here we are 4 years into warcraft and the game is still going strong . but apart from it being a bigger game world now after two expansion i think it undeniable that blizzard have made some massive mistakes in the last two years implimenting changes in the game play . i think the problem now is everything is easily obtainable which is good for the casual player and obviously aimed at a very young audiance . which is working because warcraft is now little more than a school playground .

the community has suffered because of this in terms of the attitude you get from players . i definatly think its time for blizzard to impliment adult servers .  i mean if you had a chat room activly promoting adults and children sharing the same space there would be an out cry .

the expansion packs both brought ten new levels . this seams great at first glance but essentially it means anything you do in the two years inbetween them becomes redundant when the next expansion comes out . would nt it have been better rather than offering easily obtainable extra levels to offer a harder series of quests that would have allowed for slightly better and newer talents . essentially building on what you have achieved rather than making it out of date once every two years .

the ease of obtaining gear via the battleground reward system . lets face it most people are all epic these days . you can get it within 2-4 weeks in the battlegrounds now . changes to the honor system have made it possible even if you lose . what this has brought about is a playerbase that dont really want to learn battle ground tactics because they know win or lose they will still be able to get thier epic in no time at all . offering the losing side maybe 20 percent of what the winning side gets and not allowing any honor to be made from kills made in the battle grounds would perhaps stop the mindless zerg .

class imbalances are now at thier worst ever . its no longer about knowing how to play your class . some classes like paladins and rogues are virtually superpowered compared to other classes in the game .

faster leveling has destroyed the mid game on most servers . if you level an alt its virtually impossible to get groups together to do instances and quests from levels 20 -60 . this really has had the effect of making warcraft an asian grinder at those levels because most solo quests are go out and kill x number of mobs of gather x number of herbs or find this or that item .

If world of warcraft is wrong... whos right?

These guys just made it into the guiniess book of world records, i think it safe to say they are winning the war.

just because they are successful . it does nt mean they have made the right choices in terms of game play . a lot of what blizzard have implimented is aimed at short term prophet . they have undeniably made the game a lot easier and this leads to people getting bored a lot quicker . warcraft at its core is a pretty good game  but its run by a company that are slowly killing it . its only really at the position it is now because theres been a lack of decent competition .  when that changes and it will sooner or later warcraft will see a sharp fall in its playerbase .

ye darn them they went wrong with 12 mill subs maybe they should of done it right and go for the sandbox pvp crowd and get 10k pop max like darkfall then they would of done it right

if they were doing anything right no one would complain...but what am I thinking, people complain about everything now. As for WoW, its nothing as good as it used to be and the quality just went down the drain.

well I stopped playing warcraft about 3 years ago so I personally can't understand why people even bother with it anymore

I always figured  they're staying with the game because they have nowhere else to go. 

My personal interest in the game came from leveling 1-60, and seeing the Warcraft world up close. Once I hit 60 though, the game lost most of its shine and I thought it was really quite dull. It suprises me to this day that people choose to stick with it for so long.

"the ease of obtaining gear via the battleground reward system . lets face it most people are all epic these days . you can get it within 2-4 weeks in the battlegrounds now".

Huh? How does that work?

Originally posted by arthen999

 i think the problem now is everything is easily obtainable which is good for the casual player and obviously aimed at a very young audiance .

This is believe is a false premise.  If anything I know more older people that play because they can work a real life job and play this game and still succeed as opposed to most or MMORPG where if you are not a no life hardcore player living in their parents basement you can not achieve anything.

Life is full off change, as much as I try to hate WOW I always go back to it.  But must agree some of the new stuff is dodge and it makes the game less exciting. 

I would love for newbies to try a vanilla installation and then they would see a total diff game, a challenge and a lot more fun as you had to get everything just right to enter onixiya, stratholme it all rocked. 

NOw too much emphisis is been made on hand holding and some good raids (raids dont last forever and you soon tire)

Gee even back in the day there was no questhelper and god it was hard (lol) - had thotbot  when stuck though.

I completely disagree. In fact I think this thread couldn't be anymore wrong.

1)World of Warcraft WAS ALWAYS EASY. World of Warcraft was ALWAYS CONSIDERED A NOOB GAME.

This was true even back in beta when EQ and FFXI players where laughing at the game for being easy mode.

2)These changes aimed at short term? Do you have any idea of how many people who don't play MMORPG because of a useless grind?

3)How time consuming it is has nothing to do with being easy or difficult. Waste of time is a waste of time. Vacuming quests hub, is for the birds. No skill. Most people are bored with it. It's crap.. they just wanna get it over with and reach max level.

4)If people want a hardcore game, almost anything else out there is hardcore and cant-have-a-life-to-be-succesful-in-game. Vanguard, EQ and FFXI. Whatever you want...

'

5)The reason why people don't do instances 20-60 has more to do with that people know the game so well. its faster to just get it over with than doing all thd dungeons. people dont wanna go through the headache of getting gear from drops when they replace them so on. they wait for that at end-game.

6)there are plenty of instances being run. many boosts, free runs, and paid runs and pugs. I don't know what server you are on... and even if it didn't it would still be 10 million years away from "asian MMO grinder". Try to play them hardcore before you compare.

7)class imbalance is the same that it has always been. people will never be satisfied with this, because WoWs community is a reactive community that blames each other, and the developer for everything. "my class needs buff, everyone else needs to die". There will never be a satisfying moment here.

8)adult servers are pointless for many reasons. Many of the people you see who are stupid in the game are adults. They have internet annonymousy, and thus are compelled to act like idiots. most people know when to just go just far enough not to be able to be reported. It's almost like the loop holes in the system encourage you to be a asshole.

Secondly, a big part of WoW has always been its young players. the game has always been colorful, easy to get into, and appealing to kids, just like Diablo 2 and Warcraft 3, that was riddled with stupid racist sluring kids. It's ironic how the best developer, gets the worst community.

If you look at their forums you can see that they do little to control the out of line community, that use the forums as a charade, a venting machine to let out when they are pissed. It's like a playground for saying all the things you REALLY want to say, but without having to suffer the consequences.

I have to disagree with the OP.  I think its ironic to say that WoW is successful but is a crappy game. That's like saying Starbucks has crappy coffee and that's why there is one on every freaking corner.  WoW is an easy game. It has never been marketed as a hardcore game. It's meant for people who only have 8-15 hours a week to play.

WoW is nowhere near an asian style grinder. There is alot more diversity in quests, plus you don't need to farm the same mob for 7 hours straight to fill in the XP gap between levels.

The community sucks, well, so does every other community. Eve is full of elitist jerks...wait!! so is EQ2, UO, DAOC, Darkfall, AOC....that's right they all have idiots in them. Time to get HARDCORE and stop crying about it. What do you want, a community where everyone gets along. Where in the REAL world does that happen?? NOWHERE!!

So to finish off, is WoW easy mode?? Yes, but so is every other MMORPG. I can macro skills in UO and Darkfall. I can get my friends to play AoC with me and we can level to 80 in a matter of weeks. Remember that games with no users sucks, just ask Shadowbane. If you don't like WoW, don't play it. If you want to trash a game and it's users because your too good/elite/hardcore for them, then play the HARDCORE games and stay in your momma's basement eating hotpockets for weeks on end. At least your not procreating and disrupting the real life community that we casual gamers enjoy on nights we don't play. 

Originally posted by arthen999

 they have undeniably made the game a lot easier and this leads to people getting bored a lot quicker . warcraft at its core is a pretty good game  but its run by a company that are slowly killing it .

Data/source on retention rate change, prz.

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Originally posted by Mathillas

I have to disagree with the OP.  I think its ironic to say that WoW is successful but is a crappy game.

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So much about Successful doesn't mean good. It's just good marketing with a huge target group: Players of other Blizzard games, their friends and people, who haven't played an MMORPG yet. So you can say it is a good game for this group.

Just try any other MMORPG, there are plenty of people saying "Wow, this is much better than WoW". Especially in Guild Wars there were lots of people saying this. They read about it somewhere or a friend invited them to play it. Lots of people switched to Guild Wars, but even if its better than WoW, I wouldn't call it a good MMO either.

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That's like saying Starbucks has crappy coffee and that's why there is one on every freaking corner.  WoW is an easy game. It has never been marketed as a hardcore game. It's meant for people who only have 8-15 hours a week to play.

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Okay, I don't like Starbucks coffee, but that's a matter of taste I guess ;)
I agree with you partially. It's good for people, who don't no more and don't play much, but I think a F2P game would be better suited for most of them. They often have some more features and I guess it's good for their pocket. Item malls usually have exactly the right items for these non-hardcore players and most F2P games are WoW clones anyway. But everyone should play, what he likes.
 

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WoW is nowhere near an asian style grinder. There is alot more diversity in quests, plus you don't need to farm the same mob for 7 hours straight to fill in the XP gap between levels.

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The community sucks, well, so does every other community. Eve is full of elitist jerks...wait!! so is EQ2, UO, DAOC, Darkfall, AOC....that's right they all have idiots in them. Time to get HARDCORE and stop crying about it. What do you want, a community where everyone gets along. Where in the REAL world does that happen?? NOWHERE!!

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You usually don't find good communities in too big games. It's like everywhere in the internet and in real life. It's usually better, if there are not too many people. I'm not completely sure why, but I think stupid people are egoistic and to be heard, so they look for a place with lots of people and try to do something so other get aware of them. Of course they don't care what people think about them, but they want people to think about them. Maybe you find some kind of psychological profile of trolls on the internet. They have been there since the early ages of the web and now they play MMOs ;)

Oh and they tend to play easy games, because they are too stupid for something more complex. This doesn't have todo with a game being bad, because lots of cool games are very easy to play.

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So to finish off, is WoW easy mode?? Yes, but so is every other MMORPG. I can macro skills in UO and Darkfall. I can get my friends to play AoC with me and we can level to 80 in a matter of weeks. Remember that games with no users sucks, just ask Shadowbane. If you don't like WoW, don't play it. If you want to trash a game and it's users because your too good/elite/hardcore for them, then play the HARDCORE games and stay in your momma's basement eating hotpockets for weeks on end. At least your not procreating and disrupting the real life community that we casual gamers enjoy on nights we don't play. 

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There are many reasons for making a game bad and most of them are subjective, but the main reason for WoW being bad is that it didn't bring anything new to the market, when it came out. The developers didn't think much about anything revolutionary, they copied the most basic things of other MMOs and inserted the WC3 races. If this is what you like, it's good for you, if not it will be bad. The reason for WoW being that successful is that most people have what they want, but as I said most of these people didn't try a lot of other MMOs. That's completly fine. The only problem is that a lot of companies copy WoW (as P2P and F2P), because they think they'll have a success with it.
 

I probably would end up eating my own foot if it were different, but one of the things that I think was a bad change was offering loot rewards for PvP.  I was tired of the elite PvE guilds having all the advantage, and when they introduced PvP loot, I was excited about it. But just like the PvE treadmill, they keep pumping out new PvP gear every few months, and players will sit AFK in the BG graveyards just to get it.

I don't think they should reward players with items for PvP. PvP should be done for its own sake. I also don't think PvE items should be allowed in PvP instances. Radical, I know, but if they had it similar to the way they do on the PTR where you get your gear set when you enter the BG, and it disappears when you leave, it would make the action much more balanced in my opinion. Players shouldn't be striving for new gear in PvP, they should be striving to get better both individually and with their teams, on equal grounds as everyone else. They should be striving for the honor and glory of thier chosen faction. And yes, I already play FPS such as TF2, which is one big reason the WoW pvp has left such a bad taste in my mouth.

Apparently, since we do measure success or failure by numbers of subscribers, WOW has not gone wrong yet.

Everything you listed is simply your opinion. For example, I do not think the community is an issue because I am on a great server and never had any issues with people. I have worse mannered and behaved people in the town in which I live than anyone I have met in WOW.

The only people who think WOW has gone wrong are elitist raiders or PVP'ers who are angered that Blizzard didn't keep with the hardcore game. WOW is a game for casuals and that is what it is.

See, this is what I do not understand - why do elitist hardcore players (who believe every game must cater to them) come to this forum and insult WOW and its players when they KNOW that WOW is not the game for them.... I do not see WOW players going to Darkfall forums and asking to make Darkfall no PVP, PVE focused and a casual game. I do not see them go to the EVE forums and ask to make the game more approachable for a casual player. So why do we have to put up with the opposite?

WOW did not go wrong and has not gone wrong. Right and wrong (in terms of game design) are subjective terms. WOW is right because it appeals to so many players who love the game. It is wrong in that it doesn't appeal to everyone. And for those it doesn't appeal too, they really need to get over that fact and find a game that does appeal to them and move on.

Originally posted by templarga

Apparently, since we do measure success or failure by numbers of subscribers, WOW has not gone wrong yet.

Everything you listed is simply your opinion. For example, I do not think the community is an issue because I am on a great server and never had any issues with people. I have worse mannered and behaved people in the town in which I live than anyone I have met in WOW.

The only people who think WOW has gone wrong are elitist raiders or PVP'ers who are angered that Blizzard didn't keep with the hardcore game. WOW is a game for casuals and that is what it is.

See, this is what I do not understand - why do elitist hardcore players (who believe every game must cater to them) come to this forum and insult WOW and its players when they KNOW that WOW is not the game for them.... I do not see WOW players going to Darkfall forums and asking to make Darkfall no PVP, PVE focused and a casual game. I do not see them go to the EVE forums and ask to make the game more approachable for a casual player. So why do we have to put up with the opposite?

WOW did not go wrong and has not gone wrong. Right and wrong (in terms of game design) are subjective terms. WOW is right because it appeals to so many players who love the game. It is wrong in that it doesn't appeal to everyone. And for those it doesn't appeal too, they really need to get over that fact and find a game that does appeal to them and move on.

Many of us, if not the majority of us on these forusm, do not measure success or failure by number of subscribers.  By this flawed logic, Danielle Steele and John Grisham would have to be considered the greatest writer of our generation.  I'm sorry, but I don't want to live in a world where that is the case.

WoW has changed, that is a simple fact.  For many people who enjoyed the game, which they started playing because they believed it was done "right", the new directions taken are reasonably considered "wrong".

This is a forum for discussion, and if you don't want to discuss what is wrong with WoW, then why the hell would you even enter into a thread with this topic?  If you don't like it, stay out of it.  No one needs you to come in here and tell everyone that they shouldn't have their own opinions.

Unless you have the PvP rank of "Battlemaster" or have just downed the latest 25 man raid dungeon on heroic setting, you have no right to complain about WoW being too easy or not hardcore enough.

Originally posted by madeux

Originally posted by templarga

Apparently, since we do measure success or failure by numbers of subscribers, WOW has not gone wrong yet.

Everything you listed is simply your opinion. For example, I do not think the community is an issue because I am on a great server and never had any issues with people. I have worse mannered and behaved people in the town in which I live than anyone I have met in WOW.

The only people who think WOW has gone wrong are elitist raiders or PVP'ers who are angered that Blizzard didn't keep with the hardcore game. WOW is a game for casuals and that is what it is.

See, this is what I do not understand - why do elitist hardcore players (who believe every game must cater to them) come to this forum and insult WOW and its players when they KNOW that WOW is not the game for them.... I do not see WOW players going to Darkfall forums and asking to make Darkfall no PVP, PVE focused and a casual game. I do not see them go to the EVE forums and ask to make the game more approachable for a casual player. So why do we have to put up with the opposite?

WOW did not go wrong and has not gone wrong. Right and wrong (in terms of game design) are subjective terms. WOW is right because it appeals to so many players who love the game. It is wrong in that it doesn't appeal to everyone. And for those it doesn't appeal too, they really need to get over that fact and find a game that does appeal to them and move on.

Many of us, if not the majority of us on these forusm, do not measure success or failure by number of subscribers.  By this flawed logic, Danielle Steele and John Grisham would have to be considered the greatest writer of our generation.  I'm sorry, but I don't want to live in a world where that is the case.

WoW has changed, that is a simple fact.  For many people who enjoyed the game, which they started playing because they believed it was done "right", the new directions taken are reasonably considered "wrong".

This is a forum for discussion, and if you don't want to discuss what is wrong with WoW, then why the hell would you even enter into a thread with this topic?  If you don't like it, stay out of it.  No one needs you to come in here and tell everyone that they shouldn't have their own opinions.

When I said "we" I was referring to the market. You bring up the issue of quality. No John Grisham and Danielle Steele are not about quality; however, they are successful writers.

This is the essence of the issue at hand. People cannot separate quality and success. That is why all of these comparisons (be it Danielle Steele, McD's, or Britney Spears) fail. Quality and success are not synonymous. They are two separate entities. Something can lack quality and be successful and something can be of very high quality and lack success.

Take movies for example. Some of the best movies are never that successful because of various reasons. Some of the most successful movies have horrible qualities. This is why you will never see something like Iron Man or Star Trek or Transformers win an Oscar. They were successful movies but its not of high quality except that thgey are action packed and a perfect Summer movie.

You want to link quality and success and it is illogical and cannot be done. WOW is a success and to argue differently is beyond stupid. Success in the genre is just like movies and music - the number of paying customers determines success. Like it or not, that IS the measuring stick of success. I will agree it is not the measuring stick of quality. I have never said WOW is the best game on the market in terms of quality, just the best game in terms of success.

I am all for debating what WOW did wrong. However, given the fact it is the leader in subscription numbers and the fact it has more dedicated fans than any other MMO, my argument is that it did very little wrong. When the next closest MMO has ~11-12 million FEWER subscribers, debating what WOW has done wrong is just a waste of time. Sure there are thing Blizzard could do better (in terms of quality) but very little they could do to improve on things that are wrong with the game. And besides, most of these type things (character balance for example) are the problems with many, if not ALL, MMO's.

Instead maybe we should debate what is has done right and maybe if game companies would stop trying to make WOW copies or clones and focus on improving on what WOW has done right, then maybe some other games would be as successful or more successful than WOW has been.

Originally posted by cyan85

Unless you have the PvP rank of "Battlemaster" or have just downed the latest 25 man raid dungeon on heroic setting, you have no right to complain about WoW being too easy or not hardcore enough.

I think in saying that your actually admitting that warcraft has become all about a small part of the endgame . Also if your some certain classes the battlemaster rank is easier to achieve than others at present . The warcraft community really is a lot worse than most mmo games i ve played .Although i ll admit every mmo has its fair share of idiots . Warcraft is still very popular but it is undeniably not as good a game as it was two years ago . Blizzard have made so many mistakes and i doubt they would be able to fix them even if they had the desire to ( which they dont ) . Warcraft if your a new player coming into it has a good few months play in it but it really does not have much long term playability anymore .It really will only take a half decent mmo to come on the market and WOW will see a sharp fall in its subs. The game really is a kindergarten now . I would love to see adult servers/battlegroups etc .

Warcraft didn't "go wrong". They went pretty damn "right" actually. And 10+ million monthly subscription payments prove it. 

p.s. No, I don't play.