Well, I thought this blog deserved a send-off of some kind--I really did have a lot of fun with it when I started it now over two years ago. That statement is shocking to me, in and of itself. It's kind of hard to believe that it's been that long just since then, and even moreso, that my time playing WoW spanned nearly six and a half years (!).
I admit, I will miss the old game--the one that began to die slowly with the release of Burning Crusade. Although it had its faults, BC was a fun and expansive addition to the original game. My excitement for Wrath of the Lich King, while still a rather manic excitement for the new features being released, was somewhat muted in comparison to the upcoming release of BC and refocused on somewhat different priorities. In retrospect, beginning with the announcement of WOTLK, my excitement for the new expansion was more towards the hope that it would "bring the magic back," so to speak, rather than the incredible number of new features, additions, tweaks, and so on that so excited me about BC's release.
Then, when Cataclysm was announced and the PR campaign began to ramp up to feverish intensity, I followed it all--but more and more, I began to feel reservations and doubts about the ability of the game to really deliver an epic, original-WoW style experience.
Sadly, it was overall a huge disappointment, at least for me. In their attempt to please every kind of player, Blizzard bit themselves in the ass with a mish-mash of annoyances, blatant attempts at harnessing addictive design elements simply to secure a daily time investment from all players (not just the "hardcore" elements), as well as increasing amounts of "social integration" that fueled the natural tendencies of habitual players to spend time on the game simply socializing, rather than actually playing the game itself. This meta-game style design path was the final nail in the coffin for me, I think.
The amount of drama, elitism, ego, shameless trolling and constant peer pressure to follow the crowd, rather than pursuing whatever personal goals and gameplay styles that each individual player preferred grew and thrived under the guise of "accessibility," "social gaming," "new gameplay mechanics," "guild management features" and a host of other new design decisions that grabbed the game by the hand and took it to corporate-themepark territory. You can literally almost pick out at random any of the major features added between the time just before the launch of WOTLK and early Cataclysm as an example linked to this trend. Over time, that growing trend simply pushed me away from the game (well, again). This time, however, it pushed me away for good.
I liked the unabashedly nerdy, "come as you are," skill-based meritocracy of the original game, with its nearly unlimited avenues of play and options for creative gameplay that it had for each and every kind of player, with the occasional "incredibly grindy but epicly rewarding quest or achievement," that appealed to the gamers with more time on their hands. The original game lacked polish, it's true--but I think that's what made so many people love it. It did the important things well, and focused on the minor issues only if they presented serious problems for the important ones. This is a good way to allocate development resources, and it was incredibly successful, both for the game's developers, subscription numbers, revenue and growth--but also for the players.
However, in Blizzard's rush to meet what I am sure were top-level management-set metrics and standards for subscriptions and revenue, WoW's development focus gradually, but surely, shifted to one based on popular opinion first and foremost. Get enough players to complain about one thing and (appear to) threaten subscriber numbers, and you could always expect an irresistible push from upper level management to appease the masses rather than risk corporate revenue streams. I believe the primary reason that was, and is, driving this top-down micro-designing (micromanagement of game design) was the marketing campaign that WoW was driven on. Subscriber numbers and revenue were largely the basis of that marketing campaign: "Most popular MMO ever!" "The only MMO to reach 10 million subscribers!" "WoW now more popular than ever!" This was surely because the game had little else to promote itself with, having already started to stagnate several years ago, and lacking the innovation that made it so compelling and unique among other games on the market--as I said, shortly after the release of Burning Crusade.
Perhaps you can see how this demagogue approach to development fits in to the more blatant social integration features that gradually became a core component of WoW's development towards the end of WOTLK.
These design decisions and development paths based on social media and blurring the line between "real life" and "in game" ended up killing WoW utterly. By now, that's apparent to most of the general public. It's only a matter of time now. The game I knew is dead and buried; its current incarnation is the walking dead. And yet, despite all that I said here, I am still a little sad to see it go. Despite how much of my time the game sucked up while I was in college and after I graduated, I really did enjoy it immensely for the majority of the time I was playing it. The game, as it was then, I could easily call one of the best games ever created. That is my opinion, but I feel pretty strongly about it.
Thus--this is my formal farewell to WoW. Drums and fanfare. I had stopped playing entirely around early February of this year, but I made the decision to cancel my account for good this past April, and it expired shortly after, only a month later. It is entirely too much to hope for, but I have to hope that at least a few development houses and game designers take some note and words of warning from the path Blizzard took--large game publishing conglomerates and corporate "suits" have been, and will be, threatening every "AAA" title that will be developed from now and into the near future. There is an axiom of game development that states, paraphrased, that you can either create a good game, or you can make a lot of money. There is some middle ground between the two, but in my simplistic terms, it comes down to either luck, or an extremely long design-development cycle (throughout which you will be harangued endlessly by all manner of people who have a stake in the game's release--financiers, fans, investors, and a host of others as well). Money will always be a strong lure for successful products, but once you walk that path, it's extremely difficult, if at all possible, to leave it.
Requiescat in Pace, WoW. And thanks to the few that have, or ever did, read my blog--I miss the days when reading the latest theorycrafting posts or role play stories were a fun daily activity for me. You all made the game much more special than any "Battle.net friend updates" could ever do, and it made me feel like part of the community to maintain my own slice of it here.
Showing posts with label blizzard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blizzard. Show all posts
Monday, August 8, 2011
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Explanations, and a New Main
I've been absent from Shadow Priest blogging for a while not because I got bored, or quit WoW (although I've come close a few times, I think). I just switched my main to my mage, located back on Zul'jin where my wife and I were playing last year before transferring to KT in the final months of BC.
Posting about mage theorycrafting doesn't seem to fit in a blog titled "A Shadow Priest," hence the lack of activity. I appreciate that some of my older posts are still getting comments -- I like seeing that I wasn't just talking to thin air (but I wouldn't necessarily care if that was the case, either!).
In the past couple months, I've been dedicated to my mage and finally got back into 25-mans about mid-August. He's about as geared out as one can get without dipping into Heroic 25-mans, pretty much. I also transferred my priest back to ZJ as well. I suppose I should update my bio on the right sometime.
I'm starting to get bored as getting gear is way too easy when you clear 10 and 25 man ToC and 10 and 25 Onyxia every week. Hell, it was easy before I was doing that. After a couple weeks I finally got enough people to get interested in going back to Ulduar, and finally saw Thorim, Vezax, and Yogg for the first time -- sadly enough. We're wiping on Yogg's second phase, but that encounter is everything I was hoping it would be. It beats ToC hands down.
I especially like and enjoy encounters designed not to be brute-forced through gear. They show thought and effort on the part of the design team, and other than Ulduar, that sort of effort isn't really apparent in the raids so far implemented in this expansion. 80s are perfectly capable of wiping even in BWL these days. I've been in quite a few pugs myself who didn't bother listening to warning to avoid standing in front of Ebonroc, for instance, or to avoid Nef's shadowflame.
We're not likely to ever do much in H-ToC25, due to too much dead weight on the roster, but H-ToC10 is still a possibility. This is an unfortunate truth, but given the direction raiding has been going since WoTLK launched, and Blizzard's stance towards universal content delivery, it's kind of to be expected, although I'm not a fan of it. Lackluster performance and minimal drive to succeed are simply a natural consequence of the level of (gear) quality being so high these days, compared to what's actually required for the current content. Improving skills and performance in order to push progression content is simply not necessary when your gear is already compensating for so much in the regular runs, but not enough to bridge the gap to the hardmodes/Heroic modes. Many people in the guild who might be interested in Heroic modes for the rewards in doing so aren't interested in putting up with the weaker links that we would have to bring in in order to make those attempts.
Blizzard really, really fucked up with ToC, in so many ways. It's a mistake in every way.
This is turning into a much larger post, so I'll cut it here. Hope to write more in the future. May be mage-related more than priest-related, so fair warning.
Posting about mage theorycrafting doesn't seem to fit in a blog titled "A Shadow Priest," hence the lack of activity. I appreciate that some of my older posts are still getting comments -- I like seeing that I wasn't just talking to thin air (but I wouldn't necessarily care if that was the case, either!).
In the past couple months, I've been dedicated to my mage and finally got back into 25-mans about mid-August. He's about as geared out as one can get without dipping into Heroic 25-mans, pretty much. I also transferred my priest back to ZJ as well. I suppose I should update my bio on the right sometime.
I'm starting to get bored as getting gear is way too easy when you clear 10 and 25 man ToC and 10 and 25 Onyxia every week. Hell, it was easy before I was doing that. After a couple weeks I finally got enough people to get interested in going back to Ulduar, and finally saw Thorim, Vezax, and Yogg for the first time -- sadly enough. We're wiping on Yogg's second phase, but that encounter is everything I was hoping it would be. It beats ToC hands down.
I especially like and enjoy encounters designed not to be brute-forced through gear. They show thought and effort on the part of the design team, and other than Ulduar, that sort of effort isn't really apparent in the raids so far implemented in this expansion. 80s are perfectly capable of wiping even in BWL these days. I've been in quite a few pugs myself who didn't bother listening to warning to avoid standing in front of Ebonroc, for instance, or to avoid Nef's shadowflame.
We're not likely to ever do much in H-ToC25, due to too much dead weight on the roster, but H-ToC10 is still a possibility. This is an unfortunate truth, but given the direction raiding has been going since WoTLK launched, and Blizzard's stance towards universal content delivery, it's kind of to be expected, although I'm not a fan of it. Lackluster performance and minimal drive to succeed are simply a natural consequence of the level of (gear) quality being so high these days, compared to what's actually required for the current content. Improving skills and performance in order to push progression content is simply not necessary when your gear is already compensating for so much in the regular runs, but not enough to bridge the gap to the hardmodes/Heroic modes. Many people in the guild who might be interested in Heroic modes for the rewards in doing so aren't interested in putting up with the weaker links that we would have to bring in in order to make those attempts.
Blizzard really, really fucked up with ToC, in so many ways. It's a mistake in every way.
This is turning into a much larger post, so I'll cut it here. Hope to write more in the future. May be mage-related more than priest-related, so fair warning.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Blizzcon 2009
Watching the live feed on the net right now.
DirectTV's feed is terrible, but I'm loving this coverage.
The CEO definitely said we could look forward to some "cataclysmic" news this weekend. (ooooOOOOOoooo) :)
edit: It was all true. All of it. Boubouille is the f***ing man.
edit2: Worgen have the sickest looking zone I've seen in WoW yet. Very Ravenloft-esque!
DirectTV's feed is terrible, but I'm loving this coverage.
The CEO definitely said we could look forward to some "cataclysmic" news this weekend. (ooooOOOOOoooo) :)
edit: It was all true. All of it. Boubouille is the f***ing man.
edit2: Worgen have the sickest looking zone I've seen in WoW yet. Very Ravenloft-esque!
Monday, August 10, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Jumping on the bandwagon
All right, I'll say it: Shadow Priests are being ignored. Ghostcrawler knows it, Shadow Priests know it, everyone knows it.
I don't think that we're competitive dps, either. I wish I had a recent WWS parse to prove it, but I don't. Either you take it on my say-so, or you call me a liar--I'm okay with either of those options. However, the top DPS slots in our 10-mans (which weren't even great for me in the first place), I'm lucky to place top 4 in a non-aoe situation, or above any similarly-geared melee class. Although I'm not the best-geared priest, my rotation is solid and doesn't vary much, and the fights I am thinking of as examples don't require me to move a whole lot (Razorscale, minus aoe-ing the adds; XT when I don't have the aoe slot; Kologarn; Ignis etc.).
So what, then, is the problem? A lot of people would say scaling is a huge issue--Shadow Priests are one of the worst scaling classes/specs in the game right now, second only perhaps to ... actually, I can't think of any. I'm going to go ahead and say we're the worst off in terms of scaling. Our gear gap is growing, and it's not getting any better.
I have heard all sorts of reasons for this gap:
I have two major suggestions aimed at improving the scaling issues in particular. One, improve the spell damage coefficient on Mind Flay and drop the snare, or buff the range and drop the snare. Or (dare I say it) do both on the current glyph to simply make it into even more of a must-have PVE glyph, which is fine for me, and I think most Shadow Priests would also agree given the options available at the moment. The alternative is the make the baseline spell a no-snare, extended range, better spell damage coefficient version, and change the glyph so that it will return Mind Flay to the original version. Either way works for us.
And secondly, depending on which direction Blizzard wants to take design-wise for the class, either redesign our tree to not be so reliant on applying/maintaining our dots for optimal damage and give us a spammable nuke, or improve our dots to more directly scale with gear. Wowinsider floated the idea I've heard before of having haste give some kind of a benefit to our dots. As it stands, it does nothing for the dot component of our dps, and with us being so reliant on dots to do damage, effectively makes haste half as helpful as it should be.
I'd rather not sacrifice our reliance on dots--that'd effectively make Shadow Priests into a diet mage or warlock, an accusation levelled at us in the past.
But for the love of god, FIX MIND FLAY!
I don't think that we're competitive dps, either. I wish I had a recent WWS parse to prove it, but I don't. Either you take it on my say-so, or you call me a liar--I'm okay with either of those options. However, the top DPS slots in our 10-mans (which weren't even great for me in the first place), I'm lucky to place top 4 in a non-aoe situation, or above any similarly-geared melee class. Although I'm not the best-geared priest, my rotation is solid and doesn't vary much, and the fights I am thinking of as examples don't require me to move a whole lot (Razorscale, minus aoe-ing the adds; XT when I don't have the aoe slot; Kologarn; Ignis etc.).
So what, then, is the problem? A lot of people would say scaling is a huge issue--Shadow Priests are one of the worst scaling classes/specs in the game right now, second only perhaps to ... actually, I can't think of any. I'm going to go ahead and say we're the worst off in terms of scaling. Our gear gap is growing, and it's not getting any better.
I have heard all sorts of reasons for this gap:
- Needing to use Glyph of Mind Flay to even get close to the range of other caster dps classes. Range issues in general.
- Mind Flay sucks. A crappy spell damage coefficient due to snare component + glyph (effectively) removing snare component = bad spell.
- Haste simply sucks. It doesn't scale, it's too dependent on latency, and its usefulness as a stat hasn't kept pace with the buffs to other mechanics that tremendously increase the usefulness of crit rating.
- No "big nuke" on a cooldown for burn phases. Inner Focus does not a dps cooldown make. Some Shadow Priests I know don't even take that talent, for so long considered mandatory, with no appreciable impact on their capabilities.
- Various bugs the community has been aware of for ages that haven't gotten fixed; i.e. Shadow Weaving stacking (if anything nerfed, due to the "fixing" of the bug with Mind Flay that made it easy to build stacks), goofy mechanics with Shadow Word: Pain, etc.
- A long "ramp-up" time that prevents us from front-loading damage in any way, shape, or form. Ten seconds after mages are happily throwing Frostfire Bolts, we're still applying dots and haven't started the meat of our rotation.
- Sort of related: no spammable nuke.
- Cooldown on Devouring Plague (though to be fair, this is being fixed). As it stands, if we don't want to burn the cooldown, for example, on trash--it's 20% dps gone off the top.
- Dispersion has almost no PVE utility at all.
I have two major suggestions aimed at improving the scaling issues in particular. One, improve the spell damage coefficient on Mind Flay and drop the snare, or buff the range and drop the snare. Or (dare I say it) do both on the current glyph to simply make it into even more of a must-have PVE glyph, which is fine for me, and I think most Shadow Priests would also agree given the options available at the moment. The alternative is the make the baseline spell a no-snare, extended range, better spell damage coefficient version, and change the glyph so that it will return Mind Flay to the original version. Either way works for us.
And secondly, depending on which direction Blizzard wants to take design-wise for the class, either redesign our tree to not be so reliant on applying/maintaining our dots for optimal damage and give us a spammable nuke, or improve our dots to more directly scale with gear. Wowinsider floated the idea I've heard before of having haste give some kind of a benefit to our dots. As it stands, it does nothing for the dot component of our dps, and with us being so reliant on dots to do damage, effectively makes haste half as helpful as it should be.
I'd rather not sacrifice our reliance on dots--that'd effectively make Shadow Priests into a diet mage or warlock, an accusation levelled at us in the past.
But for the love of god, FIX MIND FLAY!
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
I'm back
Rough time in the past month or so, but I made it out okay. Work, real life, etc.
I missed writing in this blog, but I simply could not think of anything to say that was worthwhile. I didn't really like the article I had been writing (part 1 of which is below) and I haven't been doing much in WoW besides levelling a mage, who just hit 80 yesterday.
I've been feeling very burnt out on raiding. I revisited this feeling when my mage hit 80 without me even realizing I was about to do so. I hadn't been paying attention, and it was quite surprising when the achievement and grats from the guild popped up, actually. A mere hour afterward, where usually I would be busy running instances repeatedly grinding for rep, badges, and gear, after a failed bid at Wintergrasp for a VoA run and two heroics--one of which failed miserably--I logged off and went to go play [prototype].
Perhaps it's because my 25-man guild recently dropped to 10-mans after repeated attendance problems crippled our 25-man progression runs, and I just cannot take 10 mans seriously enough to make a determined effort. I know I'm feeling a bit disenfranchised and bored with life at 80. Too often I get feelings of deja vu contemplating running dailies for the 24215345th time, or busting my ass grinding money for raids that are inevitably wipefests on bosses we've already cleared before, or levelling professions again, or starting another alt to do the same quests for the fifteenth time.
All right, I'll say it: WoW is definitely starting to lose my interest. A lot of people would squarely blame Blizzard for that, but in truth, it's as much me changing as the game. Here's what it really comes down to: I simply do not have the resources or inclination to sacrifice social life for the game at this point in my life, although I know I'd enjoy it all over again, at least for a while.
I had considered changing guilds to one that required attendance for raiding slots, but I realized that it wasn't just my schedule that I would be accommodating, but my wife's, and I wouldn't consider choosing to play WoW (raid or not) over spending time with her on any kind of permanent or semi-permanent basis. My wife's schedule is simply not set up for raiding with a new guild either, and finding a guild that will (A) end raids early enough for East Coast people with a 9-5 on a Mountain Time server, (B) take both of us, and not just one or the other, and (C) just happen to accomodate our both (reasonably full) weekday schedules while allowing for my occasional days of working late on top of that... well, let's just say, we were lucky to find the one that we're in now. A hardcore progression guild is simply out of the question, even with the recruiting frenzy going on.
Even if the stars aligned, we don't have the cred or the drive for a hardcore guild at the moment. So, changing guilds is definitely out.
And all of the above is completely disregarding the fact that both of us are reasonably attached to the people in our current guild at the moment.
Is anyone else (subscribers, followers [like i have any], random commentors, or google spiders) feeling burnout on WoW atm? Kyrilean has a post on it on his blog, but what about others? Can you deal with it? Somewhat recently I read the archives of one of the top guilds on Kel'thuzad--Pacifist--and their reasons for quitting in the midst of Burning Crusade (with an excellent and nostalgic retrospective by the members). Pacifist wasn't just one of the top guilds on Kel'thuzad, they were one of the top in the world, at a time when nobody really cared about world-firsts and shit except WoW players: in BWL/AQ40 and Naxx. And you know what? I liked it that way. I also keep remembering the reasons for the breakup of my old Horde guild on Thunderlord, also in the midst of BC, with whom I raiding with throughout pre-BC content, and all of these things seem to echo my feelings now.
I really don't want to quit yet. I'd be a fool not to see where I am headed though.
I really miss life at level 60. It was really the best time for the game.
I missed writing in this blog, but I simply could not think of anything to say that was worthwhile. I didn't really like the article I had been writing (part 1 of which is below) and I haven't been doing much in WoW besides levelling a mage, who just hit 80 yesterday.
I've been feeling very burnt out on raiding. I revisited this feeling when my mage hit 80 without me even realizing I was about to do so. I hadn't been paying attention, and it was quite surprising when the achievement and grats from the guild popped up, actually. A mere hour afterward, where usually I would be busy running instances repeatedly grinding for rep, badges, and gear, after a failed bid at Wintergrasp for a VoA run and two heroics--one of which failed miserably--I logged off and went to go play [prototype].
Perhaps it's because my 25-man guild recently dropped to 10-mans after repeated attendance problems crippled our 25-man progression runs, and I just cannot take 10 mans seriously enough to make a determined effort. I know I'm feeling a bit disenfranchised and bored with life at 80. Too often I get feelings of deja vu contemplating running dailies for the 24215345th time, or busting my ass grinding money for raids that are inevitably wipefests on bosses we've already cleared before, or levelling professions again, or starting another alt to do the same quests for the fifteenth time.
All right, I'll say it: WoW is definitely starting to lose my interest. A lot of people would squarely blame Blizzard for that, but in truth, it's as much me changing as the game. Here's what it really comes down to: I simply do not have the resources or inclination to sacrifice social life for the game at this point in my life, although I know I'd enjoy it all over again, at least for a while.
I had considered changing guilds to one that required attendance for raiding slots, but I realized that it wasn't just my schedule that I would be accommodating, but my wife's, and I wouldn't consider choosing to play WoW (raid or not) over spending time with her on any kind of permanent or semi-permanent basis. My wife's schedule is simply not set up for raiding with a new guild either, and finding a guild that will (A) end raids early enough for East Coast people with a 9-5 on a Mountain Time server, (B) take both of us, and not just one or the other, and (C) just happen to accomodate our both (reasonably full) weekday schedules while allowing for my occasional days of working late on top of that... well, let's just say, we were lucky to find the one that we're in now. A hardcore progression guild is simply out of the question, even with the recruiting frenzy going on.
Even if the stars aligned, we don't have the cred or the drive for a hardcore guild at the moment. So, changing guilds is definitely out.
And all of the above is completely disregarding the fact that both of us are reasonably attached to the people in our current guild at the moment.
Is anyone else (subscribers, followers [like i have any], random commentors, or google spiders) feeling burnout on WoW atm? Kyrilean has a post on it on his blog, but what about others? Can you deal with it? Somewhat recently I read the archives of one of the top guilds on Kel'thuzad--Pacifist--and their reasons for quitting in the midst of Burning Crusade (with an excellent and nostalgic retrospective by the members). Pacifist wasn't just one of the top guilds on Kel'thuzad, they were one of the top in the world, at a time when nobody really cared about world-firsts and shit except WoW players: in BWL/AQ40 and Naxx. And you know what? I liked it that way. I also keep remembering the reasons for the breakup of my old Horde guild on Thunderlord, also in the midst of BC, with whom I raiding with throughout pre-BC content, and all of these things seem to echo my feelings now.
I really don't want to quit yet. I'd be a fool not to see where I am headed though.
I really miss life at level 60. It was really the best time for the game.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Real life intervenes, again
Going to have to delay part 2 for now, as work is picking up more and more every day. I may have time for a post tomorrow or the day after if I'm lucky.
In my free minutes at work, I'm watching the Priest Q&A thread on the WoW forums as closely as I can. I wish they would allow RSS feeds for forum threads because I'd be all over that feature. Merlot over at Misery had some interesting questions for the developers to answer that I'm looking forward to seeing. Here's hoping they get to them.
In my free minutes at work, I'm watching the Priest Q&A thread on the WoW forums as closely as I can. I wish they would allow RSS feeds for forum threads because I'd be all over that feature. Merlot over at Misery had some interesting questions for the developers to answer that I'm looking forward to seeing. Here's hoping they get to them.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Blizzard's new philosophy, part 1
Sorry for the late post, but I only just caught up with WoW news yesterday after coming back from my honeymoon. However, I wanted to chime in with something that's been tickling me for a while about the game.
Blizzard has, in recent memory (meaning the last year or two), begun in earnest a public relations campaign that continues to out-do every MMO company that has ever existed. The amount of community interaction that Blizzard manages, on a large scale, competes favorably with smaller MMOs that regularly interact with their fans. Now, more than ever, Blizzard continues their new trend of community interaction that they began shortly after Burning Crusade's launch, with their new Q&A initiative launched several days ago.
However, this new drive is, I believe, what has contributed in large part to the loss of "old-timer" players and general disenchantment with new gameplay mechanics that are not just surprising, but actually a bit saddening to long-time WoW gamers.
Let me get two things out there right now. I'm not a Blizzard-hater, nor do I hate WoW. Blizzard is a company that continually surprises and impresses me, and the content of this post doesn't even apply to yours truly for the most part. Secondly, I in no way believe that this is the wrong direction for the game to take. I just wanted to offer a perspective on it from the eyes of someone who has played WoW almost since the day it came out in November, 2004.
The disenchantment that I have felt on occasion stems from a natural resistance to change that I, like most people in the world, possess in some quantity or another. Everyone likes the familiar game they've kept as a hobby on the side through different changes in their own "real life," and I'm no exception. However, stagnation kills MMOs. Everquest is a good example of death by stagnation. Although I played the game myself for at most a week, I could see that each expansion was content without evolution, over and over again. Innovation, to the eyes of one unfamiliar with the game's intricacies, was minimal, and repetition, the annoying device of the MMO god of carpal tunnel syndrome and loot whores, was high. As a result, when competition came out that promised a new, exciting experience, players left in droves. By the time SOE attempted to revitalize its marketing, it was far too late already to attract new players. Blizzard has, quite obviously, and beyond the ability of anyone to show otherwise, demonstrated the ability to avoid stagnation in WoW.
However, the other side of the coin is too much change causes players to lose that feeling of stability that maintains their desire to return. Players lose touch with the game when they feel that it's changing too fast to provide an individualized experience anymore, for a variety of reasons. The world of the MMO doesn't conform to memory or experience, or re-learning new rules of the world repeatedly becomes tiresome and unwanted. For a good example of this extreme, check out the "Combat System Revamp" (another SOE flub) in Star Wars: Galaxies. I won't get into the depth and consequences of the changes in this one patch alone, but let's just say they could also have called it the "lose half your subscribers overnight" patch.
Blizzard is walking a fine line here. Stay traditional, but not too traditional. Change, but don't change too much. The more people, and competing desires, the harder to balance--It's essentially a question of economies of scale. I don't think many people who regularly complain about various aspects of the game really appreciate the difficulty that Blizzard has in becoming successful without becoming a victim of that same success. Blizzard has evidently chosen to focus on their community, not exclusively, but to a great degree, as a source for the change that they recognize is necessary for the game to undertake. I'm going to make the assumption that their resistance to certain changes is also guided, less evidently but undoubtably to some degree, by their community interactions.
How Blizzard is walking this line between change and tradition, and the effect that their approach has on their long-time players (as opposed to newbies, or late-coming players) is really what I'd like to address. However, this will have to wait until part 2! I'll try to make it worth it. :)
Blizzard has, in recent memory (meaning the last year or two), begun in earnest a public relations campaign that continues to out-do every MMO company that has ever existed. The amount of community interaction that Blizzard manages, on a large scale, competes favorably with smaller MMOs that regularly interact with their fans. Now, more than ever, Blizzard continues their new trend of community interaction that they began shortly after Burning Crusade's launch, with their new Q&A initiative launched several days ago.
However, this new drive is, I believe, what has contributed in large part to the loss of "old-timer" players and general disenchantment with new gameplay mechanics that are not just surprising, but actually a bit saddening to long-time WoW gamers.
Let me get two things out there right now. I'm not a Blizzard-hater, nor do I hate WoW. Blizzard is a company that continually surprises and impresses me, and the content of this post doesn't even apply to yours truly for the most part. Secondly, I in no way believe that this is the wrong direction for the game to take. I just wanted to offer a perspective on it from the eyes of someone who has played WoW almost since the day it came out in November, 2004.
The disenchantment that I have felt on occasion stems from a natural resistance to change that I, like most people in the world, possess in some quantity or another. Everyone likes the familiar game they've kept as a hobby on the side through different changes in their own "real life," and I'm no exception. However, stagnation kills MMOs. Everquest is a good example of death by stagnation. Although I played the game myself for at most a week, I could see that each expansion was content without evolution, over and over again. Innovation, to the eyes of one unfamiliar with the game's intricacies, was minimal, and repetition, the annoying device of the MMO god of carpal tunnel syndrome and loot whores, was high. As a result, when competition came out that promised a new, exciting experience, players left in droves. By the time SOE attempted to revitalize its marketing, it was far too late already to attract new players. Blizzard has, quite obviously, and beyond the ability of anyone to show otherwise, demonstrated the ability to avoid stagnation in WoW.
However, the other side of the coin is too much change causes players to lose that feeling of stability that maintains their desire to return. Players lose touch with the game when they feel that it's changing too fast to provide an individualized experience anymore, for a variety of reasons. The world of the MMO doesn't conform to memory or experience, or re-learning new rules of the world repeatedly becomes tiresome and unwanted. For a good example of this extreme, check out the "Combat System Revamp" (another SOE flub) in Star Wars: Galaxies. I won't get into the depth and consequences of the changes in this one patch alone, but let's just say they could also have called it the "lose half your subscribers overnight" patch.
Blizzard is walking a fine line here. Stay traditional, but not too traditional. Change, but don't change too much. The more people, and competing desires, the harder to balance--It's essentially a question of economies of scale. I don't think many people who regularly complain about various aspects of the game really appreciate the difficulty that Blizzard has in becoming successful without becoming a victim of that same success. Blizzard has evidently chosen to focus on their community, not exclusively, but to a great degree, as a source for the change that they recognize is necessary for the game to undertake. I'm going to make the assumption that their resistance to certain changes is also guided, less evidently but undoubtably to some degree, by their community interactions.
How Blizzard is walking this line between change and tradition, and the effect that their approach has on their long-time players (as opposed to newbies, or late-coming players) is really what I'd like to address. However, this will have to wait until part 2! I'll try to make it worth it. :)
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