They got tired of having the time they invested in character development wiped out every x-pac.
I mean, if you are going to have to constantly start over, why even play an MMO?
Thats the problem with games that have levels and level based gear. If they don't release new shineys for the hardcore players to obtain to make themselves feel uber with then they would complain and say that there is no high level content. Would you have been happy with your same uber gear and same uber raid over and over? Eventually everyone would get it and you'd all be the same anyway, if you didn't quit of boredom first. They have to keep adding higher and higher levels, higher and higher gear, the old stuff becomes a joke. Its that way in all MMOs. Its the nature of level-based games.
I feel the same away about my first MMO, Asherons Call. I remember back in 2000 or whatever I had the original non-nerfed Shadow Armor in Asheron's Call. It was pretty sweet then. And hard to obtain, particularly after it was discontinued. Now its junk. Every low level noob is running around in armor with much higher protections now, using uber imbued weapons, etc. Hardcore players like yourself min-maxed the hell out of everything so the developers had to make harder content to keep you happy, then give better equipment to the lowbie casuals so they don't get creamed. The result is a lot of content that is now useless and forgotten. The game used to be more about exploring the world with friends. Now its more about griding out levels in a dungeon so you can get to level 150, "where the game really begins", so you can use all the items with triple epic buffs on them or whatever.
I too miss vanilla, but only the PvP part. Raids nowadays are much much harder than in vanilla and by hard i mean difficult, not the timesinks of pre tbc. Only reason the raids in vanilla were hard was because you had to carry all the brainless people in your guild. Getting 40 good players was almost impossible.
The game has gotten way more elitist now, if waving your e-peen is your forte.
Have you even played after BC? Raids nowadays are much much harder than in vanilla and by hard i mean difficult, not the timesinks of pre tbc. Only reason the raids in vanilla were hard was because you had to carry all the brainless people in your guild. Getting 40 good players was almost impossible.
The game has gotten way more elitist now, if waving your e-peen is your forte.
Sure, but the game overall has become way too easy. It didn't take me long to get 20k gold and buy a chopper, and some high level gear.
Back in those days it would be hard to get 1000 gold to buy a mount. And back then the mounts costed 1000g not the training.
Purpose in life is not to gain things, but experience. - Rover64dd
Have you even played after BC? Raids nowadays are much much harder than in vanilla and by hard i mean difficult, not the timesinks of pre tbc. Only reason the raids in vanilla were hard was because you had to carry all the brainless people in your guild. Getting 40 good players was almost impossible.
The game has gotten way more elitist now, if waving your e-peen is your forte.
Sure, but the game overall has become way too easy. It didn't take me long to get 20k gold and buy a chopper, and some high level gear.
Back in those days it would be hard to get 1000 gold to buy a mount. And back then the mounts costed 1000g not the training.
You could get an epic mount in just a week or two in vanilla. I don't remember it being that hard, and as for overall easiness i think you mean timesinks? I'm glad they got rid of those.
I started playing WOW shortly after it came out and played up until a few weeks before the first x-pac was released.
I was a "hardcore" player... a MT in a large guild... I raided 4 nights a week, 4-5 hours a night... I was one of the 1st on my realm to get full T2 back when it actually meant something...
When the x-pac was announced I knew it was the end of the game... Sure it would take it a while to die, but the glory days were over... and I was right...
Here's what went wrong...
#1. Serious MMO players devote lots of time to character development... grinding, leveling, and acquiring gear... Its a status symbol... It's like having a BMW or Mercedes in the real world... You see someone with leet raid gear and you know they've "paid their dues"... Lots of nights raiding 4-5 hours a night...
When the x-pac was announced, Blizzard decided to allow existing players to obtain vastly better gear without 1st finishing the existing content. That was a MAJOR slap in the face to raiders and proved that Blizzard had absolutely no respect for the time and effort that dedicated players had invested in character development.
It would have been really easy to have required existing players to finish Naxx to get a "key" that allowed them access to x-pac areas where they could then "unlock" level 61 and starting leveling again.
They could have prevented level 60 players from grouping with level 61+ level players to prevent higher level players from "rushing" lower level players thru existing content.
If Blizzard has done this, then you would still have players running Molten Core, Oxynia, BWL, etc and serious players wouldn't have been raped of 2 years of character development.
#2. 40 man raids were epic. Changing 40 man instances to 20 man was incredibly stupid. For starters, it destroyed untold thousands of raid guilds... Bench 1/2 your 40 man raid guild you've been playing with for 2 years... Yeah, right...
It was also bad because it destroyed the continuity of the game... Another slap in the face to serious players... If a player wants to get where I am in the game, I want them to have to do what I had to do to get there... Otherwise, there is no character development... No standard by which players are judged...
#3. Battlegrounds suck... Anyone remember Southshore? So what if it got a little laggy at times... It was real... and it was fun...
So there you have it... Now I'm sure some would say... But casual players would have never bought the x-pac if they had to finish 40 man Naxx to unlock level 61 and new areas... Yeah they would have... Sure, you might have to slightly "nerf" the difficulty but that had been going on all along. IF Blizzard had added some goodies that everyone wanted like better crafting, player housing (done right), player stores with NPC traders to sell your goods... (take crafted items off the AH), guild forts, ships, etc in the x-pac areas, then the game would have become even more popular instead of slowing dying like it is now.
WOW could have been the start of something incredible... Instead, they tried to implement virtual Socialism... Let's make everyone equal... In the end, they just ruined the game...
I remember the night I logged off forever shortly before the 1st x-pac came out... I was been so into the game for so long... The guild has literally become a band of brothers. The xpac is going to rule they said... No it won't... it will ruin the game I said... You'll be back they said! No I won't I said... It was good while it lasted... and I still miss it to this day, but I don't miss what it became... As the years went by my old guildmates quit the game... In the end, most admited I had been right.
So that's the bad news... Wow was ruined...
The good news is, another company could easily "get it right"... The original WOW model works... Change the plot, update the graphics, state up front that you will respect the time that serious players invest in character development, and you would have a winner.
with close to 11 million active accounts you think these changes killed wow? damn if having 11 million active paid accounts is a dead mmo i wonder how many paid accounts it would take for this guy to say its active.
"Possibly we humans can exist without actually having to fight. But many of us have chosen to fight. For what reason? To protect something? Protect what? Ourselves? The future? If we kill people to protect ourselves and this future, then what sort of future is it, and what will we have become? There is no future for those who have died. And what of those who did the killing? Is happiness to be found in a future that is grasped with blood stained hands? Is that the truth?"
Originally posted by Harakiri Originally posted by Magter
Originally posted by Harakiri
Have you even played after BC? Raids nowadays are much much harder than in vanilla and by hard i mean difficult, not the timesinks of pre tbc. Only reason the raids in vanilla were hard was because you had to carry all the brainless people in your guild. Getting 40 good players was almost impossible. The game has gotten way more elitist now, if waving your e-peen is your forte.
Sure, but the game overall has become way too easy. It didn't take me long to get 20k gold and buy a chopper, and some high level gear. Back in those days it would be hard to get 1000 gold to buy a mount. And back then the mounts costed 1000g not the training. You could get an epic mount in just a week or two in vanilla. I don't remember it being that hard, and as for overall easiness i think you mean timesinks? I'm glad they got rid of those.
Are you saying that in 1-2 weeks of playing time you could reach 60 and have an epic mount in WoW? Or do you mean that if you focused on just getting the epic mount after you reached 60, you could do it in 1-2 weeks of saving?
Current: None Played: WoW, CoX, SWG, LotRO, EVE, AoC, VG, CO, Ryzom, DF, WAR Tried: Lineage2, Dofus, EQ2, CoS, FE, UO, Wurm, Wakfu Future: The Repopulation, ArcheAge, Black Desert, EQN
I guess I should have said titled the thread "what ruined wow"...
Yeah, i'm sure people still play it... and if all you are going to do is get a couple lvl 30 characters then it's pretty much the same game it was when it was released... And I guess there's a lot of people that that is the extent of their experience... I'm talking about serious players... The hundreds of thousands of players who used to raid 3-4 nights a week...
People say "Oh, all the old time raiders all burned out"...
Yeah, they burned out allright... They got tired of having the time they invested in character development wiped out every x-pac.
I mean, if you are going to have to constantly start over, why even play an MMO? Just play a FPS and be done with it.
Despite the 11 or 12 pages this thread has grown into, this was all that needed to be read.
After I read this it made sense to me.
You are mad that you spent 2 years of your life to become the top dog on a server, and when BC dropped you went back to being a mutt.
Well you see the thing is all you had to do was spend 7 days with your guild getting to level 70 then you could have enjoyed another year or so being top dog in all the BC "serious" dungeons that it offered.
Then once wotlk came out you could have spent another 7 days to get to 80 with your guild and be raiding "serious" ICC25H like all of the rest of us do.
WoW still very much has it's "serious" and "hardcore" group of players. Difference is we didn't whine and cry when we had to drop down to 25m groups or /slitwrist we had to give up a suit of T3 and some weapons. WoW evolved and for most of us we just evolved with it.
You see people complain all the time that "Wow is dumbed down and caters only to instant gratification players". I just laugh at these people because I would really like to see their armory link. People who say those kind of things couldn't cut it in BC, can't cut it in WotLK and won't be able to cut it in Cata either. Unless you link me an armory where you have downed 25m Heroic LK and have a full suit of heroic T10 you really have no right to say anything is easy, because you have no clue what the hell your even talking about.
WoW has plenty of fun left in it. I am in the #2 Raiding guild on my server, #1 at times, just depends on which one of us down the new bosses first, and I even just started up a Classic raiding guild of level 60 locked players to experince vanilla again and have fun.
Point to all this is, You could have still been a serious top dog player raiding 4-5 nights a week 5 hours a night, but you chose not to over some digital armor and time spent to aquire it, which is fine, that is totally on you, but wow does still very much offer what you refer to as a serious experience you just don't want to see it. Neither do any of these other players who complain that wow is easy and wow is this and wow is that.
Have you even played after BC? Raids nowadays are much much harder than in vanilla and by hard i mean difficult, not the timesinks of pre tbc. Only reason the raids in vanilla were hard was because you had to carry all the brainless people in your guild. Getting 40 good players was almost impossible.
The game has gotten way more elitist now, if waving your e-peen is your forte.
Sure, but the game overall has become way too easy. It didn't take me long to get 20k gold and buy a chopper, and some high level gear.
Back in those days it would be hard to get 1000 gold to buy a mount. And back then the mounts costed 1000g not the training.
You could get an epic mount in just a week or two in vanilla. I don't remember it being that hard, and as for overall easiness i think you mean timesinks? I'm glad they got rid of those.
Are you saying that in 1-2 weeks of playing time you could reach 60 and have an epic mount in WoW? Or do you mean that if you focused on just getting the epic mount after you reached 60, you could do it in 1-2 weeks of saving?
I meant 1-2 weeks of grinding after you've gotten lvl60 depending on how long you play (even less maybe). Getting my epic flying mount was way harder.
Too bad i didn't know how to exploit the AH back then Only way to get gold capped
When the x-pac was announced, Blizzard decided to allow existing players to obtain vastly better gear without 1st finishing the existing content. That was a MAJOR slap in the face to raiders and proved that Blizzard had absolutely no respect for the time and effort that dedicated players had invested in character development.
It would have been really easy to have required existing players to finish Naxx to get a "key" that allowed them access to x-pac areas where they could then "unlock" level 61 and starting leveling again.
They could have prevented level 60 players from grouping with level 61+ level players to prevent higher level players from "rushing" lower level players thru existing content.
If Blizzard has done this, then you would still have players running Molten Core, Oxynia, BWL, etc and serious players wouldn't have been raped of 2 years of character development.
What you write makes totally no sense. You want to have players buy an expansion with new areas, and them not allow them to enter them, but instead force them to complete raid dungeons first? You know that selling an expansion and forcing people to do old stuff first for weeks is the fastest way to kill a game, right?
I mean, that players complain about item resets... that's so old. Just think man, THINK! The players who complain about item resets are just the same players, who stand for hours an end with their oh-so-impressive mount at places with many people, in the hopes of getting admired. They don't raid to tackle content with friends, they raid so they can pose and show off in front of total strangers.
I know you won't read this, or if you do you will try your best not to understand it. But: Item resets are necessary and are a good thing. If you have new expansion content for raid-geared players, than those who just level a character from scratch and reach the new expansion areas would be screwed. With their gear, they'd have no chance. And that is not entertaining. It would make them stop playing.
If the new areas would be tuned for non-raiders, then that would mean that anyone who raided couldn't use any quest rewards (because they'd be crappy compared to the old raid gear) and everyone would be even easier than it would be now. You'd faceroll from quest to quest knowing that you won't find any item you would use anyway. Is that fun? NO IT'S NOT!
Item resets are necessary. They give a fresh start for people, and people love fresh starts. They create an even playing field for the new areas, giving new players and old raiders the same tools, allowing an easy balancing for the areas to have them at the right difficulty level for all players, and offer usable quest rewards for everyone.
#2. 40 man raids were epic. Changing 40 man instances to 20 man was incredibly stupid. For starters, it destroyed untold thousands of raid guilds... Bench 1/2 your 40 man raid guild you've been playing with for 2 years... Yeah, right...
First, "benching" them doesn't make sense. You could just split them. So everyone would still be raiding. I agree, old 40 people raids were fun. I'd like to see them too. But they also had their disadvantages. The normal player in such a raid wouldn't matter. If you are a great DD and you die in a 40 man raid, you say "whatever" and go away for a while to get a drink. It doesn't really matter if you are there or not. That is not that entertaining. Also, it takes a huge amount of coordination and planning to get those raids going, thus allowing oly maybe 10% of all players to see that content. And creating content for only 10% of the players ain't such a great idea. Not to mention that getting the raid ready after a wipe takes a loooong time, until everyone is ready and buffed wnat whatnot. So, I think they had their ups and downs. They were funny, but also had many downsides, so I don't miss them that much.
#3. Battlegrounds suck... Anyone remember Southshore? So what if it got a little laggy at times... It was real... and it was fun...
South Shore was an exception. It existed in the short time when the titles and PvP rewards were new and fun stuff, and no BGs yet to grind them in. If those South shore battles would have been fun in the long run? I doubt it. It was a mindless slaughter back and forth. For a while it was fun, but I'm pretty sure that after a longer time, people would have gotten bored of it easily.
I personally think PvP in MMORPGs sucks in general. If I want PvP, I play LoL or TF2 or MTGO or whatever. Something where you can just hop in and everyone is having about the same chance. In MMORPG PvP, most of the time the player who spent most time grinding wins. That's boring. So I don't really care about south shore or BGs.
Next:
WoW is not dead, and wasn't killed yet. An MMORPG is dead if either noone is playing it (which ain't true for WoW) or it's servers were shut down. Neither is the case for WoW, so it's not dead. many people are playing it and having fun. I agree with you that some of the ways the game was changed over the years weren't right, and a lot of things could have been better. But Item Resets or 40 man raids are not among those reasons.
Originally posted by Harakiri Originally posted by Nizur
Originally posted by Harakiri
Originally posted by Magter
Originally posted by Harakiri
Have you even played after BC? Raids nowadays are much much harder than in vanilla and by hard i mean difficult, not the timesinks of pre tbc. Only reason the raids in vanilla were hard was because you had to carry all the brainless people in your guild. Getting 40 good players was almost impossible. The game has gotten way more elitist now, if waving your e-peen is your forte.
Sure, but the game overall has become way too easy. It didn't take me long to get 20k gold and buy a chopper, and some high level gear. Back in those days it would be hard to get 1000 gold to buy a mount. And back then the mounts costed 1000g not the training.
You could get an epic mount in just a week or two in vanilla. I don't remember it being that hard, and as for overall easiness i think you mean timesinks? I'm glad they got rid of those.
Are you saying that in 1-2 weeks of playing time you could reach 60 and have an epic mount in WoW? Or do you mean that if you focused on just getting the epic mount after you reached 60, you could do it in 1-2 weeks of saving? I meant 1-2 weeks of grinding after you've gotten lvl60 depending on how long you play (even less maybe). Getting my epic flying mount was way harder. Too bad i didn't know how to exploit the AH back then Only way to get gold capped
That sounds about right. For me, though, I found it easier getting my epic flying mount than my first epic land mount. I felt like I had really completed something when I got that skeletal warhorse. The epic flying mount was also cool, but just felt easier for some reason. Can't really say why though.
Current: None Played: WoW, CoX, SWG, LotRO, EVE, AoC, VG, CO, Ryzom, DF, WAR Tried: Lineage2, Dofus, EQ2, CoS, FE, UO, Wurm, Wakfu Future: The Repopulation, ArcheAge, Black Desert, EQN
~ T5 for badges! Activision-Merger Kaplan the PvE giving his job to fucking Chilton (moron killed UO with Trammel) Wotlk no idiotic-modes and achievements aren't worth a damn
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play." "Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
I just hope that in 5 years we can look to WoW the same way we look to EQ today
What as the game that introduced MMOs to the uneducated masses and ruined the genre.....
it may get a tag as the way to get ludicrousley rich of of the back of muppets. But other than that it's a nothing game that adds little.
Says the egotistical hermit that lurk forums like this thinking that the small group of fanatical players here are the machine that move this genre. New flash! People that play mmos are far more educated about the game they play, at least enough to know what game they think deserves their hard earned cash. And the gaming media seems to be in agreement with them as WoW has earned more accolades than any other MMO in the history of MMOs....
That's because simple games like WoW and Farmvile sell well to simple people. There are many more simple people out there than people who desire depth or challenge. WoW was not innovative, WoW was not unique, its as bland and middle of the road as you can get, but you put the MASSIVE Blizzard marketing budget behind it and well, there it is. WoW has no unique gameplay features, just dumbed down EverQuest gameplay. EQ was a radical innovation and brought MMORPGs into the 3D universe. People will remember EQ as the game that started MMOs in 3D (while UO will be remembered as the first real big MMO). WoW will be remembered as the shift towards the farmvile/non gamer crowd. A collection of mini games rather than a full fledged MMO.
Such nonsense but if it feeds your ego so be it, Sony was a much bigger than Blizzard when WoW was released and Sony had a large MMO user base to feed off, and what happened? WoW destoryed EQ2 on word of mouth alone EQ2 was more complicated than WoW, ran a lot worse, and had much much MUCH less advertisement than WoW did., that is what powered WoW's popularity and still does I'm sure it has nothing to do with Mr. T commercials on prime time TV, something no other company can afford. Most of what WoW is it took from the Diablo games not EQ. Wrong, wrong in every way imaginable
Nice long thread, I try to provide a summary reply instead of quoting everyone.
To all those self proclaimed "hard core" players, drop it. You spent countless hours grinding in a game for years. So? You spent years drinking a beer or eating some odd branded breads. That makes you special? Worst still you do not pay more for occupying the largest share of bandwidth, much like you eat like a hungry dog in a buffet, and proclaim that you need to be given special treatment, that sounds logical? You are nothing special, you pay the same monthly but you consume more resources of Blizz than an average client. You are leeching on the other client's subscription money.
40 man raids are epic? For the 40. How many 40 man raids are running regularly? How many subscribers get to enjoy that kind of content? They do not deserve it? They pay less than you? Now we have 5 man, 10 man, 25 man raids. We can form random groups out of 5 man, we can try to shout out in trade channels and grab some random members or friends to run a 10 or 25. A significantly larger portion of the subscribers can try their hands on the raids. What makes you think they should be barred from trying, after paying much the same fees as you do? Just because you believe you put in your hours enjoying the game, not contributing to the rest of the subscribers? You go to the park every day, littering the park and develop the unfound notion that the park should only be open to you, because you spend more hours making a hell of the place there? That is your logic?
Battleground sucks, you like to pillage level 20s zones because at 60, you can kill the NPC guards and disrupt the other side's younger players, making it painful for them to level. Since you love it, you need them to suffer. Since you love it, Blizzard is not allowed to add in new elements in the game? How selfish. There is no change in Southshore, you can still go there. But the majority of the players, serious pvpers, do not go, and you dare not go alone, because you only want to pillage when you have absolute numerical advantage. So much for your big talks, you just want to bully younger opponents in smaller numbers.
You said Blizz should add in player houses, forts ... no argument. It is always nice to have more elements in any game. But I tend to believe, Blizzard has more stuffs in WoW than any game, comparing one-on-one. I do not ever believe one game can provide them all, so if you want player houses, go find another game. You like player house, and since you play WoW, Blizz must provide it? Oh well, you see too much in your $15 a month.
So Blizzard is dying. After maintaining sub at 10million + for like 4 years, and never suffer decline in revenue, it must be dying. Oh you and me are dying too. Everything is dying the moment it is borned. Even our mother earth is dying, so is the immortal sun. Blizzard is dying too, even though it is the biggest one out there. Big deal.
"If a player wants to get where I am in the game, I want them to have to do what I had to do to get there". You decide what the other gamers need to do to play there game? Because, for the sake of argument, that you are stupid and you make 100s of mistakes getting to level up, you insist they must suffer the same penalties? Some of us make thousands of mistakes in levelling, in crafting, in questing, and we post shortcuts in the internet to provide information to the next batch of pioneers. What do you want to do? Tear down the websites and information sources? Pathetic, you suffer, so your kids need to suffer the same too.
"WoW was just a copy of EverQuest for people with ADD. It has half the features, and most of them are just the bad grindy features, none of the redeeming social ones." Cannot dispute your views, but thousands, tens of thousands abandoned their characters in EQ1, and moved to WoW. My entire "guild" left, not one member stayed in EQ, and we formed out WoW guild. Many of us have concurrent sub, mainly WoW + DAoC, but no one, none that I know of, ever goes back to EQ1 after moving to WoW. If WoW is grindy, what is EQ1 at start? Camping the same bosses for 24 hours, hoping for a rare spawn, and then hoping for a rare drop. Camping the same spot for hours trying to ninja a rare spawn, which only spawns once every 48 hours. That feature of EQ1 is good, while the diversity and gentle levelling curve of WoW is half featured and grindy. Your view, I cannot see any logic there myself. Social features in EQ1? Oh yeah, I remember yelling for hours in the East Common tunnels, or hours outside a dungeon, yelling and waiting for an opening in any of the 24/7 camped bosses. So much for social, we talk nonsense, as we wait for a campspot, we talk nonsense as we sit idle waiting for a boss spawn. So much for social. It is like chats among prisoners, as you have nowhere to go for months.
"They dont care if the mass are 12-16y old kids...." The same old myth. Do you or anyone have any proof that the demography is kid heavy? Everyone in my guild is 25+ during the EQ1 days, we know each other during the EQ1 days, we meet for lunch, yes I have met all except 1. We are now 30+, the oldest being 60. I have met a lot of people in WoW, we use vent for raids and few are young, very very few. I have no idea how many kids are playing WoW, but after being in 3 servers since, I feel that kids are not that many. Your views, my views, none of us have proves.
"I mean, if you are going to have to constantly start over, why even play an MMO? Just play a FPS and be done with it. " Your gear is being replaced by something else in the xpac, that is bad? You want WoW to stop offering new gear, new stuffs, AFTER YOU OBTAINED WHAT YOU THINK IS BEST, SO THAT YOU CAN TOUT OTHERS FOR BEING INFERIOR TO YOU IN GEAR? Good lord, you really care for the rest of us, making sure we look inferior to you, making sure in the future xpacs, there is no competition for you. Sorry pal, wake up, the world changes. After you get your degree, even if it is a doctorate, you still need to catch up. World changes, you can hang on to old glories, but that is old. After winning the NBA title for a year, the NBAs should not run next year, since it wipes the ranking last year. I see your logic.
"Not really... it just dimishes the value..." Value to whom? What value? It is a game, value of which depends on who plays and what that player wants from a game. Your value is not mine, I want fun from a game, and forget it afterwards.
"But when it comes to character development and raiding, WOW is dead..." Really? What is character development? I found that there are more to character development in WoW than most games. There are so many attributes, so much theorycrafting, that is almost sick. There are so many side skills, from 2 main professions out of a bunch to choose from, add in cooking fishing first aid. Oh these are not development. And now the endless list of achievement, these are not development, what is? Whatever you already have done, as in collecting T2, is development. Progress should stop because you already make it near the top. That is your view of development, development = keeping you on top. Nice try.
"Nothing killed WoW but in my opinion Blizzard dumbed down the game way to much by making everything soloable and Dungeon finder is just an excuse to not have to merge servers." They fixed a problem with a new technology no other company ever dares. That is bad? Many servers are full during peak hours and you think they need to merge? Good logic.
"What really got me to quit myself are the newer generation of WoW players who know nothing about Vanilla and BC. Back before the dawn of heroic raids." they need a history lesson before they can join and play a game? Why do they need to know about vanilla days? There is glory in there?
....
Enough rambling. WoW is not perfect, but before you throw in your hatred poets, please try to make sense, and remove your personal grudge from the critcisms. Almost none I read makes sense, only angry words from selfish people who want to stop others from enjoying a game.
Go play your game and stop worrying how I play mine. I do not care about you, and you can try to do that too.
I just hope that in 5 years we can look to WoW the same way we look to EQ today
What as the game that introduced MMOs to the uneducated masses and ruined the genre.....
it may get a tag as the way to get ludicrousley rich of of the back of muppets. But other than that it's a nothing game that adds little.
Says the egotistical hermit that lurk forums like this thinking that the small group of fanatical players here are the machine that move this genre. New flash! People that play mmos are far more educated about the game they play, at least enough to know what game they think deserves their hard earned cash. And the gaming media seems to be in agreement with them as WoW has earned more accolades than any other MMO in the history of MMOs....
Not getting into a debate about WOW but in general would you care to prove that the current mmo consumer base is more educated about games? The prevalence of cash shop games and substandard products would point to the opposite of what you are saying, which leads onto the second point..
You say hard earned cash, well in fairness the current trend of 'cash for ig points' points more to an era of easy credit and a consumer base that lives on easy credit and has no idea of the value of money. Besides a significant portion of people who play the predominantly casual mmos on the market are teenages and kids.. who have no sense of hard earned cash lets face it lol.
Whilst I said I wouldn't at the start, I just have to bite, the Ford Mondeo has more won accolades then the Bugatti Veyron, but I know which one i'd rather have.
Who said games? I said the GAME they play....go ahead read it again and you will see this is a cold hard fact. People that play a certain game...whatever game it may be are more knowledgrable about it. That means they are actively learning about the game they play. And that proves that as long as WoW throws more content out there for their players, their players learn more. It's not like they have to unlearn everything they've learn just to learn something new.
And what's more aggrogant to assume, that people have earned the right to spend their money or these are kids given money to spend on frivilous things.....then my good friend all games are frivilous by nature.....
I've read it again and once again it looks like an opinion, not a cold hard fact. Sorry to disillusion you there.
It's not arrogant at all, I proffered it as an opinion, not as a 'cold hard fact', there is a clear dilineation in that, which you should perhaps take on board.
The "cold hard fact" is that I SAID: People who play MMOs are far more educated about the game they play. I'll even point it out to you both times (look for my words in red) No where did I say: People who play MMOs are far more educated about games. A point you're for some reason nitpicking at and trying to debunk.
Why in the world would I say that and I didn't have any proof to back it up? Isn't it obvious that if a person plays a game they will in FACT know more about it? I mean as compared to knowing more about something they don't play! This is commonsense is it not? Why must you and this tool infested forum be so inclined to keep believing that idoits and children play WoW and long time MMO fans shun it with every mention of the name. When in FACT it's been proven time and time again that hard earning mmo vets DO play WoW and enjoy doing so.
It's not because it's easy, it's not because it's pc/mac friendly, but it sure as hell could be that it continues blowing down houses that the little elite piggies keep trying to build up and hide in.
Firstly, so what if people who play an mmo gradually learn more about the mechanics of said game? Unless they play other games then they have no basis to form an opinion of it in terms of the genre at large, furthermore they will become increasingly biased towards it moving away from fact into falsehoods. Eitherway it means exactly squat, whether you play n mmo for 1 week or for 5 years the mechanics of it are the same.
Amusing that you bang on about hard earning mmo vets and then go on to mention elite little piggies. Trying to have your cake and eat it much? Note, when saying something is a fact, back it up. You see many of those oldschool mmo players are playing indie games or simply are not playing mmos at all (I know i'm one of them as are many people i've gamed with). I would love to see your source though which shows exactly which UO (for example) players went to WOW as you seem to be speaking as though you have some kind of insider knowledge
Oh and no, it really is because its easy, easy and addictive.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
I just hope that in 5 years we can look to WoW the same way we look to EQ today
What as the game that introduced MMOs to the uneducated masses and ruined the genre.....
it may get a tag as the way to get ludicrousley rich of of the back of muppets. But other than that it's a nothing game that adds little.
Says the egotistical hermit that lurk forums like this thinking that the small group of fanatical players here are the machine that move this genre. New flash! People that play mmos are far more educated about the game they play, at least enough to know what game they think deserves their hard earned cash. And the gaming media seems to be in agreement with them as WoW has earned more accolades than any other MMO in the history of MMOs....
Not getting into a debate about WOW but in general would you care to prove that the current mmo consumer base is more educated about games? The prevalence of cash shop games and substandard products would point to the opposite of what you are saying, which leads onto the second point..
You say hard earned cash, well in fairness the current trend of 'cash for ig points' points more to an era of easy credit and a consumer base that lives on easy credit and has no idea of the value of money. Besides a significant portion of people who play the predominantly casual mmos on the market are teenages and kids.. who have no sense of hard earned cash lets face it lol.
Whilst I said I wouldn't at the start, I just have to bite, the Ford Mondeo has more won accolades then the Bugatti Veyron, but I know which one i'd rather have.
Who said games? I said the GAME they play....go ahead read it again and you will see this is a cold hard fact. People that play a certain game...whatever game it may be are more knowledgrable about it. That means they are actively learning about the game they play. And that proves that as long as WoW throws more content out there for their players, their players learn more. It's not like they have to unlearn everything they've learn just to learn something new.
And what's more aggrogant to assume, that people have earned the right to spend their money or these are kids given money to spend on frivilous things.....then my good friend all games are frivilous by nature.....
I've read it again and once again it looks like an opinion, not a cold hard fact. Sorry to disillusion you there.
It's not arrogant at all, I proffered it as an opinion, not as a 'cold hard fact', there is a clear dilineation in that, which you should perhaps take on board.
The "cold hard fact" is that I SAID: People who play MMOs are far more educated about the game they play. I'll even point it out to you both times (look for my words in red) No where did I say: People who play MMOs are far more educated about games. A point you're for some reason nitpicking at and trying to debunk.
Why in the world would I say that and I didn't have any proof to back it up? Isn't it obvious that if a person plays a game they will in FACT know more about it? I mean as compared to knowing more about something they don't play! This is commonsense is it not? Why must you and this tool infested forum be so inclined to keep believing that idoits and children play WoW and long time MMO fans shun it with every mention of the name. When in FACT it's been proven time and time again that hard earning mmo vets DO play WoW and enjoy doing so.
It's not because it's easy, it's not because it's pc/mac friendly, but it sure as hell could be that it continues blowing down houses that the little elite piggies keep trying to build up and hide in.
Firstly, so what if people who play an mmo gradually learn more about the mechanics of said game? Unless they play other games then they have no basis to form an opinion of it in terms of the genre at large, furthermore they will become increasingly biased towards it moving away from fact into falsehoods. Eitherway it means exactly squat, whether you play n mmo for 1 week or for 5 years the mechanics of it are the same.
Amusing that you bang on about hard earning mmo vets and then go on to mention elite little piggies. Trying to have your cake and eat it much? Note, when saying something is a fact, back it up. You see many of those oldschool mmo players are playing indie games or simply are not playing mmos at all (I know i'm one of them as are many people i've gamed with). I would love to see your source though which shows exactly which UO (for example) players went to WOW as you seem to be speaking as though you have some kind of insider knowledge
Oh and no, it really is because its easy, easy and addictive.
You 2 want to talk to a MMO Vet for real? I have been playing online games since about oh say 1994 back when everyone was playing MUD's(you know hte precurser to MMORPG's) I didnt play my first MMORPG untill 2001. When I compare the info given then to the info out now Id have to agree with Ramonski7 the players of today have a much broader selction of sites to go to to get info on a MMO before they have to shell out money to buy and play it. Hell for WoW Alone i have 6 websites open on tabs on my browser on my laptop. COmpared to my first MMO Asheron's call which only 1 site had decent info(Maggie the Jackcat FTW!). Between 2001 and Today I have tried many different MMO's and some of them the game mechanics are the same. WHy is that? Cause they work. A wise man once said "If it isnt broken dont fix it". SUre Future MMO's will had their own little flairs to the game but the info on how to get to max level will continously get easier and easier to find. Oh and just for the record the number of MMO's iave played for more than 2 years(imo at 2 years you can say your a vet of that game) is 7 the longest being a tie between World of Warcraft and Asheron's Call at 4 years a peice.
"Possibly we humans can exist without actually having to fight. But many of us have chosen to fight. For what reason? To protect something? Protect what? Ourselves? The future? If we kill people to protect ourselves and this future, then what sort of future is it, and what will we have become? There is no future for those who have died. And what of those who did the killing? Is happiness to be found in a future that is grasped with blood stained hands? Is that the truth?"
I just hope that in 5 years we can look to WoW the same way we look to EQ today
What as the game that introduced MMOs to the uneducated masses and ruined the genre.....
it may get a tag as the way to get ludicrousley rich of of the back of muppets. But other than that it's a nothing game that adds little.
Says the egotistical hermit that lurk forums like this thinking that the small group of fanatical players here are the machine that move this genre. New flash! People that play mmos are far more educated about the game they play, at least enough to know what game they think deserves their hard earned cash. And the gaming media seems to be in agreement with them as WoW has earned more accolades than any other MMO in the history of MMOs....
Not getting into a debate about WOW but in general would you care to prove that the current mmo consumer base is more educated about games? The prevalence of cash shop games and substandard products would point to the opposite of what you are saying, which leads onto the second point..
You say hard earned cash, well in fairness the current trend of 'cash for ig points' points more to an era of easy credit and a consumer base that lives on easy credit and has no idea of the value of money. Besides a significant portion of people who play the predominantly casual mmos on the market are teenages and kids.. who have no sense of hard earned cash lets face it lol.
Whilst I said I wouldn't at the start, I just have to bite, the Ford Mondeo has more won accolades then the Bugatti Veyron, but I know which one i'd rather have.
Who said games? I said the GAME they play....go ahead read it again and you will see this is a cold hard fact. People that play a certain game...whatever game it may be are more knowledgrable about it. That means they are actively learning about the game they play. And that proves that as long as WoW throws more content out there for their players, their players learn more. It's not like they have to unlearn everything they've learn just to learn something new.
And what's more aggrogant to assume, that people have earned the right to spend their money or these are kids given money to spend on frivilous things.....then my good friend all games are frivilous by nature.....
I've read it again and once again it looks like an opinion, not a cold hard fact. Sorry to disillusion you there.
It's not arrogant at all, I proffered it as an opinion, not as a 'cold hard fact', there is a clear dilineation in that, which you should perhaps take on board.
The "cold hard fact" is that I SAID: People who play MMOs are far more educated about the game they play. I'll even point it out to you both times (look for my words in red) No where did I say: People who play MMOs are far more educated about games. A point you're for some reason nitpicking at and trying to debunk.
Why in the world would I say that and I didn't have any proof to back it up? Isn't it obvious that if a person plays a game they will in FACT know more about it? I mean as compared to knowing more about something they don't play! This is commonsense is it not? Why must you and this tool infested forum be so inclined to keep believing that idoits and children play WoW and long time MMO fans shun it with every mention of the name. When in FACT it's been proven time and time again that hard earning mmo vets DO play WoW and enjoy doing so.
It's not because it's easy, it's not because it's pc/mac friendly, but it sure as hell could be that it continues blowing down houses that the little elite piggies keep trying to build up and hide in.
Firstly, so what if people who play an mmo gradually learn more about the mechanics of said game? Unless they play other games then they have no basis to form an opinion of it in terms of the genre at large, furthermore they will become increasingly biased towards it moving away from fact into falsehoods. Eitherway it means exactly squat, whether you play n mmo for 1 week or for 5 years the mechanics of it are the same.
Amusing that you bang on about hard earning mmo vets and then go on to mention elite little piggies. Trying to have your cake and eat it much? Note, when saying something is a fact, back it up. You see many of those oldschool mmo players are playing indie games or simply are not playing mmos at all (I know i'm one of them as are many people i've gamed with). I would love to see your source though which shows exactly which UO (for example) players went to WOW as you seem to be speaking as though you have some kind of insider knowledge
Oh and no, it really is because its easy, easy and addictive.
You 2 want to talk to a MMO Vet for real? I have been playing online games since about oh say 1994 back when everyone was playing MUD's(you know hte precurser to MMORPG's) I didnt play my first MMORPG untill 2001. When I compare the info given then to the info out now Id have to agree with Ramonski7 the players of today have a much broader selction of sites to go to to get info on a MMO before they have to shell out money to buy and play it. Hell for WoW Alone i have 6 websites open on tabs on my browser on my laptop. COmpared to my first MMO Asheron's call which only 1 site had decent info(Maggie the Jackcat FTW!). Between 2001 and Today I have tried many different MMO's and some of them the game mechanics are the same. WHy is that? Cause they work. A wise man once said "If it isnt broken dont fix it". SUre Future MMO's will had their own little flairs to the game but the info on how to get to max level will continously get easier and easier to find. Oh and just for the record the number of MMO's iave played for more than 2 years(imo at 2 years you can say your a vet of that game) is 7 the longest being a tie between World of Warcraft and Asheron's Call at 4 years a peice.
An MMO vet for real, golly gosh really? Lulz aside (but thanks for them) lets have a look at exactly what you have said.
1. There are more websites giving info on games, well yep I have to agree with that, but remind me whats the point of that argument again? You can have all the info in the world about a game, it doesn't change the games mechanics. There are numerous sites about EVE, about Darkfall, about all the mmos, it has little to do with why a specific mmo lives or dies, it merely points to the fact we live in an information rich age. So lets drop that one eh..
2. Some of the games mechanics are the same...yes and? Some are very different, whats the point again? You can have two mmos with certain matching mechanics and they can still be very different games. WoW has succeeded because its made its game as an overall package far more polished, accessible and far more addictive. Nothing more, nothing less, it's a credit to them as a company, but it doesn't mean that all of us think it's how an mmo should be done.
3. Not all MMO's have levels for a start, and regardless of info sites (people will always want the fastest route), some games take far, far longer to 'max' then others. Regardless once again, info sites have zip to do with the quality of a game, but more to do with how long the game has been out.
4. 2 Years to be a vet is in your definition, its an arbitary term which means different things to different people. Go on the SWG forums (on second thoughts I wouldn't wish that on anyone lol) and tell them 2 years of playing a game makes you a vet and see how they react.
The mmo scene/community has changed, people want casual, easy to access and yes simplistic mmos. They want to be able to buy ig items and points instead of having to grind them. Blizz has captured this market and in doing so should be applauded, its an extremely well run company that turns out polished products that are better then its specific competitors.
But there are gamers who don't think that yet another wow clone is what the market needs every time an mmo comes out. Hard as it may be to fathom some people would like to see some innovation, some people do still like sandboxes, some do like skill progression not the same tired old levels and profs, some want FFA pvp, some want in depth crafting. Some simply put, prefer the oldschool mmos. True, as the current mmo market stands games like EVE are niche products, but as in the case of the Bugatti analogy from before, these mechanically and content wise are better mmos imo.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
I just hope that in 5 years we can look to WoW the same way we look to EQ today
What as the game that introduced MMOs to the uneducated masses and ruined the genre.....
it may get a tag as the way to get ludicrousley rich of of the back of muppets. But other than that it's a nothing game that adds little.
Says the egotistical hermit that lurk forums like this thinking that the small group of fanatical players here are the machine that move this genre. New flash! People that play mmos are far more educated about the game they play, at least enough to know what game they think deserves their hard earned cash. And the gaming media seems to be in agreement with them as WoW has earned more accolades than any other MMO in the history of MMOs....
Not getting into a debate about WOW but in general would you care to prove that the current mmo consumer base is more educated about games? The prevalence of cash shop games and substandard products would point to the opposite of what you are saying, which leads onto the second point..
You say hard earned cash, well in fairness the current trend of 'cash for ig points' points more to an era of easy credit and a consumer base that lives on easy credit and has no idea of the value of money. Besides a significant portion of people who play the predominantly casual mmos on the market are teenages and kids.. who have no sense of hard earned cash lets face it lol.
Whilst I said I wouldn't at the start, I just have to bite, the Ford Mondeo has more won accolades then the Bugatti Veyron, but I know which one i'd rather have.
Who said games? I said the GAME they play....go ahead read it again and you will see this is a cold hard fact. People that play a certain game...whatever game it may be are more knowledgrable about it. That means they are actively learning about the game they play. And that proves that as long as WoW throws more content out there for their players, their players learn more. It's not like they have to unlearn everything they've learn just to learn something new.
And what's more aggrogant to assume, that people have earned the right to spend their money or these are kids given money to spend on frivilous things.....then my good friend all games are frivilous by nature.....
I've read it again and once again it looks like an opinion, not a cold hard fact. Sorry to disillusion you there.
It's not arrogant at all, I proffered it as an opinion, not as a 'cold hard fact', there is a clear dilineation in that, which you should perhaps take on board.
The "cold hard fact" is that I SAID: People who play MMOs are far more educated about the game they play. I'll even point it out to you both times (look for my words in red) No where did I say: People who play MMOs are far more educated about games. A point you're for some reason nitpicking at and trying to debunk.
Why in the world would I say that and I didn't have any proof to back it up? Isn't it obvious that if a person plays a game they will in FACT know more about it? I mean as compared to knowing more about something they don't play! This is commonsense is it not? Why must you and this tool infested forum be so inclined to keep believing that idoits and children play WoW and long time MMO fans shun it with every mention of the name. When in FACT it's been proven time and time again that hard earning mmo vets DO play WoW and enjoy doing so.
It's not because it's easy, it's not because it's pc/mac friendly, but it sure as hell could be that it continues blowing down houses that the little elite piggies keep trying to build up and hide in.
Firstly, so what if people who play an mmo gradually learn more about the mechanics of said game? Unless they play other games then they have no basis to form an opinion of it in terms of the genre at large, furthermore they will become increasingly biased towards it moving away from fact into falsehoods. Eitherway it means exactly squat, whether you play n mmo for 1 week or for 5 years the mechanics of it are the same.
Amusing that you bang on about hard earning mmo vets and then go on to mention elite little piggies. Trying to have your cake and eat it much? Note, when saying something is a fact, back it up. You see many of those oldschool mmo players are playing indie games or simply are not playing mmos at all (I know i'm one of them as are many people i've gamed with). I would love to see your source though which shows exactly which UO (for example) players went to WOW as you seem to be speaking as though you have some kind of insider knowledge
Oh and no, it really is because its easy, easy and addictive.
You 2 want to talk to a MMO Vet for real? I have been playing online games since about oh say 1994 back when everyone was playing MUD's(you know hte precurser to MMORPG's) I didnt play my first MMORPG untill 2001. When I compare the info given then to the info out now Id have to agree with Ramonski7 the players of today have a much broader selction of sites to go to to get info on a MMO before they have to shell out money to buy and play it. Hell for WoW Alone i have 6 websites open on tabs on my browser on my laptop. COmpared to my first MMO Asheron's call which only 1 site had decent info(Maggie the Jackcat FTW!). Between 2001 and Today I have tried many different MMO's and some of them the game mechanics are the same. WHy is that? Cause they work. A wise man once said "If it isnt broken dont fix it". SUre Future MMO's will had their own little flairs to the game but the info on how to get to max level will continously get easier and easier to find. Oh and just for the record the number of MMO's iave played for more than 2 years(imo at 2 years you can say your a vet of that game) is 7 the longest being a tie between World of Warcraft and Asheron's Call at 4 years a peice.
An MMO vet for real, golly gosh really? Lulz aside (but thanks for them) lets have a look at exactly what you have said.
1. There are more websites giving info on games, well yep I have to agree with that, but remind me whats the point of that argument again? You can have all the info in the world about a game, it doesn't change the games mechanics. There are numerous sites about EVE, about Darkfall, about all the mmos, it has little to do with why a specific mmo lives or dies, it merely points to the fact we live in an information rich age. So lets drop that one eh..
2. Some of the games mechanics are the same...yes and? Some are very different, whats the point again? You can have two mmos with certain matching mechanics and they can still be very different games. WoW has succeeded because its made its game as an overall package far more polished, accessible and far more addictive. Nothing more, nothing less, it's a credit to them as a company, but it doesn't mean that all of us think it's how an mmo should be done.
3. Not all MMO's have levels for a start, and regardless of info sites (people will always want the fastest route), some games take far, far longer to 'max' then others. Regardless once again, info sites have zip to do with the quality of a game, but more to do with how long the game has been out.
4. 2 Years to be a vet is in your definition, its an arbitary term which means different things to different people. Go on the SWG forums (on second thoughts I wouldn't wish that on anyone lol) and tell them 2 years of playing a game makes you a vet and see how they react.
The mmo scene/community has changed, people want casual, easy to access and yes simplistic mmos. They want to be able to buy ig items and points instead of having to grind them. Blizz has captured this market and in doing so should be applauded, its an extremely well run company that turns out polished products that are better then its specific competitors.
But there are gamers who don't think that yet another wow clone is what the market needs every time an mmo comes out. Hard as it may be to fathom some people would like to see some innovation, some people do still like sandboxes, some do like skill progression not the same tired old levels and profs, some want FFA pvp, some want in depth crafting. Some simply put, prefer the oldschool mmos. True, as the current mmo market stands games like EVE are niche products, but as in the case of the Bugatti analogy from before, these mechanically and content wise are better mmos imo.
if your looking for unique in the MMO Genre your going to be waiting for a VERY long time. I have played EVERY type of MMO and their ALL the same. Even if the devs claim its not a grind its still a grind. you start out basic then grind your way to uber. Even EVE Online is a grind its just a grind in a different way instead of grinding out levels your grind and wait on skills that take real time to learn. This fact will never change if you want unique go play an offline game its the only place youll find it. as to my comment about 2 years in a game to be a vet i stated that it was my opinion not a definiton. As for SWG the only people youll find playing that waist of time are people who dont know better. All the true SWG vets are playing SWGEmu and waiting on SWTOR. WoW isnt dead and your idea that true die hard mmo players dont play wow is just as wrong. As of 2008 MMOGCharts.Com had WoW holding over 62% of the world wild mmo active accounts with Runescape(which in my opinion is NOT a MMO but hey thats my opinion) coming in 2nd with 7%. So it appears you and the OP are umm wrong people including your so called Die Hard MMO Gamers do play wow just because you dont doesnt mean others dont.
"Possibly we humans can exist without actually having to fight. But many of us have chosen to fight. For what reason? To protect something? Protect what? Ourselves? The future? If we kill people to protect ourselves and this future, then what sort of future is it, and what will we have become? There is no future for those who have died. And what of those who did the killing? Is happiness to be found in a future that is grasped with blood stained hands? Is that the truth?"
I started playing WOW shortly after it came out and played up until a few weeks before the first x-pac was released.
I was a "hardcore" player... a MT in a large guild... I raided 4 nights a week, 4-5 hours a night... I was one of the 1st on my realm to get full T2 back when it actually meant something...
When the x-pac was announced I knew it was the end of the game... Sure it would take it a while to die, but the glory days were over... and I was right...
Here's what went wrong...
#1. Serious MMO players devote lots of time to character development... grinding, leveling, and acquiring gear... Its a status symbol... It's like having a BMW or Mercedes in the real world... You see someone with leet raid gear and you know they've "paid their dues"... Lots of nights raiding 4-5 hours a night...
When the x-pac was announced, Blizzard decided to allow existing players to obtain vastly better gear without 1st finishing the existing content. That was a MAJOR slap in the face to raiders and proved that Blizzard had absolutely no respect for the time and effort that dedicated players had invested in character development.
It would have been really easy to have required existing players to finish Naxx to get a "key" that allowed them access to x-pac areas where they could then "unlock" level 61 and starting leveling again.
They could have prevented level 60 players from grouping with level 61+ level players to prevent higher level players from "rushing" lower level players thru existing content.
If Blizzard has done this, then you would still have players running Molten Core, Oxynia, BWL, etc and serious players wouldn't have been raped of 2 years of character development.
#2. 40 man raids were epic. Changing 40 man instances to 20 man was incredibly stupid. For starters, it destroyed untold thousands of raid guilds... Bench 1/2 your 40 man raid guild you've been playing with for 2 years... Yeah, right...
It was also bad because it destroyed the continuity of the game... Another slap in the face to serious players... If a player wants to get where I am in the game, I want them to have to do what I had to do to get there... Otherwise, there is no character development... No standard by which players are judged...
#3. Battlegrounds suck... Anyone remember Southshore? So what if it got a little laggy at times... It was real... and it was fun...
So there you have it... Now I'm sure some would say... But casual players would have never bought the x-pac if they had to finish 40 man Naxx to unlock level 61 and new areas... Yeah they would have... Sure, you might have to slightly "nerf" the difficulty but that had been going on all along. IF Blizzard had added some goodies that everyone wanted like better crafting, player housing (done right), player stores with NPC traders to sell your goods... (take crafted items off the AH), guild forts, ships, etc in the x-pac areas, then the game would have become even more popular instead of slowing dying like it is now.
WOW could have been the start of something incredible... Instead, they tried to implement virtual Socialism... Let's make everyone equal... In the end, they just ruined the game...
I remember the night I logged off forever shortly before the 1st x-pac came out... I was been so into the game for so long... The guild has literally become a band of brothers. The xpac is going to rule they said... No it won't... it will ruin the game I said... You'll be back they said! No I won't I said... It was good while it lasted... and I still miss it to this day, but I don't miss what it became... As the years went by my old guildmates quit the game... In the end, most admited I had been right.
So that's the bad news... Wow was ruined...
The good news is, another company could easily "get it right"... The original WOW model works... Change the plot, update the graphics, state up front that you will respect the time that serious players invest in character development, and you would have a winner.
I would like to comment on your three points.....
I am a wow player since the day it came out.....and still play it today due to lack of better MMO's
1. Char development??? RLY? its always been grind for ubergear imo. Not everyone has 4 to 5 hours every night to go raiding for that uber gear.....some of us have other hobby's then gaming.
2. changing from 40 to 20 whas the best thing that happend to our guild......we only had about 25 raiders and we had to coop with other guilds to get a raid going.......it took up to 2 hours sometimes to even get the raid groups complete, buffed and in place......not my idea of fun. 5 man heroic dungeons.....i LOVE them.
3. On this point i am 200% with you man......BG sux
I started playing WOW shortly after it came out and played up until a few weeks before the first x-pac was released.
I was a "hardcore" player... a MT in a large guild... I raided 4 nights a week, 4-5 hours a night... I was one of the 1st on my realm to get full T2 back when it actually meant something...
When the x-pac was announced I knew it was the end of the game... Sure it would take it a while to die, but the glory days were over... and I was right...
Here's what went wrong...
#1. Serious MMO players devote lots of time to character development... grinding, leveling, and acquiring gear... Its a status symbol... It's like having a BMW or Mercedes in the real world... You see someone with leet raid gear and you know they've "paid their dues"... Lots of nights raiding 4-5 hours a night...
When the x-pac was announced, Blizzard decided to allow existing players to obtain vastly better gear without 1st finishing the existing content. That was a MAJOR slap in the face to raiders and proved that Blizzard had absolutely no respect for the time and effort that dedicated players had invested in character development.
It would have been really easy to have required existing players to finish Naxx to get a "key" that allowed them access to x-pac areas where they could then "unlock" level 61 and starting leveling again.
They could have prevented level 60 players from grouping with level 61+ level players to prevent higher level players from "rushing" lower level players thru existing content.
If Blizzard has done this, then you would still have players running Molten Core, Oxynia, BWL, etc and serious players wouldn't have been raped of 2 years of character development.
#2. 40 man raids were epic. Changing 40 man instances to 20 man was incredibly stupid. For starters, it destroyed untold thousands of raid guilds... Bench 1/2 your 40 man raid guild you've been playing with for 2 years... Yeah, right...
It was also bad because it destroyed the continuity of the game... Another slap in the face to serious players... If a player wants to get where I am in the game, I want them to have to do what I had to do to get there... Otherwise, there is no character development... No standard by which players are judged...
#3. Battlegrounds suck... Anyone remember Southshore? So what if it got a little laggy at times... It was real... and it was fun...
So there you have it... Now I'm sure some would say... But casual players would have never bought the x-pac if they had to finish 40 man Naxx to unlock level 61 and new areas... Yeah they would have... Sure, you might have to slightly "nerf" the difficulty but that had been going on all along. IF Blizzard had added some goodies that everyone wanted like better crafting, player housing (done right), player stores with NPC traders to sell your goods... (take crafted items off the AH), guild forts, ships, etc in the x-pac areas, then the game would have become even more popular instead of slowing dying like it is now.
WOW could have been the start of something incredible... Instead, they tried to implement virtual Socialism... Let's make everyone equal... In the end, they just ruined the game...
I remember the night I logged off forever shortly before the 1st x-pac came out... I was been so into the game for so long... The guild has literally become a band of brothers. The xpac is going to rule they said... No it won't... it will ruin the game I said... You'll be back they said! No I won't I said... It was good while it lasted... and I still miss it to this day, but I don't miss what it became... As the years went by my old guildmates quit the game... In the end, most admited I had been right.
So that's the bad news... Wow was ruined...
The good news is, another company could easily "get it right"... The original WOW model works... Change the plot, update the graphics, state up front that you will respect the time that serious players invest in character development, and you would have a winner.
I would like to comment on your three points.....
I am a wow player since the day it came out.....and still play it today due to lack of better MMO's
1. Char development??? RLY? its always been grind for ubergear imo. Not everyone has 4 to 5 hours every night to go raiding for that uber gear.....some of us have other hobby's then gaming.
2. changing from 40 to 20 whas the best thing that happend to our guild......we only had about 25 raiders and we had to coop with other guilds to get a raid going.......it took up to 2 hours sometimes to even get the raid groups complete, buffed and in place......not my idea of fun. 5 man heroic dungeons.....i LOVE them.
3. On this point i am 200% with you man......BG sux
sloebereu out.
1. Agree
2. Agree
3. Couldn't Agree more.
I've also played WoW since it was released and I also still play it today because of the lack of better MMO's. I am not a WoW fan, in fact I've been trying to look for other MMO's to replace it but so far no luck, looking forward to GW2 though.
I just hope that in 5 years we can look to WoW the same way we look to EQ today
What as the game that introduced MMOs to the uneducated masses and ruined the genre.....
it may get a tag as the way to get ludicrousley rich of of the back of muppets. But other than that it's a nothing game that adds little.
Says the egotistical hermit that lurk forums like this thinking that the small group of fanatical players here are the machine that move this genre. New flash! People that play mmos are far more educated about the game they play, at least enough to know what game they think deserves their hard earned cash. And the gaming media seems to be in agreement with them as WoW has earned more accolades than any other MMO in the history of MMOs....
Not getting into a debate about WOW but in general would you care to prove that the current mmo consumer base is more educated about games? The prevalence of cash shop games and substandard products would point to the opposite of what you are saying, which leads onto the second point..
You say hard earned cash, well in fairness the current trend of 'cash for ig points' points more to an era of easy credit and a consumer base that lives on easy credit and has no idea of the value of money. Besides a significant portion of people who play the predominantly casual mmos on the market are teenages and kids.. who have no sense of hard earned cash lets face it lol.
Whilst I said I wouldn't at the start, I just have to bite, the Ford Mondeo has more won accolades then the Bugatti Veyron, but I know which one i'd rather have.
Who said games? I said the GAME they play....go ahead read it again and you will see this is a cold hard fact. People that play a certain game...whatever game it may be are more knowledgrable about it. That means they are actively learning about the game they play. And that proves that as long as WoW throws more content out there for their players, their players learn more. It's not like they have to unlearn everything they've learn just to learn something new.
And what's more aggrogant to assume, that people have earned the right to spend their money or these are kids given money to spend on frivilous things.....then my good friend all games are frivilous by nature.....
I've read it again and once again it looks like an opinion, not a cold hard fact. Sorry to disillusion you there.
It's not arrogant at all, I proffered it as an opinion, not as a 'cold hard fact', there is a clear dilineation in that, which you should perhaps take on board.
The "cold hard fact" is that I SAID: People who play MMOs are far more educated about the game they play. I'll even point it out to you both times (look for my words in red) No where did I say: People who play MMOs are far more educated about games. A point you're for some reason nitpicking at and trying to debunk.
Why in the world would I say that and I didn't have any proof to back it up? Isn't it obvious that if a person plays a game they will in FACT know more about it? I mean as compared to knowing more about something they don't play! This is commonsense is it not? Why must you and this tool infested forum be so inclined to keep believing that idoits and children play WoW and long time MMO fans shun it with every mention of the name. When in FACT it's been proven time and time again that hard earning mmo vets DO play WoW and enjoy doing so.
It's not because it's easy, it's not because it's pc/mac friendly, but it sure as hell could be that it continues blowing down houses that the little elite piggies keep trying to build up and hide in.
Firstly, so what if people who play an mmo gradually learn more about the mechanics of said game? Unless they play other games then they have no basis to form an opinion of it in terms of the genre at large, furthermore they will become increasingly biased towards it moving away from fact into falsehoods. Eitherway it means exactly squat, whether you play n mmo for 1 week or for 5 years the mechanics of it are the same.
Amusing that you bang on about hard earning mmo vets and then go on to mention elite little piggies. Trying to have your cake and eat it much? Note, when saying something is a fact, back it up. You see many of those oldschool mmo players are playing indie games or simply are not playing mmos at all (I know i'm one of them as are many people i've gamed with). I would love to see your source though which shows exactly which UO (for example) players went to WOW as you seem to be speaking as though you have some kind of insider knowledge
Oh and no, it really is because its easy, easy and addictive.
You 2 want to talk to a MMO Vet for real? I have been playing online games since about oh say 1994 back when everyone was playing MUD's(you know hte precurser to MMORPG's) I didnt play my first MMORPG untill 2001. When I compare the info given then to the info out now Id have to agree with Ramonski7 the players of today have a much broader selction of sites to go to to get info on a MMO before they have to shell out money to buy and play it. Hell for WoW Alone i have 6 websites open on tabs on my browser on my laptop. COmpared to my first MMO Asheron's call which only 1 site had decent info(Maggie the Jackcat FTW!). Between 2001 and Today I have tried many different MMO's and some of them the game mechanics are the same. WHy is that? Cause they work. A wise man once said "If it isnt broken dont fix it". SUre Future MMO's will had their own little flairs to the game but the info on how to get to max level will continously get easier and easier to find. Oh and just for the record the number of MMO's iave played for more than 2 years(imo at 2 years you can say your a vet of that game) is 7 the longest being a tie between World of Warcraft and Asheron's Call at 4 years a peice.
An MMO vet for real, golly gosh really? Lulz aside (but thanks for them) lets have a look at exactly what you have said.
1. There are more websites giving info on games, well yep I have to agree with that, but remind me whats the point of that argument again? You can have all the info in the world about a game, it doesn't change the games mechanics. There are numerous sites about EVE, about Darkfall, about all the mmos, it has little to do with why a specific mmo lives or dies, it merely points to the fact we live in an information rich age. So lets drop that one eh..
2. Some of the games mechanics are the same...yes and? Some are very different, whats the point again? You can have two mmos with certain matching mechanics and they can still be very different games. WoW has succeeded because its made its game as an overall package far more polished, accessible and far more addictive. Nothing more, nothing less, it's a credit to them as a company, but it doesn't mean that all of us think it's how an mmo should be done.
3. Not all MMO's have levels for a start, and regardless of info sites (people will always want the fastest route), some games take far, far longer to 'max' then others. Regardless once again, info sites have zip to do with the quality of a game, but more to do with how long the game has been out.
4. 2 Years to be a vet is in your definition, its an arbitary term which means different things to different people. Go on the SWG forums (on second thoughts I wouldn't wish that on anyone lol) and tell them 2 years of playing a game makes you a vet and see how they react.
The mmo scene/community has changed, people want casual, easy to access and yes simplistic mmos. They want to be able to buy ig items and points instead of having to grind them. Blizz has captured this market and in doing so should be applauded, its an extremely well run company that turns out polished products that are better then its specific competitors.
But there are gamers who don't think that yet another wow clone is what the market needs every time an mmo comes out. Hard as it may be to fathom some people would like to see some innovation, some people do still like sandboxes, some do like skill progression not the same tired old levels and profs, some want FFA pvp, some want in depth crafting. Some simply put, prefer the oldschool mmos. True, as the current mmo market stands games like EVE are niche products, but as in the case of the Bugatti analogy from before, these mechanically and content wise are better mmos imo.
if your looking for unique in the MMO Genre your going to be waiting for a VERY long time. I have played EVERY type of MMO and their ALL the same. Even if the devs claim its not a grind its still a grind. you start out basic then grind your way to uber. Even EVE Online is a grind its just a grind in a different way instead of grinding out levels your grind and wait on skills that take real time to learn. This fact will never change if you want unique go play an offline game its the only place youll find it. as to my comment about 2 years in a game to be a vet i stated that it was my opinion not a definiton. As for SWG the only people youll find playing that waist of time are people who dont know better. All the true SWG vets are playing SWGEmu and waiting on SWTOR. WoW isnt dead and your idea that true die hard mmo players dont play wow is just as wrong. As of 2008 MMOGCharts.Com had WoW holding over 62% of the world wild mmo active accounts with Runescape(which in my opinion is NOT a MMO but hey thats my opinion) coming in 2nd with 7%. So it appears you and the OP are umm wrong people including your so called Die Hard MMO Gamers do play wow just because you dont doesnt mean others dont.
What? Every type of mmo is the same? So Darkfall and EVE are like WOW and WAR? er ok then lol...
Yes games have progression, thats part of the point of MMO's but the mechanics and scope of mmos are not all the same, at all.
As for your final part, I'm sure there are some 'die hard' oldschool players playing WOW, what I questioned was another poster who pretty much came out and said ALL of them are. One has to wonder if you actually read any of my posts before hitting the reply button, I guess thats the instant gratification wow generation for you
Just so you don't have to bash out another wall of text that will crit for 500; I certainly don't think WOW is dying, WOW is the best at what it does, WOW will no doubt have some 'oldschool' players playing it and enjoying it. BUT, WOW is a casual, simplified, but highly polished grind fest that has added little in the way of originality to the mmo genre. It is gaming for the masses, valuing sales gimmicks over creative content. Some like that, some don't.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
#1. Serious MMO players devote lots of time to character development... grinding, leveling, and acquiring gear... Its a status symbol... It's like having a BMW or Mercedes in the real world...
This part is enough for me to say that for a person thinking that way of what is ONLY a VIDEO GAME dealing about VIRTUAL ITEMS that DO NOT EXIST, and who needs such a game to achieve some kind of imaginary social status, it's certainly better to have quit the game anyway, whatever the reason for quitting was.
And WoW is not dead. It has more players than it ever had back then when raiding was like a second job for no-life players. That should really ring the bell of reality to most people...
Respect, walk, what did you say? Respect, walk Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me? - PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
The thread should be retitled 'what killed WoW for the hardcore raider'. In that respect, the OP is somewhat correct. The game doesn't cater to that kind of player anymore. There are a bunch of reasons why, business reasons being the biggest ones. The other reason is the 'hardcore raider' became the minority fairly quickly as far as subs go. Once that happened, it was over. Anyone with an idea about how to run a business knows that you cater your business to what the majority of your customers want. WoW is no different in that regard.
The other aspect is that the genre as a whole has evolved. Blame WoW all you want for that, but the fact remains that required a player to devote 5-6 hours a day to a game isn't practical nor smart. Society has evolved to a 'get something done quickly' mentality and this has transferred to games as well.
And all these people praising EQ today were bitching about it during 2002 when it was on top. I remember the complaints too (wish it were more like UO, PvP sucks, etc.) . It's funny how everyone has short memories now.
Comments
Thats the problem with games that have levels and level based gear. If they don't release new shineys for the hardcore players to obtain to make themselves feel uber with then they would complain and say that there is no high level content. Would you have been happy with your same uber gear and same uber raid over and over? Eventually everyone would get it and you'd all be the same anyway, if you didn't quit of boredom first. They have to keep adding higher and higher levels, higher and higher gear, the old stuff becomes a joke. Its that way in all MMOs. Its the nature of level-based games.
I feel the same away about my first MMO, Asherons Call. I remember back in 2000 or whatever I had the original non-nerfed Shadow Armor in Asheron's Call. It was pretty sweet then. And hard to obtain, particularly after it was discontinued. Now its junk. Every low level noob is running around in armor with much higher protections now, using uber imbued weapons, etc. Hardcore players like yourself min-maxed the hell out of everything so the developers had to make harder content to keep you happy, then give better equipment to the lowbie casuals so they don't get creamed. The result is a lot of content that is now useless and forgotten. The game used to be more about exploring the world with friends. Now its more about griding out levels in a dungeon so you can get to level 150, "where the game really begins", so you can use all the items with triple epic buffs on them or whatever.
I too miss vanilla, but only the PvP part. Raids nowadays are much much harder than in vanilla and by hard i mean difficult, not the timesinks of pre tbc. Only reason the raids in vanilla were hard was because you had to carry all the brainless people in your guild. Getting 40 good players was almost impossible.
The game has gotten way more elitist now, if waving your e-peen is your forte.
Sure, but the game overall has become way too easy. It didn't take me long to get 20k gold and buy a chopper, and some high level gear.
Back in those days it would be hard to get 1000 gold to buy a mount. And back then the mounts costed 1000g not the training.
Purpose in life is not to gain things, but experience. - Rover64dd
You could get an epic mount in just a week or two in vanilla. I don't remember it being that hard, and as for overall easiness i think you mean timesinks? I'm glad they got rid of those.
with close to 11 million active accounts you think these changes killed wow? damn if having 11 million active paid accounts is a dead mmo i wonder how many paid accounts it would take for this guy to say its active.
"Possibly we humans can exist without actually having to fight. But many of us have chosen to fight. For what reason? To protect something? Protect what? Ourselves? The future? If we kill people to protect ourselves and this future, then what sort of future is it, and what will we have become? There is no future for those who have died. And what of those who did the killing? Is happiness to be found in a future that is grasped with blood stained hands? Is that the truth?"
Back in those days it would be hard to get 1000 gold to buy a mount. And back then the mounts costed 1000g not the training.
You could get an epic mount in just a week or two in vanilla. I don't remember it being that hard, and as for overall easiness i think you mean timesinks? I'm glad they got rid of those.
Are you saying that in 1-2 weeks of playing time you could reach 60 and have an epic mount in WoW? Or do you mean that if you focused on just getting the epic mount after you reached 60, you could do it in 1-2 weeks of saving?
Current: None
Played: WoW, CoX, SWG, LotRO, EVE, AoC, VG, CO, Ryzom, DF, WAR
Tried: Lineage2, Dofus, EQ2, CoS, FE, UO, Wurm, Wakfu
Future: The Repopulation, ArcheAge, Black Desert, EQN
Despite the 11 or 12 pages this thread has grown into, this was all that needed to be read.
After I read this it made sense to me.
You are mad that you spent 2 years of your life to become the top dog on a server, and when BC dropped you went back to being a mutt.
Well you see the thing is all you had to do was spend 7 days with your guild getting to level 70 then you could have enjoyed another year or so being top dog in all the BC "serious" dungeons that it offered.
Then once wotlk came out you could have spent another 7 days to get to 80 with your guild and be raiding "serious" ICC25H like all of the rest of us do.
WoW still very much has it's "serious" and "hardcore" group of players. Difference is we didn't whine and cry when we had to drop down to 25m groups or /slitwrist we had to give up a suit of T3 and some weapons. WoW evolved and for most of us we just evolved with it.
You see people complain all the time that "Wow is dumbed down and caters only to instant gratification players". I just laugh at these people because I would really like to see their armory link. People who say those kind of things couldn't cut it in BC, can't cut it in WotLK and won't be able to cut it in Cata either. Unless you link me an armory where you have downed 25m Heroic LK and have a full suit of heroic T10 you really have no right to say anything is easy, because you have no clue what the hell your even talking about.
WoW has plenty of fun left in it. I am in the #2 Raiding guild on my server, #1 at times, just depends on which one of us down the new bosses first, and I even just started up a Classic raiding guild of level 60 locked players to experince vanilla again and have fun.
Point to all this is, You could have still been a serious top dog player raiding 4-5 nights a week 5 hours a night, but you chose not to over some digital armor and time spent to aquire it, which is fine, that is totally on you, but wow does still very much offer what you refer to as a serious experience you just don't want to see it. Neither do any of these other players who complain that wow is easy and wow is this and wow is that.
Kinda sad really.
I meant 1-2 weeks of grinding after you've gotten lvl60 depending on how long you play (even less maybe). Getting my epic flying mount was way harder.
Too bad i didn't know how to exploit the AH back then
Only way to get gold capped
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
Sure, but the game overall has become way too easy. It didn't take me long to get 20k gold and buy a chopper, and some high level gear.
Back in those days it would be hard to get 1000 gold to buy a mount. And back then the mounts costed 1000g not the training.
You could get an epic mount in just a week or two in vanilla. I don't remember it being that hard, and as for overall easiness i think you mean timesinks? I'm glad they got rid of those.
Are you saying that in 1-2 weeks of playing time you could reach 60 and have an epic mount in WoW? Or do you mean that if you focused on just getting the epic mount after you reached 60, you could do it in 1-2 weeks of saving?
I meant 1-2 weeks of grinding after you've gotten lvl60 depending on how long you play (even less maybe). Getting my epic flying mount was way harder.
Too bad i didn't know how to exploit the AH back then
That sounds about right. For me, though, I found it easier getting my epic flying mount than my first epic land mount. I felt like I had really completed something when I got that skeletal warhorse. The epic flying mount was also cool, but just felt easier for some reason. Can't really say why though.
Current: None
Played: WoW, CoX, SWG, LotRO, EVE, AoC, VG, CO, Ryzom, DF, WAR
Tried: Lineage2, Dofus, EQ2, CoS, FE, UO, Wurm, Wakfu
Future: The Repopulation, ArcheAge, Black Desert, EQN
~ T5 for badges!
Activision-Merger
Kaplan the PvE giving his job to fucking Chilton (moron killed UO with Trammel)
Wotlk no idiotic-modes and achievements aren't worth a damn
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
Nice long thread, I try to provide a summary reply instead of quoting everyone.
To all those self proclaimed "hard core" players, drop it. You spent countless hours grinding in a game for years. So? You spent years drinking a beer or eating some odd branded breads. That makes you special? Worst still you do not pay more for occupying the largest share of bandwidth, much like you eat like a hungry dog in a buffet, and proclaim that you need to be given special treatment, that sounds logical? You are nothing special, you pay the same monthly but you consume more resources of Blizz than an average client. You are leeching on the other client's subscription money.
40 man raids are epic? For the 40. How many 40 man raids are running regularly? How many subscribers get to enjoy that kind of content? They do not deserve it? They pay less than you? Now we have 5 man, 10 man, 25 man raids. We can form random groups out of 5 man, we can try to shout out in trade channels and grab some random members or friends to run a 10 or 25. A significantly larger portion of the subscribers can try their hands on the raids. What makes you think they should be barred from trying, after paying much the same fees as you do? Just because you believe you put in your hours enjoying the game, not contributing to the rest of the subscribers? You go to the park every day, littering the park and develop the unfound notion that the park should only be open to you, because you spend more hours making a hell of the place there? That is your logic?
Battleground sucks, you like to pillage level 20s zones because at 60, you can kill the NPC guards and disrupt the other side's younger players, making it painful for them to level. Since you love it, you need them to suffer. Since you love it, Blizzard is not allowed to add in new elements in the game? How selfish. There is no change in Southshore, you can still go there. But the majority of the players, serious pvpers, do not go, and you dare not go alone, because you only want to pillage when you have absolute numerical advantage. So much for your big talks, you just want to bully younger opponents in smaller numbers.
You said Blizz should add in player houses, forts ... no argument. It is always nice to have more elements in any game. But I tend to believe, Blizzard has more stuffs in WoW than any game, comparing one-on-one. I do not ever believe one game can provide them all, so if you want player houses, go find another game. You like player house, and since you play WoW, Blizz must provide it? Oh well, you see too much in your $15 a month.
So Blizzard is dying. After maintaining sub at 10million + for like 4 years, and never suffer decline in revenue, it must be dying. Oh you and me are dying too. Everything is dying the moment it is borned. Even our mother earth is dying, so is the immortal sun. Blizzard is dying too, even though it is the biggest one out there. Big deal.
"If a player wants to get where I am in the game, I want them to have to do what I had to do to get there". You decide what the other gamers need to do to play there game? Because, for the sake of argument, that you are stupid and you make 100s of mistakes getting to level up, you insist they must suffer the same penalties? Some of us make thousands of mistakes in levelling, in crafting, in questing, and we post shortcuts in the internet to provide information to the next batch of pioneers. What do you want to do? Tear down the websites and information sources? Pathetic, you suffer, so your kids need to suffer the same too.
"WoW was just a copy of EverQuest for people with ADD. It has half the features, and most of them are just the bad grindy features, none of the redeeming social ones." Cannot dispute your views, but thousands, tens of thousands abandoned their characters in EQ1, and moved to WoW. My entire "guild" left, not one member stayed in EQ, and we formed out WoW guild. Many of us have concurrent sub, mainly WoW + DAoC, but no one, none that I know of, ever goes back to EQ1 after moving to WoW. If WoW is grindy, what is EQ1 at start? Camping the same bosses for 24 hours, hoping for a rare spawn, and then hoping for a rare drop. Camping the same spot for hours trying to ninja a rare spawn, which only spawns once every 48 hours. That feature of EQ1 is good, while the diversity and gentle levelling curve of WoW is half featured and grindy. Your view, I cannot see any logic there myself. Social features in EQ1? Oh yeah, I remember yelling for hours in the East Common tunnels, or hours outside a dungeon, yelling and waiting for an opening in any of the 24/7 camped bosses. So much for social, we talk nonsense, as we wait for a campspot, we talk nonsense as we sit idle waiting for a boss spawn. So much for social. It is like chats among prisoners, as you have nowhere to go for months.
"They dont care if the mass are 12-16y old kids...." The same old myth. Do you or anyone have any proof that the demography is kid heavy? Everyone in my guild is 25+ during the EQ1 days, we know each other during the EQ1 days, we meet for lunch, yes I have met all except 1. We are now 30+, the oldest being 60. I have met a lot of people in WoW, we use vent for raids and few are young, very very few. I have no idea how many kids are playing WoW, but after being in 3 servers since, I feel that kids are not that many. Your views, my views, none of us have proves.
"I mean, if you are going to have to constantly start over, why even play an MMO? Just play a FPS and be done with it. " Your gear is being replaced by something else in the xpac, that is bad? You want WoW to stop offering new gear, new stuffs, AFTER YOU OBTAINED WHAT YOU THINK IS BEST, SO THAT YOU CAN TOUT OTHERS FOR BEING INFERIOR TO YOU IN GEAR? Good lord, you really care for the rest of us, making sure we look inferior to you, making sure in the future xpacs, there is no competition for you. Sorry pal, wake up, the world changes. After you get your degree, even if it is a doctorate, you still need to catch up. World changes, you can hang on to old glories, but that is old. After winning the NBA title for a year, the NBAs should not run next year, since it wipes the ranking last year. I see your logic.
"Not really... it just dimishes the value..." Value to whom? What value? It is a game, value of which depends on who plays and what that player wants from a game. Your value is not mine, I want fun from a game, and forget it afterwards.
"But when it comes to character development and raiding, WOW is dead..." Really? What is character development? I found that there are more to character development in WoW than most games. There are so many attributes, so much theorycrafting, that is almost sick. There are so many side skills, from 2 main professions out of a bunch to choose from, add in cooking fishing first aid. Oh these are not development. And now the endless list of achievement, these are not development, what is? Whatever you already have done, as in collecting T2, is development. Progress should stop because you already make it near the top. That is your view of development, development = keeping you on top. Nice try.
"Nothing killed WoW but in my opinion Blizzard dumbed down the game way to much by making everything soloable and Dungeon finder is just an excuse to not have to merge servers." They fixed a problem with a new technology no other company ever dares. That is bad? Many servers are full during peak hours and you think they need to merge? Good logic.
"What really got me to quit myself are the newer generation of WoW players who know nothing about Vanilla and BC. Back before the dawn of heroic raids." they need a history lesson before they can join and play a game? Why do they need to know about vanilla days? There is glory in there?
....
Enough rambling. WoW is not perfect, but before you throw in your hatred poets, please try to make sense, and remove your personal grudge from the critcisms. Almost none I read makes sense, only angry words from selfish people who want to stop others from enjoying a game.
Go play your game and stop worrying how I play mine. I do not care about you, and you can try to do that too.
I love how people think that EQ was better than WoW.
Rose colored glasses FTW.
Firstly, so what if people who play an mmo gradually learn more about the mechanics of said game? Unless they play other games then they have no basis to form an opinion of it in terms of the genre at large, furthermore they will become increasingly biased towards it moving away from fact into falsehoods. Eitherway it means exactly squat, whether you play n mmo for 1 week or for 5 years the mechanics of it are the same.
Amusing that you bang on about hard earning mmo vets and then go on to mention elite little piggies. Trying to have your cake and eat it much? Note, when saying something is a fact, back it up. You see many of those oldschool mmo players are playing indie games or simply are not playing mmos at all (I know i'm one of them as are many people i've gamed with). I would love to see your source though which shows exactly which UO (for example) players went to WOW as you seem to be speaking as though you have some kind of insider knowledge
Oh and no, it really is because its easy, easy and addictive.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
You 2 want to talk to a MMO Vet for real? I have been playing online games since about oh say 1994 back when everyone was playing MUD's(you know hte precurser to MMORPG's) I didnt play my first MMORPG untill 2001. When I compare the info given then to the info out now Id have to agree with Ramonski7 the players of today have a much broader selction of sites to go to to get info on a MMO before they have to shell out money to buy and play it. Hell for WoW Alone i have 6 websites open on tabs on my browser on my laptop. COmpared to my first MMO Asheron's call which only 1 site had decent info(Maggie the Jackcat FTW!). Between 2001 and Today I have tried many different MMO's and some of them the game mechanics are the same. WHy is that? Cause they work. A wise man once said "If it isnt broken dont fix it". SUre Future MMO's will had their own little flairs to the game but the info on how to get to max level will continously get easier and easier to find. Oh and just for the record the number of MMO's iave played for more than 2 years(imo at 2 years you can say your a vet of that game) is 7 the longest being a tie between World of Warcraft and Asheron's Call at 4 years a peice.
"Possibly we humans can exist without actually having to fight. But many of us have chosen to fight. For what reason? To protect something? Protect what? Ourselves? The future? If we kill people to protect ourselves and this future, then what sort of future is it, and what will we have become? There is no future for those who have died. And what of those who did the killing? Is happiness to be found in a future that is grasped with blood stained hands? Is that the truth?"
An MMO vet for real, golly gosh really? Lulz aside (but thanks for them) lets have a look at exactly what you have said.
1. There are more websites giving info on games, well yep I have to agree with that, but remind me whats the point of that argument again? You can have all the info in the world about a game, it doesn't change the games mechanics. There are numerous sites about EVE, about Darkfall, about all the mmos, it has little to do with why a specific mmo lives or dies, it merely points to the fact we live in an information rich age. So lets drop that one eh..
2. Some of the games mechanics are the same...yes and? Some are very different, whats the point again? You can have two mmos with certain matching mechanics and they can still be very different games. WoW has succeeded because its made its game as an overall package far more polished, accessible and far more addictive. Nothing more, nothing less, it's a credit to them as a company, but it doesn't mean that all of us think it's how an mmo should be done.
3. Not all MMO's have levels for a start, and regardless of info sites (people will always want the fastest route), some games take far, far longer to 'max' then others. Regardless once again, info sites have zip to do with the quality of a game, but more to do with how long the game has been out.
4. 2 Years to be a vet is in your definition, its an arbitary term which means different things to different people. Go on the SWG forums (on second thoughts I wouldn't wish that on anyone lol) and tell them 2 years of playing a game makes you a vet and see how they react.
The mmo scene/community has changed, people want casual, easy to access and yes simplistic mmos. They want to be able to buy ig items and points instead of having to grind them. Blizz has captured this market and in doing so should be applauded, its an extremely well run company that turns out polished products that are better then its specific competitors.
But there are gamers who don't think that yet another wow clone is what the market needs every time an mmo comes out. Hard as it may be to fathom some people would like to see some innovation, some people do still like sandboxes, some do like skill progression not the same tired old levels and profs, some want FFA pvp, some want in depth crafting. Some simply put, prefer the oldschool mmos. True, as the current mmo market stands games like EVE are niche products, but as in the case of the Bugatti analogy from before, these mechanically and content wise are better mmos imo.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
if your looking for unique in the MMO Genre your going to be waiting for a VERY long time. I have played EVERY type of MMO and their ALL the same. Even if the devs claim its not a grind its still a grind. you start out basic then grind your way to uber. Even EVE Online is a grind its just a grind in a different way instead of grinding out levels your grind and wait on skills that take real time to learn. This fact will never change if you want unique go play an offline game its the only place youll find it. as to my comment about 2 years in a game to be a vet i stated that it was my opinion not a definiton. As for SWG the only people youll find playing that waist of time are people who dont know better. All the true SWG vets are playing SWGEmu and waiting on SWTOR. WoW isnt dead and your idea that true die hard mmo players dont play wow is just as wrong. As of 2008 MMOGCharts.Com had WoW holding over 62% of the world wild mmo active accounts with Runescape(which in my opinion is NOT a MMO but hey thats my opinion) coming in 2nd with 7%. So it appears you and the OP are umm wrong people including your so called Die Hard MMO Gamers do play wow just because you dont doesnt mean others dont.
"Possibly we humans can exist without actually having to fight. But many of us have chosen to fight. For what reason? To protect something? Protect what? Ourselves? The future? If we kill people to protect ourselves and this future, then what sort of future is it, and what will we have become? There is no future for those who have died. And what of those who did the killing? Is happiness to be found in a future that is grasped with blood stained hands? Is that the truth?"
To OP:
I never realized WoW is dead. Last time I logged in, I couldn't find my way out of SW, it was THAT crowded.
Better to be crazy, provided you know what sane is...
I would like to comment on your three points.....
I am a wow player since the day it came out.....and still play it today due to lack of better MMO's
1. Char development??? RLY? its always been grind for ubergear imo. Not everyone has 4 to 5 hours every night to go raiding for that uber gear.....some of us have other hobby's then gaming.
2. changing from 40 to 20 whas the best thing that happend to our guild......we only had about 25 raiders and we had to coop with other guilds to get a raid going.......it took up to 2 hours sometimes to even get the raid groups complete, buffed and in place......not my idea of fun. 5 man heroic dungeons.....i LOVE them.
3. On this point i am 200% with you man......BG sux
sloebereu out.
true.......wow is far from dead tbh.
1. Agree
2. Agree
3. Couldn't Agree more.
I've also played WoW since it was released and I also still play it today because of the lack of better MMO's. I am not a WoW fan, in fact I've been trying to look for other MMO's to replace it but so far no luck, looking forward to GW2 though.
What? Every type of mmo is the same? So Darkfall and EVE are like WOW and WAR? er ok then lol...
Yes games have progression, thats part of the point of MMO's but the mechanics and scope of mmos are not all the same, at all.
As for your final part, I'm sure there are some 'die hard' oldschool players playing WOW, what I questioned was another poster who pretty much came out and said ALL of them are. One has to wonder if you actually read any of my posts before hitting the reply button, I guess thats the instant gratification wow generation for you
Just so you don't have to bash out another wall of text that will crit for 500; I certainly don't think WOW is dying, WOW is the best at what it does, WOW will no doubt have some 'oldschool' players playing it and enjoying it. BUT, WOW is a casual, simplified, but highly polished grind fest that has added little in the way of originality to the mmo genre. It is gaming for the masses, valuing sales gimmicks over creative content. Some like that, some don't.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
This part is enough for me to say that for a person thinking that way of what is ONLY a VIDEO GAME dealing about VIRTUAL ITEMS that DO NOT EXIST, and who needs such a game to achieve some kind of imaginary social status, it's certainly better to have quit the game anyway, whatever the reason for quitting was.
And WoW is not dead. It has more players than it ever had back then when raiding was like a second job for no-life players. That should really ring the bell of reality to most people...
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
The thread should be retitled 'what killed WoW for the hardcore raider'. In that respect, the OP is somewhat correct. The game doesn't cater to that kind of player anymore. There are a bunch of reasons why, business reasons being the biggest ones. The other reason is the 'hardcore raider' became the minority fairly quickly as far as subs go. Once that happened, it was over. Anyone with an idea about how to run a business knows that you cater your business to what the majority of your customers want. WoW is no different in that regard.
The other aspect is that the genre as a whole has evolved. Blame WoW all you want for that, but the fact remains that required a player to devote 5-6 hours a day to a game isn't practical nor smart. Society has evolved to a 'get something done quickly' mentality and this has transferred to games as well.
And all these people praising EQ today were bitching about it during 2002 when it was on top. I remember the complaints too (wish it were more like UO, PvP sucks, etc.) . It's funny how everyone has short memories now.