Read more about Shadowlands ➜ https://worldofwarcraft.mgn.gg
I find it interesting that in a game where I pay ~$120 a year on sub fees and $40 minimum every time an expansion drops, that I am still being asked to complete chores to play the game how I want to play. Want vs. Need is a simple concept used to describe a person’s decision making process. So let’s discuss!
Music:
Windfall Island – Super Lofi World 2 (Heylnt & Gamechops)
Loner – Prod. Riddiman
Piano Lessons – LoFi Universe
Staying Afloat – Prod. Riddiman
source
Another great video!
Great insight! Been playing FF14 since ARR but am new to WoW and through people like you have been understanding the frustration of the base, which I see is warranted. It makes me sad but hopeful for the future of WoW. I am very invested and hope one day the game can be just as beautiful as the world they have created!
Hed memes 💘
For me the answer to the question "how much am i willing put up with?" changed over the years. That's why I didn't buy shadowlands and stopped wow. Most of the game is boring grinding(flasks, dailies, systems) and not actually doing the stuff I want, like raiding. Timegating is also stupid, so I can't play a lot when I want to, but have to play like on a schedule, even when I don't want to. So I said, there are other games that are better. I follow the news still, but I don't miss the game.
I've learned that the "thought of playing wow" is somehow more enticing, than "actually playing wow".
Good video. Good insight. This is what I did with gaming because of Shadowlands. After the copium tank was ripped off my face and looking back. Makes you notice how much wow made me NEED to do things compared to the want.
If the game feels like a chore, It's not a game anymore to me. it's a job.
Good look at the balance of need vs want.
Because WoW is already an environment of high personal negotiation, where a significant amount of players' time is being spent on things they "need" to do in order to progress, if you introduce a system like Torghast that is completely outside of this "Need into Want" ecosystem then a large majority of players will likely never do it, or will play it once and move on. However, as we saw with Torghast, when you force players to participate in a side system in order to progress the main track it builds resentment.
An example from another game is the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 dlc, Torna the Golden Country. In it, the side quests were meant to be fun, extra exp and gear, and building out the world, but because at a certain point the game MAKES you do side quests until a certain amount of points are received, they became less of a fun distraction and more of a necessary chore.
The solution? Well, there's not exactly one solution, but if what Torghast offered was not unique – if you could get soul ash at a reasonable pace doing other things, and if your legendary memories weren't locked solely behind specific Torghast wings and could be obtained from other methods – then you would have people who played Torghast for fun, and chose to do Torghast for their chores because it was more fun than the alternative. The FFXIV weekly currency system is similar to this – you can get your tomestones of insert-word-here running your daily roulettes, but you can also get them from hunt trains, treasure maps, farming EX trials and Savage raids, or PVP. Some ways are faster or easier, but you can get all your tomestones by multiple ways and that keeps the need-to-want ratio in check.
Another example on how this works is Super Smash Bros Brawl (and Ultimate to a lesser extent). You could unlock every fighter in the game by grinding out matches and play hours, or you could play through the story mode and slowly but surely unlock all the fighters there. If you didn't care about story mode, you might run through because it was faster to get to the fighter you wanted to use, but if you REALLY didn't want to then you didn't have to.
Ya gotta give the people what they want!
Looking at the Chorghast part reminds me of an article Asmongold reacted to where the new WoW player saw all the stuff he had to do in order to participate in end game and basically said "fuck this!" and never logged in again. I was thinking of coming back to WoW at one point, and pretty much said the same thing when I remembered everything i would need to do. It turns into a job and I already have one of those.
BABE WAKE UP NEW ALL TRADES JACK VIDEO DROPPED
Simple truth is that MONO gaming is finally dying. You can’t get all your wants & needs from one game. Best way developers can adapt is to accept that the best thing they can hope to achieve is a player keeping their game “in rotation”. Give players a reason to log in when they feel like it instead of forcing players to log in to not fall behind.
I think Torghast even when it's fully optional is still incredibly boring
Path of Exile sometimes feels like a chore to get to the good stuff. One day they'll get the balance right!
Blzzard should view this video over and over to improve their lost game(s).
Very nice Jack keep going 🙂
I stopped playing WoW again in this expansion. Because I ended up multiple times asking myself: "Why does it feel like work?".
In the end, I figured out that it was because it was work. I had to spend multiple hours each week, doing stuff I did not enjoy (I like PvP. I do not enjoy PvE), in order to a few less hours of what I did like in the game.
If I booted up most other games, this is not the case. If I boot up Doom Eternal, there's no "PvE" that I have to do, in order to enjoy the "PvP". Because the entire game is the "PvP".
If I boot up a Total War game, I do exactly what I want to from the very beginning. There's no hurdle I need to get past first.
Guild Wars 2? Yeah, I want to get the skins. But I can basically get whatever I want from playing the part of the game that I wish to. WvW? I get skins and gold. SPvP? Skins and gold.
The last time I felt like logging in to WoW and do some dailies, was back in Cataclysm. But that was because I played on a PvP server and Tol Barad was a neutral zone, and both Horde and Alliance players had to do their dailies in the same areas. So there was always a risk of spontanous world PvP, which made the process exciting.
Which is funny now that I think about it, because we have the exact same scenario with The Maw right now, and I couldn't care less about that. Despite liking the idea of world PvP.
Totally agree. The amount of what I need to do to get what I want is a bit much in wow for me. And sence of urgency because of time gating made me NEED the things I actually wanted to try out, which then made me not want it as much. Like when you know it's time to clean your room and you are about to start it, but parents come in and say smt like "Look at this mess! When will you ever clean it!" and I just dont want to do it anymore. Childish example, I know, but I think the idea is that I want things to be in "want" category rather than "need", because that impacts my motivation to do it. I want my choices to feel free and unique, so making torghast a requirement kinda killed it for me.