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But that's been around since long before WoW.

I'd attribute it to "it's the same shit over and over, then the same shit with shinier textures"

That's bullshit. Time has nothing to do with it, and players who are really "casual" wouldn't care about items and status in the game, only about inherent enjoyment.

Total access through trivialization of content only appeals to hardcore bads who take the game way too seriously.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

Back in my day, things got thought-out nerfs to make the bosses more accessible. Now all you whipper snappers get is a meat cleaver off the boss's hitpoints to call it a day.

RETIRED.
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Actually, they did this same thing back in 2.1 and 3.0.

Granted, TBC entry-level raids were still far harder than almost all Cata heroic raids well past 2.1, and TBC heroics were still far harder than Cata heroics post 3.0.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

wat

Druid: Meowth
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I don't think it's complete bullshit. People who don't have time to play will get less enjoyment if they are unable to get into raids or clear raid instances because they are "too hard" or their casual-ness prevents them from getting gear. That was one of Blizzard's big things, is that people couldn't see all the content.

Casuals are the bread and butter of Blizzard's revenue model, and so many decisions have been geared towards them.

LFD ---> Casuals. Log on for a bit, queue up, do your dungeon for the day, log off.
Hell, PvP is for casuals to the extreme - with bots for BGs, you don't need to play that much at all.

It's bullshit for the following reasons:
1. The instances are not "too hard" for any person of nearly normal intelligence.
2. Enjoyment is defined by the journey and not the ultimate, final goal.
3. It's never been easier or less time-intensive to get gear.
4. In the history of video gaming, or gaming in general, total completion has never been a condition for a well-designed game.

No one ever said Super Mario Bros., or Goldeneye, or Final Fantasy, or Diablo, or any other game, ever, was flawed because most players who played it never saw the ending.

That condition is unique to WoW because of how insanely seriously some people take this game, and a younger generation of gamers who have no character.



And they were stupid and wrong because that's never been a criteria of making a good game, the means they pursued towards this end reduced WoW's appeal, and what made WoW great and casual-friendly wasn't the raids but the world environment.

Total access doesn't appeal to casuals. It appeals to hardcore bads who take the game so seriously they can't handle the thought they're not as good as they would like to think, and take the game so personally they can't adapt or adjust.



The only people who do what you describe are hardcore bads who play for gear and regard the game as basically a second job. They're hardcore bads, not casuals.

Why else would someone sit through LFD queues, through the tedium and social pathology of LFD, then log off once they've gotten their pixels? Clearly, nothing about the activity itself is inherently fun, these people just want pixels so they can pretend to be cool in the virtual world. And that's as hardcore as it gets.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

Also, has anyone run a heroic as a DPS lately? It takes about two hours to get a heroic done, between queue time, mowing through the instance with agonizing slowness, wipes to easy bosses, dealing with emo/afks/replacing members, etc.

And that's just one heroic.

These so-called "casuals" who have full 346 heroic gear or nearly, maybe some honor gear too (which is just as time-intensive), and can't get at least few raid bosses down...you do the math, add up how long these people spend slogging through this shit... I don't buy the "I don't have time to be good" argument.

The thing is, they could use their time more efficiently: get the ball rolling, go heal or tank, or make friends with a healer or tank. Anything to avoid slogging through heroics at a glacial pace. If their time is so precious to them then that would be the logical approach. In practice, you never see it happen. All these players do is cry about how they have a life, which is curious when one adds up how long it must take them to get gear with their chosen approach to the game.

So I don't buy this argument that these people don't have the "time" to zone in and figure out how to do at least 9/12, something that shouldn't take more than a day or two /played from first zoning into a raid to having beaten all but the end bosses. It's just bullshit from entitled hardcore bads.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

I see what you're saying Aestu - either way we agree on one basic fact: Blizzard's development decisions over the past few years have brought us to this point.

Blizzard knows this Cash Cow is slightly sick and slowly dying - but they are determined to milk it for every dime it's worth until it draws its final breath. By then, they will certainly have the next cash cow lined up.

Clearly.



You're implying the premise that everything is going according to plan. I don't agree.

I don't believe Blizzard anticipated the ramifications of the WotLK paradigm, and I don't believe they expected such a strong negative reaction to WotLK, Cataclysm even less so. I certainly don't believe they expected to lose so many players or nearly so quickly in this expansion.

I don't believe, a year or two ago, that Blizzard anticipated that the game would be in the predicament it is now, as a direct result of their decisions, or due to age.

Evidence can be seen in the company's recent decisions.

Call to Arms, for example. A flawed and largely ineffective system that has caused at least as much trouble as it's resolved. (I never queue as dps, so I don't have a firsthand idea as to whether or to what extent tank/heal quality has changed since 4.1) The concept reeks of desperation. The devs don't address issues unless they either want to for their own egotistical reasons (lol keyring) or because they believe the problem is so serious it can't be ignored any longer.

Another is the constant flip-flopping on key issues such as dungeon/raid difficulty: saying the difficulty is fine, then nerfing them a few weeks later. Concern about players running through content too fast, then nerfing it into triviality, ensuring players will run through the two tiers even faster. It's impossible to escape the conclusion these guys just don't have a plan.

Go read the Customer Service forums, or go look at the leaked Product Slate. Blizzard clearly was operating under the belief that their game was a stable, going concern, into the long-term future. Titan won't be ready for 2-3 years at best, and WoW is supposed to coexist with it for a while, so it has to be viable as a primary revenue stream until then. At this rate of decline, that's not realistic.

Blizzard's mistakes and malfeasance will endure long after WoW and severely damage Titan's prospects. And by then, GW2 and SWOTR will have been out for a while and they will have assumed WoW's place as the entrenched MMO. Even Rift, it seems, is managing to entrench itself. Gamers will be less likely than ever to give Blizzard a second chance.

So no - I don't believe all is going according to plan.
I believe the company is in "make it up as we go along" mode so they can put off revenue going through the floor for another quarter.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

THREE CHEERS FOR MODERN CASUALS, HIP HIP

Blizzard attempts to defy human nature. Details at 11.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

LFM Sunwell

Druid: Meowth
« Steam »« Xfire »
Glorious Death Metal Music

never could figure out why so many people cried for everything to be accessible by everyone.

how is being the same (gear, titles, whatever) as everyone else due to shit being nerfed to oblivion a remotely good idea, in a genre where being a unique snowflake is pretty much the only driving factor to play the game?

On the other hand, whats the point in spending so much money on developement, programming, and writing(lol though it may be) to only have 10% of the player base see it?