Man, looking back at this is something else.  I remember playing DAOC and starting to hear people say WoW all the time.  Had no idea what they were talking about.  Then a guildie told me and got me in the beta.  I tested in the beta for a few months,

(I say tested...not just play4free) didn't like the cartoonishness of it and still liked DAOC's gameplay better.  Then WoW came out, my entire guild quit, so I followed. Quit a month later.....5-6 years later and WoW is some huge mutant gorilla on the block that overshadowed and killed pretty much every other MMO out there.  Who woulda thought it?

It'd be great if Blizzard added an in-game damage meter so that people who don't know any better can see how they perform compared to thers and maybe realize just how far behind they are andm hopefully, encourage them to improve.

Someone doing 5k dps in a heroic has no idea how bad that is unless they see that the rest of the group is doing twice that.

Originally posted by ArghosODF

 

No offense, but players like you would probably be every bit as happy playing a console game. Keep repeating the same content over and over until you know exactly what to do at every second of every encounter and then can execute it perfectly. Somehow this gets equated to "skill." Unfortunately, it's not, it's learning something by rote and then perfecting it, like good penmanship. If the term "skill" can be applied to gaming in any context, it would be in regards to being able to react to an unexpected situation, assess what the challenges are and quickly devise a successful strategy to overcome it.

THIS is what's lacking in WoW....totally. Blizzard designs their encounters to be beaten a specific way using strategies the devs have devised and the players have merely discovered. The key making it any fun at all is to have things more random and allow the players to be creative in overcoming the situation, rather than just following Blizzard's script.

This sounds like it comes from a place of inexperience with content that is actually difficult.  Sure, there are strategies out there for tackling bosses, but those are often created by players.  Have you ever raided and defeated a boss before wowhead gives you the step-by-step guide?  What about defeating a boss while it is current without a completely stacked raid?

That whole concept aside, how would you plan on implementing a system like this?  Would each boss have a set number of mechanics from a pile of choices?  Wouldn't that just mean that the raiders would have to figure out which mechanics they were going to deal with?  So you want players who have to tackle mechanics on the fly?  Try raiding new content with no guide.  That's exactly the time I like playing WoW the most. 

Figuring out a boss before the mechanics are posted in detail is what makes the game fun for me.  If you think that scripted encounters aren't fun and don't require skill, I'm not sure what MMOs you would like.

As far as console games so, they do not offer the same group co-op experience that I enjoy, sorry. 

 

 

So at level 85, what's fun is doing the same dailies over and over, while you wait to do the same raid/instance, over and over, to get gear that will be obsolete the day the next expansion comes out, however many years that may be? Three responses to this : A) see above; B) if PvP were to break out a little more often, that would make things a lot more interesting...unfortunately, most people just sit around and whine about the nasty hordies killing the auctioneers and; C) don't you get any sense of futility from all that?

I do not get a sense of futility.  I enjoy new challenges and getting rewarded for overcoming those challenges.  Why play any game that has expansions if you don't like upgrading your gear.  Every game out there, when expanded, offers new content and new items/powers that replace the old ones.  If you think that it is worthless, don't play it.  But, honestly, you can't use upgrading as a reason the game isn't fun.

If you want PvP to break out more often, I'm not sure how to help you there.  Battlegrounds and Rated BGs/Arenas are more fun now than in the past (for me).  The changes to the MS debuff and addition of different mechanics for healers and dps really makes it a challenge.  Sure, some teams are over-powered, but balancing such a complex system is pretty difficult, from what I've noticed.

 

 Ummm....flying around Azeroth, time sinking your day away for 2 minutes of activity when you get to your destination is somehow fun? I don't even have a level 85 yet, mainly by choice (sort of my way of protesting how much of a failure Cata turned out to be) and I've seen every bit of the world content except some of Uldum, which I haven't bothered with because I lost interest. I already have my Explorer title, why bother? And even if I took the 10 minutes to fly over that little bit, what do I explore then?

 

Haha, I'm going to top here then.  This paragraph shows that you have just not experienced the 85 content.  How can I accept an honest opinion of something you've just experienced vicariously through other players and posts on forums.  The dungeons and raids at the end game are so much different than they were in previous expansions.  If you play them, you'll realize that skill really does factor in to how much you accomplish.

 

If you really want to come back and tell me that the grind isn't worth the outcome, at least reach and experience that outcome before you tell me how terrible it is.

 

Originally posted by Solestran

Developers as a whole are nothing but lazy assed gits.  Incapable of developing an end game that isn't completely focused on PvE and PvP based raiding.

 Try to do better with all their boundaries. Whining is easy when you give no better solutions. 

Originally posted by Kuinn

Originally posted by retrospectic

What you are describing here is Guild Wars, not World of Warcraft.  The problem you seem to keep going back to is a purely player choice problem.  You are sitting in a city when there is a world around you that you can explore and kill things in.  Heck, there is even a new tradeskill that gives you something to fly around and do while the queue is ticking. 

 

 

Really I understand your point of view to most of the stuff you said in the full quote of this, but I was trying to give mine from the perspective where mmorpg means a big game world where people do stuff, out there, which defines the game and the genre. Instancing everything meaningful does not make a game bad, WoW is not a bad game imo, but saying "The actual world of Azeroth remains one of WoW’s strongest assets" is a bit too much, in a game that centers around stuff that you could do just fine by lobby only.

 I agree that much of the things I enjoy could come from a lobby.  I also agree that the world is not the game's strongest asset.  Although, the update to the 1 - 60 world was (I think) one of the best updates they've done to the existing world.

"The reason I enjoy WoW is because it isn't a lack of content, but more the difficulty of the current content." It's true, if you love instances/raids most, WoW is a paradise. If you are looking for other stuff to do in a mmorpg fashion, out there, and maybe non instanced, there's basically nothing for you in WoW after leveling. It's all trivial, like professions and such that you grind up, you cant compare them to the only meaningful content that is done 100% instanced PvE and PvP.

Ok fine, I'll agree here too.  Although I think you'd be hard pressed to get me to agree that it should be worked on more.  I like the amount of time they spend on making meaningful and difficult encounters in pve.  If they spent time trying to make more stuff for the world explorer or some other niche I'd be a bit miffed. 

Talking of GW in sense of upcoming games as I said, I dont know how guild wars 2 will turn out, but at least it's trying to provide openworld content with events where random people or a bunch of friends stumbles on and you have to find out what's going on and then solve the situation, and you can have multiple outcomes. Just to name one, and that's a huge one. It alone gives a huge purpose for the open world besides leveling. Even at max level you want to go out there and find all kinds of odd situations and events to complete and face the consequences. In WoW I know what's out there without even going there, as sure as I know that meaningful rewards comes from instanced/raid badges as gear and gear.

 I'd like to see this idea in practice.  It would really depend on how random these events really were.  You know someone out there would power through the areas hunting for random events just to unlock their rewards.  Would that mean less events for the casual player?  Probably.  But, like I said, I'd have to see it.

Again I want to say I really dont think or say WoW is a bad game, it's a great game, but it's also a game where if you loose interest in instances, you realize there's nothing left. It has plenty of instances in all shapes and sizes so it's all good as long as you like them, but still, even if it's one of the best definitions of a succesfull game, it's not the best definition of a mmorpg. It's a great game, but a simple mmorpg. Blizzard has said them self they have so big core flaws in the engine they cant really develop and expand WoW as much as they'd like to (the perfectly static world for one, phasing as emergency aid), and they also said they have adressed this in Titan for a lot more flexible engine and experience, cant wait for that for one.

 

Originally posted by elocke

This didn't mention anything about what they did wrong.  How about the fact that once you hit 60 outlands and northrend feel like you are stepping back in time and it feels a complete waste to level from 60-80.  Or how about how boring and dull endgame is because it hasn't changed at all and only caters to the overly hardcore raiding playerbase.  To me these are glaring issues with WoW and it won't be FUN again until these 2 aspects are changed.

 

Buy this man a beer I thought Id have to read through a tonne of comments before I got to someone with this decent simple insight.

I would have stayed for a while if they had actually created new classes.  Who gives a hoot about new races.  That held my attention for about 2 hours...

Back to Rift :)

Originally posted by elocke

because it hasn't changed at all and only caters to the overly hardcore raiding playerbase. 

 

You jest, surely?

How much easier does it need to be? Click a lever and the boss drops epics?

I love to do alts in wow. I had two issues with 1 to 60 content in Cata.

1: You level to quick and out grow the content in the zone by the time your half done with it.

2: It was to easy and brought zero challenge.

It's a shame for I liked the lore and how the story flowed in each zone with the new quest lines. I didn't like doing green / grey quests that came along before I was half way done with the zone. My choices were to skip content to try and keep my quest orange and yellow to get some kind of challenge or stay in the zone and do the green and grey quests and be bored to death. 

Both of these options were not to my taste so I quit.  Thank god Rift came along and brought some spark back to the MMO game that has been missing for quite some time for me. 

Originally posted by retrospectic

A.) Ok fine, I'll agree here too.  Although I think you'd be hard pressed to get me to agree that it should be worked on more.  I like the amount of time they spend on making meaningful and difficult encounters in pve.  If they spent time trying to make more stuff for the world explorer or some other niche I'd be a bit miffed. 

B.)  I'd like to see this idea in practice.  It would really depend on how random these events really were.  You know someone out there would power through the areas hunting for random events just to unlock their rewards.  Would that mean less events for the casual player?  Probably.  But, like I said, I'd have to see it.

A.) It's not up to funds at least, I'm sure no one can argue against that, I mean, to work on something else too, something to support their open world (I like warcraft lore, the original one mostly, and I'd love to see the world more alive).

B.) I need to see it too, I dont know how it will turn out, but at the very least it sounds like something to look forward, if it works as they advertise it. If I see a village under attack, then defend it, and the villagers are thankful and nice, and I come there later, and it's overrun by -insert here- there could be even emotional factor to the event, which would be cool. Anyway, if the village gets attacked at all, to begin with, it's a step in right direction instead of villages that for guaranteed will never ever get hit by even the critters. That is, from immersion perspective. As we know static-everything works too but I'm sure there's a big audience for stuff like this too.

Originally posted by archer75

What they should have done was kept the old world intact for 1-60 then when you complete northrend and return to the old world then phase it to the way it is now in cata but with levels 80-100.  They already have the quests and content of the cataclysm so it's just a matter of changing levels.  

That way you have more levels, more end game content and it preserves the storyline as well.

 

exactly

Originally posted by Psychow

It'd be great if Blizzard added an in-game damage meter so that people who don't know any better can see how they perform compared to thers and maybe realize just how far behind they are andm hopefully, encourage them to improve.

 

Someone doing 5k dps in a heroic has no idea how bad that is unless they see that the rest of the group is doing twice that.

And in WoW is 99% percent based on gear (time sink) and 1% on skill.

the scrubbage is strong in this thread. Join guilds and stop whining about how hard the game is. If you made it to 85 you should know how your class works.

Funny I thought the worst thing of Cataclysm was the change to talents.  With the old system at least you had a choice in making your character somewhat unique, now everyone is cookie cutter.   

I had not played since the original game so I did not have any elite equipment made obsolete, but the gear chase is boring so is the rep system.  When SWTOR releases their subscriber base is going to take a huge hit.

Originally posted by Solestran

Developers as a whole are nothing but lazy assed gits.  Incapable of developing an end game that isn't completely focused on PvE and PvP based raiding.

 

What should the end-game be focused on? Leveling?

Most of you claim "WoW sucks now because it's soo easy! It's catering to x people". No. The real problem is that you are finally getting bored with WoW. You are finally realizing that you are playing the same exact thing you started playing x years ago. Only difference is the mobs are bigger/smaller, hit harder/weaker, have a couple new mechanics that wouldn't have been thought possible when WoW was first released. 

Many of you people who have played for 6 years are trying to get that feeling you orginially had back. That feeling of something new, something exciting. You will never get that feeling back with WoW. Never. It's just the result of WoW being 6 years old now.

Bookworm is correct, wow has improved, but there's only so long you can play a single game without getting burnt out.

I quit ages ago but i harbour no i'll will to wow as a game.

Honestly, I started right about the last 5 months of TBC so  I was a little late to the party. I did enjoy the game but I was a more casual, paying for maybe a month every once in a while.  I got a little more into WotLK because I got more bang for my buck. When cata came, I was like "Sweet! New content!" and I expected great things from what Blizzard promised. Thing is though, I found myself caring about what to spec into, what stats I need, being hit capped, all that jazz. The game simply became a calculator fest in my downtime. Even when I did PvP (which was more enjoyable because it was SLIGHTLY less predictable), the combat was still all about who had the highest dps. Maybe I'm just biased by Guild Wars, but when it all came down to it, I simply got bored of caring solely on how much damage I do. That's really all the endgame has to offer.

stopped to play WoW as I found Cata epic fail. Whole game messed up & end game is just boring grind or, even worse, nothing at all to do.

it pity as I liked WoW...