I saw BC being pushed back until 07 for a while now. And as someone else mentioned I bet it will end up being even later than 01/07. If you are going to miss the holiday season you might as well push it back even futher. Blizz better get their act together because those next gen MMOs are starting to nip at their heels.
And as to Blizzards promise of a new expansion once a year, all I can say is O'Rly?
-------------------------------- Currently Playing: Guild Wars 2 and Path of Exile
Originally posted by brianman 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?
Not saying they should ignore the raiders but quit screwing over people with a life through us an expansion friendly to us they damn sure have gave raiders enough dungeons now give the other 99% of the player base something.
I liked the editorial, but i feel it's unfair on a couple of points.
WoW has some grinding, but levelling is fast and easy. Faction is a bad grind BUT it's volontary. The only faction you really _need_ is some timbermaw to ride/shop and AD/CC ofcourse. Now, doing strat 10 times cant really be considered grinding, we know those that has been there 100+ times, and those 10 times will give enough faction.
What i'm getting at is that you dont _have_ to be revered with every faction. There are only a select few where you need a decent faction to progress, and that faction will be had through normal play.
This is where i feel WoW is different from e.g. AO, the grind in AO is the levelling. You cant escape levelling. Thus you must grind. You also have a faction grind which affects xp gained. WoW has no level grind. See the difference?
Apart from that i think the WoW game is a good implementation of the franchise and although i would sometimes like to see more of the rts in it, i cant find a way how it would be done. AV is the closest you get where you can play a peon by collecting boxes in the mines.
I think the expansions release will be smooth. I dont think Blizzard would allow themselves anything else. There will be balance problems, as balance on the beta server with 50 players isn't the same as on the larger scale full servers. Performance wise it's just another continent with new maps and the same graphics engine. It'll be smooth.
Someone said pvp'ing dont require skill. To be a good pvp'er requires skill, but getting pvp-ranks mostly requires grinding. As i'm a bad grinder i'll never get much of a rank even if i never make a fool of myself in the BG's. I do hope the new system will put some more fun, meaning and incentive to pvp, it's a overlooked part of the game.
"Blizzard has done a horrible job for casual players..."
"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). 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."
While this editorial has some valid points, the biggest flaws are one of the major ones. Time sink? Repetitiveness? Have you played EQ before? or L2? The grind there is outrageous. The best thing about WoW (from the casual player perspective, the one that this game wasnt made for according to the editorial) is that you DONT have to grind or play repetatively. You CAN grind but only if you want to. Or you can quest, or you can PvP, or you can hunt for resources or craft. The player has choices and the game is to the player what that player makes it to be. If you do nothing but do raiding, of course the game will be grind and time sink for you. But you dont have to.
I consider myself a casual player, I could play for 5 hours a day or 5 hours a week, depending on my work schedule, and I never reached 60. I had like 8 chars, and top level is 55. I could grind, quest, trade ( I actualy had fun with auctioning stuff, good old bidding wars heh ), harvest or craft. It was the best casual game since single player games! So I think those statements in red are unfair and untrue.
On another note.. I also would like to see more casual friendly Dungeons.. Large groups are such a time-sink Just to get everyone together.
THEN.. When you do get this landslide group together, someone has to AFK for several minutes. GO-GO Smaller group Dungeons!
This can't be that hard to implement.. For the hardcore - large groups.. better loot - For the casuals, we can get the smaller Dungeons and loot to fit our size.
**Another thing I would of liked to see in the BC upcoming is..
Being somewhat (I say somewhat NOW).. to be able to communicate with the opposite faction. I play both Horde/Alliance and I would love to be able to talk to one or the other a bit.
NO.. I don't mean like /fart - /lick - /spit! I mean have an actual conversation with them. On the lines of say: "Come-ON Big Boy.. let's see what yas got!"
Garble-Garble conversations drive me nuts.. sorry!
Originally posted by brianman 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?
You do realize you used the word "work" 5 times in a post about a video game yes? K, just checking.
Anofayle, you hit the nail on the head bro. Seriously, WoW is a great game...until you hit 60. Then it all goes to hell. Casual friendly guilds disband so people can seek out "hardcore" raiding guild, while the casual players either put up with running the same damn instances for nothing else than the small chance to get a decent item, roll an Alt, or just flat out quit playing.
Joined 2004 - I can't believe I've been a MMORPG.com member for 20 years! Get off my lawn!
I think you should give Blizzard some credit on this issue. One of the major changes in this expansion is the lack of 40 man raid zones. Their new cap is what, 24 people? It is obvious that the 40 man hardcore massive raid guilds have become so dominate and has taken the game in a direction Blizzard recognizes it doesn't want to go.
I'm hopeful that when we start seeing 24 man raids dropping better/equivilant loot to these current 40 people raids it will change the entire structure of these guilds. I doubt the large guilds are ever going to go away but I do believe instead of 4 or 5 top guilds on a server that will open up to 10 or 12. These smaller casual guilds (If they are dedicated and organized) will no longer have to disband the moment all their membership hits 60 and they find they can't participate in the full endgame any more.
Now they will. If it works out this way I think it is a great sign for the game. It definately shows Blizzard wants to go a different direction than EQ as far as the end game goes. I guess we will have to see.
I dont understand how a casual player could possibly think that they should have equal rewards as a hardcore player.
Like everything in life you get out what you put in. If someone puts in twice asmuch time as you he should be twice as powerful. If this wasnt true why would anyone be hardcore in any game.
People should be reminded that even though WoW doesn't grind nearly as badly as EQ, AO or DAoC, it still has a grind and a bad one for a game slated to be very casual friendly. On its own merits, it most certainly does not deserve the moniker or casual friendly. Its game mechanics are specifically put into place to artificially slow progress down, not only in experience gain, but item acquisition as well.
To the poster above and others like him, don't forget that there is a subscription price involved. If this was a free to play game then your argument would have more merit, as it is, MMO companies are rewarding one play style over another and for no other reason than its the mechanism they choose to slow players down, keep them occupied while they come up with new content two years down the road. This game company in particular is slow, inefficient, combative against alternate viewpoints, elitists and they false advertise. Their box should plainly state that while the first 55 levels are casual friendly for the most part, the last 5 levels are stricly for raiders and no-lifers. That's a good 10 percent of the game, even more when you consider that most people will be spending a lot of time at the end game, where they completely turn around and shove it up the masses' collective asses. I have very little respect left for Blizzard, they have a history of putting out good games that appeal to many play styles and rewarding them equally. Now they not only have they become the typical MMO company that mistreats a significant portion of their player base, but they have become lazy with their updates, breaking more than they fix. Above all this, what possesed them to turn PvP into this grind fest? Its insane.
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
I really think they will take this opportunity to massivelly decrease the huge rift that has existed between casual(and solo/duo players) and so called hardcore players.
Just look at the new crafted items. BoE 1-handed weapons with 81 dps. Compare that to Arena rewards which is 88 dps, and that also means Raid weapons should be 88 dps since Bliizard has stated many times that Arena Armour/Weapons will be on par with Raid items, but you will still get the best trinkets/rings by Raiding. That´s a 10% difference in DPS between a BoE and Raid BoP. Quite a huge improvment compared to now when a raiders 1-hander is 15-20% better than a "casuals" 2-hander(AR, TUF)... ;]
I hope they add tons of more money/time consuming cool tradeskill items! More love for crafters!
Originally posted by Vrazule Their box should plainly state that while the first 55 levels are casual friendly for the most part, the last 5 levels are stricly for raiders and no-lifers. That's a good 10 percent of the game, even more when you consider that most people will be spending a lot of time at the end game, where they completely turn around and shove it up the masses' collective asses. I have very little respect left for Blizzard, they have a history of putting out good games that appeal to many play styles and rewarding them equally. Now they not only have they become the typical MMO company that mistreats a significant portion of their player base, but they have become lazy with their updates, breaking more than they fix. Above all this, what possesed them to turn PvP into this grind fest? Its insane.
So, lowering raid caps by half (and making raid sets for each main spec per class, instead of one set for only one spec) and an overhauled PvP system where you earn points to spend for PvP rewards, instead of grinding for an ever-decaying rank that only a set number of people are allowed to hold at once, isn't showing that Blizzard is changing the game in response to the problems people have complained about for a year now?
Changing the old endgame/PvP mechanics wasn't possible overnight. Its easy to say whats broken, but what takes time is coming up with a fix that's actually longterm good and doesn't break anything more. If you read anything about the additions/changes in BC, you can't help but see that Blizzard is attempting to fix their gameplay flaws. No, they're not OVERHAULING their entire game, they're trying to adapt it to both gameplay styles and having it be more inclusive. Maybe that's not enough for some people, but for most of the people who actually like this game, its what we wanted all along.
Originally posted by remyburke You do realize you used the word "work" 5 times in a post about a video game yes? K, just checking.
Yes? Your point is probably "it's a game, not a job", and you're right. That doesn't mean the "casual" player should get the same rewards for half the effort of the "hardcore" player. It's a balance. You get what you put in.
If Blizzard decided to let the "casual" player get easy access to rewards equal to those that the "hardcore" player gets, you'll soon see a great exodus of "hardcore" players.. Oh wait.. That's what already did happen in WoW. Reach 60 and go bored because there wasn't enough content for the "hardcore" players.. Blizzard has to keep those that reach 60 fast entertained, or occupied might be a better word, to continue to get those players money.
Since the "hardcore" player base spend more times playing, they plow through the content faster than the casual player base. Hence the "hardcore player base will need more content to keep them occupied than the "casual" player base will.
Yes, I quoted "casual" and "hardcore" because they're such relative terms. To most people however (and how you should interpret them in this post), the words are based on how much time you put into the game. I'm not interested to get into a debate on what defines a hardcore or a casual player.
Oh, and did you realize that you've posted an average of 2 posts each day for the past 847 days? Maybe you should consider posting less and make them more constructive? Oh, and just to save you the effort (or should I say work?) of figuring out my post average it's 0.004 posts each day for the past 990 days
Originally posted by Gameloading Again, an Editorial that has a few flaws, but these are the ones that are just a needle in my eye. " I have spent two years wallowing in a world rich in graphics and countless tongue in cheek based quests and combat so simple and repetitive that my nephew could excel at it (literally, my nephew is 10 years old and a rank 9 rogue)." Congratulations, you just discribed EVERY MMORPG THAT WAS EVER MADE. Combat has never been a challenge, Combat has NEVER EVER required skill in any mmorpg. Quests have NEVER been anything else then simple. This is what is happening in EVERY mmorpg. didn't play pre-trammel uo or pre-cu swg, eh? 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. um, what games exactly are you playing that require this? i guess i could point to the two i mentioned already... what about daoc? 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?eve sorta has that faction thing but um, eve also has pretty open pvp, where you can lose your ship and lots of goodies, whereas wow has... oh yeah, as that dude said, "you lose precious time running back to your body." 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. which of EQ2's three expansion dost thou speak of? or which of their min-releases (which i guess would equal a wow patch)? When will we stop pointing at WoW and look at other MMo's flaws? when it goes back to being the game we were promised before release? when some loser and his guildmaster who only know eq-raiding stop working at blizzard? when world of WARcraft turns into a war instead of a boring-never-ending-story of farming purples+? three battlegrounds, first came out what? about NINE months after release? something that was supposed to be a PART of release -- battlegrounds? instead you have the show being taken over by some no-talent kaplan who just imitates eq (with the wow added instances, which i doubt kaplan was a part of), and rants about "learn to raid noobs" to real people in public places. yeah, not mental or an r-tard or nuffin.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Originally posted by WoodenDummy Originally posted by Anofalye 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.
Agree, agree, agree! bravo.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Pardon my two cents - but all the crap regarding the release date for Burning Crusade really goes to show how many new Blizzard fans there are.
"Back when I was a kid, we used to wait 50 years for a new Blizzard game."
So get used to it, kiddos. Blizzard always pushes things back, and half of you weren't even around to get furious when the release date for the core game kept getting pushed back.
Maybe Burning Crusade will go the way of Starcraft: Ghost. Fire the whole team and chuck the entire near-finished product. You can't help but wonder where all the old Blizzard talent is going. Keep your eyes peeled.
And on a same note, I remember a great article released by the founders of Blizzard about a month after the launch of WoW. Something along the lines of: "This is the best thing, and the worst thing, that has ever happened to Blizzard and the Warcraft series. WoW is a huge success, what more could we ask for right? But now we're being forced to expand... no longer are we a team of friends that got together and made games together since highschool. We're hiring people by the hundreds to run, manage and generally rebuild our world. Its no longer a family... we've become a corporation. Its a sad victory."
As for the classic fans of Warcraft... we need to realize that something close to us has become every kid's after-school activity, Globally. Its time to start investing our time in something else. Warcraft has reached a point of no return.
Originally posted by Gameloading Again, an Editorial that has a few flaws, but these are the ones that are just a needle in my eye.
" I have spent two years wallowing in a world rich in graphics and countless tongue in cheek based quests and combat so simple and repetitive that my nephew could excel at it (literally, my nephew is 10 years old and a rank 9 rogue)." Congratulations, you just discribed EVERY MMORPG THAT WAS EVER MADE. Combat has never been a challenge, Combat has NEVER EVER required skill in any mmorpg. Quests have NEVER been anything else then simple. This is what is happening in EVERY mmorpg.
didn't play pre-trammel uo or pre-cu swg, eh? I did. Neither of those required skill. saying it did is saying more about your hand-eye coordination then the game.
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.
um, what games exactly are you playing that require this? i guess i could point to the two i mentioned already... what about daoc? Daoc is the same thing. kill monsters, and, unless your playing on the classic servers, you can enjoy doing raids at the end of the game.
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? eve sorta has that faction thing but um, eve also has pretty open pvp, where you can lose your ship and lots of goodies, whereas wow has... oh yeah, as that dude said, "you lose precious time running back to your body." I don't see how losing your items is a good thing?
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.
which of EQ2's three expansion dost thou speak of? or which of their min-releases (which i guess would equal a wow patch)? all 3 of them.
When will we stop pointing at WoW and look at other MMo's flaws?
when it goes back to being the game we were promised before release? when some loser and his guildmaster who only know eq-raiding stop working at blizzard? when world of WARcraft turns into a war instead of a boring-never-ending-story of farming purples+? three battlegrounds, first came out what? about NINE months after release? something that was supposed to be a PART of release -- battlegrounds? instead you have the show being taken over by some no-talent kaplan who just imitates eq (with the wow added instances, which i doubt kaplan was a part of), and rants about "learn to raid noobs" to real people in public places. yeah, not mental or an r-tard or nuffin.
Originally posted by jmcwaters Pardon my two cents - but all the crap regarding the release date for Burning Crusade really goes to show how many new Blizzard fans there are. "Back when I was a kid, we used to wait 50 years for a new Blizzard game." So get used to it, kiddos. Blizzard always pushes things back, and half of you weren't even around to get furious when the release date for the core game kept getting pushed back. Maybe Burning Crusade will go the way of Starcraft: Ghost. Fire the whole team and chuck the entire near-finished product. You can't help but wonder where all the old Blizzard talent is going. Keep your eyes peeled. And on a same note, I remember a great article released by the founders of Blizzard about a month after the launch of WoW. Something along the lines of: "This is the best thing, and the worst thing, that has ever happened to Blizzard and the Warcraft series. WoW is a huge success, what more could we ask for right? But now we're being forced to expand... no longer are we a team of friends that got together and made games together since highschool. We're hiring people by the hundreds to run, manage and generally rebuild our world. Its no longer a family... we've become a corporation. Its a sad victory." As for the classic fans of Warcraft... we need to realize that something close to us has become every kid's after-school activity, Globally. Its time to start investing our time in something else. Warcraft has reached a point of no return.
I'll see your two cents and raise you a nickle. I'm older than dirt and the matriarch of a three generation gaming family. Just because I had to walk backwards three miles in the snow uphill to school doesn't mean that it's acceptable nowadays. No one gives a crap that you and I had to wait 50 years for a game to come out. And no one cares if the expansion is being made by a family of programmers or a team of corporate code writers. In any other business, people are expected to make deadlines. Repeatedly missing deadlines makes Mr. Consumer quit looking hopefully at the Model T's upgrades when there's a brand new Lexus, Mercedes and BMW being unveiled at the local gaming store.
Raiding is still raiding, doesn't matter if its with 40 or 25 people. Its not fun nor is it accessible to the casual gamer. The time requirements alone are distasteful, let alone the necessity of doing the same instance hundreds of times before you even get one of your class items, let alone all of them. The raiding mechanic is fine with no-lifers, but its time to reward other play styles by giving out equal rewards during casual play and questing. As far as the new PvP, it still sounds like an atrocious grind, it may not be as bad as before, but looking at the rewards, they still don't compare to raid gear that's out now, let alone what raiders will get with the expansion.
By the way, I have a feeling that a mass exodus of hardcores would be far less impactful on the game than a mass exodus of casuals. Considering the casual focus of the 1 - 55 game and the fact that it was advertised as a casual game, I would think its the logical conclusion to reward casual play styles with the best the game has to offer. Doesn't make any sense at all to proclaim a game to be casual only to reward your non-target audience with the best gear. Its rude, its false advertising and its just plain lying in the face of fact.
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
Hardcore people can compete against hardcore ppl and casual can vs. casual.
There we go, no huge item imbalances. Then you could even change the way you get the uber items on casual servers so mostly everyone can get those, or maybe just remove them altogether (but that would mean removing one part of the game..so..).
But then again, the problem with MMO's is the mentality. Everyone says WORK WORK WORK while its supposed to be fun.
People spend hours mindlessy grinding to be rewarded, SKILL was forgotten..and I doubt it will even be remembered again. If you take a minute to analyze any RL society you can see that it all is mirrored.
Originally posted by Darkz0r Make "casual" servers and "hardcore" servers. Hardcore people can compete against hardcore ppl and casual can vs. casual. There we go, no huge item imbalances. Then you could even change the way you get the uber items on casual servers so mostly everyone can get those, or maybe just remove them altogether (but that would mean removing one part of the game..so..). But then again, the problem with MMO's is the mentality. Everyone says WORK WORK WORK while its supposed to be fun. People spend hours mindlessy grinding to be rewarded, SKILL was forgotten..and I doubt it will even be remembered again. If you take a minute to analyze any RL society you can see that it all is mirrored.
If they DID make those two different kind of servers, no one would go to the right server anyway. Maybe you and I would, but no one else would, unfortunately. They gave roleplayers servers specifically for roleplayers and they're over-run with l33t kiddies....and GM's are too few and far between to police the l33ts that harrass the roleplayers on their own RP servers.
I would take a casual server over a stupid Role Play server any day. At least if some hardcore joins the casual server, we still get our rewards for our play style. For many of us, its not the competition for items that drives us, its just the desire to be equally rewarded for the way we like to play. Of course, when it comes to PvP, most people would prefer to be on an even playing field where skill has the greater impact over that of equipment. Didn't they state in one of their interviews that you could PvP for gear and never have to raid? Yet raiding gear gives you a distinct advantage over PvP gear, what the hell is up with that? Are they trying to play themselves off as non-elitists with their words, but their actions prove otherwise? Why even allow raiding gear in the PvP game anyway, it doesn't belong there if PvP'ers can't get equal equipment without raiding.
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
Originally posted by Darkz0r Make "casual" servers and "hardcore" servers. Hardcore people can compete against hardcore ppl and casual can vs. casual.
Today you're a "casual" player, tomorrow you decide that "casual" is a bit too slow paced so you decide that you wanna go "hardcore". How will you make that happen? You're on a casual server. You'll just transfer? Sure, that could work. Lot of administration and name handling, but hey, if you're willing to pay for each transfer I'm sure they're up for it
Let's turn it around for a moment just to take the other side.
Today you're a "hardcore" player, tomorrow you decide that you wanna slow thing down for some reason (real life, work etc.). So you'll just transfer to a casual server? Woah! Hey stop. Now the hardcore player who most likely have better gear and better skills/levels/AAs/whatever are now put among a herd of "casuals"? So now you have an uber toon among the not-so-uber.
Another thing you might wanna think about is this.
A casual server doesn't have a lot of competition for the spawns or events. What would prevent a group of "hardcore" players to start on the "casual" server and start harvesting it? Rules of the server? How are they to be enforced? Ban a player who plays too much? Autotransfer them?
You can't balance an MMOG in a way that will make everyone happy. There'll always be people who thinks they're unfairly treated. Poorly rewarded etc. The best that can be done is to as many people happy contend as possible, and hopefully some happy ones as well.
Originally posted by Vrazule Sadly, not a single MMO out there has had the balls to come up with an endgame that isn't centered on raiding. ...
*cough* Warhammer Online
Some of the new things in burning crusade look interesting, but I dont think that the game will be any better at level 70 than it is now at 60 so I am going to pass.
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And as to Blizzards promise of a new expansion once a year, all I can say is O'Rly?
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I liked the editorial, but i feel it's unfair on a couple of points.
WoW has some grinding, but levelling is fast and easy. Faction is a bad grind BUT it's volontary. The only faction you really _need_ is some timbermaw to ride/shop and AD/CC ofcourse. Now, doing strat 10 times cant really be considered grinding, we know those that has been there 100+ times, and those 10 times will give enough faction.
What i'm getting at is that you dont _have_ to be revered with every faction. There are only a select few where you need a decent faction to progress, and that faction will be had through normal play.
This is where i feel WoW is different from e.g. AO, the grind in AO is the levelling. You cant escape levelling. Thus you must grind. You also have a faction grind which affects xp gained. WoW has no level grind. See the difference?
Apart from that i think the WoW game is a good implementation of the franchise and although i would sometimes like to see more of the rts in it, i cant find a way how it would be done. AV is the closest you get where you can play a peon by collecting boxes in the mines.
I think the expansions release will be smooth. I dont think Blizzard would allow themselves anything else. There will be balance problems, as balance on the beta server with 50 players isn't the same as on the larger scale full servers. Performance wise it's just another continent with new maps and the same graphics engine. It'll be smooth.
Someone said pvp'ing dont require skill. To be a good pvp'er requires skill, but getting pvp-ranks mostly requires grinding. As i'm a bad grinder i'll never get much of a rank even if i never make a fool of myself in the BG's. I do hope the new system will put some more fun, meaning and incentive to pvp, it's a overlooked part of the game.
/Y
"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). 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."
While this editorial has some valid points, the biggest flaws are one
of the major ones. Time sink? Repetitiveness? Have you played EQ
before? or L2? The grind there is outrageous. The best thing about WoW
(from the casual player perspective, the one that this game wasnt made
for according to the editorial) is that you DONT have to grind or play
repetatively. You CAN grind but only if you want to. Or you can quest,
or you can PvP, or you can hunt for resources or craft. The player has
choices and the game is to the player what that player makes it to be.
If you do nothing but do raiding, of course the game will be grind and
time sink for you. But you dont have to.
I consider myself a casual player, I could play for 5 hours a day or 5
hours a week, depending on my work schedule, and I never reached 60. I
had like 8 chars, and top level is 55. I could grind, quest, trade ( I
actualy had fun with auctioning stuff, good old bidding wars heh ),
harvest or craft. It was the best casual game since single player
games! So I think those statements in red are unfair and untrue.
I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
On another note..
I also would like to see more casual friendly Dungeons.. Large groups are such a time-sink
THEN..
When you do get this landslide group together, someone has to AFK for several minutes.
GO-GO Smaller group Dungeons!
This can't be that hard to implement.. For the hardcore - large groups.. better loot - For the casuals, we can get the smaller Dungeons and loot to fit our size.
**Another thing I would of liked to see in the BC upcoming is..
Being somewhat (I say somewhat NOW).. to be able to communicate with the opposite faction. I play both Horde/Alliance and I would love to be able to talk to one or the other a bit.
NO.. I don't mean like /fart - /lick - /spit!
I mean have an actual conversation with them. On the lines of say: "Come-ON Big Boy.. let's see what yas got!"
Garble-Garble conversations drive me nuts.. sorry!
Just my 2cp's worth..
"Huntress"
You do realize you used the word "work" 5 times in a post about a video game yes? K, just checking.
Anofayle, you hit the nail on the head bro. Seriously, WoW is a great game...until you hit 60. Then it all goes to hell. Casual friendly guilds disband so people can seek out "hardcore" raiding guild, while the casual players either put up with running the same damn instances for nothing else than the small chance to get a decent item, roll an Alt, or just flat out quit playing.
Joined 2004 - I can't believe I've been a MMORPG.com member for 20 years! Get off my lawn!
I think you should give Blizzard some credit on this issue. One of the major changes in this expansion is the lack of 40 man raid zones. Their new cap is what, 24 people? It is obvious that the 40 man hardcore massive raid guilds have become so dominate and has taken the game in a direction Blizzard recognizes it doesn't want to go.
I'm hopeful that when we start seeing 24 man raids dropping better/equivilant loot to these current 40 people raids it will change the entire structure of these guilds. I doubt the large guilds are ever going to go away but I do believe instead of 4 or 5 top guilds on a server that will open up to 10 or 12. These smaller casual guilds (If they are dedicated and organized) will no longer have to disband the moment all their membership hits 60 and they find they can't participate in the full endgame any more.
Now they will. If it works out this way I think it is a great sign for the game. It definately shows Blizzard wants to go a different direction than EQ as far as the end game goes. I guess we will have to see.
/bow
/respect
I dont understand how a casual player could possibly think that they should have equal rewards as a hardcore player.
Like everything in life you get out what you put in. If someone puts in twice asmuch time as you he should be twice as powerful. If this wasnt true why would anyone be hardcore in any game.
People should be reminded that even though WoW doesn't grind nearly as badly as EQ, AO or DAoC, it still has a grind and a bad one for a game slated to be very casual friendly. On its own merits, it most certainly does not deserve the moniker or casual friendly. Its game mechanics are specifically put into place to artificially slow progress down, not only in experience gain, but item acquisition as well.
To the poster above and others like him, don't forget that there is a subscription price involved. If this was a free to play game then your argument would have more merit, as it is, MMO companies are rewarding one play style over another and for no other reason than its the mechanism they choose to slow players down, keep them occupied while they come up with new content two years down the road. This game company in particular is slow, inefficient, combative against alternate viewpoints, elitists and they false advertise. Their box should plainly state that while the first 55 levels are casual friendly for the most part, the last 5 levels are stricly for raiders and no-lifers. That's a good 10 percent of the game, even more when you consider that most people will be spending a lot of time at the end game, where they completely turn around and shove it up the masses' collective asses. I have very little respect left for Blizzard, they have a history of putting out good games that appeal to many play styles and rewarding them equally. Now they not only have they become the typical MMO company that mistreats a significant portion of their player base, but they have become lazy with their updates, breaking more than they fix. Above all this, what possesed them to turn PvP into this grind fest? Its insane.
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
Just look at the new crafted items. BoE 1-handed weapons with 81 dps. Compare that to Arena rewards which is 88 dps, and that also means Raid weapons should be 88 dps since Bliizard has stated many times that Arena Armour/Weapons will be on par with Raid items, but you will still get the best trinkets/rings by Raiding. That´s a 10% difference in DPS between a BoE and Raid BoP. Quite a huge improvment compared to now when a raiders 1-hander is 15-20% better than a "casuals" 2-hander(AR, TUF)... ;]
I hope they add tons of more money/time consuming cool tradeskill items! More love for crafters!
Cheers,
Lelle
Changing the old endgame/PvP mechanics wasn't possible overnight. Its easy to say whats broken, but what takes time is coming up with a fix that's actually longterm good and doesn't break anything more. If you read anything about the additions/changes in BC, you can't help but see that Blizzard is attempting to fix their gameplay flaws. No, they're not OVERHAULING their entire game, they're trying to adapt it to both gameplay styles and having it be more inclusive. Maybe that's not enough for some people, but for most of the people who actually like this game, its what we wanted all along.
If Blizzard decided to let the "casual" player get easy access to rewards equal to those that the "hardcore" player gets, you'll soon see a great exodus of "hardcore" players.. Oh wait.. That's what already did happen in WoW. Reach 60 and go bored because there wasn't enough content for the "hardcore" players.. Blizzard has to keep those that reach 60 fast entertained, or occupied might be a better word, to continue to get those players money.
Since the "hardcore" player base spend more times playing, they plow through the content faster than the casual player base. Hence the "hardcore player base will need more content to keep them occupied than the "casual" player base will.
Yes, I quoted "casual" and "hardcore" because they're such relative terms. To most people however (and how you should interpret them in this post), the words are based on how much time you put into the game. I'm not interested to get into a debate on what defines a hardcore or a casual player.
Oh, and did you realize that you've posted an average of 2 posts each day for the past 847 days? Maybe you should consider posting less and make them more constructive?
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
bravo.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Pardon my two cents - but all the crap regarding the release date for Burning Crusade really goes to show how many new Blizzard fans there are.
"Back when I was a kid, we used to wait 50 years for a new Blizzard game."
So get used to it, kiddos. Blizzard always pushes things back, and half of you weren't even around to get furious when the release date for the core game kept getting pushed back.
Maybe Burning Crusade will go the way of Starcraft: Ghost. Fire the whole team and chuck the entire near-finished product. You can't help but wonder where all the old Blizzard talent is going. Keep your eyes peeled.
And on a same note, I remember a great article released by the founders of Blizzard about a month after the launch of WoW. Something along the lines of: "This is the best thing, and the worst thing, that has ever happened to Blizzard and the Warcraft series. WoW is a huge success, what more could we ask for right? But now we're being forced to expand... no longer are we a team of friends that got together and made games together since highschool. We're hiring people by the hundreds to run, manage and generally rebuild our world. Its no longer a family... we've become a corporation. Its a sad victory."
As for the classic fans of Warcraft... we need to realize that something close to us has become every kid's after-school activity, Globally. Its time to start investing our time in something else. Warcraft has reached a point of no return.
I'll see your two cents and raise you a nickle. I'm older than dirt and the matriarch of a three generation gaming family. Just because I had to walk backwards three miles in the snow uphill to school doesn't mean that it's acceptable nowadays. No one gives a crap that you and I had to wait 50 years for a game to come out. And no one cares if the expansion is being made by a family of programmers or a team of corporate code writers. In any other business, people are expected to make deadlines. Repeatedly missing deadlines makes Mr. Consumer quit looking hopefully at the Model T's upgrades when there's a brand new Lexus, Mercedes and BMW being unveiled at the local gaming store.
Raiding is still raiding, doesn't matter if its with 40 or 25 people. Its not fun nor is it accessible to the casual gamer. The time requirements alone are distasteful, let alone the necessity of doing the same instance hundreds of times before you even get one of your class items, let alone all of them. The raiding mechanic is fine with no-lifers, but its time to reward other play styles by giving out equal rewards during casual play and questing. As far as the new PvP, it still sounds like an atrocious grind, it may not be as bad as before, but looking at the rewards, they still don't compare to raid gear that's out now, let alone what raiders will get with the expansion.
By the way, I have a feeling that a mass exodus of hardcores would be far less impactful on the game than a mass exodus of casuals. Considering the casual focus of the 1 - 55 game and the fact that it was advertised as a casual game, I would think its the logical conclusion to reward casual play styles with the best the game has to offer. Doesn't make any sense at all to proclaim a game to be casual only to reward your non-target audience with the best gear. Its rude, its false advertising and its just plain lying in the face of fact.
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
Make "casual" servers and "hardcore" servers.
Hardcore people can compete against hardcore ppl and casual can vs. casual.
There we go, no huge item imbalances.
Then you could even change the way you get the uber items on casual servers so mostly everyone can get those, or maybe just remove them altogether (but that would mean removing one part of the game..so..).
But then again, the problem with MMO's is the mentality. Everyone says WORK WORK WORK while its supposed to be fun.
People spend hours mindlessy grinding to be rewarded, SKILL was forgotten..and I doubt it will even be remembered again. If you take a minute to analyze any RL society you can see that it all is mirrored.
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
How will you make that happen? You're on a casual server. You'll just transfer? Sure, that could work. Lot of administration and name handling, but hey, if you're willing to pay for each transfer I'm sure they're up for it
Let's turn it around for a moment just to take the other side.
Today you're a "hardcore" player, tomorrow you decide that you wanna slow thing down for some reason (real life, work etc.). So you'll just transfer to a casual server? Woah! Hey stop. Now the hardcore player who most likely have better gear and better skills/levels/AAs/whatever are now put among a herd of "casuals"? So now you have an uber toon among the not-so-uber.
Another thing you might wanna think about is this.
A casual server doesn't have a lot of competition for the spawns or events. What would prevent a group of "hardcore" players to start on the "casual" server and start harvesting it? Rules of the server? How are they to be enforced? Ban a player who plays too much? Autotransfer them?
You can't balance an MMOG in a way that will make everyone happy. There'll always be people who thinks they're unfairly treated. Poorly rewarded etc. The best that can be done is to as many people happy contend as possible, and hopefully some happy ones as well.
*cough*
Warhammer Online
Some of the new things in burning crusade look interesting, but I dont think that the game will be any better at level 70 than it is now at 60 so I am going to pass.