Breakfast Topic: Are players becoming too entitled?
by Matthew Krotzer 
Nov 17th 2011 at 8:00AM
WoW has been around for quite a while. We've seen years of advancements and improvements to the game, from abilities and talent overhauls and quest and encounter design improvements, to vast quality-of-life improvements like the Dungeon Finder, Real ID chat and the Mobile Guild Chat and Mobile Auction House. With all these added features, more and more players seem to take them for granted.
With ongoing requests for the removal of the raid group restriction for low-level raids, suggestions of various ways and means of using the Dungeon Finder to access outleveled dungeons, and even the complaints about "easy mode" versions of raids in the upcoming Raid Finder not providing achievements and legendary weapon quest items, more and more players seem to want more from Blizzard while expending less effort on their end.
Perhaps the playerbase has undergone a major shift, just as Azeroth has in Cataclysm. Maybe I've just never fully adjusted to the new paradigm since I began to play during vanilla WoW -- or maybe you darn kids should get off of mah lawn!
Has it gone too far? Is Azeroth as a whole nothing but a staging area from which we should expect to be instantly transported to wherever we wish to go, or are we still willing to enjoy the journey to our destinations? Is a modicum of human interaction too heady a task to enjoy raid content, no matter its level?
It's hard to say. What are your thoughts?
Filed under: Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 8)
apharrington Nov 17th 2011 8:04AM
(Insert Ghostcrawler promised me _____ here.)
DragonFireKai Nov 17th 2011 12:43PM
GHOSTCRAWLER PROMISED ME A REAL QUOTE!
Revrant Nov 17th 2011 3:53PM
Ghostcrawler promised me student loans for my education at Dalaran, now that money is going to Big Pandaria. #OccupyGregStreet
raposo02790 Nov 17th 2011 8:04AM
I Would thing that wow was adapting to the times, by allowing these conveniences. This Question will kind of open a pandora's box of complaints by the old school leets "its too ez it sucks" you know standard troll stuff... Don't feed the Trolls
Eternauta Nov 17th 2011 9:48AM
^ This.
It's not that players are becoming "too entitled". It's just that stuff like Dungeon Finder, Dual Specs, Aesthetic slots etc. could be considered "Gifts from the Gods (devs)" in 2004, but in this new era of MMO's those things are just taken for granted.
Every new game has these stuff, and by not including it WoW would become even more dated, people would jump ship to the cool new games, WoW sales decrease.. you get the point.
The jaded veterans may complain, but if WoW existed today in it's 2004 incarnation, very few people would play it (probably only the few "true good gamers" who don't fall to the seduction of the "new casual crap MMO's").
My point is: It's only fair to take these things for granted, because that's how the market works. It's definitely not a false sense of "entitlement".
Sqtsquish Nov 17th 2011 10:27AM
the game as a whole isn't too easy- it is that Blizz refuses to implement a gradual difficulty curve- in Wrath it was pretty much all about the same for the majority of the expansion and in Cata it jumps from the usual difficulty to much harder (certainly not impossible though). WoW needs a non-binary difficulty mode (like DDO has with solo, casual, normal, hard, elite) not necessarily labeled just like that, but the game needs to give people more than ample opportunities to progress (in difficulty) at their own pace.
loop_not_defined Nov 17th 2011 10:37AM
Many of those features aren't really in question here, though.
loop_not_defined Nov 17th 2011 10:38AM
Sorry, not referring to Sgtsquish. In fact, that's more of what I was thinking this topic was about.
Den Nov 17th 2011 10:58AM
Most of the "changes," though, originated in World of Warcraft. I'm an old school MMOer, and I can tell you that instances were a rather new invention- if you went into a dungeon in Ultima, Asheron's Call, Everquests, etc, there were other players not from your party in there. Capture the flag isn't anything new, but putting it into the world where there was a hard player cap without letting others from the outside "interfere" was. Other games have adapted this since it made WoW popular, not because it's "good" or "bad."
Blizz has banked on the idea that people want to achieve more and earn less. The wheel's still there, but it gives rewards much more easily. This brings a bigger pool of players, which also makes it hard to hit other MMOs that are more difficult, since people are used to the ease in which they are able to achieve something in WoW. Unhappy players are obviously free to leave, but often will have to leave behind many friends in the process =/
The changes are good for the majority of players, but those of us used to an epic journey to the mountain are being forced through the portal these days ;P
Borick Nov 17th 2011 11:27AM
Most gamers seem to wildly overestimate the skillset of the average WoW player, or the average human for that matter. Outside of a few select sports-like players, most people are not seeking a competitive challenge in an online game, and they're not going to volunteer for public embarrassment (wiping due to learning the ropes) in an isolated environment.
Raiding is the problem. Raiding has ALWAYS been the problem, since EverQuest.
Is it entitlement to want to see something other than sports-like, competitive play in the world's biggest themepark MMO? Something substantial -- not more mini-pets or mini-games.
How can we have a sense of entitlement about the game, when the most 'important' aspect of the game is something we have no interest in doing?
Sharlatan Nov 17th 2011 5:25PM
The playerbase is realising its entitled.
The playerbase is a paying customer. The playerbase, which mainly does not raid, is wanting to see the content it pays for. The playerbase does not want to spend their playtime on the same grind day in day out, but want realy new content to be fun for its own sake, not feel like a job to stay current.
The playerbase, is the paying customer, and they want what they pay for. In my opinion they are entitled to it.
benbettis Nov 20th 2011 4:19PM
@Borick
I really like your points, and this starts tickling the question of who should change, the game or the players.
I enjoy football. I like watching it and I used to play in high school. I am mildly athletic, but not a physically near perfect specimen you see in the NFL. I am not demanding that the game of football be changed so that I can fully enjoy it's intricacies at the highest level.
Wow is a videogame. It's a choice. If the game is too hard, then you might want to just play a different game. I don't like first person shooters, or sports games, but love RPG's, fighting games, and WoW. So that's what I play.
Call of Duty is the most popular FPS franchise ever and lots of my friends play it, chat online while hanging out and eternally playing CoD, just like I do with other friends and WoW. I don't DEMAND that call of duty change so that I may socialize in that medium... that's just stupid. Why should WoW have to?
You are absolutely right. The content outside of raiding is fluffy and grindy at best. I only enjoy the game when I'm clearing challenging raiding content for the first time. I especially loved killing Yogg and Sinestra for the first time (we're still working on H rag).
This is not for everyone. Raiding just simply is not for everyone, be it the level of person to person interaction you desire, or the process of learning the many mechanics of an encounter,or simply mastering your role in the raid.
(Un)Fortunately WoW has become the most popular MMO of it's time, and because of this, Blizzard is making the (financially sound) decision to (attempt to) adapt the game to the market/playerbase. Blizzard has tried to add lots of content to appeal to non raiders, but to me, most of it is just not engaging.
The last sad truth is that there is just no other social medium like WoW, but I'm afraid to say, if you haven't liked raiding for this expansion or last (or ever) maybe it's time to find a new game / passtime.
Cheers.
lanceg Nov 17th 2011 8:04AM
Alas, it's not just WoW that suffers from this syndrome, it's the whole of America. Everyone want to do less and get more, regardless of what the venue is.
Back when I was a kid that was called 'being lazy'. What's it called today?
lovetto Nov 17th 2011 9:06AM
It's still called being lazy. However, I would say that the reason this is happening is because of the boomer generation being the ruling generation atm (no offense intended to anyone). The millennium generation can barely even get their foot in the door and work their way to the top, without having a 4 year degree.
Back to the point. I prefer to play a game that is challenging. Remember how hard some of those old side scrollers were?
I personally am enjoying the current Cata end-game!
Terrant Nov 17th 2011 9:09AM
Every generation thinks the next generation is far lazier than their own. I'm not saying it's inaccurate, but it's a recurring theme throughout history. :)
Nagaina Nov 17th 2011 9:33AM
Citation, plz.
Some of us want to work hard and actually *get ahead* not fall further and further behind so others can profit obscenely off our labor, while real wages remain stagnant and the cost of everything from healthcare to basic necessities of life rises to meet shareholder profit demands.
That's not "being lazy." That's "being ruthlessly exploited and then being called a lazy, slacking whiner when you object to that exploitation."
But, on topic: back in Wrath, I regularly ran dungeons and raided lightly with my guild because I felt, even with my relatively limited play-time, that I could add something to the group and not be a weight to carry. This is absolutely not true of Cataclysm, where things are not only difficult, they're almost prohibitively so for many casual raiding guilds. My own guild's raid sector has repeatedly imploded from a combination of burnout and drama occasioned by punishing learning curves that have stymied our progression.
draxredd Nov 17th 2011 2:56PM
Being Lazy...
You are all aware, of course, that sitting on a chair playing a videogame is the definition of laziness for the unwashed masses ?
So this would mean laziness squared ? the mind boggles !
Malaren Nov 17th 2011 5:32PM
I wouldn't call it lazy at all. As Scrooge McDuck used to say, "Work Smarter, Not Harder."
The end goal is not to accomplish less, but to do it more efficiently. Doing something the hard way for the simple sake of "it builds character" is not how civilization progresses.
Nina Katarina Nov 17th 2011 10:41AM
Hesiod, 8th century BC:
"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly disrespectful and impatient of restraint."
Metric Nov 17th 2011 11:02AM
@ Nagaina,
For the last several months our guild's "core" raid team has had regular Firelands on farm. We have be pugging several "casual" raiders every week till we get to the heroic boss we are currently working on.
The main thing we stress to these players is that Firelands was tuned for players at ~ilvl 355 and that if you are now sporting ilvl 370+ through VP purchases you are approaching "overgeared" for the content.
Blizzard has made raiding "harder" in one very important way. In most encounters there is at least one mechanic that will wipe a raid if it is not executed successfully...i.e., it cannot be healed through. This is very unforgiving and is only overcome by a group of dedicated raiders "progressing" through and encounter and committing the mechanics to instant reaction.
The biggest problem we have in Firelands is raiders who have high latency or inconsistent internet connections....if you miss a mechanic you will wipe.