File this as example 164,239 of “difficulty is good for everyone, faceroll is bad”: EVE Burner missions killing people make them enjoyable. This is pretty good timing too, given that Blizzard just confirmed example 164,238 (WotLK, the ‘accessible’ age, was when WoW started declining), and Tobold is here to provide example 164,240, where he had to stop face-rolling in Destiny (a ‘casual AAA game’ everyone) due to running into something with a challenge, and actually had to think up a way to get around it. Oh the horror.
Not that this is news to most. The most popular game out overall is based on scaling PvP difficulty (LoL), the most popular and profitable mobile game is based on scaling PvP difficulty (CoC), and the most popular gaming franchise (CoD) is based primarily around PvP of scaling difficulty (server selection). It’s almost like people are trying to tell devs something, and they are saying it with what counts (money rather than words).
Hardcore Casual 
No we cannot! WildStar is dying at the three month because it is too hard… and not because it is yet another entry in the stream of minor variations on WoW that people just lose interest in three months down the road. Right? Quit Wall!
Wait is Wildstar that Saturday morning cartoon targeted at those who are sick of everything being a Saturday morning cartoon? I can’t possibly imagine why that amazing idea didn’t work out…
Wouldn’t a harder variation of WoW be exactly what the doctor ordered, by this narrative?
People are saying WildStar was harder and it tanked at three months, so clearly we need accessibility. Quit wall. But there are so many other things in the picture… the biggest being the game not really bringing anything new to the table… that I doubt accessibility enters into it, except as an annoyance when it isn’t tuned right. We just have another WoW clone that failed to differentiate sufficiently to provide an experience distinct enough from the original.
I think you have to deliver something different before accessibility becomes a major factor. At this point simply making a harder WoW isn’t going to be anything but a niche market. Not that niche games are bad. We need some more. But WoW clones will always be judged against WoW and be found wanting.
The narrative isn’t ‘harder version of 2014 WoW’, it’s ‘make an MMO of 2004 WoW quality for 2014’.
Part of that quality is/was the difficulty, sure, but just tweaking that isn’t going to yield you success in 2014. Just because UO was amazing in 1997, doesn’t mean someone launching 1997 UO has an amazing MMO in 2014.
Wildstar is dyeing because it is poorly managed, massive massive imbalances in PvE and PvP on top of that the telegraph system is straight up factually inaccurate. It doesn’t actually track where you character is in the physical game space but by latency. To compound it they announced they will not be doing monthly updates anymore.
We want a challenge, something that progresses as we progress. This makes scaled pvp the simplest and most effective way to accomplish it. PvP is the ultimate equalizer when matched against someone with a similar experience level.
Btw, Darren Sproles FTW!
Your average MMO blogger =/= your average MMO player. They seem to skew older, and whatever other differences hold true on average. It’s not surprising that a number of them get together and believe they are more representative than they truly are–plus that’s just human nature to either believe “I represent almost everyone else” or “I’m much superior to everyone else”
tl;dr: No, this won’t convince anyone who wasn’t already convinced.
“I represent almost everyone else” AND “I’m much superior to everyone else”
Fixed that for you.
You’re cherry-picking examples. The single largest subscriber drop in WoW came when Cataclysm made dungeons more difficult. It’s pretty much the only time in WoW’s history when Blizzard explicitly reversed course to stop the bleeding.
Wildstar is dying because the endgame is too hard for regular MMO vets, and (imo) the levelling is too difficult for casuals. As well, you can’t blame sub drops on the cartoony atmosphere. If you didn’t like the cartoony atmosphere, you wouldn’t have bought the game in the first place. Wildstar’s “style” has been pretty upfront. You can blame lack of initial sales on the style, but not subsequent sub drops.
To me, that’s like saying The Old Republic lost a lot of subscribers because people don’t like Star Wars. That’s stupid. They lost subscribers for many other reasons, but not because it was a Star Wars game.
“he single largest subscriber drop in WoW came when Cataclysm made dungeons more difficult.”
No, not really.
Are you referring to the drop in some charts occurring around that time which occurs because the reported Chinese subs went from 6 million to 1 million and back to 6 million in the span of a few months? The western subs stayed basically constant during that time; I don’t remember the issue with the Chinese subs specifically but it had nothing to do with difficulty.
Source: http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/228643
You don’t think the Cata sub drop had more to do with, um, Cata being Cata? As in, the whole expansion was Panda-level garbage?
Plus by the time Cata rolled around, WoW had long been established as a faceroll title, so of course those who enjoy facerolling aren’t going to welcome something that challenges them, and those who would carry such players along and teach them had long since left. In vanilla/BC, you still had those “more important than the average player” people who did just that, but when you change your game to drive them all away, surprise, you start to slowly bleed out.
Same line of thought for Wildstar; the graphic style didn’t drive people to stop subbing; it caused people not to sub in the first place. 450k copies sold for a Sunday morning cartoon title kinda drives that point home. The actual end-game being a terrible mess of bugs and broken mechanics was a nice parting gift for those who looked past the art style as well. “Congrats you made it through the suffering of yet another themepark’s leveling game, hope you don’t mind that the selling point of our game (‘hardcore’ raiding) doesn’t work!”
SW:TOR lost anyone who hates SW. I’m in that group (of course it being a trashheap of a title run by the hotbar salesmen at EA also doesn’t help, but SWG lost me because it was SW too.)
Nvm, that earlier chart is not timely, cata actually released in Dec 2010, not 2009. Sorry.
New chart: http://i.imgur.com/WSjr73X.png
To me, the larger declines are when LFR first came out at the end of Cata, and then again when MOP was super easy–I still don’t see support for your claim here–but I do see support for Syn’s claim.
Cata lost 600k subs in Q1 2011, 300k in Q2, 800k in Q3, and 100k in Q4 (source). It is true that WoW lost 1.1 million in Q2 2012 in the middle of an 8-month drought of content at the end of the expansion, but it is also true that that initial 600k drop caused Blizzard to do a very public about-face on their stance regarding difficulty.
I don’t agree with your summation of the article you linked. I like the summation provided by an actual Blizzard employee, hidden in your link: “. I’m painting the picture with unfairly large brush strokes here, but in general, Heroic dungeons are of appropriate difficulty for organized groups, but just brutal on Dungeon Finder groups. ” Is that why the numbers dropped? I’m not sure–personally I found the questing in Cata’s new zones very boring, very linear; which could also explain the drop, as early in an expansion a lot of people are still working on leveling through questing. I’m glad I was subscribed for early cata, those were some of the best 5 man experiences I ever had.
Plus by the time Cata rolled around, WoW had long been established as a faceroll title, so of course those who enjoy facerolling aren’t going to welcome something that challenges them, and those who would carry such players along and teach them had long since left.
Is this not exactly a rephrasing of “it was because of the increased difficulty”? In any case, all available evidence points to difficulty being the principal reason… and you apparently agree in a roundabout way.
If Zynga had made Farmville ‘more difficult’ two years after release, that wouldn’t have worked, would it? By the time Blizzard responded to the faceroll ‘accessibility’ issue, it was both too late and poorly done. That audience (you know, the 12m+ and growing one) had moved on, replaced by Farmvillers.
“As well, you can’t blame sub drops on the cartoony atmosphere. If you didn’t like the cartoony atmosphere, you wouldn’t have bought the game in the first place. ”
I certainly can. Watch me:
Without all the players who were pushed away by the cartoony atmosphere and lack of real innovation, and therefore never even bought the game, Wildstar couldn’t attract stable pre-existing social groups to move into the game. Since MMOs are about people and communities, not difficulty level, this was a death knell for this game.
Easily done. Do I believe the prior paragraph? Not 100%, I remain agnostic on the subject.
“To me, that’s like saying The Old Republic lost a lot of subscribers because people don’t like Star Wars. That’s stupid.”
I was going to reply, but you seem to have beat me to it ;)