The Shadowlands Exodus | How Blizzard Nearly DESTROYED World of Warcraft
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.พ. 2025
- Uh-oh! Another Blizzard CONTROVERSY! Let's react to this BLIZZARD CONTROVERSY! Oh, no, they did it again! Did you see it? Did you? Did you? World of Warcraft: Shadowlands was UNDERRATED. Here's a video essay about how UNDERRATED Shadowlands was. Blizzard is so BAD, I will NEVER buy a Blizzard game again! Unto the path feign the golden innocent, drifting thus as flakes of moon--touched flowers, greed concealed 'neath ruby lips.
SOCIAL MEDIA:
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MUSIC:
I make all of the music you hear on the channel.
Hi, everyone.
Admittedly, this is not my strongest work-this was written, recorded, and produced while I struggled with COVID.
Thanks in advance for watching, have a happy new year.
Hope you're well and safe now, I never had the illness, but had to watch my Ma suffer with it - was hard to watch, especially to not be able to interactive with her in person. 😁Also, I played WOW from Burning Crusade till the mid-way of Cata. Came back to WOW for Shadowlands for a friend, and then I dropped off it again before Dragonflight, then tried that one also. Gonna try FF14 soon-ish after years of trying to get to it.
Sorry to hear you got it! Hopefully your case will be mild and resolve fast! Stay safe., and have a great new year!
Great video. I quit over the whole harassment and shadowlands. First time since Vanilla. I normally kept up subs for myself and kids plus gifted subs, frequently. But enough was enough. I couldn't support my daughters while supporting Blizzard / Activision. Came back as a dirty casual with the Microsoft sale and promise to dump Ko-tick. We will see. So far so good. No more China^ ot harassment stories or I will be done permanently.
btw...Take it real easy while having the 'Vid. Rest more than you think you need to. Overdoing it while ill can cause Long Covid- which is horrible.
Dude I remember Warhammer at DragonCon! The hype was amazing!
You did a great job going through the chronological events and discussing how that affected public opinion towards both WoW and FFXIV. I also very much appreciate your social commentary on those who openly claimed to be shocked at the sh*tshow going on at Blizzard, only to continue opening their wallet and merrily playing the game all the same.
Perhaps you feel it's not your strongest work, but I find it a strong piece all the same :)
I don't think WoW's fully recovered from SL just yet. Tons of the people I know who played still feel burned by the expac and haven't seen a legitimate reason to come back. During the launch of SL my guild was struggling to fit everyone into a raid. Now only a fourth of the them still play
I just met a tank in SOD that said he quit retail in shadowlands and haven’t played since . So yeah a lot of people like that still out there
There was a leaked presentation from GDC that reveals they're climbing out at a pretty good pace, but not fully out yet.
Literally same. The first raid tier of SL my guild had to run two separate raid teams, DFs first patch we had to join a new guild to fill a roster.
And now everyone is happy again because Metzen is back, wtf xD
He’s _very_ handsome.
Man... Hearing all this again does remind me I didn't entirely stop playing WoW because of boredom burnout, but just everything else. I do find your point that yeah, back in Shadowlands, people condemned Activision Blizzard. Now, those same people are saying WoW's back and hyped for War Within, and Dragonflight seems to have been enough to fix being that raked over the coals... It's fascinating to see.
Because it’s a video game and DF is a good one.
Because at the end of the day all those people really care about is playing a good fame.
Ngl as someone who went the other way from FF14 to Wow this is an interesting topic for me. Great video and cadence.
A really nicely made and awesome video! Listening to the timeline and all the details was great.
I'm a casual FFXIV player and overall newbie WoW player, so my opinion might not be accurate.
From what I have seen, I think all the kickback and protests over what Blizzard did actually did matter to some extent. However, the only reason it mattered was that it was on such a monumental scale, and it resulted in Blizzard losing money. As a result of what happened, the devs appear to be having a new focus on "evergreen" features which are meant to last (something which WoW should have done years and years ago). They seem to be going on a pretty good trajectory from what I have seen. In terms of the WoW game, I think it will take at least another 1-2 expansions to notably "fix" the game. As for the good will, that is something that will take much, much longer to repair...for that part, I don't think they ever will do it.
FFXIV is definitely stronger in the sense that all of its content, past and present, is more accessible and more "evergreen." Also, don't have to mess with add-ons, something I'm not looking forward to doing with WoW. Maybe the add-ons won't be that bad, but the fact that some are absolutely required means that the game is missing some things.
Did it matter? If we use content creators as barometers, it would seem not. As thunderous as the "wow bad, ff14 critically acclaimed" vogue of 2021 was, the "wow is back! Metzen saved it!" Flip flop of some of the same creators is shocking. Some content creators live by rage click farming, and their viewers still can't seem to notice how strongly their own opinions sway because funny person on twitch said xyz.
Man...Blizzard was such a major thing in my childhood, one of the very few things me and my dad bonded over. I played in Vanilla and off and on throughout the years. In the latest years when stuff was getting chaotic, I did like Legion, after alittle while the Blitzchung bit happened and I was upset. Then Battle for Azeroth happened and I nearly hated everything about it. As much as I enjoyed the pirate themed clothing for my main, that was literally it. Didn't like the story, the misleading bullcrap about this "Faction Pride" expansion making it have an Alliance Bias by making the Horde the bad guys, and then tried to gaslight us by saying Alliance MADE one of the biggest bads in the game, it wasn't even us!
Then Shadowlands...my god. Shadowlands was easily the absolute worst expansion the game ever had. It was even worse than Battle for Azeroth! The story telling just...ruined things, the gameplay was painfully stale and so excessively grindy. We've had over a decade and you couldn't think of anything of interest? This expansion had sever content droughts, the longest in the franchise. I begged the questions "Who wrote this crap!? What were they thinking!? Are they even trying!?" Then the sexual harassment situation popped up.
I couldn't believe it, but it explained everything. The reason Warcraft was so miserable, Blizzard acting like bastards, it wasn't Covid or anything, no. It was because they were lazy scumbags! I just...left. It was the last straw and to this day, I never went back. Honestly, it feels weird. I played Blizzard for like 16 years. I tried messing around with this "Project Ascension" to get that old feeling, but it's not vibing well. Right now I'm casually playing 14 and am enjoying it.
Blizz have shot themselves in the foot many times no doubt, but at the end of the day if the game was good no one would really care, if any of these problems came out during wows boom from 2005-2010 nothing would have happened.
Many companies do horrible things but hey They make good phones or shoes so i am going to keep buying them right.
We've all played for so long that we're victims of the sunk cost fallacy. Myself included. We've put so much time and effort in that giving it up invalidates more than we are willing to part with. A lot of us have an attachment to the game either through people we play with or an attachment to the character we play or the story itself.
Not really, I tried FF14, and honestly is kinda bad. The UI/UX is a genuinely garbage. Finding anything is a nightmare, endless boxes and submenus. Combat is painfully. Story is great though. I also can't really get invested in the world when everytime I am in a major city I see a bunch of people wearing bunny girl bikini outfits in a game that's supposed to be high medieval fantasy.
If it gives you *any* hope in humanity, some of us left and still won't go back, regardless. I couldn't care less if that game was handing out free money, I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. They lost me and my husband for a number of reasons, all of which you laid out beautifully, although, the "Do you guys not have phones?" line from 2018 was pretty bad too. It was then that I really started wondering if they gave a heck about their player base, and not long after that I realized they didn't. I am so, so happy to have made the switch.
Same . I won't be going back to wow either . Already found a better home in ffxiv universe
Glad that one more toxic husband wife duo is out of Azeroth and bothering people somewhere else
@@scaryeris6798 What did I say exactly that makes you think we're "toxic"? Just because we won't abide with a company covering up the harassment of people to the point that one took her own life, we're not telling others they can't or shouldn't play that game. We spend our time in our games of choice teaching new people the ropes, and handing out free items. What do you do?
IF FF had any content at *all* post MSQ, many of us never would have returned to WoW.
It’s there, but CBU3 needs to reflect on why newcomers find it both inaccessible and unexciting.
great vid. completely ignoring the player feedback was precisely one of the reasons ff14 1.0 failed as well
I enjoyed how well spoken you are! Hope you feel better soon also happy belated new year!
As soneone who regularly jumps from MMO to MMO. I just think that there is a huge audience for western MMOs. FF was never going to take that crowd forever.
Due to WoWs dominance in the western fantasy mmo market there really isnt an alternative that checks all the boxes.
FF just doesn't have the content to back such a large playerbase. It ends after the MSQ.
@@GoatOfWar I don't think any MMO makes content fast enough. Games like 14, SWTOR, and GW2 can't keep expacs coming fast enough to make sure their players have things to do. WoW skips the main content entirely and jumps straight to end-game, meaning players reach the "end" even faster. This is where most MMO players quit; letting it hold onto a different audience, but still bleed too many due to the lack of/irrelevance of most of the content the game has. Even a game as grindy as Runescape can't keep a player busy forever.
Very good video!
Though there are two small things i want to note.
1. The loss of Blizzards good will I would say did not start with Blitzchung but with the "You think you do, but you don't" instance at Blizzcon 2013 (I think that was the year) where they very publicly told players what they wanted instead of listening to them. This was then followed up by Warlords of Draenor the (at the time) worst expansion so far in WoW's lifetime with increased monetization of the game. Then a few years later they forced the shutdown of the beloved private server "Nostalrious" by sending their lawyers after them and then there was the infamous announcement of "Diablo Immortal". By the time Blitzchung happened people were already angry and mistrustful of Blizzard.
2. Another large part of why people HATED Shadowlands was the lore. BFA did damage to the lore by wasting not just one but several storylines that had been built up for decades while also wasting a potentially great war story. But it was nothing that we couldn't move past. SL however did permanent damage to the very foundation of Warcraft's lore, story and characters with nonsensical retcons and rewrites going everywhere. It damaged not only World of Warcraft the mmo, but the entire Warcraft IP. Unless they retcon the entire SL as one giant fever dream then these lore changes cannot be undone since they have been woven into the very DNA of WoW. While at the same time also greatly disrespecting some of the most beloved and iconic characters in the entire franchise and giving them an ending that was despised by the player base with no hope of returning.
PS: Seeing those old Paul Barnett videos really took me back! I think that was the first game I got extremely hyped for. Warhammer Online still has a soft place in my heart despite all the bugs 😊.
The root cause outside of the lore as well was gameplay changes. In Legion the artifact power system was better managed as the later you came into the expansion the easier it was to level your weapons since the AP would constantly shoot up from even basic rewards to a point you max them out in no time. A catchup that felt organic but kept the feel of grind for early adopters without losing people in the dust. Titanforging screwed with itemization and made one world drop a BIS trinket for the expansion for most classes If you managed to get max titanforge whenever the cap raised.
In BFA they ruined the power system and brought the underwhelming Azerite Gear, doubledowned on the titanforge mechanic, introduced the corruptions furthering frustrations among a few other underdelivered promises.
Shadowlands was the tipping point for many. Lot of lies like the covenant fiasco, that torghas and the Maw became mandatory. People dropped mostly around the second raid tier due to korthia and its stupid grind among other dumb choices...
I myself left after realizing how unfun it was to even play. The scandals were just an accompanimen. It wasn't until just last month I returned to wow and the systems and progression in Dragonflight since removing that warforge system, power building and more made the game fun again and I hope in War Within they keep what they have these last 2 patches for gear progression and pve content while never doing a borrowed power system again.
Ff14 has not changed much since stormblood outside of removing TP in Shadowbringers and class job changes, and I hope Dawntrail can deliver on that mid core content I can sink my teeth in like previous expansions before. Maybe make variant dungeons more approachable perhaps.
I’m a Squig Herder at heart.
@@embersarcade Engineer back then and Slayer on the Return of Reckoning private server ❤️
I had forgotten about the "You think you do, but you don't". Smug attitude. In all honesty, play what you wanna play at the end of the day, but for those who said this is my line in the sand, then came back, I'm pretty disappointed. If it was only ever a "This expansion doesn't suit me, I'm taking a break", that's one thing, but I've seen too many content creators who swore up down and sideways that acti-blizz would never get another cent from them going back, and I just lose respect for them. A woman died, and that's not enough?
The exodus was primarily about the extremely horrible systems of shadowlands. Dragonflight fixed that and people returned. If you think any of the pc stuff really played a part in that I don't know what to tell you. The average person doesn't care about Hong Kong or some gamer from there. Every company has shitty perverts--its not just a blizzard problem.
It's funny. In your 500 hour journey video (which was published just 2 weeks before this one) it felt like you praised wow even saying it'd be better/has a brighter future ahead than ffxiv (in subtext) and now in your closing thought it sounds like you say "it's your fault wow didn't die because you wow players still gave/give blizzard your money" with your vocal tone suggesting that wow players should be ashamed of playing the game.
Also another in-game factor of the exodus was that there was literally nothing to do except for raiding and m+ dungeons and your weekly choreghast runs once the timegated story (which also only occupied players for 30-45 minutes per week) was completed.
As an OG WoW player since 2005.. well. Its like Stockholm. Somehow you will always return to this game. my biggest break was around 6 years long with mid legion up to shadowlands where i played ff14 tho. Its just funny with blizz actually. They have some great ideas and than jank it against the wall with weird decisions, like Choreghast. Could be awesome but they made it mandatory af. Later in the seasons i had to farm a new legendary literally every week bcs new vault items i got that occupied the lego slot.
Maybe it is Stockholm I don't know but I have those 4-5 years long breaks as well and tbh that content is enjoyable and there is plenty of questing and collecting after those years you skip so it's actually worth coming back after such a long time.
Yeah I quit a bit in bfa and shadowlands had me remove my account. I finally changed my mind with the newest patch in dragonflight.
Only reason I came back recently was because I love healing in games and WoW just does it for me.
I truly love ffxiv and would much rather play ffxiv over WoW for so many reasons. The only reason i play WoW is cause i love healing and ffxiv doesnt really have a healing class, it has a support class ish but its def a dps with some healing but not true healing like WoW. Im not super interested in learning a rotation and hitting high dps, its all about keeping everyone alive for me, but in ffxiv it feels like youre rarely if ever needed, execpt for the occasional raid wide and single button rotation 😭😭😭
I started FF14 before the Asmongold hype. Some of my then guildies in Star Wars The Old Republic went over to FF14 and I went and bought it and For the most part, the story was alright. I hhated a realm reborn though, the 1 to 50 grind was a slog, but the expansions were mostly good. That said, Shadowbringers is overhyped rubbish, it is the "Infinity war" to Endwalker being "Endgame". I wouldn't say I liked the start of the story. Endwalker finished it brilliantly though. After that, I tried leveling more jobs but got bored with it. I have since tried Star Wars The Old Republic's new expansion and now I've started Season of Discovery in classic WoW. I will probably never play retail WoW again, I don't trust Blizzard to make a good expansion
I enjoyed the video fully until the last sentence. Instead if possibly arguing why people didn't stick to FF or any other discussions around, you just claimed that we (strange callout since the video was fully in 3rd person as a documentary should) just ready to sellout to Blizzard. It was an unexpected kicjback which fully broke the pace and worsened the experience. Thats my feedback, everyhting else was perfect and happy new year.
Understandable. I like a bit of bite in my scripts.
I have come to enjoy that harsh style of speak in his videos. There's always a line or two like that. Personally, I feel the experience would be worse if it was removed. It was the perfect ending for the video that fully fit the style of this channel and messaging as I've come to know it after watching for a few months now.
It's Blizzards pattern... Bring out an expac that sucks balls, then one that's good or above average. WotLK, Legion, Dragonflight and a load of shite inbetween them, it's like the tides ebs and flows! 😉 It's the only thing keeping its head above water and stopping a return to EmoWorld (or as some call it... FFXIV). 😇
Modern Blizzard fans are brainless consumers.
This is an amazing video.
as one of the dev's mentioned; the Blizzard we knew is gone. died after the Activision Acquisition. all the important developers have already left the game. Now we have the Diablo 4 questionnaire gate. will it ever end?
yeah never returned and wont be
Great video
Wdym almost ? It is destroyed .retail wow is just meh with no appeal at all
I played FF on and off for many years, but i was a warcraft universe fan for even longer than that (warcraft 2/3) FF14 and WoW are vastly different games, and each offer different things. FF14 is almost a singleplayer game with MMO attached after. It doesnt have vast zones to explore it feels constraining. I enjoyed the story loved finished the game at endwalker and returned to WoW and classic wow, since objectively in me eyes its just a better game in many ways. Sure FF14 has housing, PVE and a ton of other content but its not really what me and a lot of other people playing mmos such as wow enjoy. And thus went back. I like world pvp aspect of classic wow its fun dangerous and exciting. Every time you venture out to leveling zones in classic wow theres always that danger looming. FF14 on the other hand is soft and safe theres no danger or difficulty at all in it. Now okay maybe i should not compare classic to modern mmo like FF14, in retail i feel like my gearing progression really feels impactful, each upgrade feels like your character is stronger and each class feels super satisfying to play. Soaring through the zones, participating in world events and so much more, it feels open and feels good. The problem is that you think most people care about issues you discussed, fact of the matter is no one really does they can pretend that they do but they dont. Game Bad? people leave, Game Good again? okay we come back to play. DF expansion is nothing groundbreaking but its the best that they released and is second to legion. Thats why people came back, its couse WoW is well warcraft dude, everybody played it almost at one point or another and it is a blast to be back in classic and retail
I find it really weird that you use a waifu in VR chat as like a "narrator" character.