I agree wholeheartedly with this opinion. I may even reactivate my account for Cataclysm.John Funk said:
This Is Your New, Post-Cataclysm Warcraft
- Thread starter John Funk
- Start date
What? No you didn't. You killed them, and their shade stayed where they died, spamming their Mark (So that there weren't any safe zones). I did Naxx in BC and we just zerged one after another, since we only had three tanks.Mornelithe said:
And the idea of an insta-kill blast unless you're out of LoS isn't exactly a Classic-only thing. How about Sindragosa, where you need to dodge her frost nukes by hiding behind your frozen comrades - while balancing the need to hide with a need to free them before they asphyxiate.
Classic had its share of awesome boss fights, like original Naxx, Vael, Twin Emps and C'Thun. Most everything was crap, or only hard because of a gimmick. (Hey, Princess Huhuran! Let's farm Maraudon for nature resist gear to kill a 40-man level 60 raid boss!)
So I'm assuming you've fully cleared hard-mode Ulduar, ToGC, and ICC then?
Edit: Sindragosa, not Sapphiron. Wrong Frostwyrm.
Meh I cancelled my account three days ago and moved to Global Agenda.
WoW just is not for me anymore. Though I will say that these changes look good. Almost to the point of making me reconsider my choice. But I don't doubt that discontentment would follow within a month of grinding through the expansion.
WoW just is not for me anymore. Though I will say that these changes look good. Almost to the point of making me reconsider my choice. But I don't doubt that discontentment would follow within a month of grinding through the expansion.
There goes the harbour that costed so much to built. But anyway who needs to go get a boat to northrend when you can just fly?!John Funk said:
If both dragons keep same attacks, rogues, start preying you wont be snared by Nefarian while Onyxia does a deep breath.
And john, too late, I just reactivated my account. I just give up on giving up on WoW and let Blizzard own my soul for eternity. They use really powerful black magic to possess me, I cant struggle anymore.
Changing the old world to not only have interesting geographic differences from its original incarnation, but more importantly to allow flying mounts is incredibly tempting.
Fortunately I am immune to temptation due to my reason for quitting being split between a lack of fun and a lack of interest in continuing to pay a fee forever for a game I only occasionally found of interest anymore.
I'm not on the lolcasuals bandwagon. I just felt like I'd done everything in the game I wanted to do and nothing remained. I don't enjoy raiding - it's repetitive in the extreme, tedious, time-consuming in large chunks of srs bsns atmosphere, and it's reliant on a group of people to not mess up regardless of your personal performance in order to succeed. If there's anything I hate it's being forced to depend on others to complete a task when I can do my part of it perfectly well and, were I capable of filling multiple seats, feel I could do on my own. Yes, my ego is showing - that's just how it feels after wiping on a simple boss fight for hours watching the same people make the same mistakes again and again. It is not fun by any stretch of the imagination.
PvP is...no. Just no.
This leaves solo content. Solo content in endgame consists of dailies and heroics (and heroic dailies). For what? More gear? More gold? To do more dailies? No. If you're not in it for the real endgame - either raiding or pvp - it gets real old real fast.
I'd like to go back for maybe a week or two just to mess around with the Cataclysm features, maybe, but that'd be all. It's played out. LotRO's lifetime membership model really has my vote - I love that I can just pick that game up and put it back down whenever and not have to think about an ongoing fee ticking off in the background. I already put more into WoW fees than I did in that one-time payment to Middle-Earth. I just couldn't stomach pushing any more money that way on the same game. Just my mind at work.
Anyway, that was quite a digression. To the person near the top who said not much changed: try looking past the screenshots at the pictures of the world map. If you can't see the differences there I don't know what to tell you. I will say that Tirisfal Glade seems like the least-changed zone on display.
Fortunately I am immune to temptation due to my reason for quitting being split between a lack of fun and a lack of interest in continuing to pay a fee forever for a game I only occasionally found of interest anymore.
I'm not on the lolcasuals bandwagon. I just felt like I'd done everything in the game I wanted to do and nothing remained. I don't enjoy raiding - it's repetitive in the extreme, tedious, time-consuming in large chunks of srs bsns atmosphere, and it's reliant on a group of people to not mess up regardless of your personal performance in order to succeed. If there's anything I hate it's being forced to depend on others to complete a task when I can do my part of it perfectly well and, were I capable of filling multiple seats, feel I could do on my own. Yes, my ego is showing - that's just how it feels after wiping on a simple boss fight for hours watching the same people make the same mistakes again and again. It is not fun by any stretch of the imagination.
PvP is...no. Just no.
This leaves solo content. Solo content in endgame consists of dailies and heroics (and heroic dailies). For what? More gear? More gold? To do more dailies? No. If you're not in it for the real endgame - either raiding or pvp - it gets real old real fast.
I'd like to go back for maybe a week or two just to mess around with the Cataclysm features, maybe, but that'd be all. It's played out. LotRO's lifetime membership model really has my vote - I love that I can just pick that game up and put it back down whenever and not have to think about an ongoing fee ticking off in the background. I already put more into WoW fees than I did in that one-time payment to Middle-Earth. I just couldn't stomach pushing any more money that way on the same game. Just my mind at work.
Anyway, that was quite a digression. To the person near the top who said not much changed: try looking past the screenshots at the pictures of the world map. If you can't see the differences there I don't know what to tell you. I will say that Tirisfal Glade seems like the least-changed zone on display.
John Funk said:
John Funk said:
Well, my opinion is mixed due to the way things have been going for me recently.
On one hand: things being more approachable is nice if you can't invest a lot of time or effort into the game, or just aren't very good at it.
On the other hand, there is less of a feeling of accomplishment in doing things that nearly anyone can do. Farming resist gear and such is part of the effort that made the payoff to beating bosses like The Prophet in AQ 40 feel so sweet. Especially when your dealing with the organization inherant in a guild gearing 40 people who can meet regularly.
The effort inherant in recruiting, maintaining, and dealing with a 40 man raid guild might seem annoying, but it was also part of what made it special, and what put the people who could be involved in that and put in the time, a cut above the other players on the server.
I've never been one of the ultra-elite (server first kills, etc..) but I've generally done okay in WoW. Right now I probably couldn't raid in the old school, but by the same token I'm not sure if I agree with dumbing things down for that reason, and effectively depriving those who do it of the experience and dominance.
To some extent the current system reminds me a lot of what's wrong with our educational system with people argueing that school should be about "self validation" as much as education, along with removing competition and outright failure from most activities.
I'll doubtlessly try Cataclysm, but honestly I'm not sure how "into" it I'm going to get. Both due to personal issues, and simply that Cataclysm seems like an extranious money making sequel. As far as I'm concerned the real "Story" of WoW ends with The Lich King, sure you can tell other stories in Azeroth but at the moment it just feels like leveling the world this way is filler for addicts. I was kind of hoping Blizzard would act more like good creators than corperate suits, and let WoW end with an epic send off while it was riding high, launch another MMO, and then perhaps re-launch WoW for the generation after that with a lot more time and effort behind it.
Cataclysm basically reminds me of what T$R/WoTC/Hasbro or whomever was at the helm at the time has done with it's world settings time and again. They develop everything they are interested in, and then knock it over in some "Time Of Troubles" type event so they can re-release sourcebooks on the same exact areas with mild changes based on whatever the most recent apocolypse was. The original "Avatar Crisis"/"Time OF Troubles" was pretty cool and well written, but since they it's been done to death, and imitated in so many places where the entire thing has ceased to impress me as anything more than an attempt to continuously re-animate the same zombie. I closed the door on my Forgotten Realms Fandom (well mostly) after "The Threat From The Sea" for this reason. Yippee! Let's level Waterdeep and other major cities again so we can release new sourcebooks!
Hey, who knows, maybe Cataclysm will suck me in, but right now the entire thing reeks of fail. I'm sure a lot of people ARE excited about it, but then again there always are when dealing with something popular within it's sphere (and MMORPGs are a big sphere right now).
Also while I'm rambling, I will say that there is no real way to defend companies that chase off hard core gamers. In the end there is more money to be made from casual gamers and the young, it's a money desician. The knife they stick into the back of the guys who got them that far is irrelevent to the cash bags they wind up hefting with their other hand, I understand it fully. Companies only care about their fans in so far as those fans are putting as much money as possible into their pockets, fans who get in the way of that bottom line are indirectly chased off without a second thought. It's not a good thing, but there is nothing to be done.
I do however expect that when the current kids and casual gamers grow up and/or become more used to gaming, their standards will increase. This will lead to more "serious" games again as there will be a bigger and more seductive market. That however doesn't change the landscape as it exists right now.
Basically when it comes to Cataclysm, expect the worst, hope for the best.
Similarly, you could make people climb a mountain in order to get to the grocery store. It's possible, of course, but how many people would find the result satisfying enough to counteract the utter boring frustration of the work needed to get it?Therumancer said:
I think that whole thing is where the complaint of "WoW feels like a job instead of a game" comes from. I'll just stick over here, hoping and expecting the best.
Similarly, you could make people climb a mountain in order to get to the grocery store. It's possible, of course, but how many people would find the result satisfying enough to counteract the utter boring frustration of the work needed to get it?
I think that whole thing is where the complaint of "WoW feels like a job instead of a game" comes from. I'll just stick over here, hoping and expecting the best.[/quote]
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See, the thing is that some people enjoy that kind of thing though. Part of the appeal is also knowing that most people can't, or won't do the work involved. As far as I'm concerned people who are willing to put in this kind of effort should be able to do so, and gain benefits from their dedication. Nobody ever said you HAD to do this stuff, even back during the days of 40 man raids.
The problem is that people are sitting at the bottom of the mountain, and screaming that they want the same benefits, but don't want to put in the effort, so those benefits should more or less be handed to them.
As far as WoW being like a job, well to people with a certain mentality, that's more or less why they like it. An attitude parodied in things like "The Guild" with characters like "Vork".
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Generally speaking I believe you should get out of the game (loot, accessible areas, etc...) what you put into it. However I do tend to agree that there should be a lot of content acessible to people that don't want to have to play hardcore "almost like it's a job". In general most games ARE like that, WoW always had tons of content you could access without even needing a group, never mind a raid.
In general I think the problem is people just being jealous of elitists having gear that they will never be able to obtain, or access to areas that become like private clubhouses (from the perspective of an outsider). That said, jealousy is not a good reason to do away with it.
Besides, if someone doesn't want to raid 40 man or whatever, why the heck do they need some of this fat loot the raiders run around with? One thing I've never gotten, even back in like EQ, was what the people crying about raiders actually expected to do with this equipment... overkill solo mobes in the world by an even greater margin? I mean the stats on these things are high because your supposed to be killing things with like 40 gazillion hit points and taking equivilent hits back.... if you have no interest in trying to fight your world's equivilent of Godzilla or Cthulhu while with a small army, then why the heck do you need stuff like that to begin with?
To put things into perspective, you don't HAVE to go over a mountain to go to a grocery store. Your more than welcome to walk to the local one. However you don't need the mountaineering gear that the guy going over the mountain has for your trip. What's more you have no reason to complain if the store over the mountain has tastier groceries and a better selection, that guy after all put in the effort to learn to climb mountains. Even if it's simply a matter of you not having time to take mountaineering lessons, there is no reason to punish him simply because he has time, and you don't.
Besides, I'll be blunt... I think lack of time is an excuse. A lot of people manage to raid without living online, and always did, even back in the 40 man days. I think a lot of it amounts to a bunch of nerds demanding that the jocks be hobbled because they aren't as capable (so to speak). Despite rumors by people who do not know what they are talking about, raiding is generally not about simply hitting a few buttons and collecting loot. A lot of it takes constant awareness, presician movements coordinated between a lot of people, and a pretty high threshold for annoyance at times. Having played with a lot of people I will say that a lot of people (and those who whine the loudest) seem like they simply cannot raid, not that they don't have the time.
My opinion is reinforced by my current condition, where to be honest I don't think I'm currently as capable as I once was for reasons I will not go into here. Perhaps that will change, perhaps it won't. The bottom line is that personal abillity is a factor, and a lot of the whining seems to be akin to why people support removing competition from schools and such.
I'm very excited about Cataclysm. I've been playing since two or three months before Burning Crusade was released, and so far I've liked all the iterations of the game, expansions, patches, etcetera. I can say that I understand why many people are having a hard time with the changes, however, especially since Therumancer has put himself out on the line and tried to be straight forward with us in his reasons.
Please don't flame him for his opinion (not that I've seen any/much of it yet, but still)!
As to more people getting access to end-game content, I've never decided if this was a good or a bad thing. Since I was a noob back in Vanilla, and was slow to leveling, I didn't get to level 60 before Burning Crusade came out, and so was unable to experience any of those fun moments until far later.
I did spend the time grinding out gold at level fourty to get my mount, and even more time at level sixty in Azeroth to get my epic mount (I didn't go to Outland until I was level 60 and had it!). I spent countless hours exploring the largest dungeons I could find, and perhaps more time roleplaying with friends.
In the Burning Crusade I finally had a chance to taste the end-game. Around here was where I probably had a bit of the Green Eyed Monster in me. I ran dungeons upon dungeons to get decent gear, and when I had what I thought was suitable to get me into the entry-raids such as Karazhan, my guildmates would be running it... without me.
I was, of course, upset by this. I had worked (what I thought was) very hard to join them in their exploits, and they were excluding me. Why? I don't think I even know why they did now, but I do know that they apologized, and that I've matured since then.
When I finally got to step into Karazhan for the first time, I was blown away. Even with just ten people, the experience was so epic and awe-inspiring that I was at a loss for words. I did, however, manage to pull aggro off the main tank (I was off-tanking) several times, and apologized every time. He told me not to worry about it, and in general made me feel like I was really helping the team effort.
After that I got in with my healer, and was able to experience not only the complete Karazhan tour, but also Gruul's Lair and Magtheridon! These adventures, made even more impressive by the boost to twenty-five people, just made things more enjoyable. I never got to go any further than that, sadly.
Northrend was slightly different. I got to go to Naxxramas some, even Malygos, but I never went to Sartharion. I've spent lots of time in Ulduar (sadly, I've never finished it), and have only seen (but not fought) the first boss in ICC. I'd like to think I can experience some of those as well, even if I am just in a roleplaying guild.
tl;dr - I can't wait for Cataclysm!
Please don't flame him for his opinion (not that I've seen any/much of it yet, but still)!
As to more people getting access to end-game content, I've never decided if this was a good or a bad thing. Since I was a noob back in Vanilla, and was slow to leveling, I didn't get to level 60 before Burning Crusade came out, and so was unable to experience any of those fun moments until far later.
I did spend the time grinding out gold at level fourty to get my mount, and even more time at level sixty in Azeroth to get my epic mount (I didn't go to Outland until I was level 60 and had it!). I spent countless hours exploring the largest dungeons I could find, and perhaps more time roleplaying with friends.
In the Burning Crusade I finally had a chance to taste the end-game. Around here was where I probably had a bit of the Green Eyed Monster in me. I ran dungeons upon dungeons to get decent gear, and when I had what I thought was suitable to get me into the entry-raids such as Karazhan, my guildmates would be running it... without me.
I was, of course, upset by this. I had worked (what I thought was) very hard to join them in their exploits, and they were excluding me. Why? I don't think I even know why they did now, but I do know that they apologized, and that I've matured since then.
When I finally got to step into Karazhan for the first time, I was blown away. Even with just ten people, the experience was so epic and awe-inspiring that I was at a loss for words. I did, however, manage to pull aggro off the main tank (I was off-tanking) several times, and apologized every time. He told me not to worry about it, and in general made me feel like I was really helping the team effort.
After that I got in with my healer, and was able to experience not only the complete Karazhan tour, but also Gruul's Lair and Magtheridon! These adventures, made even more impressive by the boost to twenty-five people, just made things more enjoyable. I never got to go any further than that, sadly.
Northrend was slightly different. I got to go to Naxxramas some, even Malygos, but I never went to Sartharion. I've spent lots of time in Ulduar (sadly, I've never finished it), and have only seen (but not fought) the first boss in ICC. I'd like to think I can experience some of those as well, even if I am just in a roleplaying guild.
tl;dr - I can't wait for Cataclysm!
As a total casual, to the point where I've never so much as cleared Naxx, either back in the 60 days, or now, I think it's great, the guild I run will be p[acked to the gills with fresh goblin players, both new and returning, I'll probably end up having old friends of the guild return to us to level their goblin because the raid guilds won't want anything under 85 in theirs, and 1-60 will be interesting again!
As for WOW not being challenging, I think it is, but then I'm not in the top 1%, and sadly it just just makes financial sense to keep 95% of their players entertained and not frustrated by epicly difficult content only the cream of the elite could even attempt. Personally I find it stressful enough keeping 4 people alive when I'm healing in regular heroics, I don't need the guild of causing 24 deaths in raids.
I'll give you an example of when elitism goes overboard, when people are doing old world raids, where you have say 20 level 70-80s going off to kill an old level 70 raid boss, and there's people flipping out and hurling tirades of abuse because you're not doing enough damage. Now the tanks are overpowered, the healers could keep people alive for another 10 minutes if needed, do you really need to abuse people because Kil'jaeden is taking an extra 20 seconds or so to kill? Take it easy, sit back, claim the loot and we'll all do it again next week. There's just no need to stress when it's not relevant. Of course, these are the people who flatly refuse to let under 80s into a Molten Core run, which used to be cleared by level 60s.
There's more hardcore MMOs sure, but I like the friendly feel of WOW and I'm not moving.
As for WOW not being challenging, I think it is, but then I'm not in the top 1%, and sadly it just just makes financial sense to keep 95% of their players entertained and not frustrated by epicly difficult content only the cream of the elite could even attempt. Personally I find it stressful enough keeping 4 people alive when I'm healing in regular heroics, I don't need the guild of causing 24 deaths in raids.
I'll give you an example of when elitism goes overboard, when people are doing old world raids, where you have say 20 level 70-80s going off to kill an old level 70 raid boss, and there's people flipping out and hurling tirades of abuse because you're not doing enough damage. Now the tanks are overpowered, the healers could keep people alive for another 10 minutes if needed, do you really need to abuse people because Kil'jaeden is taking an extra 20 seconds or so to kill? Take it easy, sit back, claim the loot and we'll all do it again next week. There's just no need to stress when it's not relevant. Of course, these are the people who flatly refuse to let under 80s into a Molten Core run, which used to be cleared by level 60s.
There's more hardcore MMOs sure, but I like the friendly feel of WOW and I'm not moving.
Sadly, I'll have to agree with this.John Funk said:
The game's current state is overall better. I did like certain more "random" factors and the whole "new game feel" of vanilla when it lasted... But a lot of these things were badly thought out (certain "off-specs" and itemization for such), simply bugs (granted, I miss those... Getting into places you weren't supposed to be just for exploratory purposes. There are still a few left, but nothing close to the old amount. Still, it only shows that Blizzard is doing their job) and all that.
Yeah. I've reactivated my WoW account this Monday. Blizzard has a fair share of my productivity now...
To add to the topic, I certainly find the new appearance of older zones in Cataclysm amazing. The game has it's flaws, but I'd waste some 40-60 bucks on Cata just to see the zones.
Also, on a related note... If anyone's currently playing on Emerald Dream (US) Horde side, it would be cool to hang out.
More edit: One thing I certainly miss from Vanilla were various amazing proc items and trinkets. You know, that rare trinket from some naga in Azshara with 3 second stun on use... All the strange proc weapons that would summon helpers (with rather dubious AI at times) or have cool effects. That was more fun then simply having stats on your weapons, in my opinion.
I gotta say, I'm an Altoholic, and I hate leveling in the same places, so I'm really looking forward to the makeover!
That depends on what they give us in return for all the simplifications. I'm all for scrapping character-tweaking if they give us fantastic and creative boss encounters in return.John Funk said:
Oh and Blizzard already made the best thing for WoW ever, it's called the Random Dungeon Finder. Good GODS do I like that tool. Back when I leveled my first character (also the only one I ever maxed out in 3 years) right before BC I already could barely find groups for the majority of the instances. Now I can finally do Blackphantom Depths or something, it's great!
Ah, getting into secret areas. I too, am going to probably miss this quite a bit. I remember Old Ironforge, the Airstrip, the Wetlands Farms, Stormwind's Basement, the roof of Silvermoon, and several others that don't spring to mind.Billion Backs said:
Rest in Peace, hidden areas.
Yeah... Then there were the Caverns of Time pre-release, Kara basement (I don't know if you can still get in there, but it was really creepy. I remember there was some kind of an empty dungeon - in traditional sense - flooded with water, with hooks and chains covering everything. And there was a smily drawn on the ground right under the tower), and a few places which never required much effort to get to like the islands way off the southern coast of Tanaris and farms on the outer side of Silithus if you swam around half of the world...Alar said:Ah, getting into secret areas. I too, am going to probably miss this quite a bit. I remember Old Ironforge, the Airstrip, the Wetlands Farms, Stormwind's Basement, the roof of Silvermoon, and several others that don't spring to mind.Billion Backs said:
Rest in Peace, hidden areas.
Although many of the "real" zones are kick-ass too, now. I personally can't wait till Trolls and Gnomes get their own towns back... These two races are among my favorites!
I agree completely. The "new" cross-server dungeon finder is amazing. Sure, it has some negative properties similar to the cross-server battlegrounds... But on average, the benefits so outweight the whole deal with lack of server community touchy feely crap =pCowabungaa said: