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World of Warcraft - Learning from Past Releases
MMORPG.com's World of Warcraft Correspondent Darren Bridle files this report that takes a look at what Blizzard could learn from their first expansion, Burning Crusade and apply to the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King.
Blizzard is set to release a new expansion for its world renowned MMO and questions need to be answered. How big do you make it? What type of player do you cater to? Are there more raids, more mobs, more loot! However the real question should be, “What have you learned from The Burning Crusade?”
What didn't work
Location location location!
It’s clear that moving away from Azeroth, away from the lands of Dwarves, Elves, Goblins, Orcs and the like, was possibly a wrong move. It was a brave adventure that almost paid off. Moving away from traditional character backgrounds and giving a detached feeling from the mainland really was its failing. Wrath of the Lich King (WOTLK) has a big bonus; it’s ripped straight from Warcraft 3 and contains proven lore and strong character backgrounds. Die hard Warcraft fans will instantly feel comfortable on the new continent of Northrend. The team working on WOTLK is huge and contains personnel that have worked from as far back as the original game, this is really important in terms of deciding what works, what doesn’t working, and keeping a consistent feel across the expansions. But what about arriving there on day one, along with 9 million other people…
Release day blues
On the release of TBC, every player on every server had to go through one portal and battle through the same zone to kick off the levelling frenzy. In WOTLK, you enter Northrend via a Zepplin however you will not see a scene reminiscent of “how many people can you fit in a Mini Cooper”, because players will arrive in one of two zones; Howling Fjord or Borean Tundra, essentially cutting, in half, the massive number of players eagerly setting a precious first step into the new world. This is a valuable lesson from the release of TBC.
The Secret of Illidan
In TBC, the main arch villain was Illidan. You heard about the guy everywhere, weapons, quests, NPCs and monsters all named after the elusive Illidan. But the only time you ever get to see Illidan is to kill him in Black Temple. Rubbish! Blizzard admitted that they were too protective over Illidan. An important change in terms of perception is about to take place. For 99% of the World of Warcraft community, the story was never really started let alone finished, it just kind of started in the middle, and followed what can only be called fragmented quest lines. And the only way you hear about how it all ends is from the remaining 1% - hardcore raiders. With WOTLK, you will be able to learn about the main character – Arthas - as well as see him and talk to him from the second you step foot on the new continent. The quests will have smoother transitions and storyline that flows better. That with the background of Warcraft 3 : The Frozen Throne, means that we are in for a great story and some really interesting quests to dig our teeth into.
What did work?
Blizzard has been quoted saying that they are happy with how Auchindoun Spirit Towers and Halaa in Nagrand worked. Having PvP areas within a zone that benefit everybody for that particular faction worked really well. Realising the positive effect of such areas prompted adding an entire non instanced PvP zone, Lake Wintersgrasp in WOTLK. The new zone features siege warfare and destructible buildings, meaning players can enjoy a much more engrossing PvP atmosphere. That’s quite a step up from controlling a couple of towers. Hopefully further down the line, we will start to see more risk in PvP rather than simply a ghost or a lost objective.
Caverns of Time was a big success in the “what worked” department for Blizzard. Trapping various events in time forever is a great way to explain how past story lines come together to have effect in the current world. With WOTLK, the story of Arthas is retold in “The culling” using Stratholme as an additional “captured in time” dungeon. Using this way of telling stories from the past, players will find out just exactly what happened to Stratholme to turn it into such a forlorn place.
Raiding
TBC introduced smaller raid zones. Originally raid zones were built for raid sizes up to 40, Blizzard reduced this to 25 and added two zones for a raid size of 10. It was quickly realised that the 10 man zones were extremely popular and had many of the complexities of 25 man zones (Take Zul’Aman compared with Gruul’s Lair). In order to take what worked for the new raid zones in TBC, Blizzard has created several raid zones that have the option of either raiding it with 10 or raiding it with 25, with the only change being the difficulty tuning. Essentially, the strategy will remain the same, with the same event scripts. This is a big step for the game that currently has a huge separation between guilds that can complete 25 man raids and guilds that continue to complete 10 man raids with no desire for larger style events. Additionally, if you look back on what I talked about with the quests, it will no longer be the 1% of the game that can witness the final demise of Arthas (assuming slaughter him). Instead, since it can be completed on a 10 man (again another assumption), then it opens the content to a lot more of the player base.
Trade Skills
Without knowing too much about trade skills other than the crafting levels going up to 450 and quotes along the lines of “bigger and better stuff!”, the addition of inscriptions is certainly a new and extremely innovative idea. Not only does it mean bringing in tons of new spells which make the old spells redundant, but it means having sets of new spells along with increased old ones, giving spell casters a huge arsenal of potential spells to look forward to.
Conclusion
This article is about lessons learned, not necessary about new content, which is why there is no mention of the hero class being added. WOTLK’s biggest success is going to come from Warcraft 3 : Frozen Throne, it’s a long time favourite with Blizzard’s core fan base. However, since it has proven to be successful, even those that do not follow the lore and storyline that closely, will still find an excellent expansion and part of this will be down to the lessons learned from its big and somewhat awkward brother, The Burning Crusade.
They say we learn more from failure than success... but it is slightly humerous to talk about millions of boxes sold (TBC) and millions of subscribers (WoW Current) as a failure :). Still, one of the reasons they stay on top is that they are constantly trying to learn and improve.
"Wrath of the Lick King" ? LOL! Maybe they can get Gene Simmons to do his voice?
I stopped reading at
"It was a brave adventure that almost paid off. Moving away from traditional character backgrounds and giving a detached feeling from the mainland really was its failing."
only cause I missed the Lick King... I'd have cleared the cache, closed the browser and formatted the hard disk in that case...
WoW, that typo got fixed fast... Ever get the feeling you're being watched? ;-)
I think all these gaming companies are feeling the AoC "pinch". And further trying to make excuses. Not the some of them are valid. However, it's trying to diver to a class of customer with too high expectations. So, what do you do...but try to lower them a bit. I bet marketing just hates doing that.
Am I the only person who likes TBC? I love flying around all of the floating Islands and stuff, in fact it's about the only part of the game that I do like. I guess that's why I don't play anymore. Oh well, I'll just wait for Aion.
But 1 thing i truly like is this part :
" With WOTLK, you will be able to learn about the main character – Arthas - as well as see him and talk to him from the second you step foot on the new continent."
Though i still wont be killing him
I don't think that any company, regardless of the volume of product has sold, can really get by without reevaluating its product on the basis that it has flaws. World of Warcraft is pop culture phenomenon in a way that no other game has been. I think that on its own has contributed to its success in North America where gaming hasn't always been deemed socially acceptable.
Vanilla WoW was a game of haves and have-nots, and Burning Crusades has turned out to be vastly different in design. I think its great that they decided to set a partition between raiding and pvp.. thus making them separate paths, but I don't think certain aspects of both were able to keep the same luster it had before the release of BC.
Release day blues? As a BC beta tester I can say that it was predicted a hundred times over, and Zangarmarsh was offered up as an early release valve. I think there was plenty of flavor all around, but the author was right by suggesting that adding in an alien (feeling) new world only detracted from the previous world that players came to love.
I have to say that personally I enjoyed 10 man raids far more then the 40 man raids of the past. I like being involved, and there is far more sense of teamwork when everyone is vital to the cause. There was definitely a different feel to larger raids that I didn't really care for, and in my mind its far more epic that a 10 man/woman team could rock the biggest baddie out there.
Hmm Aion is from NCsoft in Korea and guess what Koreans enjoy in the games, grind, grind and more grind. Sorry if I find your comment a bit funny as if grind is so much more fun.
Wow is certainly not perfect, nor will this new expansion be either, but when you stack it up against other games, it just owns them.
So go enjoy the other games you like and have fun. Attempting to riducule Blizzard or Wow is an effort in the ridiculous. It just makes you look like a wanna be. Wow is not for everyone, but it certainly satisfies most of the players in this market far better than anything else out there.
Someday one of the development companies will wake up and provide a real challenge to Wow, until then it is in fact the 800 lbs gorilla.
Hmm Aion is from NCsoft in Korea and guess what Koreans enjoy in the games, grind, grind and more grind. Sorry if I find your comment a bit funny as if grind is so much more fun.
Wow is certainly not perfect, nor will this new expansion be either, but when you stack it up against other games, it just owns them.
So go enjoy the other games you like and have fun. Attempting to riducule Blizzard or Wow is an effort in the ridiculous. It just makes you look like a wanna be. Wow is not for everyone, but it certainly satisfies most of the players in this market far better than anything else out there.
Someday one of the development companies will wake up and provide a real challenge to Wow, until then it is in fact the 800 lbs gorilla.
Dude, he said he liked TBC. There have been far more negative posts about WoW; Ugottawantit's was pretty upbeat in comparison to most.
Coupled with a bit of ignorance about the design direction of Aion, this reaction sounds even worse than a typical knee-jerk fanboi defense rant.
Strange it doesnt mention equipment gap as a failing from WOW to TBC. Does that mean our current lvl 70 epics will once again be out-done by Northrend lvl 71/72 greens come WOTLK?!
I don't think that the dev meant that TBC was a failure. Merely that the developement team had taken a long, hard look at what was popular, and 'seemed to work for the WoW players' with its first expansion, and use that info as a starting place for developing Wrath.
I know what he means when he says the 'other worldly' aspect of TBC. I hate The Exodus, and don't like the Drenai as a whole. I do love TBC though, and it is good that you can go to this other dimension for awhile, but equally, I am glad that for the second expansion we will be returning to Azeroth, and Northrend.
TBC had a much more 'story-themed' feel to it, that I loved. The NPC's spoke a lot more, although more actual speech ala EQ2 would have been cool. This new expansion seems to be going to elaborate on this theme even further, which has the big thumbs up from me. I love the narration and cut-scenes you get when you make a new character, and I would like to see a lot more of those in this expansion, as I feel it helps with immersion.
I play for these games for the escapism aspect, not the competitive rush for uber gear. I couldn't care less about stats. The story comes first with me (although I do respect other people have their own preferences, and the bulk of these will be stat orientated).
To me, it looks as though it is going more down the road of Lord of the Rings Online. Which is a good thing in my mine - oops fruedian slip there!
Won't be touching the new expansion with a barge pole, let alone wow anymore.
New expansion only means the same thing - new content with the same old routine, more bugs that will get ignored for another 2 years, like the pre-TBC and the current TBC issues, exploitation of the players by breaching their own ToS, taking yet more money from players wallets. Last but not least, everyone's favorite friend, the nerf bat to knock players down another notch when they realize they forgot to scale things properly, again.
No thanks, ever.
There are better games, with a tad less graphics that cost far less to play.
what is odd, is that blizzard is STILL acknowledging that 1% (or possibly less and it was rounded up?) of the playerbase engages in raids. yet, they still are adding larger (25man) raids...
why?
You can't fault WoW. You can only outgrow it...then again, there's not much greener grass anywhere else.
...because they're tailoring the raids for 10- and 25-man groups, in the same dungeon. That opens up "raiding" to the unwashed, non-hardcore masses, much like Karazhan and (arguably) Zul'Aman did, and dumps that prior 1% in with an even larger proportion of generic players.
I can see why Bliz are doing it this way but, personally, I liked being in a guild that was able to 1-shot Nefarian and frequently even C'thun (pre-TBC obviously), putting us that much higher up the food chain than the folks with a lack of skill or lack of co-ordination and leadership; back when wearing certain guild-tags was a badge of accomplishment and even pride, of sorts, and the equipment was visibly different - not this pathetic new excuse of "set B and set C are just set A re-coloured" rubbish.
Now any muppet can wander into Zul'Aman and Black Temple with a pre-written guide and some arguably competent buddies or grind themselves to oblivion (using one of the various exploits, if they care to) for the latest broken-resilience-stat arena gear and be right on par with the skilled PvE folk who could actually kill Vashj and Kael'thas for their vials before Bliz removed the attunement requirement (they were called the Guild-Breaker Bosses for a reason).
Sure, the last couple of paragraphs may sound elitist but I had more alts in non-hardcore guilds than I did mains and just see it as Bliz removing some peoples' ability to shine and prove that they are, in fact, capable of out-performing your normal, everyday player; I had almost as much fun searching out quality players in those alt guilds as I did taking down the end-game bosses.
For me, the more Bliz dumb the game down, the less fun the game becomes. If there's nothing challenging left to do, then what's the point?
The downside of being the minority, I suppose.
...and so much for me not ranting. Heh.
There is nothing wrong with WoW, its the game it is. SImple as, im sorry for all those people who have gotten bored, or hate that it has consumed so much of the market that they feel thier tiny game has been squeezed out. No im not a fan boi, there are alot of things i miss, like the old UO pvp and sandbox style. BUT WoW does alot of good, and has alot of polish, and the fact that a company as sucessful as Blizzard can look back at such a huge success as TBC was and say look where is where we FU%$ED up....here is a step towards fixing. And no i dont expect massive sweeping changes...thats what you do when you had it all wrong from the start or you wanna screw things up big time often in the other direction.
Blizzard has and will continue to make good fun quality games that copies will sell in the millions because of this very idea they hold that every past release had flaws and ways to improve....its not about making huge sweeping changes, its about making the right ones that fit...and that is what Blizzard does. Sorry to all you people who want to see them screw thing up like AoC or the such...but they dont do that...or they would be as small a company as Funcom...or sucked into SoE or EA....Get over your childish hate, and enjoy the good solid fun games Blizz will and always will make.
PEACE
I mostly agree with you but .. Blizzard made huge error in the past . Wow is a quality product the problem for me ? it seems since Expantion the game is not improving anymore its getting easyer and easyer and worst and worst . They broke the World in world of warcraft .. can the new expantion bring it back ? i truly hope so .. but i have a real good doubt .
"But what about arriving there on day one, along with 9 million other people"
/sigh 9 million people do not actively play this game. It boggles my mind that informed people, even those writing for mmorpg.com, don't know the difference between "accounts" and "active players."
That being said, the only real positive thing I see in WotLK is the 10 man progression path. Other than that it will be the same game. Grind terribly written quests until you hit 80. Raid, battleground, or arena until your fricken eyes bleed and the next expansion arrives in 2112.
This article was not done by a blizzard representative. Blizzard does not acknowledge anything in that post. The author of that post is "MMORPG.com's World of Warcraft Correspondent" He is not a Blizz Developer. He does not even know what inscripting will be about as it will add no new spells whatsoever.
I quote: "the addition of inscriptions is certainly a new and extremely innovative idea. Not only does it mean bringing in tons of new spells which make the old spells redundant, but it means having sets of new spells along with increased old ones, giving spell casters a huge arsenal of potential spells to look forward to."
Inscripting will be a method of augmenting spells - not creating new spells in the examples I have heard you will be able to add a knockback to your fireball for instance or additional slowing to your frost bolt or additional bleeding to your cleave
It isn't clear exactly what will be available with inscripting but it's clear that this guy has little idea what he's talking about.
Darren Bridle isn't a Blizzard Developer.
Darren Bridle isn't a Blizzard developer.
Just so we're all clear this is a report by a private author it's not a release from a Blizzard representative. Blizzard may not acknowledge any of these things as failures and in fact I have read elsewhere that the developers had fun changing the setting away from the main story and going a sci-fi route with TBC.
Stradden should have called the article exit interview for a dead grind fest
1% of the population raids -and managed to kill Illidan-. The whole concept of 10-Mans bugs me though. Unless they help classes substantially, they will always have a problem with group construction requirements. There will be classes and talent builds that will continue to be pidgeonholed into oblivion and specifically be suitable only for precise situations. Play that class and build? Well, good luck finding help for a dungeon that you are not part of the "proper build" for.
"This 10-man requires precisely three priests (Need to have the shields, Tree or Shaman or Pally won't do), one Prot pally (for AOE Tanking), one bear (Off-tank of special mobs), one prot warrior (Main tank, Pally or Bear won't work for this part), one rogue for 'real DPS', one mage for DPS and sheeping, one 'lock for adds, and one hunter to trap-dance with that annoying thing that can't be sheeped. Can't use any other combo otherwise it gets harder, and we don't want things to be an actual challenge."
The real downsite to WOTLK expanison is that actually doesn't bring out anything new. Ok - 1 new class that is more likely to create problems that have positive effects on class blances. Flying mounts were HUGE factor in TBC and gave the game new drive. Sadly there doesn't look to be any that lvl of New in this WOTLK.
Apparently. Inscription isn't "extremely" innovative. Although it is a new thing for WoW and it's rare in the MMO industry, a similar idea was implemented in Ryzom approximately four years ago: the action stanza system.
(Very simple example, but I don't have any other stanza screenshots handy.)
I think the Outlands and the Draenei are the best part of WoW, but I'm a science-fiction and science-fantasy fan. Plus I have a soft spot for Draenor and the lore surrounding it since reading and enjoying the "Rise of the Horde" novel.
First off, let me say that Wow has tons of great features, and I've enjoyed it enough that I've played it for about 3 years.
However, this quote above is quite correct in that it points out a major flaw in Wow. Depending on the server, you can easily spend 30-60 minutes (or more!) trying to find a healer or a tank, and entering most instances without both of these is almost guaranteed to wind up in multiple wipes.
To me, there is one other factor that bugs me so much that I have put the game on hold (again). At max level, you have one of two options for any real gear progression: pvp or raid. It is virtually impossible to make any significant gear upgrades once you've been max level for a bit thru solo efforts.
PvP - I simply do not enjoy pvp in this game. Gear imbalance, not to mention exploits for rating, underskilled or afk'd teammates are just some of the reasons. Blizzard's increasing focus on something that was never originally intended to be much more than a diversion has gotten to the point where it seems more than half it's efforts are spent on this part of the game.
Raiding - Raiding can be fun. However, the strict adherence to schedules, elixir and other buff costs, and frequent lack of inclusion due to guild hierarchy detracts severely from that fun. Also, often we have the same 'needed class' problems mentioned above. Only so many of each class type are needed for a given raid; no ones going to take 5 healers or 9 dpsers on a ten man raid.
Simply put, when I log onto an MMO, I want to play. I do not want to wait around for an hour trying to convince others of specific classes to do what I want to do.
Will I play the expansion when it comes out? Probably. And I'll wind up levelling my 5 70s to level 80, and then hit the same wall, and once again Wow will go on hold.
You know what amazes me is people like you who talk about things they have no understanding of. Not only do you do that, but you also try to tell your opinion as the truth. I feel sorry that I have to explain this as it has been explained many times over in the past but here I go....
If you read the fine print on Blizzards statements about their playerbase it clearly states they count only ACTIVE accounts. This includes by the hour,day or w/e they use in china. This is also based on all subscriptions around the world and not just North america. Next time, please don't try to call mmorpg staff writers liars because you failed to comprehend basic english.
And no, I quit WoW awhile ago, I play Age of Conan.
They talk about release day blues but they don't mention what they are going to do about the 10 million death knights you will see for months.
If it were up to me, i would have designed two hero classes to be released. Would add a bit of variety.
This. WoW is great. I took a break from it for a long time and just decided to go back and try a class I've never played - Paladin. I'm loving it.
Played AoC and after I got out of Tortage, I had absolutely NO fun. Tortage is also only fun the first out of 50 times anyways...
...because they're tailoring the raids for 10- and 25-man groups, in the same dungeon. That opens up "raiding" to the unwashed, non-hardcore masses, much like Karazhan and (arguably) Zul'Aman did, and dumps that prior 1% in with an even larger proportion of generic players.
I can see why Bliz are doing it this way but, personally, I liked being in a guild that was able to 1-shot Nefarian and frequently even C'thun (pre-TBC obviously), putting us that much higher up the food chain than the folks with a lack of skill or lack of co-ordination and leadership; back when wearing certain guild-tags was a badge of accomplishment and even pride, of sorts, and the equipment was visibly different - not this pathetic new excuse of "set B and set C are just set A re-coloured" rubbish.
Now any muppet can wander into Zul'Aman and Black Temple with a pre-written guide and some arguably competent buddies or grind themselves to oblivion (using one of the various exploits, if they care to) for the latest broken-resilience-stat arena gear and be right on par with the skilled PvE folk who could actually kill Vashj and Kael'thas for their vials before Bliz removed the attunement requirement (they were called the Guild-Breaker Bosses for a reason).
Sure, the last couple of paragraphs may sound elitist but I had more alts in non-hardcore guilds than I did mains and just see it as Bliz removing some peoples' ability to shine and prove that they are, in fact, capable of out-performing your normal, everyday player; I had almost as much fun searching out quality players in those alt guilds as I did taking down the end-game bosses.
For me, the more Bliz dumb the game down, the less fun the game becomes. If there's nothing challenging left to do, then what's the point?
The downside of being the minority, I suppose.
...and so much for me not ranting. Heh.
Yes that is the elitist view and at least you can admit it. And at least you can admit it to being the minority. Gotta say grats on seeing it from that side and realizing the minority always looses in the end. That said 10 mans may be the awnser and may not be. Depends on how blizzard adds it in. I know there will be no more keying ect but thats not all that needs fixed in there raiding system.
LOL your Joking right ? lol Conan has not pinched anybody yet it is barely a million subscriber game if that many. It could barely scratch warcrafts numbers. Conan is a overhyped console game with pretty graphics.
Nice post but I won't be playing the next expansion. Too much of the same ole same ole. The one thing they still haven't learned is to not try to please everyone but then again, maybe they have learned that based on their numbers... BG's ruined WoW for me but I know I'm in the minority. I miss the days when epic gear was earned and not the norm.
That would be too cool.
Good luck with Wrath of the TIME SINK... I will not farm and grind over and over again... I want a fun game and certainly, WotTS will never give me that... So, I PASS...
Cya in W.A.R.
I think Hero classes will ruin the game further and really unbalance the game like say them adding the medic patch to TF2 and everyone went medic, the current classes are fine and no need to add more.
People who say WoW is boring generally have failed to use their imagination in playing the game. there are so many different ways to approach the same thing. If that's dumbing down, I'll take it. I have taken about six or seven different tacks on the game over these last fw years, and enjoyed all of them in different ways. Crafting/money. Solo adventuring (roleplaying in my own head). Social/guild/relationship focus. Clothing - not worrying about how tough I am, accepting slower "progress" in favor of a cool look. Dueling. PvP. Dungeons. it was only at the beginning that I felt any pressure to level, now I just have fun.
I wonder if the need to hate WoW is related to the way music fans hate bands that become successful, because it challenges their sense of ownership of something that was never theirs in the first place. Like, what... Eve is not a business?
Yeah "failing" is an odd word to use for the most successful ex pack ever. I can understand saying that you personally felt detached from the mainland but I really don't think most people noticed. I kinda didn't like the whole draenai space-age theme but it didn't really effect how I felt about the game as a whole.
I guess I should expect writers on a general mmo site to put a hyper-critical eye on wow since they're the big guys who some feel should be knocked down a few notches. I just wish every game was reviewed with the same critique. Problem is I guess no one would even go near them.
...because they're tailoring the raids for 10- and 25-man groups, in the same dungeon. That opens up "raiding" to the unwashed, non-hardcore masses, much like Karazhan and (arguably) Zul'Aman did, and dumps that prior 1% in with an even larger proportion of generic players.
I can see why Bliz are doing it this way but, personally, I liked being in a guild that was able to 1-shot Nefarian and frequently even C'thun (pre-TBC obviously), putting us that much higher up the food chain than the folks with a lack of skill or lack of co-ordination and leadership; back when wearing certain guild-tags was a badge of accomplishment and even pride, of sorts, and the equipment was visibly different - not this pathetic new excuse of "set B and set C are just set A re-coloured" rubbish.
Now any muppet can wander into Zul'Aman and Black Temple with a pre-written guide and some arguably competent buddies or grind themselves to oblivion (using one of the various exploits, if they care to) for the latest broken-resilience-stat arena gear and be right on par with the skilled PvE folk who could actually kill Vashj and Kael'thas for their vials before Bliz removed the attunement requirement (they were called the Guild-Breaker Bosses for a reason).
Sure, the last couple of paragraphs may sound elitist but I had more alts in non-hardcore guilds than I did mains and just see it as Bliz removing some peoples' ability to shine and prove that they are, in fact, capable of out-performing your normal, everyday player; I had almost as much fun searching out quality players in those alt guilds as I did taking down the end-game bosses.
For me, the more Bliz dumb the game down, the less fun the game becomes. If there's nothing challenging left to do, then what's the point?
The downside of being the minority, I suppose.
...and so much for me not ranting. Heh.
You got that damn right QFT
They said that? Where? Link?
Not going to copy the whine above, I did my share of raiding and if the absurdity of such raiding did not get to you, then you most certainly are not normal. Spending 2 or 3 days collecting the cash so you could afford all the reagents and potions for the 3 day weekend raids, where you ran the same instance and same fights over and over until you beat them....
That does not even take into account all the grinding to get the faction points needed to enter such.
To whine about losing that portion of the game just makes me want to gag. At least Blizzard is far wiser than you are and fixed the problem.
What I *wish* Blizzard would learn from the past -- both the original game and BC:
(1) Revamp the LFG tool and chat channel: Players should have the option to list themselves as available and interested and to view all other players also interested in said quest or instance in a very simple form, sortable by region or level or instance:
Name. Class. Subtype. Level. Description/Note. Instance(s).
For example,
Joetauren. Druid. Resto. 61. Trollbane, Matriarch. Ramps.
Better still would be if the LFG tool would tell you who in the region you are in has the same quest(s) as you do. So if you click on a quest in your quest log you can find out who else in Hellfire Peninsula has that quest -- or even who serverwide has that quest. Perhaps have this feature "toggleable" so if you don't want to be listed you can turn this feature on and off.
The current LFG system is unbelievably awkward and annoying. When you use "/who" to list all the players in your area, there should be a "Notes" section so others can see not only who you are but what quests/instances you'd like to do. There should be 2 or 3 LFG channels: 1 for lvl 1 to 30, 1 for lvl 31 to 60, and 1 for lvl 61 to 70 -- that you can click on or off at will.
(2) Scale instances to group size, at least the 5-man instances, so that smaller groups (or even a single player) can run an instance without having to wait and wait and WAIT for the group to fill out to the magic number of 5. This is especially true for the lower-level instances (lvl 1 to 60).
(3) Allow more character customization options -- and allow druids to choose their own cat or bear forms. The current models (especially for horde cat) are incredibly lame.
(4) Allow players/accounts to buy time increments, like blocks of 100 hours of play time, rather than pay a flat monthly subscription. That way, if you play only a few hours a week your buck goes farther.
I think WoW is a fun game, but I play for a while and burn out and only come back to it when there's nothing better out on the market -- as is the case now. WotLK really has nothing about it that appeals to me, as far as I can tell. It seems to do little to nothing to enhance the lvl 1 to 70 gameplay experience, with the exception of the Death Knight ... and the Death Knight is not enough to get me to buy the expansion.
At least BC had *something* for new players (the two new races, new starting areas, and new profession). WotLK looks, to me at least, like Blizzard is catering only to veteran and harder core players. So, no thanks.
Like TBC this is going to rock. I love WoW, I love TBC and WotLK is going to be great.
Wotlk = Wrath of the loser King. What a joke. Blizzard doesn't realize WOW is dead in the water after 5 years the only new content you can expect is more of the same. This is the way Wotlk expansion will go. On day 1 of release it will be a race to see who can get to 80 1st, my guess is most people will be 80 within 2 or 3 days and then after that it's back to the grind for another 3 years waiting for the next boring expansion.
AOC on the other hand is getting better and better and when they get all the bugs worked out it will be a solid game.
What makes AOC better than WOW?
uh darn near everything even with its bugs. The combat system is a ton of fun and it requires skill where in WOW all you have to do is you make a macro and you spam spam spam, yeah that takes alot of skill. The character creation is better, theres not 500 taurens running around that look alike. Mounts don't cost 800 gold, 5000 gold.
I can go on and on, but im sure ill be called a fanbois because thats the most intelligent response most people can seem to come up with. I won't even get started on WAR, we will just call that WOW2.
Yeah Yeah WOW has 9 million subs, and all 9 million of them are actively playing, I doubt it.
And if you say you have played AOC and you hated it for whatever reason thats your opinion but leveling a character over in over in Tortage is not saying you have played the game.
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Man, I hate to WoW bash, but everything I keep hearing about Lick King twists my bowels.
So, Arthas is your buddy now? You can hang with him? WTF was wrong will Illidan being an end game mob? I don't want to play mini golf with the guy, I want to earn the right to face him and defeat him after hours of gameplay, raiding, and questing. That's why we put so much time into the mmo's, so that our achievments actually reflect our commitment.
I loved Kara, but 25 man and 40 man raids have their purpose as well. Blizzard just needs to get better with the rewards. 25 People to go in and kill Gruul and he drops one crappy axe. He needs to drop 3-5 pieces of tier 6 gear and there would be just as many people lining up to kill Gruul as Kara.
Yes Halaa was cool. I can't believe it has taken blizzard three years to figure out that meaningful world pvp is what people want.
And this whole 'everyone gets a jedi... i mean death knight' thing sounds all too familiar sadly.
Making a game easier and more accesible to the casual gamer isn't neccessarily making it better.
Blizzard is in a good position, and it is easy for them to stay there.
Certainly, there are flaws. But as long as there is no threat, there is absolutely no reason to innovate. And if WoW does not innovate, then 95% of new MMOs will also not innovate, justifying it by saying, "Well, it worked for WoW!"
There is no doubt we want something new. There seems to be quite a demand for it. But unless some miracle MMO gives us something new, and POLISHES the living crud out of it BEFORE release, we will not have a viable alternative.
So here's to four more years of WoW supremacy, followed by another 8 of whatever MMO Blizzard has been working on in secret.
Sorry if these things have been addressed as I have failed to read the whole thread, sorry web purists it's so late it's early and I have to be up in 4 hours.
Reguarding raid instances
-All 25 man instances will have a 10 man counterpart that is determined via a menu on your character portrate. This is similar to how heroics work now.
-While all the same bosses from each instance will exist in both the 10 man and 25 man versions the fights will be diffrent, although similar in spirit.
-Loot from from the 10 man instances will resemble that of the 25 man isntance only with less partical effects and a diffrent color scheme. Likewise the quality of the 10 man items while still epic will be of less quality than their 25 man counterparts. An ananolgy would be if you could run black temple as a 10 man instance today the loot you got would be of T5 quallity not T6.
-Ten man and twenty five man instances will save a player seprately. Thus a hardcore 25 man raider who wants to do 10 mans with his friends on the weekends can do so without his guild leader tossing him out for it.
- Significantly more than 1% of wow's population raids. Infact over 80% of all accounts have killed prince malchazar, over 40% have killed grull 30% have killed Magtheridon(no lightweight in wow lore). While yes it's true only 4% of all guilds have killed illidan and less than 2% have killed the first boss in sunwell doesn't mean the community has given up raiding, rather it's a testiment to the difficulty of those higher instances. Those who feel that wow is giving out T6 and beyond loot should consider instead that the community as a whole has had 4 years to practice at becoming better raiders and as such has finally caught up to mmo vets who started playing wow with a healthy advantage over their non mmo playing brethern.
The last bit was more editoral than informative but m'eh I'm tired.
M.V. out.
I was going to sleep but this guy seems a bit misguided.
1. Gruul drops 5 epics 3 T4 legging tolkens and 2 other random epics. Dragon Spine Trophy being one of those epics and is the second best trinket in the game for combat rogues, enhancment shaman, and beast master hunters. In addition the eye of gruul is a fantastic trinket for COH priests so honeslty I don't know what the heck your talking about. The boss before him (High King Mulgar) drops 3 T4 shoulders and 2 random epics. I'd hardly call that bad loot. Considnetly those two tolkens go well with the 2 you got from karazhan, they make a set. :P
2. Arthas is far from your buddy in WOTK. What they mean by "he'll be visable the very moment you set foot on the island" is you'll see his workings on the land of northrend. You'll catch glimps of him in the shadows, and you may even inadvertently find yoruself working for him through a few of the quest lines. It's blizzards desire to make players in wow face more, "moral choices" along the way. Things that don't necessarly feel right but are evils that are required if you want to achieve victory over your enemies in Northrend. Even going so far as killing innocents allongside arthas the cavern of time in a recreation of the WC3 level: The Culling of Stratholme. The whole point of all of this is to echo the journey of another aspiring hero who once strode upon the snow island of Northrend and so that the players get glimps of not just the figure that arthas has become but what turned him into the monster they see.
Hey Woody, if you like AoC that is fine, enjoy. But coming here and trying to portray that game as better than Wow is a joke. All their combat system is, is a exercise in button mashing. Please, lets be frank and avoid attempting to call button mashing skill, it is not. Funcom has no concept of online support either, it can take weeks to get tickets answered. How can you even call it a MMO when you can level a character to 80 in two weeks? It is more like a FPS. Lastly where is all the content after level 50? Come on, 30 levels of grind and then little to do at end game? Going to be a long while before that game is going to be filled out. Then to single out War when you and nobody else has played it yet, lets hold off on judgement on that game until it is released.
As to AoC, it will be a ghost town by the time War hits the ether, get ready for server merges early next year, hope you enjoy playing by yourself.
as illidian said in wc3 tft if the lich king dies the scourge will be undone so undead killing there own creator is quite stupid and not true lore but then again more then 50% dont care and nor does blizz aslong as you get some epics
to be honest pvp was always going to be part of the game- there is a big base that wants to play that imo- they knew that and that is why they made their battlegrounds very fps-like.
It does disappoint me that gear imbalance plays a big part still. I remember the early battlegrounds twinks going around that with 8 people after them. I thought they were meant to be trying some system where they were trying to balance BGs...
WOW! This is my first time to post in a Forum so lets see. I have read the thread all the way through and have to shake my head at some of the comments. Some people are pretty passionate about how they feel about WOW and the upcoming expansion. I am a retired steelworker/truck driver/Naval electronics tech and finally former game designer for TSR. I tried EQ/EQ2, CoH, Pirates of the Caribbean, Lord of the Rings and finally settled on WOW.
I like the color (technicolor) and vistas and enjoy playing in them. Since I like to explore and fight the solo route is for me. I have found that a common complaint of the Warrior class is that we can tank except against magic, which cuts thru high level armor with ease. Another thing I do not like is that solo players like myself will never have the top level gear and equipment available to PvP and raiders. A solo tank on Sunwell takes a long time to defeat same or slightly higher characters and the quests are, well, kinda odd for solo. Lack of knowledge as to where things can be found is a little easier for me as I can ask for help and the arrogant Pvp T6 supers just ignore me but there are a great many very nice folks who offer help.
My friends and I have a small closed guild, The Bounty Hunters, but none of us are interested in the raids or arenas and battlegrounds. None of us has had a good experience with the ones we have tried. Confusion and lack of experience has caused really hostile reactions in every case. Frustrating and disgusted I gave that up. I simply want to relax and enjoy myself. (For example....as a solo PvE I have never had a drop that was epic. I reached 70 with my first character about a month ago and mostly I hunt for hides and ores for money for my alts. I am slow to level, I realize that, but I have a number of alts in different classes and races as I wanted to find out what I enjoyed playing the most. I have played WoW for about 2 years now, I will purchase the new expansion and am looking forward to the new Hero class.
I know there is an urgent attention being payed to the PvP/Raid etc....folks and I can understand that I won't be able to have what they have. Well, I won't have Donald Trumps money in my retirement either but I can live with that. As a game designer I can think of a number of ways to improve WoW but most people think the same. Creative out -of-the-box thinking has to face the computer construct engine that already exist, including computer game architecture and limits for a wide variety of computers. All in all I think they do well.
I do not care for the insulting attitude of some, that players like mysef are in some way stupid, or sheep-like, and feel that, really do not understand like them. They feel those like mysef should nod and agree with them or get flamed. I like and enjoy WOW despite what I would like to see improved. I will continue to pay because I do not pay for anything unless I am getting my money's worth.
I am looking to add another MMO to my computer so as to have some variety whenever I am a little bored and want something different. I thought about EQ, going back and trying again but was not able to get it working with their 'welcome back' program. I have read the comments on this forum so as to get some suggestions for other games but the opinions about the other games vary in intensity, extremely.
Thats enough from me. Mark me down as an ordinary supporter of WoW, one of the millions who are simply having fun. Most of us do not flame, or even care much about what is written here. Which probably includes what I have written here. Good gaming to all of you,,,,,,Garry Spiegle
*PS: I don't have a clever forum ID so thats my real name.
No.
The Forsaken (the playable undead) are escapees from the Scourge. In fact, they hate Arthas and one of their goals is to eliminate the Scourge.
Before you attempt lore-based criticism, make sure you know what you're talking about. Same goes for the Draenei haters.
Hmm Aion is from NCsoft in Korea and guess what Koreans enjoy in the games, grind, grind and more grind. Sorry if I find your comment a bit funny as if grind is so much more fun.
Wow is certainly not perfect, nor will this new expansion be either, but when you stack it up against other games, it just owns them.
So go enjoy the other games you like and have fun. Attempting to riducule Blizzard or Wow is an effort in the ridiculous. It just makes you look like a wanna be. Wow is not for everyone, but it certainly satisfies most of the players in this market far better than anything else out there.
Someday one of the development companies will wake up and provide a real challenge to Wow, until then it is in fact the 800 lbs gorilla.
Uhm... see "Guild Wars", "Tabula Rasa", and "Exteel"... then tell me NCsoft is a Korean company that just likes to "Grind, grind, and more grind..."
I've been saying it forever... GET RID OF THE CLASS SYSTEM!
It causes all sorts of problems:
1. PVP balance issues - Less likely to occur or be as severe without the class system.
2. Grouping issues - What we have now is an expansion on the holy trinity. What's worse is if you make one tiny mistake while grouped, the group wipes and blames and flames you until their heads explode. Not being able to adapt to situations means that the game may as well be played by machines.
3. Inflexibility - Having to create and level new characters to try a different aspect of the game is annoying, and unnessesary. The ability for players to raise their character in multiple talents simultaneously gives room for specialization and true customization. Don't even give me the trait argument, there are ~2 builds per class that are at all worthwhile.
4. Tedium - Once again, get a character to 70 and it's another week long played time minimum to get another one up there. Plus, once you're lvl 70, you play the same raids or same pvps over and over with the same (or very similar) strategy each and every time, until you get the gear, and then you can only complete them more easily.
Ok, my last post here...
I don't understand how a company can put out an "expansion" like WotLK and charge the $50 box fee. Didn't we pay $50 for the origional game? Didn't vanilla WoW have content for levels 1-60? Didn't vanilla WoW have 8 races and 6 classes? Didn't it have 2 continents with dozens of areas to explore? Didn't it have 3 BGs and dozens of instances? Didn't it have 5 crafting trade skills, 3 gathering trade skills, and 3 secondary trade skills? Didn't it have hundreds if not thousands of pieces of equipment with special equipment at key level intervals?
Point: Why are we buying an expansion that's so incredibly pithy: 1 New class, several new areas, 1 new trade skill, maybe a hundred new equipment pieces, and a few new instances? Siege warfare is a decent addition but I really feel like this release should have a LOT more content for what they're asking of us.