I do like the expansion because it does help out the casual gamer. I don't have to worry about getting in the good graces of someone who DOESN'T have a full time job and 3 kids to take care of. I can play at my pace. This expansion gives me a ton of stuff to do so that I won't get bored in the next 18 months til the next expansion. Yes you have a full tier 3 set. Yes it is being put to shame by the newer stuff found in outland, you know what though? you have the sense of accomplishment from breaking your guild's time record on AQ40 or taking out all of the big dragons, content that is stil out of my reach. I cannot play by anyone else's schedule because if my daughter needs something, I am up and helping her....sometimes I come back to a corpse sometimes I don't . Sometimes I hold up my friends in a dungeon because I have to make popcorn for the kids' movie night...they understand because they are in the same boat. 

In the end, one simple fact remains, you don't like it? Don't play.

Originally posted by necrotherion
I liked this article, it brings a very good point.

I also think the rep grinding is getting out of hand. I'm a casual player, switching to hardcore (18-20 hours a day trying to powerlevel) during some parts of the summer, and I remember the first time I ever had to grind faction. It was a quest in desolace, killing some sort of centuar. After 45 mins, I was bored out of my mind, and dying was far more frustrating. How can anyone stand killing the same mob over and over for hours on end? What are there, 5 to 8 new factions in BC? That's ridiculous. I guess it's for the truly grindcore player to cut through while waiting for their weekly raid.

 

I guess I don't get it. Why do you have to get every faction to exalted? I've never had a 60 and my new BE might be my first one, but I do not plan on getting exalted in every faction. I mean, what is the point? Maybe I will learn why later on and will end up grinding them up, but as for now, there is no reason that I know of to have exalted in every faction. But as for grinding on the same type of mob for hours on end, that is the type of gaming I started with (DAoC) and to be honest, I prefer it over doing some fetch and kill quests. You get to stay in one place for hours, except when to empty your pack. No running around needed. I like it that way. But I am finding TBC to be quite fun the way it is.

Right on the money with this one.  Its got more content than I can keep up with.  I like having access to gear that makes it fun for me to kill things.  I am sure there will be something I can't do at the end that people with time can, and I'll complain about that then.

Because its more of the same, its not even as addicting as the first time through, so I am not completely destorying my life to play it.  I even like that.

Why do I see the same people over and over talk about how they “hate playing the game” , or “I can’t stand wow.” However these same players are the ones I see lined up at !2:00 am to receive the expansion. Or the ones I see logged onto the game 12 plus hours a day.

Is it for attention purposes that you down trod a game that you spend the majority of your days playing? I f you really do not enjoy your experience with wow why not move on? Why do you continue to troll the wow communities and voice your obnoxious opinion that 8 million others do not seem to have? If you hate the game so bad why do you not stop playing?

If the answer is simply because there is nothing better out there atm, then I simply say that is weak sauce.. If your favorite Pizza place closes and you cant stand any of the others instead of going to the others and complaining about how horrible they are and paying them money for crappy Pizza, learn to like something else. Maybe it is time to try Chinese food instead.

My point of this rant is if you hate wow so much, go play something else. Why stick with something you don’t like?

Well, we're seeing a typical run of posts up to this point, with a few chiming in on how the new drops are invalidating all of the hard work they put in to get their Tier whatevers, a few saying the grinding of faction is too extreme, and of course a few casuals saying this is an amazing expansion that has completely rekindled their love for the game. Guess what? This is EXACTLY the kind of response Blizzard is looking for. Casuals dominate the current player base, and there's no reason to believe it will ever be any different. Hardcore players will hopefully always be in the minority (because such players are typically poor contributers to the overall global economy), and regardless of how much they complain, they will still be shelling out their money and working hard to achieve whatever is difficult to achieve in the game sooner than anyone else. The reason they are so vocal is because they gain more personal definition from such achievements than the casual player (who tend to stress their real-life achievements more than their in-game ones), and thus take the lessening of their past achievements as more of a personal attack.

As for me, I no longer play WoW. It IS a good game, just not one I enjoy, but I admire how Blizzard seems to have distilled the essence of the player base and knows just how to wring more expansion sales and monthly fees from its players. It does this by providing gameplay that is enjoyable and sustainable for a fair bit of time, as well as providing enough sense of accomplishment for the hardcore players to keep them grinding away on things that the casuals will more than likely never experience and/or achieve. It seems to me that both the hardcore and casual players should be quite happy with this expansion, as it does provide rewards for both types of gaming. All it's going to take is for the hardcore players to let go of those past achievements and start working on the new ones. I'm sure they will find these new achievements equally rewarding if they just give it a chance.

Here's my main con to TBC.

 - No really good additions to the character's races: No real breaking the mold. The Blood Elf and Dranai are not worthwhile races IMO. I was hoping more for a centaur -like, or naga-like race, not another Elf, and an ugly biped race.

 It's why I quit WoW, got bored with the character selection. Would love RPing a dryad or Naga.

WoW has always chosen game over world and it continues to do so. The casual players I’ve talked to seem to enjoy that. The world doesn’t change overnight and so they know what to expect and can get right to the parts they consider fun. While the concept of owning homes and shops may sound interesting adventuring is where the real fun is. SWG tried the home and shop route, the world over game route, and it felt more like work than WoW ever has.

To be honest this is why I stoped playing WoW. The world felt to static. I didnt enjoy it at all. I don't have any hate for WoW at all, I'm glad people enjoy it. Still I will say that SWG issues weren't in the fact that you could have a house or shop or any of those things. It was that you had to work to get to the "intresting stuff". At least thats what SOE seems to have thought. In WoW its all very simplistic and very polished. I thought the quest where fine as far as they went but it felt more like a job to me than SWG every did. In SWG I decided what I was going to do and when, in wow I felt like I had to work the zone so I could move on to the next zone and so on and so forth. Again not to bash WoW at all, if you like it good for you. To me though that was more work and more boring than making up my own story. Still thats me and I hope all those who play the BC have a great time and enjoy thier adventures in Azeroth.

Anyone else have a problem with a $40 expansion for 10 lvls where some games have free expansions(COH/COV)

Casual player
http://www.thenoobcomic.com/daily/strip221.html

I'm not saying anyone has to grind rep, I'm merely mentioning the indisputable monotony of killing the same mobs for hours and hours. My main qualm is: Couldn't Blizz find a better time sink? BG is fun. Instances are fun. Both entertain the casual player, and provide phat lewtz for the ambitious overachiever.  Grinding rep, sure you get a few shiny baubles and maybe a recipe, but is it really worth going through hours and hours to actually get revered or exalted, where the rewards are actually worth it? To me faction seems like a lame attempt at "tons of content," by killing the same mobs over and over and over again. At the very least I'd like to see more quests for factions.

Originally posted by common-man
Anyone else have a problem with a $40 expansion for 10 lvls where some games have free expansions(COH/COV)

 Not really to be honost and this is said by me who got BC on release day and  played it for 10 minutes and thought bymeself why did i buy it  ;)  plz do not read that i'm bashing on WOW cause i'm not, its a good "online" game, lots of fun, extremly stabel for kinda every decent  pc, when you play it for some time it starts to grow on you, i know that i also have been negative towards WOW in different topics but that was not because of the game but because of it genre "mmorpg", because every single new mmorpg that is been developed of is being created after the WOW hype is always compared to WOW and thats not given fair chances to mmorpg that try to stick closer to the orginal feel of mmorpg and for me that feel isn't based on a pure combat only game, but more of building a society. Don't get me wrong i love combat but after playing games for such along time as i have played games, most games were always combat oriented and then you tend to search for mmorpg's that have abit more depth.

Blizzard deliverd what they promised with BC and the promise/deliver thing  is a trend i do hope many developers will follow and for people that will try other mmorpg's, try to see them as completly different games try not to compare games to much as some games might take abit more time to get used too. In the end people  always will have differences and that is really a great thing else we had no use of having a opinion

Well, being a solo, casual player  I like it.  WoW is the only MMORPG I'm still paying for anfd playing and I really don't play it much - and probably wonb't until I finally finish Gothic 3, NWN2 and Oblivion - all of which are on my HD.

Unlike the horrible years of the past - so many games, so little time

More of the same...

I was really hoping that they would do something to the mechanics. I was really hoping that they would give me a new activity, a new side of the game to play...not the same activity with different goals. That is why I didn't buy Burning Crusade, and this article simply reaffirms my decision.

When I quit WoW, I didn't quit because there wasn't enough to do. I quit because I was tired of the mechanics and gameplay. Blizzard will need to do something more for them to get my buisness back.

Originally posted by Vengeful

I was really hoping that they would do something to the mechanics.

...

When I quit WoW, I didn't quit because there wasn't enough to do. I quit because I was tired of the mechanics and gameplay.

So, you're saying that you wanted Blizzard to do to WoW what SoE did to Star Wars Galaxies with their NGE?

Oh the MMORPG.com community makes me laugh!

Nice concise article, there was one very interesting observation regarding the concept of 'world' vs 'game'

"While the concept of owning homes and shops may sound interesting adventuring is where the real fun is. SWG tried the home and shop route, the world over game route, and it felt more like work than WoW ever has."

EXACTLY.  I hear people saying how MMORPGs should have complex crafting systems or economies even when the MMORPGs are based in genres where this stuff doesn't belong.  

Star Wars was about a battle for the fate of the galaxy - not opening up a tailor shop.   And now CIty of Heroes has decided that comic books should have Superman gathering loot to make junk to sell to Batman.

This all feeds back to the idea of 'game' vs 'world' stated so clearly in the article.  MMORPGs are games, not online economy simulators.   This also applies to those who think it would be so cool to have a functioning ecology in a MMORPG or garbage like that.    Given the number of failures we've seen in MMORPGs, designers need to learn it's hard enough just to make a fun game withough getting distracted by unneccsary drivel.    

Originally posted by DemonOvrlord 

Given the number of failures we've seen in MMORPGs, designers need to learn it's hard enough just to make a fun game withough getting distracted by unneccsary drivel.    

Bravo! I am going to use that in a sig one of these days if you don't mind

Originally posted by voodoochile

Originally posted by Vengeful

I was really hoping that they would do something to the mechanics.

...

When I quit WoW, I didn't quit because there wasn't enough to do. I quit because I was tired of the mechanics and gameplay.

So, you're saying that you wanted Blizzard to do to WoW what SoE did to Star Wars Galaxies with their NGE?

Oh the MMORPG.com community makes me laugh!

Actually, if Blizzard did it in an attempt to breathe originality, uniqueness, innovation, and immersion into the countless EverCrack 1.x and DAoC 1.x games out there all vying for an extra dime by offering nothing more than a prettier graphics or bigger worlds or longer raids or bloodier sieges, I'd actually go back.  WoW is the tried and cloned gameplay that has spawned hundreds of mediocre MMOs that offer nothing more than different contexts.  There's no real immersion.  In the end, your actions have no real impact on anything.  So you won Alterac today.  Gratz.  The only change is your honor points.  It's the same in other games.  Player actions effects nothing more than the players performing the action.  If it's a real world guild/city war kind of thing, all that tends to prove is who has more hours to play the game and has the better gear, who's the more hardcore guild.  In the end, a virtual boundary changes, that has as much impact as a rock dropping into a pond.  Everything eventually stagnates again until another rock splashes in.

What SWG did was change everything out of fear.  They were stupid.  Blizzard, I'd imagine, is actually intelligent.  If this game evolved so that its PVP and PVE were mere options as opposed to the only playstyles (crafting alone could be improved on so many levels to bring in entirely different player groups and styles), if WoW supported roleplay with real content for players to use and interact with (learning languages alone would really add to roleplay, most especially the Forsaken knowing Common again, and I could go on and on about the lack of roleplayability of WoW, because imagination can only go so far when your restrictions are hardcoded(lack of player housing, anyone?)), if WoW became story driven as opposed to the use of just content patches (It feels like WoW ignored everything that happened in WC3.  Anyone else but me pissed that Theramore is alliance only?  Or wondering why NE are alliance as opposed to Horde or even neutral, let alone the Forsaken (which now are allied with Blood Elves!  WHAT THE FUCK!?  DID TFT NEVER HAPPEN!?)), if player action (or inaction) could affect the world and the evolution of the plotline (this is how you immerse players in the game by offering story content that players CHOOSE to involve themselves in that would affect what happens next, or at the very least appear quite convincingly to), this game could become so far and beyond not only what it is now but what every other MMORPG is.  It would actually be worthy of the "Role Playing" part of MMORPG.

To summarize, WoW should:
1. support more play styles (i.e. Crafting, what it is now is just a waste of time and effort when I can instance for better more easilly and more quickly)
2. support and encourage roleplay with enhanced, interactive (click-and-watch isn't interactive), and less hard coded content (I would soooo play a Night Elf if they could be neutral, even more so if they could choose BETWEEN alliance or horde!)
3. Drive the game forward through an interactive and evolving storyline that provides lasting effects (Maybe the Scourge makes a move, and players need to fight them off or face the consequences, the event providing unique gear and roleplay opportunity)
4. Provide and encourage roleplay through opportunity and story elements that immerse players by giving them choices that affect (or at least convincingly appear to affect) the world at large. (Imagine players could do quests FOR the scourge as opposed to just against it?  Perhaps the scourge could win because of that?  This could lead to a faction that isn't just reputaiton based, but you'd be able to join it completely!  It'd open paths for different content like special battle grounds and instances).

WoW is, as it stands, a grind for loot.  PERIOD.  There is nothing new, immersive, innovative, or even creative.  If they changed the mechanics and the outset for WoW, Blizzard would have a game truly worthy of being called a Massive Multiplier Online ROLEPLAYING Game.  Even if every single server required it's own one or two man story content team, Blizzard would easilly be able to support the costs.  One month of subscriptions would more than cover their expense.

Love those Casual Play articles, keep them coming! Makes work much less irritating.

I'm another casual player who thinks BC was meant for me.....but fankly, everyone I know seems to like it except the one truly hardcore player I am aware of (my girlfriend) who seems to have given up on the game post expansion, oddly enough.

As for me, I've been playing one-two nights a week, the usual time I have, and am just hitting 61. And I started playing midnight on the release day. So I expect I will be enjoying BC for a looooong time, might even take me a year to level to 70. Given that it took me a year to get to level 54 and another six months to hit 60, I expect BC will keep me covered. I any case, for me it's all about exploring and adventuring in the universe Blizzard has created, and hey, when I hit 70...well hopefully it will be just in time for the next expansion!

 

I'm happy with the expansion and I'm a casual player.  What helped me was using things like Thottbott and other sites so I knew where to go for questing rather than wander around like an idiot. So instead of doing a level a week like the author, I'll be doing a level about every 3-4 days.

So far though I haven't replaced but two pieces of gear and I'm nearly level 63. Prior to TBC I had tier 2 stuff, so I'm looking forward to replacing it as I move on.  About the only thing I wish they'd change about WoW atm would be the grouping hit. I really think they should reward you for grouping with exp bonuses as you add members.

Other than that I look forward to TBC keeping me busy because there's nothing else to play for a year.

How is WOW for casual players? If you don't raid you're fodder. This is a horrible editorial. Don't ever write anything again.