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World of Warcraft: Banishing Soul Shards
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com WoW Correspondent Sean Cooper, a Warlock player, writes this article on Soul Shards. Specifically how he feels they have been mis-used in the past and how Cataclysm is fixing to make it right.
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As a long time player of the Warlock class, I, as well as other Warlocks, have found myself annoyed by the soul shard system. In the early days, the annoyance stemmed from having our bags full of the little pink gems. We players cried out for changes, and changes were promised. Would we be getting more uses for the shards? What about the ability to stack them? No! Our beloved class was changed in the form of special soul bags that held only soul shards, albeit a larger number of them. "This was it?" we thought. After months to years we got special ammo pouches.
Future changes were hinted at, but throughout the different iterations of WoW, we Warlocks and our little pink friends could do nothing but farm to fill our ever-increasing-in-size bags. Eventually we learned that we would be able to farm multiple shards through an improved version of "Drain Soul", but our shards would be restricted to 32 at a time. This is where we stand today.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
How does he think the Cataclysm expansion will hit sometime soon when the expected release date is mid to late 2010?
I loved the soul shard system and it weeded out the diffrence between crappy warlocks and good warlocks, boohoo you have to go farm shards before a raid, you should be doing prep for the raid anyways. I've played a lock since before soulshard bags were around and its just part of the flavor, if you dont like it, play something else. its like them taking ammo away from hunters, thats completly idiotic
Mess with the best, Die like the rest
So the difference between crappy warlocks and good warlocks was just grinding for 20 minutes? Nah, more grinding never meant that a person is better than the other. Plus, combined with Blizzard's new mastery/talents system, it can be remade in something awesome.
Ammo can be bought, just like most things for most classes that require components. None of the other classes need to "farm" as much just to use their abilities. Darn, they might help eliminate a worthless timesink. QQ moar.
"There is only one thing of which I am certain, and that's nothing is certain."
I mean this with all sincerity. Who cares. These columnists are just getting lazy or WoW is really becoming just that boring that we have an ENTIRE article dedicated to some small cosmetic change to a class.
I mean really, does this warrant an ENTIRE article.
Anyone who's played warlock really can't say that giving out soul shards or soul stones, or summoning pets or players really counts as a way to weed out "noobs" from the good players. At best the soul shatter ability can keep a good warlock alive when they accidently pull aggro. Farming shards really isn't even a problem (I keep my bags toped off), but it's a far cry from being able to open a vendor window and buy 200 candles before a raid. While the new system might make us feel more like death knights, I am hopeful that the new system will be more interesting, and more relevant to player skill.
the more I hear of this mess the more happier I am I moved to guild wars.
I've played a warlock for 3+ years and have had no real problems with the system. Yes, I do wish they would stack to some degree so i could carry more than just 32. But my main wish would be that they find more creative ways that we could use said shards. I dunno i would have to play test their new system before i could really comment intelligently about it but i dont think the current system should be revamped that drastically. I think there are plenty of great creative ideas for the current system as is. Just my 2 cents(can i get change please?).
I for one have always LIKED souls shards and shard bags. While I've wished for larger bags - in general, not just for shards - I liked having special bags to hold my "little pink gems".
As far as I'm concerned, they don't need any other uses. Several changes have been made so that the number of shards you need to carry to a raid, and prevent from using Drain Soul because it hurt your overall DPS, is much lower. DPS for Drain Soul has also been improved, and is even the top DPS spell in the last 25% of a fight for the Affliction Warlock.
Farming them has never been much of a chore either. I used to carry 2 28-shard bags full to a raid, and could fill them up in 15 minutes or so. No big deal and a fun mechanic that helped differentiate the class from others,
So many players these days don't want differences in classes, they want things to be easy - they gripe about things even when they ARE easy, like with soul shards. Frankly, I don't much understand it, but then I'm from a RP background, not a FPS background, and like things like leveling and soul shards.
I'll probably adopt to the new system just fine.
Have played: Everquest, Asheron's Call, Horizons, Everquest2, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer, Age of Conan, Darkfall
Yup. Even though my main is a Mage, I always considered the Warlock the most interesting class to play, and the one I would play if I only had one character.
They are dumbing down the class signicantly, which goes in line with many other Cataclysm changes.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Yeah! Now i can put my herb bag at the last slot and more space to carry other things.
With 3 shards per fight, though you can drain soul, personally i think its more difficult to handle compare to 2 big bags full of shards.
But that's just me.
But how soon is his SOON???
RIP Orc Choppa
What I've always liked about soul shards is the concept. The idea of a warlock imprisoning the souls of his vanquished targets and using them against his enemies has always been a great flavor item. I think that it's hard to tell know how good the changes will be, but as I said before, I think they're getting closer to feeling like they should. I am, however, concerned that the aspect of imprisoning souls with drain soul will be completely downplayed in this system.
As for how SOON the expansion may be, My personal guess based on the time frames of previous patches, expansions, and information released, is next summer (2010). I think we'll have one more major content patch (ice crown), maybe two, and then the expansion. We seem to have settled into a 4 or so month development cycle for patches, so I expect ice crown in December or January. I can't see them making players waiting for 6 months for more content, but I may be mistaken. Either way, my guess is as good as anyone elses.
Well I am glad I left WoW, seems they are killing off the good old game that WoW was with the new changes. I see no problem with the shard system now and never ever had a problem with it. I was never a big raider and was never rich in game, but in a few months it was easy to get a Core Felcloth Bag, two 18 slot Onyxia Hide Backpack and the 18 slot bag one form ZG. Still had those same bags at 80 and I got half way through Uld. Not once did me or any of my friends ever have a problem with Shards and I had 3 sets of armor in my bags. It was not hard to get shards at any point just use your brain.
That said it just goes to show how lame the new players are in this game and how they can't take a challenge (which isn't very much of one) of playing a Warlock in the game of World of Warcraft.
Oh well WoW had it's time now it's just mess up garbage, same old things over and over with a few changes and really stoopid ideas the dev's push on ya.
Yes. I'm done with it. The only really good thing they have changed lately is allowing players to level in BGs. It pales in comparison to the bad moves they have made and are planning to make.
I thought I would miss WoW, but that was only true when I wasn`t playing another MMORPG. While I was playing Warhammer, I really didn`t miss WoW at all. That tells me that I can find another game to grab my attention.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Wow, I didn't think there would be that many negative comments about the improvements to the Soul Shard system. Personally I am very excited for this change. Due to the upcoming changes to Hunter and Warlock (very much in support of both) I am holding off on playing both classes until Cataclysm hits.
Yes, Soon will be quite some time from now, but until then I can enjoy learning new aspects of the old classes and prepare to love my new Worgen and Goblin characters.
Current games: WoW, Runes of Magic
Past games: WAR, DDO, Fiesta, AoC, Rohan, Dungeon Runners, Free Realms, Tabula Rasa, LoTRO
yet nobody comments on the removal of warlock lifetaps? :P
lol
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Bleakmage
Prepare to love, lol!
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Bleakmage
It's taken ActiBlizz all these years to finally decide this game mechanic isn't worthwhile and needs to be completed reworked and fixed? I played a Warlock, the Soul Shard system was not fun and certainly not 'exciting' as ActiBlizz stated as their goal. It took them this long to finally admit it?
It's funny to see people saying this was a good system, but then there are always masochists out there who think bad game design is fun - it's a tradition for MMORPGs.
This sounds similar to how Cataclysm is re-working the worst zones in WoW. You have to wonder how those lousy zones got into the game in the first place. Just like how lousy mechanics like Soul Shards ever got in the game.
That's been one of the major problems with WoW. The things in it that are good are quite good, the things in it that are bad are really garbage. ActiBlizz should clean house with Cataclysm and fire all the idiots who designed the garbage and let the ones who made the better content take more control.
But that would mean firing people like Kaplan who created such winner content like the Green Hills of Stranglethorn quest.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/27/gdc09_jeffrey_kaplan_session/
WOOT WOOT WOOOOT