Originally posted by pabloex Wow. It was almost painful to read.
So let's cut to the chase - you want to feel unique, you want to stick out from every other player, you want to create a visual statement that makes people remember you. Nothing wrong with that but that isn't what WoW offers and instead of trying to force what you want into WoW why not try one of the several other games that do let you do that?
customer complaints is what made them change up BG queues to include everyone everywhere. people being content with garbage didn't make that change. customer complaints (and account cancellations) made them rethink the kaplan-onlyraidcuzi'matalentlesshack concept and take him down from being their spokes-troll. little babies taking it like babies didn't get BC changed from raid-only to pvp and smaller instances...
Simply put, if that visual statement is that important to you, then WoW isn't your game. Doesn't make WoW good, bad or anything else, it just means it isn't what you want. Would you buy car racing game on your X-Box if you wanted to play Basketball?
maybe he wants the WoW that was hyped before they hired kaplan and his dark sith guildmaster from EQ....
Ok, last point, you are totally off your rocker with your comparison of the haves and have nots when it comes to loot. First of all you are insinuating that players MUST compete against other players at the end game.
yes, kaplan's own numbers show that a good 0.69% of the wow population engages in raiding. that's about two-thirds of ONE percent, which means that 99.31% of the wow population (by kaplan's number) do NOT engage in raiding. if they're not raiding, that means they don't like raiding right?
so if that 99+% of the population isn't raiding... what are they doing? quilting? oh wait, crafting is a joke in wow, no quilting here.
Otherwise, this is nothing more than cleverly disguised statement of loot envy.
um, or it's talking about what 99.31% of the wow population does/doesn't do, which is something all these people that say "oh wow must be doing everything right, they've got millions of subs"... seems those people ALWAYS forget, that by KAPLAN's own numbers... less than one percent of the population raids. if 99% of the subs DON'T raid... it's really not euclidean geometry to draw a straight line of logic here.
In closing, yes, you are welcome to have your opinions but perhaps you should broaden your horizon and speak of issues that span the MMOG genre as a whole instead of trying to appeal vocal minority that riddle the forums of MMOG games with their complaints about how no game is ever good enough.
vocal minority, yet 99% of the wow players by their ACTIONS agree that raiding is caca and pvp and non-raids need tons of work.
If this is the kind of drivel that the MMORPG.com site wants to sponsor when it comes to 'fresh new content', I am going to have to seriously consider its removal from my list of sites to read.
can i have your stuff?
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?
WoW and other MMOs with limited customization features do it for a reason. Too bad none of the geniuses on this board has grasped that though. Pity.
WoW has very limited character and armor customization because it's meant to have upwards of 100 characters(players and/or NPCs) in close proximity. Now if you had all those fancy facial features like nose length, or chin width or 18 different types of ear hair it would bog down your computer like no tomorrow. Blizzard even vastly downgraded the graphics of nearly everything from the original closed beta so that older or less powerul computers would have few problems running it. You don't get 7 million subscribers by making it so your game can only be played by hardcore performance nuts. Limiting customiztion was just good busines sense.
The most idiotic thing about that editorial was the comparison to Guild Wars. Yikes.
Epic raid gear is meant for ::gasp:: epic raids and NOT and I repeat NOT PvP. You get epic raid gear so you can fight bosses than can hit for 20,000 damage and have 3 million hit points. PvP is just merely a side effect. When an editor says that epic raid gear is meant solely for PvP there is something wrong and I don't mean with WoW. Take your personal vendettas else where.
Hey, Fuller. Your editorials suck. I'd prefer it if you fondled Everquest II like the rest of the MMORPG.com writers and stop mentioning WoW in the same breath as the majority of the grindfest games on this site.
all this talk of wow customization has me seriously thinking ive been playing the wrong game for the past few years.
there ISNT any character real customization to speak of. sure they do a good job to make it look like theres customization, but besides the ui, there just isnt.
character appearance basically 5 different values to play with, with 5-10 choices for each value, if you can call them choices. skin color is a joke honestly, do you want to be this yellow green orc or this bluish green orc? the facial/head hair styles are nice looking i will admit, but then poor helmet clipping issues throws it out the window. either your hair clips thru the helm, or helms will make hair vanish all together, even if the helm isnt covering that part, ie my bearded dwarf loses his bead when he put on a foot-ball style helmet. the different facial ring placements on women arent noticable in the game, and to top it off, there not even a height/weight option of any sort. clonecraft ftw.
character build customization the talents in wow just arent deep enough to have any sort of individualism what so ever. sure it looks like a huge buffet of options to tailor your character just so, but after playing you realize that many of these talents arent that great, some are just plain pointless, while others are almost mandatory. whether you want to or not, almost every player is forced into one of a few "cookie cutter" builds for that class. since some builds are actually "better" than others, coupled with the changes bliz has made over the past couple years that have killed off certain builds, theres really only 3 choices max per class. more clonecraft.
phat lewtz loot is as bad as character builds. your build dictates the loot you go after, and then its just a constant grind to get that perfect set put together. heres the kicker tho, its the same damn set everyone else with your build is going for. when a new instance is added to the game then the "dream set" changes, and everyone goes after that set instead. the end result is the majority of the population look the same, as theyre wearing the same armor, carrying the same weapons. since you cant even change height/weight of your character, it just makes the whole 'everyone-looks-alike' syndrome that much worse.
again, character customization doesnt exist in wow imo. hopefully this will change in bc, i can only hope.
yes it looks like nothing but me whining about wow, and yet i still play the stupid game.
I dont really dont get the drama about customisation of your character. Who really cares if some of us look the same in armor? Isn't the point that they have made items recognisable which makes more sense. The mention that all players of a certain class and in the same guild look the same makes me wonder what type of guild you are in. I would think most guilds are working on dungeons where most players haven't completed the set, if you are all in tier 1 gear and look the same perhaps its time for your guild to move on to BWL? :P
I read another post in this thread where the guy suggested this was a whine and tbh it does kind of read that way. The complaint about being beat by people in better gear makes little sense to me too. It is imperative that when we reach level 60 everyone is not on an equal par, otherwise why carry on? Full epic gear probably gives the same advantage as 2-3 levels over a blue geared player and so it should or we would all stop and get bored at level 60. Again if the grind to get that gear was not made difficult then everybody would have it and there would be little point in carrying on.
It kinda seems that on the one hand you want to be unique (in the way u look) but on the other u want everybody the same (as far as gear goes)...hmnn is sounding like a whine for whine sake.
Talents, well you paint a pretty dim view, and i think some classes are limited to maybe only 1-2 routes and healing classes in particulalrly have certain specs demanded of them by guilds. For solo play though I think they are more than sufficient and can give 2-3 completely different playing styles, multuply that by the choice of 9 different classes and is enough in my opinion.
Now the above may sound like Im one of the 'stop having a go at wow, i love it brigade', im not, in fact im bored to death of it and desperately waiting for something new and good to come out. I've tried Eve (zzzzz) and a couple of others lately but it's nice to be starting a new game when everyone esle is rather than 2 years behind.
In my opinion whats is wrong with wow is the need to be in a guild to obtain them epics, the guilds become less about fun and collectively playing together and more about gaining items. The top end guilds on servers rape the average guilds for players as soon as them average guilds have given players a few tier 1 epics. Some players come in and guild jump and within 3/4 weeks of turning 60 are in Naxx guilds...whats so hard about that grind? Rewarding people with no loyalty and poor attitudes with quick epics.
And the pvp now is a joke, i guess i've been lucky as i ranked a warrior to 14 and mage to 13 in the good old days. Now almost every time i join a bg solos for a little fun theres a 'fixed' group opposite and absolutely no chance to win. I think that may be addressed in TBC. But why havent premade groups been paired against each other before? Why cant u join as a random and expect to play against randoms? I have no idea....it's just bad design. The only route to epics before as a semi-solo player was through the pvp system, and now that's been made impossible.
Personally i'm watching this space, as no doubt a lot of wow addicts are. New games due out soon should try bloody hard to be out before TBC finally hits the stores. There's a hell of a lot of people looking for something else to play since its pointless searching for better gear in wow until TBC, the trouble is if nothing new and inspiring comes out beforehand we will all end up giving TBC a chance. No doubt another few months of wow addiction followed by end game dissapointment will follow.
Damian7, I certainly have no issue with you doing a counterpoint to my post, however, when you take the points out of context, it simply shows a lack of depth in original thinking.
At nowhere in my original posting did I mention raiding. The editorial complains about an imbalance in gear at the end game. This complaint is further developed stating that some players will never have a chance to defeat other players. Thus this isolates the end game down to one on one PvP. I didn't say that, I simply pointed out that this was an overbroad generalization and completely ignored what could be done at end game. And quite frankly, it really doesn't matter what percentages you pull out of your hat about what activities players engage in at end game because again it is a discussion of what you can do versus how you choose to limit yourself.
You were obviously an individual that built up a lot pre-release expectations that were not satisfied. Welcome to the wonderful world of Artistic Creativity meets Business Funding Model. We all expect that MMOGs will continue to evolve as the games age, such as the changes you pointed out with the Battlegrounds. However, every game has some fundamental systems that are far too cost prohibitive to change. Completely changing the character creation system would have deep ramifications for the game. But rather than attempting to understand the far reaching effects such a change would have, you would rather express your dislike for 'Kaplan' and continue on in your naive perspective that developers can make any change at any time and don't have corporate mandates to which they must also answer.
Finally, I am not disputing that many WoW characters visually appear similar. I am not disputing that WoW's end game is focused on loot. And I am not saying that WoW is the best game on the market as I believe the 'best' game on the market is the one the individual enjoys playing thus this could be different for every individual you meet. What I am saying is that too much time is spent opining about why Title X stinks rather than accepting that it simply isn't the game for you. As long as several million people are paying to have an account, Blizzard will continue to see this as an endorsement that their product does meet the needs of a large enough customer base for them to continue to support what is already there.
Lack of graphic custumization is indeed a problem in WoW. It is annoying when I can't tell one NE druid from the other. And sure I would like to be able to look more unique. On the other hand, I have never seen any char that looked exactly like mine. Sometimes the gear is quite alike, but then the weapons are different. Some ppl have their helm and cape turned on, some don't. More personal options would be nice though. Nice to see two new races in TBC. (although the mmorpg podcast suggested that there was only ½ new race:P)
Talents seems a bit underrated in this editorial. As a paladin I can change between many builds, and they do change the game for me. I am not required to spec a certain way to join raids and if ppl are, then they can find a different guild. A friend of mine is playing rogue, warrior and mage. He changes talent-spec frequently, since for him the spec matters a whole lot. There is more than 1-2 great builds for every class!
Originally posted by Reinjin Hey, Fuller. Your editorials suck. I'd prefer it if you fondled Everquest II like the rest of the MMORPG.com writers and stop mentioning WoW in the same breath as the majority of the grindfest games on this site.
are you the person that works for wow that has the murlock for your avatar on your forums? the logic in your posting reminds me a lot of that *person*.
i'd really like to know what exactly you're trying to post, because it doesn't make a lot of sense... it's like you said, "jojo, your mama has a job and so does mine!" and it's supposed to be an insult.
wow is the largest and most horrid example of a grindfest for a western game that's out atm.
l2r.
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?
customization in WoW is alomost nil - you can choose your head's appearance, but who can see that when geared up?
About the gear being over the top, I strongly disagree. Gear is another form of levelling, it is good to have hard fought for gear that makes a real difference. Balance between high level gear and low level gear is just silly; why go through the effort to get the good stuff if it doesn't make a difference?
I say this hating the grind and not much liking the raiding, which, imo, is another form of grinding. The difference I would like to see is that WoW provides us solo-lovers with ways to get high level gear, ways that do not involve doing the same quest again and again.
Btw, I have 2 L60 characters neither of which has gone beyond having green gear with some blues, but I'm still glad to have epic-geared peoples able to kick my butt
Have played: Everquest, Asheron's Call, Horizons, Everquest2, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer, Age of Conan, Darkfall
Originally posted by unbelieveroz But seriously, these so called "editorials" are nothing more the glorified forum posts, which is to say a waste of bandwidth.Seriously, marking them as a feature is insane and completly shafts the value of this zomg-new-screen-shot news site.
1. An article in a newspaper or other periodical presenting the opinion of the publisher, editor, or editors. 2. A statement broadcast on radio or television that presents the opinion of the owner, manager, or the like, of the station or channel. 3. Something regarded as resembling such an article or statement, as a lengthy, dogmatic utterance.
You have to take them for what they are. It's merely the opinion of someone who works at the site. Not everyone will agree with them, but isn't that the beauty of it all? These editorials stir up a lot of conversation with valid points on both sides and gets the community involved in debate.
[Here's a list of all the games I've played and/or my computer specs to show how much more seasoned or technologically advanced I am than you.]
The level of customization in WoW is pathetic, at the very minium i'd want to be able to add armor and weapon dyes. But there needs to be more ability to customize the look and build of a character. In addition whilst not directly related to character customization I view guild/personal housing as a must also, these buildings could be alternate hearth points, places were excess inventory can be stored (other than bank vaults), trophies displayed and personal vendors situated. None of which affect the characters abilities in Pve/PvP but which add more depth to the game. Whilst I enjoy Wow any game that offers better customization,housing and a useful crafting system (Much of wows is useless when some items can only be worn/used by the person who made them and the few good items that can be made are usually outclassed by world/set drops).
set pieces are the dumbest idea ever, we already have plate, mail, leather, and cloth why further restrict it by making it classes: Priest It's lazy in my opinion they threw in the different types of armor and couldn't think of any way to balance that out other than further restricting it to classes. Dumb and lazy in my opinion. In eve you can put lasers on your scorpion if you want, or projectiles on your apocolypse probably not the smartest thing, but at least you have that option.
Blizzard says: "here is how you'll play [raids] and here is what you'll loot [class loot]" dumb lazy and restrictive in my opinion.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You? if I were to kill a titan tomorrow and no CCP employees showed up to say grats I would petition it. Waiting for: the next MMO that lets me make this macro if hp < 30 then CastSpell("heal") SpellTargetUnit("player") else CastSpell("smite") end
I'll buy BC 'cause it's the only thing out there but when something remotely on par with WoW that doesn't require endless PvE grinding to be able to PvP on a remotely even playing playing field comes along me and wife will wave goodbye and not look back. (AoC, W.A.R., ???)
Btw, reading the headline I thought this would be about customizing appearance etc. and couldn't really wrap my head around the concept of WoW and actual choices but then I read the piece and of course it was WoW and gear which is really all it is about.
Originally posted by pabloex Damian7, I certainly have no issue with you doing a counterpoint to my post, however, when you take the points out of context, it simply shows a lack of depth in original thinking.
At nowhere in my original posting did I mention raiding. The editorial complains about an imbalance in gear at the end game.
where does this imbalance in gear come from? r a i d i n g?
This complaint is further developed stating that some players will never have a chance to defeat other players.
BG pug with other random players who don't raid 24/7, vs a BG composed of people in a raiding guilds. or a BG composed of different folks from raiding guilds.
Thus this isolates the end game down to one on one PvP.
see my last
I didn't say that, I simply pointed out that this was an overbroad generalization and completely ignored what could be done at end game.
what can you do once you hit 60... crafting... um, i guess you could make pots, pick weeds, sell ores. or you can do baron 100,000 times and hope that you get his horse when it finally drops. you could also um, grind faction against a myriad of mobs, all of which give you epic recipes. that's cool, until you realize that those recipes have mats you get only from raid instances. you could pvp. nothing really to gain unless it's in a bg though.
And quite frankly, it really doesn't matter what percentages you pull out of your hat
um, those percentages are pulled directly from kaplan (designer at wow, you might've heard of him), at that lil gathering a few months back where he used slides to show how many thousands participate in raids and how many millions play the game. the math itself wasn't shown by kaplan because it'd have shown that it's less than one percent of the total population. saying X thousands raid made it look like a lot of people raid instead of doing the %. so um, yeah i pulled the percentage out of the lead dev's hat.
about what activities players engage in at end game because again it is a discussion of what you can do versus how you choose to limit yourself.
limit yourself? the devs at wow limit you. unless you're in a raiding guild, they really didn't make much for the pvpers in a game that has 'war' in it's title.
You were obviously an individual that built up a lot pre-release expectations that were not satisfied. Welcome to the wonderful world of Artistic Creativity meets Business Funding Model. We all expect that MMOGs will continue to evolve as the games age, such as the changes you pointed out with the Battlegrounds. However, every game has some fundamental systems that are far too cost prohibitive to change. Completely changing the character creation system would have deep ramifications for the game. But rather than attempting to understand the far reaching effects such a change would have, you would rather express your dislike for 'Kaplan' and continue on in your naive perspective that developers can make any change at any time and don't have corporate mandates to which they must also answer.
here we get into one of those 'i play eve and i'm better than you attitudes', yet you play wow... that is so ironic i'm about to cry from laughing. they changed the game to suit kaplan... but they can't change the game to suit the 7 million paying customers? oh wait, they did, and are continuing to change it... the multi-realm bgs are an example. but i guess if you're ranting from a 'i'm so superior' soap box, facts don't matter. rant on bro.
Finally, I am not disputing that many WoW characters visually appear similar. I am not disputing that WoW's end game is focused on loot. And I am not saying that WoW is the best game on the market as I believe the 'best' game on the market is the one the individual enjoys playing thus this could be different for every individual you meet. What I am saying is that too much time is spent opining about why Title X stinks rather than accepting that it simply isn't the game for you. As long as several million people are paying to have an account, Blizzard will continue to see this as an endorsement that their product does meet the needs of a large enough customer base for them to continue to support what is already there.
well, by your logic, they wouldn't have ever redone bgs. by your logic, they wouldn't have changed BC to be a WHOLE lot more non-raider friendly. oh look, customers complaining IS making them change how they do business. then again, i'm talking about facts and what has happened and is continuing to happen. wonder why they took kaplan down as spokes-troll? oh yeah, bad PR from *learn to raid noobs*, especially after a lot of customer complaints about wow. so in order to appease said customers... they're changing a lot about the game... wonder if that's why BC got put off? they realized how it wouldn't be a quick fix to undo all the raids kaplan had imposed and that it'd take time to make the game something that would retain paying customers... so i guess that sort of blows your "blizz is doing everything right and doesn't need to change anything" theory out the water. if they were... then where's kaplan and his endless raids? why is BC tooting itself as being solo and single group friendly?
Get over it and move on.
use facts instead of fancy and get off your high horse.
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?
Damian7 you have proven yourself to be quite obtuse.
I am amazed at your remarkable ability to recite as fact what I play and what I know when such statements were never made by me. Couple this with the depth of your behind the scenes knowledge of the why's and how's that a gaming company is making their changes and you truly do excel at achieving one of the highest ranks of whiney forum hate puppets.
Despite the fact that you are better than most 'haters' in your command of vocabulary, it still doesn't mask the fact that your statements are filled with assumptions, unsubstantiated conclusions and a narrow perspective that is driven simply by your emotional response to a video game. I do not feel that I am superior to you, as you state in your post, I just refuse to resort to attacking you personally and would rather stay focused on the argument, logic statements and possibilities that are overlooked.
What really makes me laugh is the fact that on many occassions in many places writing I have done has been highly critical of Blizzard. But that is a different discussion. For the sake of this thread nothing you have said changes what I first wrote about the joke that this editorial is and the fact that the vocal whiners feel a sense of entitlement about how a game should be changed rather than finding a different title that may be more suited to satisfying their complaints.
This will be my last post on this thread so you may have the last word as you strike me as the type of person that needs to do that.
Originally posted by pabloex Damian7 you have proven yourself to be quite obtuse.
I am amazed at your remarkable ability to recite as fact what I play and what I know when such statements were never made by me.
blah blah blah = you busted me on not knowing anything so now i play the "YOU DON'T KNOW ME" card.
Couple this with the depth of your behind the scenes knowledge of the why's and how's that a gaming company is making their changes and you truly do excel at achieving one of the highest ranks of whiney forum hate puppets.
you STATED that wow is going great, no need to make changes. i pointed out how you are completely wrong, and showed FACTS.
Despite the fact that you are better than most 'haters' in your command of vocabulary, it still doesn't mask the fact that your statements are filled with assumptions, unsubstantiated conclusions and a narrow perspective that is driven simply by your emotional response to a video game.
yet, kaplan did recite the numbers, they do come out to those percentages, BC was going to be another raidfest and they're changing it to be NONraid, BGs were changed... why is that? because after two years of success, they decided OUT THE BLUE, to make changes? or... maybe, just maybe, it's because of customer complaints. you're the only one just making things up, which is great, if you're doing a non-factual editorial. the things i've stated are facts, backed by LOGICIAL speculations. l2r.
I do not feel that I am superior to you, as you state in your post, I just refuse to resort to attacking you personally and would rather stay focused on the argument, logic statements and possibilities that are overlooked.
wow, you ignore facts presented, state no actual facts, but only opinions.
What really makes me laugh is the fact that on many occassions in many places writing I have done has been highly critical of Blizzard. But that is a different discussion. For the sake of this thread nothing you have said changes what I first wrote about the joke that this editorial is and the fact that the vocal whiners feel a sense of entitlement about how a game should be changed rather than finding a different title that may be more suited to satisfying their complaints.
those so-called whiners are the REASON that wow is changing for the better. ignorant little people that take what's given them and don't try to change something they like (and enjoy) for the better are NOT the reason...
This will be my last post on this thread so you may have the last word as you strike me as the type of person that needs to do that.
except that i'm using facts to dispute your thoughts. you're just throwing your opinion, no facts. sure, MAYBE wow is going away from two years of raiding NOT because of customer complaints, but because raiding IS what made them so successful and they're tired of success? or, maybe, my speculations, based upon what actually happens, is the truth.
again, someone that knows they're in a wrong position, just trying to be a big online mang. it's great to have an OPINION. when someone shows facts, and bases their opinions upon facts presented, that does not entitle you to libel, slander, nor go "oh, you don't know what you're talking about."
if i'm wrong about BC not having tons of big raids, if i'm wrong about BGs being modified, if i'm wrong about kaplan's numbers, PLEASE correct me. don't just dismiss FACTS because you don't like them.
if wow is so successful, 7 million subs and all, AND they're doing everything RIGHT... why the huge changes? the BG queue, plus auto-grouping in BGs, those are based upon customer complaints about honor farmers, same with the new BC bg changes where it assigns teams based upon gear. now did anyone actually SAY that? no. are these well-known customer complaints that have been around probably since BGs first started? if not that long, then for months? yes, they are. again, it's not euclidean geometry to draw a line from point a to point b and come to a LOGICAL conclusion that YES, BG changes ARE due to customer complaints.
same with kaplan not being spokes-troll. you can't pretend that the "learn to raid" comments weren't a total pr nightmare.
same with LACK of huge raids, almost-apologies for the nothingbutraidgarbage they've been feeding customers.
no one has officially said EVERYTHING i've posted, but um, well, it's not that hard to connect dots to well-known customer complaints and game changes which address said complaints.
last word? only if someone is being holier-than-thou and/or acting like i'm making up information, when in fact... well, it's facts...
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?
Amen to that Damian7. Its amazing how so many fanbois try to use smoke and mirrors to disprove what is right in front of their faces. If a game mechanic is working, you don't change it period, customer complaints or not. You only change things if there is a real problem, such as subscriber losses or customer complaints that number in the thousands creating very bad public press (reducing potential subscribers). While I think they're taking too small steps, they are taking steps to change the formula. Whether it will be enough to keep a large part of their subscriber base is yet to be seen.
They already lost me months ago and I'm sure I wasn't and won't be the only one. I won't be coming back till they reward all play styles equally. If I can't get epic gear solo / small group, instance / non-instance, raid / non-raid, then this game has nothing to offer me. The same goes for any MMO that uses this outdated and elitist paradigm. Its hard to imagine any subscriber base paying a developing company to treat even a small portion of their patrons like second class citizens, let alone the large percentage they abuse now. Its sad, its disgusting and it has to change, not just for WoW, but for future MMO's to come.
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 have a totally different take on this ever important "customization".
I played SWG from release to right after JTL when i couldnt complete a space mission because of a bug and i lost interest. Anyway i digress, In swg you could customize your face down to the frecklels, but all combat classes wore pretty much the exact same gear once you could afford it leaving the non-coms to wear the fancy stuff, unless you were just walking about town and not planning on pvping at all. So what you have is a bunch of custom faces running around in helms all covered up.
I played COH from launch for about a year, and yes it is the most customizable game out there as far as looks. But as far as spells, it was all the same crap. And as far as the poor blasters with rifles that could not (and still cant from what i gather) be replaced. So yes i LOOKED different but my playstyle was very similar to 100 other people on my server.( In addition at end game there was nothing to do other than farm/buy more enhancements so you could do.... something im sure)
I played EVE and all i will say is .................................. I know alot of people like this game but you have got to be kidding me when people start spouting about SKILL in EVE, TIME levels you up in that game and there is very limited customization until you have invested a exteneded amount of time (and no not just in-game time, but time sleeping, maybe you were watching a movie, it doesnt matter cause you were gaining SKILLS!) I dont know about endgame in EVE cause i was so dangerously close to gouging my eyes out after my 10 day trial that i couldnt stand it. But you are still going to be in the same ship that 100 other people are going to be in. (Though i will give them that its forgivable in a game like this since you can technically be part of a squad) Meh to eash tier own.
In addition to those games i have pretty much tried every mmo out there (eq1,eq2,Ryzom, GW, anarchy online, god even Planetside, FFxi, RF , and a whole slew of others i cant even remember at this point. I just wanted to clarify this before i went on to my main point to try to prevent flames like gawd play other games or some crap.
Now ill get to the meat of my point. I play wow and i wanted to hate it when it was coming out. When i got into the character customization i WAS very dissappointed, this feeling of course didnt last long due to the fun leveing grind and the fact that the game was very fun to start out with. Through the 1-60 process you rarely if ever see another character with the exact same items as you which is nice. So once you hit endgame raiding is where Mr. Fuller's point of Sameness Set Pieces comes in and where i find wow has done something that no other game has.
As an example We have two Tauren warriors in our guild we will call them Tank 1 and Tank 2, both have the exact same visible pieces of armor(not counting trinkets, rigns, etc.) but the demeanor of the people that play the characters is completely different, and in that i see 2 completely different tauren warriors when i look at them. This is obviously purely a mental thing and may be restricted to just me. But in the sameness that blizzard created they have forced me to look beyond the gear of my guildie and his toon and to see how is play style and attitude effect the way i see and feel about this person.
Meh well that is my point, sorry for the rambling..... Off to get food.
eris, i think the customization that i want to see includes individual talents/trees, in the case of wow.
it'd be nice if they'd at LEAST have crafters able to tint armors. supposedly there's going to be the diablo-style socketing? that's a way to customize armor.
but, i just wish there were more talent trees. so that it'd be impossible to just have a couple of *have to build* cutters. but, guess that's asking for too much, i mean, after two years, they reskinned night elves and orcs, couldn't be bothered to make new classes, and said "look, our expansion has flying mounts". big whoop.
where's housing? where's guild housing? where's that guild level stuff that eq2 has? i mean, heck, kaplan stole raiding from eq cuz that's all he and his dark sith master do, why not steal housing and guild levels? or even a take on AA (alternate advancement)?
i hate to say it, but if UO ever breaks down and finally gets a new graphics engine, i'm willing to bet a LOT of people are going to flock there. even with the semi-nerfed pvp, uo has a TON of things in it that other games aren't even trying to do. everything from the pets, to treasure hunting, to the fish tanks, fishing, craftables, completely customizable housing, farming/breeding plants and a laundry list of things to do that you never see in other games.
please don't compare fishing in uo to fishing in wow though. never seen a sea serpent or sunken ships found in wow from fishing/treasure hunting/sos bottles/etc.
it's sad when you can look fondly at a game that's 9+ years old and say "man, if only they'd finally go thru with it and redo the graphics engine..."
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?
I am certainly not saying that i dont want customization, i think socketed items would be a perfect time to implement this visually. But what im saying is that if you truly enjoy the game[any game] then you start to see other things in the players you spend hours of your life with, and to the people who enjoy the raiding aspect like i do its not the loot that is the most rewarding if you will, its getting past that C-Block and being able to retain that skill and ability every time you set foot in that instance.
A bit off topic but about the Raid in wow, I never played eq up enough to find out what the raids were like in that game.(mainly becausse i couldnt stand the shabby graphics and weird interface, ya i came in late with eq when there were other/better things around.) But coming from running a 150 player SWG guild on Bloodfin (The Sons Of Sith, in case anyone remembers us) where we would have 70 people online with virtually nothing to do but pvp for nothing with also no negative to dying after the second patch, or *try* to farm overpopulated Krayt Dragons, 3 years later and a plethora of other boring/unintersting mmo's WOW comes out and you can actually use 40 people to do something and its fun.
Normally someone will make the point that yes raiding is fun maybe the first time, but doing it over and over again is a pain in the ass. Well oddly enough i have never played a mmo where you didnt really just do the same thing over and over again regardless of what it was. All mmo's have this even the Cancer Curing Luchemia Cleansing Holy Grail of Mmo's EVE(which i find is way overrated and extensively boring, though i understand the reason its entertaining to people). What i like about wow is even though ive done aq40 200 times, the guild interacts differently every day of the week, depending who is on and in the run, and that is why i play mmos and not sprpg's mainly.
In Coh when i was almost max level i saw the first max level character on our server, so i asked him, what do you do now that you are max level? He says to me "Not sure, thinking about rerolling." It wasnt a week later that i quit that game. What is the point of getting max level if you cannot further improve your character after that? CoH tried to do this with Enhancements and weird semi impressive visual effects, but these are still limited and you run into another hero who has the same fancy visual effect. (also regarding CoX's endless* customization, even with the most horrendous gear and color combos i still ran into people that looked almost exactly like me)
So i guess it just all comes down to what it is that makes you appreciate a game at end game and how far are you willing to extend the umbrella of sameness. Alot of hate is thrown at WOW on this website, about how its just a copy blah blah blah, and though this may be partially true. If it's a copy of the best aspects of the some the best games does that not make it a good game? At least by some standards?
Bah again sorry for the ramblings, Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaally bored at work. An no im not a wow fanboi, i just happen to enjoy the game and the social aspects of it.
i have to disagree with a couple things said here.
1. eye candy. useless stuff, if i look like everyone else that is my race/class combo... who cares? no one cares what you look like, but they will pay attention to you when you melt some faces. eye candy just limits the # of ppl that can play the game. no one likes lag
2. he assumes that there is a "best build". ill agree that as WoW stands now you have a "best build". if you are an ice mage you are like every other ice mage out there. but as i fool around with the new talent trees i see that it is really hard to focus on a build.
HUGE NOTE SKIP IF YOU REALLY DONT WANT TO READ A HUGE THING ON BUILDS. note most of these are pvp ideas... raiding ftl
warlok. i thought to run a 19/21/21 build, drain tank with ruin. plausable? yes. next i saw the fel guard abilities and the huge buffs to demo so a demo build with nightfall. does it work? yes. night fall with full destruction to get something sick like 5 insta casts (one is a .5 sec cast but w/e heh). yes. is any one of those builds better than the other? probably not. i personally settled on a 30/31/0 build, pure suvivability build. obviously i wont be the best dmg dealer.
rogue. ty blizz for the sub buff full sub is a viable option imo. reason : with the addition of more melee characters (the hybrids are finally hybrid) ghostly strike with... setup is it? would work, obviously not agaist warriors, that would hurt. basically what you could do with a sub build is go down to imp sprint, get +hit all that stuff, then you are unstopable, in a very snarelike sense. do warlok dots piss you off when you could vanish? 41 talent ftw. also with the 15% agi and the outta stealth thingy and the atk power increase you arent completely gimped for dmg. we know that combat and asn work.
shaman. resto builld = god mode. i used to be able to heal tank in pvp with 4 guys on me.... now? heals cant get inturrupted basically. you could sit for days spamming lesser heal and no one would kill you, allowing a flag cap usually heh. elemental - same good stuff with double casts (wondering still if the first crit will the second automatically?) enhancement - DW FTW! recent info says that dw will have elemental wep buffs on both weps , note that this shows for the raiders that you will probably not have more than 1 or 2 restos bc a shaman that can DW is better.... 400+ healing from your weps alone and can do dps when you have enough healers? jeeez first time shamans would ever b able to downgrade heals.
pally - ...... ya l2heal. have freakin plate for a reason. pallys just need to give up on the dps thing, tho that vid about the holy smiter had my eyes bugged out. would link but cant find it again
warrior - again, full arms full fury, half fury half arms, maybe some prot, s'all goood.
priest - ehhh, they did manage to make 41 holy or dis worth while..... i guess...
hunter - beast build viable, suvival very nice (for those that are complaining about the survival 41 must realize that all traps will b on timers. so with that 41 talent a hunter could effectively CC 4 ppl at a time,if not more considering entrapment) then... silence.... the one thing that hunters were missing.
druid - zomg trees! wooot. obviously a good mix, i like moonkin, some friends going crazy on the feral changes and looking at resto it looks good for everything other than pvp...... like always (freaking screw raiding)
mage - options.... arcane shatter build (no im not explaining, but lets just say that i think i can get 3 to 4 k crits 1.5 sec casts.... MWAHAHA.... thats w/o AP and trinkets, that was up around 6k ) arcane/fire pyro nastyness build (just ask jayne(z) ) pure ice.... well that will b interesting.
END INSANELY LONG NOTE ON BUILDS.
for those that desided to skip that part basically what i was saying it that they did a good job with the talent trees by making it into teirs, so you build a build by picking up an idea, like shatter, or nightfall, stuff like that.
other than that, i hope that they studied guild wars in the last 2 years, especially the part where i can spend 2 min and have the best gear in the game. obviously not the best idea for wow, but pvpers should have the best pvp gear. i totally agree that pvp does need to be player dependant not gear dependant. i for one wish that raiding was a fun thing to do, not for the gear. it would b really nice to raid, say youve done it, then never even consider farming it.
See, I knew this coming into WoW when I first played back when it came out. I knew the customization options were gonna be low, I knew the high end game was going to be about raiding, but it didn't matter to me. I'm not a raider nor will I ever reach anything remotely close to what some players have, but what kept me playing WoW was the world PvP.
It had the best world PvP I'd seen in any game. Granted, DAoC had better PvP mechanics, but WoW incorporated it into a world so well. I remember a couple months after the game came out the huge raids we would have on the capital cities, and on the Xroads in the Barrens. It didn't really matter what you looked like because we were all fighting for a common purpose. We were also fighting people and NPC's alike.
Battlegrounds and dishonourable kills have all but taken away World PvP, and with it the fun that myself and I'm sure plenty of other people had with the game. In fact right now i'm playing on the Haomarush server, alliance side on the guild The Resistance. Were trying to bring back world pvp, and on the horde side Total War is doing it. Come check it out if you guys are interested.
Anyway, I'll prolly leave for Warhammer Online, but Blizzard could have gotten a couple more dollars outa me if they hadn't destroyed World pvp.
i agree about the WAR thing, game looks freakin awesome wow looks like they are trying to bring back world pvp with some of the events and removing DKs. *shrug* i think blizz lost way too many ppl bc they cant produce fast enough, 2 years for an expansion? ah well, like every game ppl come back with expansions
Originally posted by acidleak i agree about the WAR thing, game looks freakin awesome wow looks like they are trying to bring back world pvp with some of the events and removing DKs. *shrug* i think blizz lost way too many ppl bc they cant produce fast enough, 2 years for an expansion? ah well, like every game ppl come back with expansions
Comments
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?
WoW and other MMOs with limited customization features do it for a reason. Too bad none of the geniuses on this board has grasped that though. Pity.
WoW has very limited character and armor customization because it's meant to have upwards of 100 characters(players and/or NPCs) in close proximity. Now if you had all those fancy facial features like nose length, or chin width or 18 different types of ear hair it would bog down your computer like no tomorrow. Blizzard even vastly downgraded the graphics of nearly everything from the original closed beta so that older or less powerul computers would have few problems running it. You don't get 7 million subscribers by making it so your game can only be played by hardcore performance nuts. Limiting customiztion was just good busines sense.
The most idiotic thing about that editorial was the comparison to Guild Wars. Yikes.
Epic raid gear is meant for ::gasp:: epic raids and NOT and I repeat NOT PvP. You get epic raid gear so you can fight bosses than can hit for 20,000 damage and have 3 million hit points. PvP is just merely a side effect. When an editor says that epic raid gear is meant solely for PvP there is something wrong and I don't mean with WoW. Take your personal vendettas else where.
there ISNT any character real customization to speak of. sure they do a good job to make it look like theres customization, but besides the ui, there just isnt.
character appearance basically 5 different values to play with, with 5-10 choices for each value, if you can call them choices. skin color is a joke honestly, do you want to be this yellow green orc or this bluish green orc? the facial/head hair styles are nice looking i will admit, but then poor helmet clipping issues throws it out the window. either your hair clips thru the helm, or helms will make hair vanish all together, even if the helm isnt covering that part, ie my bearded dwarf loses his bead when he put on a foot-ball style helmet. the different facial ring placements on women arent noticable in the game, and to top it off, there not even a height/weight option of any sort. clonecraft ftw.
character build customization the talents in wow just arent deep enough to have any sort of individualism what so ever. sure it looks like a huge buffet of options to tailor your character just so, but after playing you realize that many of these talents arent that great, some are just plain pointless, while others are almost mandatory. whether you want to or not, almost every player is forced into one of a few "cookie cutter" builds for that class. since some builds are actually "better" than others, coupled with the changes bliz has made over the past couple years that have killed off certain builds, theres really only 3 choices max per class. more clonecraft.
phat lewtz loot is as bad as character builds. your build dictates the loot you go after, and then its just a constant grind to get that perfect set put together. heres the kicker tho, its the same damn set everyone else with your build is going for. when a new instance is added to the game then the "dream set" changes, and everyone goes after that set instead. the end result is the majority of the population look the same, as theyre wearing the same armor, carrying the same weapons. since you cant even change height/weight of your character, it just makes the whole 'everyone-looks-alike' syndrome that much worse.
again, character customization doesnt exist in wow imo. hopefully this will change in bc, i can only hope.
yes it looks like nothing but me whining about wow, and yet i still play the stupid game.
I dont really dont get the drama about customisation of your character. Who really cares if some of us look the same in armor? Isn't the point that they have made items recognisable which makes more sense. The mention that all players of a certain class and in the same guild look the same makes me wonder what type of guild you are in. I would think most guilds are working on dungeons where most players haven't completed the set, if you are all in tier 1 gear and look the same perhaps its time for your guild to move on to BWL? :P
I read another post in this thread where the guy suggested this was a whine and tbh it does kind of read that way. The complaint about being beat by people in better gear makes little sense to me too. It is imperative that when we reach level 60 everyone is not on an equal par, otherwise why carry on? Full epic gear probably gives the same advantage as 2-3 levels over a blue geared player and so it should or we would all stop and get bored at level 60. Again if the grind to get that gear was not made difficult then everybody would have it and there would be little point in carrying on.
It kinda seems that on the one hand you want to be unique (in the way u look) but on the other u want everybody the same (as far as gear goes)...hmnn is sounding like a whine for whine sake.
Talents, well you paint a pretty dim view, and i think some classes are limited to maybe only 1-2 routes and healing classes in particulalrly have certain specs demanded of them by guilds. For solo play though I think they are more than sufficient and can give 2-3 completely different playing styles, multuply that by the choice of 9 different classes and is enough in my opinion.
Now the above may sound like Im one of the 'stop having a go at wow, i love it brigade', im not, in fact im bored to death of it and desperately waiting for something new and good to come out. I've tried Eve (zzzzz) and a couple of others lately but it's nice to be starting a new game when everyone esle is rather than 2 years behind.
In my opinion whats is wrong with wow is the need to be in a guild to obtain them epics, the guilds become less about fun and collectively playing together and more about gaining items. The top end guilds on servers rape the average guilds for players as soon as them average guilds have given players a few tier 1 epics. Some players come in and guild jump and within 3/4 weeks of turning 60 are in Naxx guilds...whats so hard about that grind? Rewarding people with no loyalty and poor attitudes with quick epics.
And the pvp now is a joke, i guess i've been lucky as i ranked a warrior to 14 and mage to 13 in the good old days. Now almost every time i join a bg solos for a little fun theres a 'fixed' group opposite and absolutely no chance to win. I think that may be addressed in TBC. But why havent premade groups been paired against each other before? Why cant u join as a random and expect to play against randoms? I have no idea....it's just bad design. The only route to epics before as a semi-solo player was through the pvp system, and now that's been made impossible.
Personally i'm watching this space, as no doubt a lot of wow addicts are. New games due out soon should try bloody hard to be out before TBC finally hits the stores. There's a hell of a lot of people looking for something else to play since its pointless searching for better gear in wow until TBC, the trouble is if nothing new and inspiring comes out beforehand we will all end up giving TBC a chance. No doubt another few months of wow addiction followed by end game dissapointment will follow.
At nowhere in my original posting did I mention raiding. The editorial complains about an imbalance in gear at the end game. This complaint is further developed stating that some players will never have a chance to defeat other players. Thus this isolates the end game down to one on one PvP. I didn't say that, I simply pointed out that this was an overbroad generalization and completely ignored what could be done at end game. And quite frankly, it really doesn't matter what percentages you pull out of your hat about what activities players engage in at end game because again it is a discussion of what you can do versus how you choose to limit yourself.
You were obviously an individual that built up a lot pre-release expectations that were not satisfied. Welcome to the wonderful world of Artistic Creativity meets Business Funding Model. We all expect that MMOGs will continue to evolve as the games age, such as the changes you pointed out with the Battlegrounds. However, every game has some fundamental systems that are far too cost prohibitive to change. Completely changing the character creation system would have deep ramifications for the game. But rather than attempting to understand the far reaching effects such a change would have, you would rather express your dislike for 'Kaplan' and continue on in your naive perspective that developers can make any change at any time and don't have corporate mandates to which they must also answer.
Finally, I am not disputing that many WoW characters visually appear similar. I am not disputing that WoW's end game is focused on loot. And I am not saying that WoW is the best game on the market as I believe the 'best' game on the market is the one the individual enjoys playing thus this could be different for every individual you meet. What I am saying is that too much time is spent opining about why Title X stinks rather than accepting that it simply isn't the game for you. As long as several million people are paying to have an account, Blizzard will continue to see this as an endorsement that their product does meet the needs of a large enough customer base for them to continue to support what is already there.
Get over it and move on.
Lack of graphic custumization is indeed a problem in WoW. It is annoying when I can't tell one NE druid from the other. And sure I would like to be able to look more unique. On the other hand, I have never seen any char that looked exactly like mine. Sometimes the gear is quite alike, but then the weapons are different. Some ppl have their helm and cape turned on, some don't. More personal options would be nice though. Nice to see two new races in TBC. (although the mmorpg podcast suggested that there was only ½ new race:P)
Talents seems a bit underrated in this editorial. As a paladin I can change between many builds, and they do change the game for me. I am not required to spec a certain way to join raids and if ppl are, then they can find a different guild. A friend of mine is playing rogue, warrior and mage. He changes talent-spec frequently, since for him the spec matters a whole lot. There is more than 1-2 great builds for every class!
i'd really like to know what exactly you're trying to post, because it doesn't make a lot of sense... it's like you said, "jojo, your mama has a job and so does mine!" and it's supposed to be an insult.
wow is the largest and most horrid example of a grindfest for a western game that's out atm.
l2r.
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?
Damien7 needs a wowwy pop I'm thinking.
But seriously, these so called "editorials" are nothing more the glorified forum posts, which is to say a waste of bandwidth.
Seriously, marking them as a feature is insane and completly shafts the value of this zomg-new-screen-shot news site.
www.mmodig.com
customization in WoW is alomost nil - you can choose your head's appearance, but who can see that when geared up?
About the gear being over the top, I strongly disagree. Gear is another form of levelling, it is good to have hard fought for gear that makes a real difference. Balance between high level gear and low level gear is just silly; why go through the effort to get the good stuff if it doesn't make a difference?
I say this hating the grind and not much liking the raiding, which, imo, is another form of grinding. The difference I would like to see is that WoW provides us solo-lovers with ways to get high level gear, ways that do not involve doing the same quest again and again.
Btw, I have 2 L60 characters neither of which has gone beyond having green gear with some blues, but I'm still glad to have epic-geared peoples able to kick my butt
Have played: Everquest, Asheron's Call, Horizons, Everquest2, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer, Age of Conan, Darkfall
noun
1. An article in a newspaper or other periodical presenting the opinion of the publisher, editor, or editors.
2. A statement broadcast on radio or television that presents the opinion of the owner, manager, or the like, of the station or channel.
3. Something regarded as resembling such an article or statement, as a lengthy, dogmatic utterance.
You have to take them for what they are. It's merely the opinion of someone who works at the site. Not everyone will agree with them, but isn't that the beauty of it all? These editorials stir up a lot of conversation with valid points on both sides and gets the community involved in debate.
[Here's a list of all the games I've played and/or my computer specs to show how much more seasoned or technologically advanced I am than you.]
leather, and cloth why further restrict it by making it classes:
Priest It's lazy in my opinion they threw in the different types
of armor and couldn't think of any way to balance that out other than
further restricting it to classes. Dumb and lazy in my
opinion. In eve you can put lasers on your scorpion if you want,
or projectiles on your apocolypse probably not the smartest thing, but
at least you have that option.
Blizzard says: "here is how you'll play [raids] and here is what you'll
loot [class loot]" dumb lazy and restrictive in my opinion.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
if I were to kill a titan tomorrow and no CCP employees showed up to say grats I would petition it.
Waiting for: the next MMO that lets me make this macro
if hp < 30 then CastSpell("heal") SpellTargetUnit("player") else CastSpell("smite") end
*shrug*
I'll buy BC 'cause it's the only thing out there but when something remotely on par with WoW that doesn't require endless PvE grinding to be able to PvP on a remotely even playing playing field comes along me and wife will wave goodbye and not look back. (AoC, W.A.R., ???)
Btw, reading the headline I thought this would be about customizing appearance etc. and couldn't really wrap my head around the concept of WoW and actual choices but then I read the piece and of course it was WoW and gear which is really all it is about.
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?
I am amazed at your remarkable ability to recite as fact what I play and what I know when such statements were never made by me. Couple this with the depth of your behind the scenes knowledge of the why's and how's that a gaming company is making their changes and you truly do excel at achieving one of the highest ranks of whiney forum hate puppets.
Despite the fact that you are better than most 'haters' in your command of vocabulary, it still doesn't mask the fact that your statements are filled with assumptions, unsubstantiated conclusions and a narrow perspective that is driven simply by your emotional response to a video game. I do not feel that I am superior to you, as you state in your post, I just refuse to resort to attacking you personally and would rather stay focused on the argument, logic statements and possibilities that are overlooked.
What really makes me laugh is the fact that on many occassions in many places writing I have done has been highly critical of Blizzard. But that is a different discussion. For the sake of this thread nothing you have said changes what I first wrote about the joke that this editorial is and the fact that the vocal whiners feel a sense of entitlement about how a game should be changed rather than finding a different title that may be more suited to satisfying their complaints.
This will be my last post on this thread so you may have the last word as you strike me as the type of person that needs to do that.
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?
Amen to that Damian7. Its amazing how so many fanbois try to use smoke and mirrors to disprove what is right in front of their faces. If a game mechanic is working, you don't change it period, customer complaints or not. You only change things if there is a real problem, such as subscriber losses or customer complaints that number in the thousands creating very bad public press (reducing potential subscribers). While I think they're taking too small steps, they are taking steps to change the formula. Whether it will be enough to keep a large part of their subscriber base is yet to be seen.
They already lost me months ago and I'm sure I wasn't and won't be the only one. I won't be coming back till they reward all play styles equally. If I can't get epic gear solo / small group, instance / non-instance, raid / non-raid, then this game has nothing to offer me. The same goes for any MMO that uses this outdated and elitist paradigm. Its hard to imagine any subscriber base paying a developing company to treat even a small portion of their patrons like second class citizens, let alone the large percentage they abuse now. Its sad, its disgusting and it has to change, not just for WoW, but for future MMO's to come.
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 played SWG from release to right after JTL when i couldnt complete a space mission because of a bug and i lost interest. Anyway i digress, In swg you could customize your face down to the frecklels, but all combat classes wore pretty much the exact same gear once you could afford it leaving the non-coms to wear the fancy stuff, unless you were just walking about town and not planning on pvping at all. So what you have is a bunch of custom faces running around in helms all covered up.
I played COH from launch for about a year, and yes it is the most customizable game out there as far as looks. But as far as spells, it was all the same crap. And as far as the poor blasters with rifles that could not (and still cant from what i gather) be replaced. So yes i LOOKED different but my playstyle was very similar to 100 other people on my server.( In addition at end game there was nothing to do other than farm/buy more enhancements so you could do.... something im sure)
I played EVE and all i will say is .................................. I know alot of people like this game but you have got to be kidding me when people start spouting about SKILL in EVE, TIME levels you up in that game and there is very limited customization until you have invested a exteneded amount of time (and no not just in-game time, but time sleeping, maybe you were watching a movie, it doesnt matter cause you were gaining SKILLS!) I dont know about endgame in EVE cause i was so dangerously close to gouging my eyes out after my 10 day trial that i couldnt stand it. But you are still going to be in the same ship that 100 other people are going to be in. (Though i will give them that its forgivable in a game like this since you can technically be part of a squad) Meh to eash tier own.
In addition to those games i have pretty much tried every mmo out there (eq1,eq2,Ryzom, GW, anarchy online, god even Planetside, FFxi, RF
Now ill get to the meat of my point. I play wow and i wanted to hate it when it was coming out. When i got into the character customization i WAS very dissappointed, this feeling of course didnt last long due to the fun leveing grind and the fact that the game was very fun to start out with. Through the 1-60 process you rarely if ever see another character with the exact same items as you which is nice. So once you hit endgame raiding is where Mr. Fuller's point of Sameness Set Pieces comes in and where i find wow has done something that no other game has.
As an example We have two Tauren warriors in our guild we will call them Tank 1 and Tank 2, both have the exact same visible pieces of armor(not counting trinkets, rigns, etc.) but the demeanor of the people that play the characters is completely different, and in that i see 2 completely different tauren warriors when i look at them.
This is obviously purely a mental thing and may be restricted to just me. But in the sameness that blizzard created they have forced me to look beyond the gear of my guildie and his toon and to see how is play style and attitude effect the way i see and feel about this person.
Meh well that is my point, sorry for the rambling..... Off to get food.
Lick Here you could be one of the lucky 10!!!
it'd be nice if they'd at LEAST have crafters able to tint armors. supposedly there's going to be the diablo-style socketing? that's a way to customize armor.
but, i just wish there were more talent trees. so that it'd be impossible to just have a couple of *have to build* cutters. but, guess that's asking for too much, i mean, after two years, they reskinned night elves and orcs, couldn't be bothered to make new classes, and said "look, our expansion has flying mounts". big whoop.
where's housing? where's guild housing? where's that guild level stuff that eq2 has? i mean, heck, kaplan stole raiding from eq cuz that's all he and his dark sith master do, why not steal housing and guild levels? or even a take on AA (alternate advancement)?
i hate to say it, but if UO ever breaks down and finally gets a new graphics engine, i'm willing to bet a LOT of people are going to flock there. even with the semi-nerfed pvp, uo has a TON of things in it that other games aren't even trying to do. everything from the pets, to treasure hunting, to the fish tanks, fishing, craftables, completely customizable housing, farming/breeding plants and a laundry list of things to do that you never see in other games.
please don't compare fishing in uo to fishing in wow though. never seen a sea serpent or sunken ships found in wow from fishing/treasure hunting/sos bottles/etc.
it's sad when you can look fondly at a game that's 9+ years old and say "man, if only they'd finally go thru with it and redo the graphics engine..."
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?
I am certainly not saying that i dont want customization, i think socketed items would be a perfect time to implement this visually. But what im saying is that if you truly enjoy the game[any game] then you start to see other things in the players you spend hours of your life with, and to the people who enjoy the raiding aspect like i do its not the loot that is the most rewarding if you will, its getting past that C-Block and being able to retain that skill and ability every time you set foot in that instance.
A bit off topic but about the Raid in wow, I never played eq up enough to find out what the raids were like in that game.(mainly becausse i couldnt stand the shabby graphics and weird interface, ya i came in late with eq when there were other/better things around.) But coming from running a 150 player SWG guild on Bloodfin (The Sons Of Sith, in case anyone remembers us) where we would have 70 people online with virtually nothing to do but pvp for nothing with also no negative to dying after the second patch, or *try* to farm overpopulated Krayt Dragons, 3 years later and a plethora of other boring/unintersting mmo's WOW comes out and you can actually use 40 people to do something and its fun.
Normally someone will make the point that yes raiding is fun maybe the first time, but doing it over and over again is a pain in the ass. Well oddly enough i have never played a mmo where you didnt really just do the same thing over and over again regardless of what it was. All mmo's have this even the Cancer Curing Luchemia Cleansing Holy Grail of Mmo's EVE(which i find is way overrated and extensively boring, though i understand the reason its entertaining to people). What i like about wow is even though ive done aq40 200 times, the guild interacts differently every day of the week, depending who is on and in the run, and that is why i play mmos and not sprpg's mainly.
In Coh when i was almost max level i saw the first max level character on our server, so i asked him, what do you do now that you are max level? He says to me "Not sure, thinking about rerolling." It wasnt a week later that i quit that game. What is the point of getting max level if you cannot further improve your character after that? CoH tried to do this with Enhancements and weird semi impressive visual effects, but these are still limited and you run into another hero who has the same fancy visual effect. (also regarding CoX's endless* customization, even with the most horrendous gear and color combos i still ran into people that looked almost exactly like me)
So i guess it just all comes down to what it is that makes you appreciate a game at end game and how far are you willing to extend the umbrella of sameness. Alot of hate is thrown at WOW on this website, about how its just a copy blah blah blah, and though this may be partially true. If it's a copy of the best aspects of the some the best games does that not make it a good game? At least by some standards?
Bah again sorry for the ramblings, Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaally bored at work. An no im not a wow fanboi, i just happen to enjoy the game and the social aspects of it.
Lick Here you could be one of the lucky 10!!!
1. eye candy. useless stuff, if i look like everyone else that is my race/class combo... who cares? no one cares what you look like, but they will pay attention to you when you melt some faces. eye candy just limits the # of ppl that can play the game. no one likes lag
2. he assumes that there is a "best build". ill agree that as WoW stands now you have a "best build". if you are an ice mage you are like every other ice mage out there. but as i fool around with the new talent trees i see that it is really hard to focus on a build.
HUGE NOTE SKIP IF YOU REALLY DONT WANT TO READ A HUGE THING ON BUILDS. note most of these are pvp ideas... raiding ftl
warlok. i thought to run a 19/21/21 build, drain tank with ruin. plausable? yes. next i saw the fel guard abilities and the huge buffs to demo so a demo build with nightfall. does it work? yes. night fall with full destruction to get something sick like 5 insta casts (one is a .5 sec cast but w/e heh). yes. is any one of those builds better than the other? probably not. i personally settled on a 30/31/0 build, pure suvivability build. obviously i wont be the best dmg dealer.
rogue. ty blizz for the sub buff
shaman. resto builld = god mode. i used to be able to heal tank in pvp with 4 guys on me.... now? heals cant get inturrupted basically. you could sit for days spamming lesser heal and no one would kill you, allowing a flag cap usually heh.
elemental - same good stuff with double casts (wondering still if the first crit will the second automatically?)
enhancement - DW FTW! recent info says that dw will have elemental wep buffs on both weps
pally - ...... ya l2heal. have freakin plate for a reason. pallys just need to give up on the dps thing, tho that vid about the holy smiter had my eyes bugged out. would link but cant find it again
warrior - again, full arms full fury, half fury half arms, maybe some prot, s'all goood.
priest - ehhh, they did manage to make 41 holy or dis worth while..... i guess...
hunter - beast build viable, suvival very nice
druid - zomg trees! wooot. obviously a good mix, i like moonkin, some friends going crazy on the feral changes and looking at resto it looks good for everything other than pvp...... like always (freaking screw raiding)
mage - options.... arcane shatter build (no im not explaining, but lets just say that i think i can get 3 to 4 k crits 1.5 sec casts.... MWAHAHA.... thats w/o AP and trinkets, that was up around 6k
END INSANELY LONG NOTE ON BUILDS.
for those that desided to skip that part basically what i was saying it that they did a good job with the talent trees by making it into teirs, so you build a build by picking up an idea, like shatter, or nightfall, stuff like that.
other than that, i hope that they studied guild wars in the last 2 years, especially the part where i can spend 2 min and have the best gear in the game. obviously not the best idea for wow, but pvpers should have the best pvp gear. i totally agree that pvp does need to be player dependant not gear dependant. i for one wish that raiding was a fun thing to do, not for the gear. it would b really nice to raid, say youve done it, then never even consider farming it.
See, I knew this coming into WoW when I first played back when it came out. I knew the customization options were gonna be low, I knew the high end game was going to be about raiding, but it didn't matter to me. I'm not a raider nor will I ever reach anything remotely close to what some players have, but what kept me playing WoW was the world PvP.
It had the best world PvP I'd seen in any game. Granted, DAoC had better PvP mechanics, but WoW incorporated it into a world so well. I remember a couple months after the game came out the huge raids we would have on the capital cities, and on the Xroads in the Barrens. It didn't really matter what you looked like because we were all fighting for a common purpose. We were also fighting people and NPC's alike.
Battlegrounds and dishonourable kills have all but taken away World PvP, and with it the fun that myself and I'm sure plenty of other people had with the game. In fact right now i'm playing on the Haomarush server, alliance side on the guild The Resistance. Were trying to bring back world pvp, and on the horde side Total War is doing it. Come check it out if you guys are interested.
Anyway, I'll prolly leave for Warhammer Online, but Blizzard could have gotten a couple more dollars outa me if they hadn't destroyed World pvp.