Done Reading Between the Lines

It's no secret right now that there are quite a number of vocal players who aren't happy with Blizzard, mostly centered around with what's happening---or not happening---with World of Warcraft. Even if you discount the anecdotes from folks e-explaining why they've quit, why they plan to, or why they're currently unhappy but still playing, you're left with the three million very real people who chose not to continue their subscription from Q1 to Q2....for whatever reason.

We can't assign a blanket reason for why those players left. Not even a general "dissatisfaction with the game" works, as surely among those three million are folks who left due to time constraints, finances, or an entirely different reason unrelated to their view of the game. At the same time, a lot of people have given reasons to why they're not happy. Everything from lack of content, to the implementation of garrisons, the removal (and now reintroduction) of flight, the current state of PvP, the lack of representation in-game, lack of a story, confusing lore...I'm surely missing a bunch.

Right now, it's quite easy to survey the forums and social media and see throngs of unhappy players. If you are an unhappy player, you may look around and feel a strange tickle. Sure, maybe you're not happy about the further monetization of the player base while someone else left over the flying issue, but the common ground is that you're both unhappy. Even if your qualms revolve around completely different issues, there are many others who are unhappy, so in some sense, you must be justified in your observations.

Inevitably, since we can't point to any one single wrong thing about the game, it's assumed there must be something wrong with the game as a whole. And if there's something wrong with the core of the game, let's extend that to mean that there's something wrong with the core of the company. Simple logic, right?

All of a sudden you have Warcraft players who have become hyper-focused on Blizzard Entertainment, analyzing and criticizing every micro-move they make that doesn't address their main concern. Players who've not once pulled up a chair became outraged at the fact Blizzard will offer purchasable skins for their Hearthstone class of choice. World of Warcraft Q&A pushed back in favor of keeping Heroes of the Storm in the spotlight? God damn it, Blizzard. The COO leaves which obviously confirms things are going to shit? God damn it, Blizzard. Trying to suck me into your other titles through cross-promotional in-game items? God. Damn. It. Blizzard.

God damn it, Blizzard. Fix ___________________________.

Blizzard has noticeably started to spend more resources promoting their other titles, and I feel this is what many Warcraft players struggle with. I think it's quite telling that most of the criticisms I've seen about the company as a whole came from the Warcraft forums, or from Warcraft players on social media. For a decade now, Warcraft players have been Blizzard's darling children, and I guess it can be jarring when suddenly it feels like you're not. It's like the five-year-old who throws a tantrum after he learns that mommy is pregnant and he might not enjoy her sole attention. Even if we want to pretend that Warcraft is still Blizzard's baby, it's not the reality.

The reality, in fact, might be that Warcraft to Blizzard is like that 19-year-old son/daughter who you love to death but wish would just move out of the house, or at least go to college---but you don't have the heart to kick out. I'm not saying Blizzard is trying to kill Warcraft, but that maybe they're trying to make it the game they want it to be for the time we're in---and they're in---now. And I'd have to imagine that's an awfully tall order when you've got pushback at every single decision from one of the most passionate player bases on the planet.

Perhaps Blizzard have ascertained the MMO of yesterday is no longer sustainable in today's market. I think it's easily argued they have ample evidence in that vein. No one can truly know whether they're phasing out WoW, reinventing WoW, or just doing their best---other than what they themselves tell us. But it's a battle they'll never win, as they're continuing the develop a game they never thought they'd still be developing while being fought tooth and nail at every turn. Like, they're making this game because we still play it. They have a right to maintain their vision for it, and we have the right to vote with our wallets.

If this is what the demise of a video game company looks like...someone better tell Blizzard. But it might be difficult for them to take you seriously. In the greater picture, one cannot discount the tens of millions of players around the globe who are currently enjoying Blizzard games, many of whom don't know who Paul Sams is (and wouldn't care), haven't read a quarterly earnings report, and didn't even know one could fly in World of Warcraft.

Even if I'm not the most cynical of folks when it comes to Blizzard's intentions and business practices, I'm finished with the paranoid speculation. I refuse to look at every Heroes skin, store mount, Hearthstone sale, and content patch with a sinister bent, wondering what angle Blizzard is trying to fuck me from this time. Maybe that's putting on the blinders full-force, but in truth I've never once felt that way about Blizzard. 

I'm well-versed in conspiracy theories. I know how Confirmation Bias operates. I understand how physically and mentally exhausting it is believing the government is actively hiding the reality of an extra-terrestrial agenda.* I've done my research there, but it's something entirely different with Blizzard. I don't need research, because I have personal experience: ten years of engaging entertainment. When I look at others' dissatisfaction, and what reads they get from Blizzard's action or inaction, it sometimes feels like we're playing two different games. Sometimes you just need to agree to see things differently, and part ways.

This is me parting ways. This is me accepting what Blizzard is offering for the time being. I'm still playing, and still enjoying it. Maybe it doesn't hold me for several hours per night like it used to, but maybe that's not a bad thing. At the end of the day, when I ask myself "Am I having fun?"

The answer is still yes. Seems foolish for anyone to try to convince themselves otherwise---whatever their answer may be.

*I'm not saying they're not hiding one. 

[Updated] Yep, We're Still Talking About Flying

[6.10.15] - Blizzard announced that flying will be coming to Draenor. So this post is now dumb.

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I know. I'm sorry. It's happened so I may as well just out with it.

This post doesn't try to convince you what's wrong or right, good or bad about the fact we won't see flight in Patch 6.2 or beyond. It's more about how I went from praising the removal of flight with open arms to biting my nails in shock when the truth was realized: flight is really gone. And then how after more thought, even though I'm quite concerned about the ways this might change the game for me personally, I have a faint feeling that this will truly be better for all of us...once it all plays out.

When I learned that flight was not a guarantee at max level this time around, I was in the welcoming party. It'd be a refreshing change, even if we've been leveling up without flight since Vanilla (sans Cata). No flight at max level for an entire patch, possibly more? The world will be more alive, as they say, just begging to be explored. Treasures, zone events, hundreds of rare spawns, players out and about! Danger danger!

But I look now at the number of guildies online, and the number of friends in-game through Battle.net and I notice two very interesting things: both numbers are much, much smaller than they were two months ago. Secondly, oftentimes half or more of those online are in their Garrison while half of those don't stay logged on for much time at all. A lot of people simply aren't getting out.

I think unconsciously I must've expected that, eventually, flight would come to Draenor. Perhaps an unconscious thought that was further reinfornced by leveling this expansion. Don't get me wrong---I loved it! While made to be explored, Draenor is definitely rugged, unforgiving terrain, something we did know going in. Somewhere in my noggin it just made sense to me that, come time to level alts, the journey would be made easier by being granted greater freedom on the z-axis.

I've now come to realize I wasn't really OK with the idea of no flight ever. I was OK with the previous status quo of leveling without flight. There's been a lot of discussion for and against the removal of flight; the one thing I can say is that, if you're of the disposition that you've never seen a convincing argument from the other side, you should probably open your mind a bit and/or look harder. And remember, convincing doesn't have to mean satisfying. We can agree to disagree while we all get to keep our heads.

Talking to @Eliot_Lefebvre in work chat, he says "If a design choice makes the designers happy and the players unhappy, it's a bad choice."

— Mr. Borophagus (@MatthewWRossi) May 22, 2015

Everything with a grain of salt.

You Can't Fix What Ain't Broke...

In the wake of this announcement, and without being privy to where Blizzard's planning to take us next, this is the bit I'm struggling with the most. To me, it seems Blizzard had the whole flight deployment thing figured out, if prior expansions are any indication. I know we cannot always rely on the past to properly inform the future, but the system that awarded flight at max level seemed the perfect answer. Hell, they even teased players for a bit in Draenor with the notion that flight could be added in a future patch. 

But it's come down the pipeline official, as it has before, that the ability to fly doesn't mesh with the vision Blizzard has for Warlords of Draenor---and apparently all expansions moving forward. The problem is, Blizzard has been piss-poor at articulating this vision. I've seen "sense of exploration" tossed out again and again, but by and large players don't seem to be swallowing that.

At the end of the day, I can't agree with Blizzard's vision here solely because they haven't offered me a coherent one. I won't even lump an imaginary group of players in here, but I bet they're out there. If you'd like to see PR speak justifying flight removal, Exhibit A.

The World Didn't Get Bigger, Only More Hostile

Imagine, for a moment, that flight did not exist in Mists of Pandaria. Seriously. Take a moment, go over those zones in your head: Valley of the Four Winds, Krasarang, Townlong Steppes, etc. Think of the rare spawns, Warbringers, and the like. Think about how, if at all, the lack of flight in Mists of Pandaria would've affected your approach to the game. 

It's this thought exercise that helped me realize that flight is inherently tied to how I enjoy this game, even if I don't fully understand how. What I do know is it allows me easier access to do what I want to do when I'd like to do it.

Psychologists probably have a better idea, but we don't have the time or money for that. But from what I gather, it's a risk vs. reward thing, or in this case, time/energy vs. reward. Draenor holds the same sort of content MoP did in terms of rares, treasures, achievements and the like. It's just that now, it takes a significant amount of additional effort to chase after it.

It's not that the world gets bigger when you remove flight, but rather, it becomes more hostile. Hostile in the sense that it's all of a sudden going to take a significantly larger amount of time and effort to get to that dig site on the other side of the continent than it did previously. And that seems to go against the process they've undertaken since the beginning: that of easing access to content, previously seen with heirlooms, group finder, LFR and oddly, garrisons.

This world may be hostile enough that a lot of players simply aren't bothering, and instead staying in the safe, cozy walls of their garrison with resources aplenty to be gathered, and no game play or interaction to be had. At least there it's easy to measure risk vs. reward. 

But Flight Was Always Optional

This was the argument I was the most tired of hearing from the pro-flyers, initially. "For those against flying, you never had to fly. You always had the option to travel by ground." In other words, YOU don't have to use it, but that doesn't mean it should be taken from me!

But let's be real here: did anyone, after learning flight for the first time at level 70, really say "ok but this breaks game immersion for me so I'm not going to use it?" Would anyone truly look at traveling the distance between Hellfire Peninsula and Shattrath City by ground once they had the ability to traverse the distance in a fraction of the time, and as the crow flies?

We do know players who deliberately challenge themselves above and beyond what's considered normal, such as a player who level-caps without harming anything, or a player who level-caps without leaving the Pandaren starting zone. But those are few and far between. The vast majority of us, I'd argue, will favor the path of least resistance when it comes to open-world PvE content. After all, I'd bet those who weren't hot on the idea of flight back in the Burning Crusade, but not upset enough to quit, have favored their flying mounts over ground travel since.

Was the introduction of flight nearly ten years ago truly a mistake? If it doesn't currently fit their vision for Draenor, just how does that vision differ from the vision they had for Pandaria? And once again, I want to know more specifically why the existence of flight kills that---because clearly, with Aviana's Feather, Goblin Glider Kits and the like we can still fly almost everywhere in Draenor. It seems like persistent, at-will, controlled flight is what's at issue. And that makes interpreting their vision no simpler for me.

If air dropping into a camp to rescue a prisoner vs. fighting through the camp for the true experience is trumped by flight, that's not flight's problem. That's a problem for the quest designers. At the end of the day, I think this was a bad decision. Unless they've got something better planned...

But You Can Stand on the Shoulders of Giants...

Old habits die hard. It's like if I had to drive six miles every night to play soccer, and then I lose my car. Now I'm faced with the prospect of biking. I'll likely cut down on the number of nights I'll play soccer, just to save time and energy. So it is with flight for me, I've realized. I've been conditioned to lean on the ability to take to the skies when it comes to how I interact with damn near everything in game. It's a practice I've been utilizing fully for nine years. That's a long friggin' time.

"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." or similar is often attributed to Henry Ford

— Russ Petersen (@nite_moogle) May 22, 2015

Then I saw the above tweet and had to take a step back. For argument's sake, friends, let's say we're split 50/50 on this. Why would Blizzard choose to remove flight, something that deeply upsets half of us, and makes the other half shrug? It doesn't seem wise...unless they've got something better planned. Improving upon existing systems or ideas is something that Blizzard is famous for. They've got the shoulders of their own giant, World of Warcraft, to stand on, in addition to the slew of other MMOs and RPGs that have come and gone (and remained) since.

As much as I really don't agree with this choice right now, I'm eager to see what they're going to do next. I really don't think we're looking at the removal of flight anymore; I think we're looking at the replacement of flight.

At least, I really hope we are.