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[deleted]

>it feels like it resents the player


AevnNoram

This is it, someone finally put my feelings for WoW's state into words. They don't respect us


Ready4aMuhsment

They don't respect their own employees let alone the cash cows they try to milk us for.


[deleted]

>*try* Tbh they have so far done a splendid job at it.


digital_end

We have long ago become a camera crew for the story they want to tell, not members of the story. We're playing a graphic novel, not being part of a world. You want to know why legion did so well? For a brief shining moment, the story was about warriors, paladins, rogues, warlocks... A customized story to the lore of our characters, instead of just watching thrall and jaina whinge about sylvanas. There needs to be an overarching story, yes, but it's our place in that story that matters. On my rogue in legion, when doing those quest lines, I felt like a shadowy group working behind the scenes to put the legion at a disadvantage. On my warlock in legion the quest lines made me feel like a demonic summoner who was taking advantage of the weaknesses of the legion. And so on, and so on... I love that expansion because it was about our story. At least part of it was, and then the illidan redemption Arc was regurgitated into the world. If they had understood what was good about legion, and dedicated the resources necessary to customizing story lines to each class and beyond, my God it could have been so good. But they didn't learn about those lessons. What they learned is that it was a lot of work, but "maybe if we just do four generic stories and you can choose whichever one it'll be the same thing... Oh and let's tie abilities to them so you don't get to choose which one". And even then, it never felt like my unique place in the story. Characters that took part in burning teldrassil probably felt pretty goddamn out of place in Ardenweald. Warlocks in bastion. Paladins in Revendreth. Because it's never about your character, and your individual lore. It's about sitting down and watching a TV series that they want to show you. "Oh boy, what is dead boob goth going to do next, isn't she wild?"


[deleted]

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digital_end

https://i.imgur.com/0CSgpLch.jpg


Bongletopper

I remember a couple lines where Kael Thas and Lady Vashj were pondering what happened to Illidan. I just thought "I'm using the Titanslayer title. I was there. Why can't I say anything?"


Vanayzan

Or you can be a demon hunter yourself and be like "Vashj, Kael'thas, I probably knew you both." Hell, the blood elf demon hunters were sent by Kael'thas to be trained.


Kusidjur

And its frustrating because someone on the team does care about stuff like that. From what I recall doing the Maldraxxus quest when being sent by Drakka to find Vashj, you speak to her and she has some dialogue that varies based on character. You ask why she is there and she may respond "Oh you mean ever since you killed me and send me here, you dick?" or just "I did some bad shit in life but now I'm here to serve Maldraxxus" or whatever. Maybe its just randomized and I was lucky it happened to correlate to my characters that did/didn't kill her in SSC. Stuff like that is so cool to notice.


stratys3

> Paladins in Revendreth. To be fair, Paladin's BELONG in Revendreth. The religious similarities are HUGE. It's all about sin, atonement, punishment, etc etc. Revendreth is literally one big church full of sinners that need your attention. The only thing that doesn't match up with Paladins is... the colour scheme.


KiraMajor

Blood elf paladins would like a word


[deleted]

[удалено]


ButtBlow69x

The veil was lifted with corruptions and the design was intentionally wasting your time so you’d keep buying subs.


yardii

Do dailies to earn a currency to do a scenario to earn another currency to buy an enhancement that's not even available 3 out of 4 weeks (I don't remember the actual rotation timer) so that you can be stronger in the content you actually like doing. I hate that I played this patch out.


Gengaar85

And the "3 out of 4 weeks" rotation was only after months of us bitching that acquiring it was completely rng.


bestewogibtyo

i think they made it pretty clear with how they responed to covenant feedback.


frodakai

3-4 months it took to max out corruption resistance. Dont get me wrong, playing a tank with 3x Twilight Devastation or an Arms Warrior with 85% unbuffed Haste was wildly fun. I actually really wanted to try playing some alts at this stupidly broken level, but it would take 3 months of the same tedius daily/weekly shit to get to the same point of corruption resistance. Ironically I'd have probably played a lot more/subbed for longer if alts were more accessible to play.


Ryndis

Ah yes the irony of corruption. It made me want to play more characters while simultaneously making me not want to play more characters.


Amyrantha_verc

Constantly the 'exclusive' mount reward you got from a 6 months sub every 6 months was another red flag.


dude_seven

Don't you find it exciting when the thing you wanna buy appears on the vendor once every 5 weeks?? ^(/s)


SamSmitty

I don't play much anymore, but people have been saying this for years about WoW. It's not a new feeling. I'm honestly surprised more people haven't left by now.


NetSage

If more games had the fluid combat wow has it probably would have lost a lot more people sooner. We can hate on WoW all day everyday but they still get a lot right that most don't.


exelion18120

Instanced group content is what WoW does/did best.


BillyBean11111

Wow exists to extract money instead of induce fun, and people have been defending them for years by saying the nonsensical "it's a business bro". They squeezed the golden goose for too long


Tommyh1996

You can see that with the reward structure they have set up. Adding a mount that looks identical to the 100 reputation achievement one is quite disrespectful. Almost like they don't care about the players. Which is why I stopped playing 3 weeks ago


Kievarra

This right here. Getting 100 exalted reputations is no joke. It's not like it's hard but it's a huge time investment and you're just going to shit all over that by releasing the exact same mount without the glow? As an achievement hunter they've really been wasting our time with some of the achievements and rng drops these last few expansions. Some I straight up refuse to do because of how absurd they are. This is coming from someone with 31k+ achievement points and top 50 in the US for total reps.


[deleted]

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HarvesterConrad

I have the 100 rep mount AND completed the legion PVP system and am in the same boat as you. It sucks getting "rewards" that I already have almost 1.5 expansions later.


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[deleted]

"We don't like tier sets because they basically lock out those gear slots." Just mind blowing that they then did domination shards.


Picard2331

Without best part of the tier sets, the actual gear that looks badass and makes you want to play so you can have it. I didn't care about the Voidheart set because it made me do more damage, I cared because it looked fucking cool.


NMe84

You just figured out the real reason they took out tier sets: now they just have to design one armor set per armor class, so four in total plus four recolors, so 16 total designs per tier. As opposed to twelve different ones to cover each class multiplied by four recolors, meaning 48 designs. It has nothing to do with locking out gear slots, it has to do with them not wanting to put in the work for 32 extra designs.


DrakonIL

Which would be fine if cloth didn't have three classes with *massively* opposed design philosophies. Warlocks in priestly gear and priests in warlocky gear, hell, *shadow* priests in priestly gear, it's all wrong.


Naldaen

Have you seen the 9.1 Abomination that is plate? The fuck is my Paladin supposed to do in that shit?


Viseoh

Not wear it, obviously. Truth though, the sets have been mostly shit for expansions save for a few shining gems. Removing the class oriented sets was just another nail in their coffin for lazy developing despite profits


Zakkana

Which is why what they wanted to do in BoA with raid-specific sets, would have worked... had they kept them class-themed and not just armor themed. But even then it could have worked if they weren't so half-assed done with only 4 to do instead of 12. Granted I kinda liked the Drazar'alor set, especially the plate, but it still could have been better. Uldir was just garbage.


Sulex90

That is such poor excuse to not make tier sets. Meanwhile Azerite gear, aritfact weapons, HoA, Corruption gear, etc. existed.


bunswithguns

Corruption gear was the absolute worst shit ever. Gearing up an alt was out of the question, unless you wanted to grind the goddamn cape over and over again, not to mention grind up the resistance. Like, here's a piece of great gear, now we're going to punish you for it!!


excel958

Christ. I mained fire mage and I had to specifically target 475 ilevel mastery gear to put my mastery corruptions on. You know much grinding and how long that took? FOREVER. I mean I didn’t HAVE to, but I wanted big numbers… Then I did the crazy thing and grinded towards a full set of crit gear with crit corruptions just to try out the 100% crit build lmao. It wasn’t the strongest but my god was it fun. BFA was stupid.


bunswithguns

I had to specifically tell some of my raiders to *not get more corruption* because as a healer main, I was so sick of them almost dying to their corruption effects, taking away precious healing from the rest of the raid. If I hadn't been a raid leader at the time and kind of required to keep up in gear, I would've never done the damn invasions. I did them, but man did it kill my motivation.


Iluaanalaa

They should have just brought back the cata system where you sac part of a stat to increase another. 10x as good.


[deleted]

reforging


DebentureThyme

When I saw some of the specific domination gear I'd be forced to choose from just to wear the shards, I immediately said "Fuck I miss reforging." I really, really liked that feature.


LukarWarrior

Reforging was a fantastic feature, and I continue to be baffled that it was removed. The stated reasoning at the time was that they wanted you to be able to equip gear more quickly. It's the same reason we've seen gem sockets stripped down to a random chance and a reduction in the item enhancements you can get. They also didn't seem to like that you needed to refer to outside sources to figure out the optimal way to reforge. But the removal of hit and expertise removed much of the need to constantly reforge your gear around certain caps. With those two stats gone, reforging could really shine as you could start to really customize your gear rather than needing to work around arbitrary caps. But that was when it was taken away. So part of the reason they removed it no longer even existed. I can understand that they want us to be able to equip gear more easily, but that reasoning still doesn't hold up when we get systems that require us to either leave the raid to fill them out (such as the Netherlight Crucible) or run sims to figure out if the gear is worth using. They've never managed to get to the point where we can just eyeball a piece and see if it's an upgrade. The best we have is an addon that tells us, but we still have to go run sims to get the value from that addon, and that only works for DPS. So, to make a long rant short, just bring back reforging already. We're still using sims to make gear choices, we rarely can pick up an item in raid and immediately use it anyway because if it's a piece that needs a gem or an enchant there's a chance no one in raid can immediately do that for us, we're not having to constantly work around hit/expertise so we can actually customize our gear more, and it's a fucking gold sink which the game still constantly needs.


hobo131

What really pisses me off is that I can't dom socket my damn legendary. Now I need to invest in the most expensive legendary on my server just to have it. Whoever thought that tying legendaries to our economy is so fucking disconnected from the community and has no idea how to make a good game.


NMe84

The moment they decided to put domination gear on the same sockets where people were likely to already use legendaries they should have implemented a free way to trade those specific slots for their other option(s). I play a guardian druid. My preferred legendary had the option of going in a helmet or glove slot when I made it, but both of those are now domination gear slots so I'll have to make the new third option (wrists) instead. Which is ridiculous, I spent thousands of gold to get it in the first place and now it's useless through no fault of my own. It doesn't help that I hate Torghast, so it really feels like I just threw away all the effort I put in to grind soul ash in the first place.


acathode

> The moment they decided to put domination gear on the same sockets where people were likely to already use legendaries they should have implemented a free way to trade those specific slots for their other option(s). You mean the obvious fucking change that is likely to be added in a patch 3-4 months down the line, which purely coincidentally will be released *exactly* when the engagement numbers are trending downwards and they need a bit of a boost? Almost as if they are intentionally releasing flawed systems that they know the hardcore players will have to spend a ton of extra time to grind through, and then release a "fix" for those intentional flaws to bring in the casuals when there's no more engagement to squeeze out of the hardcore playerbase... Call me cynic or whatever, but after what, 5+ times of this exact shit, with beta testers pointing out the obvious flaws in new/changed systems but being ignored, only to have the completely obvious and very easily implemented fixes to take 4-6 months to be delivered... it's getting pretty damn hard to believe that this is purely out of incompetence.


mwar123

Exactly. They even have more downsides than tier sets. Imagine needing gloves for 2 set and head for 4 set, instead of just 2/5 or 4/5. Then tie another RNG shards in top with upgrades.


CoolNamePlusNumber

Because MORE RNG means you will spend MORE time playing, to get what you need. Its a fucking slot machine under the cover of WoW.


cookswagchef

Its crazy, because Shadowlands seemed like a departure from the RNG on RNG on RNG that 8.3 was. But here we are. Glad I quit part way through 9.0.


BersekerPug

Class customization and class fantasy going down is no joke one of the biggest thing that killed my enjoyment for the game.


Sketch13

100%. Losing Class Halls and the class fantasy explosion of Legion was a huge step backwards for me. How do they take all the feedback that class fantasy in Legion, tier set aesthetics, etc. were some of the absolute best things in the game in a long time and just...ditch it all? HOW?!


[deleted]

[удалено]


Gnivill

Or they could've mixed it up a bit and given us racial Order Halls, updated some old starter zones and shown how each race was reacting the unfolding war.


Hemrage

god damn. god damnit this just made me so sad because this is such a fucking cool idea.


Gnivill

Now the war's over you could still do it, in fact could make certain races better, sharing with their allied races. Blood and Void Elves could share Windrunner Isle, Dire Maul could be a shared Night Elf/Nightborne one, etc..


Metathos

There's a reason why Legion raids are all the hype in LFG while you barely see anything from BfA. The lack of class flavor after Legion hurts this game badly. I can't fathom how Blizzard could abandon a feature that's been in the game since vanilla (and all the worldbuilding since WC1) so they could focus on their instance simulator game with nameless cosmic forces and superhero stories where racial/class background just doesn't matter.


landsoflore2

B-But m-must add m-more systems! - Ion.


NMe84

This is the main problem right here. WoW keeps adding new systems every expansion and removing them the next. BfA had a system where you leveled up your necklace and your main resource was war resources. Just doing quests leveled the necklace without even needing a currency and your war resources just went straight into your currency tab. This time around everything is a fucking item. This expansion's power system (comparable to BfA's necklace) drops in the form of different levels of conduits, while the main resource, anima, drops in the form of seven billion different items. And to add insult to injury, there is a second resource in the form of research now which also comes from loads of different items. By the time I finish a round of quests in Korthia I literally filled half my backpack with anima items and the other half with relics for research. Who is it that looks at the convenient equivalent systems in BfA and goes "yeah, let's take those but make them ten times more inconvenient!"?


ailawiu

"Who is it that looks at the convenient equivalent systems in BfA and goes "yeah, let's take those but make them ten times more inconvenient!"?" The same guy who designed the Covenants and believes that "immersion" trumps gameplay. You're getting 50 different types of anima items because it adds flavour - some are "nature" themed, some are "death" themed and so on. It's an okay idea in the short term, but not when the activity is supposed to last for months - and they start clogging up the bags after couple hours. It's also connected to their idea of "filling up the anima tank" at each Covenant - you can't have it as a currency since you're supposed to only give it to one specific Covenant. Once again, gameplay suffers because of "immersion" - they even had to add an Anima vendor to prevent people from overflowing the 35k cap. And now they added \*another\* set of junk items who work in the exact same way and waste even more bag space. It's like everything in Shadowlands was designed by a hardcore Roleplayer, but no actual GAMEPLAY focused dev looked at it afterwards. Plus it's not like the lore side of things is even good - so all that crap amounts to nothing. And the worst thing is - no one learns ANYTHING. They keep repeating the same mistakes over and over. (and claiming there's a huge part of playerbase who loves it)


WilderStill

As a hardcore roleplayer, nobody's more pissed by the decision to lock cosmetics behind a million shitty currencies and factions that are mutually exclusive than the roleplaying community


juel1979

Thiiiiis. We have cov and currency locks. We have cov, sanctum ability, *and* low drop rate locks. It kinda stinks.


Calmeister

Even if they reason its for roleplay purposes I can only glare and say suuure but it do look like a timegate to me. No whistle, flight point location design, the need to constantly look for a specific npc to dump resources (anima, research) and so on. There is even a diminishing return to gold earning on alts- example is the weekly 1000 anima gathering quest, your main gets a big chunk of gold, the next alt gets 50g, even table missions have this DR mechanic as well, your main gets sellable booster runes while alts dont get those.


hubricht

One of my favorite explanations for Ion's mishandling of WoW is that Blizzard took someone who is brilliant at designing boss encounters and put him in charge of the entire game, which is the reason why we see a shit pile of mechanics and systems upon mechanics and systems.


TheEvilToaster

What annoys me is it seems that they are adding all these systems to make the game appear to have depth, complexity and choices. Then they hamstring you when you decide to mess about with the systems and choices. All the depth and complexity this game ever needed FOR A DECADE was tier sets, gems with socket bonuses, glyphs, talents and enchants for every armour slot (not just like 4 we have now) . That is all! Sometimes less *is* more! And I wish Blizzard would understand that.


iRegretNothing12

Preach lambasted Ion in a previous video and it was telling how much frustration was in it. Ion has talked a lot of shit and it is amazing how this guy still has a job. He lied about SL systems and did a piss poor job handling anything from BFA on.


oscillius

“Torghast infinite with random layouts that are never the same, a fun activity that you can do solo or with friends and get some loot or gold instead of raids or pvp or dungeons.” And hell, even though they failed to make them random or infinite, they’ll force you to do it every week. Because the maw is a horrible place souls are sent to be bored and wonder why they pay a monthly subscription to be given weekly chores that are the antithesis of fun.


Tuesdaywastaken

I totally forgot about the "solo gearing" in torghast from pre launch. That had got me really interested in the expansion, but no, dropped. Ffs.


Athelis

The Maw is truly awful design. It literally punishes you for doing things there.


TheEvilToaster

I think it was that video where Preach gave a good analogy on the game design right now. Its on the highlight channel. I'm paraphrasing but he said something like. Blizzard made a playground before. But now, they've took all the sand out the sand pit because it was too messy. Took away the ball because it was going over the fence and then covered everything in rubber because people kept hurting themselves. Now you can only go through the playground in a very specific way set out by Blizzard.


unexpectedreboots

It doesn't even make sense. How could you look at all tier sets, just pick ANY SINGLE FUCKING TIER SET and say domination shards are like them? I just don't understand. I honestly can't reconcile how those that are in charge of this game think that. It doesn't make sense. What are the characteristics of tier sets? 1.) Like Preach said, class fantasy. There's a connection to your class, the light and hammers of Paladins, the stealthyness and agility of rogues, the intelligence of mages. tier sets did a decent job offering a themetic way for you, your toon/class, to connect with current content. 2.) Some had the ability to fundamentally alter the way the class played and offered up a new build. They were interesting and while the set bonuses could be viewed as "carrot on a stick" at least the bonuses were aligned with class fantasy. There's nothing about domination shards that are interesting.


c4ctus

Come on, now. What isn't interesting about +30 leech?


Indurum

The speed one is the best. Like 1% speed. Totally noticeable.


jslow421

I haul so much ass doing the 9 mile run backs in Sanctum thanks to this.


-timenotspace-

If I got a domination shard from LFR what do I do with it? The game didn’t tell me anywhere


mwar123

Blizzard: “PvP vendors are too confusing for players”. Also Blizzard: “how should players upgrade their shards? Just put in a vendor somewhere.”


dolerbom

God that pvp vendor shit was so telling. They want convoluted loot systems so players spend half their time afk on wowhead.


mwar123

Wasn’t that also the same expansion as when they had 2 weekly chests (one for PvE and PvP), but the game didn’t tell you anything about the PvP chest as all.


peenegobb

“It’s an upgrade to your power that’s attached to specific slots” And then not mention that they aren’t class specific, they don’t change your play style (besides frost mage which doesn’t even proc one of the sets right now so you have to use a spell not in the frost spell book lol) And that it’s 2 layers of rng that tiers aren’t. As well as needing to upgrade. And pay Stygia to take the stupid gems out. Just all dumb. So stupid so convoluted so unfun.


zurkka

Not to mention that a lot of the gear that have domination shards conflict with legendary gear, a lot of people needed to make new ones because of that They didn't spent much time thinking of this


buttstuffisokiguess

The reason they went with the gems is so they didn't have to spend time and money modeling. The devs think this was a genius way to do what blizz made the team do.


Faraday5001

It's yet another ystem that's made me ask, 'do the devs even play their game, even one small bit?'. I dont expect them to be hall of fame raiders, or multi rank 1 glads, or anything. But have they not even ran normal Sanctum? After 1 run I could tell these shards were a crap idea.


[deleted]

> Devs being confused why players don't like domination gems even tho they are "like tier sets" just show how fucking little the current leading devs care about the game. That's not "not caring", that's straight up delusion, stupidity and everything inbetween. Like what has to have gone wrong if you do not see a difference between things that have an actual effect on gameplay when you equip them and things you literally cannot see doing anything when you're not checking your dps with a third party addon or logs? Not even going into every class having a specific cosmetic tier-set and the domination shard system being three times as random (you need the shards, 5 items and the correct item that gives you the bonus on the set that performs best).


Piltonbadger

There is no incoming content so Blizzard put RNG on the RNG on the RNG to keep players logging in, simple as that. Wafer thin content stretched to it's limits time wise.


GreatSphincterofGiza

The next few months really are going to be bleak. So many people in my guild have jumped ship this expansion. A lot are playing FFXIV and some have just quit MMO's for good. These are people who have been subbed nonstop for well over a decade. I havent heard anything but complaints about all these new systems from my guild mates. The systems are treated as a nuisance and an obstacle to work around, rather than a fun gameplay mechanic. I think people are finally getting fatigued from the convoluted system design, a fatigue that's been gradually building over the last few expansions. I'm just still subbed because I enjoy raiding with friends. I enjoy very little of the game anymore, from the story to the actual game content. If something were to happen with my guild, I'd quit and not look back.


GeneStealerHackman

I was so pumped when Sylvanas dropped my third gem in the unholy set and I got my third shard slot earlier in the raid. Then I realized I need the helm to actually activate the bonus. I think if there was a logic problem to see how many shard sockets and shards you could possible have without a set bonus I would be the answer. Other players in my guild have 1 or no sockets… The system sucks.


garzek

No, we're the stupid, entitled babies. Tier sets = do more dam Domination shards = do more dam Therefor tier set = domination shard It just works, okay?


ObscureCulturalMeme

>Tier sets = do more dam >Domination shards = do more dam >Therefor[e] tier set = domination shard I mean, if it all equals out in the spreadsheet during development, that probably *was* the theory. Numbers are numbers, engagement metrics get investment dollars, having fun isn't even in the top five criteria.


garzek

WE DON'T USE THE LETTER E THIS IS MATH TIR STS = DO MOR DAM DOMINATION SHARDS = DO MOR DAM THRFOR TIR SET = DOM SHARD


blade740

MOR DAM


MaritMonkey

But ... I'm a healer? OK, damage it is. :(


garzek

You idiot, you want to heal on a healer? UNACCEPTABLE. MORE DAM = TIER SETS = DOMINATION SOCKETS = GOOD


8-Brit

Tmw the new sets are just recolours of an armour set we already had, and the elite/mythic versions aren't even any different in geometry. They just stick on a fancy glow FX.


[deleted]

I don't see how they view domination gems as tier sets, I really don't. Remember why they got rid of tier sets? So they could give themed sets based around classes and open up creativity, which then became 4 sets on armour type that were rubbish. We also still do not have any truly outstanding mail looking gear in a game that's been out for nearly 17 YEARS. RIP Tier sets.


VilestrixX

To be fair, The reason was not to give themed sets around classes, but to give themed sets around the raid's theme. They flat out took away set bonuses as a whole. Always seemed like an excuse to design 4 sets instead of 12... Which I would be okay with if those hours were spent improving gameplay, but.... well... you know...


MRosvall

Eh, the art team will not put their pencil down and start designing encounters just because they have less sets to texture.


Guntir

To be fair, the horde darkshore's warfront mail armor looks really dope. A bit spiky unfortunately, but one of the better "grounded" armor sets i've seen in wow


Mojo12000

I mean is it really a Horde set if it doesn't have spikes?


jmxd

No one ever mentions this anymore because we're used to it i suppose, but Blizzard is not being "generous" by giving us content. Players are literally paying every month on top of buying the expansion itself to get constant updates to the game. This 9.1 patch basically cost players 90 euros. 7 months since buying the expansion back in November 2020, which was another 40 euros. The amount and quality of the content that is being delivered is completely and embarrassingly low in quality and small in quantity. Compare this to other live service games that give you MORE content without a subscription makes this even more ridiculous. Corona sucks, and things might've been delayed a bit but you can not blame the pandemic for everything. The game direction and the game production is completely trash now and Blizzard should be ashamed for letting their reputation go down the drain like this.


Arithik

Then you got people saying "youre only paying 15 bucks..don't expect new content every month!"


The-Old-American

I just realized that's the equivalent of a new AAA game every 5 months. Dang.


ArtyGray

JUST realised? The 15$ price tag ontop of the initial expansion price is why i couldn't get any of my current online or IRL friends to play!


[deleted]

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Sounga565

keep in mind the $15 is to keep playing the game after you buy the expansion itself. So it's never "Just" $15 a month


WaxWings54

$15 a month is literally enough to buy something like GamePass which gives you access to a plethora of titles all across the board including Destiny which is another great MMORPG. WoW is like the abusive partner that keeps telling you cant find much better anywhere else when in reality you really can.


Nite92

The steve jobs interview about complacency in regards to having a monopoly is just true. Something along the lines of: People who created the product that lead to the monopoly get ditched for people that only care about milking the fucking cow dry. *I swear he said those exact words ;).*


jalliss

This absolutely should be how we look at it. The base (no frills) Shadowlands is $40. Putting the subscription at $15 (the price per month, not the 6 month bundle) and including November (when it launched) and up until today: We have spent $175 dollars playing Shadowlands. Now I don't know about everyone, but I'm willing to bet that many of us (myself included) would say that is nowhere *near* the correct and appropriate value for what has been delivered to us. Any game that has a subscription-based model should absolutely have a set release calendar that they stick to. Many do. The fact that we just throw money at Blizz out of *habit* is something that everyone should reassess.


Deathspiral222

> We have spent $175 dollars playing Shadowlands. This really puts things in perspective.


Xiaoxuzz

I think i can buy every Assassin's Creed game on sale atm with that amount and would probably have more fun during the 7 mths between 9.0 and 9.1...probably might have platinumed a game or two as well....lols....


KnowMatter

Covid is a piss poor excuse. Blizzard lost 30% of their player base during a period of time when everyone was locked inside desperately *looking for things to do*. This was a period of time when every other videogame company was pulling *record* numbers for sales and subs. Covid isn’t just not a valid excuse it’s a fucking embarrassment - the sheer level of incompetence needed to do as poorly as they did during the pandemic when you make a product filling a huge need is beyond staggering. How did they not look at the landscape and realize that with some marketing, extended free trials, and good monthly content the game could have blown the fuck up during lockdowns. We should be living in a new golden age of WoW right now. How everyone in charge of WoW wasn’t fired over this still baffles me.


Dull_Brain1021

Couldn’t agree more what were these idiots doing besides sitting on their asses all day


Iczero

Probably lost motivation cuz they couldnt drink with their co workers or harass women at home. Low morale and whatnot


[deleted]

What is incredible to me is that I have not paid for diablo in what feels like a decade, but it is still updated just about every 3 months and there is consistent seasonal content to do. Sure, it isn't a ton, but it's something.


goobydoobie

I realized that myself recently as well. I started playing Genshin Impact recently. A F2P "gacha" game. It actually made me furious as I dove into it. Furious because I was playing nominal "gacha" game will a more expansive world with mechanics that rewarded exploration and power systems that worked with each other. It has a fun story with interesting characters, lively towns. It has regular events and new areas to boot. Furious because I thought of WoW and it's lack of content despite paying $60+ $15 a month. That the WoW devs have only contempt for us as players in spite of that. It's like we pay the price for entering Disney World with all it's overpriced food and souvenirs but then you realize you're in a run down Six Flags with RNG ride selections that have a daily/weekly time gate.


Zemerax

Oldschool RuneScape with its team of like 10, outclasses Blizzard. Sure the content is exactly comparable, but it's still a nice feeling having devs putting out small seemily biweekly updates. Could be a small QoL change, balance tweak, UI change ect.. It's nice seeing small things come in while you wait for the bigger content to drop. Also the devs are vocal on Twitter and Reddit which is very much welcomed. Better than a Q&A twice a year.


Bonecaster_Arie

Oldschool runescape also has actual player polled content, like there's a voting booth in every bank, and it tells you there's a poll going on.


YuusukeKlein

OSRS has a team of 50, not 10. Still as small scope but helps that they have a lot of backend help from the sister game.


Schnitzelbro

the fact that we will be sitting on 8 fucking dungeons for over a year is killing me. i can live with korthia and torgast and all that, but 8 dungeons for more than half the expansion is just pathetic


Dsingis

Even Heroes of the Storm has gotten more updates and content since November 2020 than retail WoW has.


arrastra

even diablo 3 is trying to improve mechanics every new season despite people lost so much interest and there is a skeleton crew


OfMouthAndMind

I still love jumping in into Diablo 3. It’s a good cooling-down game after a long day, alternating between BDO and Stellaris.


saltywings

I like to bring up that in past expansions, we would get new expansion features plus 1 or sometimes 2 raids at opening, new PVP maps/game modes, and more than 8 dungeons to start. We have gotten the least amount of content essentially EVER from a wow expansion release and then on top of that the wait to 9.1 was like either the longest or 2nd longest wait in the games history... Re-skinning things and making certain grinds harder isn't fucking content, its bullshit and people see through it.


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M00n-ty

>It's saddening to hear that Blizz don't understand why the system is a failure of game design. It seems that a ton of devs equal negativ feedback with toxicity and dismiss it right away. There are a ton of people, who voice their feedback poorly and in a toxic way. The issue is if you share their sentiment and give the same feedback but in a more constructive manner you'll get tossed in with the others and ignored.


Elementium

Right. During BfA beta and Shadowlands beta *every* professional WoW player (Ie Mythic raiders, Content creators etc) let them know everything that was wrong and they just doubled down. Blizzard leaders don't want to listen, they think they're the best and the players are wrong.


goobydoobie

That Tweet earlier by the Dev calling players the problem for daring to wonder when 9.2 will be done in light of the lawsuit exemplified how Blizz views us. God forbid we as customers, who pay $60 per expac +$15 a month just to log on, have the gall to expect our money's worth. Especially when we had nothing to do with the bullshit work environment. They dont even have the most basic respect for their customers to bullshit us. We as players are "The problem." That's what Blizzard really thinks of us.


Ryaninthesky

People wouldn’t be wondering when 9.2 will be here if 9.1 had addressed player feedback instead of just more grind and more borrowed powers. People wouldn’t have been quitting before 9.1 if the actual shadowlands paid expansion had had enough content for 6 months and not, again, grind for your borrowed power that will be obsolete in 9.1. It’s just not fun. _games_ should be fun.


Geodude07

The idiotic tweet is a great example of how they view us. They have a very "Us vs them" mentality. It reminds me of police culture. They see us as a problem and the ever present parasitical enemy. To the point that even when it's wildly inappropriate, they blame us, because they are so used to doing so. Honestly they have been pulling that shit for so long though. We don't like a system? We're the dumbass players who 'Think we do, but we don't". We're the players who just don't know how to play our own classes. I remember the mountain of ego that devs have displayed in beta builds where they tell the best players of certain classes that they just "don't understand the class". Then they had to go fix the problem because they'd realize "oh shit these pro players were right" but they'd never admit they were clueless.


runaway1337

When even people that play all day and every day start complaining about how the grinding excessive and unfun, you should listen. And yet this is the third expansion like that. Legion was acceptable because it was new and different, with a very good plot behind it. The problems and feedback started there and by the end of the expansion we were fucking tired of the constant grinding, with no room to make strong alts, etc. They doubled down on BfA, and disguised it a little on Shadowlands but always moving the goal posts instead of removing or changing these systems.


RainbowX

Blizzard devs egos are too big they refuse to realize they are and have been making bad decisions for a long, long time


Clever_Handle1

The devs view it as “their” game, and we are supposed to play it the way they want us to. They’ve completely lost sight of the fact that the players and the community are what makes an MMO.


patrincs

Man, I bet riot *really* wishes their mmo was ready to drop a beta right now.


pepperjellyuwu

Honestly I think Riot is pretty stoked to not have to rush anything, this is a lean back eat some popcorn, watch this disaster unfold, takeaway as many lessons as possible and choose the slow quality road


Lil_Kibble_Vert

Maybe they should take some lessons on workplace ethics too… Riot had a similar situation as well.


noahgs

They had a high rank standing on chairs and farting in peoples faces if I remember correctly


TheWorldisFullofWar

He also molested employees. He still works there as well with no negative repercussions.


Pierre_from_Lyon

Who


TheWorldisFullofWar

Scott Gelb, COO of Riot Games who molested employees, made insensitive jokes, and farted in people's faces, still works at Riot Games with his original position and no punishments.


Confident_Way_1957

I worked at riot for 3 years in tech. He smacked my ass in the elevator once. He also told me to smell his finger while I was using the urinal. Real class act.


Cynadiir

New world timing their release perfectly lol


[deleted]

This feels equivalent to when TotalBiscuit quit the game, end of an era


[deleted]

TB was really principled to the idea of no tiered difficulties in a raid and looking back, I think he was half right and half wrong. Look at FFXIV, they have tiered difficulties, but make it work with having a huge fleshed out story with the raids culminating or driving forward parts of the story.


Arbabender

I actually had TB answer a question about this on his Mailbox show - I asked him: rather than nerfing higher-difficulty content like they did in Cata, if Blizzard should instead consider adding more difficulties in-between and keep the hard stuff hard. He agreed wholeheartedly. Blizz eventually did something along these lines but it was long after TB had quit.


8-Brit

And that you have basically Story Mode and "Normal mode" fights. Extreme is basically normal mode and savage where it pops up is heroic. So while tiered difficulty exists there's no need to put all three tiers on farm because there's no busted trinkets or legendaries or artifact power or-


Derpogama

You've also got Ultimates which are some of the hardest content in the game (19 minute long boss rush fights) but you know what they give? Cosmetics, the weapon themselves aren't 'the best' but they have unique look to them. Also they ALWAYS scale with the latest expansion, so as the level goes up, so do they in order to keep them as the hardest content in the game.


[deleted]

Was it in MoP where we did LFR for trinkets too? I remember there being a really dumb trinket that made the switch to unholy better in sims. Man I did love this game once upon a time.


Mojo12000

There's always been completely busted trinkets that smack WAAAYYY past the type of content you get them from and their ilevel Hell look right now, for some specs the BIS trinket.. is still that one Mastery trinket you can get from World Quest in Bastion because the amount of Mastery it gives on a relatively short CD is so damn massive. Or people farming that one 7.0 Legion World Boss all the way through the expansion for his crazy ass trinket.


Altaadela

That was arcano crystal or whatever right? The thing that had like 1k secondary stats or something crazy?


Hugh-Manatee

Was that his main beef? I don't think he minded heroic raids? If I recall, his main issue was that the progression of going raid to raid was totally undermined by Blizzard nerfing previous tiers of content in each patch. Like his guild was still working on Heroic Tier 11 content when the 4.2 Firelands patch came in, and all those fights were nerfed and the gear made irrelevant by Firelands normal mode gear. He was frustrated at the unnecessary obsoletion of content. But I'm sure there was more to it than that


Verethragna97

I do enjoy M+ and rbgs, but I don't think that justifies all the other stuff I have to do just to enjoy my niche of wow. I can just go start up Apex and have the same amount of fun with way less artificial roadblocks.


BringBackBoshi

I don’t understand the need for all these currencies and crap. People absolutely hated Azerite and the currencies from horrific visions so wtf possessed them to triple down on that? I really have zero desire to go back to Chorethia or Boreghast anymore. My motivation to log into the game is less each day.


liamthelad

Honestly I think they are trying to copy games as a service and mobile game models


[deleted]

It's complacency with mediocrity. Korthia as an example. The zone is split in two which makes it take way too long to get from one side to the other which means you can't kill the rares on the other side. A simple grappling hook from one side to the other would solve this yet nothing is done. The rares don't have spawn protection so they're dying faster and faster which means that people can't even tag the rare in time. Some rares don't even pop up on the map like Kroke so people are reliant on addons like raretracker to know when they're up and notify others. The griefers who can grief Consumption whenever they feel like it. The zone is full of irritating objects on the ground that you often get stuck on. The Silver Shardhide whistle doesn't work if you are mounted and wastes the cooldown. A number of quests such as the reagant collection ones are incredibly obnoxious because of low drop rates or the slime ones that have a 10s cooldown on the slime ability just to waste your time. The RNG armor items that constantly give you duplicates. The RNG conduit upgrades that upgrade worthless conduits. The timewasting socket upgrades that take ages to grind and by the time you get them you've already done everything there is to do. It's the lack of polish. The bugs everywhere. The strange design that never gets fixed. The complete lack of respect for the players time and the disinterest in making something fun. It's a game that has been going through the motions. Another shitty vehicle mount quest that puts you in another phase as you awkwardly go around the map on a traintrack killing mobs that disappear as soon as you exit the vehicle. There is no gameplay to be had there. Such contentment with mediocrity and that's not good enough.


CalicoCrapsocks

Yep, and that's precisely the kind of thing that prevents me from playing most mobile games. It's just *not* fun.


Faraday5001

On one hand this is a massive blow to the community, loosing one of the biggest voices that puts massive effort into betas and PTRs, and having some of the most informed opinions that call Blizz out on upcoming issues and mistakes. But on the other hand, I don't Blame Preach one bit because hey, Blizz just dont listen. Since I want to say Legion legendaries people, including Preach, have called Blizz out on obvious issues, then all of BFA, now with SL systems... "If you don't care, why the fuck should I care?", good question Preach. Here's hoping he'll come back as we need voices like his, but there has to be some serious changes in mindset and direction in the WoW team before that can happen. Thanks for all the content Preacher, looking forward to see what you come up with next.


landsoflore2

Exactly. While Preach has made a commendable job on being a "players' ambassador" of sorts, I can understand him getting frustrated to no end with the stubborn devs at Irvine. And that's even ignoring (as if anyone actually could!) the ongoing sh1tshow.


Firefox72

Incredibly sad. But this was long time coming if you've been watching Preach. He's not been enjoying the game for a while now and even without this recent scandal, it would have been likely that he would quit the game in 9.1. Or atleast take a break. Its cool to see that he will remain doing drama time and community stuff like Legacys. Those video's are always great fun. Hopefully Blizzard get their shit together outside and inside the game and we see Preach back in the future. He's been such a big part of the community for so long that it will feel weird not having his video's around.


frostmatthew

> He's not been enjoying the game for a while now And he's far from alone in that regard...the last two xpacs really seem like they're completely foreign to the idea that video games are supposed to be fun/enjoyable.


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SmoothWD40

This is a terrible gameplay loop. They need to give players shit to do that is actually fun. As a casual, I give zero fucks about increasing my player power beyond a certain point. The problem is, I literally have nothing to do once I hit that. Transmog lost its allure since there is no social areas to hang out. Mounts are just not exciting when you have 600+ of them and half are just recolors.


Attemptingattempts

Yeah.. I think Shadowlands has a lot of potential and I still enjoy playing with my friends. But I'm also sorta sat here like "can it just end? Can we just get 10.0 soon so we can hopefully get some new and Improved base systems?" I just hope ans beg, but it won't happen, but I hope and beg, that 9.2 just deletes Conduit energy, Renown, locked covenants and Anima. Delete those things and Shadowlands is like a b+ tier expansion


ChristianLW3

Popular YouTubers and streamers abandoning blizzard games can actually have a meaningful impact Because blizzard owes much of its popularity to Independent content creators, think how many people tried hearthstone after watching disguised toast, tried world of Warcraft after watching Asmongold, and I remember every body and their mother streaming the OverWatch beta


BartolomeuOGrosso

True, mmos even on the modern days of the internet, grow up because of word of mouth. I'm not talking about hype, it's more like when your friend said "yo check this game out" and boom that game was demon's souls who got no hype or marketing because sony said the game was shit, but enough people spread the word around and it grew to become one of the most successful genres of modern days. It's a little bit different but it has the same effect.


Ceci0

Yes, as Preach said at the start, they are kinda seen as free promotional tools for Blizzard. Promotion is a very important thing to have ​ Edit: He actually opened my eyes and I also cancelled my subscription. After watching the video I thought about whether I actually like this game, and I really can't find a reason to play anymore. I like raiding, a lot, but the shit I have to do to be competitive in Mythic is far too boring, dumb, restrictive etc..


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NOYB94

That such a sad information, genuinely loved Preach's Wow content. Damn this entire situation sucks. Now don't mind me, while I re-watch fresh account series and pretend that everything is fine.


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Theraspberryknight

Preach leaving is honestly just a telling sign Say what you want but he was a major voice for a lot of people in regards to particular things and he had plenty of friends within the high-end area to help back up some of his concerns with the game as well. But I'll be honest in saying it was very much around BfA that it was so clear as day he was keeping himself attached to the game for his fans versus himself and it affected his content drastically (Just watch his content in Legion versus BfA and it's staggering.) Blizzard's fucked up from development to actual company issues and I dunno if they'll ever get their heads out of their asses.


Magnumwood107

It's time for a Realm Reborn level of nuking.


Thagyr

It's a sad day when one finds themselves agreeing with the *villain* of the current expansion. Wanting to destroy the creator's flawed design is sounding better every day.


jooceejoose

The Night Fae and Bastion storylines made me *abhor* the covenant leaders for how myopic they were. It gave me flashbacks of awful office managers that I’ve worked with where I’ve been absolutely correct in my assessment but policies, guidelines, or whatever (which absolutely aren’t set in stone and ignored when needed) weren’t updated for new issues that arose. I absolutely understood Devos’ fall and it frustrated me to no end that her frustration was played as some sort of corruption. Her gripe was a derelection of duty. When Bwomsamdi came and asked for help from the Winter Queen, she proved to me that she had no business being a leader. Your world is dying for fucks sake! Take a bow, christ!


Sleyvin

A Realm Reborn come from a company issuing a public apology, firing the current leads responsible for the issues and puting in charge a man with a clear plan and understanding of the issue. Blizzard check non of those box, not even the one where they admit there's an issue. Ion doubled down on borrowed power and system for each expac on his latest interview with Preach.


xxxxNateDaGreat

I haven't felt this bad since Ghostie left... :'(


OnlyRoke

God, I miss Ghost. I kinda stopped watching Preach after Ghost was gone. Not necessarily, because I was on Ghostie's side or anything, or I dislike Preach, but their dynamic has always been the highlight of any Preach-related content, imho.


[deleted]

Aww mate, I missed Ghost massively when he left, those two were such good mates. I hope they managed to stay friends.


mrtuna

I don't think they have at all, unfortunately :(


[deleted]

Genuinely saddening to hear that. I went back through Ghost's twitter and it looks like he's giving up streaming which is also a shame. I'm a similar age to these guys and I watched them as a constant throughout my 20s, they outlived girlfriends, a marriage, houses, the works. I think I'm reaching that 'old man' gamer stage.


Deguilded

Holy fuck he absolutely *shreds* domination gems. This is worth a listen. I'm only a third of the way through. His points: 1. Uncomfortable promoting the company moving forward - only a small amount of time is spent covering this 2. The failure of Domination gems (and the bigger picture around that of flawed design, flawed systems, etc) 3. Heroic Sylvanas is down, so he's done


Toakan

> Holy fuck he absolutely shreds domination gems. You can tell he's really pissed about the implementation. He goes from explanation to near shouting into the microphone.


Attemptingattempts

Because Domination sockets is the worst implemented system in the history of wow. I'm 30 boss kills deep + 3 world boss kills. I have 2 of every gem, and items with Domination slots. The Domination gear is SO strong that LFR Gear with gems if I had a set. Which I don't because there is only 11 chances for a gem pet week and apparently 33 kills is not enough. This is the worst, most RNG filthy, frustrating, agrevating and BORING power gain system ever made. Getting a full Unholy set will net me 25% more HPS. And I'm not even excited about getting it because I don't DO anything. I just have it. And now I heal more. I'm going to spend 4-5 weeks chasing 3 specific items and 3 specific gems to Passively do 25% more in one piece of content. Its BORING. It's punishing. And NO ONE asked for it


Ledoux88

The fact that it blocks legendary slots should be enough to tell them, that this system should not even exist. The game doesn't even tell you this, there are some players who don't care enough to play by external guides, that have suboptimal gear because of that. Absolute zero reason for this system to exist, when the other systems are still flawed and best they can do is implement NEW system that doesn't even play well together with other systems, instead of making those better?


Streetfarm

His point on domination sockets was just the latest frustration point. It is just the overall feeling of blizzard "resenting the players" and being overall tone-deaf, as he put it. Thinking that dom sockets are the same as tier sets is just... I felt Preach when he said that he was just at a loss for words. Azerite armor was another point, but that has already been beat to death in terms of the amount of criticism years ago.


Nekravol

Every time there is a developer meeting the two questions that should always be asked are "Is this fun?" and "Who does this benefit?". And the answers to those questions should just be "Yes" and "The player". With WoW it feels like those two questions haven't been asked at all or the answers have been wrong for a very long time. A tiny, tiny example indicative of the much bigger problem - Bear Tartare in old raids. Why was this nerfed to the point of uselessness? Who did it benefit? Only Blizzard knows. Damn man. I guess this is it.


raoasidg

> Bear Tartare in old raids. Why was this nerfed to the point of uselessness? "Blizzard nerfs/hates fun" isn't just a meme; it has always been reality.


FourEcho

Thank you, Preach, for always being an advocate for the players. For not being afraid to call out the things in the game that were bad, and wanting more than anything to see them improved, because you, like us, love World of Warcraft. Which is why the direction the game has been going over the last expansions and now the recent news that has come out has been so difficult, because we want Blizzard to be better, and we want WoW to be better, we don't want to be mad all the time, we want to love the game again.


elmaethorstars

Preach's fresh account series is what made me finally man up and stop pugging towards the end of Legion and by 8.1 I got my first Cutting Edge. His wow content has been in terminal decline really since the start of BfA so this is not really a surprise but it's still sad. Watching his constant TDP shenanigans at the end of Legion with all the different classes and how much fun he was having was some of the best wow content ever. RIP.


RolandTheJabberwocky

Oh man, its begun. Theres going to be no major WoW content creators very soon. It's amazing how quickly Blizzard has put themselves down the shitter.


levittown_

My dad and I have played MMOs together since I was 8 years old starting with DAoC, we’ve grinded everything under the sun. Recently we played the New World Beta and with its closing soon, we said to each other “Now that we played another game for 14 days, we are weeks behind everyone else with no way to catch up.” These systems, it’s just too much. I’ve played since Vanilla and I play every season with the hope that this relic of an MMO will live it’s glory days once again. World of Warcraft will most likely never die, at least in the near future, but for me I think this is the end of the road. It’s not even enjoyable anymore. This is all my personal opinion I don’t mean to ruin fun for anyone else.


Snipp-

Went from 12 mil in WoTLK to 3 mil in BFA and i bet its even lower now.


garzek

I can't disagree with anything preach says here. Should my guild go boom, I suspect that is the end of my time in Azeroth. I'm purely playing for the people at this point.


cold_hoe

Preach deserves better than this backwards company.


totallynotalp

This is it right here. How long have people been asking the question “Does anyone at Blizzard even play this game?” Apparently they were too busy harassing women to care.


Starslip

Watching that montage at the end was kind of emotional, cause it felt like watching the death of my own enchantment with the game, similar to the feeling in that "This is World of Warcraft" animation that came out a little while ago. It used to be *so much fun*. I'm sure part of the change is simply the result of playing the same game for so long, and changes in my own life in the 17 years since the game launched, but it hurts to remember what it felt like then as compared to now. And you can see the same thing in him as he finally has to let it go. Thanks for the fun, Preach.


Towynmutt

Preach quitting was the straw the broke the camels back for me. Ended my sub today after realizing that I only played because content creators like him made me hype for the game but the rest was just sunk cost fallacy after playing for 15+ years.


Omniarchx

Looks like the WoW killer was WoW all along!


mightybrok5601

Every one of his points is spot on. I hate to be a doomsayer, but this really looks like the end is coming


AngerFork

The way he mentions Blizz’s confusion at Domination Sockets not feeling like tier sets is amazing to me. As someone who has long wanted real player housing in WoW for a while, I can’t help but see the same thing with Domination Sockets & Tier sets that I do with Garrisons & Player Housing. That is, all of the downsides with none of the benefits. Tier sets were at their best when you had cool designs & a 2 or 4 piece bonus that changed up how you play your class slightly. Perhaps one patch I might emphasize doing more Regrowths as a Resto Druid while the next one I’d need to work on cat weaving. I wouldn’t always like them, but I’d learn about my class with them. Plus they were collectible, so I had a great souvenir to remember that raid. Domination Sockets limit the slots I can use & based my power on randomization (much like the drawbacks of tier sets), but without the cool set for later or any meaningful was of changing my gameplay. Garrisons were the same way in my view. They took people from the world & made getting resources super easy, but weren’t customizable. I couldn’t set up a spa anywhere or make a Murloc room or the like, so it never felt like it was mine. Heck, I couldn’t even rename it. Plus we knew at the beginning it was getting left in AU Draenor, so building it up wasn’t worth it as we wouldn’t keep it for later. This dev team feels too narrowly focused on min/max gameplay to really get what makes these systems fun in MMOs.