Mount-Elitism in World of Warcraft, or: How is the asset effort justified?

LFR was being added to the game with the reason to justify blizzards large effort to create raids in the game. Based on the fact that organized raiding never was majority gameplay. Now i wonder, why the devs actually want to limit mounts, which are very expensive assets, to some mythic raiders only, while there would be an easy way to give these mounts to the majority of players just by recoloring them.

Exclusivity for some few players is not really healthy, if a game lacks in content and in usefull extrinsic rewards in total. Actually, organized raiding already gives the best extrinsic rewards to a small minority only, so i really wonder whom should be adressed by shiny mounts, if most of the mythic players are progress-gamers, which see their main benefit in sheer progression?

At the end, the vanity items adress a complete different playerbase. Those that collect cosmetic items, and which are mount collectors. My impression is, that blizzard tries to act as if special mount designs would be needed to bring prestige into the endgame, while i believe that mythic raids are already prestigious enough due to the fact only a small minority play or even master them.

The prestige comes from participating, and not from vanity items.

I really wonder how the effort for special assets for a small minority as like mythic raiders is being justified, if mounts would adress the LFR players way more likely. As it surely isnt about gear in LFR, after it got nerfed over and over based on organized raiders feedback. At the end, blizzard should think about rewarding every player for playing their game, and allow as many ways as possible to acquire vanity items and progression gear.

The best solution is to give LFR players a recolor of the mount the mythic raiders get. That also would remove the idea people would feel forced to hire organized raiders for gold to “play” the game. As like renting a raid spot in one of those meritocracy-based raiding guilds.

 

Blizzard declares every content “minority content”

What do you think is the cheapest way to  avoid criticism that you cater to minorities only as a developer? The answer is simple: Just declare every gamestyle in your game minority content, and act, as if there was no content thats actually played  by any kind of majority.

Ion Hazzikostas, Assistant Game Director of World of Warcraft, recently talked about exactly that.

He talks about every kind of playstyle in World of Warcraft being minority content. Be it pet battles, be it battlegrounds, be it raids or even mythic raids for small minorities..

In special Ion Hazzikostas always was one of those developers, that adressed raids and in special competetive gameplay and challenges, being a mythic raider himself. His topics in interviews are fairly biased, as he shortly talks about anything else than raids just to continue to talk about mythic raid balance.. which surely isnt something most of his players adresses.

The wish to be able to cater to minority content is, therefore, mainly based on his own idea about what games should be about, obviously. And, obviously, his idea to act as if every content would just only adress minorities, is wrong.

LFR as example, based on statistics from MMO-C derived from Armory data (Blizzards own database), was being played by 71% of the players, which surely would make LFR majority gameplay.

Questing also is gameplay being played by a large amount of players, even at endgame.

Dungeons, quoting Hazzikostas, also is a majority gamestyle.

Furthermore, Hazzikostas argues that many players play special components and see it as a nuisance, where i would like to ask Mr. Hazzikostas if any actual gameplay in a computer game should feel like one? Shouldnt it be his job to actually create gameplay thats not just annoying but also highly replayable?

If i take LFR as example, a lot of players actually play LFR as their final endgame. So its not just a nuisance, but actually their endgame. Still blizzard handles the most successful implementation of raiding like a nuisance, in special when its about investing effort to make LFR more playable.

As crazy Mr. Hazzikostas idea is that every playstyle only adresses minorities, and as much this myth is easily to be debunked, as more he justifies the focus on special minority components, as like mythic raiding or high end PVP, by using this argumentation.

Currently, the only intrinsic reward for LFR is the story. Nothing else. Blizzard could change that, and make LFR actually a fun component. As LFR needs the most attention. As there is many negative feedback about LFR and its playability.

Recently, and even before, the devs nerfed every single extrinsic reward from LFR, while listening to the rant of a few. I believe the devs could invest way more effort based on viewing figures. And sorry, organized raiding never adressed many.

Does that mean organized raids should receive no love? No.. but the devs could base their effort on the size of the audience it adresses.

Watcher wrote, that the majority plays dungeons.. and still the devs prefer to design raids over dungeons. No new dungeons in patches .. What if that design paradigm was changed, and the focus was put on dungeons and questing, and not on raids anymore?

At the end, there is also the question why the game is that massively raid centric, if the devs would like to invest the same effort in different playstyles?

Another open Letter to Mike Morhaime and Mr. Kern

For some reason, every wannabe seems to be interested to write letters to Mr. Morhaime. No matter if he actually knows the guy, or even not. As i am a wannabe myself, i also would like to write a letter to Mike Morhaime, but due to respect i will not call him by his first name, but act as if i didnt really know him at all (which i really dont) and call him Mr. Morhaime.

Dear Mr. Morhaime,

recently, a group of players that run a pirated version of World of Warcraft obviously catched your attention. Obviously, you are going to listen to these people, that built a realm for nostalgic players who want to play classic WoW. Obviously, you want to build classic or pristine realms yourself and catch the hyped players with either hiring the nostalrius admins or buying their voice for PR.

The truth is, that many of your players actually do not hate what WoW developed into. The truth is, that people are fine with a focus on a broad audience for World of Warcraft. You will never hear any single complaint from those who play the game just for having fun.

The classic nostalgists actually are a small minority and not “the community”. Yes, they managed to hype the forums, but actually all they want is to deevolute the game. To turn back time just to return to the very first time when they played world of warcraft. When you actually take a closer look onto the audience of Nostalrius, many of that people played the free version just for the fact it was free, not for the fact it was a classic version of WoW.

To turn back time, to question everything you developed in the last years, isnt the right solution to the problem to integrate those players. The right solution would be to turn WoW into a free to play game with microtransactions, as people are mainly blocked by the monthly sub. If you take a look on how subs develop in World of Warcraft, many people return to an expac, play for one or two months, and will quit again. You actually only gain the money for the expac, and two months of playtime.

With a free to play model, you would adress way more players, as free to play is way more fair. Also, you could sell expacs for way more money if you removed the subs or added a plan for free to play. Also, you would adress anyone who played on a free legacy realm. Additionally, the higher costs would give you more money when players already quit in the first month.

I dont think you should adress the classic nostalgists, as they just want to remove everything blizzard added to the game. You should continue to design games for as many players as possible, and not focus on a small minority, as you tend to do in World of Warcraft (as example, your devs favor organized gameplay, while there are millions playing matchmade content). Your game will be way more successfull, if you focus on those million of players, who are happy about what WoW evolved to.

Pristine realms will only catch the attention of the classic players for a very short time, and only then if they really are classic realms. You will not gain the attention of them, if its just a free-of-convenience version of the actual content, instead those people will just go to whine even more about the fact you dont cater to their special interest needs. If you open this pandoras box, you will be doomed to listen to the small destructive minority that likes an old incarnation of the game over your actual development, while innovation should be a way more interesting part of your development process.

Thanks for reading, Mr. Morhaime. Or even not.

My first impression of Legion.

Blizzard told us, everything will be different with Legion. But are they going to stick to that promise? In special, if we just had to experience the reimplementation of Garrisons without a lot of changes implemented into the system?

Well, my impression is that Legion is going to add a lot new labels to old ideas. And that many components just link to existing traditional content as like Quests, Raids and Dungeons once again. Infact, blizzard adds a lot of breadcrumb links to their garrison table.

World quests just seem to be the same as the known event regions from WoD, just with a new name, and better extrinsic rewards. Also, i would not wonder if they reuse the quest content from the levelup experience. Infact, the world quests send you to existent assets to do generic quest content which gives good extrinsic rewards, while the level of intrinsic rewards still has to be experienced.

The PVP remake with honor as a skill tree just means to take away the best PVP gear from matchmade players, as the gear is being moved to strongboxes, and the best gear only drops from organized gameplay. The difference from gear will be as big as nowadays once engaged raiders have played the third tier and fight against new level 110 character with 100 item levels below. As i dont think that blizzard is going to change the ilvl inflation, there is no defacto change to protect the pvp players wish to be competetive in PVP without the need to gear up. Additionally, PVE gear will become nearly as powerful as dedicated PVP gear. Additionally, you wont be able to fill epic gaps with PVP anymore, which will take away a lot of incentive to play PVP from the majority of the players that tend to play both PVP and PVE with a focus on PVE.

The artefact weapon just is a traditional talent tree, whichs leveling is extremely time consuming and replaces the legendary quest line.

The class quests are no new idea, but just quests based on the class story, while it is not known yet if blizzard is going to extend it beyond the initial story told. In WoD, blizzard did not continue to add meaningful  content to anything else than grind regions and raids, so i believe they will do the same in Legion.

Dungeon challenge modes are being made for organized groups only, and will therefore never be more successfull than normal raids. Also, the idea to keep them challenging gives blizzard card blanche to not add new dungeons throughout the expac anymore, as they didnt do since MoP. At the end, the implementation of this system is just about development effort reduction, as like nearly every single system change in the last three expacs.

Blizzard focuses, again, on developer convenience, and not on player wishes in their new expac. They give existent content new labels, instead of actually adding new content for the game components they wish to introduce for endgame. Blizzard still will put their main effort into raids in the upcoming patches, which will be the only component to receive a massive amount of new assets and  boss mechanics, while the open world will be the same gameplay as we already played in WoD, just with new great sounding labels like “World quests” and “mythic+ dungeons”.

 

My idea why LFR was no good idea.

If you watch forums nowadays, there are lot of threads asking to remove LFR. The reasons, howsoever, arent really worth a discussion, as its mainly about exclusivity and greed against those who see the raid content without playing in premade groups. LFR is just a scapegoat for many to argue why a game they play for years has become tedious and offers nothing new at the end of its lifecycle, when people already played every mechanic, every single quest and every class available.

Even tho, i dont think that LFR was a good addition to World of Warcraft. Not because it took away exclusivity from some few raiders. Not because it gives items “on a silver plate”, which is just another stereotypistic “casual-hate”-nonesense.

My reasons are about the fact that LFR offers close to zero intrinsic reward to be played by those it was created for. The only real benefit from playing LFR is to see the story once, which wont keep players playing for months. The gameplay literally is limited to “Follow the group and push some buttons.. or even not, if you dont like” without any game mechanic that engages the players it was meant for.

Does it have to be a challenge? No, as most people do not play computer games for challenges. At least not those who play PVE MMORPGs. If you take a look at participation statistics (as like those from MMO-Champion based on Blizzards armory database) you see that a large group of people stick to the most convenient gamestyles, which need no organization and which do not offer challenges.

So how should a game component for the masses look like, which would address a large variety of gamers as like LFR should have done?

I believe, the answer to this question just is not to try to address everyone, because thats just not possible. You will always have a large mix of everything that doesnt suit every group of players (and i dont mean stereotypes) fully. Groups of players i talk about would be engaged players, occassionally playing players, friend and family players.. PVE players.. PVP players..

In the case of LFR, blizzard tried to adress millions of players with the same cup of tea. While it was derived from a traditionally organized playstyle which literally lived and breathed based on preparation and choreography, on the words of a raid leader and a disciplined group that had a common target.

LFR actually cant deliver that. What, if blizzard would move the story from raids into quests, and put back raids into the niche they once had, without any lore content? What, if LFR players would get dedicated content for their myriad of different playstyles instead of that easy catchall?

Imagine solo player content especially made for solo players. Imagine a PVE-Ashran where players could play events, kill world bosses and opt in into the PVP-Version (comparable to Tol Barad)? What if PVP was all about competition but PVE wasnt, as the typical RPG PVE is just not about that?

Probably i ask more questions than i answer, but i am also probably not the guy to find all the answers to this problem. LFR, tho, is a pandoras box you cant close anymore.. without the loss of people who got used to it. So removing LFR would be wrong. Still, blizzard could diversify their gameplay way more than just trying to get everyone into raids.

Blizzard and their problem with sexuality.

Well, blizzard reacts wrong to complains. At least from my point of view. Yes, if people feel offended theres a good idea to listen to them.. with different approaches. For example, if blizzard adds a sexy female character they also could add a sexy male character as compensation. Instead of just removing anything that looks like a sexy pose, or to just get rid of everything someone could be offended of.

There are tons of solutions to fix the problem. And its not always about removing everything thats attractive. Its probably better just to compensate with the same approach for the opposite gender.

While we can argue, that sexuality in a computer game is a very special fetish. While we also could argue, that everyone should be attracted to what they actually like to be attracted to (as long it is legal).

I think emancipation is needed. To give people the same opportunities. And you actually give the same opportunities if you add a beautifull woman and a handsome guy to a game. Does it have to be about to request to remove any link to sexuality from games?

Hypersexualization is a tradition in computer games. We wont have heroes like Lara Croft as example. To remove every trace of sexuality and sexual poses and looks from a game is not working as good as if you would add something for everyone to gameplay or a character where sexuality would fit to.

In this case, blizzard is once again suffering to the pendulum-syndrome. While they started World of Warcraft with sexy nightelfs and Tauren making jokes about Homosexuals they end the games lifecycles with bare tits and asses removed and taking away the opportunity to have some sexy outfits for the female or male char you play. If blizzard just would find a balanced approach here as well.. But hey, dont expect anything..

Daybreak Games (formerly SOE) and the next Chapter of Everquest

Everquest Next was one of those big hopes in the MMORPG community. Unfortunately, Sony sold SOE (abbr. for Sony Online Entertainment) and fired most of the people who worked for that company.

So another hope for a more diversified MMORPG market will not happen anytime soon. Landmark, the great Sandbox for Everquest Next, did probably also just not work out, and i believe its just based on the fact most people arent creative architects, but just gamers who want to play computer games in their spare time.

Everquest Next also did not really try to be revolutionary, but was the continued effort of Daybreak to keep the brand Everquest alive, in a genre which is dominated by Blizzard nowadays, and which allows no innovation anymore, as any game thats heavily different than blizzards MMORPG just wont be successfull.

The market also is not big enough yet for niche MMORPGs, as it seems, as like Wildstar showed.. a failed MMORPG catered to hardcore-gamers.

A successfull MMORPG nowadays would be a RPG with MMO elements, which would get rid of the idea to enforce organized group play, which always was and will be the smaller part of the playerbase that plays computer games against an environment and not against other players.

At the end, Everquest Next was just another big hope of those who want back their first time in a MMORPG.. when everything was new, when blizzards effort was fresh, and when people took first steps into the game that SOE limited to a few only..

 

NCSoft, Carbine and the exclusive raiding endgame.

For me it seems, the current try to resurrect Wildstar failed as well. Even if Carbine tried everything to save their world by offering a complete diverse continuum of content for every playstyle possible.

The hard truth is that raids are a vital part of any MMORPG nowadays, and that limiting raids to a small minority will always end in the question

“Why should i play Wildstar if other MMORPGs allow me to raid?”

Without doubt, Carbine went the wrong path with the #hardcore-tag, and while it seems they tried everything to jump on the casual-gamer bandwagon, they stopped at endgame and excluded raids to be still available only for the most engaged players.

Games like World of Warcraft, SWTOR and Final Fantasy XIV show that its actually possible to create raid content for a large audience, while World of Warcraft did not really implement any kind of raiding that actually would adress a large playerbase for longer than completing the story.

If Wildstar wants to adress any kind of player, they have to become aware that Raids are a integral part of any MMORPG nowadays for every kind of player, so Carbine needs to tear down the last “#hardcore”-brickwall and make raids accessible to anyone.

Blizzard and the lack of fresh Content

World of Warcraft has the biggest development team since years. But no matter how big the dev team is, the output of fresh content seems rather low in comparison to the first years of the game.

J. Allen Brack seemed very proud when he announced the WoW-team is bigger than ever before, and that they had a development team working both on content for the current expac and on the new expac simultanously.

While that sounds great in a PR setting, the truth is that blizzard still releases new content way too slow, and that their innovative power currently is limited to questionable new social features (twitter integration, the selfie cam) or redos of old content (mythic dungeons, timewalker).

The overall output rate of content seems lower than ever before. While this could also be an illusion, as blizzard focuses way more on a few components than they did before Mists of Pandaria.

Before Mists of Pandaria, Blizzard created new Daily quest hubs, new dungeons and new raids at least every 2nd big patch. With Mists of Pandaria they tried to streamline new content to new raids and new open world activities, which also means they focused on raids way more than they ever did before. The big part of the budget was being put into raids, and was not split onto dungeons, open world and raids equally anymore.

Nowadays, with WoD, raiding seems to consume the largest part of the development effort, while the classic raiding game only adresses a very few of blizzards large pool of different playstyles. LFR is missing replayability, as blizzard both added features to make queue times unbearable (as like role selection) and as they nerfed the extrinsic reward level to oblivion (based on organized raiders feedback), giving players no other reward than the narrative and a close to zero character progression.

LFR is a poor mans implementation of the raiding game. It is neither engaging nor very replayable, as the extrinsic rewards just dont offer incentive enough to play it more than once. Still, LFR has to be the great saturday night show for millions of players, which should offer more than lore thats only interesting once and rewards that actually help the player to progress.

In retrospective, it would probably be better to add a wide range of content, and not to focus on raids entirely, while the core raiding game itself focuses exclusively on organization and preparation, while it needs premade groups to work properly.

Deriving mass content from a component like raiding was the worst decision blizzard ever made. Instead of that, blizzard better should have accepted its niche existence and release content for it based on the real participation rate of very engaged players. Instead of LFR, blizzard should have added dedicated content which targeted the large audience and solo players, and not just reuse raiding content which was created for a few only.

Dont get me wrong, i dont want LFR to be removed. I just think raiding should not receive the focus it does today, and blizzard should offer diversified content and many options to play the game instead.

Raiding, no matter if there also is a version for the large audience, seems to be like a content-black hole that demands a high effort and a focus from the development team, which also means other content, innovations and new gameplay dont receive the love they actually should.

Blizzard and the sex-appeal of a skinner box.

Designing a MMORPG is a real problem if you just have a limited time span to create new content, and just a limited effort you could put into creating new content. So you have to add repetetive content to a MMORPG and to reward repetition by extrinsic rewards. A common method to actually endure content is operant conditioning, where you condition volition to continue to play a game by rewards only.

This method was discovered by Burrhus Frederic Skinner , he found out that its just about the reward to condition animals to repeat actions no matter if they are interesting or fun to get the reward at the end of the process. He also found out this Skinner Box worked for humans.

While adding skinner boxes surely is a legit way to endure content, it is not really creating engaging gameplay. Because the gameplay itself is not the most interesting part about the activity anymore, but the extrinsic reward.

Blizzard used Skinner Boxes a lot in WoD. They reused the same dungeons and just added new rewards, and labeled them “mythic” dungeons, because the hype about “mythic”-anything was label enough to show that blizzard cares about challenges in the game. While the challenge was limited to low level equipped chars, and not to those players which already run challenging content.

Same goes to blizzards timewalking dungeons. While diversity is a good idea at endgame, they just reuse old dungeons with new rewards, once again, without adding any new content to the game itself.

Based on that, it seems to me Blizzard is going to reuse even more content from old expansions or leveling for endgame as well. I wonder why they actually have to massively reuse old content, if the team is bigger than ever before, and if they actually should be able to output content way more frequently.

The Skinner Box is the most cheap method to endure content. And it seems, Blizzard will reuse content with new rewards even more coming Legion.