One of the more interesting facets in World of Warcraft's upcoming expansion Mists of Pandaria is Challenge Mode. In our latest WoW Factor, we take a look at Challenge Mode and what it means for players. Check it out and then leave your thoughts in the comments.

Instances by their own right are fun. They are a quick way to pass the time in an MMO and usually don’t take too long. Challenge Mode now comes in to give players an even faster reason to finish instances. I cannot really say how I feel about this idea in WoW. I don’t think it is bad for the game, and if anything it is one of the pieces of Pandaria that I truly like the most. The faster your team can complete a dungeon the quicker you are to getting a medal. Gold, Silver, and Bronze make up the winnings. In some ways I definitely like the challenge that this presents to players. There are several catches though.

Read more of Garrett Fuller's The WoW Factor: WoW’s Challenge.

I think Blizzard is on to something with these 'mini-games'; the entire industry is starting to realize the popularity of the pick-up and play gaming that comes from Facebook, phones, etc, and there needs to be more of that within an MMO now to be a financial giant.

Whlie I haven't played Blizzard's monster in quite some time, I give them props for giving players another thing to do within their game. These challenge dungeons seem like they might be things that are done solely for the purpose of having fun, rather than gaining some arbitrary level of progression, and we all know the genre needs a little bit more of that.

Great ... another reason for players to flex thier epeens and harass other people who are just trying to play a game as opposed to save the world.

stopped playing a while back .... and while I originally wanted Pandaren monks long ago, not sure even this would be enough to make me look back.

too many other good titles out there that have surpassed.

It's one thing a lot of themepark games overlook and subsequently find themselves hemmoraging subs quickly.

If you went to a themepark that had 2-3 rides, how long would you stay? Exactly.

WoW certainly isn't a sandbox, but it is a themepark with a ton of rides.

I remember when i enterd numerous dungeons and before i could say Hi i got told to stfu and GOGOGOGOGO.

This will make it a joke to any player and it destroys any communication within WoW, if it still had any sence of socialising it sure ends with Pandaboy's and Pokoboys expansion.

After playing the beta for MoP, it's plain to see that Street's development team have been allowed (or ordered) to completely reinvent the game. If this expansion goes through as it is, player choice will be a thing of the past. Blizzard will make most of the tough decisions FOR YOU! The developers have now chosen the path of least resistance and made the game easier for THEM to maintain. World of Warcraft has been completely Activisioned.

Instead of expanding the game, Blizzard seems bent on re-inventing it time after time. It's almost like they are sabotaging it to make way for the Titan project.

I can already see the major flaw with the system.  It will only encourage the "perfect" class makeup to run the instance.

From a design efficiency point of view, it's a lot easier to just add a competitive clock than to add/balance new tiers of difficulty or dynamic content.  It may not be the ideal update to the dungeon system, but it's probably a mechanic that can be added at a much lower cost of developer/QA time than a lot of the more fun ideas floating around.

I am going to play GW2 anyway. However, Blizzard had to deal with so many problems created by their holy gear-progression, that this does not really surprise me. Obsiously, they played GW2-beta and are very impressed by what they have seen. Now they start to copy certain stuff.

Originally posted by Mahavishnu

Obsiously, they played GW2-beta and are very impressed by what they have seen. Now they start to copy certain stuff.

It could be interesting  if blizzard try some changes but do you have any link to enforce what you are saying?

did you read something about it or do you assume ?

thanks

Originally posted by Mahavishnu

I am going to play GW2 anyway. However, Blizzard had to deal with so many problems created by their holy gear-progression, that this does not really surprise me. Obsiously, they played GW2-beta and are very impressed by what they have seen. Now they start to copy certain stuff.

They started designing the "scenarios" as a direct response to dynamic events in GW2. Of course, one "cues" for these scenarios like anything else and they are instances, but they don't require a trinity to complete.

To enter a scenario, you'll queue up for it a lot like you would a dungeon. Each scenario is designed to take roughly 10 to 30 minutes to complete. Most are some slice of the world that has been carved out, to give you things to do as a group that you normally wouldn't be able to do while questing.

In this topic: people bash WoW without even bothering to discuss the article at hand.

Its a great idea and it will reward skilled players, not people that out gear the dungeon.

I think this has more to do with the need to make heroics easier for a majority of the base that wasn't happy with heroics in cata, while giving the hardcore players something they can do so they feel like they are somehow "better" than others cause they put in some extra effort into this dungeon that other people put into stuff like college, or work, children ect.

Not saying that some good working parents are just superb gamers, but lets look at the treand you know, It's not that I am not good, its just I don't care. I stack stam on my dk tank cause it's cheap not cause I think its the best, but I can still get the job done, not so some peoples expectactions but f em.

Yeah this isn't about anything other than when the elitist go whine, blizzard can point over to challenge mode, and say "you always say skill is more important than gear, go prove it and leave the other paying customers alone"

Thats my opinion anyways.

I am interested to see what direction Blizz takes in their unannounced upcoming mmo. It seems like WoW is becoming more and more instanced/mini games and less and less of a true MMO while many upcoming titles (GW2/Tera/TSW) are , for the moment, going in a very different direction. We will see which one Blizz puts their stock in.

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

I can already see the major flaw with the system.  It will only encourage the "perfect" class makeup to run the instance.

 

I was wondering about this too.  Another reason for the boards to be flooded with 'nerf this, buff that' garbage.

I wonder about opinion pieces like this and the bloggers who write them ...

WoW has long become a hub and spoke, lobby and instance game.  While certain meta objectives have been added, WoW is much closer now to a loot based dungeon crawler than a true MMO.  In going that route, WoW's instanced / phased a lot of content in order to cater to ts many differt player types.

Second, it's good that WoW is trying to get away from stat-enhancing loot since that's its largest problem and core feature it'll unfortunately never fix.  The imbalances in gear generally render PvP obsolete because of the slanted playing field and render a lot of content irrelevant since it can be overgeared. 

Basically, WoW dumbed down the entire game industry and catered to Blizz kiddies rather than challenging people and providing a framework for people to get better.  Good business, just like Zynga games, but it doesn't provide an incredibly rewarding or enjoyable experience, which the community is finally figuring out.

WoW has clearly taken the tons of mini games into one big game approach. This is not necessarily bad. Lately I've been having more fun with games which are not so engaging and immersive. Being able to play on and off for short periods of time is big plus for me now. I can't play a game for hours on end and sometimes the constant immersion, story and all those other fillers are simply exhausting for me nowadays. I just want to kill stuff and get on with it D:

what they needed to do was upgrade those shitty graphics back when they released cata instead of remodeling nub zones that people spend a total of 20mins in if even that much since its better to just sit in town and  q for dungeons