the scrubbage is strong in this thread. Join guilds and stop whining about how hard the game is. If you made it to 85 you should know how your class works.
Funny I thought the worst thing of Cataclysm was the change to talents. With the old system at least you had a choice in making your character somewhat unique, now everyone is cookie cutter.
I had not played since the original game so I did not have any elite equipment made obsolete, but the gear chase is boring so is the rep system. When SWTOR releases their subscriber base is going to take a huge hit.
Most of you claim "WoW sucks now because it's soo easy! It's catering to x people". No. The real problem is that you are finally getting bored with WoW. You are finally realizing that you are playing the same exact thing you started playing x years ago. Only difference is the mobs are bigger/smaller, hit harder/weaker, have a couple new mechanics that wouldn't have been thought possible when WoW was first released.
Many of you people who have played for 6 years are trying to get that feeling you orginially had back. That feeling of something new, something exciting. You will never get that feeling back with WoW. Never. It's just the result of WoW being 6 years old now.
Honestly, I started right about the last 5 months of TBC so I was a little late to the party. I did enjoy the game but I was a more casual, paying for maybe a month every once in a while. I got a little more into WotLK because I got more bang for my buck. When cata came, I was like "Sweet! New content!" and I expected great things from what Blizzard promised. Thing is though, I found myself caring about what to spec into, what stats I need, being hit capped, all that jazz. The game simply became a calculator fest in my downtime. Even when I did PvP (which was more enjoyable because it was SLIGHTLY less predictable), the combat was still all about who had the highest dps. Maybe I'm just biased by Guild Wars, but when it all came down to it, I simply got bored of caring solely on how much damage I do. That's really all the endgame has to offer.
played Wow for almost 6 years and as the years passed (after WOTLK) wow refocused from making game enjoyable and into making loads and loads of money. Release things that would make everything easyer for everyone just to make more players join wow..
Have fun all you WoW players in Cataclysm, now with reforging..
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.
I do not have any problem with expansion itself. It is fantastic. Impressive job (and idea!) to redesign old world and do it in line with lore. If somebody would like to change also Outland and Northrend ... what do you expect? Dragon to fly also there? Besides Northred is impressive without any revamp. No need at all. Guess could happen in future. Nearly same with Outland. Have leveled 10 alts to 85 without being bored. Well, mostly. 80-85 is great, despite quests too linear, one get to fast to max.
What I see as problem:
* end game
* constant nerfing (and only sometimes buffing)
About nerfing and buffing ... one have impressions that developers just randomly thorow changes written on paper notes and then randomly pulled from some magician hat. Otherwise impossible to explain houndreds and houndreds changes and "tweaking". Particularly in Cata they are messing with druids.
About end game ... series of mistakes of all kind so now mainly nobody is happy. To some to easy, to some to hard. Guess to hard otherwise hard to explain a lot of tanks and healer +350 in normals. They would need more vp then jp. Then ... because queues are for hc 35-50 min on my server and for normals still up to 30 mins ... what happen? Many pure dps warriors or ret paladins ... etc .. that never guess tanked before are simply respeccing and trying as tanks. Of course there are days where even normals end 90% in wipes, speaking about average 10 runs per day. To hard, then to easy, luck of draw 5% but not working, then multiplied by 3 for 3 random players, .... Pure mess. And consequences are here. And I find less and less reasons to log in to wow every day.
The end game for Cata is seriously lacking...the talent trees are now complete bore fests. I agree with the above poster who suggested that the developers randomly nerf or buff classes without any regards to the concequences of doing so.
I have a lot of fond memories of the game, originally started playing about a year before TBC expansion hit, but I as many others see the developers slowly removing the things that I used to have the most fun with in WoW...long list, not going to take the time to write it out.
Old, shallow game is old and shallow. The game was fairly shallow before, and yet blizzard continues to reduce the game more and more, not to mention recycle the same old content again and again. WTF new ZA, ZG and Ragnaros coming soon?
Rift came at the right time for me, I was finding myself very frustrated with wow and came here searching for a new game...Rift has all of the great things that I miss about old wow, plus sooooo many new improvements. I am very happy for the moment. Will it last? I don't know. All I care about right now, is that I am having fun right now.
So they think that MAYBE the only thing that they MIGHT have got wrong is the revamped Desolace ?
I didn't even notice that it might have been wrong because I was to busy with the stuff that for me, was definitly wrong.
Like....
When I get given a quest to do I want to do the quest, not see some cut scene showing my character zooming off doing said quest leaving the only input from me being clicking the mouse to accept the quest, and then again to complete the quest.
When I do a quest chain that develops a side story, and looks like it's building up to nice .almoet epic confrontation, I don't want to see all control of my character taken away while the game goes to a rather lame and pathetic cut scene and I come back with nothing to do except hand the qyest in.
When I get a quest that offers the least bit of challenge. I WANT TO DO THE FRIGGING QUEST and not have the curse of an NPC 'helper' that does nothing but get in the way and just proves to be totally irritating, particularly when it takes away a great part of my characters abilities and forces me into a playstyle I don't want/
When I get one of the mini games quests that i have to do because not doing it locks me out of any further progression in that zone. If I wanted to play that sort of game I'd get a games console and not be playing an RPG.
When I get a pathetic quest that involves picking my mates up in my new car or shopping for stuff for a party, Come on Blizzard, this isn't Hello Kitty Online, this is meant to be World of WARcraft'. Crap like that doesn't belong in Azeroth.
When I get a quest that tells me that Soandso has a really important task for me and when I go see him he won't talk to me.
When I read a quest description and it's littered with spelling mistakes. Sharks can be described as Viscious, but I can't imagine then being viscous. I'd love to pore over the other quest descriptions and repeat the errors here but a/ theres not enough space and b/ I'm going to put as much effort into it as Blizzard did with making sure they where spelt correcly
All this article seems to say is that the Dev team are patting themselves on the back for a job well done, and deluding themselves in the process.
I always saw WOW as a well presented, polished product, Cataclysm unfortunatly is neither
What they did wrong ?
IMO they released too early, too many cut scenes, too much trivia, too much trying to be trendy (Dad dancing anyone ?) ,too much living on past glories and not enough living in the real world.
Can't comment on endgame as I haven't got there yet, I lost the 'I'll just get the next quest done before I go to bed' feeling very early on and gained the 'this is getting boring now, I'll go do something else and come back later' feeling to replace it.
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.
What do you want Blizzard to do here? Make raiding easier? Why cater to a more casual group of players when they have their own content tuned to them (normal 5-mans and heroic 5-mans)? Why cater to casual players when old content is always retuned to cater to them anyway? What would raiders do if they could clear the newest dungeon even more quickly than they do now?
Well - for starters the devs could come up with something different for gamers to do besides raid, raid, raid for gear. At least Rift designed an open world raiding system that allows players to join in at any time without the usual hour long wait to get a group together and then the painful 2-5 hours for just a chance to get some gear.
Raiding is possibly the most boring and tedious aspect of MMO's and it's one of the reasons I left Wow for Rift. I'm sure with all of the talent out there in the gaming world they can come up with some different things for us gamers to do?
MMO's have become more about status and self worth than about fun and I for one could give a rats rear end about having the best gear - I want to enjoy my game time and I'm sure I'm not alone in my opinion.
Currently playing SWTOR and it's MUCH better than it was at launch.
I love to do alts in wow. I had two issues with 1 to 60 content in Cata.
1: You level to quick and out grow the content in the zone by the time your half done with it.
2: It was to easy and brought zero challenge.
1) Then do them any way? If it's a challenge you're looking for, then go play some other game.
2) It's never been hard if that's what you're trying to say.
I honestly can't see why one just HAD to skip content just because it gave less exp. If you were looking for lore, then why the heck do you care about the colour of the quest text? Seriously, whiners gonna whine.
The end game for Cata is seriously lacking...the talent trees are now complete bore fests. I agree with the above poster who suggested that the developers randomly nerf or buff classes without any regards to the concequences of doing so.
I have a lot of fond memories of the game, originally started playing about a year before TBC expansion hit, but I as many others see the developers slowly removing the things that I used to have the most fun with in WoW...long list, not going to take the time to write it out.
Old, shallow game is old and shallow. The game was fairly shallow before, and yet blizzard continues to reduce the game more and more, not to mention recycle the same old content again and again. WTF new ZA, ZG and Ragnaros coming soon?
Rift came at the right time for me, I was finding myself very frustrated with wow and came here searching for a new game...Rift has all of the great things that I miss about old wow, plus sooooo many new improvements. I am very happy for the moment. Will it last? I don't know. All I care about right now, is that I am having fun right now.
Same here...in fact I've been taking my time in Rift and really enjoy sightseeing. The artwork and atmosphere of the game is stunning and for the 1st time ever I actually like the game music - in fact I find it as addictive as the game itself.
Blizzard will end up like EQII if they don't change the way they're designing their game. Players expect more from a 7 year old mega million dollar company than the same rehash of the same crap they've been regugitating lately.
Currently playing SWTOR and it's MUCH better than it was at launch.
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.
What do you want Blizzard to do here? Make raiding easier? Why cater to a more casual group of players when they have their own content tuned to them (normal 5-mans and heroic 5-mans)? Why cater to casual players when old content is always retuned to cater to them anyway? What would raiders do if they could clear the newest dungeon even more quickly than they do now?
I understand where you are coming from, but you can always have 5man stuff seem epic on their own. I never understood the need to force players into such a large group to aquire better gear. I have always had 10x the amount of fun doing a 5 man dungeon with people I actually know than having to sit through 4 hours of grueling torture wiping continually because of the 25 people in the raid, only 5 of them actually know what they are doing.
The only thing that makes a raid "hard-core" is the gear. I wouldn't mind epic fights for 5 man stuff. Hell, some people would rather raid 25man because it's easier to f*ck off and not care and still suceed.
5man is only casual because that is how Blizzard has made it, not because it HAS to be.
The objective evidence is becoming harder to ignore: Blizzard grossly overtuned the end game in Cataclysm, and the game is bleeding out subscribers because of it. Average players for whom Wrath was well tuned might as well not even bother to play at level cap, so an increasing number of them are just moving on.
Blizzard is putting a brave face on this, but the s**t is going to hit the fan soon. We'll be seeing some well known names from the dev team leaving Blizzard to "pursue personal opportunities elsewhere". I think Trion may be hiring, guys.
I myself have finally been able to break away from WoW. After reaching level 85 and starting to look around at all the changes, I finally got a sense of how much Blizzard wants to keep everyone playing the game so they will make any changes to only make the player happy and keep a real sense of challenge out of the game. I am now happy to be finally retired from the game. It was a fun run while it lasted. I will not be missing the 'gear score check' messages anytime soon.
Sunioj: what are you smoking? They made changes with disregard for the lions share of their customers, and catered to the elite whiners instead. The end game content is far too difficult for most of their customers, which is why raid completion stats are so horrible compared to Wrath.
because it hasn't changed at all and only caters to the overly hardcore raiding playerbase.
You jest, surely?
How much easier does it need to be? Click a lever and the boss drops epics?
I never said the word easy. I was referring to the fact that, to use your own words, "click a lever and the boss drops epics", is the ONLY mode of gameplay Blizzard seems to use/incorporate in their endgame. Rep and Gear grinds are fine IF there are other things to do. I can think of numerous ways, via live events, housing, collection system(archaelogy is NOT how to do collections), alternate advancement system, more storylines. More professions and classes.
This is what I can think of off the top of my head that would be a start to making WoW have more depth and be more than a rep/gear treadmill.
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.
What do you want Blizzard to do here? Make raiding easier? Why cater to a more casual group of players when they have their own content tuned to them (normal 5-mans and heroic 5-mans)? Why cater to casual players when old content is always retuned to cater to them anyway? What would raiders do if they could clear the newest dungeon even more quickly than they do now?
I understand where you are coming from, but you can always have 5man stuff seem epic on their own. I never understood the need to force players into such a large group to aquire better gear. I have always had 10x the amount of fun doing a 5 man dungeon with people I actually know than having to sit through 4 hours of grueling torture wiping continually because of the 25 people in the raid, only 5 of them actually know what they are doing.
The only thing that makes a raid "hard-core" is the gear. I wouldn't mind epic fights for 5 man stuff. Hell, some people would rather raid 25man because it's easier to f*ck off and not care and still suceed.
5man is only casual because that is how Blizzard has made it, not because it HAS to be.
what makes a raid "hard-core" is the time it takes to learn it and the amount of people and having to set schedules to run it etc.
As someone mentioned above, I'm enjoying Rift and am about to hit it's endgame and raiding is ten times easier to get into due to public groups, role switching on the fly, OH and going back into lower level zones has a ton of rewards and incentive for doing so.
For me watching the B squad talk about their passion for working on Cataclysm, bears a shocking resemblance to the Mr Creosote scene from "Monty Pythons The Meaning of Life". Just throw everything in a bucket and damn anyone who may be offended, because there's nothing wrong with me. Their bloated egotistical excesses are one "wafer thin mint" away from hemorraging at the seams. Yet they seem to think they are still the lean mean love machine they were six years ago, and that they only have to make one Fonziesque snap of their fingers to make all the fangirls come a runnin.
Changing the 1-60 content into a mindless sheep run, streamlining the class trees to the point where players have no real choice of their own, and charging players 25 quid for 5 mayfly brief levels of content and two pointless new races is not innovation, its just laziness.
Well sorry Blizzard, I refuse to continue to help enable your road to self harm. This time I decided to get out of the restaurant before the imminent, nausiatingly loud and corpulent explosion. Enjoy your meal.
"More Cataclysm gravy nom nom nom!!!"
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
This is a great conversation, one with many legitamate ideas from fellow mmo's lovers.
My contribution to the topic is this:
WoW and all similar type mmo's have one main problem and that is underlying similarity in the combat system. Please correct me if I'm wrong on any of my points and please point out information I may not be aware of as I only play casually.
My ideas to improve wow dungeons and end game raiding:
#1 - Make all Instances have multiple possible differences in an encounter - EX: Opera in Karazhan - The dungeon wasn't overly difficult but it was interesting that you weren't exactly sure what it is you were going to run into. Except I would rather encounters have 6-10 differences, from minor one to major differences. Basically give players a way to make choices about what is they are going to do in dungeons. Possible cons include - players figuring out ways to only make certain events occur - this can be tweaked of course.
There doesn't always have to be a big main dude to kill, ex: chess game.
etc. etc. etc... more variation in our boss fights.
#2 - Combat Changes - It shouldn't always be about running out of the fire and purple stuff.
Allow for more skill based combat which would reward players for using more strategic combat abilities which could be gear dependent at greater risk of wiping the raid. Such an example would be having gear that when certain events happen greatly increases DPS or healing or whatever that is transferrable to different content... sounds game breaking but another idea... make those pieces of gear or traits race specific, but not a must for completing the encounter.
#3 - Buffs, at the moment all you have to do is cast it/press a button and off you go. What would be cool if players had the ability to create "rituals", in which players could stand in certain positions (ex: in a triangle, or a straight line, or in certain emotes) in many different variations which would allow for added "buffs".. ex: mage/warlock/shaman dps stand beside each other within 3 feet, and if a certain combination of spells is pressed within 3 seconds, they enter into shared channeling which allows certain locked spells to become unlocked and increased their combined dps by 15%.... Of course this could be tricky because you are also busy dodging fire and purple stuff and dragon breath etc... This adds more "skill" to the game and creates more learned "playing" rather than figuring out in excel sheets the best combination of buttons to mash while standing in one spot, or the best combination of flasks and enchants to increase dps/hp/manhood etc..
This is similar to combined abilities in many rpg's such as final fantasy/chrono trigger/ and even fighting games marval vs. capcom arcade games etc...
Then you can combine ideas from #2, into #3 and oh man, there can be 75% of failure, but if it works you destroy the encounter in half the time - again just ideas. Difficulty in this can be increased based on timing acuracy, and positioning - If you are within 1 second or less of activating the channeled ability, you gain an extra 5-10% whatever. If you screw up, you get a debuff etc...
The possibilities for this are endless.
And if this makes encounters easier, great, you've been rewarded for pulling off some difficult stuff.
I've taken several breaks from visiting this website. I often forget how much hate there is for World of Warcraft. Much of it, it seems, comes from players who haven't experienced much of what the game has to offer. It really is sad that people are so angry and willing to express that anger for a game they've never really played all that much.
Listen, being casual in a game is perfectly fine, and I understand that innovation is something gamers look for in every genre, but you can't expect a game that is about killing bosses to give someone who plays a few hours a week something fun and expansive to do. You just aren't worth the money spent.
You, as a group, are fickle. Just look at all of the games that most of these people have played. They've roamed from one game to another looking for something that doesn't exist. If you want to experience an MMORPG in the mode is was intended, you can't rip apart their leveling experience, or super casual explorer rewards. It just isn't the market they are after. No one can invest in your demographic because no matter what they do, you will always dream of some other game that lives in far off make believe land.
Comments
the scrubbage is strong in this thread. Join guilds and stop whining about how hard the game is. If you made it to 85 you should know how your class works.
<Welcome to my world>
Funny I thought the worst thing of Cataclysm was the change to talents. With the old system at least you had a choice in making your character somewhat unique, now everyone is cookie cutter.
I had not played since the original game so I did not have any elite equipment made obsolete, but the gear chase is boring so is the rep system. When SWTOR releases their subscriber base is going to take a huge hit.
What should the end-game be focused on? Leveling?
Most of you claim "WoW sucks now because it's soo easy! It's catering to x people". No. The real problem is that you are finally getting bored with WoW. You are finally realizing that you are playing the same exact thing you started playing x years ago. Only difference is the mobs are bigger/smaller, hit harder/weaker, have a couple new mechanics that wouldn't have been thought possible when WoW was first released.
Many of you people who have played for 6 years are trying to get that feeling you orginially had back. That feeling of something new, something exciting. You will never get that feeling back with WoW. Never. It's just the result of WoW being 6 years old now.
Bookworm is correct, wow has improved, but there's only so long you can play a single game without getting burnt out.
I quit ages ago but i harbour no i'll will to wow as a game.
<Welcome to my world>
Honestly, I started right about the last 5 months of TBC so I was a little late to the party. I did enjoy the game but I was a more casual, paying for maybe a month every once in a while. I got a little more into WotLK because I got more bang for my buck. When cata came, I was like "Sweet! New content!" and I expected great things from what Blizzard promised. Thing is though, I found myself caring about what to spec into, what stats I need, being hit capped, all that jazz. The game simply became a calculator fest in my downtime. Even when I did PvP (which was more enjoyable because it was SLIGHTLY less predictable), the combat was still all about who had the highest dps. Maybe I'm just biased by Guild Wars, but when it all came down to it, I simply got bored of caring solely on how much damage I do. That's really all the endgame has to offer.
stopped to play WoW as I found Cata epic fail. Whole game messed up & end game is just boring grind or, even worse, nothing at all to do.
it pity as I liked WoW...
try before buy, even if it's a game to avoid bad surprises.
Worst surprises for me: Aion, GW2
played Wow for almost 6 years and as the years passed (after WOTLK) wow refocused from making game enjoyable and into making loads and loads of money. Release things that would make everything easyer for everyone just to make more players join wow..
Have fun all you WoW players in Cataclysm, now with reforging..
Wow, that is a very good perspective.
I do not have any problem with expansion itself. It is fantastic. Impressive job (and idea!) to redesign old world and do it in line with lore. If somebody would like to change also Outland and Northrend ... what do you expect? Dragon to fly also there? Besides Northred is impressive without any revamp. No need at all. Guess could happen in future. Nearly same with Outland. Have leveled 10 alts to 85 without being bored. Well, mostly. 80-85 is great, despite quests too linear, one get to fast to max.
What I see as problem:
* end game
* constant nerfing (and only sometimes buffing)
About nerfing and buffing ... one have impressions that developers just randomly thorow changes written on paper notes and then randomly pulled from some magician hat. Otherwise impossible to explain houndreds and houndreds changes and "tweaking". Particularly in Cata they are messing with druids.
About end game ... series of mistakes of all kind so now mainly nobody is happy. To some to easy, to some to hard. Guess to hard otherwise hard to explain a lot of tanks and healer +350 in normals. They would need more vp then jp. Then ... because queues are for hc 35-50 min on my server and for normals still up to 30 mins ... what happen? Many pure dps warriors or ret paladins ... etc .. that never guess tanked before are simply respeccing and trying as tanks. Of course there are days where even normals end 90% in wipes, speaking about average 10 runs per day. To hard, then to easy, luck of draw 5% but not working, then multiplied by 3 for 3 random players, .... Pure mess. And consequences are here. And I find less and less reasons to log in to wow every day.
The end game for Cata is seriously lacking...the talent trees are now complete bore fests. I agree with the above poster who suggested that the developers randomly nerf or buff classes without any regards to the concequences of doing so.
I have a lot of fond memories of the game, originally started playing about a year before TBC expansion hit, but I as many others see the developers slowly removing the things that I used to have the most fun with in WoW...long list, not going to take the time to write it out.
Old, shallow game is old and shallow. The game was fairly shallow before, and yet blizzard continues to reduce the game more and more, not to mention recycle the same old content again and again. WTF new ZA, ZG and Ragnaros coming soon?
Rift came at the right time for me, I was finding myself very frustrated with wow and came here searching for a new game...Rift has all of the great things that I miss about old wow, plus sooooo many new improvements. I am very happy for the moment. Will it last? I don't know. All I care about right now, is that I am having fun right now.
So they think that MAYBE the only thing that they MIGHT have got wrong is the revamped Desolace ?
I didn't even notice that it might have been wrong because I was to busy with the stuff that for me, was definitly wrong.
Like....
When I get given a quest to do I want to do the quest, not see some cut scene showing my character zooming off doing said quest leaving the only input from me being clicking the mouse to accept the quest, and then again to complete the quest.
When I do a quest chain that develops a side story, and looks like it's building up to nice .almoet epic confrontation, I don't want to see all control of my character taken away while the game goes to a rather lame and pathetic cut scene and I come back with nothing to do except hand the qyest in.
When I get a quest that offers the least bit of challenge. I WANT TO DO THE FRIGGING QUEST and not have the curse of an NPC 'helper' that does nothing but get in the way and just proves to be totally irritating, particularly when it takes away a great part of my characters abilities and forces me into a playstyle I don't want/
When I get one of the mini games quests that i have to do because not doing it locks me out of any further progression in that zone. If I wanted to play that sort of game I'd get a games console and not be playing an RPG.
When I get a pathetic quest that involves picking my mates up in my new car or shopping for stuff for a party, Come on Blizzard, this isn't Hello Kitty Online, this is meant to be World of WARcraft'. Crap like that doesn't belong in Azeroth.
When I get a quest that tells me that Soandso has a really important task for me and when I go see him he won't talk to me.
When I read a quest description and it's littered with spelling mistakes. Sharks can be described as Viscious, but I can't imagine then being viscous. I'd love to pore over the other quest descriptions and repeat the errors here but a/ theres not enough space and b/ I'm going to put as much effort into it as Blizzard did with making sure they where spelt correcly
All this article seems to say is that the Dev team are patting themselves on the back for a job well done, and deluding themselves in the process.
I always saw WOW as a well presented, polished product, Cataclysm unfortunatly is neither
What they did wrong ?
IMO they released too early, too many cut scenes, too much trivia, too much trying to be trendy (Dad dancing anyone ?) ,too much living on past glories and not enough living in the real world.
Can't comment on endgame as I haven't got there yet, I lost the 'I'll just get the next quest done before I go to bed' feeling very early on and gained the 'this is getting boring now, I'll go do something else and come back later' feeling to replace it.
Well - for starters the devs could come up with something different for gamers to do besides raid, raid, raid for gear. At least Rift designed an open world raiding system that allows players to join in at any time without the usual hour long wait to get a group together and then the painful 2-5 hours for just a chance to get some gear.
Raiding is possibly the most boring and tedious aspect of MMO's and it's one of the reasons I left Wow for Rift. I'm sure with all of the talent out there in the gaming world they can come up with some different things for us gamers to do?
MMO's have become more about status and self worth than about fun and I for one could give a rats rear end about having the best gear - I want to enjoy my game time and I'm sure I'm not alone in my opinion.
Currently playing SWTOR and it's MUCH better than it was at launch.
1) Then do them any way? If it's a challenge you're looking for, then go play some other game.
2) It's never been hard if that's what you're trying to say.
I honestly can't see why one just HAD to skip content just because it gave less exp. If you were looking for lore, then why the heck do you care about the colour of the quest text? Seriously, whiners gonna whine.
Eleanor Rigby.
To me WOW has become a game for kids.
Same here...in fact I've been taking my time in Rift and really enjoy sightseeing. The artwork and atmosphere of the game is stunning and for the 1st time ever I actually like the game music - in fact I find it as addictive as the game itself.
Blizzard will end up like EQII if they don't change the way they're designing their game. Players expect more from a 7 year old mega million dollar company than the same rehash of the same crap they've been regugitating lately.
Currently playing SWTOR and it's MUCH better than it was at launch.
I understand where you are coming from, but you can always have 5man stuff seem epic on their own. I never understood the need to force players into such a large group to aquire better gear. I have always had 10x the amount of fun doing a 5 man dungeon with people I actually know than having to sit through 4 hours of grueling torture wiping continually because of the 25 people in the raid, only 5 of them actually know what they are doing.
The only thing that makes a raid "hard-core" is the gear. I wouldn't mind epic fights for 5 man stuff. Hell, some people would rather raid 25man because it's easier to f*ck off and not care and still suceed.
5man is only casual because that is how Blizzard has made it, not because it HAS to be.
The objective evidence is becoming harder to ignore: Blizzard grossly overtuned the end game in Cataclysm, and the game is bleeding out subscribers because of it. Average players for whom Wrath was well tuned might as well not even bother to play at level cap, so an increasing number of them are just moving on.
Blizzard is putting a brave face on this, but the s**t is going to hit the fan soon. We'll be seeing some well known names from the dev team leaving Blizzard to "pursue personal opportunities elsewhere". I think Trion may be hiring, guys.
I myself have finally been able to break away from WoW. After reaching level 85 and starting to look around at all the changes, I finally got a sense of how much Blizzard wants to keep everyone playing the game so they will make any changes to only make the player happy and keep a real sense of challenge out of the game. I am now happy to be finally retired from the game. It was a fun run while it lasted. I will not be missing the 'gear score check' messages anytime soon.
Momo sucks, I have proof.
Sunioj: what are you smoking? They made changes with disregard for the lions share of their customers, and catered to the elite whiners instead. The end game content is far too difficult for most of their customers, which is why raid completion stats are so horrible compared to Wrath.
I never said the word easy. I was referring to the fact that, to use your own words, "click a lever and the boss drops epics", is the ONLY mode of gameplay Blizzard seems to use/incorporate in their endgame. Rep and Gear grinds are fine IF there are other things to do. I can think of numerous ways, via live events, housing, collection system(archaelogy is NOT how to do collections), alternate advancement system, more storylines. More professions and classes.
This is what I can think of off the top of my head that would be a start to making WoW have more depth and be more than a rep/gear treadmill.
what makes a raid "hard-core" is the time it takes to learn it and the amount of people and having to set schedules to run it etc.
As someone mentioned above, I'm enjoying Rift and am about to hit it's endgame and raiding is ten times easier to get into due to public groups, role switching on the fly, OH and going back into lower level zones has a ton of rewards and incentive for doing so.
For me watching the B squad talk about their passion for working on Cataclysm, bears a shocking resemblance to the Mr Creosote scene from "Monty Pythons The Meaning of Life". Just throw everything in a bucket and damn anyone who may be offended, because there's nothing wrong with me. Their bloated egotistical excesses are one "wafer thin mint" away from hemorraging at the seams. Yet they seem to think they are still the lean mean love machine they were six years ago, and that they only have to make one Fonziesque snap of their fingers to make all the fangirls come a runnin.
Changing the 1-60 content into a mindless sheep run, streamlining the class trees to the point where players have no real choice of their own, and charging players 25 quid for 5 mayfly brief levels of content and two pointless new races is not innovation, its just laziness.
Well sorry Blizzard, I refuse to continue to help enable your road to self harm. This time I decided to get out of the restaurant before the imminent, nausiatingly loud and corpulent explosion. Enjoy your meal.
"More Cataclysm gravy nom nom nom!!!"
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
This is a great conversation, one with many legitamate ideas from fellow mmo's lovers.
My contribution to the topic is this:
WoW and all similar type mmo's have one main problem and that is underlying similarity in the combat system. Please correct me if I'm wrong on any of my points and please point out information I may not be aware of as I only play casually.
My ideas to improve wow dungeons and end game raiding:
#1 - Make all Instances have multiple possible differences in an encounter - EX: Opera in Karazhan - The dungeon wasn't overly difficult but it was interesting that you weren't exactly sure what it is you were going to run into. Except I would rather encounters have 6-10 differences, from minor one to major differences. Basically give players a way to make choices about what is they are going to do in dungeons. Possible cons include - players figuring out ways to only make certain events occur - this can be tweaked of course.
There doesn't always have to be a big main dude to kill, ex: chess game.
etc. etc. etc... more variation in our boss fights.
#2 - Combat Changes - It shouldn't always be about running out of the fire and purple stuff.
Allow for more skill based combat which would reward players for using more strategic combat abilities which could be gear dependent at greater risk of wiping the raid. Such an example would be having gear that when certain events happen greatly increases DPS or healing or whatever that is transferrable to different content... sounds game breaking but another idea... make those pieces of gear or traits race specific, but not a must for completing the encounter.
#3 - Buffs, at the moment all you have to do is cast it/press a button and off you go. What would be cool if players had the ability to create "rituals", in which players could stand in certain positions (ex: in a triangle, or a straight line, or in certain emotes) in many different variations which would allow for added "buffs".. ex: mage/warlock/shaman dps stand beside each other within 3 feet, and if a certain combination of spells is pressed within 3 seconds, they enter into shared channeling which allows certain locked spells to become unlocked and increased their combined dps by 15%.... Of course this could be tricky because you are also busy dodging fire and purple stuff and dragon breath etc... This adds more "skill" to the game and creates more learned "playing" rather than figuring out in excel sheets the best combination of buttons to mash while standing in one spot, or the best combination of flasks and enchants to increase dps/hp/manhood etc..
This is similar to combined abilities in many rpg's such as final fantasy/chrono trigger/ and even fighting games marval vs. capcom arcade games etc...
Then you can combine ideas from #2, into #3 and oh man, there can be 75% of failure, but if it works you destroy the encounter in half the time - again just ideas. Difficulty in this can be increased based on timing acuracy, and positioning - If you are within 1 second or less of activating the channeled ability, you gain an extra 5-10% whatever. If you screw up, you get a debuff etc...
The possibilities for this are endless.
And if this makes encounters easier, great, you've been rewarded for pulling off some difficult stuff.
Thanks for reading.
You Scratch my back, And I'll scratch yours.
I've taken several breaks from visiting this website. I often forget how much hate there is for World of Warcraft. Much of it, it seems, comes from players who haven't experienced much of what the game has to offer. It really is sad that people are so angry and willing to express that anger for a game they've never really played all that much.
Listen, being casual in a game is perfectly fine, and I understand that innovation is something gamers look for in every genre, but you can't expect a game that is about killing bosses to give someone who plays a few hours a week something fun and expansive to do. You just aren't worth the money spent.
You, as a group, are fickle. Just look at all of the games that most of these people have played. They've roamed from one game to another looking for something that doesn't exist. If you want to experience an MMORPG in the mode is was intended, you can't rip apart their leveling experience, or super casual explorer rewards. It just isn't the market they are after. No one can invest in your demographic because no matter what they do, you will always dream of some other game that lives in far off make believe land.
Doktar - 70 Troll Priest - Perenolde