Innovation is an overvalued score in games.  It's about "fun" not "trying to be different".  GW2 was different, but it forgot about or ignored true character progression.  Rift should get an innovation score of 1 or 2 and that alone would cripple its score. 

You can't accurately review or score MMOs in based on bullet point items.  In the end it doesn't matter because I can't imagine anyone will decide whether or not to buy MoP based on this review. 

It's an awesome expansion in nearly every fashion.  I haven't regretted logging in yet, and there is at least 5x more content to do endgame than all of the previous expansion combined.  The only problem I have is the way gear is being distributed this time around, as it appears to be even worse than the Burning Crusade Model, which was their original aim (I actually preferred the original vanilla model, even though all my toons had green gear except for my officer in blues).  Now it's just a month grind of dailies to unlock worse items than what is in heroics, and they cost significant justice and valor to boot.

I tried accessing my old rift character in the open beta (well, I wasn't able to, but got a few premades from fluffy), but the combat in rift is so horribly bad that I had to quit after experiencing the main facet that interested me with the split dimensions.  It just doesn't have any  "umphf" in the spells or the attacks compare to WoW or even FFXIV (which is sad).  Said combat is what keeps me interested in experience awesome new combat, but it just seems like a poor man's WoW system and that really turns me off; I forgot that that was one of the major turnoffs I had after I got to max level when playing with my associates in the past.  :/

Hoping Neverwinter's combat is fun as the forge looks interesting as well.  At least FFXIV 2.0 has much more entertaining combat to look forward to than its previous version had.

Funny how WoW can continue to receive these less-than-stellar scores and yet still be the #1 MMO.

While other MMO's such as SWTOR and GW2 receive higher scores, both of those games are dead or dying (active current players for GW2).

I suppose it's hard to find an unbiased reviewer, even if it is his job. We are all human, or at least supposed to be. I suppose since this site is the home of many anti-wow people, the review was aimed at keeping them happy. Way to go.

Going back on a recent ten day MoP trial it struck me after playing Rift , GW2 and Lotro just how easy it is to kill endagme mobs . Its still an undoubtedly polished game but as someone with an 8 year perspective of WoW it really lacks challenge now . ( yeah yeah I know theres some challenge endgame heroics but you have to wade through 90 levels of facepalm ease to get to them ) . For me there are better games out there now .Rift with its new expansion will offer a game world roughly the size of WoW in its TBC period it also has all the soul trees that you can tailor to your own hearts desire .

I seriously would love to see an updated episode of South Park focusing on WoW and how easy its become . Maybe along the lines of the Indiana Jones one . Wouldn't you just love to see Butters get his own back on Cartmen for teasing him about player Hello Kitty Island . Maybe call it " Warcraft what is it good for ? " along the lines of the of the Edwin Star song . ( hey that would be a great youtube video too ) .

Joking aside I still like the pvp in WoW still some of the best in any mmo .

Originally posted by Ozmodan

First off in all the years of playing Warcraft and Wow, I never ever saw a panda, so it might have been in the lore, just not in the games.  Panda's was all about the chinese preferences and of course the popularity of kung-fu panda.  It was a real stretch if you ask me.

The changes in the talent system killed the game far as I am concerned.  Everyone is a cookie cutter build now.  Worst decision Blizzard ever made IMO.  It adds nothing to the game and takes away alot.  Anyone trying to argue there are more choices is wearing blinders.

They did a nice job on the expansion, but I would not rate it over 7.5, just really nothing new except for the monk class.

 

I agree that they're quite alien to the warcraft lore, but the pandas existed since Warcraft 3 (rts). The Panda Brewmasters were mercenary heroes you could hire. 

i.e. Pandaren made their appearance in Azeroth 2 years before WoW and 6 years before Kung Fu Panda

That said, I don't really see how they blend with the lore and I also didn't like the way they dumbed down the talents

When I first saw the commercial for MoP I thought that they were going to introduce the Pandas as a Third Faction and that would be a totally brillliant move that would bring WOW gameplay up to date with all the other more recent games.

When it launched and I discovered that it was the same old Hoard/Alliance nonsense that has been around for 8-9 years I was seriously angry that their own commercial lied to me.

I think MoP was a serious disappointment and a major misstep on Blizzards part. They could have reentered the modern MMO world but they just threw it away.  People say that only Blizzard can defeat WOW and they sure did it this time.

Originally posted by GwapoJosh

Originally posted by halflife25

Originally posted by GwapoJosh

Originally posted by Rimmersman

And no matter what WOW is still top dog lol.

 

It's top dog because parents use it to babysit their kids..

Let the generalizations and 'wow is for kiddies' nonsense begin.

I was just wondering how no one posted it yet. Thanks for not dissapointing us.

You are very welcome ;)  It's my seven year old son's game of choice as well as his classmates..  "So easy a caveman could do it."

So your seven year old plays WOW and somehow it is top dog only because of these kids? think before you post. You are trying to imply that majority of people who play WOW are kids..based on what? your own experince with your son?

Not denying that kids don't play these MMOS., hell i have seen 10 to 12 years old in my previous GW2 guild. But without any repectable data stop using such generalizations to mock WOW player base.

Come on man you are grown up man with a kid. But you come across as very immature and childish when you say stuff like this. Now you will tell me that majority who play GW2 are grown ups. You seems to have acess to lot of internal data it seems.

yet again this site proves me that is anti-wow (who cares ?? )

i'm looking at twich tv and see after 1 month MoP is in top 5 with the most viewers snd gw2 has less then 1k  (ha ha ha ha !!!!) so people are still interest in it. And aboust score it is funny because wow still has millions of players and those with hight scores are falling :)):)) so the score doesn't matter only the fun factor

While I still recognize WoW as a great game and one of the best ever made... I haven't played MoP, and don't intend to. The main reason is that as someone who loves PvP, I'm disappointed that they've kept instances (arena, battlegrounds) as their focus. That doesn't cut it for me, and I will never buy an MMO that's PvP is instanced gear grinds.

"Blizzard never launches an unpolished product. Seriously, it doesn’t"

The writer actually wrote that with a straight face. Obviously the writer never played WoW at launch. It was FAR from smooth. And let's not forget about a lil failed game called Diablo III.

with a playerbase that large its no suprise it got so many hits.

WoW the mmo for the 8 year old and catering to the asian playerbase.

An honest set if questions for you Garret.

Did you did some battlegrounds lately  ? more bots then players.

Did you level up profesions lately ? daily daily daily daily daily daily, twice as much if you also have an alt with profesion ragequit when you have all profesions.

Did you joined random dungeons with these wow kids ? getting flamed and griefed to death on the spot ?

Yet a positive number for social ? it should have been -10

Clearly you love wow for what it is now, an empty shell of a once epic game.

iam glad i dropped WoW last summer and havent missed it one bit.

The last 3 years i came back only to find i regret the decision the moment i stepped into a dungeon or battleground.

Even Rob Pardo was needed to start repairing all the damage caused by Ghostcrawler.

To each his own taste, but for me and many guildies MoP is a 8 yer old kiddo pack, nothing more nothing less.

I'd say this is a fair review, WoW is WoW and it will never stray to far from the path it laid down, and it is getting old. But as far as entertainment goes it is still very good value for your money and the basic art style have made it age a lot better then many other games that wnet for a more realistic design.

But i highly doubt we will see any major changes to the core play style of the game.

Originally posted by Mothanos

 

WoW the mmo for the 8 year old and catering to the asian playerbase.

 

To each his own taste, but for me and many guildies MoP is a 8 yer old kiddo pack, nothing more nothing less.

 

I have seen this pattern many times. People want to express their anger by generalising and putting labels like 'kiddies', 'carebear', 'ultra casuals' on WOW players. Just on last page someone said similar things and he cliams to have a 7 year old kid.

I mean do you guys even realise the irony in your posts? because when you make such gross generalisations you are surely not giving us an impression that you are grown up and mature individuals.

Why all the generalisations? if i say GW2 is full of kiddies and made to appease asian players because soon they have to release the game in China you will rip me a new one.

Nothing is more ironics than GW2 fans flaming WOW and calling it casual, kiddie and made for asians MMO.

Originally posted by rodingo
Interesting. It's funny how some people chose to drag GW2 into this discussion and it wasn't even by fans but by the usual suspects who typically bash it.  Did the release of GW2 really scar some of you people that much? Sheesh.

Maybe because these hardcore GW2 fans are very easy to spot? and it is hard to ignore the irony in their post. It is not about being scarred but double standards and hypocricy.

Like.... 'exploration in GW2 is all about fun not loot' but in case of WOW  'exploration is meaningless because it doesn't offer rewards'

or GW2 fans flaming WOW player base for being casuals and kids.

Originally posted by GwapoJosh

Originally posted by Rimmersman

And no matter what WOW is still top dog lol.

 

It's top dog because parents use it to babysit their kids..

Looking at you signature, you know what you are talking about for sure :D

Originally posted by Mothanos

with a playerbase that large its no suprise it got so many hits.

 

WoW the mmo for the 8 year old and catering to the asian playerbase.

An honest set if questions for you Garret.

 

 

Did you did some battlegrounds lately  ? more bots then players.

 

Did you level up profesions lately ? daily daily daily daily daily daily, twice as much if you also have an alt with profesion ragequit when you have all profesions.

 

Did you joined random dungeons with these wow kids ? getting flamed and griefed to death on the spot ?

 

Yet a positive number for social ? it should have been -10

 

Clearly you love wow for what it is now, an empty shell of a once epic game.

iam glad i dropped WoW last summer and havent missed it one bit.

The last 3 years i came back only to find i regret the decision the moment i stepped into a dungeon or battleground.

 

Even Rob Pardo was needed to start repairing all the damage caused by Ghostcrawler.

To each his own taste, but for me and many guildies MoP is a 8 yer old kiddo pack, nothing more nothing less.

 

Which game do you and your guildies play?

Polish 10 - "Blizzard never launches an unpolished product. Seriously, it doesn’t.".

Yeah as ever. At least by Blizzard PR standards. Literally hundred of threads with thousands of player complaining about horribly broken design conflicts and bugs  from an obviously mostly untested new "temporary servermerge" system they call "crossrealm zones" for weeks and continued complaints until today. Thousand of player facing lag spikes, spastic server zone switching, time based quests and events bugged, ingame time broken, PvE and RP player being ganked by highlevl PvP player in their save zones until Blizzard even fixed the most basic obvious issues that could have appeared, disconnects, broken gathering and broken PvP, certainly sound like their most hyped feature after the Kung Fu Pandas was "done" when it was released to the public..

But hey someone has to keep up that great myth about Blizzards "polish". If not Blizzards PR bureau or the handful of fanbois delusional enough to believe it, then at least some dependant reporter

I wonder how you will twist tomorrows comparatively  weak MOP sales reports into anything other than the game going downhill.

 

Originally posted by halflife25

Originally posted by GwapoJosh

Originally posted by halflife25

Originally posted by GwapoJosh

Originally posted by Rimmersman



And no matter what WOW is still top dog lol.

 

It's top dog because parents use it to babysit their kids..

Let the generalizations and 'wow is for kiddies' nonsense begin.

I was just wondering how no one posted it yet. Thanks for not dissapointing us.

You are very welcome ;)  It's my seven year old son's game of choice as well as his classmates..  "So easy a caveman could do it."

So your seven year old plays WOW and somehow it is top dog only because of these kids? think before you post. You are trying to imply that majority of people who play WOW are kids..based on what? your own experince with your son?

Not denying that kids don't play these MMOS., hell i have seen 10 to 12 years old in my previous GW2 guild. But without any repectable data stop using such generalizations to mock WOW player base.

Come on man you are grown up man with a kid. But you come across as very immature and childish when you say stuff like this. Now you will tell me that majority who play GW2 are grown ups. You seems to have acess to lot of internal data it seems.

 

 The honest objective answer:  WoW is trying to appeal to children currently, but that doesn't mean its just for children.  It's a simple business decision.  Also the adults playing WoW I think are doing mostly because they've put so much time into the game and they feel if they leave all that time was "wasted".

The score should be around a 5 or a 6, but Blizzard advertises here so.... OMG pet battle keeps the score up!  I also believe GW2 was like a 7.

For those that are unaware, you can play the Pandarian starting zone completely FREE with the free trial account. It's, IMO, the best starting zone WoW has released.

You won't be able to play a MONK, but you can play any other class available to Pandarians.