I can picture it, a room full of developpers dressed in rags, skin taunt agaisnt their bones, eyes wild and a beard gone unshaven for too long. They’re bound to their desk by ball and chain to make sure no escape is possible. Behind them a taskmaster is beating on a drum to set the pace while the overseers are walking between the rows to whip those slowing down or remove the dead developpers so their work can continue once a new slave is found.
Welcome to WoW Cataclysm development!
I can’t be sure since I’m not actually working at Blizzard but lately, they have been showing all the signs of a software company under a lot of pressure to deliver a product. Like it needs to get out right now! I don’t have hard numbers to prove it besides a lot of circumstantial evidence, the latest of wich is the announcement that they will be cutting a lot of the new features of the Cataclysm expansion. When you’re in a hurry, the new features are usually the first ones on the cutting floor.
Then you add in the fact that they are loosing a lot of subscribers since mid-march(right about when Icecrown stopped being new and shiny) and that with summer, they are bleeding customers faster than ever before. According to Warcraft realm census we are looking at around 6 millions. I love Warcraft realm census since their numbers are usually pretty close the actual amount of subscribers when every little detail is taken into account.
If we assume 6 millions players, it means a 50% loss of the subscriber base down from the 12 millions they had in January. Now, imagine yourself as a Blizzard employee trying to explain to a board of investors that you lost half WoW revenue and that you expect to lose even more before the next expansion. I don’t expect it to be a fun and pleasant conversation. It’s hard to know for sure the exact numbers but 50% seems a fair assumption if I go by what my friends are seeing on their respective servers.
So it’s not really hard to figure out what’s going on right now over at Blizzard HQ. It’s all hands on deck to deliver Cataclysm asap and pray for it to fix everything or they end up loosing too many customers and won’t be able to recover back to their previous numbers. Blizzard motto of “When it’s ready” truly went out of the window this time around I think.
Or maybe they shifted those resources onto the Dance Studio…
WoW numbers are typically down in the Summer and even more so the few months before an expansion and thus, I do not know whether the currrent situation is cause for alarm or not.
I believe Blizzard shot themselves in the foot with much, much easier heroics than in Burning Crusade and with the ease of obtaining emblem gear (since 2.4). The problem, from my perspective, is they make most of the current they released obsolete because players overgear the early content doing just trivial (and super boring) heroics.
My hope for Cataclysm is for less emblem gear, less gear inflation, and longer and tougher heroics.
No more ToC please, and more Ulduar/Karazhan type raids.
I agree with you, only recently stopped playing and I was a raider since launch. I do think the high point in endgame design was Burning crusade and I pray for a return to something similar.
We need progression and we need some challenge back into the game. Sadly, it looks like they want to keep going with the badge/emblem system.
You hit the nail on the head, my man.
I think we are also starting to see the tension between people that want to make a great game and the people that want to milk a resource until it dries up and dies hard.
Sadly, the milkers are usually the ones calling the shots and the ones that are psychotically insistent on getting their way.
My advice to the folks at Blizzard that actually care about what they do – Leave the company and make something new, with heart.
WoW was great at one point, but I think it is entirely too obvious that the man behind the curtain is hunched over an adding machine, greedily rubbing his bony, malformed hands in anticipation of taking from the fools still crazy enough to love the game.
Yeah, I don’t think they’re telling the entire truth when they say that it didn’t work as they wanted it to. I think there’s some time pressure in this as well. We’re not blind. We see what’s going on. Now the sparkling pony probably bought them a little bit of time, but I too think they have to make sure they can deliver that expansion asap.
@osden: Yeah, pretty much what is happening I think. With Activision it seems the money people got more power than they had before.
@Larisa: It’s a race agaisnt time I think. Richard Bartle and others have said that MMOs have a threshold point that once you go below the game stops working no matter how good/bad it is and no matter what you do.
The thing is that no one knows exactly what that number is since its mostly a matter of public perception. It might be that Blizzard is afraid of reaching it at the speed things are going right now.
I think they need to crack the whip on a regular basis honestly, so to speak. Maybe Blizzard is taking notice that people are not sticking around when expansions stretch out so long. People can only stomach this rehashed content so much.
I think they will see a drastic decline if they don’t get on the ball- Especially with this expansion, only five levels to advance.
I really do think they know they are fast running out of time and large portions of the player base have become disillusioned and left, path of the titans sounded complex and with that they have cut the cord and let it slide.
The one saving grace is at least it wont be slap dash and a half arsed effort which perhaps leaves the doors open for future implementation….. although reading through the lines Blizzard are pretty much saying it doesnt fit in with their design… SO WHY ADVERTISE IT AND PROMOTE IT AS A NEW MAJOR FEATURE?! I mean its just not right in a business sense which leaves the ‘taking too long to get right’ as the most likely reason for its cut
I have to admit that if I was forced to a specific deadline I’d focus on delivering what works and set aside the rest, no matter how good it is.
The problem with this is that it’s a short term approach. It’s clear Blizzard needs to fix numerous things with the game, and if they just do more of the same it won’t take long for the “new care smell” to evaporate and things will go back to what they are now if not worse.
I just cant understand why they publicised it as a major improvement and piece of the expansion to then turn around and say that it doesnt fit in with their core design.
I mean really? How far into development were they when they noticed that? Or did they just think it would be good to throw it in there because it sounded cool?
Exactly how long is Cataclysm away? They seem to be dragging out the release of the gnomeregan and echo isles patch and I can only imagine it will be a good few months after that………… not looking good from where Im sitting.
[…] “I don’t have hard numbers to prove it besides a lot of circumstantial evidence, the latest of wich is the announcement that they will be cutting a lot of the new features of the Cataclysm expansion. When you’re in a hurry, the new features are usually the first ones on the cutting floor.” Lonomonkey argues Blizzard is compromising content for strict timelines. […]
[…] this event will play on Blizzard reputation. Those like me who were wary of the official news (see my post on Cataclysm cut features) will now assume Blizzard is outright lying to them. Those that were […]