On August 03 2015 19:50 Cyro wrote: If they have any idea what they are doing, garrison and legendary ring will be nerfed to the ground to be not worth using in 7.0 and professions will be reworked in a significant way
Ring will prob follow the same logic as the cloak, reduced effect above 100 and not working at 110 (or whatever will be max level next expansion).
At base level, the activation is basically +56.25% damage for 15 seconds. I'm not sure how it acts at the later stages of upgrades, but it went to +26 and +27 with the first 2 IIRC. If it kept gaining 1% per 3 item levels, that would make the last stage increase your damage by *1.45*1.45 (2.1x damage) for that time period. It's probably going to stop somewhere between those values i think, but that's way too powerful to exist in any real form any more once the expansion is over. Hell, it's way too powerful now
On August 03 2015 17:20 Drazerk wrote: I believe I read they only intend for garrisons to be a WoD thing. There might still be money in having the garrison still running into the next expansion but I kind of doubt it.
If they dont nerf the raw gold missions, then continuing garrison will be worth it just for that.
Yep, which is why I expect them to be nerfed into the ground.
I dont think they will completely abandon the concept of Garrisons in the future, its a lot of tech they made just for WoD that would go to waste so I expect it to be recycled at least in some form.
i hope so. "houses" were really cool in Dark age of camelot and added depth in the game. It was completly out of the time though. Like ... houses weren't tied to a location or to an expension. Much like FF14. (but i didn't have the chance to try it out in FF)
I wonder if they could do houses, I'd say we'd see guild houses before player housing. With so many players, you run into database issues, this is why FFXIV can only have 630ish houses per server.
There is 30 houses per ward, and 21 wards per server (7 for each nation)
I wonder if they could do houses, I'd say we'd see guild houses before player housing. With so many players, you run into database issues, this is why FFXIV can only have 630ish houses per server.
There is 30 houses per ward, and 21 wards per server (7 for each nation)
So most of us would be landless serfs.
But, guild houses should be fine.
Wildstar has the best housing system of any MMO as far as i know and they gave it to everyone. Peaked at ~500k players, but most people did not really use housing heavily and there were a lot of limits at first, not raised until most of the players were gone. Overall, they had relatively weak servers and still supported at least a 5 digit number of decent houses. I don't doubt that a WoW realm could take guild housing fine - the WS system had a cap on hundreds of placable objects. It was more minecrafty than "pick a house and choose if you want A, B or C inside"
I just threw up a youtube search and skipped through this for a sec, seems like a good example.
I barely touched the WS housing system but it goes to show that a lot is possible in an MMO these days
not surprising, still a lot but its only going to go down - content is just not fun - they do a lot of bad jobs on different fronts. the only guys at blizzard who currently seem to do a good job is the raid encounter crew
On August 05 2015 05:11 Grettin wrote: Holy shit. Blizzard dropped down to 5.6 million subs, tokens INCLUDED.
No wonder they want a new expansion fast.
zzzz again your ignoring this was all planned since before WoD release.
I'll spell it out again. Blizzard wants roughly yearly expansions, as stated before WoD launch. Blizzcon happens almost a full year after release. Waiting for Blizzcon to announce means you cant start F&F Alpha until after because of leaks. Waiting for Blizzcon means you will be well over a year before you can release the expansion. Announcing at Gamescom lets you start Alpha/Beta sooner without fear of the title leaking and lets you have a year long expansion.
Hence the Gamescom announcement is not a result of falling numbers since WoD release.
On August 05 2015 05:11 Grettin wrote: Holy shit. Blizzard dropped down to 5.6 million subs, tokens INCLUDED.
No wonder they want a new expansion fast.
zzzz again your ignoring this was all planned since before WoD release.
I'll spell it out again. Blizzard wants roughly yearly expansions, as stated before WoD launch. Blizzcon happens almost a full year after release. Waiting for Blizzcon to announce means you cant start F&F Alpha until after because of leaks. Waiting for Blizzcon means you will be well over a year before you can release the expansion. Announcing at Gamescom lets you start Alpha/Beta sooner without fear of the title leaking and lets you have a year long expansion.
Hence the Gamescom announcement is not a result of falling numbers since WoD release.
All your points are valid, but come on. Numbers have to mean something for a company like Activision-Blizzard, especially when almost half of your subscribers vanish in 7 months.
Also, didn't Blizzard mention they've tried to push for "roughly yearly" expansions way before WoD? Look how that worked out.
All in all, i think all your points plus the Warcraft movie coming out is legitimate reasons to push expansion out so quickly and even cut the content from the current one. But i can't see why numbers wouldn't mean anything. It's still a business.
On August 05 2015 05:11 Grettin wrote: Holy shit. Blizzard dropped down to 5.6 million subs, tokens INCLUDED.
No wonder they want a new expansion fast.
zzzz again your ignoring this was all planned since before WoD release.
I'll spell it out again. Blizzard wants roughly yearly expansions, as stated before WoD launch. Blizzcon happens almost a full year after release. Waiting for Blizzcon to announce means you cant start F&F Alpha until after because of leaks. Waiting for Blizzcon means you will be well over a year before you can release the expansion. Announcing at Gamescom lets you start Alpha/Beta sooner without fear of the title leaking and lets you have a year long expansion.
Hence the Gamescom announcement is not a result of falling numbers since WoD release.
All your points are valid, but come on. Numbers have to mean something for a company like Activision-Blizzard, especially when almost half of your subscribers vanish in 7 months.
Also, didn't Blizzard mention they've tried to push for "roughly yearly" expansions way before WoD? Look how that worked out.
Should they be worried? Hell yes, the previous loss could be explained as people who came back for WoD and left again but this loss trend is keeping very strong and that should be very worrying.
And yes they had the intention of yearly expansions since Wrath orso but the signals were pretty strong that they were more serious this time. From the start the idea of only 2 raid tiers has been pushed because a year is not enough time for 3 tiers for example.
My point is just that the timing is not directly tied to the state of WoD. I'm not saying that things aren't looking bad (tho WoW is still very far from dying).
44% sub loss in 2 quarters is devastating. Even more so because the third and maybe fourth quarter are going to be the stagnant sub loss time with content drought unless they miraculously throw in another raid and release the expansion on the 1 year mark
i was hoping they'd stay somewhat level due to the recent major content patch and tokens, but another loss of over 1/5'th of the subs since last quarter
On August 05 2015 05:39 Cyro wrote: 44% sub loss in 2 quarters is devastating. Even more so because the third and maybe fourth quarter are going to be the stagnant sub loss time with content drought unless they miraculously throw in another raid and release the expansion on the 1 year mark
I can amazing a fair few developers will be having very restless nights as they keep asking themselves if they are going in the right direction with the new expansion because there will be a lot of pressure to stop this drop of players.
On August 05 2015 05:39 Cyro wrote: 44% sub loss in 2 quarters is devastating. Even more so because the third and maybe fourth quarter are going to be the stagnant sub loss time with content drought unless they miraculously throw in another raid and release the expansion on the 1 year mark
I can amazing a fair few developers will be having very restless nights as they keep asking themselves if they are going in the right direction with the new expansion because there will be a lot of pressure to stop this drop of players.
They should, because WoW really needs something new and get their shit together. Quickly too.
Basically there's no reason to stick around anymore once you're through the content.
WoW used to be a glorified chatroom of sorts, all your friends were playing it all the time as they farmed mats, did rep grinds, or ran a dungeon for the 20th time for that one drop they really wanted. Blizzard removed all the pointlessly punishing aspects of the game, but didn't find any way to replace the social functions those gameplay elements served.
So now that you can do everything except harder difficulties without giving a crap about anybody else there's no reason to stick around once you've done everything.
On August 05 2015 06:10 Seuss wrote: Basically there's no reason to stick around anymore once you're through the content.
WoW used to be a glorified chatroom of sorts, all your friends were playing it all the time as they farmed mats, did rep grinds, or ran a dungeon for the 20th time for that one drop they really wanted. Blizzard removed all the pointlessly punishing aspects of the game, but didn't find any way to replace the social functions those gameplay elements served.
So now that you can do everything except harder difficulties without giving a crap about anybody else there's no reason to stick around once you've done everything.
But cataclysm was already rapidly heading in this direction and by MoP it had been made fact. Why is the drop only happening now, if it's the devastation of the social aspect?
Not that I disagree, the evisceration of anything that promoted group formation and actually getting to know other players is the underlying thing that caused me to lose interest, but I lost interest in Cata, tried a comeback in MoP and didn't even bother anymore with WoD.
On August 05 2015 06:10 Seuss wrote: Basically there's no reason to stick around anymore once you're through the content.
WoW used to be a glorified chatroom of sorts, all your friends were playing it all the time as they farmed mats, did rep grinds, or ran a dungeon for the 20th time for that one drop they really wanted. Blizzard removed all the pointlessly punishing aspects of the game, but didn't find any way to replace the social functions those gameplay elements served.
So now that you can do everything except harder difficulties without giving a crap about anybody else there's no reason to stick around once you've done everything.
Lots of truth in this post. But tbh I dont mind it. The social aspects of the game were rather annoying imo. In classic I had enough retarded drama and learned private stuff about weird online people. Yuck. I am glad to be rid of that. Then again I am not the most social person. :D
On August 05 2015 06:10 Seuss wrote: Basically there's no reason to stick around anymore once you're through the content.
WoW used to be a glorified chatroom of sorts, all your friends were playing it all the time as they farmed mats, did rep grinds, or ran a dungeon for the 20th time for that one drop they really wanted. Blizzard removed all the pointlessly punishing aspects of the game, but didn't find any way to replace the social functions those gameplay elements served.
So now that you can do everything except harder difficulties without giving a crap about anybody else there's no reason to stick around once you've done everything.
But cataclysm was already rapidly heading in this direction and by MoP it had been made fact. Why is the drop only happening now, if it's the devastation of the social aspect?
Not that I disagree, the evisceration of anything that promoted group formation and actually getting to know other players is the underlying thing that caused me to lose interest, but I lost interest in Cata, tried a comeback in MoP and didn't even bother anymore with WoD.
It's pretty simple. Social connections don't disappear the moment you remove the mechanisms that forged them, so even if we went straight from BC to WoD you wouldn't instantly see a 5-6 million drop in players. It takes time for them to fall apart, but once it gets going in earnest it's really hard to stop.
It starts when someone leaves due to life or boredom. The hole in the social network needs to be filled, but in a game which deemphasizes getting to actually know other players it's difficult to do that. As more holes are created and not filled, or filled inadequately, the social network begins to fall apart as the remaining players have fewer reasons to care about the game. Eventually the network completely collapses.
The more mechanics which forced social interaction and investment were removed, the harder it become to fill those holes, and the more rapidly social networks fell apart. At the same time, without those mechanics it became harder to forge new ones. That's why the drop hasn't been precipitous until now.
I wonder if they could do houses, I'd say we'd see guild houses before player housing. With so many players, you run into database issues, this is why FFXIV can only have 630ish houses per server.
There is 30 houses per ward, and 21 wards per server (7 for each nation)
So most of us would be landless serfs.
But, guild houses should be fine.
Wildstar has the best housing system of any MMO as far as i know and they gave it to everyone.
On August 05 2015 06:10 Seuss wrote: Basically there's no reason to stick around anymore once you're through the content.
WoW used to be a glorified chatroom of sorts, all your friends were playing it all the time as they farmed mats, did rep grinds, or ran a dungeon for the 20th time for that one drop they really wanted. Blizzard removed all the pointlessly punishing aspects of the game, but didn't find any way to replace the social functions those gameplay elements served.
So now that you can do everything except harder difficulties without giving a crap about anybody else there's no reason to stick around once you've done everything.
But cataclysm was already rapidly heading in this direction and by MoP it had been made fact. Why is the drop only happening now, if it's the devastation of the social aspect?
Not that I disagree, the evisceration of anything that promoted group formation and actually getting to know other players is the underlying thing that caused me to lose interest, but I lost interest in Cata, tried a comeback in MoP and didn't even bother anymore with WoD.
It's pretty simple. Social connections don't disappear the moment you remove the mechanisms that forged them, so even if we went straight from BC to WoD you wouldn't instantly see a 5-6 million drop in players. It takes time for them to fall apart, but once it gets going in earnest it's really hard to stop.
It starts when someone leaves due to life or boredom. The hole in the social network needs to be filled, but in a game which deemphasizes getting to actually know other players it's difficult to do that. As more holes are created and not filled, or filled inadequately, the social network begins to fall apart as the remaining players have fewer reasons to care about the game. Eventually the network completely collapses.
The more mechanics which forced social interaction and investment were removed, the harder it become to fill those holes, and the more rapidly social networks fell apart. At the same time, without those mechanics it became harder to forge new ones. That's why the drop hasn't been precipitous until now.
I will add that this casualization started with Wrath, not Cata. Wrath implemented LFD and made dungeons trivial, as well as making raids puggable while they were relevant content with the introduction of normal/heroic modes.
Blizz tried to rein it back in with Cata, but the people who just wanted gratification nownownow whined and Blizz caved. People like to blame the difficulty of early Cata content for the dip in subs, but MoP and WoD have been jokes and we see the same trend. Note that I'm referring to heroic 5 mans here and to a lesser extent, normal raids.
EPT
