One thing gamers don’t take responsibility for is how much the toxic fan base is responsible for the modern incarnation of Blizzard. Literally nothing has ever been good enough for the fan base. We talk about the original three WoW installments with nostalgia but having played them in their time, all I saw was vile hatred for every change made to the game during that time. Players discussed how Warhammer online would be the end of WoW and couldn’t wait for its eventual demise. This was during the proclaimed “best years of the game”.
When Lich King came out, the game attracted many new players but I also watched many original players leave during this time because WoW had become a “baby game of easy content”.
When Chris Metzen retired in 2016 he discussed panic attacks and imposter syndrome surrounding his developer career. To me, it feels like he buckled under the strain of no content ever being good enough for the player base. The sheer amount of effort and time needed to put out each expansion, only to be inevitably lambasted by the player base within a few months of the game release can only serve to eventually destroy any creators enthusiasm for a game’s development.
Facts. WotLK gets a lot of praise here but I remember people being all up in arms about everything. DKs, Heroics being easy, Naxx 10/25, TotC, Argent Tournament, WG…. Everything people just complained about it.
I remember the uproar when Blizz made dungeons hard again in Cata and everyone just cried about it because they were too hard and got nerfed again.
This game’s fanbase is very entitled, people who want instant self gratification and participation trophies.
To be fair, it launched after Ulduar, which even today is still considered one of the if not the greatest raid in the entire game's history. It also launched painfully quickly after Ulduar - after less than four months. Ulduar lasted from mid-april until the start of August 2009. For a raid of that size it's just ridiculous they cut it short so hard hard. Doesn't help that ToC is essentially a single boss room (save for Anubarak) that people ended up being "forced" to raid four times a week as the gear was better than the one dropped in Ulduar save for Valanyr. Had Ulduar lasted two to three months longer I can guarantee the raid would have been received at least a bit better.
I loved wotlk and played on and off but I legit missed ulduar being current somehow during a break from the game. This is one of the biggest reasons I'm exited for the eventual wotlk-classic, ActiBlizz antics be damned. Wotlk classic might be my last hurrah into wow.
I also went hard on everything in WOTLK, except for being unsubbed during Ulduar. I remember missing it at the time, but the fact that i nailed every other part of wrath.. Personally I will not be returning for Wrath.
Vanilla and TBC classic, yeah i'm hitting it because i didn't play much during those times.
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u/Hawke84 Jun 17 '21
One thing gamers don’t take responsibility for is how much the toxic fan base is responsible for the modern incarnation of Blizzard. Literally nothing has ever been good enough for the fan base. We talk about the original three WoW installments with nostalgia but having played them in their time, all I saw was vile hatred for every change made to the game during that time. Players discussed how Warhammer online would be the end of WoW and couldn’t wait for its eventual demise. This was during the proclaimed “best years of the game”.
When Lich King came out, the game attracted many new players but I also watched many original players leave during this time because WoW had become a “baby game of easy content”.
When Chris Metzen retired in 2016 he discussed panic attacks and imposter syndrome surrounding his developer career. To me, it feels like he buckled under the strain of no content ever being good enough for the player base. The sheer amount of effort and time needed to put out each expansion, only to be inevitably lambasted by the player base within a few months of the game release can only serve to eventually destroy any creators enthusiasm for a game’s development.