I don't think the argument is, should hardcore gamers have better gear than casual. In my opinion it seems like if you put in more effort and work, then yeah, you should be rewarded, just like anything else in life. However, I may be alone on this, but I don't feel I am...but, it's not that I'm even a casual gamer and upset about the raiding instances. I would consider myself an avid WoW player but I severely dislike large guilds and raiding in general. So, I am in a small guild, of a few friends and myself. There comes a certain point where I have all the 5-man blues I can get. I feel like a solid MMO would provide end game content for a variety of players and a game shouldn't necessarily force you to do things one way in order to get the best equipment (Yes, I have had the pvp gear, and let's be honest with ourselves...meh). Time is not my problem. I give WoW credit up until end game. I loved leveling and I have leveled many characters, but every time I get to 60 it's the same thing over again: get together with my friends, run 5 mans, get our blues, start over. Yeah, I could grind reputation, but are the items they give really even worth the boredom? Maybe. And I have scaled the pvp ladder as well. What's left? All I would like to see, and apparently it is very unrealistic for Blizzard, is an ability for me, the hardcore player to get gear to compete with the raiders in pvp and even...to just get the stuff so I can feel cool about myself. I put in just as much time as they do, and I don't think I should be shafted because I don't like raids. Yes, this could be construed as "my problem" because of how I feel about them, and maybe I should "get over it" but I don't feel I should have to. I am hoping the expansion will provide me with some entertainment and ease my nerves some until WAR.
On the topic of why I still play? It's true, I should have cancelled by now, but with the expansion looming in the distance and no other games of interest to me, I thought it best to keep my account open at least until I feel out BC.
I have talked to a lot of people who feel as I do, and to be honest, I think there are quite a few hardcore players who don't raid. I want to care about the casual 1 hour a day players, but I'm not one of them. All I want is some content for me and players like me. Here's hoping BC delivers.
[Here's a list of all the games I've played and/or my computer specs to show how much more seasoned or technologically advanced I am than you.]
Warhammer isn't out yet and things can change before it releases and as we've seen in previous casual games, they can drastically change shortly after release. There is no irrefutable proof yet that raiders don't still get the best rewards in that game, especially in comparison to other play styles. With NDA still locking crucial information, we won't know for sure for quite a while yet, so my fingers are crossed, but I'm not holding my breath.
Even the most casual quasi MMO on the market, City of Heroes gives the best rewards to raiding. That game doesn't have any real loot, but the best power enhancements in the game drop from Hamidon, which of course is raid based. I do not have high hopes for current or near future games to change this archaic paradigm.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
If it were somehow possible to limit the amount of time people play WoW in a week, lets say to 15-20 hours a week, then there wouldnt be so much flaming about it. The whole idea behind WoW is to make a game that you can play in short bursts (occasionaly longer too) for a long time. It wasnt designed to be a hardcore EQ clone. Thats why all the hardcore people are having trouble with WoW at level 60, they went there too fast. In comparison, imagine you are play a good FPS like Doom2 when it used to be cool, then u type in IDDQD (god mode for those who dont know).... so what do we see now? The game suddenly became boring because you bypassed the normal way it was supposed to be played and nothing can kill you now.
You gotta ask yourself this question, why is WoW so popular? Is it becuase millions of millions of hardcore players bought it, got quickly to 60 and are enjoying the high end content? No. Its becuase so many people who play 5-15 hours a week bought it and are enjoying it without even getting to the 60. Those people are the core of WoW subscribtion base. And those people it was designed for. If WoW were designed to accomodate hardcore players, then it would take 10 times longer to reach 60 (with much less content in between) but with huge amount of content to play at 60. Then again, we already have EQ1, and Blizz wanted something different.
Im not saying WoW is perfect or even that its something revolutionary or next gen MMO (heck I myself stopped playing about 5 months ago). What Im saying, stop complaining about things it wasnt designed to do. Your SUV is not gonna be able to carry 50-100 passengers becuase it is NOT a bus.
Maybe now, however, with all the money they got they may be able to design something better to do for all the people in their 60s. More quests, more land, more spells and skills, more items and dungeons. Id say the priority would be on more land and dungeons, the world of WoW is fairly small atm, could use much more breathing space.
after reading reviews on a plethora of different forms of entertainment, from music to MMO's i've come to realize that 99.9% of "reviewers" are totall tools.
i haven't played warcraft in about 10 months, i quit due to heavier class load + work + girlfriend. i didn't have enough time to keep up with my guild so i sold my accounts and moved on. i know i am not alone in having to abandon a game for lack of time but i don't understand why people will bitch about it, basicly stating the game sucks because to be the best and most powerfull you have to "grind" instances and faction, etc. so basicly they want all the benefits that putting a lot of time and effort into a game earn you, but without having to do anything.. otherwise the game sucks. and seriously.... do you really expect any game to have some new for you to do every day that you play for year after year? i guess some do and they should just play a single player game... or do something else.
i especially find it funny how the critics of WoW are so plentiful yet the game has 7+ million subscribers. the proof is in the numbers, it isn't clouded with opinions and doesn't need interpreted by a reviewer.
Originally posted by jimmyman99 You gotta ask yourself this question, why is WoW so popular? Is it becuase millions of millions of hardcore players bought it, got quickly to 60 and are enjoying the high end content? No. Its becuase so many people who play 5-15 hours a week bought it and are enjoying it without even getting to the 60. Those people are the core of WoW subscribtion base. And those people it was designed for.
I can completely agree for a certain amount of time, but now, so long after it's release, I think the game ceases to be for those people. Given any length of time, you will get 60, because it's easy, even if you only put in a few hours. I know people who are police officers, who work all the time, and they are 60 through casual play. It's fine to say that the game was designed for the leveling, for the casual player, but even the casuals are now 60. How many people do we know that have at least 1 60 level character and are not on "all the time"? Now, they have 5 man content and such and I doubt they have time for raids anyway, but over time that will become exhausted too. Yeah, your SUV wasn't designed to hold 20 people but you'd like to think it would support 5 comfortably and I wouldn't have to sit on anyone's lap. If you want to keep the casuals interested, you need to add more content, and in a timely fashion. Give the people something new BEFORE they get completely burnt out on the old. Yes, the casual player is the bulk of the subscription, but when they hit 60, how is it designed for the casual player any more? I don't think it is.
[Here's a list of all the games I've played and/or my computer specs to show how much more seasoned or technologically advanced I am than you.]
I don't understand MMORPG.com's gripes with World of Warcraft. I love this site, as occasionally an honest reader rating comes up that I can trust in, but most of this site's editorial staff is extremely anti-WoW. It gets so much criticism yet it keeps drawing up more subscribers. I hate to use this term that's thrown around CBS's news feature programs whenever old people fail to understand newer generations, but face it.
MMORPG.com is out of touch.
While they throw up a new mega-praising feature on Everquest II's newest patch, which introduces two new shields and a brand new series of tunnels that looks exactly like the last newly-introduced series of tunnels (except this one has a recolored variety of ogre), they completely ignore WoW's much larger patch and instead wait until the smallest delay or gripe hits the internet so they can rag on it.
I'm tired of it. I'm no longer playing WoW, but the eight months I did play it were the best MMORPG experiences of my life. Much better than standing around Qufim in FFXI as a bard of all things, waiting 40 minutes for a party because the nearest skeleton can two-shot me to the grave and level me down. Much better than being level 30 in Everquest and still only having two or three useful skills to use over and over against the same monster I've been fighting for three days. And much better than Lineage II, in which I spent hours and hours of gameplay with no quests or goals and storyline moving my forward - the only thing left to do was grind.
MMORPG.com is apparently more old-school than me. All three of the experiences above are embraced wholeheartedly. A deep yet easy to understand interface and crafting system? Not complicated enough - noobs should not be able to easily craft until they have devoted eighteen hours to understanding how to mix grapes and water to make juice. Quests and storyline? Lame, of course, because MMORPGs are all about creating your own story, not having it made for you. I mean, who could possibly enjoy experiencing a battle against a reborn lich in his sickening green fortress of death and despair when you can stumble around a flat green field killing level 93 "mega rats of destiny"? And honestly, why solo? It's an MMORPG, not a video game. You should not be able to play it on your own time, but rather you should be forced to submit to the will of others in order to progress in the game. It's realistic. Name me one fantasy adventure in which there is some sort of lone-wolf mercenary hero who strikes out on his own.
If these attacks on WoW continue with as much regularity as noob complaints appear on the official site's boards, I'll have to say that I will no longer trust MMORPG.com as a source of unbiased information. If you're just gonna rag on WoW and let massive rapeage of its rating on this site occur, you might as well just remove it from your site, period. It's obviously too much fun to be an MMORPG - why should it be on this site anyway?
All these hopes can be crushed in a moment, the OP only need to ask 1 question to devs: Is raiding still getting better rewards in PvE grouping and PvP? As long as the answer is a yes, the game will be flawed and hurting the franchise.
Raiding was brought to you recently by games such as EQ, however raiding was never part of the success of EQ, the success of EQ and these games came from the EARLY, what a new player saw...the fact you put raiding later, in a way they might not notice, is not better, since when they notice, they feel shafted.
Raiding is not part of the problem; it is the problem. Best raiders deserve to be good at raiding, nothing else, not even 1 hps extra for grouping, squat, nothing.
Seriously, whine much? How sad is it that this guy played a time sink for so long? Talk about clueless gamer with too much time. If WOW is a repetative time sink, how could he play Eve without blowing his head off? THAT'S a repetative waste. But this is MMORPG.com. You must worship Eve;)
For being treated badly, he sure is a sucker for playing.
Heh. The problem isn't raids or much of anything that can be fixed. WoW is basically flawed in design and doomed to continue to be flawed because the "fix" would alienate those who are used to the current version. Sure, it sells. That doesn't mean it is a good design. If it was a good design you wouldn't have WoW being gridlocked into making new content for level 60's just to keep the game interesting. The core problem is that the game lets players build up to level 60 with no real cost to them. Sure, you die and you have to run to get your body, but what kind of a cost is that? Time is what the game is made to burn. That's not a death penalty. You don't lose items. Oh carebears, this violin is for you. If you actually lost items the game might be worth playing. Oh, wait, the game is trying to be for both carebears AND hardcore players? Yeah, that will work. NOT.
No one has ever lost the game playing WoW. If there were winners and losers there wouldn't be a problem with content drives for the poor level 60 players charity ball. Case in point: ave you ever heard of any problems in arcade games with high content or players getting bored with the game? No, because the goal of the game i sto keep playing the game and dying in hopes of getting the high score. But if the game is giving different players a different advantage, then of course those who have the advantage (hardcore) are going to "ruin" the game for those who don't (carebears and those with a life outside the game). Now, if you still want to allow for the diversity of player power and item powers, then the best way to prevent level bloat and the need for constant higher level content (aka, grinding) is to introduce permanent death. I'm sure you guys won't go for that, so I';ll just stop here.
Face it, the prolbems of WoW are not going anywhere. The only thing left to do is to live with what WoW provides or wait until something better comes along. Right now there isn't such a thing as something better than WoW (sadly). Personally, I'll wait for something better. WoW isn't it for me.
Originally posted by Gameloading Again, an Editorial that has a few flaws, but these are the ones that are just a needle in my eye.
" I have spent two years wallowing in a world rich in graphics and countless tongue in cheek based quests and combat so simple and repetitive that my nephew could excel at it (literally, my nephew is 10 years old and a rank 9 rogue)." Congratulations, you just discribed EVERY MMORPG THAT WAS EVER MADE. Combat has never been a challenge, Combat has NEVER EVER required skill in any mmorpg. Quests have NEVER been anything else then simple. This is what is happening in EVERY mmorpg.
This game has been nothing more than a time sink; putting countless hours of mind numbing faction grinding, killing the same monster 100,000 times to gain favor with said faction. The repetitiveness of the game is worse than any MMORPG I have played in the past fifteen years. For some reason I wait for the expansion, and I wait for a game that I can care about again. This is obviously saying more about the Editorial writer then the game. killing mobs over and over again, once more, is the same problem we have seen in every MMORPG. I'm sick of it people point the finger at WoW and tell everybody its doing point A wrong, its doing point B wrong. Its the same in every mmorpg, but yet I don't see an editorial about Lineage 2's repetiveness or RFO's? Or EVE's? I also don't recall 2 editorials before EQ2's expansion release? Everybody is complaining WoW's expansion adds nothing new. EQ2's expansion didn't add anything new either, yet I don't see anybody complaining about that. When will we stop pointing at WoW and look at other MMo's flaws?
hey bro i remeber you from eq2 i think, names haggly, i grouped with you a ton of tmes
Originally posted by Darkz0r Make "casual" servers and "hardcore" servers. Hardcore people can compete against hardcore ppl and casual can vs. casual.
Today you're a "casual" player, tomorrow you decide that "casual" is a bit too slow paced so you decide that you wanna go "hardcore". How will you make that happen? You're on a casual server. You'll just transfer? Sure, that could work. Lot of administration and name handling, but hey, if you're willing to pay for each transfer I'm sure they're up for it
Let's turn it around for a moment just to take the other side.
Today you're a "hardcore" player, tomorrow you decide that you wanna slow thing down for some reason (real life, work etc.). So you'll just transfer to a casual server? Woah! Hey stop. Now the hardcore player who most likely have better gear and better skills/levels/AAs/whatever are now put among a herd of "casuals"? So now you have an uber toon among the not-so-uber.
Another thing you might wanna think about is this.
A casual server doesn't have a lot of competition for the spawns or events. What would prevent a group of "hardcore" players to start on the "casual" server and start harvesting it? Rules of the server? How are they to be enforced? Ban a player who plays too much? Autotransfer them?
You can't balance an MMOG in a way that will make everyone happy. There'll always be people who thinks they're unfairly treated. Poorly rewarded etc. The best that can be done is to as many people happy contend as possible, and hopefully some happy ones as well.
i think maybe if the zones would be instanced tnhen there would be no quarral over who gets the boss drops and loot, the bottom line would be what group was sucessful at playing there class in there group and working with the group to take down the boss.
Originally posted by Gameloading Again, an Editorial that has a few flaws, but these are the ones that are just a needle in my eye.
" I have spent two years wallowing in a world rich in graphics and countless tongue in cheek based quests and combat so simple and repetitive that my nephew could excel at it (literally, my nephew is 10 years old and a rank 9 rogue)." Congratulations, you just discribed EVERY MMORPG THAT WAS EVER MADE. Combat has never been a challenge, Combat has NEVER EVER required skill in any mmorpg. Quests have NEVER been anything else then simple. This is what is happening in EVERY mmorpg.
This game has been nothing more than a time sink; putting countless hours of mind numbing faction grinding, killing the same monster 100,000 times to gain favor with said faction. The repetitiveness of the game is worse than any MMORPG I have played in the past fifteen years. For some reason I wait for the expansion, and I wait for a game that I can care about again. This is obviously saying more about the Editorial writer then the game. killing mobs over and over again, once more, is the same problem we have seen in every MMORPG. I'm sick of it people point the finger at WoW and tell everybody its doing point A wrong, its doing point B wrong. Its the same in every mmorpg, but yet I don't see an editorial about Lineage 2's repetiveness or RFO's? Or EVE's? I also don't recall 2 editorials before EQ2's expansion release? Everybody is complaining WoW's expansion adds nothing new. EQ2's expansion didn't add anything new either, yet I don't see anybody complaining about that. When will we stop pointing at WoW and look at other MMo's flaws?
hey bro i remeber you from eq2 i think, names haggly, i grouped with you a ton of tmes
no you didn't, I haven't played Everquest 2 in many months, nor did I group with the same person more then once
Originally posted by Aletto I don't understand MMORPG.com's gripes with World of Warcraft. I love this site, as occasionally an honest reader rating comes up that I can trust in, but most of this site's editorial staff is extremely anti-WoW. It gets so much criticism yet it keeps drawing up more subscribers. I hate to use this term that's thrown around CBS's news feature programs whenever old people fail to understand newer generations, but face it.
MMORPG.com is out of touch.
While they throw up a new mega-praising feature on Everquest II's newest patch, which introduces two new shields and a brand new series of tunnels that looks exactly like the last newly-introduced series of tunnels (except this one has a recolored variety of ogre), they completely ignore WoW's much larger patch and instead wait until the smallest delay or gripe hits the internet so they can rag on it.
I'm tired of it. I'm no longer playing WoW, but the eight months I did play it were the best MMORPG experiences of my life. Much better than standing around Qufim in FFXI as a bard of all things, waiting 40 minutes for a party because the nearest skeleton can two-shot me to the grave and level me down. Much better than being level 30 in Everquest and still only having two or three useful skills to use over and over against the same monster I've been fighting for three days. And much better than Lineage II, in which I spent hours and hours of gameplay with no quests or goals and storyline moving my forward - the only thing left to do was grind.
MMORPG.com is apparently more old-school than me. All three of the experiences above are embraced wholeheartedly. A deep yet easy to understand interface and crafting system? Not complicated enough - noobs should not be able to easily craft until they have devoted eighteen hours to understanding how to mix grapes and water to make juice. Quests and storyline? Lame, of course, because MMORPGs are all about creating your own story, not having it made for you. I mean, who could possibly enjoy experiencing a battle against a reborn lich in his sickening green fortress of death and despair when you can stumble around a flat green field killing level 93 "mega rats of destiny"? And honestly, why solo? It's an MMORPG, not a video game. You should not be able to play it on your own time, but rather you should be forced to submit to the will of others in order to progress in the game. It's realistic. Name me one fantasy adventure in which there is some sort of lone-wolf mercenary hero who strikes out on his own.
If these attacks on WoW continue with as much regularity as noob complaints appear on the official site's boards, I'll have to say that I will no longer trust MMORPG.com as a source of unbiased information. If you're just gonna rag on WoW and let massive rapeage of its rating on this site occur, you might as well just remove it from your site, period. It's obviously too much fun to be an MMORPG - why should it be on this site anyway?
Sorry but I have to completely agree with this poster. I never really post here but I do read every new story on WoW , EVE and Planetside. MMORPG.com has been VERY anti-WoW for a long time now.
About this arcticle, well all it does is open the casual vs hardcore conversation again. Truth is that all the casual players want to enjoy their time with their gf/kids/wife/friends but when they log on to WoW they wanna be gods there aswell. Sorry buddys but that's not possible. You wanna be good with something --> Spend time on it and don't just whine that's it's unfair the hardcore raider is full of epix while all you can get is some blues.
Also someone said that the PvP gear isn't really worth it, well pre-Naxx my friend most items were still on-par with the gear from raid instances. But getting the gear from PvP again isn't something that you can do in 2 days, it takes time...which casual players don't want to/can't spend.
The last persons that should be whining about the expansion should be casuals. Being in closed beta myself I've seen greens that get close to BWL epics, only persons that are getting dicked over with the expansion are all those that worked hard so far and have to replace everything with blues from the new instances. Now I don't mind that much, it's a nice fresh start but don't expect that anything is going to change, those that put more time in it will still beat you.
a lot of people hate world of warcraft not because they hate the game but rather because they hate the fact that every other mmorpg thats been made or is being made falls short when compared side - side with world of warcraft.
WoW has its flaws such as the lack of solo or small group content beyond 60 (aside from grinding highwarlord which I have already done) but they are trying there best to address this issue in the up-coming xpac.
Aside from these flaws in the game world of warcraft is hands down the best mmorpg ever made. It is extremly easy to play, very smooth / polished, has just the right amount of questing when lvling without over doing it, is graphicaly pleasing, excellent itemization with reason to play and play to get the best gear and it has such a fun feel to it.
Personaly ive played the crap out of wow have full tier 2~2.5 and was a high warlord, aside from raiding naxx until its killable with my guild there isnt much left for me to do in the game but everytime I put wow down and try some of the new mmo's (I give ever beta a shot since the dawn of time) I dont find myself wanting to play these new games past 3-4 days of playing and I end up lvling yet another alt char in world of warcraft.
Say what you will about the game but noone can deny its success and it has its success for good reason. You cant hold it against blizzard for the fact noone has made a game to draw away from there customer base. I could think of some things to be changed in wow to make it better but I still feel its the best developed mmorpg to date.
Originally posted by the420kid a lot of people hate world of warcraft not because they hate the game but rather because they hate the fact that every other mmorpg thats been made or is being made falls short when compared side - side with world of warcraft.
Not sure how you manged to work this out, 80% of the world WoW playerbase had never played a MMO before. WoW was nothing more than a copy of every MMO that came before it, even doing some things a lot worse than the older MMOs. It's what Blizzard do best, copy.
And don't spout rubbish back that WoW must have done something right to get all those new players playing because the people joined on mass for one reason alone, it was Warcraft and had nothing to do with the game it just sucked in all the b.net kiddies.
A good editorial which for once mostly mirrors my opinions, however I really don't see the expansion bringing much new to the table its pretty much more of the same, with the addition of socketing which will create even more balance issues. I think at this point Blizzard have pretty much jumped the shark it seems to be all about money now I think whats good for the gamers is not neccessarily good for Blizzard so the Blizzard way wins (even though it doesn't need to with all the addicts out there)
For this game to be able to function as a 'True' MMORPG there needs to be several addtions to the game, for example much more exploration and that means LOT more landmass, more regard for the casual gamer with perhaps random instances like EQ. There needs to be more options to customize the look of characters (Armor dyes at the minimum), Guild and Personal house are also required to store all those trophies you get , crafting needs to be revamped , a simple start would be to remove BOP on class items such as Truefaith Vestments, whats the point of paying a lot og gold for a substandard item that only you can wear ?
I really hope Blizzard give more than lip service ti casual/non raid layers in the expansion but..... I think the main focs of BC will be PvP in an attempt to stave off the obvious subscriver losses when games like Warhammer hit the shelves, its all about the dollar again, Blizzard seem to have forgotten that keeping the customer happy will help them retain the majority of their player base. As it is now Blizzard have people because of the fact that the name itself still generates a lot of good will, and the fact that the gamei is fun and easy to play to 59, after that it all changes, I hope 61 - 69 generate the same amount of fun for people otherwise subscriptions will slump.
I don't think any of this is due to the game as much as it is to the players.
Everybody is obsessed with getting to the highest level as quickly as possible and getting the "best" gear before anyone else. So of course if you want to do that you're going to be covering the same ground over and over again. Back in the day, people enjoyed just being able to walk around in a virtual world, looking at creatures straight out of Tolkien's imagination (usually!), talking and interacting with people from all around the world. If people would just learn to chill out and stop being obsessed with being "the best", they'd have less to complain about.
That said, it's also shortsightedness by the developers. New games are released with practically no end-game content because they don't think that people will ignore the lore and environment and go straight for the grind. They should know better by now. Because what you get then is a rushed expansion to try to prevent players quitting and going elsewhere. EQ2 has only been out a couple of years now and already has a handful of expansions, the first of these was within a few months because of the lack of end-game content in the original.
So basically it comes down to this: If you're a hardcore grinder who spends all their spare time farming the same mobs over and over to gain levels and items then you can't complain that the game is boring because you've rushed through it.
If you're a game developer who refuses to admit that the above kind of player exists, you have no right to complain when they leave. Learn from what's already out there.
The day a game is released which has an actual balance between hardcore and casual players, that doesn't require farming to improve equipment and that remains new and innovative after 60 levels, we'll hav eachieved perfection.
As a casual player I think its perfectly fine for raiders to have better gear than me...but it seems that the difference in gear is far too high to make pvp fun. You get to 60..then find out you have to ditch your small guild where you've made friends over the past few months if you ever want to get access to MC etc. That sucks right there..then you end up in some MC farming guild where noone cares who the hell you are, only what your class can do for them on a regular basis during raids. So you spend months and countless hours farming some gear...then the expansion comes out and your gear suddenly becomes a lot less valuable....not quite worthless but definitely not enough to keep you pvp'ing....so you'll have to go do it all over again.
There are many things I love about WoW...and I've been playing it off and on since just before release day...but the gear differences are just pissing me off now. Its really bad when you get these little idiots with even less of a life than you who think having tier 2 gear makes them superior to you....don't they realize that actually having tier 2 gear just advertises what a loser you are in rl? heheh
"If these attacks on WoW continue with as much regularity as noob complaints appear on the official site's boards, I'll have to say that I will no longer trust MMORPG.com as a source of unbiased information."
I gave up on the editorials after about a week of reading them. "Piercing insights to MMORPG design" and such proved to be nothing of the sort. So I simply read the site for interviews and information, and skip 99% of the editorials. Then I come read one, and remember why.
I must express my deepest sympathy for Hasani, and all the rest of you that have spent so much of your lives dedicated to misery. WoW drives you to such burning fury, such deep depression, and makes you weep for your time wasted. I wish that it were not the case that Blizzard sent armed goons to each and every subscriber's house, and forced them to play. I wish that you had enjoyed at least a moment of your two years playing WoW. I sympathize deeply that you enjoyed yourself not a moment. I wish you could have been playing all those *other* mmorpgs that are far far superior to WoW. Like...Um...EQ 2! Yes, EQ 2! With voice acting.
Seriously. It's suddenly become the in thing to hate WoW, have always hated WoW, never enjoyed WoW, and always told people WoW would suck.
WoW is fun. It's hellaciously fun in some cases, and annoying in others. It's an MMORPG, which as yet haven't gotten beyond their own limits. It's a video game, which means it has ups and downs. But as much as everyone tries to hide it, people enjoy playing WoW. And *you* enjoy playing WoW, or you wouldn't continue to do so.
If you *do* keep playing it, despite not enjoying yourself, perhaps you need to look at your own psychology, not the game.
Here's a simple fact that would save people a lot of grief: You can play an MMORPG, enjoy it, then quit. People grow unnaturally attached to the game. "But I've played it for a year! I can't quit now! I would have wasted a year!" Did you enjoy your time during that year? Yes? There you go. If you take a two week vacation to Italy, do you say "I can't leave Italy now! If I do, I've wasted all the money I spent here, and two weeks of my life!"? No, you say "Wow, that was great. I'll have some good memories."
When you finished FFVII, did you bemoan your time lost? No, you reveled in the time spent! How many of you, honestly, wouldn't have paid $15 a month to play FFVII?
It's a game. You play what you like. You have fun. If you aren't playing, you move on. You try to help it improve, if you feel it doesn't, you leave.
Oh, and yes. Blizzard games are delayed. It's a fact of life. There is a choice between deadlines and quality. Blizz picks quality. Some companies pick deadlines. Both have downsides.
Who am I? @Lorechaser on CoH Badjuju, Splinterhoof, Plainsrunner on WoW (Moonrunner) Shyy'rissk on SWG (Flurry) ClockworkSoldier, HE Pierce, Letnev on Planetside Gyshe, Crucible, Terrakal on DDO And many more.
if your nephew of 10 years is playing so much WoW that he is able to reach rank 9 in the PvP ladder then he is being allowed to sit on the computer way too much imho.
on the article itself i for one am excited about the expansion. one of the few problems in the WoW world setting for me is its static nature (inn in westfall anyone? when is it gonna get finished?) but the expansion doesnt seem to do much for that which is too bad.
Returning to the question "how do you make sure a casual server is casual?" for a minute...
They could bring back the original Rest State modifier system. In addition to the current experience bonus when a character is fully rested, the system originally was going to apply a negative modifier if a character was played for more than a few hours.
Originally posted by brianman
Today you're a "casual" player, tomorrow you decide that "casual" is a bit too slow paced so you decide that you wanna go "hardcore". How will you make that happen? You're on a casual server. You'll just transfer?
If you wanted to go hardcore on a casual server under that system, the best way to do it would be to start additional characters and play them in alternation with the first one, so that all are rested up when they are played.
Today you're a "hardcore" player, tomorrow you decide that you wanna slow thing down for some reason (real life, work etc.). So you'll just transfer to a casual server? Woah! Hey stop. Now the hardcore player who most likely have better gear and better skills/levels/AAs/whatever are now put among a herd of "casuals"? So now you have an uber toon among the not-so-uber.
They could fix that by restricting how much gear and money would carry over when a character transfers to a casual server. But is someone who was formerly hardcore really going to be that annoyed by other hardcores, just because he or she has less time to play now? It'd be easier to stay on the original server and just play less.
A casual server doesn't have a lot of competition for the spawns or events. What would prevent a group of "hardcore" players to start on the "casual" server and start harvesting it? Rules of the server? How are they to be enforced? Ban a player who plays too much? Autotransfer them?
After a few hours of play, they'd be getting less and less reward per kill. Then they'd need to log out in an inn and let their characters rest off the fatigue for a few hours.If they managed to fit their harvesting into that schedule, then apparently it's within reach of casual players anyway.
Speaking of balance, or maybe not, but whatever happened to Epic Characters, or Prestige Characters or whatever it was your character was supposed to be able to evolve into that still hasn't happened, and doesn't look to be in the cards of the expansion either? Wouldn't that mix things up a bit? Make things more interesting? Anyone know what happened to that great idea?
ya I remember what you are talking about way back when game first came out there was talk about eventualy being able to become a "hero" class with a given character after achieving who knows what. They probaly put this idea on hold blizz has stated they would liek to do an xpac per year for world of warcraft so this could 1 day be a possibility but it isnt in the near future thats for sure.
Originally posted by jimmyman99 While this editorial has some valid points, the biggest flaws are one of the major ones. Time sink? Repetitiveness? Have you played EQ before? or L2? The grind there is outrageous. The best thing about WoW (from the casual player perspective, the one that this game wasnt made for according to the editorial) is that you DONT have to grind or play repetatively. You CAN grind but only if you want to. Or you can quest, or you can PvP, or you can hunt for resources or craft. The player has choices and the game is to the player what that player makes it to be. If you do nothing but do raiding, of course the game will be grind and time sink for you. But you dont have to.
I played L2 to 52+ (50+ the grind got...special), I quit when I couldn't help but think I needed to buy a bunch of gold from ebay to compete. That, required grouping and the 4 weeks per level because I had a job, were real downers.
Here is the point I wanted to make about your post: The thing with Lineage 2 was, the purpose of the grind was to own a castle and PvP to keep it. The purpose of the WoW grind is to grind some more. Why grind up rank to wear the PvP gear? So you can grind up rank and wear the epic PvP gear! Why grind for weeks through MC for the first set? So you can grind for weeks through BWL and then weeks through AQ.
The Lineage 2 grind was a crime, but it had a point. Sure, you hit level 75 and own the best castle for a month and the boredome sets in...but such is life. In WoW leveling the first time, for me, was fun and fast-paced. Then I hit 60 and all that was left was to grind faction, rank or raid gear...so you could grind more of those. At first I did raids to get better gear to PvP, but then Blizzard all but removed PvP from the game with the "PvP" instance grind.
Comments
I don't think the argument is, should hardcore gamers have better gear than casual. In my opinion it seems like if you put in more effort and work, then yeah, you should be rewarded, just like anything else in life. However, I may be alone on this, but I don't feel I am...but, it's not that I'm even a casual gamer and upset about the raiding instances. I would consider myself an avid WoW player but I severely dislike large guilds and raiding in general. So, I am in a small guild, of a few friends and myself. There comes a certain point where I have all the 5-man blues I can get. I feel like a solid MMO would provide end game content for a variety of players and a game shouldn't necessarily force you to do things one way in order to get the best equipment (Yes, I have had the pvp gear, and let's be honest with ourselves...meh). Time is not my problem. I give WoW credit up until end game. I loved leveling and I have leveled many characters, but every time I get to 60 it's the same thing over again: get together with my friends, run 5 mans, get our blues, start over. Yeah, I could grind reputation, but are the items they give really even worth the boredom? Maybe. And I have scaled the pvp ladder as well. What's left? All I would like to see, and apparently it is very unrealistic for Blizzard, is an ability for me, the hardcore player to get gear to compete with the raiders in pvp and even...to just get the stuff so I can feel cool about myself. I put in just as much time as they do, and I don't think I should be shafted because I don't like raids. Yes, this could be construed as "my problem" because of how I feel about them, and maybe I should "get over it" but I don't feel I should have to. I am hoping the expansion will provide me with some entertainment and ease my nerves some until WAR.
On the topic of why I still play? It's true, I should have cancelled by now, but with the expansion looming in the distance and no other games of interest to me, I thought it best to keep my account open at least until I feel out BC.
I have talked to a lot of people who feel as I do, and to be honest, I think there are quite a few hardcore players who don't raid. I want to care about the casual 1 hour a day players, but I'm not one of them. All I want is some content for me and players like me. Here's hoping BC delivers.
[Here's a list of all the games I've played and/or my computer specs to show how much more seasoned or technologically advanced I am than you.]
Warhammer isn't out yet and things can change before it releases and as we've seen in previous casual games, they can drastically change shortly after release. There is no irrefutable proof yet that raiders don't still get the best rewards in that game, especially in comparison to other play styles. With NDA still locking crucial information, we won't know for sure for quite a while yet, so my fingers are crossed, but I'm not holding my breath.
Even the most casual quasi MMO on the market, City of Heroes gives the best rewards to raiding. That game doesn't have any real loot, but the best power enhancements in the game drop from Hamidon, which of course is raid based. I do not have high hopes for current or near future games to change this archaic paradigm.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
You gotta ask yourself this question, why is WoW so popular? Is it becuase millions of millions of hardcore players bought it, got quickly to 60 and are enjoying the high end content? No. Its becuase so many people who play 5-15 hours a week bought it and are enjoying it without even getting to the 60. Those people are the core of WoW subscribtion base. And those people it was designed for. If WoW were designed to accomodate hardcore players, then it would take 10 times longer to reach 60 (with much less content in between) but with huge amount of content to play at 60. Then again, we already have EQ1, and Blizz wanted something different.
Im not saying WoW is perfect or even that its something revolutionary or next gen MMO (heck I myself stopped playing about 5 months ago). What Im saying, stop complaining about things it wasnt designed to do. Your SUV is not gonna be able to carry 50-100 passengers becuase it is NOT a bus.
Maybe now, however, with all the money they got they may be able to design something better to do for all the people in their 60s. More quests, more land, more spells and skills, more items and dungeons. Id say the priority would be on more land and dungeons, the world of WoW is fairly small atm, could use much more breathing space.
I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
i haven't played warcraft in about 10 months, i quit due to heavier class load + work + girlfriend. i didn't have enough time to keep up with my guild so i sold my accounts and moved on. i know i am not alone in having to abandon a game for lack of time but i don't understand why people will bitch about it, basicly stating the game sucks because to be the best and most powerfull you have to "grind" instances and faction, etc. so basicly they want all the benefits that putting a lot of time and effort into a game earn you, but without having to do anything.. otherwise the game sucks. and seriously.... do you really expect any game to have some new for you to do every day that you play for year after year? i guess some do and they should just play a single player game... or do something else.
i especially find it funny how the critics of WoW are so plentiful yet the game has 7+ million subscribers. the proof is in the numbers, it isn't clouded with opinions and doesn't need interpreted by a reviewer.
[Here's a list of all the games I've played and/or my computer specs to show how much more seasoned or technologically advanced I am than you.]
this site, as occasionally an honest reader rating comes up that I can
trust in, but most of this site's editorial staff is extremely
anti-WoW. It gets so much criticism yet it keeps drawing up more
subscribers. I hate to use this term that's thrown around CBS's news
feature programs whenever old people fail to understand newer
generations, but face it.
MMORPG.com is out of touch.
While they throw up a new mega-praising feature on Everquest II's
newest patch, which introduces two new shields and a brand new series
of tunnels that looks exactly like the last newly-introduced series of
tunnels (except this one has a recolored variety of ogre), they
completely ignore WoW's much larger patch and instead wait until the
smallest delay or gripe hits the internet so they can rag on it.
I'm tired of it. I'm no longer playing WoW, but the eight months I did
play it were the best MMORPG experiences of my life. Much better than
standing around Qufim in FFXI as a bard of all things, waiting 40
minutes for a party because the nearest skeleton can two-shot me to the
grave and level me down. Much better than being level 30 in Everquest
and still only having two or three useful skills to use over and over
against the same monster I've been fighting for three days. And much
better than Lineage II, in which I spent hours and hours of gameplay
with no quests or goals and storyline moving my forward - the only
thing left to do was grind.
MMORPG.com is apparently more old-school than me. All three of the
experiences above are embraced wholeheartedly. A deep yet easy to
understand interface and crafting system? Not complicated enough -
noobs should not be able to easily craft until they have devoted
eighteen hours to understanding how to mix grapes and water to make
juice. Quests and storyline? Lame, of course, because MMORPGs are all
about creating your own story, not having it made for you. I mean, who
could possibly enjoy experiencing a battle against a reborn lich in his
sickening green fortress of death and despair when you can stumble
around a flat green field killing level 93 "mega rats of destiny"? And
honestly, why solo? It's an MMORPG, not a video game. You should not be
able to play it on your own time, but rather you should be forced to
submit to the will of others in order to progress in the game. It's
realistic. Name me one fantasy adventure in which there is some sort of
lone-wolf mercenary hero who strikes out on his own.
If these attacks on WoW continue with as much regularity as noob
complaints appear on the official site's boards, I'll have to say that
I will no longer trust MMORPG.com as a source of unbiased information.
If you're just gonna rag on WoW and let massive rapeage of its rating
on this site occur, you might as well just remove it from your site,
period. It's obviously too much fun to be an MMORPG - why should it be
on this site anyway?
double post
bravo.
/agree
For being treated badly, he sure is a sucker for playing.
Heh. The problem isn't raids or much of anything that can be fixed. WoW is basically flawed in design and doomed to continue to be flawed because the "fix" would alienate those who are used to the current version. Sure, it sells. That doesn't mean it is a good design. If it was a good design you wouldn't have WoW being gridlocked into making new content for level 60's just to keep the game interesting. The core problem is that the game lets players build up to level 60 with no real cost to them. Sure, you die and you have to run to get your body, but what kind of a cost is that? Time is what the game is made to burn. That's not a death penalty. You don't lose items. Oh carebears, this violin is for you. If you actually lost items the game might be worth playing. Oh, wait, the game is trying to be for both carebears AND hardcore players? Yeah, that will work. NOT.
No one has ever lost the game playing WoW. If there were winners and losers there wouldn't be a problem with content drives for the poor level 60 players charity ball. Case in point: ave you ever heard of any problems in arcade games with high content or players getting bored with the game? No, because the goal of the game i sto keep playing the game and dying in hopes of getting the high score. But if the game is giving different players a different advantage, then of course those who have the advantage (hardcore) are going to "ruin" the game for those who don't (carebears and those with a life outside the game). Now, if you still want to allow for the diversity of player power and item powers, then the best way to prevent level bloat and the need for constant higher level content (aka, grinding) is to introduce permanent death. I'm sure you guys won't go for that, so I';ll just stop here.
Face it, the prolbems of WoW are not going anywhere. The only thing left to do is to live with what WoW provides or wait until something better comes along. Right now there isn't such a thing as something better than WoW (sadly). Personally, I'll wait for something better. WoW isn't it for me.
playing eq2 and two worlds
How will you make that happen? You're on a casual server. You'll just transfer? Sure, that could work. Lot of administration and name handling, but hey, if you're willing to pay for each transfer I'm sure they're up for it
Let's turn it around for a moment just to take the other side.
Today you're a "hardcore" player, tomorrow you decide that you wanna slow thing down for some reason (real life, work etc.). So you'll just transfer to a casual server? Woah! Hey stop. Now the hardcore player who most likely have better gear and better skills/levels/AAs/whatever are now put among a herd of "casuals"? So now you have an uber toon among the not-so-uber.
Another thing you might wanna think about is this.
A casual server doesn't have a lot of competition for the spawns or events. What would prevent a group of "hardcore" players to start on the "casual" server and start harvesting it? Rules of the server? How are they to be enforced? Ban a player who plays too much? Autotransfer them?
You can't balance an MMOG in a way that will make everyone happy. There'll always be people who thinks they're unfairly treated. Poorly rewarded etc. The best that can be done is to as many people happy contend as possible, and hopefully some happy ones as well.
i think maybe if the zones would be instanced tnhen there would be no quarral over who gets the boss drops and loot, the bottom line would be what group was sucessful at playing there class in there group and working with the group to take down the boss.
playing eq2 and two worlds
no you didn't, I haven't played Everquest 2 in many months, nor did I group with the same person more then once
Sorry but I have to completely agree with this poster. I never really post here but I do read every new story on WoW , EVE and Planetside. MMORPG.com has been VERY anti-WoW for a long time now.
About this arcticle, well all it does is open the casual vs hardcore conversation again. Truth is that all the casual players want to enjoy their time with their gf/kids/wife/friends but when they log on to WoW they wanna be gods there aswell. Sorry buddys but that's not possible. You wanna be good with something --> Spend time on it and don't just whine that's it's unfair the hardcore raider is full of epix while all you can get is some blues.
Also someone said that the PvP gear isn't really worth it, well pre-Naxx my friend most items were still on-par with the gear from raid instances. But getting the gear from PvP again isn't something that you can do in 2 days, it takes time...which casual players don't want to/can't spend.
The last persons that should be whining about the expansion should be casuals. Being in closed beta myself I've seen greens that get close to BWL epics, only persons that are getting dicked over with the expansion are all those that worked hard so far and have to replace everything with blues from the new instances. Now I don't mind that much, it's a nice fresh start but don't expect that anything is going to change, those that put more time in it will still beat you.
a lot of people hate world of warcraft not because they hate the game but rather because they hate the fact that every other mmorpg thats been made or is being made falls short when compared side - side with world of warcraft.
WoW has its flaws such as the lack of solo or small group content beyond 60 (aside from grinding highwarlord which I have already done) but they are trying there best to address this issue in the up-coming xpac.
Aside from these flaws in the game world of warcraft is hands down the best mmorpg ever made. It is extremly easy to play, very smooth / polished, has just the right amount of questing when lvling without over doing it, is graphicaly pleasing, excellent itemization with reason to play and play to get the best gear and it has such a fun feel to it.
Personaly ive played the crap out of wow have full tier 2~2.5 and was a high warlord, aside from raiding naxx until its killable with my guild there isnt much left for me to do in the game but everytime I put wow down and try some of the new mmo's (I give ever beta a shot since the dawn of time) I dont find myself wanting to play these new games past 3-4 days of playing and I end up lvling yet another alt char in world of warcraft.
Say what you will about the game but noone can deny its success and it has its success for good reason. You cant hold it against blizzard for the fact noone has made a game to draw away from there customer base. I could think of some things to be changed in wow to make it better but I still feel its the best developed mmorpg to date.
And don't spout rubbish back that WoW must have done something right to get all those new players playing because the people joined on mass for one reason alone, it was Warcraft and had nothing to do with the game it just sucked in all the b.net kiddies.
For this game to be able to function as a 'True' MMORPG there needs to be several addtions to the game, for example much more exploration and that means LOT more landmass, more regard for the casual gamer with perhaps random instances like EQ. There needs to be more options to customize the look of characters (Armor dyes at the minimum), Guild and Personal house are also required to store all those trophies you get
I really hope Blizzard give more than lip service ti casual/non raid layers in the expansion but..... I think the main focs of BC will be PvP in an attempt to stave off the obvious subscriver losses when games like Warhammer hit the shelves, its all about the dollar again, Blizzard seem to have forgotten that keeping the customer happy will help them retain the majority of their player base. As it is now Blizzard have people because of the fact that the name itself still generates a lot of good will, and the fact that the gamei is fun and easy to play to 59, after that it all changes, I hope 61 - 69 generate the same amount of fun for people otherwise subscriptions will slump.
I don't think any of this is due to the game as much as it is to the players.
Everybody is obsessed with getting to the highest level as quickly as possible and getting the "best" gear before anyone else. So of course if you want to do that you're going to be covering the same ground over and over again.
Back in the day, people enjoyed just being able to walk around in a virtual world, looking at creatures straight out of Tolkien's imagination (usually!), talking and interacting with people from all around the world.
If people would just learn to chill out and stop being obsessed with being "the best", they'd have less to complain about.
That said, it's also shortsightedness by the developers. New games are released with practically no end-game content because they don't think that people will ignore the lore and environment and go straight for the grind. They should know better by now. Because what you get then is a rushed expansion to try to prevent players quitting and going elsewhere. EQ2 has only been out a couple of years now and already has a handful of expansions, the first of these was within a few months because of the lack of end-game content in the original.
So basically it comes down to this:
If you're a hardcore grinder who spends all their spare time farming the same mobs over and over to gain levels and items then you can't complain that the game is boring because you've rushed through it.
If you're a game developer who refuses to admit that the above kind of player exists, you have no right to complain when they leave. Learn from what's already out there.
The day a game is released which has an actual balance between hardcore and casual players, that doesn't require farming to improve equipment and that remains new and innovative after 60 levels, we'll hav eachieved perfection.
There are many things I love about WoW...and I've been playing it off and on since just before release day...but the gear differences are just pissing me off now. Its really bad when you get these little idiots with even less of a life than you who think having tier 2 gear makes them superior to you....don't they realize that actually having tier 2 gear just advertises what a loser you are in rl? heheh
"If these attacks on WoW continue with as much regularity as noob complaints appear on the official site's boards, I'll have to say that I will no longer trust MMORPG.com as a source of unbiased information."
I gave up on the editorials after about a week of reading them. "Piercing insights to MMORPG design" and such proved to be nothing of the sort. So I simply read the site for interviews and information, and skip 99% of the editorials. Then I come read one, and remember why.
I must express my deepest sympathy for Hasani, and all the rest of you that have spent so much of your lives dedicated to misery. WoW drives you to such burning fury, such deep depression, and makes you weep for your time wasted. I wish that it were not the case that Blizzard sent armed goons to each and every subscriber's house, and forced them to play. I wish that you had enjoyed at least a moment of your two years playing WoW. I sympathize deeply that you enjoyed yourself not a moment. I wish you could have been playing all those *other* mmorpgs that are far far superior to WoW. Like...Um...EQ 2! Yes, EQ 2! With voice acting.
Seriously. It's suddenly become the in thing to hate WoW, have always hated WoW, never enjoyed WoW, and always told people WoW would suck.
WoW is fun. It's hellaciously fun in some cases, and annoying in others. It's an MMORPG, which as yet haven't gotten beyond their own limits. It's a video game, which means it has ups and downs. But as much as everyone tries to hide it, people enjoy playing WoW. And *you* enjoy playing WoW, or you wouldn't continue to do so.
If you *do* keep playing it, despite not enjoying yourself, perhaps you need to look at your own psychology, not the game.
Here's a simple fact that would save people a lot of grief: You can play an MMORPG, enjoy it, then quit. People grow unnaturally attached to the game. "But I've played it for a year! I can't quit now! I would have wasted a year!" Did you enjoy your time during that year? Yes? There you go. If you take a two week vacation to Italy, do you say "I can't leave Italy now! If I do, I've wasted all the money I spent here, and two weeks of my life!"? No, you say "Wow, that was great. I'll have some good memories."
When you finished FFVII, did you bemoan your time lost? No, you reveled in the time spent! How many of you, honestly, wouldn't have paid $15 a month to play FFVII?
It's a game. You play what you like. You have fun. If you aren't playing, you move on. You try to help it improve, if you feel it doesn't, you leave.
Oh, and yes. Blizzard games are delayed. It's a fact of life. There is a choice between deadlines and quality. Blizz picks quality. Some companies pick deadlines. Both have downsides.
Who am I?
@Lorechaser on CoH
Badjuju, Splinterhoof, Plainsrunner on WoW (Moonrunner)
Shyy'rissk on SWG (Flurry)
ClockworkSoldier, HE Pierce, Letnev on Planetside
Gyshe, Crucible, Terrakal on DDO
And many more.
on the article itself i for one am excited about the expansion. one of the few problems in the WoW world setting for me is its static nature (inn in westfall anyone? when is it gonna get finished?) but the expansion doesnt seem to do much for that which is too bad.
Returning to the question "how do you make sure a casual server is casual?" for a minute...
They could bring back the original Rest State modifier system. In addition to the current experience bonus when a character is fully rested, the system originally was going to apply a negative modifier if a character was played for more than a few hours.
If you wanted to go hardcore on a casual server under that system, the best way to do it would be to start additional characters and play them in alternation with the first one, so that all are rested up when they are played.
They could fix that by restricting how much gear and money would carry over when a character transfers to a casual server.
But is someone who was formerly hardcore really going to be that annoyed by other hardcores, just because he or she has less time to play now? It'd be easier to stay on the original server and just play less.
After a few hours of play, they'd be getting less and less reward per kill. Then they'd need to log out in an inn and let their characters rest off the fatigue for a few hours.If they managed to fit their harvesting into that schedule, then apparently it's within reach of casual players anyway.
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Bleakmage
I played L2 to 52+ (50+ the grind got...special), I quit when I couldn't help but think I needed to buy a bunch of gold from ebay to compete. That, required grouping and the 4 weeks per level because I had a job, were real downers.
Here is the point I wanted to make about your post: The thing with Lineage 2 was, the purpose of the grind was to own a castle and PvP to keep it. The purpose of the WoW grind is to grind some more. Why grind up rank to wear the PvP gear? So you can grind up rank and wear the epic PvP gear! Why grind for weeks through MC for the first set? So you can grind for weeks through BWL and then weeks through AQ.
The Lineage 2 grind was a crime, but it had a point. Sure, you hit level 75 and own the best castle for a month and the boredome sets in...but such is life. In WoW leveling the first time, for me, was fun and fast-paced. Then I hit 60 and all that was left was to grind faction, rank or raid gear...so you could grind more of those. At first I did raids to get better gear to PvP, but then Blizzard all but removed PvP from the game with the "PvP" instance grind.