Tobold's Blog: A false dawn?

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

A false dawn?

I detect symptoms of burn-out in many veteran players of World of Warcraft, including myself. People "taking a break", or playing less, or still playing while being a lot less passionate about it. But most WoW players are in a state of high expectation for the Burning Crusade expansion, hoping that it will rekindle their interest in the game. And I wonder if the expansion can meet those expectations, and how long that will last.

My personal guess is that at the start the Burning Crusade will get people back into the game, and cause a lot of people to resubscribe. But by the "official" count, the amount of content added is only about 25%. So if players of the original WoW got bored after 2 years, they should get bored with the expansion after less than 6 months. In a previous prediction of time to 70 I calculated that the average player would need about 200 hours of /played time from 60 to 70, that is 40% of the time the average player needs from 1 to 60. But that calculation would only be true if you haven't been stuck at level 60 for months. Many level 60 players already spent a lot of time to improve their characters with better gear, and somebody wearing a nice collection of epics will certainly have a head start and need a lot less time to reach level 60.

A few crazy people will probably reach level 70 after a week, and by the end of the year most raiding guild will have enough players to start the new 25-player raid dungeons. Now raiding is a part of the game that can be stretched forever, as Blizzard has shown with the level 60 raiding game, where few people ever reached Kel'thuzad. What is less certain is how far people's patience can be stretched. Very soon level 70 raiding will feel remarkably similar to level 60 raiding, and sooner or later people will just get fed up with that, because it is a highly repetitive activity, driven by rare high-end rewards.

So I wouldn't be terribly surprised if by the second quarter of 2007 we see the numbers of World of Warcraft players decreasing from the inevitable December 2006 Burning Crusade peak. Relmstein suggests that other game companies are aware of that and launch their new MMORPGs in early 2007. But of course that is a chicken and egg problem: Do these games come out to grab the players leaving WoW, or are the players leaving WoW because there will be new games? In any case I consider it unlikely that the Burning Crusade will be able to hold our attention until the next expansion comes out a year later.
- posted by Tobold @ 9:32 AM Permanent Link

Comments:

For what it is worth I am a gamer who stopped playing WOW and I won't be attracted back by the Burning Crusade. I guess I might have played for longer if the end game was less raid-centric. I know that Burning Crusade will introduce more solo/casual friendly content but the truth is I have been there and I have done that. Now I want to play other games.

Even if WOW does peak and eventually go into decline it will still occupy a very special place in gaming history. It was the game which made online role playing games respectable. It is not long since the general public were completely oblivious to the existence of online worlds and hard core gamers sniggered at people who role played elves and dwarves in games like Everquest. To be honest I probably sniggered a bit myself. Now grannies and girlfriends are playing WOW alongside former hard core Counterstrike players. The superb South Park episode confirms WOW's prescence right in the mainstream of popular culture.

There is a downside to becoming mainstream and that is that the general public are fickle. As a species we crave novelty. Notice how quickly top rated TV shows fall from grace to be replaced by the next big thing. There are notable exceptions but it is a very different proposition for a TV show like Frasier to keep people entertained for half an hour every week for 11 years than it is for an MMORPG to entertain people for 20+ hours per week for a similar period.

# posted by

Anonymous : 10/10/06 14:01

One thing that has always struck me is that people find fault with blizzard for the architecture of the end-game around raiding. In most people's minds there is a correlation between raiding and hard-core players. I remember my first guild would raid MC for 8 hours straight. That to me was just not possible. For a long time I thought that this was simply the nature of the game. Then I thought about what I really needed. I can play basically every night of the week for 2-3 hours. Possibly that makes me hard-core, I don't know. In the process, I went through a lot of pain as I realized that the guilds I had been playing with were interested in spending a lot more time than I was in raid instances. What I figured out was that I needed to find a guild that was organized enough that they had shifts in their raids and I needed to find a second shift slot because I live on the West Coast. Since I found that, I've been able to play my 2-3 hours per night exactly when I want, and have gotten to see a lot more interesting content than I would if I was solo'ing or doing 5/10 man instances. Our guild raids 5 nights a week for 5 hours, but the time is divided into two shifts (hardcores do both shifts). Our guild leaders are very organized and we have a good application process which selects for committed folks who are willing to learn and play as a team. We farm ZG, AQ20 and MC and are halfway through BWL now. Because we tend to attract mature players, everyone is expected to read our strategy guides on the instances carefully if they aren't familiar and come prepared with the right consumables and gear to each raid. We have a great crafting system for getting folks most of what they need without huge gold outlays on gear or consumables. My point in this is that I don't think there is a flaw in the technical architecture of the game. I think that there are just not that many guild leaders with the organizational skills and desire to create guilds that can work for those of us with real lives. It's a people problem, not a technical problem. My suggestion is that if you aren't happy with your guild, talk to a lot of your friends and find one that fits better with what you want.

# posted by

Anonymous : 10/10/06 19:00

One thing you seem to have missed in your assessment is that each raid encounter is different. Learning and executing the Buru encounter in AQ20 is whole load of fun in fact, yeah there's 20 people but actually executing it is fun in itself.
I'm in a guild working through naxx at the moment, we just managed to kill maexxna last night and the encounter was fun for me, the sense of joy at the first kill and the guild banter - all worth playing for. Raiding naxx isn't actually just like raiding MC, just like AQ20 Buru was a new and fun experience for me compared to some of the fights I'd executed repeatedly else where.

New raid content can be fun.

# posted by

Craig : 10/10/06 19:11

You aren't going to be getting ganked, there are level 62 blues that are as good as naxx epics. The gear above it is waaaaay better stat wise.

Blizzard wanted everyone to be able to enjoy the expansion, this evens the playing field again.

I'm happy about it personally.

tbh I don't think instance raiding will be as popular with the new PvP system in place. I can't speak for everyone but I personally only went to MC/BWL etc to get better items to PvP with. I am guessing I am not the only one though.

# posted by

Anonymous : 11/10/06 03:59

there are level 62 blues that are as good as naxx epics

Although I'm not sure about the numbers (I'd think Naxx gear is more equivalent to level 65), there will be certainly a lot of mudflation, devalueing the appeal of the current uber raid gear. Which is part of my reasoning why people might not be so willing to raid at level 70 as they were at 60. Even if I agree with Craig that every raid encounter is different, it being different only helps me the first time. Do I really want to kill the equivalent of Lucifron as often as I killed Lucifron, for gear that will be outdated by the next expansion a year later?

# posted by

Tobold : 11/10/06 08:14

65 is when the very best naxx epics are surpassed, there are some 62 items that are as good.

# posted by

Anonymous : 11/10/06 11:40

I actually like the system as it works today. Let's say the level cap became 100 with BC. I'm sure that most of my guild would get focused on getting to 100 instead of going through the newest raid content. The beauty of the raid setup is that you are immediately rewarded for killing the big bad boss with a nice piece of gear. Most of us humans like this kind of immediate reward better anyway.

# posted by

Anonymous : 11/10/06 18:33

I started WoW as a beta tester and only just left the game a month ago. I played EQ1 for six years. Basically, I loved WoW's leveling and quest systems to 60. In addition, the pvp BG's were a blast which really converted me to a pvp oriented player vs a pve player.

Once I hit 60, I reluctantly raided to get equipment so that I would have a better chance in the battlegrounds. As time wore on, my limited raiding couldn't keep up with the steady raiders who would step into BGs to roll over less equiped players such as myself. After an extended period of this equipment vs skill inequity I decided to leave WoW and move to DAoC.

WoW has been my favorite online game to date. However, there was just too much emphasis on equipment for my liking. I don't plan on being in DAoC but for a year or so until Warhammer Online comes out. That is the next game that I anticipate will occupy me for a few years.

While I do see the BC expansion addressing some of my concerns with the game, it just took too long for Blizzard to address the issues I had and my fruststration level with them has grown too high. The problems should have been corrected in patches and not in an expansion.

# posted by

Anonymous : 11/10/06 19:16