World of Whorecraft: Battle for Asseroth

[Angthoron]

I'm not entirely sure what MoP was an attempt at, it seems like it was a try by Blizzard to regain its audience after the massive Cata fuck-up. It suddenly (and, until mid/late-expansion, poorly) re-introduced reputation grinds, offered Challenge Modes (which, for all my gripes with it, did provide a challenge for a while) and Brawler's Guild shenanigans (again, not my thing, but for notorious solo-ers, it gave an incentive to "git gud", plus it's actually done as part of the world and not some phased out/instanced shit, so hey), and last but not least, the raids got harder (but so did our raid crew get weaker, unfortunately).

My biggest eventual gripes with MoP ended up being the content being added too slowly. It was what? 11 months of SoO? 12? I'm not even sure how long it was. Even hardcore raid groups were getting serious fatigue here and there, what's to say about the rest? Not even a lair, not even a goddamned lair. No new 5-mans. Cata's end cycle all over again, fuck you Blizz. WotLK actually had this right - releasing 3xICC5 hard-ish instances with ICC raid, then releasing RS to dilute the boredom of the raid groups with a few shenanigan-filled encounters and some sidegrades.

Oh yeah and the daily rep grind. That was fixed later, but fuck that idea.

 

[abija]

It's just that their Titan plans influenced WoW's direction so when you can see just WoW it doesn't make much sense. The general direction is still more streamlining and casual friendly though.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

One of these is a fairly large change to the way the game world is run by the servers-expanding the phasing tech used for the Tanaan intro experience to the entire continent of Draenor. This will allow us to run multiple copies of Draenor simultaneously, spreading out server population.

Seems that the system is working now. Had 30 minute log-in queue and ~20 queue for my garrison but after that I had no problems whatsoever. Getting wolth vibes (which is my favorite expansion) so that's good.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Cataclysm took things off track. The redesign of the old world was excellent and I think that is where all their attention went. The 80-85 stuff was pretty bad, apart from Mount Hyjal and Uldum.

Mists of Pandaria was great, really good world design, fantastic soundtrack and some good quests. In contrast to other expansions I didn't do all the raids because I got sick of gear grinding.

I can't even access my server to play Warlords of Draenor so I can't comment on it yet.

 

[Metro]

Once you all sail through the leveling zones in a week (or less) in WoD, you'll realize the shallow design. I predict a lot of 'That's it?!?' posts on the WoW forums in a couple of weeks.

 

[Xenich]

I'm not entirely sure what MoP was an attempt at, it seems like it was a try by Blizzard to regain its audience after the massive Cata fuck-up. It suddenly (and, until mid/late-expansion, poorly) re-introduced reputation grinds, offered Challenge Modes (which, for all my gripes with it, did provide a challenge for a while) and Brawler's Guild shenanigans (again, not my thing, but for notorious solo-ers, it gave an incentive to "git gud", plus it's actually done as part of the world and not some phased out/instanced shit, so hey), and last but not least, the raids got harder (but so did our raid crew get weaker, unfortunately).

My biggest eventual gripes with MoP ended up being the content being added too slowly. It was what? 11 months of SoO? 12? I'm not even sure how long it was. Even hardcore raid groups were getting serious fatigue here and there, what's to say about the rest? Not even a lair, not even a goddamned lair. No new 5-mans. Cata's end cycle all over again, fuck you Blizz. WotLK actually had this right - releasing 3xICC5 hard-ish instances with ICC raid, then releasing RS to dilute the boredom of the raid groups with a few shenanigan-filled encounters and some sidegrades.

Oh yeah and the daily rep grind. That was fixed later, but fuck that idea.

I was thinking about grinds today as opposed to the grinds in the early games and I noticed a key difference, difficulty. In the early games, you would grind exp, levels, gear, etc... all common in today's grinds, but it used to be difficult. For instance, exp used to be a long and difficult road and levels were time consuming to achieve all the while you were gaining them by defeating mobs that were very difficult to kill (even solo trash mobs). The players had a high mortality rate and consistent failure resulted in losing progress on your character. Compare that with today where generally all the same grinds exist (levels, exp, faction, crafting, etc...), but they are no longer "difficult" grinds, rather they are extremely easy ones where the "effort" is the endurance of seeing them to fruition without biting a bullet out of boredom. The sense of accomplishment that you get from the easy grinds are... shallow and meaningless. Remember how getting to the end level of an expansion in games like EQ was considering a real accomplishment? Remember how finding a rare mob and then being able to kill it was a rush of excitement? Remember finally being able to make to the back area or bottom level of a dungeon was a victory?

Yes, all of this contained grinds (camping, corpse runs, endless trash mobs with fast respawns, etc...), but there was a sense of accomplishment, a certain personal victory one would have in completing the task. The grinds of today are... pointless, lack any real meaning, contain no difficulty, and are just simplistic bland tasks that have to be completed in nauseating repetition. A grind has to exist if there is to be any lasting content, why not have them be difficult achievements that have meaning and provide the feeling of "That was hard as hell, but I succeeded!". I think that is what is missing in games like WoW these days. There is no "Phew, that was difficult, but I beat it!", it is simply "I did this over and over once a day for several weeks and I got a shiny!". /shrug

 

[Xenich]

Once you all sail through the leveling zones in a week (or less) in WoD, you'll realize the shallow design. I predict a lot of 'That's it?!?' posts on the WoW forums in a couple of weeks.

I am sure there will be, I expect the run through the entire content that my friend and I are doing to be shallow (it already is such so far). Oh well, it will be one last run through the game before we never look back.

 

[Revenant]

Who cares about leveling, it's the endgame that matters.

Gone through a nice short queue of 600 people in the morning but got disconnected due to realm restarts when I left the game for 15 minutes to have lunch. Now standing in a queue of 1000 people

 

[Metro]

Once you all sail through the leveling zones in a week (or less) in WoD, you'll realize the shallow design. I predict a lot of 'That's it?!?' posts on the WoW forums in a couple of weeks.

I am sure there will be, I expect the run through the entire content that my friend and I are doing to be shallow (it already is such so far). Oh well, it will be one last run through the game before we never look back.

You'll be back.

 

[Metro]

Who cares about leveling, it's the endgame that matters.

You mean the endgame with only two raid tiers and a handful of heroics? There aren't even meaningful reputations to farm. Just a bunch of tedious mob grinds for aesthetic rewards.

 

[Revenant]

Isn't more content supposed to be added to the game over time, including new raid tiers and endgame zones? There will likely be a Timeless Isle-like zone to farm endlessly for all sorts of things. Then there're garrisons.

 

[Xenich]

Who cares about leveling, it's the endgame that matters.

Why is the end game more important than the progression to the end game? Do you skip to the end of the books you read? Do you only watch the last 5 mins of the movie you watch? Explain how only the end is meaningful?

 

[Xenich]

Once you all sail through the leveling zones in a week (or less) in WoD, you'll realize the shallow design. I predict a lot of 'That's it?!?' posts on the WoW forums in a couple of weeks.

I am sure there will be, I expect the run through the entire content that my friend and I are doing to be shallow (it already is such so far). Oh well, it will be one last run through the game before we never look back.

You'll be back.

Never say never, but... I seriously doubt it. It took us nearly 5 years before we decided to try it again and this isn't any real "attempt" at coming back. We aren't going to raid and we could care less about farming for gear/faction/status/etc... So... considering the speed at which content is devoured due to WoWs (endgame is all the matters) design, to result in a quick run through the game and cancellation. Also, we aren't interested in buying the expansion either as 50 dollars for WoW is... well... a waste of money. They will only get the sub of a month from us (more than enough time to run through WoW).

 

[Hoaxmetal]

Keep us updated.

 

[Revenant]

Why is the end game more important than the progression to the end game? Do you skip to the end of the books you read? Do you only watch the last 5 mins of the movie you watch? Explain how only the end is meaningful?

Your comparisons are invalid, as books and movies are finite entities while an MMO is an infinite one, at least in theory. When playing a game that can be played indefinitely, it makes sense to skip the tutorial (that's all leveling really is) and get to the real deal (the one you will be engaged in for months) as soon as possible.

 

[Avellion]

The endgame is more important for WoW, because that is where the meat and bones of the game is, that is what the entire game is balanced around and the focus of the game is.

The endgame is infinite and group based, whereas the levelling experience is finite, and mostly solo.

I really dont feel like doing any dungeons with random groups anymore, when I play as my healers, I pity the poor tanks and when I play as a tank, I pity the healers who have to deal with the I stand in the fire ninja pulling dps. Fighting the boss? Some idiot decides to pull a trash group for some reason. Dumbfucks stand in fire, get themselves killed, blames healer.

 

[Xenich]

Well, I was extremely disappointed with Wailing caves. Obviously the lack of difficulty in the game is apparent as I soloed the dungeon at the top of its level range. What is most disappointing is how they turned what was once a detailed and involved questing dungeon into a simple speed run. There used to be numerous quests in this dungeon, many that were hidden, item based ones, etc... Also it was a dangerous dungeon with a slew of mobs everywhere. You had to be very careful as you moved through or you risked being overrun. Also, the final bonus quest isn't a collection quest to start the event like it used to be. Now you just run back to the start and tell the guy you are ready. This really used to be an involved dungeon which could take you several attentive runs to experience all the content. Now it is just an excuse to pick up some loot and there is nothing memorable about it. It is just a blur of bland content.

 

[Xenich]

The endgame is more important for WoW, because that is where the meat and bones of the game is, that is what the entire game is balanced around and the focus of the game is.

The endgame is infinite and group based, whereas the levelling experience is finite, and mostly solo.

I really dont feel like doing any dungeons with random groups anymore, when I play as my healers, I pity the poor tanks and when I play as a tank, I pity the healers who have to deal with the I stand in the fire ninja pulling dps. Fighting the boss? Some idiot decides to pull a trash group for some reason. Dumbfucks stand in fire, get themselves killed, blames healer.

I think that is what WoW is these days, but there was a time when the path, the journey was just as important. Remember how hard Uldaman was on release? Remember how it was treated like an end game dungeon, how getting to the final room was a real quest and achievement? Remember Gnomer, the epic wailing caves, etc...? All of these used to be just as epic, difficult, and involved as the raids. Heck, the sell point for WoW on release was small group focused content. It was Furor and Tigole who pushed for EQ like raid content and focus.

I don't blame you for disliking group dungeons anymore, why.... they really aren't anything more than a spam-fest speed run to appeal to unskilled players. There was a time though when a dungeon in WoW required much dedication, effort and skill as raids did. Also, before the dungeon finder, people had to rely on reputation to get groups and they worked with the same people often. If you were bad, you played WoW solo, but then Vanilla WoW without dungeons was still very difficult for the unskilled.

I hear you about idiots though. Try leading 72 man raids in EQ which were all about timing and endurance (several hours in a single fight) and then trying to deal with a bunch of soccer moms and non-gamers in a raid. It was a nightmare. Nobody listened and those who did often argued with you because they felt that they had to be treated special. I did it for a while, but gave up, it wasn't worth it. The same people who used to stupidly give me shit for playing games at work all of a sudden started playing WoW and they had no clue what they were doing all the while arguing with people because they thought that somehow being a supervisor at their job qualified them to lead and direct people in a gaming system.

That said though, end game didn't used to be the entire main focus in the early MMOs. It took far too long to get there, etc... Don't get me wrong, some even then thought it was the "end all" focus (ie Furor and Tigole), they were the 1% and they did end up driving the development focus of EQ eventually (ie being predominately about raids), but remember EQ took many months to reach cap on release and it was not uncommon to spend weeks in a specific zone of area. Every step of the way was just as important as the end of the game. Gear also wasn't completely linear as it is these days in games. Items used to have a much longer span of use.

So I guess I understand why you think end game is the entire point. I disagree in general, but in the context of WoW, unfortunately I would have to agree. It is yet another reason why WoW is an example of MMO decline.

 

[Xenich]

Why is the end game more important than the progression to the end game? Do you skip to the end of the books you read? Do you only watch the last 5 mins of the movie you watch? Explain how only the end is meaningful?

Your comparisons are invalid, as books and movies are finite entities while an MMO is an infinite one, at least in theory. When playing a game that can be played indefinitely, it makes sense to skip the tutorial (that's all leveling really is) and get to the real deal (the one you will be engaged in for months) as soon as possible.

MMO end games are not infinite. They are finite. Once you finish the end content, the game is over, there is nothing to do other than chase irrelevant carrots that have no meaning. Remember antagonizing over BWL only to have the expansion provide you green/blue gear off solo quests that were better than raid gear you ground out?

The idea that leveling is like a tutorial is subjective argument. In EQ for instance, the average player was not even completely finished with the previous content before they released new content 6 months later. In fact, it was a small percentage of people who rushed it which was only possible because they weren't working a job or played obsessively (ie every waking moment was focus on the game). I remember some making your argument though back then, but they did so for different reasons (I think most make that argument these days is because they don't know anything different, they grew up primarily with systems that catered to that ideal), they made the argument because they lacked time to play to max level quickly. You would hear them throwing fits on the forums about how leveling took way too long, how they should be able to just skip ahead to the raids without "wasting" time on all the in between content. They were also the same ones whining about not enough content or enough attention being spent on them (Furor rants).

As I said in a previous post, the "real deal" was all dungeons in EQ and the like. All of them were difficult obstacles with many rewards of useful note (even at higher levels). It was the people like Furor who threw fits and tantrums whining about how everything is a waste except what he deemed worthy. It was one of the reasons WoW cleaned up over EQ as EQ had turned into a fully focused raid game that began marginalizing everything except "end game".

The ironic thing was that Furor threw a tantrum leaving EQ because even though Sony was worshiping at his feet already, it wasn't quite enough for the narcissistic idiot. So, he moved to WoW, got Tigole to get him a job as a quest designer and so began the decline of WoW into nothing more than a continuation of the narcicistic design style of massive raids and neglect to every other aspect of the game.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

k

 

[Avellion]

The endgame is more important for WoW, because that is where the meat and bones of the game is, that is what the entire game is balanced around and the focus of the game is.

The endgame is infinite and group based, whereas the levelling experience is finite, and mostly solo.

I really dont feel like doing any dungeons with random groups anymore, when I play as my healers, I pity the poor tanks and when I play as a tank, I pity the healers who have to deal with the I stand in the fire ninja pulling dps. Fighting the boss? Some idiot decides to pull a trash group for some reason. Dumbfucks stand in fire, get themselves killed, blames healer.

I think that is what WoW is these days, but there was a time when the path, the journey was just as important. Remember how hard Uldaman was on release? Remember how it was treated like an end game dungeon, how getting to the final room was a real quest and achievement? Remember Gnomer, the epic wailing caves, etc...? All of these used to be just as epic, difficult, and involved as the raids. Heck, the sell point for WoW on release was small group focused content. It was Furor and Tigole who pushed for EQ like raid content and focus.

I don't blame you for disliking group dungeons anymore, why.... they really aren't anything more than a spam-fest speed run to appeal to unskilled players. There was a time though when a dungeon in WoW required much dedication, effort and skill as raids did. Also, before the dungeon finder, people had to rely on reputation to get groups and they worked with the same people often. If you were bad, you played WoW solo, but then Vanilla WoW without dungeons was still very difficult for the unskilled.

I hear you about idiots though. Try leading 72 man raids in EQ which were all about timing and endurance (several hours in a single fight) and then trying to deal with a bunch of soccer moms and non-gamers in a raid. It was a nightmare. Nobody listened and those who did often argued with you because they felt that they had to be treated special. I did it for a while, but gave up, it wasn't worth it. The same people who used to stupidly give me shit for playing games at work all of a sudden started playing WoW and they had no clue what they were doing all the while arguing with people because they thought that somehow being a supervisor at their job qualified them to lead and direct people in a gaming system.

That said though, end game didn't used to be the entire main focus in the early MMOs. It took far too long to get there, etc... Don't get me wrong, some even then thought it was the "end all" focus (ie Furor and Tigole), they were the 1% and they did end up driving the development focus of EQ eventually (ie being predominately about raids), but remember EQ took many months to reach cap on release and it was not uncommon to spend weeks in a specific zone of area. Every step of the way was just as important as the end of the game. Gear also wasn't completely linear as it is these days in games. Items used to have a much longer span of use.

So I guess I understand why you think end game is the entire point. I disagree in general, but in the context of WoW, unfortunately I would have to agree. It is yet another reason why WoW is an example of MMO decline.

I will say that I do miss those days when normal dungeons were challenging. It made clearing them, just so much satisfying. Nowadays, clearing any dungeon comes with no satisfaction, despite being rewarded with a guaranteed blue item that may be an upgrade from what you currently have. I dont use heirlooms.

And yes, WoW is not as good as it used to be, in vanilla WoW, it at least felt like an adventure. The levelling experience was still somewhat engrossing, as opposed to the "I just want to get this over with" experience I now have with it. The world feels extremely small, due to all the fast travel and funneling of players through content, as well as the fact that you leave the zones before you get a feel for them. Levelling up feels meaningless and unrewarding. But despite that, for all the decline WoW had during Cataclysm, one thing is still certain, for all the decline it is not as decline ridden as its competition.

SWTOR: Very little group play, dungeons are CoD Linear, only 4 party members, due to the ways zones are constructed, imperials and republicans approaching eachother is extremely low to the point of being nil.
Guild Wars 2: No need to communicate ever, no roles in combat means that everyone does the same thing, berserker everywhere. The game also reminds me of The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion in many ways; fast travel, level scaling, level scaled loot, repetitive environments, combat involves mashing very few buttons (perhaps only 1), attacks feel extremely weak with extremely little feedback if any, combat is built trading blows around dpsing down the enemy before he dpses down you (at least WoW has several skills that go beyond the boring dps), false marketing, spammy combat and game being afraid to punish players.
WildStar: This game was just the most banal, uninspired crap I have ever played. It tried too hard to please you.
ESO: I didnt play this turd, but the RPGcodex thread on this game was very amusing.

WoW may not compare to its glory days or the mmorpg genre during its golden age, but at the same time, compared to the steaming smelly piles of decline ridden feces that is its competition, WoW is all right. In fact, I would argue that maybe aside from RIFT, is the only competent themepark mmo out there.

 

[Xenich]

I will say that I do miss those days when normal dungeons were challenging. It made clearing them, just so much satisfying. Nowadays, clearing any dungeon comes with no satisfaction, despite being rewarded with a guaranteed blue item that may be an upgrade from what you currently have. I dont use heirlooms.

And yes, WoW is not as good as it used to be, in vanilla WoW, it at least felt like an adventure. The levelling experience was still somewhat engrossing, as opposed to the "I just want to get this over with" experience I now have with it. The world feels extremely small, due to all the fast travel and funneling of players through content, as well as the fact that you leave the zones before you get a feel for them. Levelling up feels meaningless and unrewarding. But despite that, for all the decline WoW had during Cataclysm, one thing is still certain, for all the decline it is not as decline ridden as its competition.

SWTOR: Very little group play, dungeons are CoD Linear, only 4 party members, due to the ways zones are constructed, imperials and republicans approaching eachother is extremely low to the point of being nil.
Guild Wars 2: No need to communicate ever, no roles in combat means that everyone does the same thing, berserker everywhere. The game also reminds me of The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion in many ways; fast travel, level scaling, level scaled loot, repetitive environments, combat involves mashing very few buttons (perhaps only 1), attacks feel extremely weak with extremely little feedback if any, combat is built trading blows around dpsing down the enemy before he dpses down you (at least WoW has several skills that go beyond the boring dps), false marketing, spammy combat and game being afraid to punish players.
WildStar: This game was just the most banal, uninspired crap I have ever played. It tried too hard to please you.
ESO: I didnt play this turd, but the RPGcodex thread on this game was very amusing.

WoW may not compare to its glory days or the mmorpg genre during its golden age, but at the same time, compared to the steaming smelly piles of decline ridden feces that is its competition, WoW is all right. In fact, I would argue that maybe aside from RIFT, is the only competent themepark mmo out there.

'

I personally liked DDO (though they have been streamlining and dumbing down like WoW over the last couple of years as well). Of all the games out there, it still has a fairly complex development system. Not as good as it was, but still far more involved than WoW. While DDO doesn't have the flare of boss fights that WoW has, the content can be very difficult and challenging for both solo and group play.

For a while, I was enjoying EQ2, but they really turned that game into garbage. Seriously, all of that content, all of that depth and they turned it into a yet another (rush to end game) focus with easy content and a participation trophy around every corner. My friend and I had gone back to that not too long ago (we used to enjoy the difficulty in content) only to find out that we could duo dungeons 8-9 levels above us without any effort. It was so ridiculous that we kept pushing the limits until we hit like 12-15 levels above us with the restricting factor being that the mechanics to hit such a higher level mob reduced out success to near zero, but aside from that, we could heal through anything the mobs had to offer.

I tried SWTOR as well and one of the things that really urked me was the fact that they game leveled so damn fast. You could tell they did a last minute change on leveling speed just before release because you couldn't keep the crafting system anywhere near your level. It destroyed the entire middle game and yet again attended to the idea that everyone should disregard all of the effort and work put into the content before endgame and simply rush to the end.

I stayed away from GW2, tried Wildstar, thought it was bland, ESO beta was a big no.

The Secret World wasn't bad (though the combat system was destroyed by the WoW mentality demanding a holy trinity) and so it was only good for the story progression.

Rift had a lot of promise on release. It was old school difficulty in the dungeons. My friends and I had a blast running that content. It was extremely hard and refreshing, but they also caved to the WoW mentality dumbing down all the content and making everything ridiculously easy. I think the final straw for us was when my friend and I duo'd an expert 2 dungeon. No point in playing when the game gets that stupidly easy.

MMOs for the most part are dead and I don't see that changing. The problem is that the majority of the player base wants Farmville, an entertainment simulator... not a game. A game means they could lose, they might have failure and they might have to put effort to succeed. That just isn't going to cut it for the crowd today, why... it just wouldn't be "fun"! /boggle

 

[Don Peste]

What about... NEVERWINTER.

 

[Xenich]

What about... NEVERWINTER.

It is an arcade game, a DnD game in name only. Its systems are shallow and you can tell the game was designed for the PWE RMT model.

In Neverwinter, your options for both development and play all fit on a single hot bar. Now go play DDO where you have access as a wizard to the entire AD&D spell library. Neverwinter has no real trap interaction and the environments in the dungeons are like a cheap console game. Compare that to DDO where there were a slew of different types of traps, hidden walls, cooridors, levels, valves, puzzles, etc... A rogue/thief in NW is just a warrior, but in DDO a rogue/thief truly is their namesake.

There really is no comparison, Neverwinter was a gimmick sold to the WoW crowd. Much of the WoW crowd hated DDO because they didn't like all the effort you had to put into designing your character before you even rolled it. They didn't like the fact that you could fuck up your character if you didn't pay attention to how you were building. DDO was (it has been streamlined some) a game for min/max building of characters, class/role/focus experimentation, etc... It was truly amazing some of the multi-class variations you could build. To be honest, I am rather surprised that the min/maxer cRPG fans didn't play around with this game in the past. I figured that game would at least be a favorite here. /shrug

Anyway, like I said... no contest.

 

[Don Peste]

And my last question would be: Would you say there is hope in any future releases?
Thank you for your time.