Originally posted by Revnik

Kung Fu Panda - 2008

First Official Appearance of Pandaren - 2003 (Warcraft III: Frozen Throne)

I'm sick of the Kung Fu Panda nonsense. Pandaren have been around longer. Plus, there is nothing kiddie about them. They love to get drunk. 

If we are going to complain about Kung Fu Pandas, we should complain about Orcs and Humans. They have been used in other places too, except Blizzard used someone else's idea for them. Pandaren were actually Samwise Didier's creation, not Hollywood's.

QFT!!!!  I'm tired of this too!

Although they have the same roles, the way in which they do the roles are different.  From what I can gather, the Monk Tank is an evasion tank.  The Monk either avoids the damage or delays it over time so there are no huge hits on them.  The Monk DPS is much like a rogue/cat form, except there is no build up and finisher moves, it's all dps, all the time.  So it's not as spikey.  The Monk Healing relies alot of getting in the mist of battle (pun intended). You don't stand in the background healing when it's needed.  The only problem is I'm not sure if during raids if monk could be main healer based on the skills listed.

Edit: I'm going to make a Brewmaster.  I loved Chen and the Brewmaster in WC3.  I love evasion tanks.  Warden in lotro, ninja in FFXI...I love em all.

Originally posted by garrett

Forget Kung Fu Panda (I had one sentence about that).

When writing this I realized that the biggest issue with the new class is starting at Level 1.

After the Death Knight started at 55, honestly I see this as a step backwards for Warcraft.

Veteran players should be able to start Monks at 55.

Yet another example of why designing your game around end-game and making the leveling process a boring slog through the same rote quests is a Bad Thing. 

unless im mistaken,

the versatility of the monk shares more w the paladin

melee dps / tank / healer

druid:

melee dps (feral) / caster dps (boomkin) / tank / healer

Originally posted by Ardwulf
I don't think "dumbed down" is necessarily accurate either. But there's no question that a lot of character has been scrubbed out of the game in the name of streamlining and balance. One can always hope that some will cone back with the expansion, but I'm not holding my breath.

I think "dumbed down" is entirely accurate.  They went from tons of skills in the original to what just a few now?  If that is not "dumbed down" I don't know what is.  Wow used to be hard, now it is boringly easy.

And of course they make it a lot easier now to switch skillsets than it used to be.

This my kind of class. The freedom to spec how I want to fill any role I want. I love my Paladin in WoW and watched him change over the years from a Hybrid to being forced to play one role at a time. With no freedom to fill any role needed to keep the team going. I was fine with the hybrid tax of not being able to be the best at any role but the freedom of the class is what made me want to play it.

WoW IMO is buring it self out with geare treadmill and classes that are so pigon holed there is no freedom any more. Every spec is the same now. Every fire mages has the same spec, every Holly pally is the same. The saying is true, 'Only WoW can kill WoW!'

"First is the diluting down of the game into a very base format, especially in regards to character format."

Yes and no. You see they dumbed it down but kept all the bad parts. The dungeon/raid only progression, the dead on the outside world setting, and finally the trinity which has been a problem since day one for this game and many others.

"I guess that is just it, Warcraft really has become too big and too streamlined to make any drastic changes to the design."

Not really, that's their ongoing excuse tho for not adding essential upgrades until they lose 2 mil players all at once then suddenly they added new game features that have been requests by RP players since it's launch.

"On a final note, I think leveling a character from 1-80 is a lot to ask most folks that have played WoW for ages.  Why not let there be an option to start at 60? Hell, even 70 at this point?  In a time where upcoming games are literally trying to change the MMO genre as a whole, Blizzard seems to be on rinse and repeat mode in terms of game mechanics for World of Warcraft. Hopefully the next expansion will really bring the game into the next decade, but by then it may be too late. "

Yep it will be too late. They've already begun the process of alienating their players with their D3 greedy practices. Titan will most likely be their only hope when the dust from the annual pass settles. It's not going to be a pretty crash when it happens either. Leveling in that game is over-rated and boring. Instead of them forcing long time players to start at level 1 they should start at 60 at the very least, but they are too greedy to let that happen, the longer someone is online the more monthly fees they gather.

They can introduce as many classes as they want, I hate the system.

I hate that my Warrior does as much damage as a mage. The tanks all have the same hp, the dds do the same damage and all the healers heal the same amount.

WoW has no hybrids, buff-classes or off-tanks. You either go full dps, full tank or full damage and that's just boring.

The Druid is the best example. Druids could be a class that could adapt to a situation by shape-shifting. Instead, you are either a 100% bear, a 100% moonkin or a 100% healer.

Originally posted by Creslin321

It really annoys me that modern MMO's have created this mentality of...

"I don't want to have to level a new character to catch up."

It makes no sense to me that games are designed with this mentality in mind.  Because when you think about it, the content that you experience while leveling is probably like 95% of the game.  Endgame stuff is normally just a few raids and maybe heroic dungeons or whatever...in either case it involves repeating content over...and over...and over.  But the leveling content...that's the actual world!  And MMO worlds are usually huge.

So this is so stupid to me...why do people view the vast majority of the game content as just a "grind" to get to that 5% end-game where they can repeat the same raids and dungeons over...and over...?

I think the answer lies in the fact that the game will not let you do end-game stuff until you are max level...which basically separates you from your friends.  If you make a new character, you really can't play with your max level friends until you are max level.  So you just view the largest portion of game content (leveling) as a "grind" because it's standing in the way of you, and what you really want to do, which is play with your buddies.

I really hope that newer games knock these ridiculous barriers between players down.  If I want to make a new character, I should be able to play with my buddies from day 1.

Well, what you're discribing sounds just like a tiny unknown game that is launching on August 28th, the whole game is endgame not just 5% of it and yes you can play with your max level buddies from day one.

Seriously? Crying about L1 start up when leveling in WoW is so trivially easy? Especially for those with advanced characters that can twink down money and gear?

People just seem to have no spines these days. No desire to experience anything.  Travel, teleports, taxi's (rent a mounts), ships that go everywhere fast. Gimme, gimme, gimme... 

I have to agree though with part of the L1 arguement. Experience the low level Cata content? With no need to travel due to the Dungeon Finder, a person can just stand in town near a Broker and Mailbox and level from 15-90 and never take a step outside town... Just how is that experiencing the content Blizzard?

Originally posted by CyclopsSlay

Seriously? Crying about L1 start up when leveling in WoW is so trivially easy? Especially for those with advanced characters that can twink down money and gear?

 

People just seem to have no spines these days. No desire to experience anything.  Travel, teleports, taxi's (rent a mounts), ships that go everywhere fast. Gimme, gimme, gimme... 

 

I have to agree though with part of the L1 arguement. Experience the low level Cata content? With no need to travel due to the Dungeon Finder, a person can just stand in town near a Broker and Mailbox and level from 15-90 and never take a step outside town... Just how is that experiencing the content Blizzard?

The philosophy of Cataclysm was just plain weird for me; why bother revamping the old stuff to make the leveling more interesting if it's so trivial that people pretty much just blitz straight through it and go straight for raiding?

Originally posted by Revnik

Kung Fu Panda - 2008

First Official Appearance of Pandaren - 2003 (Warcraft III: Frozen Throne)

I'm sick of the Kung Fu Panda nonsense. Pandaren have been around longer. Plus, there is nothing kiddie about them. They love to get drunk. 

If we are going to complain about Kung Fu Pandas, we should complain about Orcs and Humans. They have been used in other places too, except Blizzard used someone else's idea for them. Pandaren were actually Samwise Didier's creation, not Hollywood's.

Pandas in wc3 wern't monks and couldn't be monks 

Also yes I think it was dumbed down in Cata I used to roll a pally/Shockadin which doesn't exist anymore. To me I lost intrest then.