Why I think World of Warcraft Legion will probably end up failing.

[Tulis]

Here's my 12 reasons why I think the new World of Warcraft Legion expansion will be no better than WOD. Every expansion has been worse than the one before it. What makes anyone think this will be an exception to this rule. There is a reason Blizzard doesn't release it's sub numbers anymore and it's because they are probably down to 3-4 million down from over 12 million during WOTLK. Video with my 12 reasons is in the link below.
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Anandtech Administrator
KeithTalent

 

[clok1966]

Blizzard did release numbers after the last expansion and also at the stock meetings, they are at 6-7 (google it for exact numbers, mine are just what i remember and are probably off 1 or two digits), you may want to do some research. WOD had good to OK reviews at launch, as time went on and people completed its content the complainers came out. A few weeks after release Blizzard did announce a pick up in subscriber base, not to the old 12 numbers of course, most likely it was small.

Wow is old, i may be wrong but its not some big secret, old games lose players as new games come out, WoW was a Juggernaut in Pay to Play and stayed there for 5-6 years, but like all games (nothing new) it got old, even with expansions. Even with 5-6 million users WOW would be(and still is) the most successful MMORPG. At release they hoped for 1 million which would beat the nearest competitor (EQ, which was at about 500,000-750,000 ish at the time and considered to be doing great).

My question, 1 post, is this to promote a youtube channel? no problem with that, WOW would be a good start 5-6 million subs would be a good group to up page counts if that was the plan...Maybe say Counter Strike is full of hackers, that will grab a few more

 

[Tweak155]

Their sub numbers are still pretty good for a PC exclusive. With all the simplifications they made in Legion, I wonder if they're working on a way to get console players involved (so a controller can be used)...

 

[JeffMD]

I think blizz may have some good success with legion. They shook the classes up again (gotta relearn shadow priest, ugh), more QOL improvements, more loot improvements (loot obtainable via personal loot can be traded, as not to waste drops!) and legion based content has generally been well received. new class. A novel way about going with weapons where any time you spend playing is rewarded with a stream of upgrades. I havn't looked at it much but I hope the new follower system is enjoyable. I actually liked the old garrison mission system, sure it was a lot of work but thats because it yielded such good rewards.

As a person who kinda dropped out of pandaria half way and skipped dreanor (after siege on orgrimar, I am just sick of Orcs), i'll be jumping into legion. May even get the collectors ( have BC and Wrath books).

 

[Harabec]

I'm of the same opinion as Jeff. But...I won't have time to actually play this one, of the next 3 xpacs. If WoW is still alive after I finish my degree I'll give it a shot.

 

[Sonikku]

I'm not looking forward to Legion at all. Xpacks cost more than ever and ship less content than ever simultaneously. There was a time when expansion patches meant something to look forward to. Now though starting with WoD they just continue to strip things down. Nerfs abound, watered down rotations. My self healing, utility, perks, even my 310% speed that took me a year to earn saw the math behind mount enhancements adjusted so it's now slower than a 280% speed was under the MoP system. This and Warlods just slowly but surely suck everything I like away. Ret is my preferred spec and it's no longer any fun to play. Tons of abilities got pruned. Warlocks lost their Demon form as surely as they lost deathcoil back in the day all for the sake of propping up Blizzard's new flavor class. Just a whole lot of Meh all around.

 

[Borealis7]

(i only played vanilla WoW back in 2006)
what are the odds Blizzard releases the base game and maybe an expansion or two for free? if they can get a conversion rate of even 5% from free player to subscribers, the game can be as big as it was before.

 

[cronos]

(i only played vanilla WoW back in 2006)
what are the odds Blizzard releases the base game and maybe an expansion or two for free? if they can get a conversion rate of even 5% from free player to subscribers, the game can be as big as it was before.

Since at least last expansion, the 'base game' now includes all the previous content up to the latest expansion before the current, *and* this base game is often (some 2-3 times a year) on sale for $5 directly from battle.net.

In short, for a completely brand new player to the game, the cost to get the exact same game as what the current player is playing is simply whatever the price of the current expansion is, plus $5. And if someone simply wants to try the game out above level 20, up to whatever level prior to the latest expansion is (currently it's 90, soon it will be 100), they only need to spend five bucks.

I don't think there's anything Blizzard could do to get the game 'as big as it was before'. I don't think they want or need to. It is what it is.

 

[bystander36]

I'd say WoW started a trend that has ruined MMORPG's in general. It's possible that trend made them some money, but has ruined the genre doing it. That is, they changed the formula from being primarily a group game, to being a solo game with occasional grouping for raids.

Burning Crusades was a good expansion, that created a lot of good dungeon crawl experience that required a coordinated group. Then WotLK came out, and made it so pretty much anyone could take a nap through any of their group dungeons with random people from other servers. That made it so the people you group with had no chance of becoming friends due to being on another server, and not really caring because the dungeons were way too easy.

I stopped playing after that, and did not find another MMO that did not go into the same direction of making group play close to obsolete. MMO's are at their best when played in groups that are stronger together than as individuals.

 

[JeffMD]

bystander, don't let your blinders fool you. They made a lot more content accessible to those solo or not in raid groups. That does not mean that raid content went away. And while I didn't like it, it was probably for the best, but you could only get your true tier sets from normal+ in dreanor. If you just farted around in lfr then you just got a generic set with some bonuses.

And while not totally perfect, the group finder that you could use for anything helps a lot. I kinda wish I was able to do more group things in dreanor (I hopped in after the last raid dropped) my work times made my play time in the afternoon so I was kinda SOL. I'll get my evenings back this fall so I am looking forward to some casual raiding again.

 

[bystander36]

bystander, don't let your blinders fool you. They made a lot more content accessible to those solo or not in raid groups. That does not mean that raid content went away. And while I didn't like it, it was probably for the best, but you could only get your true tier sets from normal+ in dreanor. If you just farted around in lfr then you just got a generic set with some bonuses.

And while not totally perfect, the group finder that you could use for anything helps a lot. I kinda wish I was able to do more group things in dreanor (I hopped in after the last raid dropped) my work times made my play time in the afternoon so I was kinda SOL. I'll get my evenings back this fall so I am looking forward to some casual raiding again.

While raids still required grouping, day to day grouping for dungeon crawls and exp became pretty much a solo experience. You could get on the autoqueue system, but you'd just pop into a zone with 4 other people and never have to say a word. The dungeons, even on heroic, became so easy that no coordination was needed and since you were already in a cross-server queue, it did not even matter if you talked to people, because you couldn't talk to them once the dungeon was over.

I belonged to our servers top raid group, so I had the ability to raid, but the core of the game, the day to day dungeon crawl was killed. That is the aspect I enjoyed the most. In BC, it felt like we were raiding in a group of 5. We had to come up with strats to beat encounters, but in WotLK, it was just a race to the end of the dungeon with no thought needed.

Pretty much all MMO's have followed suit.

 

[nurturedhate]

While raids still required grouping, day to day grouping for dungeon crawls and exp became pretty much a solo experience. You could get on the autoqueue system, but you'd just pop into a zone with 4 other people and never have to say a word. The dungeons, even on heroic, became so easy that no coordination was needed and since you were already in a cross-server queue, it did not even matter if you talked to people, because you couldn't talk to them once the dungeon was over.

I belonged to our servers top raid group, so I had the ability to raid, but the core of the game, the day to day dungeon crawl was killed. That is the aspect I enjoyed the most. In BC, it felt like we were raiding in a group of 5. We had to come up with strats to beat encounters, but in WotLK, it was just a race to the end of the dungeon with no thought needed.

Pretty much all MMO's have followed suit.

Agreed. Taking out the need to form a group killed a lot of the social development of the game. An MMO needs two things to truly hold people, social bonds and a carrot on a stick. LFR killed both of these. People need a reason to get better at the game. Getting better at the game brings up the experience for everyone involved.

 

[Tweak155]

I tend to agree, but I got the impression they did this more to fight dropping server population, not to make the game easier. I think they just had to do it as a consequence to their solution of the population problem.

I don't know if it's a hardware limitation, technical limitation or if they want to keep the revenue from people paying for server swaps... but I think that's been a negative impact on many aspects. I played the most when WotLK was the big expansion - both before the cross-server dungeons and after. I agree, the dungeons just became a chore instead of a challenge, but it was good timing for me because it also felt like it got more that way due to everyone's gear being higher by the time the cross server started.

It became more obvious when the next expansion came out and the dungeon's were still super easy compared to the previous expansion.

 

[nurturedhate]

I remember when Cata launched and Blizzard went back to the mindset of "making content harder" that lasted about a month after launch before they nerfed 5 mans into the ground. For BC/WotLK/Cata I would go all gung ho on leveling, was 3rd on server in BC to hit 70. Back to the story though, when my friend and I hit 85 in Cata and started doing 5 mans they were a walk in the park as the vast majority of people we got queued with were all "bane of the fallen king" and "the light of dawn" title holders. Instances fell over. Around the third week we hit the brick wall of all brick walls as all the other players hit 85 and started queuing as well.

In short Blizzard changed things that killed the desire for upward mobility. No one wanted to get better at the game to get better gear. I think the issue was two fold. One, the introduction of LFD removed the need to form friendships to complete content. This made the game a far more solo-able and single minded experience taking away what I feel is the best feature of an MMO, the community and bonds that players develop. The people I still talk to in game are the people I developed friendships with in vanilla and BC.

Second was the introduction of LFR. This was done to allow people to see the content that Blizzard worked so hard on. It also gave what looked and somewhat felt like "raid" level gear. People were content with getting LFR purple gear and calling it a day. It's interesting to see the power a color can have on people's mindsets.

Overall I feel both LFD and LFR were somewhat needed in the game. They server a valuable purpose that allows a massive part of the population to experience the game. The issue was their negative aspects were not buffered and no attempts were made to counter their inherent issues. I think for Legion they are somewhat fixing that with Mythic+ dungeons. Requiring preformed groups and allowing high end raid gear will hopefully make people want to complete them and in return foster social interaction and relationship building. For LFR I wish they would just make the gear blue colored. That's it. They already made the tier pieces different which was a huge step in the right direction. By making the gear blue people would naturally want to get back purple gear which would in turn push people into normal/heroic raiding and mythic+ 5 mans.

 

[bystander36]

I completely agree that the need to form friendships to complete content was needed, and the new system hurts it a lot. I think the X-server was the worst thing for it. That made it so that people you may have had a good experience with on a dungeon run, were not available to talk to after.

I also thought the easy of content made it so that no one really needed to form friendships to complete anything, as any random shmoe was good enough for anything.

I much preferred LFD and LFR to be a list of people that people who were forming groups had to communicate and directly invite people to their group. Auto-queues are very anti-social.

In short, X-server was the worst thing added. It may serve a purpose for PvP stuff, on servers where there was a lopsided amount of players per faction, but even those should favor putting together server vs server fights. Grudge matches make PvP a lot more fun. In dungeon content, X-server just takes away all the social aspect of the game. Auto-queues are about the next worst thing that happened. The only positive they added, was to make it so really bad players don't get overlooked when people form groups. Of course, it only helps the really bad players, or the socially inept.

My thought is that if you want to play a solo game, don't play an MMO. MMO's are supposed to be social, and taking away all the social aspects have killed a genre I used to love.

 

[StrangerGuy]

If you ask me, people are already sick of the gear treadmill formula and the general unpleasantness of MMO social aspect. Can't see myself ever going back to WoW even if it was F2P.

 

[Tweak155]

The social aspect also had its downsides... lots of dicks out there. But I will say, it wasn't *that* hard to find a good group... it just took some effort.

Overall I agree... the needing to band together is what drives a good MMO. FFXI was pretty challenging even just to level back in the day... a good group would level a lot faster than a bad group (heck, if a group was bad enough it just would not happen). It would be nice to have that again, but at the same time I know it takes a lot of TIME and the average person probably does not have that dedication to a video game.

This is why they have to make it more accessible... at the end of the day it's a business and they need to sell it to as many people as possible.

 

[bystander36]

The social aspect also had its downsides... lots of dicks out there. But I will say, it wasn't *that* hard to find a good group... it just took some effort.

Overall I agree... the needing to band together is what drives a good MMO. FFXI was pretty challenging even just to level back in the day... a good group would level a lot faster than a bad group (heck, if a group was bad enough it just would not happen). It would be nice to have that again, but at the same time I know it takes a lot of TIME and the average person probably does not have that dedication to a video game.

Originally, the formula was that you could solo, but it was slower and less rewarding, or you could group for more experience and gear. This really was a good balance, because it rewarded people who socialized, which in turn drew them into the game.

This is why they have to make it more accessible... at the end of the day it's a business and they need to sell it to as many people as possible.

The question I have, is other than WoW, has this new strat lead to more long term subscribers? MMO's are boring solo games, and with the new changes, they aren't very good social games. Now you have a game that doesn't fit either audience very well. WoW in vanilla and BC, had a pretty good balance. People could solo quite well, and they could group with good rewards. I think the only reason they still have as many subscribers as they do is simply because of the early days. I don't think they could draw in many people with their current game, other than by reputation.

Maybe I'm wrong here, but it seems they went too far, and now the genre doesn't seem to attract many people anymore.

 

[ewdotson]

Maybe I'm wrong here, but it seems they went too far, and now the genre doesn't seem to attract many people anymore.

I agree that the genre doesn't seem to attract many new people these days, but I think you're begging the question as to why.

I don't know, I mean, I freely admit that I'm speculating as much as anyone else, but I just haven't seen much of a tide of interest in hard-core MMOs. I think the genre as a whole is just kind of tired and WoW would be in decline no matter what route they had taken.

 

[bystander36]

I agree that the genre doesn't seem to attract many new people these days, but I think you're begging the question as to why.

I don't know, I mean, I freely admit that I'm speculating as much as anyone else, but I just haven't seen much of a tide of interest in hard-core MMOs. I think the genre as a whole is just kind of tired and WoW would be in decline no matter what route they had taken.

My guess is the genre is dying because it has gone the wrong direction, and maybe the newer generation isn't a very good audience for this type of game. MMO's are pretty poor solo games, and social games are more committing and require social skills.

Making them solo games is not the answer IMO, because they can't compete with most any game out there. The only thing they have over them is that it doesn't end, but you'll find out it is boring. Making them social does make them more committing of your time, but at least they thrive for that style of game.

 

[Sheep221]

Hmm that wow is dead crowd still lives on

I agree that the genre doesn't seem to attract many new people these days, but I think you're begging the question as to why.

I don't know, I mean, I freely admit that I'm speculating as much as anyone else, but I just haven't seen much of a tide of interest in hard-core MMOs. I think the genre as a whole is just kind of tired and WoW would be in decline no matter what route they had taken.

I don't think you are really correct, the games like wow will never die, in fact in MMO terms, WoW is one of the newest games, ultima online, everquest, runescape etc are games way older and still do have a strong playerbase(yet not in the millions but hey), probably even some MUD servers are still online today. There will probably be a time when WoW will be outlived and will become a niche but I think it will never go away completely. It's just like dungeons and dragons in computer format, it's high fantasy, it's role playing game, it's historical. So it will be played indefinitely.
While blizz was accused of recycling content way too much or imbalancing some aspects of the game, what I find bad actually, is in-game store, for years blizz was hardcore about not paying for any game items, yet they themselves are now doing it, however I don't care anymore I quit wow and there won't be a comeback.

 

[ewdotson]

Hmm that wow is dead crowd still lives on

I don't think you are really correct, the games like wow will never die, in fact in MMO terms, WoW is one of the newest games, ultima online, everquest, runescape etc are games way older and still do have a strong playerbase(yet not in the millions but hey), probably even some MUD servers are still online today. There will probably be a time when WoW will be outlived and will become a niche but I think it will never go away completely. It's just like dungeons and dragons in computer format, it's high fantasy, it's role playing game, it's historical. So it will be played indefinitely.
While blizz was accused of recycling content way too much or imbalancing some aspects of the game, what I find bad actually, is in-game store, for years blizz was hardcore about not paying for any game items, yet they themselves are now doing it, however I don't care anymore I quit wow and there won't be a comeback.

Oh, I'm not saying WoW is dead or even dying. I'm just saying that it wasn't going to be able to sustain 12 million subscribers indefinitely, regardless of whether or not they moved in a more casual-friendly direction.

(And yes, there are still oodles of MUDs out there.)

 

[ewdotson]

My guess is the genre is dying because it has gone the wrong direction, and maybe the newer generation isn't a very good audience for this type of game. MMO's are pretty poor solo games, and social games are more committing and require social skills.

Making them solo games is not the answer IMO, because they can't compete with most any game out there. The only thing they have over them is that it doesn't end, but you'll find out it is boring. Making them social does make them more committing of your time, but at least they thrive for that style of game.

I don't know that there *is* an answer, per se. Assuming the question is "how do you get an MMO into the 10 digit subscriber base?"

Personally, I've said for a years now that I think the genre would be better off with more games that did *not* try to be all things to all people but were *really* good at a niche and were happy turning a more modest profit. I'm all for someone making a game that is truly Everquest-done-right. (Which I played, enjoyed, but couldn't possible find the time for these days.) But I think you're going to wind up looking at EQ-like subscriber numbers for such a game. Or a pvp-focused MMO that does it *well*. Again, that's simply not going to get a massive subscriber base. But the sooner we stop measuring MMOs success by peak-WoW, the better. And that *includes* current-WoW.

 

[bystander36]

I don't know that there *is* an answer, per se. Assuming the question is "how do you get an MMO into the 10 digit subscriber base?"

Personally, I've said for a years now that I think the genre would be better off with more games that did *not* try to be all things to all people but were *really* good at a niche and were happy turning a more modest profit. I'm all for someone making a game that is truly Everquest-done-right. (Which I played, enjoyed, but couldn't possible find the time for these days.) But I think you're going to wind up looking at EQ-like subscriber numbers for such a game. Or a pvp-focused MMO that does it *well*. Again, that's simply not going to get a massive subscriber base. But the sooner we stop measuring MMOs success by peak-WoW, the better. And that *includes* current-WoW.

I agree, we should ignore WoW at this point. They are living off a reputation and total content of the past. If they released the game they have today, without the brand name of WoW, I do not expect it would do remotely as well as it has, past or current.

 

[StrangerGuy]

I don't know that there *is* an answer, per se. Assuming the question is "how do you get an MMO into the 10 digit subscriber base?"

Personally, I've said for a years now that I think the genre would be better off with more games that did *not* try to be all things to all people but were *really* good at a niche and were happy turning a more modest profit. I'm all for someone making a game that is truly Everquest-done-right. (Which I played, enjoyed, but couldn't possible find the time for these days.) But I think you're going to wind up looking at EQ-like subscriber numbers for such a game. Or a pvp-focused MMO that does it *well*. Again, that's simply not going to get a massive subscriber base. But the sooner we stop measuring MMOs success by peak-WoW, the better. And that *includes* current-WoW.

Gaming has been big budget business now, so if they were going to make an MMO they wouldn't cater to a niche, but another WoW theme park wannabe to generate as much mainstream appeal for get WoW-like subscription numbers, no matter how much everybody else has been saying it's a bad idea even during peak WoW. For better or for worse the game devs are no longer interested in the MMO genre since the risk is too high and reward is too low going by the track record, especially when there is more money to be made with far less effort through F2P and mobile crapware.