Ah, I see the changes you made now that you point them out. Without nitpicking things too severely;
What I meant by them being unable to indulge in that play style anymore was not a reference to the changes made to World of Warcraft that have removed their preferred style of play, but the actual lifestyle changes that occur in the span of 5-10 years (I said 10, you mentioned 5; the game is actually 9 years old but that particular raiding scene dried up in 2008 with WotLK). College kids who could stay up all night raiding have graduated, started families, have full-time jobs, etc. I honestly feel like the demand for Vanilla/TBC-style raiding is about nostalgia for that particular time in their life more than the actual gameplay mechanics. I also think the rose-colored glasses get put on quick for Vanilla WoW, which was in much rougher shape than a lot of people remember. The expectations have been raised over the years and a lot of the things that made Vanilla raiding 'tick' won't mesh well. For example, Looking for Group / Raid is pretty much mandatory for games now, but there's no way you can deliver the kind of highly-organized raiding Vanilla WoW had without watering it down for the lowest common denominator. Just look at what happened with Dragon Soul at the end of Cataclysm and how few people actually ran the 'real' version.
As for the "Non-braindead questing", it's still the usual kill 10 rats / collect 10 bear asses / deliver this package-type stuff. At least they removed mob-tagging and plan to incorporate an element of risk/reward to complete tasks faster, but you're still running around finding a guy with an exclamation point over his head and doing chores for him. They may have hidden the numbers that indicate progress, but we all know an add-on will change it back almost immediately. Even Guild Wars 2's Dynamic Events haven't managed to completely change the way players interact with the world, but at least it's a step in the right direction (and one Wildstar doesn't seem too inclined to take, unless they've changed things recently).
Paths, are a neat idea, except that they actually remove features from being accessed unless you re-roll another character (they haven't said whether you can chance your path later in the game, but that would help). It seems odd (which is the exact way I described it) to lock content out for large chunks of the population based on a choice made at character creation.
To circle back to your original comment, the biggest danger Wildstar has (in my opinion, of course) is listening to the vocal minority that claims to know exactly what it wants when the reality is that the market for that kind of experience has diminished substantially and is still being filled by the 600 pound gorilla that made it so popular in the first place. In trying to appeal to the old-school 40 man raid audience and modern MMO sensibilities, it runs the risk of lacking appeal for both of them. The expectations are certainly just as dangerous (especially when people are running around mouthing off that it's the second coming of Vanilla WoW, which it cannot possibly be and most certainly is not), but I think even hype can be overcome. Having a schizophrenic design that tries to be everything all at once cannot, and it also runs the risk of lowering the overall game's quality by lacking focus.
Either way, when you 'fixed' my original comment, you didn't bother to change my outlook (F2P in the first year, lukewarm reception, quickly fading into obscurity), but I sense you would probably disagree with some of that. How do you think it will go?
Because I don't know the random variables that will influence it beyond that. I do doubt it will fade though, the goals are too different even if the method is common for 2014. That goal (balance, socializing, action combattin', variety, Equality of Opportunity over Equality of Outcome) is like we both said:
"The
expectations have been raised over the years and a lot of the things that made Vanilla raiding 'tick' won't mesh well. For example, Looking for Group / Raid is pretty much mandatory for games now, but there's no way you can deliver the kind of highly-organized raiding Vanilla WoW had without watering it down for the lowest common denominator. Just look at what happened with Dragon Soul at the end of Cataclysm and how few people actually ran the 'real' version."
However, that goal is incredibly rare nowadays; it won't win them a meteoric rise in subs, but I doubt it will splurge sell to millions then crater as 3month subs end like so many me-too WoW killers. It seems too complete, the dev team to focused on replayability and goals rather than completing goals and then replaying those same goals over and over and over till the next patch.
I don't doubt most in our age bracket can't grok it emotionally instead of chronologically, there has always been alot of adults who put in HOURS every day in every MMO I've played for over a decade, but the
expectation of being done in an hour, that expectation of never logging off unsuccessful, of delayed payoff...that's what'll eat into that. Not the clamoring hype crew necessarily, but everyone else from our age group who will buy off of nostalgia and their keywords in the PR.
Thing is, that stuff in the quote? If the WS team don't do that (make raiding success mandatory, funnel people into doing that, nerf heavily, early, and often), players will have that impetus to socialize, work, and get better more to succeed then risk quitting from "being done". A game built like that pushes back emotionally while also luring forward emotionally; it's a powerful thing that wasn't, isn't, and never will be out of style, especially as it gets refined in the corners of game design, out of the limelight these last 8 or so years. That sells other games. It sold WoW for the first 4 years, it could sell again. Without that, WoW bleeds out people who learned to play better into other competitive genres (especially mmmmmmmmmmmmobas), leading to what you were describing with Cata.
Oh yeah, that potential spanner in the works is definately mmmmmmmmmobas. So many friends, guildmates, and acquaintences are in those now for that itch. It's all raiding and all arena in one activity with much less outside-of-activity overhead. They got that market on lock. MMOs looking to compete on that front are eating their seedcorn, potentially leaving the market open for those who can give those outside-of-activity things the respect and meaning they deserve as equal facets of the game and its success and not paint them as meaningless one-dimensional punishment and grind (if you can give us a free 90 now, why not before?!?)
40 man raid sizes is another spanner. That's HUGE. Very huge. Especially with the action component. All kind of flavor of danger there, no doubt.
