I really am getting sick of these people who are posting whine posts about how much they hate people whining about how much world of warcraft sucks, even though I completely agree that World of Warcraft sucks and yet that just doesn't give you any right to go flaming me for it, or anyone else for that matter, if we think it sucks then we think it sucks, if you think it's great, then you think it's great, stop trying to attack other people for having an opinion, all this WoW stuff makes me sick because it reminds me of SWG, changes were made, something new was brought in and some multi-million dollar company went and abandoned a large portion of their player base.
Yes, in my opinion they're abandoning quite a large number of people, roleplayers, PvPers (simply because it's turning into more of a grind than PvP now and they won't balance anything or fix any situations to make it better), even people who just log onto World of Warcraft won't be able to socialize because everyone will be hanging out in outland and their low level characters will be stuck in Stormwind until they force themselves to level up which is pretty much what happened to me because everyone nagged and nagged.
After I bought TBC and logged in to Stormwind with my main I seriously just thought there wasn't any point in playing anymore, the friends I knew had all buggered off to play in Outland and flaunt their 'uber lewt' at me in whisper and say I should come and get it to, frankly I couldn't give a bloody damn, that gear is nothing but a bunch of pixels and stretched cubes to me (I'm a 3D artist so help me I just see gear and instance based MMORPG's that way) I just can't be bothered devoting my free time to something so worthless that millions of people have already accomplished and obtained, what's the point?
Let's look at the features listed for the expansion:
Ohh wow, a new continent after how many years they spent on that damn expansion, and what's this And much, much more have they introduced guild banks like they promised? Did they introduce guildhalls? Did they even get player housing up and running like they've been promising us and telling us it's being planned for that past few years? All of this just reminds me of when Everquest 1 brought out it's expansion, I thought it was great when I was first playing Everquest, it meant the world was being really expanded and it meant something, but here it's just the same old stuff, grind quests, fetch x item and get x reward, the items are mostly greenies, not to mention they just said hundreds when in the original there were thousands and on other games they actually have more than that.
Okay i've done enough ranting now, I don't want to even get into how crappy the jewelcrafting is with the fact it only adds a couple of tiny stats on and has NO or hardly customization whatsoever when they said they were thinking about doing that too.
So let me see ... you're pissed because Blizzard added most of the expansion content for level 60+, given that the vast, vast majority of the playerbase had at least one level 60 character, but you don't care for leveling so you can't be bothered leveling a character to 60?
I mean WoW is designed so that it is easier to level cap than any other MMO ever done, really. Pre-TBC, the vast majority of the characters were 60s. If you looked at the WoW census sites at the time, they all reflected a massive grouping of folks at 60. TBC was designed predominantly for 60s because that's where most of the population was. They also added two new races for lower level things.
Now I'm not saying it's silly to criticise WoW, as I also think that mistakes were made, especially with the risk/reward balance for the new endgame at 70. But I don't think a critique that is focused on the fact that the expansion was aimed at the vast majority of players who had characters at 60 is a particularly valid one. It made sense for Blizzard to do that, given that most of the playerbase had 60s.
I really am getting sick of these people who are posting whine posts about how much they hate people whining about how much world of warcraft sucks, even though I completely agree that World of Warcraft sucks and yet that just doesn't give you any right to go flaming me for it, or anyone else for that matter, if we think it sucks then we think it sucks, if you think it's great, then you think it's great, stop trying to attack other people for having an opinion, all this WoW stuff makes me sick because it reminds me of SWG, changes were made, something new was brought in and some multi-million dollar company went and abandoned a large portion of their player base.
Yes, in my opinion they're abandoning quite a large number of people, roleplayers, PvPers (simply because it's turning into more of a grind than PvP now and they won't balance anything or fix any situations to make it better), even people who just log onto World of Warcraft won't be able to socialize because everyone will be hanging out in outland and their low level characters will be stuck in Stormwind until they force themselves to level up which is pretty much what happened to me because everyone nagged and nagged.
After I bought TBC and logged in to Stormwind with my main I seriously just thought there wasn't any point in playing anymore, the friends I knew had all buggered off to play in Outland and flaunt their 'uber lewt' at me in whisper and say I should come and get it to, frankly I couldn't give a bloody damn, that gear is nothing but a bunch of pixels and stretched cubes to me (I'm a 3D artist so help me I just see gear and instance based MMORPG's that way) I just can't be bothered devoting my free time to something so worthless that millions of people have already accomplished and obtained, what's the point?
Let's look at the features listed for the expansion:
Ohh wow, a new continent after how many years they spent on that damn expansion, and what's this And much, much more have they introduced guild banks like they promised? Did they introduce guildhalls? Did they even get player housing up and running like they've been promising us and telling us it's being planned for that past few years? All of this just reminds me of when Everquest 1 brought out it's expansion, I thought it was great when I was first playing Everquest, it meant the world was being really expanded and it meant something, but here it's just the same old stuff, grind quests, fetch x item and get x reward, the items are mostly greenies, not to mention they just said hundreds when in the original there were thousands and on other games they actually have more than that.
Okay i've done enough ranting now, I don't want to even get into how crappy the jewelcrafting is with the fact it only adds a couple of tiny stats on and has NO or hardly customization whatsoever when they said they were thinking about doing that too.
So let me see ... you're pissed because Blizzard added most of the expansion content for level 60+, given that the vast, vast majority of the playerbase had at least one level 60 character, but you don't care for leveling so you can't be bothered leveling a character to 60?
I mean WoW is designed so that it is easier to level cap than any other MMO ever done, really. Pre-TBC, the vast majority of the characters were 60s. If you looked at the WoW census sites at the time, they all reflected a massive grouping of folks at 60. TBC was designed predominantly for 60s because that's where most of the population was. They also added two new races for lower level things.
Now I'm not saying it's silly to criticise WoW, as I also think that mistakes were made, especially with the risk/reward balance for the new endgame at 70. But I don't think a critique that is focused on the fact that the expansion was aimed at the vast majority of players who had characters at 60 is a particularly valid one. It made sense for Blizzard to do that, given that most of the playerbase had 60s.
I think the point was more along the lines of, they gave us very little that was new.
If you've been playing for the past 2 years and liked the present model then you were going to like the xpac. If you've been playing the last 2 years and got tired of the model then the xpac is just more of the exact same thing you've been doing for 2 years, except that now you have to go back to doing the exact same quests to get those extra 10 lvls.
Not really happy with the xpac either, and I really wish Blizzard would have found something other then the combat system to focus on. It got stale for me; I want to do something other then kill stuff over, and over, and over, and over again. Whether that's PvE or PvP. It's just more of the same, and the same is pretty damn old.
However, GRINDING IS NOT FUN. Smart people are tired of WoW but I think Blizzard will keep the casual players as customers, as well as the hardcore. It's us 'semi-casual' gamer types that are caught in the middle of this fucking grind-fest from hell.
You hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately, game developers will continue to use the current paridgm to rake in as many customers as possible as WoW has done by using a no brainer challenge to gear up and stroke the "1337 leet doodz" ego. WoW is as challenging as pulling the lever on a slot machine over and over again waiting for the "phat loot" to drop. You simply do it over and over and over again and no brain or skill are required. Maybe one day game developers will make a MMORPG that rewards skill instead of no brainer, ginding time sinks.
How do you do that, though?
The business model of MMOs is to have players play a long time. Timesinks (and grinding is a main timesink) are one way to get that to happen. Another way is to provide meaningful PvP (that is, PvP with a reason, something to defend/conquer that has a lasting impact, etc.). Another way is sandboxing it so that the players build something meaningful for themselves, and get wrapped up in that, which retains their accounts.
A "skill-based" PvE experience ... how exactly would that retain players long-term? The static nature of most PvE means that it can be learned -- with repetition what was once challenging becomes rote and becomes "farmed". How do you make a PvE experience not like that? By making it more random? By having encounters take on a more random and unpredictable nature? That would be one possibility, but it would make things harder to balance, I think.
As I see it the main challenge is creating something that people will enjoy playing for some time. Timesinks like grinding are the most heavy-handed way of doing it, because they actually do force players to inject a certain amount of time to get a certain fixed reward. PvP turns things around the other way, but most people seem not to like PvP as a playstyle, so while there is a great market for it (as we can see in upcoming titles like AoC and WAR), it's not the huge mothelode bonanza of a market that PvE is. And as for sandboxes, these are truly niche games that appeal to smaller markets.
So as I see it what we will likely see is more of what we see today, namely: a lot of games thath feature grinding disguised to some degree, a few games that are focused on PvP, and the odd one or two games that are sandboxy -- each with its own approach at retaining players.
Calling it heavy-handed fits perfectly. They have chosen the most controllable, easy, route to add replay value. Unfortunately, their replay value is value that increases with time played, not with time subscribed - which arguably may decrease the amount of time subscribed. I remember in shadowbane when there was really no point to log on until our scheduled attack on a city, unless just to dink around and have some quick fun. The 'banes' forced players to have no 'grind' to do- if you would call 90 players charging at a castle fortified by 90 other players a grind.
Of course, even shadowbane had more personal-character-development than I would prefer, but I suppose it's crucial to MMORPGS.
I do like the sandbox idea. I just hope someone has the vision to do it.
NEOSEEKER - I've heard it said before the WoW has one of the easier levelling treadmills, which is sad because levelling a character to 60 on WoW normally takes about 14 days if you do nothing but grind. That's 336 hours! That rules out many casual players.
...ive no qualms with WoW. sure, grinding can get on one's nerve, but its a necessary evil to MMORPGs. as they have said, its one of the biggest timesinks on any game, and i sure as hell doubt any game that wouldnt have some sort of grind to it. it would have been a lot better though, if WoW had delivered with many of its supposedly upcoming features like guild castles/fortresses (which would involve massive PvP, for those who cant get enough) and player made/bought houses...
--------------------------------- be a sweetheart, help me dominate the world...
CLASS CUSTOMIZATION. Simply put, amazing. The talent trees in WoW are very similar structurally to those in Diablo II but significantly expanded and far more intriguing. Suppose I want to make a druid, but I don't want my druid to be just like everyone else's. I have many options. I could create a character who focuses almost entirely on shapeshifting, making him much stronger and more powerful in cat or bear form then as a mere humanoid. Or I could tap into the druid's potent bond with nature and regeneration making him a skilled healer. Or I could focus on the druid's affinity for the elements and create a potent spellslinger. Often, the most interesting characters represent subtle variations on these themes. My druid might become a powerful shapeshifter, but I might also choose to reserve some of my talent points to upgrade my various healing abilities so that I can revert to humanoid form just long enough to heal myself midfight and then morph back into a raging animal. The point here is that the talent points you receive each level up aren't window dressing, you truly can customize your class in this game. There are even priests who grow so powerful in the dark arts that they become either unwilling or in many cases unable to heal anyone (often much to the chagrin of their party members who mistakenly recruit them as healers).
You gotta be kidding us here. Even Ultima Online, one of the first major MMOs, has better class customization than WoW. I can't say I ever liked the PvP either, but thats all opinion. Class customization, however, is definitely a drawback to WoW. You can't even allocate attribute points or anything basic like that.
I'll have to respect your opinion on class customization as I regretably never played Ultima Online (started with the original Everquest). Even if you don't feel about the talent trees as I do, it is certainly possible to specialize a class on gear alone as there's such an absurd variety of it--if someone were to claim that WoW is too gear-dependent, I'd have no argument there. But I love my armor and weapons so you won't hear me complaining.
Of course you can also use racial abilities and crafting professions to further augment and specialize your character, but the argument could be made that it isn't truly 'class' customization then. But that's just semantics.
I've played many MMOs before I discovered World of Warcraft, and here are a couple things that I've noticed seperate WoW from the games that preceded it: CLASS CUSTOMIZATION. Simply put, amazing. The talent trees in WoW are very similar structurally to those in Diablo II but significantly expanded and far more intriguing. Suppose I want to make a druid, but I don't want my druid to be just like everyone else's. I have many options. I could create a character who focuses almost entirely on shapeshifting, making him much stronger and more powerful in cat or bear form then as a mere humanoid. Or I could tap into the druid's potent bond with nature and regeneration making him a skilled healer. Or I could focus on the druid's affinity for the elements and create a potent spellslinger. Often, the most interesting characters represent subtle variations on these themes. My druid might become a powerful shapeshifter, but I might also choose to reserve some of my talent points to upgrade my various healing abilities so that I can revert to humanoid form just long enough to heal myself midfight and then morph back into a raging animal. The point here is that the talent points you receive each level up aren't window dressing, you truly can customize your class in this game. There are even priests who grow so powerful in the dark arts that they become either unwilling or in many cases unable to heal anyone (often much to the chagrin of their party members who mistakenly recruit them as healers). PvP. Definitely a strong point. Smooth, fast-paced combat, great class balance. Every class has a role in the rock-paper-scissors sense--rogues, for example, are excellent mage-slayers but are often pwned by hunters if unprepared (although the above-mentioned class customization can mitigate a particular class's Achilles heel). But the classes are versatile enough that you can certainly venture outside your role quite successfully, and in fact so versatile that's it's not always universally agreed upon just what a given class's role is in the larger scheme of things. In PvP situations you can wage war as part of a group or by yourself. You can venture into the wilderness and wait patiently to ambush some unfortunate passerby, you can fight in first person shooter-style battlegrounds created just for the purpose of PvP, or you can form large raid groups and take the war into the larger cities, often with a goal of taking down one of the major players from previous Warcraft games like Thrall from Warcraft III. One of my favorite and admittedly more sinister tactics is to take my stealthy rogue to a dungeon and hide near the end boss, then wait for my enemies to arrive. When they're in the middle of the fight and think they're doing well, I sneak in from behind and assassinate their healer. I will often die in the process, but the death of their priest, shaman or druid usually dooms their party as well. Just wanted to provide some insight as to why I like the game, not everyone will agree with me but I hope this provides a little more detail.
O_O
Are you sure you played WoW? The WoW I know forced people into certain trees because the other trees were so broken or useless you were wasting your time choosing them.
PvP is smooth? Mages critting for 75-100% in 2 shots is smooth? How bout that classes with CC dominate because to classes like warriors,shamans an hunters there is no way out of them so your 3 shotted without even being able to fight back?
How exactly do you stealth to the end boss an wait for a group in an instance dungeon?
Of course I'm lying. I have absolutely nothing better to do than to lie to complete strangers in an obscure chat forum that nobody reads.
Instance dungeons hmmm? I never said they were instances. The caves in Kurzen's compound in Stranglethorn Vale, for example.
My PvP experience has been smooth (aside from going up against the occasional twink rogue) but I play seven characters ranging from level 39 down to 18, so I haven't had nearly as much experience in endgame material as you have. For me it's not about powerleveling a single character and maxing out my gear, it's about enjoying the ride. I play seven characters so I don't get burned out on one. I do think that it is fair for mages to be able to take you out quickly as their hit points leave much to be desired and they themselves suffer from the same fate. Your point about warriors and hunters is a fair one, but I think of shamans as group facilitators in PvP rather than a standalone character--not that they can't be, but they have so much to offer a group that it seems reasonable they rely on a group for protection.
I see, lvl 39. You are right in the middle of where the game still has alot to offer. Once you hit end game, it becomes a crazy loot grind. (or at least it did before the xpac). I speak from characters ranging from 60 to 7. My advice, enjoy WoW for what its worth. Get to the end game. Try instances a little, and then stop. Just stop. The gear grind can get to you, and in the end you realize "why in the world am i doing this?". I quit for 6 months, but the xpac drew me back in. Its still a beautiful fun game, however it wears. Enjoy it.
---------------- Do not taunt the dragon, for you are crunchy and taste like peanut butter
...some people just wanna go breeze into a game, take all the shortcuts and say "been there done that", which is fairly almost nearly impossible to do. which is an exaggeration at most, i know, but the point is there. burnouts happen to people at different times, some reach the endgame and can actually say "been there done that", some happen even before getting halfway through their talent trees. but when it happens, its either you just get up and go, or you force yourself and get absolutely sick tired of it.
--------------------------------- be a sweetheart, help me dominate the world...
I do think that it is fair for mages to be able to take you out quickly as their hit points leave much to be desired and they themselves suffer from the same fate.
Your argument might be true for mages < level 60. But at 70 hit points aren't a problem for mages anymore. And mages have superior crowd control. To hit a mage can be a tricky task for many classes.
Your point about warriors and hunters is a fair one, but I think of shamans as group facilitators in PvP rather than a standalone character--not that they can't be, but they have so much to offer a group that it seems reasonable they rely on a group for protection. What talent trees didn't you care for?
What do they have to offer? The only good thing is windfury for melee classes. Most other totems are pretty much useless at level 70 PvP. Take poison cleaning totem for example. At level 70 it just doesn't work. Or tremor totem. Forget it The only real group supporting class is the paladin. This class has far better group support skills/spells than any other class in the game.
PvP in WoW these days is ALL about crowd control. And by crowd control I do not mean snares. What I mean is to take players out of the game for n seconds. And this is what I hate most about WoW's PvP. Loosing control over your character for n seconds without a chance to fight back is just silly.
25 months of wow ...around 100 days /played ....im not logging very often latetly but still I deffo got my moneys worth
I'l tell you why wow is better then the other games out there and why most people prefer to play it :
Immersive world,good animations,class varietty,the lore from the warcraft series is gr8,fast paced pvp/pve...being able to level quickly
my server was packed since day one...
Some you keep bragging about the immature comunity ....well since a lot of people play it theres a bigger chance of you meeting a prick etc. I mean ...don't you live in RL ? i've heard people there can be quite rood.Oh theres grind ....pls point wich doesn't force you to grind ..
I've played other mmos....anarchy online ,everquest 2,lineage2 ,eve ,daoc ,swg and wow is the best by far
P.S try comparing WoW and Blizzard with a succesfull soft company ..for example Microsoft ...not with fast food aka mcdonalds
NEOSEEKER - I've heard it said before the WoW has one of the easier levelling treadmills, which is sad because levelling a character to 60 on WoW normally takes about 14 days if you do nothing but grind. That's 336 hours! That rules out many casual players.
It doesn't really rule them out, in my own experience.
I started playing WoW at release. The first folks to hit 60 did so about 2-3 weeks after release. Those were the powergamers. The hardcore yet not power gamers were there within 5-8 weeks. The casual players took 4 or 5 months to get there, which amounts to between 15 and 20 hours a week, which I think is pretty casual. What was revolutionary about WoW was that this was possible at all. If you compare it to a game like EQ or Lineage II, there is no way in hell that someone playing 15-20 hours per week could reach max level in 4 or 5 months. The casuals were overjoyed. Contrary to popular belief, the casuals don't expect to reach max level as quickly as the powergamers do -- not at all. But the prospect of taking 12-18 months to reach max level is beyond daunting to most casual players -- and that's the reality of how long it takes in many other games if you play on a casual schedule. WoW turned that on its head by making it possible for even very casual players to reach level cap in a reasonable, forseeable period of time.
The problem came when they eventually DID reach level cap, however, and learned that 15-20 hours was not going to cut it for the endgame content. What did most of the casuals do at that stage? You guessed it: they re-rolled and leveled and character of a different class/faction for another 5 months. I know many casual players now who have 3-4 60s and they did it this way over the course of the past two + years. That's what I mean when I say that WoW's game is very casual friendly. It's by far the most casual friendly level-oriented MMO ever made, outside of the endgame.
NEOSEEKER - I've heard it said before the WoW has one of the easier levelling treadmills, which is sad because levelling a character to 60 on WoW normally takes about 14 days if you do nothing but grind. That's 336 hours! That rules out many casual players.
It doesn't really rule them out, in my own experience.
I started playing WoW at release. The first folks to hit 60 did so about 2-3 weeks after release. Those were the powergamers. The hardcore yet not power gamers were there within 5-8 weeks. The casual players took 4 or 5 months to get there, which amounts to between 15 and 20 hours a week, which I think is pretty casual. What was revolutionary about WoW was that this was possible at all. If you compare it to a game like EQ or Lineage II, there is no way in hell that someone playing 15-20 hours per week could reach max level in 4 or 5 months. The casuals were overjoyed. Contrary to popular belief, the casuals don't expect to reach max level as quickly as the powergamers do -- not at all. But the prospect of taking 12-18 months to reach max level is beyond daunting to most casual players -- and that's the reality of how long it takes in many other games if you play on a casual schedule. WoW turned that on its head by making it possible for even very casual players to reach level cap in a reasonable, forseeable period of time.
The problem came when they eventually DID reach level cap, however, and learned that 15-20 hours was not going to cut it for the endgame content. What did most of the casuals do at that stage? You guessed it: they re-rolled and leveled and character of a different class/faction for another 5 months. I know many casual players now who have 3-4 60s and they did it this way over the course of the past two + years. That's what I mean when I say that WoW's game is very casual friendly. It's by far the most casual friendly level-oriented MMO ever made, outside of the endgame.
Yet, by the standards of a standard game-player who shoots up halo with his friends every weekend, 15-20 hours a week playing the same game is INSANE. That is what has kept the MMORPG market so small compared to the market of games at large. I hope you understand what I mean when I say this - if not, you really need to reorient yourself with the non-WoW-playing world that is so much larger.
WoW, I have played for a year and a half and just recently quit...again got to end game quit.. waited for expansion.. hit new end game quit again that game I belive is fun until you hit the end for me but how the game is played and made and marketed its well as I have said elsewhere "WoW is a stepping stone MMO, but no next step to go to yet"
Yeah. In a sense WoW is also the ultimate product of the MMOs before it. We will never see another game like WoW besides a few failed clones here and there. It has done the absolutely best that any game can do with the current genre model. After this we can only expect innovative games or failed games.
Yet, by the standards of a standard game-player who shoots up halo with his friends every weekend, 15-20 hours a week playing the same game is INSANE. That is what has kept the MMORPG market so small compared to the market of games at large. I hope you understand what I mean when I say this - if not, you really need to reorient yourself with the non-WoW-playing world that is so much larger.
That may be true, but the type of person who wants to play Halo and the type of person who wants to play an MMO are two completely different types. 15-20 hours a week is a modest commitment in the context of an MMO, and could seem like an insane commitment to a devotee of Halo. I wouldn't know, because games like Halo have never interested me in the least, so I can't really relate to the preferences of fans of games of that type. I think the amazing thing about WoW is that it is an MMO and has managed to get 2.5-3m subs in NA and Europe, despite not being a Halo-type game that you shoot up with your friends on the weekend for a few hours. That's pretty amazing, really, even if it is much smaller than the Halo-playing masses of console gamers.
Every MMO operates under the "Carrot - Stick" model to keep you playing., What makes the difference is how long is the stick to the carrot and is that carrot worth it?
For me it USED to be just right, before TBC I was enjoying the game. Now the stick is much longer and the carrot not so allureing, this is MY humble opinion that even had a disclaimer for the literate to read. I don't see why people get so fired up over this game when someone leaves. Most I quit threads are pretty lame and reasonles.
The only real main complaint I have is that they took such a ridiculously long time on this game, why couldn't have they added new stuff or at least took that development time to make something new and interesting that would last more than five seconds before you realized it was the same thing? I'm just so disappointed because I thought that this was going to be an MMORPG that I could stick with and I was finally with a company that at the very least respected the opinion of its player base, but all I see now on the suggestions bored is tons of very well thought out suggestions, no indications of them being read at all and if they are, they're just a bunch of Community Managers giving smart arse one liner comments or just going "It sounds like a good idea" to make themselves seem important giving no indication again whether they have actually read the damn thread or not.....
I think I'll stop now because otherwise I'm going to go into one of my rants, in my opinion I don't think they stuck with what the original game was like, they just added more end-game grind grind loot loot content, I just wasn't going to put up with that, the original game was all about having fun with questing and grouping and you could even solo if you couldn't find anyone to play with, that's probably what was so fun in the first 40 levels I felt, the game felt fun, but now they've just turned it into a second job.
Quoting people doesn't make you clever, in fact, it makes you all the more stupid for not bothering to read the quotes you post in the first place.
Yep. So if you are even remotely interested in why someone would not only quit the 8.5 million subscription monster known as WoW, keep reading, and no you may not my stuff.
Let's start at where TBC killed for me, WoW, see if you can relate.
TBC Launched, WOOT, we waited in the icey cold to grab our copies. That would be my wife and I. We get it, I hit 70 in about 10 days. Woot me. Then reality hit's me like a ton of bricks! TBC is pretty, TBC has flying mounts! TBC has some new spells!
And that's it. That's all the truly "new things" in TBC.
BUT WAIT! What about Heroic 5 Mans??? What about them? Lame, I have to grind instances to get a key so I can grind that same instance AGAIN! But this time, ZOMG it's even HARDER!
Joy.
Karazhan? Waste of my time, effort and money. Maybe one day it will be a 4 hour instance, but I am not going to go through it to get there. It's just not worth it. I WANT to see Mt. Hyjal, but I am not going to spend that much time on it. It's just not worth it. I haven't logged into WoW in a week, and you know what?
It feels GREAT!! I have a life! I get things done, I don't feel like I am missing out because I wasn't grinding some DAMNDABLE instance over and over again. "ZOMG, I am late logging in! I have to run Shattard Halls and hope that piece of gear drops and I win roll!"
Nope, instead I got work done around the house, did some writing and watched some movies. MUCH more enjoyable.
Personally, I cannot wait for WAR to release, because it's going to be the Anti-WoW, it's going to have PvP that means something, Quests that don't require I sign up for, and spend 5 hours grinding.
You guys that love WoW, I ask you one question, is it really worth it? Is there really a purpose to all that time spent?
lol this guy talks about reallife as it would be something special...
are you ok? I mean how many hours did you spent in WoW in the last 3 months? I never played World of Warcraft simply because I dont want to end up like you guys
I only saw a few screenshots so far and videos of WoW and Im glad I never started to play it...
lots of my friends have lost their relationships, friends and couldnt finish their study because of world of warcraft, which was the number one reason I didnt begin to play it...
the op of this thread really needs to get unplugged, you spent too much time in this game man
It's true I new this guy that had this really hot girlfriend in college, did not go to spring break (march break) in 2006. She hooked up with some dude while on this party cruise........I'll let you imagine what happened after that. WOW is not > then RL. You don't miss spring break for WOW........period
Ok, i'm going to answer your question about "Is it really worth it"
It varies by person, WoW is fun filled game, you can make it fun, or you can make it bad by saying "Omg It Sucks", "Im Quiting" "Boring Crap" Of course you can make it really bad by saying that. When i bought TBC, i was very excited, ok yes they didn't bring any new classes in, or make any extremely dramatic changes(Besides Horde having Paladin,and Alliance having Shaman). They brought in the new level cap, they brought in a bunch of new spells, content, instances, raids, new sets. Cool, yah ok. I think it's cool that they made Flying mounts, it's freakin sweet! I'm 16, i play world of warcraft. I have a life, i have a girlfriend, people think that if you play WoW, that you don't have a life, some cases it's true, some cases it's not, deal with it you douche.
If you hit 70 in ten days, you didn't really do in anything. Did you PvP? Did you raid with your guild? Did you try to get T4, or T5. I mean c'mon it's more than getting to lvl 70
I guess this thread has made me happy in the sense that I have connected with other people who feel the same about the game and realize it's fundamental flaws. In closing, it's been a good discussion; and I hope in time video games will learn from WoW's mistakes and improve. Maybe one day we'll get to have those same magical moments and adrenalizing combat that made older games so great.
Everyone burns out on a game for whatever reason. I burned out because at heart, I am not a grind raider. The genius dev team at blizzard decided that taking the "Grind raider" and putting it on steroids was a GOOD idea.
Sorry but that's not end game, it's a game about WARcraft, with out the WAR. It's really annoying when you think about it.
they cant see the problem, the blizzard/everquest employees, i really dont know why i even say blizzard employees, they are all gone. the researchers are clueless and a horrific influence on the devs, these are the folks put in charge to find via polls and questionairs what "they" think folks want in an mmo, let alone wow. if anyone has ever dealt with demographic researches your in for a very humorous treat. yes bc ruined wow even more, its wow part 1 and wow part 2 now, gear is useless for the raid kiddies in bc until they spend the hundreds of unwanted hours to get new bc raid gear, then who will they play with? the very very few that have that gear, no fun, useless after you get it, if you even get it.
let me ask a question here, the grand sense of being uber and saying your epically the top dog aside for a second, whatever happened to "everyone" getting that uber gear, so "everyone" can fight the epic battles ("blizzard" calls these bg's) and "everyone" can fight the world changing events? the few will naturally chime in saying "everyone" does not deserve the uber gear unless they "earn" it. is it reall a blast for folks to blow over lesser gear toon over and over? to see the same folks raid the same dungeon over and over? to see the same folks fighting the same folks, anyone getting the drift here? "blizzard" are you?
back to my main point "blizzard researchers and devs are clueless when it comes to what mainstream folks want. even the the best geared toon is going to get bored steamrolling the same folks over and over, doing the same thing over and over. "blizzard" doesnt realize the better solution when its been shoved in their faces many times over, countless threads, but hey we arent in charge, and they, "blizzard" seems to think they will be "the game" forever.
lots of reasons to quit, lots of reasons to stay, the game is supposed to be what you make of it, like anything entertaining you put time into you hate to see your time wasted by leaving and going to another game, that will hopefully be better, or stay and hope the devs will do something to get rid of the loathing you have within an hour or two of logging on. its hope in my opinion, that and hours invested that keep folks in wow, until one day....................
like i have said before, once the kids are 18, you and your burning crusade are out the door. (grin, not married, sarcastic example, hope folks get it )
can you smell that?!!...............there is nothing quite like it.....................the smell of troll in the morning............i love that smell.
Comments
So let me see ... you're pissed because Blizzard added most of the expansion content for level 60+, given that the vast, vast majority of the playerbase had at least one level 60 character, but you don't care for leveling so you can't be bothered leveling a character to 60?
I mean WoW is designed so that it is easier to level cap than any other MMO ever done, really. Pre-TBC, the vast majority of the characters were 60s. If you looked at the WoW census sites at the time, they all reflected a massive grouping of folks at 60. TBC was designed predominantly for 60s because that's where most of the population was. They also added two new races for lower level things.
Now I'm not saying it's silly to criticise WoW, as I also think that mistakes were made, especially with the risk/reward balance for the new endgame at 70. But I don't think a critique that is focused on the fact that the expansion was aimed at the vast majority of players who had characters at 60 is a particularly valid one. It made sense for Blizzard to do that, given that most of the playerbase had 60s.
So let me see ... you're pissed because Blizzard added most of the expansion content for level 60+, given that the vast, vast majority of the playerbase had at least one level 60 character, but you don't care for leveling so you can't be bothered leveling a character to 60?
I mean WoW is designed so that it is easier to level cap than any other MMO ever done, really. Pre-TBC, the vast majority of the characters were 60s. If you looked at the WoW census sites at the time, they all reflected a massive grouping of folks at 60. TBC was designed predominantly for 60s because that's where most of the population was. They also added two new races for lower level things.
Now I'm not saying it's silly to criticise WoW, as I also think that mistakes were made, especially with the risk/reward balance for the new endgame at 70. But I don't think a critique that is focused on the fact that the expansion was aimed at the vast majority of players who had characters at 60 is a particularly valid one. It made sense for Blizzard to do that, given that most of the playerbase had 60s.
I think the point was more along the lines of, they gave us very little that was new.
If you've been playing for the past 2 years and liked the present model then you were going to like the xpac. If you've been playing the last 2 years and got tired of the model then the xpac is just more of the exact same thing you've been doing for 2 years, except that now you have to go back to doing the exact same quests to get those extra 10 lvls.
Not really happy with the xpac either, and I really wish Blizzard would have found something other then the combat system to focus on. It got stale for me; I want to do something other then kill stuff over, and over, and over, and over again. Whether that's PvE or PvP. It's just more of the same, and the same is pretty damn old.
You hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately, game developers will continue to use the current paridgm to rake in as many customers as possible as WoW has done by using a no brainer challenge to gear up and stroke the "1337 leet doodz" ego. WoW is as challenging as pulling the lever on a slot machine over and over again waiting for the "phat loot" to drop. You simply do it over and over and over again and no brain or skill are required. Maybe one day game developers will make a MMORPG that rewards skill instead of no brainer, ginding time sinks.
How do you do that, though?
The business model of MMOs is to have players play a long time. Timesinks (and grinding is a main timesink) are one way to get that to happen. Another way is to provide meaningful PvP (that is, PvP with a reason, something to defend/conquer that has a lasting impact, etc.). Another way is sandboxing it so that the players build something meaningful for themselves, and get wrapped up in that, which retains their accounts.
A "skill-based" PvE experience ... how exactly would that retain players long-term? The static nature of most PvE means that it can be learned -- with repetition what was once challenging becomes rote and becomes "farmed". How do you make a PvE experience not like that? By making it more random? By having encounters take on a more random and unpredictable nature? That would be one possibility, but it would make things harder to balance, I think.
As I see it the main challenge is creating something that people will enjoy playing for some time. Timesinks like grinding are the most heavy-handed way of doing it, because they actually do force players to inject a certain amount of time to get a certain fixed reward. PvP turns things around the other way, but most people seem not to like PvP as a playstyle, so while there is a great market for it (as we can see in upcoming titles like AoC and WAR), it's not the huge mothelode bonanza of a market that PvE is. And as for sandboxes, these are truly niche games that appeal to smaller markets.
So as I see it what we will likely see is more of what we see today, namely: a lot of games thath feature grinding disguised to some degree, a few games that are focused on PvP, and the odd one or two games that are sandboxy -- each with its own approach at retaining players.
Calling it heavy-handed fits perfectly. They have chosen the most controllable, easy, route to add replay value. Unfortunately, their replay value is value that increases with time played, not with time subscribed - which arguably may decrease the amount of time subscribed. I remember in shadowbane when there was really no point to log on until our scheduled attack on a city, unless just to dink around and have some quick fun. The 'banes' forced players to have no 'grind' to do- if you would call 90 players charging at a castle fortified by 90 other players a grind.
Of course, even shadowbane had more personal-character-development than I would prefer, but I suppose it's crucial to MMORPGS.
I do like the sandbox idea. I just hope someone has the vision to do it.
NEOSEEKER - I've heard it said before the WoW has one of the easier levelling treadmills, which is sad because levelling a character to 60 on WoW normally takes about 14 days if you do nothing but grind. That's 336 hours! That rules out many casual players.
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be a sweetheart, help me dominate the world...
You gotta be kidding us here. Even Ultima Online, one of the first major MMOs, has better class customization than WoW. I can't say I ever liked the PvP either, but thats all opinion. Class customization, however, is definitely a drawback to WoW. You can't even allocate attribute points or anything basic like that.
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I'll have to respect your opinion on class customization as I regretably never played Ultima Online (started with the original Everquest). Even if you don't feel about the talent trees as I do, it is certainly possible to specialize a class on gear alone as there's such an absurd variety of it--if someone were to claim that WoW is too gear-dependent, I'd have no argument there. But I love my armor and weapons so you won't hear me complaining.
Of course you can also use racial abilities and crafting professions to further augment and specialize your character, but the argument could be made that it isn't truly 'class' customization then. But that's just semantics.
O_O
Are you sure you played WoW? The WoW I know forced people into certain trees because the other trees were so broken or useless you were wasting your time choosing them.
PvP is smooth? Mages critting for 75-100% in 2 shots is smooth? How bout that classes with CC dominate because to classes like warriors,shamans an hunters there is no way out of them so your 3 shotted without even being able to fight back?
How exactly do you stealth to the end boss an wait for a group in an instance dungeon?
I have a feeling your lying.
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I'll reply to your post in backwards order.
Of course I'm lying. I have absolutely nothing better to do than to lie to complete strangers in an obscure chat forum that nobody reads.
Instance dungeons hmmm? I never said they were instances. The caves in Kurzen's compound in Stranglethorn Vale, for example.
My PvP experience has been smooth (aside from going up against the occasional twink rogue) but I play seven characters ranging from level 39 down to 18, so I haven't had nearly as much experience in endgame material as you have. For me it's not about powerleveling a single character and maxing out my gear, it's about enjoying the ride. I play seven characters so I don't get burned out on one. I do think that it is fair for mages to be able to take you out quickly as their hit points leave much to be desired and they themselves suffer from the same fate. Your point about warriors and hunters is a fair one, but I think of shamans as group facilitators in PvP rather than a standalone character--not that they can't be, but they have so much to offer a group that it seems reasonable they rely on a group for protection.
What talent trees didn't you care for?
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Do not taunt the dragon, for you are crunchy and taste like peanut butter
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be a sweetheart, help me dominate the world...
Your argument might be true for mages < level 60. But at 70 hit points aren't a problem for mages anymore. And mages have superior crowd control. To hit a mage can be a tricky task for many classes.
What do they have to offer? The only good thing is windfury for melee classes. Most other totems are pretty much useless at level 70 PvP. Take poison cleaning totem for example. At level 70 it just doesn't work. Or tremor totem. Forget it
The only real group supporting class is the paladin. This class has far better group support skills/spells than any other class in the game.
PvP in WoW these days is ALL about crowd control. And by crowd control I do not mean snares. What I mean is to take players out of the game for n seconds.
And this is what I hate most about WoW's PvP. Loosing control over your character for n seconds without a chance to fight back is just silly.
I'l tell you why wow is better then the other games out there and why most people prefer to play it :
Immersive world,good animations,class varietty,the lore from the warcraft series is gr8,fast paced pvp/pve...being able to level quickly
my server was packed since day one...
Some you keep bragging about the immature comunity ....well since a lot of people play it theres a bigger chance of you meeting a prick etc. I mean ...don't you live in RL ? i've heard people there can be quite rood.Oh theres grind ....pls point wich doesn't force you to grind ..
I've played other mmos....anarchy online ,everquest 2,lineage2 ,eve ,daoc ,swg and wow is the best by far
P.S try comparing WoW and Blizzard with a succesfull soft company ..for example Microsoft ...not with fast food aka mcdonalds
/cheers
It doesn't really rule them out, in my own experience.
I started playing WoW at release. The first folks to hit 60 did so about 2-3 weeks after release. Those were the powergamers. The hardcore yet not power gamers were there within 5-8 weeks. The casual players took 4 or 5 months to get there, which amounts to between 15 and 20 hours a week, which I think is pretty casual. What was revolutionary about WoW was that this was possible at all. If you compare it to a game like EQ or Lineage II, there is no way in hell that someone playing 15-20 hours per week could reach max level in 4 or 5 months. The casuals were overjoyed. Contrary to popular belief, the casuals don't expect to reach max level as quickly as the powergamers do -- not at all. But the prospect of taking 12-18 months to reach max level is beyond daunting to most casual players -- and that's the reality of how long it takes in many other games if you play on a casual schedule. WoW turned that on its head by making it possible for even very casual players to reach level cap in a reasonable, forseeable period of time.
The problem came when they eventually DID reach level cap, however, and learned that 15-20 hours was not going to cut it for the endgame content. What did most of the casuals do at that stage? You guessed it: they re-rolled and leveled and character of a different class/faction for another 5 months. I know many casual players now who have 3-4 60s and they did it this way over the course of the past two + years. That's what I mean when I say that WoW's game is very casual friendly. It's by far the most casual friendly level-oriented MMO ever made, outside of the endgame.
WoW, I have played for a year and a half and just recently quit...again
got to end game quit.. waited for expansion.. hit new end game quit again
that game I belive is fun until you hit the end for me
but how the game is played and made and marketed its well
as I have said elsewhere
"WoW is a stepping stone MMO, but no next step to go to yet"
That may be true, but the type of person who wants to play Halo and the type of person who wants to play an MMO are two completely different types. 15-20 hours a week is a modest commitment in the context of an MMO, and could seem like an insane commitment to a devotee of Halo. I wouldn't know, because games like Halo have never interested me in the least, so I can't really relate to the preferences of fans of games of that type. I think the amazing thing about WoW is that it is an MMO and has managed to get 2.5-3m subs in NA and Europe, despite not being a Halo-type game that you shoot up with your friends on the weekend for a few hours. That's pretty amazing, really, even if it is much smaller than the Halo-playing masses of console gamers.
For me it USED to be just right, before TBC I was enjoying the game. Now the stick is much longer and the carrot not so allureing, this is MY humble opinion that even had a disclaimer for the literate to read. I don't see why people get so fired up over this game when someone leaves. Most I quit threads are pretty lame and reasonles.
Always change your signature.
I think I'll stop now because otherwise I'm going to go into one of my rants, in my opinion I don't think they stuck with what the original game was like, they just added more end-game grind grind loot loot content, I just wasn't going to put up with that, the original game was all about having fun with questing and grouping and you could even solo if you couldn't find anyone to play with, that's probably what was so fun in the first 40 levels I felt, the game felt fun, but now they've just turned it into a second job.
Quoting people doesn't make you clever, in fact, it makes you all the more stupid for not bothering to read the quotes you post in the first place.
lol this guy talks about reallife as it would be something special...
are you ok? I mean how many hours did you spent in WoW in the last 3 months? I never played World of Warcraft simply because I dont want to end up like you guys
I only saw a few screenshots so far and videos of WoW and Im glad I never started to play it...
lots of my friends have lost their relationships, friends and couldnt finish their study because of world of warcraft, which was the number one reason I didnt begin to play it...
the op of this thread really needs to get unplugged, you spent too much time in this game man
It's true I new this guy that had this really hot girlfriend in college, did not go to spring break (march break) in 2006. She hooked up with some dude while on this party cruise........I'll let you imagine what happened after that. WOW is not > then RL. You don't miss spring break for WOW........periodOk, i'm going to answer your question about "Is it really worth it"
It varies by person, WoW is fun filled game, you can make it fun, or you can make it bad by saying "Omg It Sucks", "Im Quiting" "Boring Crap" Of course you can make it really bad by saying that. When i bought TBC, i was very excited, ok yes they didn't bring any new classes in, or make any extremely dramatic changes(Besides Horde having Paladin,and Alliance having Shaman). They brought in the new level cap, they brought in a bunch of new spells, content, instances, raids, new sets. Cool, yah ok. I think it's cool that they made Flying mounts, it's freakin sweet! I'm 16, i play world of warcraft. I have a life, i have a girlfriend, people think that if you play WoW, that you don't have a life, some cases it's true, some cases it's not, deal with it you douche.
If you hit 70 in ten days, you didn't really do in anything. Did you PvP? Did you raid with your guild? Did you try to get T4, or T5. I mean c'mon it's more than getting to lvl 70
Tempus Vincit Omnia
Sorry but that's not end game, it's a game about WARcraft, with out the WAR. It's really annoying when you think about it.
Always change your signature.
they cant see the problem, the blizzard/everquest employees, i really dont know why i even say blizzard employees, they are all gone. the researchers are clueless and a horrific influence on the devs, these are the folks put in charge to find via polls and questionairs what "they" think folks want in an mmo, let alone wow. if anyone has ever dealt with demographic researches your in for a very humorous treat. yes bc ruined wow even more, its wow part 1 and wow part 2 now, gear is useless for the raid kiddies in bc until they spend the hundreds of unwanted hours to get new bc raid gear, then who will they play with? the very very few that have that gear, no fun, useless after you get it, if you even get it.
let me ask a question here, the grand sense of being uber and saying your epically the top dog aside for a second, whatever happened to "everyone" getting that uber gear, so "everyone" can fight the epic battles ("blizzard" calls these bg's) and "everyone" can fight the world changing events? the few will naturally chime in saying "everyone" does not deserve the uber gear unless they "earn" it. is it reall a blast for folks to blow over lesser gear toon over and over? to see the same folks raid the same dungeon over and over? to see the same folks fighting the same folks, anyone getting the drift here? "blizzard" are you?
back to my main point "blizzard researchers and devs are clueless when it comes to what mainstream folks want. even the the best geared toon is going to get bored steamrolling the same folks over and over, doing the same thing over and over. "blizzard" doesnt realize the better solution when its been shoved in their faces many times over, countless threads, but hey we arent in charge, and they, "blizzard" seems to think they will be "the game" forever.
lots of reasons to quit, lots of reasons to stay, the game is supposed to be what you make of it, like anything entertaining you put time into you hate to see your time wasted by leaving and going to another game, that will hopefully be better, or stay and hope the devs will do something to get rid of the loathing you have within an hour or two of logging on. its hope in my opinion, that and hours invested that keep folks in wow, until one day....................
like i have said before, once the kids are 18, you and your burning crusade are out the door. (grin, not married, sarcastic example, hope folks get it
)
can you smell that?!!...............there is nothing quite like it.....................the smell of troll in the morning............i love that smell.