I left wow frustrated. I felt like it had become a game for die hard super dorks only. The changes in the expansion confirmed that. Blizzard is out of touch and in their own world. Victim of its own success.
What he said.
To forstall the usual "what did you expect" arguments, consider that prior to 60, hell, even 50+, there was so much you could do as a character to be relevant in the WoW world. Your Professions meant something (even if their usefulness diminished as you got higher level), and you could still solo and do elite non-instanced quests w/less that the optimal party mix or even a 5-man group.
On top of this, there was just so many quests to do in so many regions. Sure, many of them were pretty simple, but you could still pick the ones that appealed to you in the zones that you preferred to be in.
Fast forward to 60: You either run the exact same raid instances with your guild over and over, or you PvP in BGs. Either way, you either have to deal with a 'leet guild with all its attendant committments (die hard super dorks only), or pretty much be left in the cold. No one, and I do mean NO ONE, enjoys feeling like their character is doomed to second-class status.
So they complain or ask for fixes to content or class. Nothing gets done, and patience wearrs thin.
In the end, the main gripe is not that we have to raid for gear at endgame. The gripe is that on the way to 60, THE GAME CHANGED. It is no longer the WoW we were blown away by when we first started.
Blizzard reminds me of what SOE did. 10% of subscribers whine, piss and moan about not enough end game content, and the devs go berserk on raid gear/encounters. Its truly sad how 10% of a population can destroy a really good game.
Gonna have to respond to this one...
The above is mere speculation. What isn't is that the two lead developers (Fruror and Tigole?) were leading elite raiding guilds in EQ (Fires of Heaven, or FoH is Furor's, I believe). Nothing can be proved except that they have a very strong bias towards raiding.
While the raid-centric endgame doesn't surprise me in this light, I do wonder if even they know how to break the raid-for-gear-to-raid-for-gear-for-next-raid cycle i've seen before I left. TBC isn't very convincing...
Comments
To forstall the usual "what did you expect" arguments, consider that prior to 60, hell, even 50+, there was so much you could do as a character to be relevant in the WoW world. Your Professions meant something (even if their usefulness diminished as you got higher level), and you could still solo and do elite non-instanced quests w/less that the optimal party mix or even a 5-man group.
On top of this, there was just so many quests to do in so many regions. Sure, many of them were pretty simple, but you could still pick the ones that appealed to you in the zones that you preferred to be in.
Fast forward to 60: You either run the exact same raid instances with your guild over and over, or you PvP in BGs. Either way, you either have to deal with a 'leet guild with all its attendant committments (die hard super dorks only), or pretty much be left in the cold. No one, and I do mean NO ONE, enjoys feeling like their character is doomed to second-class status.
So they complain or ask for fixes to content or class. Nothing gets done, and patience wearrs thin.
In the end, the main gripe is not that we have to raid for gear at endgame. The gripe is that on the way to 60, THE GAME CHANGED. It is no longer the WoW we were blown away by when we first started.
The above is mere speculation. What isn't is that the two lead developers (Fruror and Tigole?) were leading elite raiding guilds in EQ (Fires of Heaven, or FoH is Furor's, I believe). Nothing can be proved except that they have a very strong bias towards raiding.
While the raid-centric endgame doesn't surprise me in this light, I do wonder if even they know how to break the raid-for-gear-to-raid-for-gear-for-next-raid cycle i've seen before I left. TBC isn't very convincing...