Returning to WoW

[Smegma]

Personally, I think most people had bad experiences with CRZ

Nicely done. You've just ignored all of the bugs listed and verified in that thread alone - on the basis that you think that it's because of "bad feelings".

Would it be possible for you to take a more arrogant stance that's more dismissive of the complaints? I think not.

 

[Waaghpowa]

I've played the game since launch and even I quit around the end of Cataclysm. I came back specifically for Mists of Pandaria and I think it's easily the best expansion since Burning Crusade. Now would be a perfect time for a former player to get back into it.

Granted the only complaint I have with the expansion so far is dailies, if you want reputation with the factions. There's no other way around it.

 

[Waaghpowa]

Oh. and if you like FUN ranged dps, roll a mage, make it anything except arcane. And don't play hunter.

Do non arcane mages still get that arcane missile proc thingy? Getting kinda bored with my boomkin so I'm thinking about rolling a mage or shammy.

Nope. I don't even know if arcane still does, but fire and frost certainly don't

Arcane no longer has the proc. It focuses on building stacks which increase damage done and are spent on using certain abilities such as Arcane missiles.

 

[zephyron]

Personally, I think most people had bad experiences with CRZ

Nicely done. You've just ignored all of the bugs listed and verified in that thread alone - on the basis that you think that it's because of "bad feelings".

Would it be possible for you to take a more arrogant stance that's more dismissive of the complaints? I think not.

I find it ironic that you're complaining that I ignored everything when you seemed to have ignored the main point of my post, which is that people are having "bad feelings" about about CRZ because of things including bugs which I specifically mentioned. My thesis, which I stated in terms of an opinion rather than as a fact, is that these issues players encountered with CRZ have got them to come up with crazy theories as to why Blizzard implemented CRZ besides the obvious one the Blizzard has claimed was the impetus. Also ironically, you seemed to have completely ignored my explanation on why CRZ likely costs Blizzard more, possibly so that you can stay in your confirmation bias bubble?but hey, maybe not, there's lots of possible reasons.

And for whatever it's worth, do you know what is literally the most valuable thing Blizzard can do to make the most money? Acquiring and retaining players. Any feature that loses them players, but saves a little bit of money is actually detrimental to their bottom line for a ton of reasons. Some people might not want to believe it, but Blizzard is incredibly well aware of this fact.

 

[Raijha]

I was actually recently put into the same situation. A couple friends from a guild I raided with for years informed me that the guild had fallen apart and basically all of my close friends, people I stayed in touch with on steam and facebook and LoL after quitting WoW, were forming their own, new 10-m raiding guild and wanted me back.

I'm actually going to tell them no. Pandaria, iunno, it killed WoW for me. I'd been playing since vanilla and hadn't had more than a couple 3 or 4 month long breaks in that time. Heading into Pandaria, after all that time, it was just too much of the same. Too much grind, too much annoying pvp, way too many dailies, and basically the same raiding structure. I gave it a good go, and who knows, eventually I might go back, but in my opinion, not enough was actually changed in Pandaria to make it worth going back for if you were already bored in Cata. But of course, this is also the internet, where everything is opinion! If you want to go back, GO! Make your own opinions and decisions based on your experience in Pandaria! (It certainly was PRETTY, I'll give it that)

 

[Rattja]

I too have been back and forth about this for a long time, but I am not getting much out of these answers =/

When you people say "more of the same" I assume you mean, kill the bad thing, get exp/gear, get stronger, kill stronger thnings, get better stuff, and so on.

Okey, yes that is the basic idea of the game, but how it is done is kinda important to me.
Thing is.. I played from TBC lunch till end of Cata, and I must say it changed a fair bit during that time.
So I suppose the question boils down to, is it fun or not to kill stuff?

The thing I liked to do in this game was raiding, or raid tanking to be more exact, so I would like some info on that.
How does raiding feel now?

The thing that broke the game for me was that the fights got kinda boring, tanks were kinda left with nothing to do but stand there in the end.

Well... that, and that they stopped making fist weapons and swords *sigh* If I ever went back, I would have to be able to use (transmog) at least one of my 30 swords sitting in my bank =P

Oh, and how big of an impact did monk have on the game, compared to say death knight?

(first post woo!)

 

[kortin]

See, while there are a lot of people complaining about it, I'm still not seeing the inherent issue with it, it is buggy, (never had issues with it myself, but that's the besides the point, there are obviously bugs going on, otherwise it wouldn't be so divisive) but once they fix it it can only mean good things. The old worlds just feel SO DEAD playing through them now, you see noone and it really does take the "massively multiplayer" out of the game when the only time you see other players are in the cities, that's what Guild Wars 1 was.

Buggy is one thing. This is beyond "a bit fiddly" - it's utter rubbish. The OP in the thread I linked put forth an itemized list of the CRZ defects. All of those defects were still unaddressed as of the end of Nov, when my subscription finally died. This is just one more maggot wriggling about on decomposing corpse of Blizzard "customer service".

If you read through the thread (of course, not all of it), people aren't complaining about CRZ as a concept - they're complaining about CRZ as a completely bollocks implementation.

Look at this guy
he thinks the forums provide customer service
lol

They don't.

OT: MoP is my second favorite expansion after Wrath. Wotlk > MoP > BC > Cata

So take that as you will, OP.

 

[Smegma]

you seemed to have completely ignored my explanation on why CRZ likely costs Blizzard more

Cite your source regarding Blizzard architecture?

Seems pretty clear that they have to run fewer physical servers with CRZ than without. I really don't understand how you come to the opposite conclusion.

 

[Smegma]

he thinks the forums provide customer service

Perhaps you should take some reading and comprehension lessons. I never implied that.

Seriously, are you using Google translation or something?

 

[zephyron]

So I suppose the question boils down to, is it fun or not to kill stuff?

"Fun" is an incredibly subjective and personal. I personally think it's fun, and there's over 10M subscribers, so that's saying something (although not necessarily that the game is fun), but it's quite possible you might not find it fun. You may want to consider having somebody use a Scroll of Resurrection on you and try WoW out again for the couple free weeks they give you.

The thing I liked to do in this game was raiding, or raid tanking to be more exact, so I would like some info on that.
How does raiding feel now?
The thing that broke the game for me was that the fights got kinda boring, tanks were kinda left with nothing to do but stand there in the end.

I don't do a lot of tanking myself, but I'm familiar with the tanking changes they've made in MoP. They've switched over to what they call the "active mitigation" system, where the idea is instead of having most of the buttons you push be there for doing damage or threat and having most of your damage reduction being passive, you're now much more responsible for keeping yourself alive.
As for raiding itself, if you liked it before you'll probably like it now. Lots of variety in the bosses and mechanics. The first two fights in the tier require your tanks to be on top of their game, the first one [http://icy-veins.com/the-stone-guard-detailed-strategy-wow] requires the tanks to rotate carefully which of the sub-bosses is on them to control each sub-boss's energy build-up, the second boss [http://icy-veins.com/feng-the-accursed-detailed-strategy-wow] gives each of the two tanks a new ability unique to the fight, one which turns the boss's attacks back on himself and the other which prevents mechanics on a medium-length cooldown. There's bullet-hell [https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=vhKEL4CttwA#t=23s] like mechanics, dodging tornados [https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=hsqK4JJckSY#t=370s] while running torward a boss frogger-style, a Putrcide-like fight [https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Si109iASaGk#t=485s] which ends with most of the raid turning into an elemental with its own action bar, and a boss [http://icy-veins.com/tsulong-detailed-strategy-wow] that alternates between having to be damaged and healed. And that's just 6 of the 16 (+2 world) bosses.
The fights aren't tuned as hard as some of them in the past, but I think that has a bit to do with the fact that they want tiers to be faster in MoP. Just two months after the release of the expansion they released the first content patch, and I imagine in a few months they'll release the next content patch, which will be a new tier.

Oh, and how big of an impact did monk have on the game, compared to say death knight

Death Knights had a huge impact on the game, but mostly because they were completely overpowered at launch, both as tanks and as dps. Monk healing was slightly too good and has been toned down a bit but otherwise the class is pretty well balanced with the other classes. It's my understanding that there's a pretty high skill cap for all three monk specs which can appeal or not appeal to a number of players.

EDIT: Fixed a tag.

 

[kortin]

he thinks the forums provide customer service

Perhaps you should take some reading and comprehension lessons. I never implied that.

Seriously, are you using Google translation or something?

Perhaps you should take communication lessons, because that's exactly what you implied.

 

[Clifford Beasley]

I read through some of the replies and see there are a lot of opinions on the subject. I'll give you my experience on MoP just for some added information. If you want to come back and want a scroll of rez send me a message through the escapist.

First off: Pandaria itself and leveling 85+. I think this is the first time in WoW that it's felt like my character mattered in the grand scheme of things. There is a good, connected storyline in each zone where there are a few characters that you get to know and might even grow attached to. If you like the leveling process then this expansion is probably the best so far for that experience. It's very easy to go through all the zones storylines while leveling. You'll hit 90 with 1 or maybe 2 zones left and will probably want to keep going depending on what route you take.

Alt leveling: This has been a pain for me. I'm an altoholic. I like to try to be self dependent for the most part profession wise and it's just not working out this expansion. Since I'm not leveling all my alts at the same time it isn't as important to be self dependent, but there are a lot of things you can only get with factions at certain levels. The problem is the story is so tight that you will pay attention to it the first time through and any other playthroughs will be a bit tedious. After about a month of not playing much I've started leveling another toon again and am having some fun. One thing that has added to the fun of leveling alts is finding world spawn equipment that is bind to account and useable at level 85 or 86. It's just sort of fun. It's all linked to the Lost and Found achievement which you can look up on Wowhead or other sites.

Professions: Sort of lacking any sort of fun in this department. You can easily level the main professions without leaving the city if you just send the mats to your alts. Other than gathering professions that is. There are some fun items in inscription and engineering, but they are in the process of "fixing" and nerfing most of the engineering stuff it seems. With multiple skill ups on a lot of things leveling isn't as grindy as it used to be. Sadly a lot of recipes require a bind on pickup item that is like the old primals. You need 10 "motes" to make a spirit of harmony. This is annoying at low levels, but at higher levels it's not a problem.

PVP: No clue. I got beat up in a duel with my friend and that's all I've done so far.

Pandas and Monks: I was against the Pandaran being made playable for a long time. I'm still not sold on them being a player race, but as NPCs in the game world they are great. They are really well animated and most have great voice acting. My current favorite WoW character is a Pandaran (Loremaster Cho for those that know). Monks are sort of fun, but really don't feel as special as they were being made out to be. It's a personal preference really.

Pet Battles: Mostly pointless, but sort of fun. I find them to be slow paced and leveling the pets is slow. Its not so bad if you do it while leveling an alt since all your pets are shared now.

Overall I was impressed by MoP. I really thought I'd hate the expansion. Playing as an alliance member it's fun to see the prince grow as a person and with the new expansion you get to see that the king is growing too. The end game is very daily heavy, but that's personal taste too. It's not my thing, but it's good money making and some can be fun. If you can try it out without having to pay then you really have nothing to lose.

 

[Mike Fang]

Personally, I have to recommend Guild Wars 2. No subscription fees, a good player base, interesting story, good graphics, customizable appearance, easy teaming up with other players for quests, good music and sound fx. Sometimes the dev team can be a little slow to address bugs, but I think they're working on it.

I'm a person who went back to WoW several times. I kept wanting to give it one more chance, but eventually I'd get a bit worn out and I'd want to take a break. The problem is, WoW releases content and plot twist updates so freaking fast, if you want to feel like you're a part of the game and not just the latest person in a long line of them to complete a given quest, like someone in line for a roller coaster at Six Flags, then you better get used to grinding the hell out of content, because you can't afford to fall behind the obsessive players - the ones who don't care about story, they just want to be "Top Tier" - Blizzard seems to be more than happy to cater to.

If, however, you're not concerned about plot, then you shouldn't have any trouble getting back into WoW; all you have to do is grind BGs or dungeons and you'll probably level up fast enough.

 

[Smegma]

he thinks the forums provide customer service

Perhaps you should take some reading and comprehension lessons. I never implied that.

Seriously, are you using Google translation or something?

Perhaps you should take communication lessons, because that's exactly what you implied.

If I wasn't clear enough, let me re-state my position:
Blizzard customer service has degraded overall in the last few years. Their ignoring outcry on the forums is only one aspect of that degradation of quality, and by no means is it the only area where customer service has become a sad and pathetic shadow of it's former self.

 

[Lunar Templar]

I played it, again, recently on that 'free to lvl 20' thing. Best experience with WoW to-date (and oddly had access to all the races o.o SO, I rolled a Worgen cause Werewolves, fuck yea ).

The only thing that bugged me was the redone 'skill trees'. I donno if it was part of MoP or Cata (or the fact i'm on a trail account but I didn't like that there wasn't any actual TREE anymore. Other then that I actually enjoyed the game this time, and even gave thought to paying for the game when I get working again

 

[Rattja]

So I suppose the question boils down to, is it fun or not to kill stuff?

"Fun" is an incredibly subjective and personal. I personally think it's fun, and there's over 10M subscribers, so that's saying something (although not necessarily that the game is fun), but it's quite possible you might not find it fun. You may want to consider having somebody use a Scroll of Resurrection on you and try WoW out again for the couple free weeks they give you.

You are right, as some find the stragest of things fun. What I meant was rather if you actually needed to pay attention or not I guess. Hm... brainless fun... yep terrible word. I hope my point came across.
Judging from your response it seems so, thanks.

 

[Colt47]

Pandaria is a mixed bag, but over all a much better expansion than cataclysm was. The new setting is aesthetically interesting and I'd say some of the stat simplification on classes worked out better then expected.

And then comes the pandas. Oh man did they miss the mark with these guys, as logic seems to completely fail the Pandarans at every turn. The pandarans themselves are not bad, but blizzard had to force an excuse in to allow players to actually interact with them on friendly terms given how the two factions made their entrances. If anything, there should have been a three way war between the pandarans, Alliance, and Horde given what happened in the Jade Forest, but instead we get saddled with a contrived destiny plot that makes about as much sense here as it did in Age of Conan.

On that note, it seems like Blizzard is just having a horrible time with story writing. I recall Diablo 3 being a mess in the story department as well besides other things.

 

[Smegma]

"Fun" is an incredibly subjective and personal. I personally think it's fun, and there's over 10M subscribers, so that's saying something (although not necessarily that the game is fun)

Hrmm - just a thought...

I can't help but to wonder if Warcraft's success is because Blizzard has done such a bang-up job... or that it's competitors have been woefully incompetent.

What competition have they had? Age of Conan - plagued by balance and technical issues. Star Trek Online - tepid launch with laughable initial (tho improving) game play. SWTOR - which seemed to be trying to be "WoW with lightsabres". The list goes on and on. GW2 is the first serious competitor on the MMORPG scene that they've had since... well, ever.

 

[zephyron]

I can't help but to wonder if Warcraft's success is because Blizzard has done such a bang-up job... or that it's competitors have been woefully incompetent.

What competition have they had? Age of Conan - plagued by balance and technical issues. Star Trek Online - tepid launch with laughable initial (tho improving) game play. SWTOR - which seemed to be trying to be "WoW with lightsabres". The list goes on and on. GW2 is the first serious competitor on the MMORPG scene that they've had since... well, ever.

Frankly, I've heard the same exact line every time every new MMO comes out. "This is the first legitimate competition WoW has ever had" until it turns out that it isn't. The number of people actively playing GW2 is significantly lower than WoW. I'm not saying that GW2 isn't a good game, but if you just simply look at the numbers no other non-f2p MMO even comes close to WoW.

I'd say WoW's success comes from a few key factors.
The first is the flywheel effect. It has a lot of players which, by itself already attracts more players, but allows it to be a success which allows them to invest more into it.
The second is somewhat of a collary to the first: the game has been in development for a decade, and that they are constantly iterating.
The third one is similarly related to the second: they are constantly listening to their customers. Some people will disagree with this fact because a) Blizzard heard them, but disagreed with them (and invariably the person feels that, since they couldn't possibly be wrong, Blizzard isn't listening). b) Blizzard hasn't made the change immediately? software development and game development on the scale at which Blizzard works is something people who aren't in the industry don't understand. From what I can tell, Blizzard is frequently in crunch mode and working constant hours to pump out all the stuff that they do, and even a simple sounding change can have complex programming or design ramifications, and even simple changes need to have resources assigned to them (which means delaying other changes), tested, etc. c) Sometimes Blizzard just doesn't hear stuff. They have 10M+ users, and there's a ton of vocal minorities complaining about frankly dumb stuff. There's so much noise that sometimes they miss the signal.

 

[TheEvilCheese]

Oh. and if you like FUN ranged dps, roll a mage, make it anything except arcane. And don't play hunter.

Do non arcane mages still get that arcane missile proc thingy? Getting kinda bored with my boomkin so I'm thinking about rolling a mage or shammy.

Arcane missile is now a purely arcane proc, Frost gets one for Ice lance and one for instant frostfire bolts and fire gets the usual Heating up / Pyroblast! (instant increased damage pyroblasts)

And Shammy (assuming you mean elemental, not too sure on Enhance) is great fun as well, there's nothing like popping ascendance and tunneling Lava Burst crits on to a boss every second.

I recommend having a look at some endgame play on the specs you're interested in. These Gameplay / Guide vids are pretty good.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0j3zibAlFDsC5v5MzZX7wCSA58eUwk6v