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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm: Blizzard Cuts Path of the Titans, Guild Talents
MikeB
Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
NDA guarded details from a recent Blizzard press event have emerged following the drop of said NDA. The information coming out of the event is quite significant, as it appears Blizzard will be cutting a number of major features from the Cataclysm expansion including the entire Path of the Titans system (to be replaced with an overhauled inscription system), and while Guild leveling is still on the feature list, it will not include Guild Talents or currency.
You can find additional details over at MMO-Champion.
Comments
sounding more like a big content patch then the big expansion I was looking forward to.
Cataclysmic! hehe
People will buy it just for the Worgen and busted up old world. Not sure if it will be good enough to keep the end gamers sticking around longer than a month though. This might be the beginning of the long decline for WoW.
Archlinux ftw
Seems like they cut the only 2 innovative feautures of the game...
This upgrade improves that Blizzard is allready concentrating most resources on the next gen MMO they are currently developing.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Quite disappointed that path of the titans is gone. Kinda look forward to something new from blizz, well...
RIP Orc Choppa
Hopefully. WOW has run it's course.
Currently Playing: DAOC Uthgard
Previously Played: UO, DAOC, Shadowbane, AC2, SWG, Horizons, COX, WOW, EQ2, LOTRO, AOC, WAR, Vanguard, Rift, SWTOR, ESO, GW2.
Quite a few from my guild are already murmuring that it's adios WoW after hearing that A. the game wasn't likely to see a 2010 release and B. it's a bit thin on the ground with new ideas.
Sad really to see Blizzard now joining the ranks of the other normal devs and "Cutting" parts of the game.
The breaking point for alot of my guildies is the fact they see plenty of items being created for the Blizzard store, but nothing new being put into the game, many warlocks wanted new pets, Devs said they didn't have the time/resources, hey presto you can now buy lovely new collectable pets in the store, or a lovely new celestial mount, seems they had plenty of time/resources to add new things to the Blizzard store though.
Anyway sad to see that Blizzard are shelving good ideas for mediocrity.
Though the POT system was removed from the expansion, it's not gone forever....
"Path of the Titans Removal
We still think it would be cool to add some kind of post-game progression to allow for player customization, but we would have to be very careful and do it right. Nobody wanted to see a feature that felt like it delivered on half its potential. Nobody wanted to be thinking about how we were going to "fix the flawed Paths system" in 5.0. If we can come up with a design we like, then we'll try again in the future.
A big part of game design is triage -- knowing when something is good enough, knowing when something can be good with just a little more work, and knowing when something is a lost cause... at least for now. There are very few WoW features that we kill outright. Most go into a design parking lot, and we get together every few months to review those features and consider what to work on next.
[...] Fortunately, one of the benefits of being Blizzard is we don't have to ship a product until we think it's ready. Our marketing department works with us on the game, but they understand that when the game is ready is ultimately up to the team. We didn't cut it because we ran out of time. We cut it because we didn't think the design we had was fun. At the high level we still like the idea, and if we can solve some of the problems we might bring it back in the future."
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/25399821080/you-can-t-back-out-on-path-of-the-titan-s-now/
The removal of the Guild Talents system makes sense.......
"Guild Talents removal
Guilds aren't a new feature for WoW, and we are really sensitive about imposing any kind of structure on them that might make you feel like you aren't supposed to stay with your current guildies any longer. To that end, there were flaws with guild talents that we didn't like.
Guilds are, for the most part, groups of friends. We don't want features to drive wedges between them. We don't want you to guild hop looking for the talents that suit you best; we want you to play (or in many cases keep playing) with your friends. With a talent tree, guilds would naturally have different talent trees, which creates a reason to bail or guild hop that doesn't exist today. If you didn't like the direction the guild was taking (for example, you were a PvP guy with a GM focused on raid-progression) you might feel like you should leave. That can happen today of course, but you can also stay in a PvE guild just because you like the members even if you don't participate in the same content because you're not losing out on inherent guild benefits.
Furthermore, we felt like the decision-making, for many guilds, would be up to a relatively few people, possibly as few as the guild master. Talent trees work for classes because the decision is up to you. We didn't want to create the risk of drama over choosing those talents or even not being consulted in choosing them.
Another advantage of the perks system is that it's easily expandable. If we want to add new levels and / or perks in later patches or expansions, we can, without having to rejuggle a talent tree"
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/25399601135/please-rethink-the-guild-tree-and-path-removl/
Instead of "talents" guilds get levels and perks at particular milestones. Which for me, makes more sense.
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It is a game lobby. Arena, BGs, RDF Heroics, and Raids. Look at one of the key things they are keeping - Rated BGs: another game lobby activity.
They might as well just call WoW Warcraft 4, have folks log into battlenet and queue their mini games.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
I wonder how much of/many of these cuts are strategic, given the increasing press that LotRO going F2P and Guild Wars 2 have been generating. I personally think that Blizzard sees those two games with their financial models as legitimate threats, and are trying to ensure that they release Cataclysm as close to the release of those games as they can manage.
It will be interesting to see.
OH HEY LETS BLOW UP THE WORLD AND ADD BUGGER ALL LOL.
I can't believe i used to like WoW until the community shat on it, now its turned into the most boring generic rubbish thats out there.
So basically they cut most of the new, innovative stuff out, leaving a glorified content patch. Brilliant. And people say Kotick isn't in charge... I think those folks are deluding themselves.
These just sound like a bunch of excuses. I think the real reason the two innovative features were cut was so they could release the game without a delay. I believe they want to release thae game as early as possible to get a jump on the newer MMO's that are set to release. Bad form in my opinion. Dropping two features that people were looking forward to just to meet a deadline.
I played WoW for years and I will never go back. Been there, done that; plus Bobby Kotick can go f*** himself with a 10 ft pole. Right now EVE is the only game I can justify spending a subscription on, when GW2 and LOTRO FTP launch I can get my fantasy MMO on just paying for whatever content I want.
Actually they only cut out the things they didn't think would settle well with their player base. Also the path of the titans feature was only cut for the launch they are planning on going back to it later. For now they are focusing on other aspects of the expansion which includes sandboxing the talent trees.
I remmember when Mythic cut some major content just to meet their deadline and look what happened. Obviously it is showing after all the years that Blizzard has drastically changed their ways. What once made them great is not there anymore. Sure they still make pretty good games but comparing them now to 10 years ago is like night and day.
Well, given the sizeable changes being made to the game world its not surprising that some things had to be cut. It makes sense to remove the POT from the equation due to the sheer amount of work that that one single element requires. Remember that Cataclysm isn't just a couple of areas and a dungeon or two, Blizzard are drastically changing the majority of the "vanilla" game world.
In regards to the removal of the Path of the Titans from the Expansion, I can agree that timescale MAY be a factor (regardless of what Blizzard says). However, there is a plus side, this means that even those who DONT have the expansion may be able to benefit from an AA system, should it come as part of a free content updates. Remember that Blizzard have said that they DO want an AA system, but the one they designed for Cataclysm just wasn't up to spec. Would you prefer them to have implemented a crap AA system or delayed its release until it was ready?
Now in specific regards to the Guild Talents replacement, I would say that the decision to change the system was born more out of logic than timescales. It makes sense because the "perks" that the guild would receive in a Talent system is by the decisions made by a small number of specific individuals in the guild, which may have actually been contrary to what the rest of the guild wants. With a "leveling" progression system, the guild isn't restricted by such decisions. Which to me sounds more fair and flexible than a Talent system which would lock the Guild down a specific path of progression.
Btw, these two features are hardly "innovative", new to WoW maybe but not innovative in the slightest.
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The amount of content still in Cataclysm is much much more than you'd get out of any other games expansion.
If you like raiding then that's true. If you don't enjoy raiding then you are out of luck.
What makes you say that? From what I see, the expansion brings in multiple new zones which allow for solo, group AND raids. Not forgetting PVP as well.
Top 10 Most Misused Words in MMO's
That is disappointing, I actually played with the idea to create a new account and level up a new character given the path of the titans and archaelogy profession...
But well, maybe it's a good thing for me
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Well really I'm talking about end game here, after a month that is where everyone will be (excluding any alts that people will play). Rated pvp are for premades only, which is essentially raids for pvp (forming up the premades, wanting speciffic classes, gear, and spec, etecetera). Really the end game in Cataclysm will be exactly how it is currently, raid or die. What they cut out was to try to change it up a bit, provide an alternate character progression at end game. That is out now and you can resume your same and tried raid game.
Cataclysm is going to have 3000 quests. Wrath of the Lich King had around 1000. I'd call that quite a bit of content myself.
1000 quests level 80-85. 2000 redesigned quests. Since you do not have to buy Cataclysm to have the world all shook up, it makes sense that you would not have to buy Cataclysm for 2000 of those quests then...eh?
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
Do you honestly believe that? Hero classes were promised when the game went live. We got one sort of hero class 4 years later.
They cut these features because they would take too long to balance out and Blizzard wants to release the expansion around the time some of the new MMOs launch to offset loss of subscribers.