Originally posted by Washo

Why should harcore players not have unique content designed for them? Why is it only casuals who deserve unique content? Because casuals make up the majority of subscribers? Yes, they do.

Will you casuals still be playing WoW in 2013? By pissing off the most loyal and dedicated players now Blizzard are cutting their subscriber base in the long term.

You just answered yourself without even realizing it.  You just admitted that casuals make up the majority of the subscribers.  Therefore it is them that Blizzard is rightfully most concerned with.  It' not that they don't care about the hardcore player, they still give them content aimed at them, however it is the casual player that is the most important because they make up the majority of the subscribers.  That's just common sense.  It's possible that it could effect the number of subscribers in the long term, but you can't sacrifice the much larger number of subscribers in the short term.

Originally posted by Washo

 

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I played Warcraft: Orcs and Humans way back in 1995. I played WCII the following year and the WCII (my favourite of all) in 1996. I played WC3 and the excellent expansion. Until WoW I had never played a mmorpg in my entire life except for 30 mins of Everquest and Star Wars Galaxies. Neither which I liked. I like the warcraft story (I dont read the books or anything else, just the game story) and the whole concept of dungeons having indentical 25 man and 10 man version existing in the same game is beyond stupid. I don't role play nor am I into fantasy books and stuff, but I do like my computer games to have a story and a concept that makes [b]sense[/b]

 

       What I don't understand is why it matters if people can't off spec in 10 mans.  If it is 10 man content, then people should spec something useful.  That so called "Pro Fury Warrior" should maybe try out what his class was designed to do.  In a 10 man there just isn't room for the off spec which is FINE.  When was the last time a ret paladin was absolutely necessary in any raiding situation?  It has never been the case.  They have always been replaceable.  Sometimes the offspec just isn't as useful.  That's why there is both a TWENTY FIVE man raid instance and a 10 man.  They're not taking out 25 man raids from the game, so I don't see how this affects anyone that wants to offspec or anyone that wants to be a so called hardcore player.  Ill use you as an example Walsho because you seem to want there to just be 25 man raids.  The fact that there is still 25 man raid instances in the game caters to you.  You want people to be able to off spec their class, and you want to do 25 man raids.  BINGO there are going to be 25 man raids in WOTLK so i don't see how this change affects you at all.  You also complain that having two different versions ruins the story.  It doesn't change the story in the slightest!  Do you think different events or going to occur in both versions in the instance?  Whatever happens in the 25 man will be the same in the 10 man.  There is no change to the story at all.  So please find a better explanation to why this angers you because your arguments don't  make a lot of sense.

Originally posted by Pappy13

Originally posted by Washo

Why should harcore players not have unique content designed for them? Why is it only casuals who deserve unique content? Because casuals make up the majority of subscribers? Yes, they do.

Will you casuals still be playing WoW in 2013? By pissing off the most loyal and dedicated players now Blizzard are cutting their subscriber base in the long term.

You just answered yourself without even realizing it.  You just admitted that casuals make up the majority of the subscribers.  Therefore it is them that Blizzard is rightfully most concerned with.  It' not that they don't care about the hardcore player, they still give them content aimed at them, however it is the casual player that is the most important because they make up the majority of the subscribers.  That's just common sense.  It's possible that it could effect the number of subscribers in the long term, but you can't sacrifice the much larger number of subscribers in the short term.

Did you actually read my full post? Casuals are also the players who quit the game at the drop of the hat to chase whatever is new and shiny. I noticed you didn't quote my Everquest example. You can bet the 30,000+ people still playing Everquest are not casuals.

 We're already seeing the death of raiding in North America. D&T are dead, or at least are rebuilding and are no longer at the bleeding edge of raiding. Even Euro guilds like Nihilium are expressing unhappiness with raiding. SK Gaming have their beginnings in Quakeworld (online version of Quake 1) but they ditched that as soon as they started losing to the newer and better clans coming through. They moved onto whatever was the next hot gaming title and they'll do the same with WoW.

The realm I used to play on had 12 Illidan killing guilds. Thats a lot of hardcore players. Out of the 4.5 million Euro/NA players a lot are hardcore raiders. So why is Blizzard deliberately trying to piss them off? Wouldn't it be in Blizzard's interest to keep the casuals AND hardcore players happy?

If one group amounts to 51% of a demographic that means theres 49% remaining. If you were a business person would you only try to get the business of that 51% at the expense of the 49%? Now, WoW is not 51% casual and 49% hardcore. It would be more like 67% casual and 33% hardcore. Thats around 1.5 million hardcore players. Thats a lot of players to piss off.

[quote]Originally posted by jbdub1

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What I don't understand is why it matters if people can't off spec in 10 mans. If it is 10 man content, then people should spec something useful. That so called "Pro Fury Warrior" should maybe try out what his class was designed to do. In a 10 man there just isn't room for the off spec which is FINE. When was the last time a ret paladin was absolutely necessary in any raiding situation? It has never been the case. They have always been replaceable. Sometimes the offspec just isn't as useful. That's why there is both a TWENTY FIVE man raid instance and a 10 man. They're not taking out 25 man raids from the game, so I don't see how this affects anyone that wants to offspec or anyone that wants to be a so called hardcore player. Ill use you as an example Walsho because you seem to want there to just be 25 man raids. The fact that there is still 25 man raid instances in the game caters to you. You want people to be able to off spec their class, and you want to do 25 man raids. BINGO there are going to be 25 man raids in WOTLK so i don't see how this change affects you at all. You also complain that having two different versions ruins the story. It doesn't change the story in the slightest! Do you think different events or going to occur in both versions in the instance? Whatever happens in the 25 man will be the same in the 10 man. There is no change to the story at all. So please find a better explanation to why this angers you because your arguments don't make a lot of sense.

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Take druids for example. Remember the days when innervate was not trainable at lvl 40 but instead the 31 talent point in the resto tree? Most casual guilds would raid with feral druids healing so they didn't get the benefit of innervate, which back in pre-BC was GODLY. With the massive amount of mana per 5 available now, and with the buff to spirit in 2.4 it isn't such a big deal.

I never said I wanted off-specs to be viable. It has never concerned me because I've always taken raid specs.

If you're a player willing to spec to whatever is needed to clear content then you are not casual.

ZG, AQ20, ZA and even Karazhan are not central to the Warcraft story (the actual bosses in Karazhan are not important even though Karazhan the place is). But having major story characters like Arthas and Malygos in 10 man instances ruins the game for me. Thats my opinion and if you don't like it you can fuck yourself. I'm not against 10 man content for casuals but why does it HAVE to be the same as the 25 man content?. Oh, thats right, you pay $15 therefore you're entitled to everything.

Why same content for casuals as for hardcore? Supposing it is, that has not be confirmed yet, why would you create a lot of content that the MAJORITY of your player base will never see?

It makes no sense and this is the main point here. Everyone knows most of the raid instances of old are some of the BEST content for WoW there is, they were the best designed and took the most effort from the Devs to do. Still, not 33%, BUT something like 1% ever was in Naxx (at its level ,now there are level 70 tourists that go there).

Having lots and lots of devs hours for some incredible content that only 1% will ever see is a waste of resources, period.

This new experiment is a compromise. their Devs hours will go toward a much bigger % of their customers AND there STILL is hardcore raiding content as I expect the 25-man version to be quite harder than the 10 as they already said they will have different loot table, so different Tier equipment and I would think higher difficulty level.

So what if Malygos will be a 10 man encounter? Better THAT than it be a 1% people encounter! Malygos (and Arthas) ARE great advertisement and marketing opportunities! you want most of your customers to see them, not the least!

Originally posted by Washo

 

Originally posted by Pappy13

You just answered yourself without even realizing it.  You just admitted that casuals make up the majority of the subscribers.  Therefore it is them that Blizzard is rightfully most concerned with.  It' not that they don't care about the hardcore player, they still give them content aimed at them, however it is the casual player that is the most important because they make up the majority of the subscribers.  That's just common sense.  It's possible that it could effect the number of subscribers in the long term, but you can't sacrifice the much larger number of subscribers in the short term.

Did you actually read my full post? Casuals are also the players who quit the game at the drop of the hat to chase whatever is new and shiny. I noticed you didn't quote my Everquest example. You can bet the 30,000+ people still playing Everquest are not casuals.

Why is it that when someone can't refute your post, they start their post off with "Did you actually read my full post?"  Well as a matter of fact I did read your whole post.  Now will you please refute my response?  I didn't quote your EQ example because I didn't think the raw numbers were all that important to the discussion, but for the sake of argument, let's analyze your EQ example shall we?

Ok, you say that EQ has about 30k current subs.  How many did they have at their peak?  According to MMORPG.com which is about the only source we have on this it was around 500K.  Let's assume these numbers are fairly accurate.   Your theory is that those 30K are EQ's hard core players.  Ok, I'll buy that.  But that means that over 90% of EQ's subs at it's peak were casuals.  I'm defining casuals here as those people who would drop EQ at the drop of a hat.  Now lets apply that to WoW.  Since WoW has over 10 million paying subs, that would mean that about 1 million are hard core, stick to the very end kind of folks and about 9 million are the quit at a drop of the hat folks.  So you honestly think that Blizzard should worry more about pissing off the 1 million, rather than the 9 million?  If you honestly believe that, then there's no point in discussing it with you anymore because we just don't agree.

Now, I doubt those number are relevant in the least because even you yourself said that it's probably more like 1/3 hardcore to 2/3 casuals and I'll even buy that.  But that means your EQ example doesn't fit now does it?  But it doesn't really matter because that was never my argument in the first place.  My argument is that the majority of WoW subs are casuals and not hard core and you agree, it doesn't matter whether it's 10% or 33%.  It doesn't make any sense to cater to the hard core when they are not the majority. 

Even if that weren't true and let's say it was closer to a 50/50 split.  Would it make more sense to piss off the casuals who are more likely to drop your game at the drop of a hat or piss off the hard core ones who are more likely to stick it out to the very end no matter what you do?  I'm sorry, but I think it makes more sense to cater to the casuals than it does to the hard core even in this case.

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Originally posted by Volkmar

 

Why same content for casuals as for hardcore? Supposing it is, that has not be confirmed yet, why would you create a lot of content that the MAJORITY of your player base will never see?
It makes no sense and this is the main point here. Everyone knows most of the raid instances of old are some of the BEST content for WoW there is, they were the best designed and took the most effort from the Devs to do. Still, not 33%, BUT something like 1% ever was in Naxx (at its level ,now there are level 70 tourists that go there).

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Only 1% ever saw any content in Naxx? Thats rubbish and you know it. A LOT more than 1% saw some of the early (and quite easy bosses) in Naxxramas. Most of the bosses in Naxx were a lot more simple than C'Thun (past patch). I knew a lot of guilds who didn't down C'thun that managed to do 1-3 Naxx bosses. So you are talking out of your uniformed butthole.

And the real reason so few people saw Naxx was BECAUSE IT WAS RELEASED SO LATE. It was released on June 20th 2006. By the time patch 2.0 was released in early December most guilds had stopped raiding because the expansion was only a few weeks away. I don't think many guilds downed Kel' Thuzad for the first time post patch 2.0 if any at all. So we only had 5 to 5 and a half months of raiding Naxx.

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Having lots and lots of devs hours for some incredible content that only 1% will ever see is a waste of resources, period.

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Whats with this 1% bullshit? As I in an earlier post there are 12 Illidan killing guilds on my realm, a medium sized PvP realm. Soon there will be 13 since a guild is on the Council. So stop talking rubbish. Check wowjutsu. There are 30% of players who have seen Hyjal and climbing rapidly. Theres already 4% of players in Sunwell and its only been out a few weeks with plenty of Illidan guilds currently gearing to hit SWP.

And who said the casuals can't progress to the harder 25 man content? As I've said a thousand fucking times they should have two 25 mans. One the casuals to farm to gear up and do the harder 25 man content. Take SSC and TK for example. Make SSC the casual instance and TK the hardcore instead of them both being tier 5 level (but expand TK to 6 bosses as well). The casuals can farm SSC and to do TK where the harcore raiders can skip straight to TK and do SSC at their discretion. But the hardcore instance is the only instance that will contain "lore" bosses. So that means no Vashj for SSC.

And there cannot be a massive gear difference between 10 mans and 25 mans. Why? It will ruin 25 man raiding if 10 mans have much lower gear quality. Because since most players will be taking the ezy mode, epic loot train, when 25 man guilds need to recruit they will have to recruit players doing 10 man instances. Since there will be much less players doing 25man content they will need to draw from the larger pool to replace those who quit the game. Even if 25man guilds poach players from other 25 man guilds someone is going to have to a replacement, just trading players doesn't increase the pool size.

Now, if the 10 man loot is not good enough to be competitive in the 25 man instance then the 25man guilds are FORCED into farming old content to gear up the new players. Blizzard knows that by having only good gear drop from the high end instances it slows guilds down by continually having to gear up new players. I LOVE badge loot. It allows guilds to recruit new players and not have to worry about gearing them up. So either 10 man content in WotLK or badge loot (which would nullify 10 man loot if 10 man loot wasn't up to standard) has to be of a 25 man raiding standard otherwise raiding guilds will spend more time spinning their wheels in old content gearing up new players.

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Maybe Blizzard is trying to help the hardcores to save them from their self-destructive tendencies. 

I used to consider myself in that category, finally decided to give it up.  Got a promotion to VP, my family started to love me again, and I began a program of running 5 days a week for the past 2 years. 

I know, I'm not helping....  but its Friday, how bad can things really be today?

I think I once read a statistic that in the old days less than 20% of players were active raiders, and when it came to Naxx that number went down to like 5%. 

I can see why Blizzard has moved focus from the hardcore crowd to the casual, thats where the big money is. 

I did see a statement that someone made about casuals going from one game to another more frequently than hardcore players.  I disagree.....seems to me the hardcore chew through new content way too fast and quickly become bored and move on, leaving the casuals behind who still play for years.

Now, there is always a diehard crowd in every game, who play it for 5, 6, or more years, way beyond any practical reason, and they are loyal, but small in number.

Most large developers are now avoiding the niche markets, those who love large scale raiding, or FFA PVP w/looting  because that's not where the money is.

Originally posted by Washo

 I'm not against 10 man content for casuals but why does it HAVE to be the same as the 25 man content?. Oh, thats right, you pay $15 therefore you're entitled to everything.

Where did Blizzard state that the 10 man instance would be the same as the 25 man?  They only said that there would be a 10 man version and a 25 man version, they didn't say they would be the same.  In fact they said they would NOT be the same because they said that each would have it's own loot table and tier set.  I think it's safe to assume that there will be other differences as well although it's possible that the same bosses may appear.  Most likely although the bosses will look alike and have the same name, they obviously won't be exactly the same.  I can pretty much gaurantee you that the 25 man boss will be much tougher to defeat than the 10 man boss, hence the better loot table.

So what again is your problem?  Oh, you think that you as a hard core player is entitled to something more than the casual player beyond the fact that you already get better loot.

Originally posted by Kyleran

I did see a statement that someone made about casuals going from one game to another more frequently than hardcore players.  I disagree.....seems to me the hardcore chew through new content way too fast and quickly become bored and move on, leaving the casuals behind who still play for years.

Now, there is always a diehard crowd in every game, who play it for 5, 6, or more years, way beyond any practical reason, and they are loyal, but small in number. 

You are wise beyond your years Kyleran (that's not to say you are old).  I believe I fall into the diehard crowd.  I play pretty much 7 days a week for a couple hours a day and yet I've never been to many of the 40 or 25 man raid instances.  I simply have my alts and love getting them all to level 70 and getting all the professions and getting them all up to 375.  I couldn't care less about tier sets or best of slot items.  Heck I don't even know what the loot tables look like in Kara.

I recently had a discussion with a buddy of mine that is a fairly hard core raider.  He plays about as often as me, but we are actually nothing alike.  He leads our Kara runs and I had complained in the past that he doesn't give people long enough to decide on whether or not we want to roll on the epics that drop.  We started talking about it and he said that he knew the moment he looked at it whether or not he wanted it and couldn't understand why I took me so long to decide until I explained to him that I can't simply look at the name and instantly know whether or not it's an upgrade.  I have to compare the stats on the item that I'm wearing (which I may or may not even be aware of) and the stats on the item that just dropped and then I decide.  He was amazed.  He thought that EVERYONE just knew what dropped from EVERY boss and knew exactly what was an upgrade and what wasn't.  THAT my friend is the definition of hard core or casual in my opinion.  It has nothing to do with time spent in the game or whether they would want to off-spec or whatever.  There's simply a different mind set with some people.  To them it's all about the loot.  They know exactly what they have, what they want and where they can get it.  For us casuals running Kara, each boss is like Christmas.  You can't wait to find out what present Moroes is going to bring you.  Hard cores just don't understand that.