The current state of World of Warcraft

[suitepee7]

long story short I think most MMOs are Crap because they restrict you from playing the game until you've spent dozens and dozens of hours grinding. I've had enough of MMOs. Maybe I'll check out GW2, but honestly, I think grinding is a stupid mechanic.

grinding is a way to keep you playing longer.

GW2 has no subscription model, so they don't need you to play longer, so much less grind ^-^

 

[Dreamfiller]

What's keeping me there?

Two words.

Community.

Roleplay. (Yes I do it, it's fun.)

 

[Eamar]

I hold on to my subscription out of sentimentality, but really it's ridiculous for me to be spending this much money on something I so rarely use :S

I'm an antisocial bastard when I'm gaming. I love WoW's world, I love the lore, I love my characters (of which there are many...) I like to solo everything PvE and do the odd dungeon when I'm in the mood. Mostly I just like to explore, even grinding, I like to use my imagination and immerse myself.

With that in mind, it pisses me off no end when people constantly try and have conversations with me. I know that's unfair, since it is an MMO and for some people the social side is a big part of their lives, but for me it's something I dip into for a bit of escapism. I do not want to tell people about my day, or be nagged by my guildmates until I join in with their banal conversation. Having said all that, this isn't true all of the time, and I have had some really good experiences with my guild and yes, sometimes I am in the mood to chat. I just wish there was an "appear offline" option...

Given that this is my approach to the game most of the time, I don't really care about a lot of the stuff people tend to complain about. I can see where they're coming from though.

For what it's worth, I have absolutely no problem with the aesthetics/graphics/skins or anything like that. I really like the way it looks and I think it's aged really well.

 

[I.Muir]

Most of the stuff has aged well but if you look at a few things like the front of the gryphons face and the tentacle off the side of that dying sea creature, it looks kind of retarded. Hopefully they upgrade character models to be at least on par with the new ones. Pandas have what like over a hundred joints they can manipulate in animations and most other races have under 20 right now. Upgrading textures can easily be done whilst keeping to their art style because right now I see some things and I think I'm playing Nintendo sixty four. Fun and has aged well but so very ancient compared to everything else that's happening in games. They have huge amounts of resources with which to do it there is really not much excuse not to that doesn't leave them looking like cheap bastards.

Like I think it would be cool If trees and things did not appear so 2d in some places and had a falling leaf animation.

I also think hunters should be able to dual wield pistols and crossbows but that's beside the point.

 

[applesandoranges]

edit

 

[Nazulu]

My thoughts? It's Fucked! It's dumbed down or even taken away most of the addicting challenges that made it such a good game from the start and also made it so you can buy almost every thing you had to earn, so it's become pretty much pointless (However, I heard the game play is still decent).

 

[I.Muir]

Yep it's dumbed down, but considering that they aren't just pandering (hurr hurr) to hardcore gamers but also to a massive crowd of casuals what do you think they were going to do. If anything easier heroics seems to be a blessing when I join groups that still can't stop standing in aoe and tarding about.

 

[Exterminas]

Okay, lets seperate a few points that should be seperated:

Yes, currently the content is pretty old and boring, since there are no more Cata-Patches around. But that has been the case with every single addon up to this point, excluding the point between BC and Naxx, where less than one percent of all players had cleared Naxxramas.

And yes, pretty much all the time during Cata, the subscription numbers have dropped. After having climbed for around six years.

So yes, WoW is doing bad -> compared to how WoW was <-. It is doing fine compared to every other present MMORPG, because even at one of its weakest points, before a new addon, it retains more fans and subcribers.

If you are only doing bad in comparison to yourself, then you are not really doing bad.


WoW is only a Video Game, it is not a World Religion that can expect to stay afloat for hundreds of years. A steady decline in popularity was always to be expected.

 

[Eddie the head]

People can complain and ***** about WoW all day. The only fact that matters to me is I'm having more fun in Mists of Pandaria then I did in Cataclysm...

My biggest question is what the hell is that in the background?

 

[Whateveralot]

I decided to PVP shortly after that. problem was I was max level with no gear. This means the only use I had in PVP was killing other max level people with no gear and watching the godlike immortals who actually HAD gear kill me in three seconds. seriously: try to hurt someone who has top tier PVP gear when you have raiding gear on. It doesn't work. This is only till I play a HUNDRED or so games and have enough honor to buy gear.

See, now that's the problem. The game is so "balanced" (read: flat-lined) that it's no longer about exploiting player skill, but mostly about gear. You used to be able to simply kill a hunter by staying within the black spot between max meelee range and min bow range. They ditched that, making hunters less vulnerable and locking a lot of skill-based actions out of the equasion.

That, and raiding is way too easy. I get that new and bad players should get a chance at all the content; but that's no fun for the skilled players that used to take a concrete wall to the face around every corner of a new raid-instance.

It was hard. And I mean, really hard. No-mistakes-allowed hard. Right now, with the right gear, the game will basically play itself.

 

[Aeshi]

I decided to PVP shortly after that. problem was I was max level with no gear. This means the only use I had in PVP was killing other max level people with no gear and watching the godlike immortals who actually HAD gear kill me in three seconds. seriously: try to hurt someone who has top tier PVP gear when you have raiding gear on. It doesn't work. This is only till I play a HUNDRED or so games and have enough honor to buy gear.

See, now that's the problem. The game is so "balanced" (read: flat-lined) that it's no longer about exploiting player skill, but mostly about gear. You used to be able to simply kill a hunter by staying within the black spot between max meelee range and min bow range. They ditched that, making hunters less vulnerable and locking a lot of skill-based actions out of the equasion.

That, and raiding is way too easy. I get that new and bad players should get a chance at all the content; but that's no fun for the skilled players that used to take a concrete wall to the face around every corner of a new raid-instance.

It was hard. And I mean, really hard. No-mistakes-allowed hard. Right now, with the right gear, the game will basically play itself.

So making the game 'Balanced' (debatable as to whether it is) makes the game rely less on Skill? How does that work?

To use your example the Hunter 'Deadzone' was a piece of garbage that meant you could kill any Hunter regardless of their skill simply by running into it and casting a snare, I don't remember any other class that could be beaten that easy.

 

[Whateveralot]

I decided to PVP shortly after that. problem was I was max level with no gear. This means the only use I had in PVP was killing other max level people with no gear and watching the godlike immortals who actually HAD gear kill me in three seconds. seriously: try to hurt someone who has top tier PVP gear when you have raiding gear on. It doesn't work. This is only till I play a HUNDRED or so games and have enough honor to buy gear.

See, now that's the problem. The game is so "balanced" (read: flat-lined) that it's no longer about exploiting player skill, but mostly about gear. You used to be able to simply kill a hunter by staying within the black spot between max meelee range and min bow range. They ditched that, making hunters less vulnerable and locking a lot of skill-based actions out of the equasion.

That, and raiding is way too easy. I get that new and bad players should get a chance at all the content; but that's no fun for the skilled players that used to take a concrete wall to the face around every corner of a new raid-instance.

It was hard. And I mean, really hard. No-mistakes-allowed hard. Right now, with the right gear, the game will basically play itself.

So making the game 'Balanced' (debatable as to whether it is) makes the game rely less on Skill? How does that work?

To use your example the Hunter 'Deadzone' was a piece of garbage that meant you could kill any Hunter regardless of their skill simply by running into it and casting a snare, I don't remember any other class that could be beaten that easy.

Surely, balanced is good. But balancing it by taking the majority of skill out of the equasion and making gear much more important, is a good way of balancing on it's own, as long as you don't mind people complaining about the importance of gear.

Sure, the deadzone allows for "easy kills". The thing is, not every class / build is powerful at range. Also, a hunter with decent skill could easily avoid this snare-and-murder tactic by either making sure the enemy wouldn't get close, or wouldn't get away from the hunter.

It used to never be "easy" to take on a skilled player.

 

[Ranorak]

Surely, balanced is good. But balancing it by taking the majority of skill out of the equasion and making gear much more important, is a good way of balancing on it's own, as long as you don't mind people complaining about the importance of gear.

Sure, the deadzone allows for "easy kills". The thing is, not every class / build is powerful at range. Also, a hunter with decent skill could easily avoid this snare-and-murder tactic by either making sure the enemy wouldn't get close, or wouldn't get away from the hunter.

It used to never be "easy" to take on a skilled player.

And here I thought that RPG's relied on the stats of the character not the player.
personally I prefer the fact that Agility makes me dodge, not how fast I can dash out of line of sight.

Sure player input should have some effect, but in the end, I prefer my RPG's to reply on what my character can or can't do, rather then me.

Like in DnD, I might be smart enough to solve the riddle, but my fighter has a intellect score of 9, he's not going to solve anything any time soon...
I hope this is getting my point across.

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

So making the game 'Balanced' (debatable as to whether it is) makes the game rely less on Skill? How does that work?

I think by "balanced" he meant that classes have become too homogenized. There are very few weaknesses for most classes compared to vanilla or BC WoW, where exploiting a certain strategy could win a battle by itself (Hunter dead zone, Warrior Charge dead zone, DoTing Rogues). These days, it's all about team play. There is basically no 1v1 skill left in battlegrounds, which is what made them fun in vanilla.

 

[Baldr]

People can complain and ***** about WoW all day. The only fact that matters to me is I'm having more fun in Mists of Pandaria then I did in Cataclysm...

My biggest question is what the hell is that in the background?

It a Mogu, ancient enemies of the Pandaren. He just a temp stand in as a teleporter to a Mogu dungeon that was in a Zone not accessible yet.

The Activision-Blizzard quarterly report came out yesterday. In the same period that Swtor lost 400,000 subs, WoW didn't post a net loss. Still standing at 10.2 million subs.

 

[I.Muir]

Ancient guardian kind of thing

 

[Rblade]

I recently discussed this with a friend I used to play WoW with.

I think WoW has lost it's middle ground. There is still a large group of the very casual players that are in for the social experience and just derping around a little doing some quests. And there is obviously still a competitive PvP and raiding scene.

But for the middle segment. The group of people that wants to be the best character they can be but doesn't want to devote 5 hours an evening to raiding. The serious 5 manner that tries to get into a pug raid every once in a blue moon.
For those people it has become stale and lost most of it's appeal. I stopped playing several months ago because the challange started wearing out and I felt I really needed to devote the crazy time required for raiding to push me further. And I have no intention to devote that time, and with me the rest of the middle segment I mentioned.

The new cartoon style expansion (panda's, really?) only serves to prove my point they want to serve the group that comes for the casual social experience and they will always have the hardcore raiding and pvp content.

conclusion, they can't add enough new stuff to keep the serious gamer with limited time challanged without fundamentally chaning the game (making a WoW 2 or something). Don't get me wrong the new direction they took with dungeons in Cata kept me in longer then I expected but it's done now. And thats not that bad a thing. A game that has been going on for 8 years has all the right in the world to run out of steam. It will continue to be a meeting ground but I doubt it will still be the behemoth it is now some years from now

 

[I.Muir]

Your thoughts?

I think it's neither dead nor dying but not going as strong as it was.
I think there a direct correlation between games claiming that they will kill wow and then crashing a burning. Like saying Macbeth in the theater.
Desperately needs a texture update, new animations and models rather than being really cheap and reusing old ones like that currently are. It will cost a pittance compared to the cash they are still racking in and Ive seen much better of the three I mentioned being done by modders for free so I seriously doubt it they couldn't do it with ease.
Still is the strongest MMO out there.
Will even be improved by mists of pandaria as there are no steps backwards only forwards good and bad.
Unfortunately has become more of a corporate entity.

No game, other that WAR has claimed it would "Kill WoW" they said there is room for two on the market and other such things, but never to "Kill WoW".

May have been confused about the sheer number of people for ever single mmo that isn't wow saying that it was the one to do it. Like most recently the SWTOR crowd who claimed like everybody else that it would be the one then to go into denial after it failed to do so.

I think that AION made some claims that it was going to do things wow was not, even though wow had started doing the very things they mentioned what seems like years before. Of course that game turned out to be just watered down wow anyway.

I wouldn't get too caught up in the 'details' since I won't spare the effort to do intense research before I write anything so most of what I say is probably subjective opinion. I guess that makes me just like scores of journalist out there.