|
 by Fovea, Level 33
Last updated at August 8, 2009, 5:17 am
|
|
When and how did World of Warcraft go from a game to a money-making machine?
A picture for the feed.
But lets start from the beginning.
This struck me as I was checking out a .NET forum, and noticed how they had added a section regarding Windows Mobile.
"I wonder if I can do anything sweet in this" I asked myself.
I went to Google to find some development-samples and information about languages and packs, and typed "Windows Mobile".
First page. A page that sells/tells about phones with Windows Mobile.
Second page, a really bad Wiki-site.
Third page, a spamsite offering some free Windows Mobile software.
I sighed. At the 6th hit I actually found Microsoft own page for developing Windows Mobile.
I thought to myself: "How many know or knows what it means that they have Windows Mobile on their phone but developers?"
That reminded me of a while ago when I was asked to make this banner for an online-store that sells laptops.
(It's on my own server so don't worry about the traffic + please don't count this as advertising. These products doesn't even exist anymore, and it's f*n Swedish. I'm just gonna illustrate a point here.) Oh yeah, the banner isn't too hot but then again I'm not a flash-pro.
So as I know the guys owning this company I was casually asked "Hey man, can you make a 160x600 banner for us?"
"Sure", I replied, "How would you like it?"
"Uhm.. I don't know.."
I sighed. Developing something without specifications really sucks.
So the conversation continued:
- Ok, I guess I'll just slap 2 products up and add some specifications and a price then?
- Sure, sounds good.
- Ok, which products do you want then?
- Uhm, take these 2...
- Alright, what do you want me to specify about them?
- Just write "250GB HD, 2,0GHz cpu and HDMI"
- Really? You don't think they want to know what sort of CPU, how much RAM, RPM etc?
- No, no, no, people just want a computer with lots of CPU and some modern things to it, they don't know about those things...
- Oh... But.. I mean.. If you play RMP it's a damn difference if it's Hemo, Fire and Holy compared to Mutilate, Frost and Disc.. Don't you think?
- Wtf are you talking about?
- You don't play WoW?
- No...
- Oh...
- Anyways, I have this friend Celex who can use a new computer, you think you guys can hook him up?
So I started looking around. "He can't be right", I thought to myself. "When did people stop caring about quality?"
As I browsed around different online stores I noticed that everyone just kept flashing "X GB HD", "DUAL CORE PROCESSOR", "WEBCAM".
It's like describing a mage as "They've got frostbolts and firebolts that do a lot of damage."
I was disgusted. People don't care about how good their computers are. They don't need a good developer enviorment or a good gaming computer, or even one that will last a few years/is upgradable. All they want to do is Twitter and Facebook.
I kept looking around and the last few years this seems to have happened to every industry.
IKEA, H&M, Wallmart.
People don't care about quality, they want something cheap and fast. Kinda of makes life feel boring and endless.
But all of these companys are very successful, and unfortunatly it seems that the online MMO-companys picked up on these.
As I've mentioned before, there is a reason Activation merged with Blizzard, and it was not to improve the game. It was to profit from it.
And guess what? There is no money in PvP.
Back in the days WoW used to be challanging and getting good gear actually took an effort. Today people can get full t8.5+ by just running easily puggable heroics. Why? Catering to the casual. Offering low-quality cheap stuff like every other successful company does.
Server transfers are going down to 3 days and you'll even be able to cross-server transfer AND have alliance and horde on the same PvP-server. Why? Money.
Disregard the reason you couldn't in the first place, now that WoW is a money machine that reason doesn't seem to important anymore.
Trust me, it's just a matter of time before you can buy official gold online.
And I don't give a **** about PvE. There's not even any use running 25-mans anymore. It's not really too much fun compared to PvP, and there are no upgrades, since either you can just do the daily heroic and get top notch gear, or your ******* gear you've wiped over for weeks will be available 1 patch later.
Yes, the instances have become harder (well...), but instead you can get the gear through Heroics.. W H A T ! ?
What's the point getting new shiny gear when every scrub will wear them aswell? Oh and don't give me this casual ****. I know it's the 'cool' thing to be these days but who are you trying to fool? When you're blogging about a video-game, you're definately not casual.
You play this game for a reason, and wheter you like it or not, standing there in nice armor, owning noobs and being generally good gives you a nice feeling.
So they **** in our faces and piss in our mouths. Doing minor twitches to PvP every patch to keep us going 'just that extra little time' in order to profit the small ammount they can from us PvPers.
But have you seriously taken a look at the changes?
Improved size in Dalaran arena? LOL. The ******* platform is still just as small making it a ****** up ****-arena.
Changes to RoL? Who gives a ****, it was fine.
Removing the fires in Valor? LOL THEY'RE STILL THERE.
Resilience change? DIDN'T CHANGE ****.
New unannounced queue-rules forcing you to play RNG-games for 3 rating even at 2000?
SEASON 6 STILL IN PATCH 3.2!????!??!?!??????!?!??
They do absolutely nothing to make us believe they care about PvP. When designing new instances, making mounts 1.5 speed, casualing it all up for everyone, why couldn't they just put one, one single one, to have a look at PvP. Why couldn't they just call Kalgan and ask "Hey, can you write down a small list of changes for PvP and well put a programmer on it?".
Or are the employees of Blizzard such ******* nerds that noone cares about PvP? Lets ******* face it. Kalgan was good. And he has a hot GF. Thus, he was not the biggest nerd ever. And he cared about PvP. (Or is it GC that has a hot GF? Nah, can't be)
It's like. The PvE is IKEA, and PvP is Mazeratti. Just that Mazeratti developed one good car a while ago and now they keep making tricycles.
With the new changes I will probably never PvE again, and I will definatly not try to reach high in the arenas while getting my face all ****ted (****?) over.
It's come to the point where I don't even try to make this entry at least a little funny.
So I've had enough. I'm joining this new cool trend. Playing casual. Hi Bodi, Hi Ming, want to be friends?
I'll log in two, three times a week to play some casual arena, and that's it. If I'm bored.
Because I just can't take this **** anymore. There's no point. It's not even fun.
When a game comes down to money, it's just bound to fail...
Report Post
This money-minded approach is the main reason for all the changes they've been making since BC and most significantly in WotlK, turning off their most dedicated players (the hardcore) in favour of the fickle masses just to inflate their bottom lines.
I miss the days when Blizzard actually cared about the gamers. That merger with Activision, was the beginning of the end for their quality control.
2 replies to Heldericht (hide)
2 replies to Heldericht (show)
Permalink
Quote
Post Reply
Reply to this comment
I've seen this approach far too much lately, especially in smaller web-browsed games. Ruining the balance and effort for money.
Unfortunatly, in every one of those I've seen they've released games after the initial one they 'turned' which has basically been based on profits.
Makes you wonder how good the new Diablo and Starcraft will actually become...
(Havn't they already stated that Starcraft isn't going to be playable lan-mode to force players to battle.net btw?)
With computers being around $500 these days I can imagine people just want some cheap ****...
Them: "This store has a 500GB HDD on special for $200, would that be okay for us to backup our stuff on?"
Me: "But all of the files on your computer (basically Word documents and photos) take up about 300 MB of HDD space..."
If I wasn't here they probably would have bought it too.
If I wanted to be " good " in Pvp ( have shiny gearz) I had to grind 12 hours / day for 3 months **** THAT
If I wanted to be " good " in Pve ( shiny gearz) I had to raid for 5 hours / day // 6 days / week **** THAT too
So lets say that game stayed same as in Vanilla you would be inspecting players that are hardcore only and they would have same gear so u still wouldnt be SPECIAL .
ignorant n00b is ignorant.
firstly, op isn't talking about vanilla, he is clearly referring to TBC (arena)
"If I wanted to be " good " in Pvp ( have shiny gearz) I had to grind 12 hours / day for 3 months **** THAT"
obviously you are one of the retards who likes to have shiny epics, gratz, you get to have shame **** that doesnt mean **** because everyone else has the same stuff. i was a casual in vanilla, i had blues, i was happy with blues... epics MEANT something... i got an epic, hell i was ******* special, took hard work from me and my friends but **** i did it
and fyi, you show even more ignorants by seperately referring to pvp and pve in two different groups. AKA, you raided, you got good pvp and pve gear. that was the point of WoW, IT WAS A PVE GAME, PVP was ONLY ever to support its PVE... you're a ******* moron if you think anything else, WoW was a continuation of Everquack if anything... just a slightly less extreme version of the original EQ (before WOTLK of course, where that extreme got too much)
and yeh, as a casual vanilla player, i not only respected hard workers (yes, geeks, w/e you want to call them)... but i also had fun versing them in PVP, pwning decked out players in blues is extremely fun, either way, most other players were also in blues so it didnt make much difference
ignorant n00b is ignorant.
firstly, op isn't talking about vanilla, he is clearly referring to TBC (arena)
"If I wanted to be " good " in Pvp ( have shiny gearz) I had to grind 12 hours / day for 3 months **** THAT"
obviously you are one of the retards who likes to have shiny epics, gratz, you get to have shame **** that doesnt mean **** because everyone else has the same stuff. i was a casual in vanilla, i had blues, i was happy with blues... epics MEANT something... i got an epic, hell i was ******* special, took hard work from me and my friends but **** i did it
and fyi, you show even more ignorants by seperately referring to pvp and pve in two different groups. AKA, you raided, you got good pvp and pve gear. that was the point of WoW, IT WAS A PVE GAME, PVP was ONLY ever to support its PVE... you're a ******* moron if you think anything else, WoW was a continuation of Everquack if anything... just a slightly less extreme version of the original EQ (before WOTLK of course, where that extreme got too much)
and yeh, as a casual vanilla player, i not only respected hard workers (yes, geeks, w/e you want to call them)... but i also had fun versing them in PVP, pwning decked out players in blues is extremely fun, either way, most other players were also in blues so it didnt make much difference
anyway u sux
hmmm, game was never based around dueling, so while gear helped of course, it was far from a deciding factor
and i played hunter much of the time in vanilla (for pvp anyway), so kiting was viable even for those who the best gear... and for other classes, like warlocks, well it wouldnt matter because warlocks with greens could fear spam ANY hunter no matter what gear
anyway, point is, gear =/= auto-win... but i guess ignorant 'entered half-way in TBC' players wouldnt know this... and just assume because of the rubbish current wowfanbois trash about vanilla because they want to defend a bad game they are paying for
hmmm, game was never based around dueling, so while gear helped of course, it was far from a deciding factor
and i played hunter much of the time in vanilla (for pvp anyway), so kiting was viable even for those who the best gear... and for other classes, like warlocks, well it wouldnt matter because warlocks with greens could fear spam ANY hunter no matter what gear
anyway, point is, gear =/= auto-win... but i guess ignorant 'entered half-way in TBC' players wouldnt know this... and just assume because of the rubbish current wowfanbois trash about vanilla because they want to defend a bad game they are paying for
Mine point is that I like that pvp gear is easy to get now so every can b in more or less same gear and gear would not decide outcome .
Oh and if u think that gear= /= auto-win u should google and find rogue movies and their skilled killing in cheap shot damn that was fun!
oh yes, again you show how much of an idiot you are. rogue movies are like that because they purposely choose their best movies out of hours and hours of plays. dont waste my time moron, you see a movie of a rogue killing a player in seconds, there are 20+ other situations were the rogue got pwned because it was 2v1, flare (and hence kited) and so on
again, you show what a bad player you are more then anything, my point still stands because you suck.. gratz you see some random rogue post up a vid of when he owned a few players in seconds, seriously are you that much of an idiot that you can't THINK ABOUT THE CONTEXT OF THE VIDEO or even of the context of when you were playing
try again n00b, try again
btw, you still don't prove anything against this article, instead you just try and say 'oh blizzard did it for the benefit of the players' which is completely moronic considering BLIZZARD IS A BUSINESS RETARD. if they can get away with less content they will, keep trying to defend it saying that blizzard is doing it not because of money, because if you keep trying with that excuse you are just showing everyone what an idiot you are
oh yes, again you show how much of an idiot you are. rogue movies are like that because they purposely choose their best movies out of hours and hours of plays. dont waste my time moron, you see a movie of a rogue killing a player in seconds, there are 20+ other situations were the rogue got pwned because it was 2v1, flare (and hence kited) and so on
again, you show what a bad player you are more then anything, my point still stands because you suck.. gratz you see some random rogue post up a vid of when he owned a few players in seconds, seriously are you that much of an idiot that you can't THINK ABOUT THE CONTEXT OF THE VIDEO or even of the context of when you were playing
try again n00b, try again
btw, you still don't prove anything against this article, instead you just try and say 'oh blizzard did it for the benefit of the players' which is completely moronic considering BLIZZARD IS A BUSINESS RETARD. if they can get away with less content they will, keep trying to defend it saying that blizzard is doing it not because of money, because if you keep trying with that excuse you are just showing everyone what an idiot you are
ignorant n00b is ignorant.
firstly, op isn't talking about vanilla, he is clearly referring to TBC (arena)
"If I wanted to be " good " in Pvp ( have shiny gearz) I had to grind 12 hours / day for 3 months **** THAT"
obviously you are one of the retards who likes to have shiny epics, gratz, you get to have shame **** that doesnt mean **** because everyone else has the same stuff. i was a casual in vanilla, i had blues, i was happy with blues... epics MEANT something... i got an epic, hell i was ******* special, took hard work from me and my friends but **** i did it
and fyi, you show even more ignorants by seperately referring to pvp and pve in two different groups. AKA, you raided, you got good pvp and pve gear. that was the point of WoW, IT WAS A PVE GAME, PVP was ONLY ever to support its PVE... you're a ******* moron if you think anything else, WoW was a continuation of Everquack if anything... just a slightly less extreme version of the original EQ (before WOTLK of course, where that extreme got too much)
and yeh, as a casual vanilla player, i not only respected hard workers (yes, geeks, w/e you want to call them)... but i also had fun versing them in PVP, pwning decked out players in blues is extremely fun, either way, most other players were also in blues so it didnt make much difference
and also, double post, opps
48 Total Entries
|
|
1 of 9 |
Your Comment is being posted. Please wait...