World of Warcraft

[Well Intentioned]

If this is the best Blizzard can do before the Microsoft acquisition (aka trying to get a "good" expansion out the door) complete with a huge marketing push and all the PR stuff they're trying - Phil Spencer is going to fucking fire every person in that building on Day 1.

It's ridiculous the sheer volume of advertising and marketing they've been pushing for this expansion, because it's literally all that they have left in their fucking arsenal.

The amount of lipstick that is smeared on this pig has made it more cochineal bug than farmyard animal. (But it's still covered in shit.)

In marketing, you can go one of two routes.

Come up with something nice, memorable, entertaining. If we wanna stick in the realm of video games, there was Halo's 3 'Believe' campaign which won a shitton of advertising awards.

Or you can go the route of Mobile Strike or Game of War or any other innumerable shitty mobile games and just go lazy stunt casting (Arnold Schwarzenegger or Kate Upton) or pure saturation (think Raid: Shadow Legends.)

Imagine if McDonald's decided to just randomly tap Sylvester Stallone for a spot rather than doing a really calculated campaign with fucking BTK (problem: younger folks aren't eating as much fast food. How do we get them excited and 'hooked' on McD's? Bring in the big guns.)

We got that really sad and desperate video with Pedro Pascal (why Pedro Pascal? He's a great dude, is geek/video game adjacent but how is this gonna be successful?) My social media is infested with what has to be advertorial 'articles' tonguing Blizzard's balls about how every aspect of this game has 'saved' WoW. There's this really bad look 'clapback' ads. This is like the, third? batch of Twitch drops? It's insane.

There's no coherent strategy and it's clear that they were scrambling to try and get this out the door and win consumer confidence back in them at fucking lightspeed by throwing everything at the wall and praying that something would stick.

They've lost so much talent. Not just people who are competent in whatever their chosen roles are (animating, concept art, project managing, etc.) but people who are fucking motivated, have solid soft skills/secondary skills and can interact with folks like a human fucking being (yeah, it's gamedev and yeah, it's rife with autism/neurodiverse/whatever people, but still.)

No fucking wonder Brack 'stepped down.' Dude was gonna be shot out of a cannon because that entire company is a mess.

EDIT; Also, unrelated but continuing with my being amazed with the art direction. This thumbnail is, uh, certainly something. Wild how a model from Heroes of the Storm blows this out of the goddamned water.

Her HotS model, for comparison:

 

[Tanner Glass]

It's ridiculous the sheer volume of advertising and marketing they've been pushing for this expansion, because it's literally all that they have left in their fucking arsenal.

The amount of lipstick that is smeared on this pig has made it more cochineal bug than farmyard animal. (But it's still covered in shit.)

In marketing, you can go one of two routes.

Come up with something nice, memorable, entertaining. If we wanna stick in the realm of video games, there was Halo's 3 'Believe' campaign which won a shitton of advertising awards.

Or you can go the route of Mobile Strike or Game of War or any other innumerable shitty mobile games and just go lazy stunt casting (Arnold Schwarzenegger or Kate Upton) or pure saturation (think Raid: Shadow Legends.)

Imagine if McDonald's decided to just randomly tap Sylvester Stallone for a spot rather than doing a really calculated campaign with fucking BTK (problem: younger folks aren't eating as much fast food. How do we get them excited and 'hooked' on McD's? Bring in the big guns.)

We got that really sad and desperate video with Pedro Pascal (why Pedro Pascal? He's a great dude, is geek/video game adjacent but how is this gonna be successful?) My social media is infested with what has to be advertorial 'articles' tonguing Blizzard's balls about how every aspect of this game has 'saved' WoW. There's this really bad look 'clapback' ads. This is like the, third? batch of Twitch drops? It's insane.

There's no coherent strategy and it's clear that they were scrambling to try and get this out the door and win consumer confidence back in them at fucking lightspeed by throwing everything at the wall and praying that something would stick.

They've lost so much talent. Not just people who are competent in whatever their chosen roles are (animating, concept art, project managing, etc.) but people who are fucking motivated, have solid soft skills/secondary skills and can interact with folks like a human fucking being (yeah, it's gamedev and yeah, it's rife with autism/neurodiverse/whatever people, but still.)

No fucking wonder Brack 'stepped down.' Dude was gonna be shot out of a cannon because that entire company is a mess.

EDIT; Also, unrelated but continuing with my being amazed with the art direction. This thumbnail is, uh, certainly something. Wild how a model from Heroes of the Storm blows this out of the goddamned water.

Her HotS model, for comparison:

View attachment 4033302

The ad with Pedro Pascal (and the other marketing with celebrities) are them trying to "reclaim" the fun and whimsy from when they did it in ~2004 (with Mr.T and William Shatner) without understanding you can't just do the same marketing strategy again 16 years later. It's embarassing to a point.

I would argue that they never really "lost" talent as much as they never once were able to build/develop it as a studio. WoW was largely built on lessons learned from being active players of Everquest (and other MMOs) but by the time WOTLK came around - they could only really find people who already played WoW (including Ion Hozz and company). The game was built on a "We can do Everquest/UO/AO/SWG much better!" but as soon as they found success it turned into "We can just keep this coasting and don't have to innovate all that much" until other games caught up and started eating their lunch with a more focused strategy.

The most telling thing (to me at least) is that they basically have a blank check to do whatever they fuck they want in terms of innovation, technology, and story and across 16 years haven't done anything with it. Most memorable story beats are just rehashes/continuations of the RTS games and the ones everyone hates are the newly written ones (and they do way too much time traveling). I always think of the Game Grumps episode where Ross (the WoW player) is trying to explain the story of WoW to Arin/Dan/etc and has to sit them down in a class room complete with a fucking whiteboard to even try it.

The technology of WoW is amazing but completely wasted and over developed for no reason. Battlegroups, LFG/R, Sharding, instancing, phasing, and layering all just achieve a goal of making the game feel more empty and all of that R/D, design, and implementation could have been spent on features that people actually would like in a game (or content). They have shown a complete lack of innovation here and I personally think that of all the things WoW could have done to stay relevant is to really lean into the "scale" of war and better leverage the absolute size of their community and the story they are trying to tell. In 2004(ish) it was a big deal to have a whole server (of a few thousand people) do the 'War Effort' questline for AQ20/40 and in 2004 a server having ~4,000 people on it was a massive technological achievement for the time. 40 v 40 PVP (AV) was one of the more insane things I can think of for the time on top of the really grindy but popular PVP title system.

In 2022 though? You can very easily have a server that has ~40,000 WoW clients on it and instances that support complete nonsense levels of players. But instead of scaling up - WoW scaled down (40 man raids to 25/10 to 20, 40 v 40 pvp down to 5v5/3v3 arenas or 15 v 15 RBGs, dead servers being tied together with sharding instead of merged, etc) which was a questionable decision when every WoW cutscene about the actual war is hundreds and thousands of troops (and zepplins, ships, etc) doing important things but the actual PVP is 10 v 10 capture the flag. It's one of the biggest disconnects the game has for 0 reason.

I think a lot of people are realizing how long WoW has been coasting and upper management always thought they could "right the ship" when they needed to only to find it's already hit the shoreline.

 

[Well Intentioned]

The ad with Pedro Pascal (and the other marketing with celebrities) are them trying to "reclaim" the fun and whimsy from when they did it in ~2004 (with Mr.T and William Shatner) without understanding you can't just do the same marketing strategy again 16 years later. It's embarassing to a point.

There's nothing wrong with revisiting an ad campaign that worked in the past. Burger King did it with the Subservient Chicken, Coke brought back the polar bears.

The problem is that the Pascal ad ignores what the original Shatner ads were about. They were about introducing/explaining WoW to people not familiar with the product (but may have heard a bit about the buzz the game was generating) while also appealing to nerdy/geeky people.

If they wanted to revisit the ad, they could've used it to, say, address the sexual misconduct shit, chase the Alphabet Soup dragon and do something like 'WoW is for everyone' or whatever while doing the same vibe.

This was just all pandering and misunderstanding what made the originals work so well (big fucking shock as that's the ongoing trend.)

I would argue that they never really "lost" talent as much as they never once were able to build/develop it as a studio. WoW was largely built on lessons learned from being active players of Everquest (and other MMOs) but by the time WOTLK came around - they could only really find people who already played WoW (including Ion Hozz and company). The game was built on a "We can do Everquest/UO/AO/SWG much better!" but as soon as they found success it turned into "We can just keep this coasting and don't have to innovate all that much" until other games caught up and started eating their lunch with a more focused strategy.

I'd disagree. There's been a real exodus of talent with lots of folks hopping to indie studios, Bungie, Riot and elsewhere.

When I say talent, I mean people who have the raw skill to be able to produce something great. You're absolutely correct that Blizzard didn't really foster an environment where innovation or bright, fresh ideas could flourish (I mean, that's really never been their thing. They were always more about refining existing things) but they had people who could polish the shit out of things or build off of existing frameworks and do something useful/cool/whatever.

But the people who have left Blizzard en masse in like the last 4 years or so are the types you could plunk down in any creative environment and they could churn out really good shit. Current-era Blizzard is a mix of hacks who have risen well above where they should have (Brack, Danuser), diversity hires who are there because they tick off a box and/or could be used as a legal shield (Jen Oneal) or grossly inexperienced staff members who are there not because of merit, but because shit needs to get done. Or it's contracted out to shitty third party studios (like the WC3 Reforged debacle.)

 

[Dave.]

YouTube’s been recommending me this fat fuck for the past week. I don’t know who he is but these thumbnails make me want to assault him.

 

[Agarathium1066]

View attachment 4036803
View attachment 4036806
YouTube’s been recommending me this fat fuck for the past week. I don’t know who he is but these thumbnails make me want to assault him.

Oh I remember that dude he made a lot of parody videos using the in game models and some actually solid editing. He used to be a very vocal critic of the game and its failings. Guess he's become yet another generic excited-soy-face-in-thumbnail shill.

 

[Spergetti]

Oh I remember that dude he made a lot of parody videos using the in game models and some actually solid editing. He used to be a very vocal critic of the game and its failings. Guess he's become yet another generic excited-soy-face-in-thumbnail shill.

His opinions on the game cycle with each expansion. At the start, he goes full shill mode and sucks Blizzard's dick. Midway through, he'll start acknowledging problems and add "but I'm hopeful Blizz will fix these problems soon." At the end, he'll finally turn on the game and repeat all the complaints everyone had since the beginning. During the build-up for the next expansion, he'll make a video where he lists everything Blizzard will have to do to change his opinion and save the game, which they never do but the cycle restarts and he flips back to shill mode anyway. I used to like him when I first found his channel, but he has become a complete bugman. He's literally become the "consume product, get excited for next product" meme.

 

[Agarathium1066]

His opinions on the game cycle with each expansion.

Ahh the classic WoW addict then. I remember him getting some actual press and acknowledgement for really giving both barrels to the game. Can't say I'm shocked to hear this since most other people who follow or report on the game repeat the same shit ad nauseum.

 

[Thiletonomics]

There's nothing wrong with revisiting an ad campaign that worked in the past. Burger King did it with the Subservient Chicken, Coke brought back the polar bears.

The problem is that the Pascal ad ignores what the original Shatner ads were about. They were about introducing/explaining WoW to people not familiar with the product (but may have heard a bit about the buzz the game was generating) while also appealing to nerdy/geeky people.

If they wanted to revisit the ad, they could've used it to, say, address the sexual misconduct shit, chase the Alphabet Soup dragon and do something like 'WoW is for everyone' or whatever while doing the same vibe.

This was just all pandering and misunderstanding what made the originals work so well (big fucking shock as that's the ongoing trend.)

Heck, even the Sopranos guy (I forgot who it was) WoW ad where he said "Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in", was an effective ad back in the day too, despite it's short and simple message.

 

[Inside your walls]

View attachment 4036803
View attachment 4036806
YouTube’s been recommending me this fat fuck for the past week. I don’t know who he is but these thumbnails make me want to assault him.

We are entering the phase one of the "New WoW Expansion cycle", The Honeymoon phase
If we're correct about seeing this cycle, we'll probably get this sometime soon

 

[Retink Retunk]

Oh I remember that dude he made a lot of parody videos using the in game models and some actually solid editing. He used to be a very vocal critic of the game and its failings. Guess he's become yet another generic excited-soy-face-in-thumbnail shill.

He bitched about WoW when it was beneficial for him, but he was still shilling other games in the same way he does with WoW now. I remember he was gushing about ESO and other shit, but like all the other vermin of his kind the second the winds change, so do his sentiments so that he can keep getting those shekels to feed his pie addiction.

We are entering the phase one of the "New WoW Expansion cycle", The Honeymoon phase
If we're correct about seeing this cycle, we'll probably get this sometime soon

View attachment 4043565

Usually we get there by the first raid tier release that didn't come live with the expansion.

And the WoW animations and models these days have the same energy as:

 

[Dave.]

He bitched about WoW when it was beneficial for him, but he was still shilling other games in the same way he does with WoW now. I remember he was gushing about ESO and other shit, but like all the other vermin of his kind the second the winds change, so do his sentiments so that he can keep getting those shekels to feed his pie addiction.

I know we like to shit on Pyromancer for being a short fuse, but say what you want about that guy, at least he seems to genuinely enjoy FFXIV. Everyone else just hopped on the FFXIV bandwagon because they thought they'd strike gold if they kept digging considering that Blizzard's name got dragged through the mud and raked over the coals. Turns out making the same lazy content people used to make for WoW doesn't carry over to FFXIV and making content that's entertaining for that game is challenging. The only people that can pull it off are ZeplaHQ (I do not like her, but she does at least have merits), Captain Grim, Larryzaur, and Pint. Pint, however, has to work extra hard compared to wow content creators, however, but he can still make it work with his video editing skills.

These people want quick and easy cash and now that WoW's back in the fold with this new expansion, they're going to try and milk it until the cycle hits its peak and they can switch back to hating Blizzard again if things go south.

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

watching Aqua Teen s3e1 Video Ouija
I had sorta forgotten the fun of waiting for the raid that glitched to reset and everybody sporadically going ARISE, CHICKEN

 

[74164978231]

I do agree with Tamer, the writers are trying to make WOW this progressive awe-inspiring game that battles issues when being so ignorant of the tone of their entire game. Wow is so a weird steampunk fantasy game with talking scaley porn dragons. It used to quip at real-world references etc. It's kind schizo like that but nothing I ever took seriously for the story. Now lore is different, lore is rules it sets itself which it always contradicts.

This shit popped up on my feed, what the fuck the art is horrible. People were not lying about the voice acting. This does not feel or even look like a finished product.

What is wrong with Chromies vocie? They change VAs?

 

[Inside your walls]

What is wrong with Chromies vocie? They change VAs?

Nope, Karen Strassman (Voice actress that started voicing Chromie at beginning of WoD) is listed as Chromie for Dragonflight on the IMDb page.





She probably, just got shitty voice directions from the voice director at Blizzard for this expansion. Which is weird, because she also voice various other characters in WoW and there weren't issues like these before.



Which is a shame because her vocal range/voice acting is pretty good (she provided English voice for characters like Rogue the Bat, Poison from SF, Aigis and Nanako from Persona series).

 

[74164978231]

Nope, Karen Strassman (Voice actress that started voicing Chromie at beginning of WoD) is listed as Chromie for Dragonflight on the IMDb page.


View attachment 4050486


She probably, just got shitty voice directions from the voice director at Blizzard for this expansion. Which is weird, because she also voice various other characters in WoW and there weren't issues like these before.

View attachment 4050534

Which is a shame because her vocal range/voice acting is pretty good (she provided English voice for characters like Rogue the Bat, Poison from SF, Aigis and Nanako from Persona series).

That is weird, sounds like someone is trying to imitate her voice.

Compare to this;

World of Warcraft Classic Announcement

Get ready for a trip through time as a classic server option is coming to World of Warcraft. Keep an eye out for details on http://worldofwarcraft.com

www.youtube.com

 

[Aqua Panda]

Dragon riding is the best thing about this expansion and should have been done years ago. I'd legit be OK with blizz removing normal Flying and making Dragon riding default everywhere. Only downside is that it and the new hub city can absolutely tank your framerate. 100% recommend a gen 3/4 m.2 and 32gb of ram.

Also, the woke stuff reaches critical mass in the centaur village. The khan being mute and needing an interpreter just doesn't make sense. Nevermind that every romance so far is LGBT and the quests go out of the way to let you know. Both major times. it's this weird gift giving nonsense that just seems like the writers fetish. (And probably is)

Zone wise, I'm actually really liking how vertical parts of the game world are now. Lot more to explore.

 

[Dave.]

Dragon riding is the best thing about this expansion and should have been done years ago. I'd legit be OK with blizz removing normal Flying and making Dragon riding default everywhere. Only downside is that it and the new hub city can absolutely tank your framerate. 100% recommend a gen 3/4 m.2 and 32gb of ram.

Also, the woke stuff reaches critical mass in the centaur village. The khan being mute and needing an interpreter just doesn't make sense. Nevermind that every romance so far is LGBT and the quests go out of the way to let you know. Both major times. it's this weird gift giving nonsense that just seems like the writers fetish. (And probably is)

Zone wise, I'm actually really liking how vertical parts of the game world are now. Lot more to explore.

I disagree that riding should be axed in favor of dragonriding. I like dragonriding, but it’s tolerable in a sense that the zones and continent are small enough that zipping through is a non-issue for me, everywhere else is a different story. Lot of the zones are not designed to acquiesce to dragonriding meaning it’s a lot of climbing and spamming the 2 key. I also would prefer to “afk” auto pilot while flying in large continents or zones so something like this would make flying boring only now it requires my undivided attention.

 

[Shidoen]

I’m enjoying turtle wow so far because I strictly avoid the trannies by making all the channels separate chat boxes. I just want to figure out if the kiwi guild is still active or if I’m going to have to make a completely new one?

 

[Swiss46]

I’m enjoying turtle wow so far because I strictly avoid the trannies by making all the channels separate chat boxes. I just want to figure out if the kiwi guild is still active or if I’m going to have to make a completely new one?

Me and my friend play on turtle wow lately. It's very fun but I'm kinda miffed about them breaking seal of the crusader.

 

[That Chris Guy]

View attachment 4036803
View attachment 4036806
YouTube’s been recommending me this fat fuck for the past week. I don’t know who he is but these thumbnails make me want to assault him.

It'd be funny if every subsequent video has his face slowly becoming less and less happy and turning into a deep frown, ending with a rage face.

Not that I'd ever watch any of his shite anyway. They're all Skaven to me.