Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
World of Warcraft: Editorial: Delaying the Balance
Dana
Member Posts: 2,415
With the delay of the Burning Crusade, Hasani Davis reflects on what he wants to see in this massively popular MMOG.
| The Burning Crusade is coming! The Burning Crusade is coming! Oh wait, that's right, wait two more months. Blizzard is now releasing the next part of its Warcraft Universe in January 2007. This addition brings new areas, new monsters and new items. I am looking forward to this expansion! There I said it. I look forward to this expansion in hopes of caring about a game again. Contrary to popular belief, Warcraft is a game from 1994 and not a new game that was just created two years ago. I was a kid in high school back then and found a copy of Warcraft and loaded up the game from DOS and began my first steps in the land of Azeroth! I have been with Blizzard since its first steps and am one of the many who started in its fan base, spending countless hours battling against my friends for control over Azeroth! I expected the same feeling when I began playing World of Warcraft as I had eleven years ago. The journey started out with a tale of great lands and powerful armies and a promise of fun and excitement, built to be the Template for next generation MMORPGs.
But can I really care about a game again after being treated so badly? |
The whole article is here.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Comments
Maybe one day, they'll release those Hero Levels and we can start to see a skill/strategy component come into play, as opposed to a Purple Item wearing strategy.
CAN WE PLEASE TALK ABOUT SOMTHING ELESE?
Really, i dont hate WoW, but I am getting sick of all the posting, and news,
AND editorial being about it.
Most of these editorials are only "official" mmorpg.com bitch fests
anyway.
----------
"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
Im also a hugely PvP oriented player and the new arena system looks like it could be what Im looking for in an mmorpg aswell.
Im especialy excited about the fact they are using the same europian ladder match making system from there warcraft 3 RTS. High rank teams will only be competing against high rank teams, so the "best" teams will have to compete against all the other great PvP teams meaning that if you see a high warlord / grand marshal you will automaticly respect what he had to acomplish to achieve that rank, and you will know that this player is skilled. Unlike now where there are chinesse honor system farming business's that will gather honor in bg's 24 hours a day for you. Anyone with the time or money can hit rank 14 right now but not for long.
They are bringing back the skill and they will be heavily rewarding the players with the skill to achieve the high ranks with incredible gear just as good as the PvE end gear at 70.
I cant say for certain that I will love the game again, but this does mean theres a good chance a lot of us can fall in love with WoW all over again. Either way my copy has been long pre-ordered and I look forward to checking it out.
One final though regarding the new match making system, not only is this a great system geared around peopel competing against players of equal skill but it is also a perfect system for tournaments much like they do in warcraft 3 all the time. They havent said there will be PvP tournaments on WoW yet but the system will be in place we could possibly see night time tournies (single elimination) allowing us to face the great teams from our own faction aswell perhaps. Least thats what I am hoping for
Again, an Editorial that has a few flaws, but these are the ones that are just a needle in my eye.
"
I have spent two years wallowing in a world rich in graphics and countless tongue in cheek based quests and combat so simple and repetitive that my nephew could excel at it (literally, my nephew is 10 years old and a rank 9 rogue)."
Congratulations, you just discribed EVERY MMORPG THAT WAS EVER MADE. Combat has never been a challenge, Combat has NEVER EVER required skill in any mmorpg. Quests have NEVER been anything else then simple. This is what is happening in EVERY mmorpg.
This game has been nothing more than a time sink; putting countless hours of mind numbing faction grinding, killing the same monster 100,000 times to gain favor with said faction. The repetitiveness of the game is worse than any MMORPG I have played in the past fifteen years. For some reason I wait for the expansion, and I wait for a game that I can care about again.
This is obviously saying more about the Editorial writer then the game. killing mobs over and over again, once more, is the same problem we have seen in every MMORPG. I'm sick of it people point the finger at WoW and tell everybody its doing point A wrong, its doing point B wrong. Its the same in every mmorpg, but yet I don't see an editorial about Lineage 2's repetiveness or RFO's? Or EVE's? I also don't recall 2 editorials before EQ2's expansion release? Everybody is complaining WoW's expansion adds nothing new. EQ2's expansion didn't add anything new either, yet I don't see anybody complaining about that. When will we stop pointing at WoW and look at other MMo's flaws?
Right now Blizzard is more or less like a Borg cube that has been cut off from the collective....in other words they don't know what the hell they are doing.
Now the Expansion is delayed till 2007, that means that we won't see the second expansion till at least 2008 and that's only if Blizzard sticks to its promise of yearly expansions. In 2008 WoW will look and play like EQ pre lucllin does now, meaning the game will die because blizzard can't produce timley content to appease its fans.
Then there is the whole Raid or Die fiasco....They desperately want to keep that 6.99 million of the 7 million Non-Raider fan base, but the game is being steered by and Ex-EQ Raid kiddies with a penchant for Liberachi and Bob Macke Armor styles. More than one industry insider is predicting an Implosion at Blizzard in the near future, I personally look forward to the day it happens, because if the continue down this road people are just going to quit in frustration anyway.
I'm saying the expansion won't come out until March.... January is a smoke screen unless balancing in the beta goes perfectly...
and who doesn't think the game will be laggy as hell, buggy and generally unfun for the first month or so?
I'm not as excited about it as I once was... gonna go try out some other games in the meantime to keep busy..
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
i rely doubt that the expanssion will be out in january 2007 i wish it would but i dont rely belive after hearing november then december now january maybe tommorow february
BTW. iam rely exited to see 12904708921782565 blood elfs mages and 12907408921478095 drenai shamans when it starts
PLZ CHOSE THE MEH FOR SPELB0rNe BETAZ KTHKXGUDBYE
Well...
All these hopes can be crushed in a moment, the OP only need to ask 1 question to devs: Is raiding still getting better rewards in PvE grouping and PvP? As long as the answer is a yes, the game will be flawed and hurting the franchise.
Raiding was brought to you recently by games such as EQ, however raiding was never part of the success of EQ, the success of EQ and these games came from the EARLY, what a new player saw...the fact you put raiding later, in a way they might not notice, is not better, since when they notice, they feel shafted.
Raiding is not part of the problem; it is the problem. Best raiders deserve to be good at raiding, nothing else, not even 1 hps extra for grouping, squat, nothing.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
I still can't believe it has taken Blizzard this long to get an expansion out.. Wait! It isn't out..
Looking for: Jan/Feb/March..
What year again??
Seriously, I do like to play WoW, but cripes even.. Since they are rolling this back to Jan 07(OR there abouts) .. It had better be polished like a smooth running Swiss Watch!!
"Huntress"
I feel the same way, I really do....but i wouldnt be so optimistic. I want to see a smooth running game, but as most of us know....that just doesnt happen the first time around. Just by tha fact that they pushed the date back, shows that they just arent ready(duhh) and i think January is to appease the fans. I think that the programmers will most likely try and find temporary solutions to these problems to hit the launch date. Blizzard is relying on the first few months to really get this BC thing off the ground, then after that i guarantee there will be frequent realm shutdowns to put new patches or having daily maintenance checks (sounds familiar). By then, the fans will be dedicated enough to deal with these maintenance issues. Well, i hope im wrong, but this is my take on it.
M0d3st M0us3
Sadly, not a single MMO out there has had the balls to come up with an endgame that isn't centered on raiding. For some unfathomable reason, they think of it as some kind of cash cow. If just one of them would have the strength of character to make a game casual from beginning to end, they might find out that there is more money to be had in that market over that of hardcore freakish gameplay. Giving the best rewards and content to raiders is not the way to win over the masses and it never will. Get with the program or die like the ancient dinosaurs that MMO's are today. They go on and on about tapping into the mainstream market, how the hell will they ever do that with current paradigms? Mainstream players will never sit in front of a computer for 4 hours straight just to run a single dungeon or spend 3 weeks just to get a single piece of gear. Its retarded and its exactly why people label us as nerds.
In a way, I almost hope they don't change the raid or die formula in the expansion. Maybe, just maybe these narrow minded deveoping companies might take notice with WoW's decline as casuals bail from the game, that its time to make changes, that the old formulas just won't cut it anymore, that old and new players alike will not tolerate time wasting mechanics, eliticism and a caste system in their games.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
Better PVP? No.
I'm playing the Burning Crusade, and PVP haven't really changed that much.
Yes theres outdoor objectives, no cities though (yet - theres still a lot closed off)
Theres 1 "town" which have 4 wing rider "towers" around it, which can be used to fly over the "town" and bomb people from above. It's funny once or twice.
Every zone in Outlands have a couple of captureable objects, such as the towers in Eastern Plaguelands, the size is about the same. The only change is that when you kill someone in these mini-zones, you'll be awarded a Mark, which can be used to buy PVP items.
The Arena is quite good though, but it boxes up PVP, making it much less epic and "roleplaying-like" not that I'm into the roleplaying stuff, but I signed up for fighting the Alliance, not for battleing them in tournament like games. Even though that can be fun to!
So, don't expect WoW to turn into the Warcraft games, in terms of war and pvp. Not at all. Sadly
Everyone is still waiting for WARHAMMER, even with the TBC Expansion!
When you get down to it games are as repetitive as you make them. Diablo 2 could be seen as just clicking over and over and doing nothing else. Only Adventure games of old like Kings Quest and Longest Journey escape this. Heck life itself is horribly repetitive.
PVP wise I might almost agree with you. Some classes just suck at PVP while others seem overly strong in it.
It would take a drastic change to alter this as it is now. Perhaps BC is half the change. Who knows Blizzard doesn't let anyone know till their games are released.
If you don't like it don't play it and quit moaning. If you like it then play it.
/shrug
------------------------
Somebody get this freakin duck away from me!
always had the hype of. World of Warcraft was fun, but Neocron doesn't
end in two seconds, give it a shot because, back in 1992 I found
Blizzard too, and have been disappointed by them more then I could ever
imagine about releasing new games.
Every time these "casual vs. hardcore" discussions come up, especially in regards to gear/rewards, there'll always be some casual player who starts to whine about "why people that put in more time should have better rewards".
I've played hardcore, 6 hours a day, 7 days a week -- now I barely even play casual, maybe a few hours on saturdays and sundays, that is if I feel like it.
What they're basically asking is to be allowed to do some event/quest that takes 1 hour and get the same reward as someone else that spend 2 days getting the same.
People who work less should have less. People who work more should have more. If you think that's unfair then maybe you should take a look at life and see what it's all about.
A small comparison.
Your neighbour have 2 big cars, a big house, a boat and a summer-/vacationhouse.
You have 1 mediocre car, a mediocre house and that's it.
You work 40 hours a week with a boring job where all you do is hang your brain in the locker and go do stuff that doesn't require any real focus and any mistakes only influences you.
Your neighbour works 60+ hours a week. He has to make critical decisions that might influence hundres or thousands of people around him, which in turn puts a lot of stress on him.
You want the same 2 big cars, the same big house, boat and summer-/vacationhouse as your neighbour, while still doing what you've always done 40 hours a week.
Do you really think that would be fair? Have you really deluded yourself to think that you are entitled to the same rewards for half the work?
As far as the expansion, only real thing I like is the level cap. The races are, like the other PVE-friendly MMOs, just remeshes of the same old 2D characters (ie elf, orc, gnome, dwarf, human.... 2 arms, 2 legs). I'd prefer a more exotic race, like the dryad or naga, step up as a PC.
"Of all the things wrong with today's RPGs, 2D characters on a 3D background is the worst."