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World of Warcraft: GDC 2011 - Cataclysm Post Mortem
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
During the 2011 GDC last week, Blizzard ran a panel to take a look back at World of Warcraft: Cataclysm and what the team learned during the process of developing the latest expansion. Check out what the Blizzard team had to say about Cataclysm in MMORPG.com Industry Relations Manager Garrett Fuller's report and then let us know what you think.
It is a rare treat when Blizzard presents a panel at GDC. This year they had several, one of which was a look back at Cataclysm and what the team had learned in the process of making the expansion. Tom Chilton, Lead Producer on the game gave the talk which focused on three main areas that the team felt ran the scope of the changes. Desolace, WestFall and the Talent Tree changes were the highlight of the session, showing what the team got wrong, right, and how they felt the new changes really brought the game to a great place for players.
Read more of Garrett Fuller's GDC 2011 - Cataclysm Post Mortem.
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Comments
This didn't mention anything about what they did wrong. How about the fact that once you hit 60 outlands and northrend feel like you are stepping back in time and it feels a complete waste to level from 60-80. Or how about how boring and dull endgame is because it hasn't changed at all and only caters to the overly hardcore raiding playerbase. To me these are glaring issues with WoW and it won't be FUN again until these 2 aspects are changed.
I couldn't agree more.
Developers as a whole are nothing but lazy assed gits. Incapable of developing an end game that isn't completely focused on PvE and PvP based raiding.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
What they should have done was kept the old world intact for 1-60 then when you complete northrend and return to the old world then phase it to the way it is now in cata but with levels 80-100. They already have the quests and content of the cataclysm so it's just a matter of changing levels.
That way you have more levels, more end game content and it preserves the storyline as well.
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Doktar - 70 Troll Priest - Perenolde
Archer, that's just brilliant. And it would make sense lore-wise. I too felt frustrated after having rerolled for the 100th time only to feel depressed just thinking about having to go through BC & Northrend again. Funny how Azeroth appeals to me (i.e. Vanilla WoW) but afterwards it feels like a burden.
Also what killed it for me is the endless dungeon runs right before Cata to stuff all your chars, only to realize that again the first green pyjama-style drop was just outdating it all. They made the mistake with BC and I had expected from Blizzard that they wouldn't do it again. Boy I was wrong.
Could'nt agree more .I did try starting a new character going through the revamped old world but it seamed too similar in general and not at all what I'd been hoping for . Still all is not lost theres RIFT now
.
What they SHOULD have done is change progression to make it easier for more casual players to see endgame content, while keeping the challenge there for the more 'hardcore' raiders.
Right now, its: Normal Dungeons - Heroic Dungeons - Raids - Heroic Raids
It should be changed to: Normal Dungeons - Normal Raids - Heroic Dungeons - Heroic Raids
This would allow more casual folks to actually SEE endgame content (for story purposes and such), while keeping the challenge/increased rewards there for those who want it. Obviously, there should be some overlap for those who want to skip normal raids and go straight for heroic dungeons, but normal dungeon gear should be sufficient for the 'regular' raid content.
Grinding up normals to run heroics, then grinding heroics to run raids just isn't fun. I've already run those dungeons 500 goddamn times, now I have to run the 'harder' versions 500 more times just to have a chance to see how the story progresses? No, thank you.
I would hardly say that Wrath of the Lich King (especially end game ICC gear) was hard to obtain. Maybe I am unclear exactly what issue you are talking about, but I'd feel pretty cheated if I purchased an expansion and had to use my old (ugly) ICC25 heroic gear for another six months.
Doktar - 70 Troll Priest - Perenolde
How quickly people forget. In about three months there will be a new content patch and the old tier will be handed out via justice points. If all you are interested in is story and you claim to be casual, wouldn't it be the same if you experienced the content a few months later than those who enjoy a challenge?
Doktar - 70 Troll Priest - Perenolde
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
never even got into Raids .. ( was always the gearscore blah blah.. my realm demanded 6k gs for lich king normal)
I'm not sure but I think he means more like "it hasnt changed as in it's still the same we had in vanilla", that is instanced raiding. After 3 expansions it's still the same instanced raiding with new textures, some mechanics and gear treadmill. It would be cool to have MORE ways to play end game. Is instanced raiding the ONLY endgame possible in the whole mmorpg business?
Also how can the article say "The actual world of Azeroth remains one of WoW’s strongest assets" when it has only ONE purpose. To be a leveling vessel. After you are done leveling the world is only a lobby where you wait to get into instanced-whatever. I wouldnt even call it mmorpg when you could just after max level have lobby where you log in and wait to get to PvE/PvP instance. You NEED endgame meaning for the world too, not just a leveling place that is useless after max level. World PvP objectives and rewards in the actual world and PvE objectives besides leveling too. A lot of it instead of this Cataclysm model where it is COMPLETELY absent.
It's a mmorpg where you dont need to move an inch in the open world after you hit max level. I would understand that if there were world-content in this game too, equal amount (you know, it's open world mmo and all) but no, instead instances are the ONLY content. Even the "openworld" PvP zones (WG and Tol Barad) are instanced where you que+teleport. That's just stupid, call that an open world + mmorpg.
I'm so glad there's vast amount of mmo titles coming without this aproach only, to a mmorpg gaming. If you want 100% instance ran game leave the openworld out of it as a bait and just admit it's a lobby->action->lobby multiplayer with a guild chat.
Just stating what it is in essence, and what direction Cata brought it even more. Heck maybe they even add the lobby option for those who dont like to idle in cities while waiting for instance to pop
Login screen with guild chat and instance/raid finder, a winner idea? 
Doktar - 70 Troll Priest - Perenolde
For me the new heroic dungeons were to much. I don't want a second job, and I don't want to have to do "trial and error" play till a group I'm in gets it right or figures out the mechanics, or has the right combo of classes, or has the right CC. Also most of the "wow" factor I got from the heroic dungeons was "Wow what a waste of time
"
So....I had fun while it lasted, but for now I'm having a better time in a new game called RIFT.
The issues that face WoW are obviously complex, and multi-faceted. And for that reason, I am not going to create some wall of text to try and tackle the beast. But I'll say this much:
- A lot fo what you see wrong or right in the game seems to have a *lot* to do with when you first started playing. I have heard the term "Wrath-babies" and though it usually used in a derogatory manner, it points out the fact that people who joined during Wrath joined during the easiest faceroll period in WoW ever. GC may be a dick, but he was right: Wrath heroics were loot pinatas churning out tokens. Cata was no doubt going to shock "Wrath-babies".
- People, such as myself and several from my guild, joined during beta or shortly after. The perspective with us is that even though Cata signals a return to more challenging content, it's too little, too late now. While the difficulty in vanilla was definitely frustrating at times, many of us just let it slide, because we were so in love with the game at that time. It was new and fresh. Now, vanilla-difficulty feels arduous, not because we're lazy and want thing handed to us a la Wrath, but because we're just tired of the game now. It's well-worn mechanics are simply old, and no fresh content or new coat of paint will change the core mechanics of it.
- People that joined during TBC seem to fall either way, but also understand that TBC heroics were like Cata heroics are now: hard. They also know that Wrath's.....weren't.
- By the end of Wrath, everyone, even the newest people, were walking around in pallette-swapped gear or the genuine raid-level stuff. I couldn't be bothered to name the gear-sets, because by that time no one cared. In vanilla, everyone knew "oh that guy's wearing Wrath, clearly a BWL guild" or "that guy is wearing Plagueheart, clearly a Naxx guild". By the time Wrath hit it's stride, it just didn't seem to matter anymore. And when most things stop mattering, like classes or gear(because both have been homogenized to death now), why do you even bother to achieve?
All of this is simply an opinion, and not meant o offend. I believe people should have to put time to have special things. I believe that special things should be rare. I believe that a player should not be punished for not playing 40 hours a week as well. You can't tell me a better balance could not be found.
"I think its just important to remember that no one falls into a simple set of labels, and its even more important, I think, to learn from your mistakes and to fight for the positive choice." - Lindsey Buckingham
There's nothing wrong with WoW or Cataclysm. It's just the people who play WoW. I hope to God Blizzard succeeded with Cataclysm and those players who make WoW such a miserable experience for others are content with the game and stay quarantined in it.
I recently just quit wow. I've come to the realization that it's just too much work. I have friends and coworkers to play with but they have all surpassed me in gear. In order to play the content with them I have grind dailies, I need rep gear, I need gold, I need mats for flasks, none of that is fun but it needs to be done for me to progress further. Sitting in a 40 minute queue to do a 2 hour heroic isn't fun.
I also have kids so I can't dedicate the kind of time I need to in order to keep up. I enjoy leveling, I have 4 85's. It's something I can do on my own with no pressure from others and at my leisure so it works out well.
So seeing as the game as become work and it just isn't fun to do that work I went ahead and cancelled my account. I love MMO's and have been playing them since the mid 90's but my life just doesn't allow the time these types of games require. And I no longer have the willpower for endless grinds. If it's not fun i'm simply not going to do it anymore.
Looking forward to Planetside 2 and Guild Wars though. Planetside because I can just jump in a shoot a few guys and there's no grinding and guild wars because they promise no grind and there's no monthly fee to make me feel obligated to play.
Tribes 2 is back!!!! http://www.tribesnext.com/
And from the makers of tribes: Fallen Empire: Legions http://www.instantaction.com/
I actually couldnt agree with you more, that is why i havent been playing wow since around july last year, and even before that i didnt sub to the game for more than a month at a time with 3-4 months in between, game simply isnt fun anymore, its a second job and i dont want a second job.
List of SOE lies
I think the main problem a lot of people are having now is that Cata was slightly overhyped. The zone changes were said to be giant renevations but half of the zones only got a crack in the ground and a few more quests.
Heroic dungeons were supposed to be a lot more difficult, but all they did was increase the minimum skill lvl required to complete them. So if you aren't incompetant, they don't feel any different from WotLK heroics. Raids obviously aren't too difficult as they were blown through in a matter of weeks. Of course I wouldn't know because I quit before I wasted the time to grind heroic gear to get to raids.
Sure, there was a lot to do on release, but you didn't feel any reason too. "I could go farm heroics, but those get old", "I could do archaeology, but that was old after the second node", "I could level an alt and go through the new zones, but they aren't really new."
This is from the point of view of someone who finds raiding tedious though (Waiting on idiots to learn how to move out of the fire and for RNG to shine didn't interest me).
All in all, I'd say that people are just tired of the same crap re-polished for the third time. Luckily for me, Rift and DCUO came out just in time for me not to permanently burn out of WoW, so perhaps I'll come back to it in the future if they do something innovative, as it hasn't for the past 5 years I've been playing.
just make everything soloable is fine with me, even i dont get reward at the end. i always missed end game content.. from naxx 40.. to AQ 40.. to BT.. to sun well.. to ULD to LIch.. never get chance to play it..
I just hate how long these heroics are. Blizzard has combined difficult and bite sized content before, FoS and HoR most recently were quick and still had a decent difficulty, whereas if you get a bad group 6 hours is quite possible in deadmines, and i just don't have that much time to devote to one bite of content anymore. And if I can't devote that much time to content raiding is out of the question, so it's pointless to do the remaining bite: dailies, why farm dailies if that's the limit my time will allow? I didn't quit wow because it was too hard or too easy, or not fun. I just don't have the time to put down for that small of a reward, especially with BG queues taking 15-20 minutes on my server, and my extraordinary hate for IoC Strands and AV. There was just nothing worth logging in for for me, so my account has died. Don't get me wrong I'm not a wrath baby, I've been around since patch 1.5, but in the past 3 years I've gone 4-6 month stretches of non-subscription steadily increasing in length drastically. I think my addiction is finally broken. As wow has nothing to offer someone with little time.
This^^ is what I meant. Thanks for interpreting for me. I just feel Blizzard has been soaking the player base for 3 years now. We haven't really seen any significant "growth" in WoW and it sure hasn't made the monthly fee worthwhile.
http://camelotmonkey.com/showchars.php?user=arghos
Hmmm....guess my previous post was too long, what with all the quoting and all, since it cut off the last of it. Oh well, not going to repost that part...lol. Suffice to say that with Cata, WoW has become a steaming pile of canine feces that I just happen to be stuck with until I see how Rift is going to do : )
http://camelotmonkey.com/showchars.php?user=arghos