Chaya said:
Heh, a couple of days ago I saw the screenshots too and let me tell you, I felt exactly the same. Strange thing is, I haven't played the game in two years. But I was there at the very beginning, as nooby as they come. The world was great back then, everything was new, out there to explore. And so I did with my human rogue, I visited all possible locations there were even the opposing faction cities. Never really got into raiding and doing dungeons over and over and over again, mostly the reason why I quit. But a friend bought the expansion and used my account to play which gave me a chance to explore even more and thus grow even more attached. Now, there's probably no chance I'll be playing the game but at 4 in the morning when I first saw the screenshots I couldn't help but whip out the WoW OST and listen to some ambient sounds from the all too familiar areas I explored all those years ago.
I'm just glad I'm not the only one who got so goddamn sentimental and nostalgic over a MMORPG.
P.S. Anyone here who played WoW when it first came out? If so, how do you like it now? Was it as awesome to you as it was to me when most of everybody had no idea what to do in the game, the whole point of playing wasn't just to beat the next raid several billion times to get that handkerchief of ultramighty destruction rayz which is dropped by some 100-foot monster but to, I don't know, just play.
I've been playing since January after launch, and I like it for different reasons now. I miss the sense of exploring, the sense of "ooh, what's over that hill," of seeing locations on my map like Uldaman and Blackrock Mountain and being genuinely excited to get to go there.
I think the game is much BETTER now; I don't ever want to relive the darkest days of my addiction (Around BWL/AQ40) when I would stay at the office until 4 AM to raid and grind and do dungeons. It's more accessible, it lets me see the great content without having to sign my life away. The new content is fantastic, it's imaginative, it gives me options that I never had before. It may be easier to the hardcore, but I think that's a fair tradeoff.
But at the same time, I do miss the wonder. Part of that is the game being nailed down to a science on the playerbase's part - there's no need to wonder how much information on Thottbot is correct because it's all there on WoWwiki and WoWhead.
I like the game just as much now; I think it's better now, but sometimes I'd like to forget everything I know about WoW and just start all over again as a noob. IF that answers your question.
Lerxst said:
Yep, I was pretty sad to see WoW reborn as... well... the same old WoW. Really, what's changed? The game mechanics are still the same, the players are still the same, everything that made WoW, WoW is still there.
Had they expanded to improve the nuts and bolts of the core mechanics of the game, then I could get excited, but WoW is 5 years old now. This is ancient in computer years. Technology has surpassed it by leaps and bounds and with that so has a lot of game play mechanics, but they just re-release the same game they had before with a new facade to sucker the die-hard addicts into playing it for another 5 years.
Better not drink the free Kool Aid they'll likely pass out in the future!
I really don't think you're giving them enough credit. Obviously they can't overhaul and completely redo the internal nuts and bolts of the game. Not only would that piss off a lot of the players who know what to expect, but technically it'd probably also screw with people who play it on older machines/netbooks. New mechanics are for a new game, not an expansion to an existing one.
But at the same time, they HAVE added new stuff within the confines of what they have. The addition of phasing zones was absolutely brilliant, for one - and Cata is going to be adding (as an example) a lot of new movement-based abilities like Heroic Leap.
It's not a revolution, but it's a gradual evolution and refinement. I'm not sure what exactly you're looking for that you could reasonably do in an
expansion, not a
WoW 2.
