chest because according to Smedley, "Have no doubts (ed: about the emergent ai system). The emergent AI system is the real secret sauce. Forget the awesome world that you can blow up. This is what's really going to change MMOs forever. (http://www.reddit.com/r/EQNext/comments/1w2lu2/im_john_smedl)" Yes, the dude has been known to talk a lot of stuff up, and to talk trash in general, but I believe him when he talks about it like this. AI is something that has been missing from MMO's for a long time, having a better system would be pretty excellent in my opinion, potentially better than having a world made of voxels.

[Uteunayr]

Yeah. He seemed to me to be more pointing out that everyone is talking about how huge the voxel based destructible world will be. And while it will be good to see it in MMOs in the future, the real big thing that is going to change the name of the game is their AI. And I agree, it is what I am most interested in.

And it works well with a destructible world of voxels, because you need better than static AI if you want a fully destructible world, otherwise you either get indestructible islands (which are annoying) for every NPC (easy in small doses, few areas, harder the more common it is), or you get griefed NPCs that respawn over pits.

[Ahldagor]

this AI sounds interesting. i just might have to check out EQN when it comes out.