The Weekly Marmot - Can MoP save WoW?

About the tier progression thing:
Sorry Lore, but i think you are the only one that actually belives that that's how it'll pan out.
Pretty much everybody else is expecting new 5man (non-)heroic dungeons in t15 or at very least in t16 that will make t14 completely obselete, LFR included.
Besides once t15 is avaliable in LFR mode, even IF there's no 5man nor dailies rewards & crafts making t14 virtually non-existant, i think we'll have to wait a very very long time for LFR to find 25 people wanting to run t14 and proc an instance.

On Story Connectedness: BWL and MC were actually related to one another; the two factions in Blackrock Mountain were each building an army (Golems and Elementals vs. Dragonkin) to combat the other for control of the mountain.

That said, this was only made apparent through something in the neighbourhood of two obscure quests, and their tie-in stories on the World of Warcraft website at the time, so it wasn't a particularly compelling narrative.

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Originally Posted by Toypop

The queue time for old tiers however will be considerably longer than DS. By "considerably longer" I mean if you want to do T14 during the period of the final tier in MOP then I will LOL in your face and my healer will charge you 2k gold for an instant join! :p

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If the queue times for T14 LFR in 18 months are bad for a DPS or tank but still instant for a healer, that would reflect the ratio of DPS to healers wanting to run T14 LFR, not the number of players who want to run it overall. You gave reasons to believe the overall number of players would drop off, but not why healers would decrease in greater proportion to DPS or tanks. If all three roles decrease in close to equal proportions, LFR will work fine as long as the total number of players running each tier is more than 25 every few minutes--which should be pretty easy to get given that the pool is region-wide.

That aside, if old-tier LFR drops are actually the primary vehicle for catch-up progression (which I kind of doubt), they're probably going to have to up the drop rate for older tiers. As a new recruit being run through SSC, you gear up at three to five times the usual pace because no one else is rolling on your stuff, but with personal looting in LFR you get no such advantage. If your goal is to join your friends' T16 normal guild and you're looking at running T14 LFR for six weeks before you can even get into T15 LFR, that's not going to look attainable.

Far as the size of Org as a raid goes, I've always kind of had the idea that we'll be going into a much larger area constructed under Org instead of an instance of the city itself. Might have just been an old Daily Blink that put that into my head though.

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Originally Posted by Marco

If the queue times for T14 LFR in 18 months are bad for a DPS or tank but still instant for a healer, that would reflect the ratio of DPS to healers wanting to run T14 LFR, not the number of players who want to run it overall. You gave reasons to believe the overall number of players would drop off, but not why healers would decrease in greater proportion to DPS or tanks. If all three roles decrease in close to equal proportions, LFR will work fine as long as the total number of players running each tier is more than 25 every few minutes--which should be pretty easy to get given that the pool is region-wide.That aside, if old-tier LFR drops are actually the primary vehicle for catch-up progression (which I kind of doubt), they're probably going to have to up the drop rate for older tiers. As a new recruit being run through SSC, you gear up at three to five times the usual pace because no one else is rolling on your stuff, but with personal looting in LFR you get no such advantage. If your goal is to join your friends' T16 normal guild and you're looking at running T14 LFR for six weeks before you can even get into T15 LFR, that's not going to look attainable.

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I was teasing with the healer thing and you are correct. Your second paragraph is something Lore should think about as he will still have to boost guild mates alts through the old normal modes if he needs to fill gaps in his team. It won't be like the current system where a freshly capped toon can get themselves half decent in a week of dungeon spamming. Rather solo play could take two months per tier depending on luck. The days of poaching and guild boost runs will return.

Something that they're doing with Mists that they didn't manage to do with Cata is that the new features they're adding to get people to join are still going to be interesting to current players. While the revamped leveling zones are pretty good (the few I've played through at least), there wasn't really a reason for most people to do them since all they gave were achievements and some low level gear. With "pandas and pokemon", both are available to people with max levels, even if they don't want to go through and level an alt (might require a race change for pandas though). Monks may be a different story, but unless they wanted to make them like DKs, there's no way to fix that.

Here's hoping that it works out well for them.

For me the fundamental change required is in the way in which patches are viewed. Lots of players will join for the start of MOP, retaining them is the difficult part.

At the moment new patch = new raid. New raids are pretty much the only content that gets released in every major patch.

Why? Why raids? Why is it only a niche activity is guaranteed content in each patch?? Why do quest zones and 5 mans get second class treatment when they are more popular? Nothing against new raid content; I just think this game has paid the price of focussing too heavily on raiding at the expense of other activities.

I think Cata has taught Blizzard a lesson - if MOP is to save WoW then each patch must include a raid, plus an accompanying quest zone (like MF) and 5 man dungeons to cover all the subscribers. Naturally the quest zone will reward achievements, pets, mounts, maybe gear and cosmetic items.

The question is, do Blizzard have the resources to do this? I notice we haven't heard much from Blizzard about it.... Doesn't bode well.

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Originally Posted by Toypop

For me the fundamental change required is in the way in which patches are viewed. Lots of players will join for the start of MOP, retaining them is the difficult part.

At the moment new patch = new raid. New raids are pretty much the only content that gets released in every major patch.

Why? Why raids? Why is it only a niche activity is guaranteed content in each patch?? Why do quest zones and 5 mans get second class treatment when they are more popular? Nothing against new raid content; I just think this game has paid the price of focussing too heavily on raiding at the expense of other activities.

I think Cata has taught Blizzard a lesson - if MOP is to save WoW then each patch must include a raid, plus an accompanying quest zone (like MF) and 5 man dungeons to cover all the subscribers. Naturally the quest zone will reward achievements, pets, mounts, maybe gear and cosmetic items.

The question is, do Blizzard have the resources to do this? I notice we haven't heard much from Blizzard about it.... Doesn't bode well.

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I think there's some real truth to what you say here.

1) Lots of players will try/start MoP. Question is.... how many will Blizzard retain? I think MoP at release will still look like a success just due to the fan-following wanting to get the new content. That initial buy-in is important, but retaining subs beyond month one or two... that will be the real proof of MoP being "successful".

2) 5-mans have kinda been shortchanged for a while. This is a formula Blizzard needs to figure out. Example: I DID like the ICC 5-mans as they brought gear improvements that were meaningful outside of raid. The troll dungeons.... were kinda successful in this, as the 353's were clearly better than the 346 stuff. On the down side... they weren't even up to snuff with the 359 items. Combine that with shoulders/helms only dropping from end-raid bosses, and it put a lot of people in a weird spot.

Why am I bringing that up? What's compelling about running heroics? I'll be honest. For me, right now in DS/4.3.... I don't care to run heroics. I have 378 gear that I put together back during 4.2. I'm still toting around my 353 shoulders.... and guess what?.... I feel no compulsion to go running heroics "chasing" the 378 shoulders. I'd honestly rather go run Firelands for giggles with some friends and do something that is more interesting for the same level of reward. Or.... go and run Dragon Soul and just go for the meaningful upgrade. (By the way.... part of this all circles around the issue of making your game a giant Skinner Box. Some of us have hit dimishing returns.)

Don't get me wrong. The whole Well of Eternity one... kind of a neat visit to Azeroth's past. The End Time.... meh. Interesting twist at end, but meh. And the Thrall escort dungeon..... meh. And I actually LIKE Thrall (even if I'm Alliance biased). But escorting him around.... slightly more interesting than babysitting Arthas in Culling of Stratholme, which is like saying I enjoy watching paint dry more than watching grass grow.

3) This......

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I just think this game has paid the price of focussing too heavily on raiding at the expense of other activities.

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..... x100^100. Especially when you make the raiding as lackluster as Dragon Soul was. When you put all your eggs in one basket... and that basket looks like something my toddler niece slapped together with construction paper and Elmers.... yeah, you're begging for hate and discontent.

4) This.......

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The question is, do Blizzard have the resources to do this?

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.......... hm.... I seem to recall the company posting over $1 billion in profit last year. That's a fair amount of "resources".

A better question is..... would Blizzard like to continue making somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 billion in profit? If they do... I strongly suggest that they consider maybe INVESTING some of that profit back into their product.

Edit:
Went back and added emphasis on that word. Because honestly... if you can wrap your head around the idea that you are honestly investing in the product in order to ensure that profits continue, then you're engaged in forward-thinking that might set you up for long-term success. I think that would be a wise move as far as business decisions go. You HAVE a large playerbase that IS willing to fork over money every month. Why give up that ground? It's MUCH easier to keep a customer happy than it is to try and win them back, or win new ones.

However, if you look at things in a pure "must make more money at less cost" perspective in order to just simply drive profit growth, then you are engaged in what I believe to be an unsustainable model. At some point, it will fail.

My question is.... is that the route that Blizzard is on? Is MoP that pivot point?

Lore, I believe you been to every blizzcon? I have been to each one except the very first. This also goes for anyone else reading; were you there at Blizzcon announcing Cataclysm and in the main hall the lights go dim...

(link so you can feel it once again, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvTjjCL5vRs )

The excitement.. was on par with The Rock coming out in WWE and hearing the peoples champion's name being chanted by the millllliiioonnnnssssss and MMMMIILLLIIIOONNNSSSSSS , ROCKY ROCKY ROCKY ROCKY ROCKY!!!! The air was electrifying and you could feel the anxiousness in your body pumping through those veins.

If you watched the video, you can reflect on how they changed the game because of what people were saying after WOTLK. They listened well. Everyone forgets how much effort it takes to build such a game and the journey to the end. Everyone is complaining about the end game in Cataclysm and saying ohhh cataclysm sucks. I rather people say you know what Firelands and Dragon Soul were kinda of a let down.

So where am I going with this? Well, I am saying MoP does look great and they added a lot and Blizzard is a business so you people saying "oh blizzard just cares about money, " well when you have 9 Million (still active accounts) even after the so called disaster of Cataclysm paying 15 a month then yeah wallets get very heavy. Lets take a step back, how old is this game again? 8? I was 22 during Vanilla, and now I am 30. That is when a lot of growing up happens and families and other things become more important, but you are all forgetting that these guys developing this game, and maintaining it also change and grow.

Personally I think MoP is only a stepping stone for the next and last expansion. I only see 1 more expansion after this. Maybe with MoP they are adding a lot and bring the fight back between Alliance and Horde to really play out heavily in this expansion, which I hope so and as Lore said really developing the last parts of the story. Is it not concievable that yes they are on a turtle that somehow was not affected by deathwing, but everything is leading up to fuel the flame for the next expansion. MoP is gearing its story back to the horde vs. alliance conflict and now involving pandas(which i think they wanted to do because of the ages as lore pointed out along with pet battles and just more "fun") stuff to do because yeah keeping the subs high is very important because that is money for Titan. That is money for the next expansion. The whole pointed at there level is to make money guys. What expansion was the highest amount of subs? WOTLK? BC? I am just saying they are trying to reinvent the game for those numbers and still create something new which is no easy task. I hope they destroy the turtle at the end of the MoP expansion causing absolute chaos once again horde vs. alliance and control of the world. And at the end it comes down Garrosh vs. Thrall, and they should create turmoil amongst Alliance and have another conflict within, and while all that is happening they have to fight each other and because of all the fear, sadness, hate, anger the Sha(? the dark mist stuff) develope so much they bring the old gods back and we only see like a glympse of them at the end only to be continued for next expansion. THEN hopefully while they are generating all this money they are making the WOW movie completely funded by just a video game company. Jaina turns into some evil witch like Arthus because she misses his golden locks so much. Calling it right now in the movie.

MoP will look great but then the "hardcore" thousand people that post on forums vs. the MILLIONS that dont start complaining. Keep that up and you will be like SWTOR /sadface

Personally, Cata failed for me largely because it didn't have that same immersive, "new land to explore" kind of feeling that BC and Wrath both offered. I'm hoping that the contiguous nature of Pandaria and the lack of flying till 90 will restore that aspect of the game for me.

good analysis as always, Lore.

I liked the whole 'focus the entire expansion on one story' aspect when it was WotLK. Even if it did seem like the Lich King was so prevalent that he was going to start busting into weddings and Bar Mitzvahs to tip over the punch bowl and stomp on the cake. The lore derived from WC3 was just much more compelling than anything they have produced since and I got sick of Deathwing because he was boring as an antagonist.

I had high hopes for what they were doing with Cataclysm because it solved a problem Everquest ran into - completely unused nostalgic zones are depressing. The more the world expands the more you stretch people out to the point where there were places in EQ you could probably go a month and never see anyone there even on a busy server. In the end they just ended up adding another 'continent' broken into pieces and pasted into blank spots on the map instead of trying to re-incorporate old zones into the current story. It would have been better just to make it a separate continent if they weren't going to be able to completely redo old zones (imagine Deathwing obliterating Booty Bay or something and building an entire new stronghold on the rubble).

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Originally Posted by xdunpealx

Lore, I believe you been to every blizzcon? I have been to each one except the very first. This also goes for anyone else reading; were you there at Blizzcon announcing Cataclysm and in the main hall the lights go dim...

........... (shortened for brevity, plz see op above).........

MoP will look great but then the "hardcore" thousand people that post on forums vs. the MILLIONS that dont start complaining. Keep that up and you will be like SWTOR /sadface

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I admire your enthusiasm. And in some ways, it is justified. Even if WoW lost 50% of its subs, it'd still be WAY ahead of its current competition, and it' STILL be making money hand over fist to the tune of around $500 million per year in profits.

Now... plz consider:

1) No Blizzcon this year. Label it any way you want, simple fact remains that a very popular event has been removed from the schedule. This was something that really separated Blizzard from its competition.... in that it had THE company-sponsored event for its fans to go to. That's gone. That.... is a bit of taking something away from the fans.

2) $500 million is not as much as $1,100 million. Do you honestly, really, truly believe that Blizzard... or more specifically.... Activision, won't freak out IF they drop to that point? You think they WON'T take something out of the game?

News flash: They cut over 600 staff back in February in addition to cutting out Blizzcon. Those are COST CUTTING MOVES. That was in response to the loss of a relatively small number of subs. How do you think they will respond to a MASSIVE loss?

3) They have had no significant competition....... until now. Word on GW2 is indicating that it may do VERY well. You also have games like Mechwarrior Online coming out..... SWTOR has gone F2P..... these things will eat into that at least a little bit. Competition is NOT showing signs of letting up.

That said....
These reasons and many others are things that make me concerned for the WoW franchise. Will it tank? Pfffft. Hell no. Not likely. EQ STILL is going and raking in money for Sony. I don't see WoW vanishing into the ether anytime soon.

BUT..... the moves by Blizzard so far? They concern me. I TOTALLY AGREE with you, in the sense that, I think that Blizzard/Activision should "reinvest" in WoW, dig a little into the profits they have now.... and try to ensure that WoW stays strong for the long haul....

Realistically though, that's not how most businesses operate. That's NOT how Activision has operated, and with Vivendi trying to cut its ties and interests in Activision, I really feel that we're not going to see reinvestmen and reinforcement.... but retreat, in order to make immediate gains or immediately reduce potential losses.

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Originally Posted by ayashi

About the tier progression thing:
Sorry Lore, but i think you are the only one that actually belives that that's how it'll pan out.
Pretty much everybody else is expecting new 5man (non-)heroic dungeons in t15 or at very least in t16 that will make t14 completely obselete, LFR included.
Besides once t15 is avaliable in LFR mode, even IF there's no 5man nor dailies rewards & crafts making t14 virtually non-existant, i think we'll have to wait a very very long time for LFR to find 25 people wanting to run t14 and proc an instance.

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It was specifically stated by a blue poster that yes, that's how it'll work:

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Originally Posted by Draztal

Actually, in Mists of Pandaria, each new LFR tier will have an increased minimum ilevel requirement, so there'll be a natural progression path as the expansion goes on. This means that players will start running Heroic dungeons in order to gear up to hit the minimum ilevel for the first tier of LFR, then get gear from this first LFR tier to access the second, and so on.

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http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...84?page=24#480

If I was just speculating I would have said I was just speculating ;)

Well yeah, they can increase the item level requirement, but that won't change the fact that new dungeons, new VP loot and loot from normal modes and whatever else will still just make the old tier obsolete or nearly so. (At least I think that's what Ayashi is getting at.)

Blizzard has a very long history of wanting to keep the newest content as the only content. I highly doubt they'll 180 on that and force people to come in at Tier 16 and run Tier 14 LFR for weeks to gear up.

Oh. Sorry, i somehow completely missed that blue post (even though i'm lurking on 3 wow sites every day lol).
Well, I guess that somewhat invalidates my post indeed, assuming they stick to their guns. I do however still think that blizz dev will, once again, change their mind about that.
By t16 at the very latest, when they realise that LFR, without the active raiders there to "carrie" prettymuch every group, will degenerate into something really ugly.
Huum... maybe if they left the valor point reward on t14/15 LFR there'd be some that would go into it, if only for a change. But only once they are finished with t16, which implies a couple of months with t14/15 being practically void and un-existent.

It feels to me that the overarching theme of MoP is to expand the player base with some nods thrown toward keeping the older customers thrown in. The panda theme with the Pokemon style content seems to be aimed at a younger crowd just starting on MMOs, versus those of us who were raiding in EQ a decade ago. I think it is smart business move to try and expand the audience instead of trying to solely keep its share of the MMO market. WoW is the only MMO to reach a critical mass of players, where people play because their friends play. If they can pull more non-MMO players in with MoP, Blizzard/Activision's revenue juggernaut will keep going.

Best move you have made Lore to diversify your gaming commentary. Hope it works out for you. I know for the 1st time my local gaming store is not having a midnight launch for a blizzard product, only 1 pre order so far and they need 300 + to have the launch. GW2 they have over 350 and Diablo 3 had over 500. Cataclysm had also had over 500 3 months before release.

I guess a lot of people are just going the digital download route this time.

The big question is how many subscriptions will they lose once the current annual pass ends.
I know that is all that is keeping me from cancelling my account. I am sure there are many more like me that would have cancelled long ago if we could.

I will not be playing MOP, there is very little if anything I like about the changes to the talent system/game.

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Originally Posted by bromsin

The big question is how many subscriptions will they lose once the current annual pass ends.
I know that is all that is keeping me from cancelling my account. I am sure there are many more like me that would have cancelled long ago if we could.

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That.... is a good question, as I've heard the same thing from a lot of other people I know who play.

Annual pass is the only reason I'm still subbed else I would have just resubscribed once MoP came out. Really wonder what happenend to their intention to release content faster cause this isn't fast enough....