World of Whorecraft: Battle for Asseroth

[Merkwürdigliebe]

Indeed the new five mans since tbc and forward really lack the charm of the older dungeons. At least TBC had the difficulty level going for them which kept them interesting for a while at least. What really bothers me though is that some cases they went back and butchered already existing dungeons. Check the screen shot at the end of my post as an example, it is from when I renewed my sub for a while a couple of years ago and decided to level a new character. In the large main chamber of Sunken temple there was deep hole in the center leading down to the bottom. I remember my first run, all of us were doing it for the first time and simply could not find our way to the end of the dungeon. So what we did were all jump down, which naturally killed us, then the group shaman used Ankh and resurrected us. Naturally this left us with out any escape route, and is we all died we would have no way back. Finding alternative ways to do things with creative use of spells and abilities were quite a bit of fun.

Now what I found in here in cataclysm was they had put a grate over the hole thus disabling the player form doing this. What a let down really. Similarly in BRD they added some NPC to open doors and some machine that took you half way through the dungeon, way to ruin some of the best five man content you have made Blizzard.

here is the pit for reference, which was previously open in vanilla/tbc and possibly wotlk.

 

[Ninjerk]

Those camps look reduced, too.

 

[Keshik]

Shame they did that, one the bosses used to /yell "GOOOOOOAAAAL" if you got punted in there if I recall.

 

[Metro]

They shrunk Sunken Temple (Wailing Caverns, too) so it's basically just two levels (removing the big ass troll boss in the sewer pitt and the whole statue gimmick). Sort of makes sense as ST hasn't been near-endgame content since vanilla. Wailing Caverns was just terribly designed, especially for a first/low level dungeon.

 

[DragoFireheart]

So Blizzard ruined the original dungeons. How lame, I actually enjoyed getting lost in those.

Are all the dungeons just linear hallways now?

 

[Xenich]

So Blizzard ruined the original dungeons. How lame, I actually enjoyed getting lost in those.

Are all the dungeons just linear hallways now?

Well, I haven't played since Cata was released. What I saw from that, yes... everything is now designed for speed runs to farm tokens. Fact is, this is the case for most games these days. It's a crying shame.

 

[Cyberarmy]

So Blizzard ruined the original dungeons. How lame, I actually enjoyed getting lost in those.

Are all the dungeons just linear hallways now?

Yup, that kinda started in TBC but heroics were hard before nerfs and uber gears so wasn't a big deal.
Real decline hit with Lich King for 5 men and raid content got boring after lame Argent Tournament raids.

 

[Angthoron]

Those camps look reduced, too.

No whelps, for one.

So Blizzard ruined the original dungeons. How lame, I actually enjoyed getting lost in those.

Are all the dungeons just linear hallways now?

Yep. The old dungeons got "reworked", if they were lucky (and linear), they got the Dead Mines treatment, which is actually all-new encounters and story (very scripted encounters, though), if they were unlucky, they got the BRD treatment, which is, sliced into several pieces so that heaven forbids the already mouthbreathey newbie playerbase never learns to sit the fuck down and learn to play and be patient. It's all pathetic 15-minute runs now, and that's BEFORE you kick in overgearing and other meta that shortens the runs further.

For instance, LoTRO used to have extremely long and involved dungeon progressions to which at certain stages, you obtained keys (allowing you to return to specific areas for additional side story progressions). I loved the vanilla release of LotRO and while I did enjoy some of the tactical fights within the new Moria dungeons with the first expansion, they were as you say... mostly 15 min long hallway runs designed for constant repetition to farm tokens and this became the template, the standard, the norm for their design. That is a mimic of WoW and just about every game out there now designs their dungeons to be pathetic fast run farm token focused systems. Why anyone even plays these retarded games anymore is beyond me.

I liked the old LotRO dungeons a lot. There was a lot of exploration to do, some seriously challenging sections at times as well, overall, was very nice stuff, if occasionally too confusing.


Actually, I think the mistake that Blizzard and many others are doing is reward people for COMPLETING the dungeon. I get it, it's part of the whole LFG tool thing, they're trying to prevent people from breaking party "too soon" and rather, grin and bear til the end. But that just leads to the situation where the dungeons have to be ridiculously short and straightforward so people beeline for the endboss and disband a second later. A cumulative reward might be better, so the more bosses a party kills, the more points total it'd get, or something like that.

 

[DragoFireheart]

A cumulative reward might be better, so the more bosses a party kills, the more points total it'd get, or something like that.

Or tell Blizzard to fuck off and unsubscribe.

END OF RHINE

 

[Angthoron]

A cumulative reward might be better, so the more bosses a party kills, the more points total it'd get, or something like that.

Or tell Blizzard to fuck off and unsubscribe.

END OF RHINE

I only raid nowadays, anyway.

 

[Metro]

I don't get the disdain over rehauling the vanilla dungeons. It's just leveling content now. That said, yes, they have definitely thrown five man dungeons into the scrap heap when it comes to new/relevant content and focus more on scenarios.

 

[Wilian]

The disdain for rework of leveling dungeons is more deep-rooted issue in itself that ties very much into how leveling as such has been made almoust irrelevant part of the game over the years.

And now I am not talking about "omg how it's so fast to get to teh high levels!" even if it is too fast, but how it's paced, how it's itemized and how it's difficulty has been scaled.

I recently did a leveling test character just to prove my point that Blizzard failed utterly with the rebuild of the old zones when it comes to plain pacing. The result was that I had to start skipping a lot of content just to keep up with the target level of the zone. Half of Teldrassil was left undone. Many bigger quest lines in Darkshore were left without touch and more than half of Ashenvale before I already outleveled the zone.

This was done without a guild, heirlooms or even professions that nowdays offer absurd amounts of XP (gathering 1 node gives more xp than 3 kills and your screen is spammed with nodes).

The other issue of it was how mind-numbingly easy it was. I was running with low-level whites and unsuitable greens half the time, and the other half I was running with spec approperiate items. Result was, no meaningful difference. When mob has 1500hp and I hit either 700 with non viable gear, or 800 with viable it simply doesn't matter. There is simply no difficulty given by numbers. Nor is there any due to monster placements as they're all conveniently far apart, same as in dungeons.

Third issue, gearing. Partially touched it with the whole how unimportant it is, but now going for different aspect, how pointless it feels to gear up. Wherever you go, you always get a quest that provides item reward, increasing your stats by +1 or +2 if you are lucky. Constant shower of incremential upgrades all the time. A bit like stale bread you're being force fed with no pause given.

How this ties with dungeons? Well, since pacing was different, the items, not the abilities was main scale behind everything and you didn't get rewards 10 times per level, it increased the importance of such things as crafting and instancing.

It was quite a common sight to see instance groups even at low levels to go for specific items, not to twink, but for the fact that one item could last for 10-15 levels at best, being absurdly powerful at first levels and then very good at later ones. Like a real meaningful upgrade.

Nowdays for some very fucking weird reason that avoids me, Blizzard treats any sort of real upgrade as plague and do their best to make sure that anything and everything fits the mold of their intended level range/tier. One of the most absurd changes I remember from WotLK was a trinket from Ulduar that was nerfed, to make trinket from ToTC look better. As if it was end of the world that something from previous tier was better than the new stuff. Same applies with dungeons during leveling.

....ramble off.

 

[Ninjerk]

Well, people that played the game always said the point was just to get to endgame. Shame they listened.

 

[Xor]

I think Blizzard forgot that the journey is often more memorable than the destination. Getting to the cap in WoW has gotten easier with every expansion - it took me about 2 months of regular playing back in vanilla to get to 60, then it took about 5 weeks to get my mage to 70 in TBC when I switched to horde (this was post 2.3 when they nerfed the xp curve), then in WotLK it only took about a month to get an alt to 80 (with heirloom gear this time), and in cata I had a goblin warrior in hellfire peninsula in less than 3 weeks before I finally quit the game for good.

I started playing on a vanilla private server recently and the contrast is remarkable - 3-5 mobs in packs relatively close together, all those old world elites, and all the classes are generally much weaker than they become in later expansions.

 

[Xenich]

I think Blizzard forgot that the journey is often more memorable than the destination. Getting to the cap in WoW has gotten easier with every expansion - it took me about 2 months of regular playing back in vanilla to get to 60, then it took about 5 weeks to get my mage to 70 in TBC when I switched to horde (this was post 2.3 when they nerfed the xp curve), then in WotLK it only took about a month to get an alt to 80 (with heirloom gear this time), and in cata I had a goblin warrior in hellfire peninsula in less than 3 weeks before I finally quit the game for good.

I don't think it was Blizzard as much as it was the fact that the crowd they were catering to never understood that in the first place. Remember, before WoW, the average gamer tended to be hobbyist, techies, engineers, science/academic focused, computer enthusiasts, etc... WoW brought in the soccer moms, console gamer, computer/technical illiterate, etc... to which viewed games and gamers with disdain before that. I remember getting rolled eyes from people in my IT department during the MUSH/MUD/FPS/UO/EQ days only to see them become WoWtards later on. Those are the ones that eventually turned WoW into the crap hole casual "Everyone gets a medal for defecating!", "Why bother with all the in-between, end-game is where it is at!" gameplay. It took a while though, but WoW was already being thrashed by Tigole and Furor with the need to create another EQ massive raid grind focused game (ie dungeons were supposed to be no more than 25 to begin with facilitating smaller guilds and raids, but more difficult content) while the company shirked on its promises of consistent content release in between expansions (2 years for an expansion was only "accepted" because they promised to release quarterly content packs with full dungeons). They did release such at the start. First there was Maraudon, then Dire Maul... all attention went to "raid" focused content and stupid server gimmicks where everyone grinded out boring pointless stupid quests so the raiders could have their content.

That is not to say that the "I can't be bothered to waste time to level of a character" players didn't exist before that, but they were less prevalent. WoW brought in that base crowd of non-gamers and they have been the template for design of MMOs (and games in general) for the last decade or more.

I started playing on a vanilla private server recently and the contrast is remarkable - 3-5 mobs in packs relatively close together, all those old world elites, and all the classes are generally much weaker than they become in later expansions.

I was considering such, though I have no idea where to begin. I played a private server a long time ago for EQ (Winters Roar) and it took me a while to find that amidst all the cheat/hack servers out there. Are there any servers out there that are solid rule sets without cheats and worth actually spending time in?

 

[Gragt]

Damn, running the Dead mines for the first time was something.

I was considering such, though I have no idea where to begin. I played a private server a long time ago for EQ (Winters Roar) and it took me a while to find that amidst all the cheat/hack servers out there. Are there any servers out there that are solid rule sets without cheats and worth actually spending time in?

I tried this one and it worked quite well: http://www.therebirth.net or http://rebirthwebsite.azurewebsites.net

Not really playing now because, well, it feels lonely. Wouldn't mind starting again if a Codex group started there.

It's worth noting that this one doesn't accept donations, so there is no doubtful drive to have people pay for overpowered items.

I've seen other people here discuss another vanilla WoW server called Emerald Dream, I think.

 

[Angthoron]

It was quite a common sight to see instance groups even at low levels to go for specific items, not to twink, but for the fact that one item could last for 10-15 levels at best, being absurdly powerful at first levels and then very good at later ones. Like a real meaningful upgrade.

The length of time I proudly ran around with a Truesilver Champion was quite a something. And people envied me it. Freaking envied. An outlevelled blue that I lugged around at L55. Hell, I might even still have it in my bank.

Now? I went to this new(ish) zone for the first time the other night, Timeless Isle or whatever. Nice place and all, but just in 45 minutes my bags were TWICE filled with epic gear tokens (eg, doubleclick to generate random, SPEC-SPECIFIC stats; Bound on Account - basically ultimate twinking for your L90 alts, give them raid-level gear without having them go to a dungeon even once - well okay, once, to get weapons). Yeah, thanks I guess, but you know what, Blizzard designers? That loot actually used to mean something. I recall people on my first (RP) server in Vanilla either genuinely admiring, or genuinely hating people with even full Dungeon 1/PvP 1 sets (Or hell, matching sets of greens even), someone marching through town in a full T2 would have at least ONE person mention something about it. It was cool. Something to strive for, even out of shallow reasons like looks. Now, there's none of that, especially with how horrible the gear looks.

Oh yeah, and what's with the legendary cloak animations? My god they look awful, and everyone and their dog has them. Legendary fucking items. Get outta here.

 

[SerratedBiz]

FWIW, that popamole loot you get in Timeless Isle is something like ilvl 450-490, whereas top gear nowadays is ilvl 560 or something like that. So you still have to raid and dungeon up to get to the endgame. And that takes a while since there's the whole 1 daily run limit or some crap like that to prevent nolifes from getting maxed out right away.

 

[Angthoron]

FWIW, that popamole loot you get in Timeless Isle is something like ilvl 450-490, whereas top gear nowadays is ilvl 560 or something like that. So you still have to raid and dungeon up to get to the endgame.

496-535 actually. 496 is the base version, 535 if you apply the whatever of whateverness on top of it. The only thing that makes it less of an abuse than it would otherwise be is the fact that the stat gen is random and you can still end up with shit stats (tested a couple of items, was funny). 450 is basic blue drops. 553-559 is the "normal" raid gear. 463 is DUNGEON LOOT DROPS. Why do dungeons when you can just farm out on your main?

I don't mean that you've won the game as soon as you dressed your toon in that, and I don't necessarily think it's a bad idea, but still, I had like 20 items drop on me from rare mobs. That's, like, a lot.

 

[Wilian]

Damn, running the Dead mines for the first time was something.

I was considering such, though I have no idea where to begin. I played a private server a long time ago for EQ (Winters Roar) and it took me a while to find that amidst all the cheat/hack servers out there. Are there any servers out there that are solid rule sets without cheats and worth actually spending time in?

I tried this one and it worked quite well: http://www.therebirth.net

Not really playing now because, well, it feels lonely. Wouldn't mind starting again if a Codex group started there.

It's worth noting that this one doesn't accept donations, so there is no doubtful drive to have people pay for overpowered items.

I've seen other people here discuss another vanilla WoW server called Emerald Dream, I think.

Rebirth is truly a gem amongst the private server space of WoW when it comes to vanilla. What it loses in quantity of people (something that is ever increasing, we recently hit a new peak record since mid 2012 before DDoS fuckery) it gains tons in not only quality of content but the quite regularity of the updates that doesn't only concentrate on end game but also strive to make the leveling progress as authentic as possible. Things like properly functioning Sunken Temple Hakkar event that is a loud cry on many of the competition servers works flawlessly.

And talking of Hakkar and Emerald Dream, I recently went through their patch notes out of curiousity and found out that the raid Hakkar event of theirs still isn't functioning at all as intended, while Rebirth can boast with the fact that all released raid content is p. much perfect. Down-side is that the rate of release is a bit slow due to all the time that it takes to actually work the things out so they don't stand off half-assed as is usual for this scene.

www.therebirth.net/PlayNow for quality!

And as usual, I am willing to sacrifice one of my alts for a Codex group.

 

[SerratedBiz]

496-535 actually. 496 is the base version, 535 if you apply the whatever of whateverness on top of it.

Tru dat, but the thingamajig of magifickness is a pretty rare item (to my knowledge) so it's not like you get to apply it to your items freely.

In any case, I've only been playing WoW since after MoP came out. I wasn't here for the glory days but am aware enough for the changes to know that dungeons have been massively simplified and difficulty lowered across the board. It's what ticks me off the most, actually: dungeons are extremely easy, healing is way overpowered, so basically what you get is overpowered tanks walking around and collecting all the groups they possibly can while another guy showers HoTs for what amounts to virtual invincibility.

I only play it to satisfy my rather strong MMO need, but I'm basically looking left and right for a replacement.

 

[Xor]

I started playing on a vanilla private server recently and the contrast is remarkable - 3-5 mobs in packs relatively close together, all those old world elites, and all the classes are generally much weaker than they become in later expansions.

I was considering such, though I have no idea where to begin. I played a private server a long time ago for EQ (Winters Roar) and it took me a while to find that amidst all the cheat/hack servers out there. Are there any servers out there that are solid rule sets without cheats and worth actually spending time in?

I'm on therebirth now. It's Blizzlike with no gimmicks, almost everything is scripted (apparently every 5 man works, ZG, MC, world bosses, and the first two bosses in BWL are all scripted too), and I haven't run into a bugged quest yet. It's good stuff. There seems to be a pretty active population of new players, too - not a huge number, but enough that I haven't had any problems with elite quests, deadmines, etc.

I'm on Alliance (I want to be a paladin), character name is Mode.

Edit: how did I manage to fuck that quote up so badly

 

[Gragt]

Ah well, gonna download, install and check if 1) WoW works on this laptop and 2) Rebirth works with this connection. Guess Codex prefers to go Alliance, which isn't surprising given the amount of faggotry that can be found here.

Yeah ok, my main character was a Human Paladin when I played WoW but still …

 

[Ninjerk]

I made a mage on Feenix' ED server. A quest here and there didn't work properly, but I got to 60 just fine. Got tired of reading about the raid faggots being as self important as retail vanilla.

 

[Gragt]

Well the thing is that you'll have faggots everywhere so … That's why if I start to play again I'd rather be with faggots I know.