To be honest I think this expansion was to make the game more interesting to new players... thats why they mostly just changed the vanilla world. Most people quit WoW before level 10. I mean it did work lots of people who never played before are joining evne today. MoP is suppose to be aimed for higer level player with more stuff to do at high levels. Such as challange mode dungeons, pet battles, group secnarios.

Cata was the worst of the xpacs, but I actually think MoP will be pretty good. Seeing as how Deathwing was the last true great evil and as the aspects put it " the tiem of the mortals is arriving."

Cata did do some good things.... the classes have never been this close to balanced, with hunters being the lowest only by like 3 to 4%.

MoP is really the breaking point for WoW... if they do it right more players will join and vets will come back. If they do it wrong however I beleive it may lose alot of subs, but it will never truly die.

SWTOR and Rift are good alternatives, but they do not yet have the polish that WoW has. GW2 howver dosen't really sound interesting to me.... No quests and no raids/dungeons... the whole entire game is endgame secnario only really works with sandboxes and GW2  is deffently not a sandbox. Its going to be at max level you do nothing but areanas and instanced pvp  just like the first one. This isnt a bad thing however, but lets face it most MMO players play for PVE content rather than PVP.

Firstly, who considers it a 'Failure'?

So apart from the new level cap, complete overhaul of the entire game world, about 3500 new quests, seven new dungeons, four new raids, overhaul of the glyph system, acheology (the non profession), two new races including new starting zones for other existing races and  the major cities revamped, what have the roman's......erm Blizzard ever done for us?!?

Given all of the stuff above, what were you expecting? It is still world of warcraft, it is still essentially the same game that was released back in 2004, but for me given a whole new lease of life. Running a new character with the streamlined quest chains (love the westfall quest chains) was a whole new experience in itself and having such a new experience in a game this old was worth the expansion for me as it was.

Not sure where, "most of the new map was for low level characters" bit comes from as nearly all of the 'new' areas were for the move from 80-85, where as most of the re-vamp was to smooth out the levelling process, for example, not having to run your character all the way from stormwind to southshore just to get through the next 3-4 levels.

Is the game losing some subs, yep, but i am still enjoying it and to me that is all that matters so as for the expansion being a 'failure', well it is really a matter of personal opinion rather than fact as i would be at a loss if any company selling 3.3Mill copies of their latest expansion in 24hrs considered that a failure. As far as GW2 is concerned, well how many times have games 'looked good' in the past 8 years? Let's wait until it hits before we pass judgement on that one.

Originally posted by jason_webb

Firstly, who considers it a 'Failure'?

So apart from the new level cap, complete overhaul of the entire game world, about 3500 new quests, seven new dungeons, four new raids, overhaul of the glyph system, acheology (the non profession), two new races including new starting zones for other existing races and  the major cities revamped, what have the roman's......erm Blizzard ever done for us?!?

Given all of the stuff above, what were you expecting? It is still world of warcraft, it is still essentially the same game that was released back in 2004, but for me given a whole new lease of life. Running a new character with the streamlined quest chains (love the westfall quest chains) was a whole new experience in itself and having such a new experience in a game this old was worth the expansion for me as it was.

Not sure where, "most of the new map was for low level characters" bit comes from as nearly all of the 'new' areas were for the move from 80-85, where as most of the re-vamp was to smooth out the levelling process, for example, not having to run your character all the way from stormwind to southshore just to get through the next 3-4 levels.

Is the game losing some subs, yep, but i am still enjoying it and to me that is all that matters so as for the expansion being a 'failure', well it is really a matter of personal opinion rather than fact as i would be at a loss if any company selling 3.3Mill copies of their latest expansion in 24hrs considered that a failure. As far as GW2 is concerned, well how many times have games 'looked good' in the past 8 years? Let's wait until it hits before we pass judgement on that one.

This ^^ and the game isn't losing as many subs as people think it always loses alot at the end of a xpac when MoP comes bakc out tons of more players will resub along with new players coming.

On my "Medium" population server this morning there were 70 people online Horde side, roughly double that alliance.

So 300~ people for "medium" population by the server list.

The new 5 mans are honestly pretty solid, but two somewhat-interesting dungeons at the ass end of an expansion doesn't count for a lot.

Cata actually made a lot of sense from a player retention angle.

'30% of players get to level 10 and up' - Blizz CEO

Cata was designed to get that '30%' number up. I've heard an internal number of 'aiming for 60%'.

It had good intentions and a sound business logic behind it.

For me personally, it was about dreading doing the same end-game formula over and over again. I raided/pvped for years and I simply got to the point that I dreaded getting on the treadmill all over again. Going from 80-85 was pretty cool. The new zones were good. 

---

Originally posted by jpnz
Cata actually made a lot of sense from a player retention angle.
'30% of players get to level 10 and up' - Blizz CEO
Cata was designed to get that '30%' number up. I've heard an internal number of 'aiming for 60%'.
It had good intentions and a sound business logic behind it.

---

While true, is it worth alienating your longterm fans and playerbase?

To be honest, the primary reason WOW succeeded was it had fans from Diablo 1, 2, Starcraft, Warcraft 1, 2, and 3 to draw from.

The problem with leveling is quality is closely tied to effort vs. reward, once streamlined thus removing all effort - you also remove all sense of reward and motivation, then the issue compounds upon itself.

I agree that Cataclysm really missed the mark for existing WoW players. They made a few major mistakes in my mind:

1. Focusing on adding content to attract new players instead of content aimed to please your 10-million+ subscriber base

Numbers do not lie, more players left than joined. Even if the actual numbers are less than what people are claiming it is, they have admitted themselves that the subscribers numbers are down. 

2. Putting difficulty back into a game that you already removed.

I think Blizzard pulled the rug out from under their playerbase by taking them from WoTLK blazing through heroics instances (talking 10 minute runs with a good warrior tank). Then fast forward to Cataclysm and heroics were essentially 5-person raids, stand in the wrong spot and die instantly. If they wanted to appease the hardcore crowds then make a new tier of dungeon running for them under a different name.

3. No new classes

Nothing gets people to come back to a game, or to reroll like a new class. Look at how well they implemented DKs in WoTLK, starting at lvl 55 was ingenius to lure players in. 

The changes to the talent trees, existing pvp zones, tradeskills felt very cosmetic. And not to mention another version of Capture the Flag, oh wahoo, meanwhile Rift introduces Black Garden. 

Cataclysm was disappointing to me, mostly because I loved WoTLK so much towards the end of their WoTLK content patches. If you are 10-million+ subs strong with a certain formula, add to the formula, don't rewrite it! MoP could also be good, if they don't make the same mistakes...

Originally posted by Zecktorin

Cata was the worst of the xpacs, but I actually think MoP will be pretty good. Seeing as how Deathwing was the last true great evil and as the aspects put it " the tiem of the mortals is arriving."

What about the burning Legion?

I'm sure there are some pretty bad Titans out there as well.

As a long time player, I resented getting only 5 levels and a handful of zones.  They spent our money attracting new players rather than giving existing ones a full expansion worth of leveling content.

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Originally posted by Zecktorin

Cata was the worst of the xpacs, but I actually think MoP will be pretty good. Seeing as how Deathwing was the last true great evil and as the aspects put it " the tiem of the mortals is arriving."

What about the burning Legion?

 

I'm sure there are some pretty bad Titans out there as well.

 

As a long time player, I resented getting only 5 levels and a handful of zones.  They spent our money attracting new players rather than giving existing ones a full expansion worth of leveling content.

Oh I agree with the lat part of your statement, but the Burning Legion isnt really a threat no more and I tihnk the Titans will be raid bosses and not some big threat. Deathwing really was the true last threat to Azeroth. However the aspect of time forsaw himself becoming the leader of one of the flights and bringing forth the end of the world... which may be the final xpac when we hit that 100 number for lv. Blizzard said they will stop at 100.

Cata failed becaise Vanilla-Wrath embraced all types of gamers, but Cata alienated casuals.  Whoever is at the helm for the game right now, I am sorry, but they are just stupid.  WoW's trademark used to be not alienating anybody, then Cata hit.

Originally posted by Souldrainer

Cata failed becaise Vanilla-Wrath embraced all types of gamers, but Cata alienated casuals.  Whoever is at the helm for the game right now, I am sorry, but they are just stupid.  WoW's trademark used to be not alienating anybody, then Cata hit.

Don't agree at all, as i am about as casual a player as you will find and i have been very much at home with Cataclysm due to the new areas to explore while levelling new characters, the dungeon progression is fine and to be honest it even pulled me into doing a little raiding which i haven't done for a while.

Originally posted by Souldrainer

Cata failed becaise Vanilla-Wrath embraced all types of gamers, but Cata alienated casuals.  Whoever is at the helm for the game right now, I am sorry, but they are just stupid.  WoW's trademark used to be not alienating anybody, then Cata hit.

Quite the reverse is true.

Cata introduces LFR (looking for raid) so now everyone can experience the content.

They made the dungeons in LFG give you a 15% buff to all your stats so you can do the heroics easier.

They made it so more CC can effect more things longer easier and not start combat when you CCed things, you can now sheep things without it starting combat for instance.

And these are just a few of the things they did in Cata to make it so EVERYONE could enjoy their game.

UNLIKE BC, where only 3%ish of their top players managed to down Sunwell at all?

Anyone who wants to can kill Death wing.

Originally posted by Laughing-man

Originally posted by Souldrainer

Cata failed becaise Vanilla-Wrath embraced all types of gamers, but Cata alienated casuals.  Whoever is at the helm for the game right now, I am sorry, but they are just stupid.  WoW's trademark used to be not alienating anybody, then Cata hit.

Quite the reverse is true.

Cata introduces LFR (looking for raid) so now everyone can experience the content.

They made the dungeons in LFG give you a 15% buff to all your stats so you can do the heroics easier.

They made it so more CC can effect more things longer easier and not start combat when you CCed things, you can now sheep things without it starting combat for instance.

And these are just a few of the things they did in Cata to make it so EVERYONE could enjoy their game.

 

UNLIKE BC, where only 3%ish of their top players managed to down Sunwell at all?

Anyone who wants to can kill Death wing.

When Cata released, it did not have a functional LF-Raid feature.  And the cata dungeons were not even available in LFG until you had banged out a lot of the Cata content (the water world was very isolated and very long) and had a high enough "gear score".  The dungeons were considered harder to run than most of the level 70's dungeons in normal modes.  The initial cata experience was not casual friendly at all.

Originally posted by Meltdown

 

2. Putting difficulty back into a game that you already removed.

I think Blizzard pulled the rug out from under their playerbase by taking them from WoTLK blazing through heroics instances (talking 10 minute runs with a good warrior tank). Then fast forward to Cataclysm and heroics were essentially 5-person raids, stand in the wrong spot and die instantly. If they wanted to appease the hardcore crowds then make a new tier of dungeon running for them under a different name.

 

This lesson i think they have learned. The new Twilight dungeons are much easier, and also the LFR raid.

Cata sold more copies in the first month than any of the previous expansion.. yeah real failure.

TBH everyone has an opinion just cus some ones thinks cata failed does not make it true.  I loved cata, but Wrath so far has been my fav expac.

Originally posted by Zecktorin

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Originally posted by Zecktorin

Cata was the worst of the xpacs, but I actually think MoP will be pretty good. Seeing as how Deathwing was the last true great evil and as the aspects put it " the tiem of the mortals is arriving."

What about the burning Legion?

 

I'm sure there are some pretty bad Titans out there as well.

 

As a long time player, I resented getting only 5 levels and a handful of zones.  They spent our money attracting new players rather than giving existing ones a full expansion worth of leveling content.

Oh I agree with the lat part of your statement, but the Burning Legion isnt really a threat no more and I tihnk the Titans will be raid bosses and not some big threat. Deathwing really was the true last threat to Azeroth. However the aspect of time forsaw himself becoming the leader of one of the flights and bringing forth the end of the world... which may be the final xpac when we hit that 100 number for lv. Blizzard said they will stop at 100.

I don't think you could be more wrong.  Arthas was put on the backburner until WOTLK.  Illidan until BC.  Deathwing was just pulled out of Blizzards butt and was a  great excuse to revamp the old content. 

The Burning Legion is far from done.  Their two leaders are still out there as well as their homeworld and a lot more forces then were in Outland.

The Titans are also supposed to come back but may be too powerful as enemies.

Originally posted by Zecktorin

Cata was the worst of the xpacs, but I actually think MoP will be pretty good. Seeing as how Deathwing was the last true great evil and as the aspects put it " the tiem of the mortals is arriving."

one of WOWs greatest evils is still out there

http://www.wowwiki.com/Sargeras

Sargeras is the creator and leader of the Burning Legion.

In an interview to Chris Metzen and Micky Neilson they said that "he's out there somewhere", that "you can’t put him down" and "he’s not going to stay down for long". At last Metzen said: I'd be very disappointed in us if we didn’t leverage him fully.^[11]

havent enjoyed wow since vanilla, so havent played since vanilla, long story short, this new xpac looks like they stole the movie kung fu panda into the game, just like all the other crap they ripped off from the media and shows like star trek.