Blizzard's Rob Pardo Talks Five Years of Warcraft

[John Funk]

You would've thought that they would mention their biggest mistake. Making the game too god-forsaken easy. That's the main thing that caused me to quit. I hit 80 and 2 months later I was done. Because even my unorganized under-geared guild could clear all the current content with little problem. If you tried 40 man naxx and even a couple people didn't know what was going on, you were flat out boned. Back when having a spell interrupt rotation on Kel'thuzzad was necessary to even stay alive. They tailored the game to appeal to 10 year old's so they could get more money...I would actually consider re-joining if they just dumped all the expansions and went back to vanilla. And I know quite a few hundred people that feel the same way.

So you've done Yogg+0 and Algalon, then, right? You've completed Tribute to Insanity?

What possible sense does it ever make to spend the majority of their development resources on something less than 10% of the game will ever see? The current philosophy - make the base content easy for people to experience it, but give hard mode optional challenges (and better reward) to the uber-l337 - is probably the best one they've had since the game launched.

As someone who raided hardcore in Vanilla, the old way sucked hard.

 

[Amnestic]

You would've thought that they would mention their biggest mistake. Making the game too god-forsaken easy. That's the main thing that caused me to quit. I hit 80 and 2 months later I was done. Because even my unorganized under-geared guild could clear all the current content with little problem. If you tried 40 man naxx and even a couple people didn't know what was going on, you were flat out boned. Back when having a spell interrupt rotation on Kel'thuzzad was necessary to even stay alive. They tailored the game to appeal to 10 year old's so they could get more money...I would actually consider re-joining if they just dumped all the expansions and went back to vanilla. And I know quite a few hundred people that feel the same way.

So you've done Yogg+0 and Algalon, then, right? You've completed Tribute to Insanity?

What possible sense does it ever make to spend the majority of their development resources on something less than 10% of the game will ever see? The current philosophy - make the base content easy for people to experience it, but give hard mode optional challenges (and better reward) to the uber-l337 - is probably the best one they've had since the game launched.

As someone who raided hardcore in Vanilla, the old way sucked hard.

I couldn't agree more - except for one caveat. That being that Ulduar wasn't there at release. The only real challenge pre-Ulduar was Sarth 3D and the hardest part of that was convincing your guild to actually do it.

And woe betide you if you didn't get picked for the night you did get 3D down, because it was highly unlikely you'd ever be going back to do it again.

 

[Computer-Noob]

I'm guessing none of you have ever visited Uldaman.

SPEAK NOT THE NAME OF THAT PLACE

Uldaman. Uldaman. Uldaman.

Give in Funk. You know you like fighting ancient robots, huge golems and bitchy titan women.

I find Uldaman is less an exercise in fighting mobs and bosses and more an exercise in fighting your own group. Same with Blackrock Depths.

More so in vanilla WoW. I wonder what percent of people back then had actually seen the last boss in Blackrock Depths.

 

[Amnestic]

I'm guessing none of you have ever visited Uldaman.

SPEAK NOT THE NAME OF THAT PLACE

Uldaman. Uldaman. Uldaman.

Give in Funk. You know you like fighting ancient robots, huge golems and bitchy titan women.

I find Uldaman is less an exercise in fighting mobs and bosses and more an exercise in fighting your own group. Same with Blackrock Depths.

More so in vanilla WoW. I wonder what percent of people back then had actually seen the last boss in Blackrock Depths.

I saw him once. Once.

And I managed to forget the stupid Princess quest =_=

 

[Ultrajoe]

I know WHY it usually works like that. I'm sure the stuff Pardo said here will be getting dragged up in Hardcore vs. Casuals debates months from now, and end up being thrown back at Blizzard in their own forums if someone gets mad about balance or somesuch. (And there are always people mad about that stuff.) But it's great to read some genuine answers and some honest introspection.

Yeah, Funk kind of Crit the WoW forums for lethal damage. The QQ is delicious.

 

[Sion_Barzahd]

i've played WoW on and off pretty much since launch day, and i have to agree with Pardo. Lots and lots of mistakes, especially the LFG system, which currently is next to pointless.

Glad they will be finally releasing a decent system in the next content patch.

I've been playing for 4 years and I was relativly happy when I first heard about the LFG tool, then when I first used it and found to my dismay that all it did was stop you having to read the chat channels, the new one should be a vast improve ment, now I just have to hope my server is on a battle group with tanks and healers on it because Emeriss sure as hell doesn't have any horde side, incidentily I'm hoping cataclysim doesn't destroy the game as much as I predict it will. Achivements however is something I personaly view as a mistake, sure people like to be rewarded when they do something right but I haven't been able to play the game properly since BC due to not having achivements, my old raiding guild died and to go anywhere I need the achivements which I don't have and can't get ¬.¬ is that just my realm or is that everywhere?

No i have that same issue on my server, Maelstrom. I disappeared for a while when the achievements were first released. I log back to discover no one will let me go into a raid if i don't have the achievement from the raid...
a bit of a pain imo.

 

[Amnestic]

i've played WoW on and off pretty much since launch day, and i have to agree with Pardo. Lots and lots of mistakes, especially the LFG system, which currently is next to pointless.

Glad they will be finally releasing a decent system in the next content patch.

I've been playing for 4 years and I was relativly happy when I first heard about the LFG tool, then when I first used it and found to my dismay that all it did was stop you having to read the chat channels, the new one should be a vast improve ment, now I just have to hope my server is on a battle group with tanks and healers on it because Emeriss sure as hell doesn't have any horde side, incidentily I'm hoping cataclysim doesn't destroy the game as much as I predict it will. Achivements however is something I personaly view as a mistake, sure people like to be rewarded when they do something right but I haven't been able to play the game properly since BC due to not having achivements, my old raiding guild died and to go anywhere I need the achivements which I don't have and can't get ¬.¬ is that just my realm or is that everywhere?

No i have that same issue on my server, Maelstrom. I disappeared for a while when the achievements were first released. I log back to discover no one will let me go into a raid if i don't have the achievement from the raid...
a bit of a pain imo.

Same thing I do every night Pinky tell everyone. [http://www.wowwiki.com/Guild]

 

[A.Balthazor]

I'm guessing none of you have ever visited Uldaman.

SPEAK NOT THE NAME OF THAT PLACE

Uldaman. Uldaman. Uldaman.

Give in Funk. You know you like fighting ancient robots, huge golems and bitchy titan women.

I find Uldaman is less an exercise in fighting mobs and bosses and more an exercise in fighting your own group. Same with Blackrock Depths.

I really enjoyed Blackrock Depths; in fact, I enjoyed most of the dungeons when going with an appropriately-leveled group, thereby giving us a challenge. WoW, like Everquest, is extremely team-based when it comes to the more interesting content, and it was pretty fun.

Unfortunately PvP and Arenas require completely different skill sets, so you can have someone join you in a high-level dungeon that has never completed a PVE instance before with no clue and a chip on their shoulder because they have numerous PvP and Arena blues and purples.

I never got into raiding; required too much time to prep, find a good raid group, get into said raid group, and then the actual raiding was far too time consuming. But the remainder of the pve content was highly enjoyable, and the way instances are designed they can usually be completed in a few hours or less, or completed in phases.

 

[Amnestic]

I'm guessing none of you have ever visited Uldaman.

SPEAK NOT THE NAME OF THAT PLACE

Uldaman. Uldaman. Uldaman.

Give in Funk. You know you like fighting ancient robots, huge golems and bitchy titan women.

I find Uldaman is less an exercise in fighting mobs and bosses and more an exercise in fighting your own group. Same with Blackrock Depths.

I really enjoyed Blackrock Depths; in fact, I enjoyed most of the dungeons when going with an appropriately-leveled group, thereby giving us a challenge. WoW, like Everquest, is extremely team-based when it comes to the more interesting content, and it was pretty fun.

Oh don't get me wrong, BRD is a fairly decent instance provided two things: 1) Your group has agreed exactly what you're going in there to do beforehand and 2) They aren't functionally retarded.

The primary problem with BRD (and Uldaman) is the size - which is also one of its strong points, oddly enough. Stratholme (that is, Vanilla Stratholme) deals with this issue by having two distinct paths: Strat Scarlet and Strat Undead. Blackrock Spire also, similarly, had a clear cut distinction: You had UBRS and LBRS. They were both in the same instance zone, but unless you were with friends you almost never ran one then the other. BRD is not so clear cut. There are a myriad of paths through the instance to numerous "end points" such as the Attunement to the Core or Emperor Thaurassiananans (SPELLING LULS!) not to mention branching points like the Arena boss on the way.

BRD also seems(seemed?) to straddle a few different level areas, starting at low 50s and ending at a much higher band where even for a team of 60s, the Emperor was still a challenge. Though - perhaps - that was because the group I was with was suffering from the previously mentioned retardation issues. This culminated into a large, non-linear instance crossing at least two level bands with a bunch of different quests, gear and places to visit.

Which makes it an absolute blast with friends on Vent who you can kick back with and have a good time, but a complete nightmare for PuGs. Don't get me wrong, other instances had issues with PuGs as well (People dropping out after Rend because the swords didn't drop, getting a hunter competent enough to do anything at all kite Drakkisath) but Blackrock Depths' design means that it's never been a PuG friendly instance.

Of course, this is me speaking as someone who left the game last August, so there may have been changes since then I haven't read about.

I could likely rattle on about the problems with Vanilla raiding for hours on end (Hot tip: It's not the Golden Years people make it out to be.) but I think I've said enough for the moment.

 

[John Funk]

You would've thought that they would mention their biggest mistake. Making the game too god-forsaken easy. That's the main thing that caused me to quit. I hit 80 and 2 months later I was done. Because even my unorganized under-geared guild could clear all the current content with little problem. If you tried 40 man naxx and even a couple people didn't know what was going on, you were flat out boned. Back when having a spell interrupt rotation on Kel'thuzzad was necessary to even stay alive. They tailored the game to appeal to 10 year old's so they could get more money...I would actually consider re-joining if they just dumped all the expansions and went back to vanilla. And I know quite a few hundred people that feel the same way.

So you've done Yogg+0 and Algalon, then, right? You've completed Tribute to Insanity?

What possible sense does it ever make to spend the majority of their development resources on something less than 10% of the game will ever see? The current philosophy - make the base content easy for people to experience it, but give hard mode optional challenges (and better reward) to the uber-l337 - is probably the best one they've had since the game launched.

As someone who raided hardcore in Vanilla, the old way sucked hard.

I couldn't agree more - except for one caveat. That being that Ulduar wasn't there at release. The only real challenge pre-Ulduar was Sarth 3D and the hardest part of that was convincing your guild to actually do it.

And woe betide you if you didn't get picked for the night you did get 3D down, because it was highly unlikely you'd ever be going back to do it again.

Oh, I agree entirely. Blizz dropped the ball at launch of WOTLK with the amount of raid content. While I think the Hard Mode philosophy is a great one, it should have been integrated fully into Naxx/Maly/Sarth at launch.

 

[Zac_Dai]

Never liked WoW due to the lack of good PVP. Plus can't stand the art style and lolelves.

But hes right about the PVP and PVE aspects. I don't actually think you can balance the two in an MMO, you either go full tilt with one or the other. They are polar opposites in my opinion.

 

[Eldarion]

i've played WoW on and off pretty much since launch day, and i have to agree with Pardo. Lots and lots of mistakes, especially the LFG system, which currently is next to pointless.

Glad they will be finally releasing a decent system in the next content patch.

I've been playing for 4 years and I was relativly happy when I first heard about the LFG tool, then when I first used it and found to my dismay that all it did was stop you having to read the chat channels, the new one should be a vast improve ment, now I just have to hope my server is on a battle group with tanks and healers on it because Emeriss sure as hell doesn't have any horde side, incidentily I'm hoping cataclysim doesn't destroy the game as much as I predict it will. Achivements however is something I personaly view as a mistake, sure people like to be rewarded when they do something right but I haven't been able to play the game properly since BC due to not having achivements, my old raiding guild died and to go anywhere I need the achivements which I don't have and can't get ¬.¬ is that just my realm or is that everywhere?

No i have that same issue on my server, Maelstrom. I disappeared for a while when the achievements were first released. I log back to discover no one will let me go into a raid if i don't have the achievement from the raid...
a bit of a pain imo.

I am a new player leveling his first char to 80 (Blood elf warlock lvl 74) and I keep hearing horror stories like this. Makes me almost wanna give up even trying to raid.

Hopefully when I transfer to my friends server his guild will take me in.

 

[Nhilus]

i've played WoW on and off pretty much since launch day, and i have to agree with Pardo. Lots and lots of mistakes, especially the LFG system, which currently is next to pointless.

Glad they will be finally releasing a decent system in the next content patch.

I've been playing for 4 years and I was relativly happy when I first heard about the LFG tool, then when I first used it and found to my dismay that all it did was stop you having to read the chat channels, the new one should be a vast improve ment, now I just have to hope my server is on a battle group with tanks and healers on it because Emeriss sure as hell doesn't have any horde side, incidentily I'm hoping cataclysim doesn't destroy the game as much as I predict it will. Achivements however is something I personaly view as a mistake, sure people like to be rewarded when they do something right but I haven't been able to play the game properly since BC due to not having achivements, my old raiding guild died and to go anywhere I need the achivements which I don't have and can't get ¬.¬ is that just my realm or is that everywhere?

No i have that same issue on my server, Maelstrom. I disappeared for a while when the achievements were first released. I log back to discover no one will let me go into a raid if i don't have the achievement from the raid...
a bit of a pain imo.

I am a new player leveling his first char to 80 (Blood elf warlock lvl 74) and I keep hearing horror stories like this. Makes me almost wanna give up even trying to raid.

Hopefully when I transfer to my friends server his guild will take me in.

I wouldn't really call these horror stories, if you have a friend who can convince his guild to let you in then you will have no trouble at all getting to the end game content, its mostly just PuGs that make this issue occur, worst comes to worst read the tactics on www.wowhead.com and tell them you did it on your main and that you are currently playing on an alt, if you can find the add on "underachiever" you can apparently link the achievements as if you have completed them.

 

[Gabanuka]

Personaly i wish that the entire Horde and Allance would meet on a field in all out war. I tried to make this happen when I played WoW, but people just cant be arsed to do it. I mean the two factions are ment to be at war, but not once did is see a siege or fight!

 

[CanOfPop]

I don't understand how people can say the game is balanced around PVP.

You know why druids were ridiculous for three seasons? Because nerfing lifebloom and shape shifting(putting it on the GCD or other changes) would hurt them in raids.

The fuck do you need shape shifting off the GCD in raids for?

 

[Amnestic]

The fuck do you need shape shifting off the GCD in raids for?

Battle res. Innervate.

 

[John Funk]

I don't understand how people can say the game is balanced around PVP.

You know why druids were ridiculous for three seasons? Because nerfing lifebloom and shape shifting(putting it on the GCD or other changes) would hurt them in raids.

The fuck do you need shape shifting off the GCD in raids for?

If I'm a Feral, I do not want to be out of my shifted state any longer than I have to be.

 

[CanOfPop]

The fuck do you need shape shifting off the GCD in raids for?

Battle res. Innervate.

I'll give you that. However, it was stupid that druids can regen mana but not lose it while in bear form.

There's a plethora of nerfs which could have been applied but blizzard hid behind their PVE LOL excuse.

 

[quiet_samurai]

I think the introduction and the heavy reliance on PvP earned gear, along with resilliance, ruined the game. I just think logging in for an accumulated 50 hours to get badges for some fucking knife is ridiculous. Also BG's and the arena ruined world PvP and raiding.