John Funk said:
Therumancer said:
I'm going to be the voice of dissent as often as that usually happens. I understand the perspective of game journalism nowadays and how it's tied to the industry, but at the same time I'm a bit surprised we aren't seeing more "Gerstmann" type rebellion as people break from the pack.
I say this because we've been here before. A lot of people probably don't remember what happened with a PnP RPG setting called "The Forgotten Realms" where the company (then TSR) decided to do something much like this called "The Avatar Crisis" and pretty much level and reform vast tracts of the world. Borders were altered, key NPCs and locations died or changed, even gods were wiped out (oh boy were they). It was all very cool at the time, and a big deal, but it pretty much opened the door for the same thing to be done pretty much every few years, and for it to become more trite and banal each time.
Now, you can say "I trust Blizzard", but I will point out that people trusted TSR and guys like Ed Greenwood back then too. I think established world settings exist for the sake of familiarity and stability, you start messing with that and there is no way to undo it. If WoW keeps going on as long as the original "Everquest" did (and is still going), despite the company releasing other MMOs, will you still think it's as awesome the third time around? Do you think that your not going to say "well this is wild, and all but I really preferred the original" after a while? Unlike with AD&D you can't just blow the dust off your old books and run a campaign with what you felt was a superior product.
I guess part of the big problem is that Blizzard is very corperate now, I don't think it's the same company it was when WoW launched attitude wise. I think the release of the very Kotick-like "Starcraft 2" with it's limited content and $10 higher price tag sort of shows this.
Oh sure, I'm the old fogey (35! you young whipper snappers) but I can't help but feel that I've seen all this before and know how it will turn out. Of course I'll probably buy it anyway... which is again what they are counting on.
BTW> another good example would be DC and it's "Crisis" gimmick which was cool the first time but we're up to what 3 or 4 of these now every time they want a burst in comics sales or make changes? It kind of got old, predictable, and kind of silly. Making me wish the door was never opened to begin with.
Pen and paper isn't the same thing at all. You can go back and run older campaigns if you think the new one sucks, because it's entirely player run.
If you read the Greg Street interview, the initial idea for Cataclysm wasn't the destruction of the world, but that grew out of "wow, we really could improve these old zones that suck."
(Also, it bears mentioning because you brought it up. Warcraft 3 and Diablo 2 both had recommended retail prices of $55-60 long before Bobby Kotick.)
I pointed out that with paper and pencil RPGs you can dust off your old books and play, with the Cataclysm changes you don't have that option. Not even on a private server since apparently Blizzard is taking that very seriously (looking at an article about a multi-million dollar life-crushing lawsuit that was also here on The Escapist).
Oh, I understand the arguements about re-furbishing old zones that were "bad" despite having held people's interests all this time, but that also largely comes down to opinion. I mean is replacing Azshara with what is by all accounts a giant goblin resort/water park an improvement?
I'd be a little less wary of things had they decided to use the "cave of time" gimmick to place the cataclysm zones as a "possible future" you could travel to, or some such thing. I'm a big fan of "don't try and fix it, if it isn't broke".
But then again part of my irritation is that there are plenty of areas in Azeroth that haven't been visited in detail like the Naga kingdoms and the like, not to mention moving into the actual hell dimensions where the Burning Legion hails from (rather than fighting them in Draenor). Part of what irritated me about the constant PnP "cataclysms" was that constantly redeveloping the same core areas came at the expense of moving out into other places that could have been explored.
I'm sure the idea is also that Blizzard is hoping that by re-doing all of the starting zones they will encourage people to start new characters, and create a friendly and exciting enviroment for new players/customers to come into, rather than walking into a nearly dead zone where everyone else is power leveling through things rather than learning. It admittedly makes the entire thing rather intimidating and lonely for genuinely new players, and I imagine they hope this will expand their player base especially with competition on the way from games like "Old Republic". On the other hand as a veteran player I'm a snob of sorts and notice that I'm only getting 5 extra levels to advance through and doubtlessly less in the way of new content than previous expansions.
This is to say nothing of other things like player housing, and numerous core balancing issues and such which would take a lot of work which this is being done in lieu of.
I don't expect you to agree to me, but the bottom line is that I think this expansion should be getting a bit more of a critical eye directed towards it. Nothing can stop it now of course, millions have been spent, and even if it was to suddenly be massively reviled the people building it would release it in hopes of recouping some of the development costs.
I myself am almost doubtlessly going to get it irregardless because in a way I'm sort of "trapped" given my long term play, and involvement with a guild full of people I've hung out with for years (the closest thing to friends you can have virtually on the internet). On the other hand it's going to be a hard sell for them to keep my subscription long after I've tried it for a bit. Who knows, maybe I'll think it's great despite my current opinions, but this might very well end with my retirement from the game.
No, my analogies are not perfect, and yes I seem to dislike a lot of things, but WoW is one of those things I've defended heavily over the years, and have been very invested in. I was psyched up for "Burning Crusade", and "Lich King" (even if I do think they should have resolved the storyline via a RTS game), Cataclysm is just "meh". I mean yeah, it's kind of cool that we'll eventually get to see what's on the other side of the wall in Silverpine forest, but at the same time is retiring Shadowfang Keep and Archmage Arugal really nessicary? Furthermore what exactly is wrong with that zone? Hatred of "Sons Of Arugal" is almost as iconic for horde players as the Alliance jokes about Hogger. All nostolgia aside you can't call that zone objectively bad, and yet it's apparently one of the ones slated for massive revision. That entire zone is something that a newbie hordie is going to genuinely enjoy playing even today.
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As far as prices go, I will say flat out that I purchused Diablo 2 when it was new, and I don't remember paying $60 for it, and I think I would have noticed. I came to the WoW party a few months late because being an Everquest veteran I tried "Everquest II" first, and again I do not remember paying a higher price than video games were normally going for then.
Perhaps I'm mistaken, perhaps you are, it doesn't much matter. The bottom line is that "Starcraft 2" is $10 more than the current going rate for PC games, as the market is now.
Like most things we will have to agree to disagree (we rarely see eye to eye). This is simply my opinion and what I think on the subject. I do not like the direction of this paticular expansion, think people should be more critical of it (whether they agree or not), and preferred the way their previous expansion packs were done with entirely new areas rather than overwriting old ones.
