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Topic:
Was Cata the first "failed" expansion? [Locked] |
Vault_News  Title: 0110011010
Be Nice to Me I'm a Bot
Posts: 982
Registered: 2005-10-18 12:53:17
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:00am
Subject:
Was Cata the first "failed" expansion? |
Nethaera posted:
Quote:
You are mistaking the developers looking at the game with a critical eye with the claim that it was a "failure". We've seen a wide spectrum of opinions over Cataclysm and we're not afraid to look at what worked and didn't work (as we do with each expansion and game as a whole) and try to find better ways of doing things. I heard differing opinions overall during BlizzCon, but not once did I get the impression that any of those opinions boiled down to "Cataclysm sucks" as a whole. They had key elements that they disliked or thought could be improved on, but throwing the whole thing out the window as a "failure" is and should be considered a bit extreme don't you think?
As always, we want to keep learning and growing from each iteration of the game and that means that we're going to do that by continuing to look for your constructive feedback as well.
________
It was in response to the OP who queried:
During Blizzcon I noticed a lot of:
"With cata we went to far with...."
A lot of people have been talking since the expansion hit about the way questing had turned into a dumbed-down, linear faceroll where you virtually had to TRY to get killed if you wanted to die.
A lot of people talking about how heroics weren't "hard" like conquering a difficult peak on a mountain climb but were "hard" like peeling 1000 potatoes.
I think the drop off in subcriptions is a direct reflection of these mistakes.
I'm really glad that both these areas are being addressed, particularly with regard to questing going back to a less phased, less linear, more hub-based experience. Let's hope they nail the mix right this time.
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Quazimortal  Title: The One and Only
Posts: 1,557
Registered: 2004-9-18 21:52:58
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:00am
Subject:
Was Cata the first "failed" expansion? |
Artard@Blizzard posted:
I heard differing opinions overall during BlizzCon, but not once did I get the impression that any of those opinions boiled down to "Cataclysm sucks" as a whole.
Of course not genius, no one who hated Cata flat out is gonna pay you more money to go to your stupid event.
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Arunne  Title: The Anonymous
Posts: 177
Registered: 2003-11-3 14:11:47
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:00am
Subject:
Was Cata the first "failed" expansion? |
Quazimortal posted:
Artard@Blizzard posted:
I heard differing opinions overall during BlizzCon, but not once did I get the impression that any of those opinions boiled down to "Cataclysm sucks" as a whole.
Of course not genius, no one who hated Cata flat out is gonna pay you more money to go to your stupid event.
This x1000. If someone is so pissed and hated your ex-pac, would they really go to blizcon.
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-Peo-  Title: Caveat Lector
Posts: 408
Registered: 2005-2-2 08:38:42
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:00am
Subject:
Was Cata the first "failed" expansion? |
Blizzard blinders on full blast.
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SWTOR, Maybe in a year.
Back to WoW for now.
With a lil f2p CoH.
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Sprawl-zero1eye- Title: IGN Vault Staff
Reziztance iz Futile
Posts: 1,001
Registered: 2002-6-28 03:39:29
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:00am
Subject:
Was Cata the first "failed" expansion? |
Quazimortal posted:
Artard@Blizzard posted:
I heard differing opinions overall during BlizzCon, but not once did I get the impression that any of those opinions boiled down to "Cataclysm sucks" as a whole.
Of course not genius, no one who hated Cata flat out is gonna pay you more money to go to your stupid event.
Yeah, can't say that was the wisest response. 
All the same, if we are being picky, I liked some things of Cataclysm, but they are right, a lot of what was introduced turned me off the WoW.
Things like:
- Excessive Phasing
- Very linear questing
- Speed questing (you would be out of an area before you explored it all)
- Painful trash mobs in 5-mans (who knows how it is now though)
- Dumbed down talent trees (a huge one for me)
- Outdoor PvP completely ignored (yes I know it hasn't been popular for a while, but there was always a few of us out there that rolled with our flag up)
And of course, 5 years... so kinda tired of it all. MoP should be fun for a while, but probably not going to win me back as a diehard fan either.
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Making iOS Apps these days at http://zsprawl.com/iOS
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Spookysheep Title: Lieker of Cheese
Posts: 1,248
Registered: 2002-1-9 06:49:19
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:00am
Subject:
Was Cata the first "failed" expansion? |
Naethera, like other blizzard spokespeople just continues to show what a retarded idiot she is.
Blizzard REALLLLLLLY needs to get their people to STFU and quit speaking. Every time they open their mouth they lose more subscribers.
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I liek cheese
Pirates > Ninjas
.....................................
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Azure-TheBlueOne Title: Made in Alaska
Posts: 319
Registered: 2003-2-24 19:25:37
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:00am
Subject:
Was Cata the first "failed" expansion? |
Well of course they can't just come out and say they released a craptastic expansion. Our bad. Please buy the next one!
I mean, it took Mythic ages and a couple more expansions to begin to admit that ToA was a big mistake, and they were no where near the same level.
If they didn't mostly agree, we probably wouldn't have seen this response complete with spin. Reading between the lines in that post or on their statements over the past couple months (we went too far with...), I think you can tell they agree (for the most part) that Cata was bad for business. They will try to spin that, of course, because no one likes to fail.
Hopefully they really did learn something from it though.
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Ugh_Lancelot Title: Ooo...bouncy!
Posts: 766
Registered: 2002-6-17 14:37:05
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:00am
Subject:
Was Cata the first "failed" expansion? |
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Shenron_ Posts: 543
Registered: 2002-12-8 21:34:16
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:00am
Subject:
Was Cata the first "failed" expansion? |
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in relation to the other 2 yes it was. bc was awesome, wotlk was good enough, but cataclysm was a disappointment. however its still better than anything else out there, but that isn't saying much. the mmorpg industry sucks these days if had grown up during these times i never woulda been a gamer.
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:00am
Subject:
Was Cata the first "failed" expansion? |
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Personally I thought DAoC Catacombs was a failed expansion on the order of Cataclysm. Acknowledging that TOA took away the RvR which had been the main attraction of the game and sent people back into a 6 month PvE grind which was not optional to compete...
Concur that Cataclysm took away the best things about WoW: the 1-60 open world and questing experience. It was as if the devs had no clue what was good about WoW.
You know, if I went to a Star Trek movie, and there was no spaceship, that would probably be the last Star Trek movie I went to. My expectations are set that because it has the Star Trek name, a fairly complete "world" will be maintained. And the world isn't the pixels, it's the way it works.
Likewise if I went to a Rocky movie and didn't see boxers, or to a Star Wars movie without lightsabers, or a Perry Mason TV episode without a courtroom scene, or a beach resort in Hawaii without a beach, or a ski resort in Colorado without ski slopes...regardless of what was delivered, I had paid for entertainment, and didn't get the experience I was expecting.
MMO's are an entertainment product. what the customer is buying is an emotional experience, much like a movie. In an MMO, I expect a world, places I can return to which are the same, and which I painstakingly explored over a period of 6 months to a year. When an expansion comes out, I expect the world to get bigger, so there's more to experience. The questing is a tool for assisting me in exploring the world. The Cataclysm devs lost track of this basic about MMOs, and turned questing into an end goal instead of a means. Used phasing to be sure I couldn't go back to the world I had explored. Oh, and gratuitously redid so much artwork they had to do low quality detail, unlike the original game with painstakingly hand painted textures. Grating, breaks immersion.
There is a basic class about marketing, which my employer sent me to decades ago. Called QFD, for Quality Function Deployment, which is the transliteration of the Japanese name of the original process. Talks about understanding your customer -- and carefully segmenting your customers -- understanding what they need but don't say, need and say, and would be delighted by. Then you choose your features deliberately so each is traceable to customer needs. And when there are customer needs in conflict, you admit it and make deliberate, consistent decisions. This is not rocket science. It's really basic marketing.
For both Cataclysm and the newly announced expansion, it is clear that Blizz has not done this basic marketing. If Blizz had tested the Cataclysm concept on sample customers from various segments (explorer, raider, solo player, social, etc...not that I can segment off the top of my head) it would have been clear that the basic concept would offend such a large fraction of the customer base that they would lose half their subscribers (or some number, accurate to 1%). Instead, Blizz was surprised by the reaction, and the attrition.
Basic failure. Basic failure in marketing. Basic failure of the management chain. When stuff like that happens in a serious company, things like 3 levels of management getting fired happen. And anyone in the chain of command who allowed such a marketing failure to happen twice is, well, a failure, and that goes all the way up the chain to Activision's board of directors. Sorry, this is a business.
Left partway into cataclysm, without ever seeing a heroic, and won't be back to see the pandas.
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