[citation][nom]Cazalan[/nom]That's a good point on the attunements. It used to take significant work just to get into an instance. AQ took months to open and the whole server needed to participate. The majority of people just don't have that level of time, and that's what they've been catering to. Instead of catering to hardcore elitists now the majority of people can see all the content. I think it's a good thing overall. Compare that to vanilla when maybe 2 guilds per server got to see the later bosses in Naxx. Is it good when only 20,000 people out of millions get to complete an instance? If 99% of the customers can not complete a game they will be pissed. People can still do the questing if they want the story.[/citation]
I have to disagree. I am casual, the casual which was defined in vanilla as not having a lot of time to be on, not the current casual definition which means doesn't care to be good regardless of how much time is spent on game, and I never missed anything. No, I didn't raid much in vanilla, but not much of the story was ever told in the actual raiding, it was told in the quests and the attunements, which EVERYONE had access to and usually did.
I hate this argument that Blizzard only cated to the "hardcore elitists". The entire point of the a game like World of Warcraft is to immerse yourself into it. Guess what, that takes some time. If anything, Blizzard's big mistake was upping the level cap, at least it was with every expansion. If the cap was no higher than 70, all content would still be relevant.
Remember, WoW saw it's greatest growth during vanilla, a time when the game was considered it's hardest (not that WoW has ever been hard). Vanilla ended with 8.5 million subs. BC ended with 11.5 million subs. A year into Wrath, Kotaku had an article about how WoW was still at 11.5 million, it had not grown at all since it began supposedly catering to 'everyone'. Wrath only saw it adding to WoW's subscriber base by 500,000 only after it's late summer 2010 release in China, a region we now know aboslutely hated that expansion. With Cataclysm, subs have dropped 1.7 million in the first 9 months of it's release. Because of the fact that Blizzard supposedly catered to everyone as you put it, these "casuals" complain how hard Cataclysm has been. Problem is Cataclysm was NEVER hard, even pre nerf. All Blizzard did was make it so it was an AOE faceroll which hurt Wrath and made mechanics such as crowd control relevant. In the beginning Cata raids, if you knew not to stand in the bad stuff, you had no problems, but of course the people who claim to be the majority just want a tank and spank.
Let's also be honest about something else. These people who complained that the game was to hard and that they wanted to see "the content" really don't want to see the content. They care nothing of the story, which is the true content, they just want epic gear. And no matter how Blizzard has dumbed WoW down to the farmville level, they have never stopped complaining.
The fact is WoW is not some simple game that was ever intended to reach a player base of 50 million like Angry Birds or any other game someone could pick up and play for 5 minutes and put down. It was intended for people who wanted to spend time immersing themselves into a story, specifically the Warcraft story. The problem is, Blizzard by catering to the "casuals" have pushed away the true Warcraft fan because the story is no longer presented in the game.
The game didn't break EQ's subscriptions records the first day it was out because of casual players. It did so because there are millions of Warcraft fans, or at least were. Casuals aren't gonna line up for hours to get a brand new game they know nothing about. and if the so called "casuals" who just want to see content are so plentiful, why hasn't the game grown during the time Blizzard has catered to them? Rather, since they begun catering to this player type, the game has lost a substantial amount.
They also have the problem since they begun catering to this type of player that outside merchandise has been hurting. The comics and magazine have both been cancelled due to low sales, The Shattering had very low sales and the second pre Cataclysm novel was delayed and who knows if the third will ever be released. Associated merchandise is just not something the type of player you are celebrating will get. That's the type of thing a story fan will buy and it's weak sales show that the main Warcraft fan is leaving.
And yes, maybe not many saw Naxx, but people who constantly bring up numbers about only 5% or so seeing raids are just false. Every WoW census site shows about 67% of guilds finishing normal mode Firelands. Keep in mind too, a lot of people do not like to raid and or even do PvE. So just about anyone who wants in can get in. If they can't finish, that is not Blizzard holding them back.
And the LFR is showing a weakness with this "get it done fast" mentality. Some pugs through LFR have finished the raid after just 3 days. You really think these players will pay for WoW for another year when they just finished the expansion? No. So I think this next year will be even worse for Blizzard for catering to this player type.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram