Blizzard has been producing games for a long time. The first Warcraft game hit the shelves in the early/mid 90's. Diablo and Startcraft in the late 90's.

From then to now, computer power and internet speeds have increased exponentially. But the one thing blizzard has always, always done, was insure that their products could be run on the very minimal computer of the day, and by the "average" user of the day.

As computers have become substantially more mainstream over the years, the "average" home computer user has changed dramatically. Before windows, very few people actually had home PC's, and even fewer could make them do much of anything.

With the advent of the graphical interface, computer use has become so simplified over the past 20 years that even young children today are perfectly capable of "pointing and clicking" their way through software.

Through all of this, again, Blizzard has targeted the masses: the average user, with the average system, and met with astounding success.

As the "masses" have increased, the "hardcore computer user" of old has become a scant minority of total computer users. Today we have children, grandmothers, and all ages in between "logging in" to partake in all that the internet has to offer, which brings me to the point of this thread.

Blizzard saw huge success with Diablo, Starcraft, and their sequels. Games designed to be playable by the "average" user, on the "average" machine. After Meridian, UO, AC, and the like gained in popularity over time, WOW was developed for the average user, and for the average computer of the day, following the successful pattern of the past.

As more and more people have joined the home PC user "club", the "skill level" of the "average" user has diminished. Yes, WOW has the highest subscription numbers of all time, but they also have the largest number of home PC users of all time to draw from.

I find it ironic that after the success of this method with all previously published works, including Vanilla, BC, and Wrath, that all of a sudden Blizzard has decided that the playerbase as a whole should be "better than average" just because they released an expansion called Cataclysm.

Sure, in the mid 90's this would have been no problem. The total online gaming "playerbase" was not nearly as diluted by any moron who could click a mouse at that time, and an even more difficult Cata would be no problem for that era.

Current day, however, saw Wrath with the highest subscription numbers in history... (keeping in mind that there are more users than ever before as well)..with relatively easy content, that the total playerbase of today devoured in droves. The same model, working wonders for Blizzard, as it had so many times in the past.

Every day, more people become part of the total online playerbase. Every day, the middle of the bell curve for "skill level" becomes taller and fatter, as "excellent" players are continuously outnumbered by the "average".

Blizzard suddenly, after 20 years of success, decides to move away from their long standing model, and designs an expansion geared more toward the "excellent" side of the bell curve with Cataclysm, when numerically, they should have aimed for the ever growing middle. An ever growing middle that is even more diluted in regard to skill, and I dare say, they should have made content even easier than Wrath, in order to keep consistent with their "model" from the past.

Even though developers may want it to, releasing content that is more difficult (or tedious) in nature will not magically make the "average" become "excellent". It is statistically impossible.

We have had many discussions about this over the past few months, but last night I saw the commercial for Cataclysm, and my daughter (who is 4, going on 34) said "That's a cool looking dragon daddy!!"..which is what prompted this post.

Blizzard advertises to the masses, the "average" if you will, but expects them to be "excellent" just because they bought a disk, and paid a subscription fee. To those of us that have gamed for 20+ years, Cata is not that big of a deal. But we are the group that is at the far right of the "skill" bell curve... the end nearing the zero line in number... which is what Blizzard is going to be looking at in subscription numbers if they do not do something to appease the ever growing, "skill diluted" middle.

That "middle", which propelled Blizzard to where they are today, represents roughly 70% of subscription numbers, and drive the success (or failure) of the game.

The "middle", the "average" is what got Blizzard from A to B, and it appears Blizzard has forgotten that fact.

 

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<looks for the "Like" button>

World of Ghostcrawler.

Get used to it or GTFO.

 

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The only part of the curve that Cataclysm does not cater for is those who are in the middle but think they are at the top.

 

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Excellent post Gutter sludge.

Part of the issue is that the previous design team/project lead in Kaplan understood the fact that you bring up, it was him who lead the design for Wrath, who wanted heroics to be run in a 45 minute time spawn initially, and that he wanted the majority of the player base to see the content that was being designed, e.g. raids.

Part of the issue you also bring up Gutter and its something I've been stating for a while not only has to do with more computers getting into more peoples homes and thus having more average users. It is the simple fact that those users who have been playing the game for say the full time 6 years. Well in six years times a lot of matters can happen in a persons life, jobs, marriages, kids etc. Simply put, Players who might have been "hardcore" at one point in time slowly but surely become more casual as time and responsibility to real life takes precedence.

Kaplan understood this, people can't plan around a 2 hour heroic dungeon run anymore, and he also understood the simple fact that with X number of subscriptions and only a small percentage of the player base perhaps actually seeing a raid that this wasn't the best model as far as cost to develop vs. percentage of subscribers who actually got to see the content.

Wrath changed all of that. What the current design lead and team though has forgotten is that you don't give a piece of the pie to the masses, then snatch it away from them, or only serve it to a particular customer.

 

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i like the inititial post as it shows a fairly good thought process.

However to the one above me about a 2 hour heroic... it's been since the first few weeks of cat that a heroic has taken me 2 hours. I pug them daily at least 2x a day. sometimes solo. sometimes with a guildie.

i put this thought out there.

If it's taking you two hours then perhaps you might be one of the problem players.
Just one geared player can make the difference in a group of bads.


Every day that gos by the pugs have gotten better. It's fairly rare that i want to poke my eyes out anymore.

 

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Yeah a definite good read one I very much agree with. I hope you posted your "post" on the official boards.

I check MMO Champion every day hoping to see GC fired and steps taken to give WOW back to the masses and make all aspects of game play fun again.

Yorp

I must be one of the few people here who thought his post was total nonsense. Are you actually arguing for easy and simple content? You seriously think that because the 'average' player doesn't have the gaming experience required to faceroll through the current content right off the bat that those of us who do should suffer through content a total newb can handle?

It's that kind of attitude that is wrong with today's games.

Edit: I suppose my point is that if you continue to develop games that are too easy then people will leave quicker than they would have left if it were too hard.

 

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The gamers will leave. The unwashed masses who just want a godmode game to run around in? They'll love it.

That aside it depends on what "hard" means too. Is the game challenging the character, or challenging the player? Lots of people like their character being challenged. These constant "don't stand in the fire, hop on one foot, only attack when the floor is purple, avoid the sunbeams if you have a mana pool, and randomly click some nonstandard ability when your hear the loud gong" idiotic gimmicks aren't challenging the character though, they challenge the player. Frankly when I want to be challenged as a player, I PvP which makes all those stupid gimmicks look as shallow as they really are.

 

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