WoW Dishes Out Casual Epics
Our chronic casual gamer Steve Wilson returbns this week with his weekly column. This time around, he;'s talking about World of Warcraft and the bility of casual players to gain epic gear.
Editorial By Steve Wilson on January 04, 2007
Casual Play: WoW Dishes Out Casual Epics
By: Steve Wilson
Editor's Note: This is an edition of a weekly column by Staff Writer Steve Wilson. The column is called "Casual Play" and will look at some of the stranger or more frustrating events in MMOs as seen by Mr. Wilson. The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of MMORPG.com, its staff or management.
I’m often grateful that there’s one game out there that seems to be catering more frequently to the casual playstyle with every patch. World of Warcraft’s latest patch once again shows that if they don’t love the casual player then they are at least doing everything in their power to keep us around. Specifically, the changes to the battlegrounds have done more to put end level gear in the hands of the casual player than any other single event to date. Even with my paltry dozen hours a week (give or take a few hours) of play time I have managed to acquire the end level PvP weapon. And that’s doing nothing more than something I already loved, fighting in the battlegrounds (at an hour a session as well).
The new honor system is an absolute blessing for those of us who can’t possibly afford four to six hour sessions of raiding the same dungeon for the umpteenth time. By slowly accumulating a few hundred points an hour over the course of weeks I was able to purchase the very best item I’ve ever had any hopes of getting. Sure it doesn’t change the fact that WoW is way too dependant on gear rather than skills. At least now there’s some hope that rather than being continuously mowed down by groups in their all epic equipment that I can someday be on the dishing out end of that equation.
Prior to the patch, players received an amount of honor relative to the number of kills they got versus the total number of kills of all players for that week. This created an environment where players that wanted the top level PvP gear had to receive more honor than nearly all other players on the server. The only way to accomplish this of course was to play battlegrounds endlessly. My dozen hours of play per week, doing nothing but battlegrounds might yield somewhere in the neighborhood of ten thousand points of honor. The guys at the top of the food chain were getting upwards of hundreds of thousands. The ranking system used to determine which PvP gear you were allowed to purchase required weeks of getting more honor than everyone else. It was impossible for anyone that didn’t treat the battlegrounds like a full time job to have any hope of getting there. Basically a system built for the obsessive compulsive players.
The new system rewards a set number if points for each kill, plus some extras for accomplishing goals in the battlegrounds. The points accrue over time and can be spent when enough have been obtained for the epic level items. A player treating the battlegrounds as a full time job can get an entire armor set in a matter of weeks. Those with my play schedule have the possibility of getting a single piece, as I just did, over the course of several weeks or months. It’s flawed in that it rewards the grinders immediately, but still allows casual a chance at epics which is better than what we had previously.
For players that genuinely enjoy PvP this is a huge boon. The casual PvPer actually has hope somewhere down the road of obtaining epic level gear to help even out their performance in the battlegrounds. The PvP items may not be as good as tier two junk, but it brings us dramatically closer to someday being able to perform on a more equitable footing with the obsessive raiders. This will only make PvP more interesting as the game shifts back to being about skill and timing rather than who has more time to invest in raiding. A pleasant side effect is that it also brings in a lot of players into the battlegrounds that might not have been there otherwise. As well as providing an opportunity to obtain high end gear without having to endure the likes of this Onyxia Wipe Animation (audio not safe for some work environments).
This improvement in the game will be met with derision by the hardcore. “You obviously have no pride in accomplishment if you’re willing to sell out for such easy fair.” And to a degree, they’re right. I’m not into it for the accomplishment. I feel a larger sense of accomplishment when I pay my mortgage, or wrangle three kids off to school on time. I play to have fun, to relax, to get away from having to accomplish things. This just allows the casual PvP crowd the opportunity to enjoy the game without being hopelessly trounced by the hardcore who have ruled this arena by the simple fact that they have more disposable time than the majority of other players.
Even with the recent decrease in honor gained form battlegrounds, which effectively makes these items more expensive, relatively few people complained. Just having the opportunity to play an hour at a time and slowly accrue the ability to earn epics is making a lot of players with limited schedules very happy. And happy customers make for longer subscriptions. Even without the looming expansion this change alone would be enough to keep me gleefully hacking away at my fellow players.
And so I have to ask, what’s wrong with allowing casual players to earn epic gear over time? It rewards players encouraging longer subscriptions, allows casual to compete with hardcore achievers (eventually), and in this case encourages players that normally might not to try out PvP in a limited format. Casual epics look like a win for everyone.
The patch was by far one of the best they have released... getting close to what the system SHOULD have been like in the beginning. Finally WoW is waking up to the fact that not everyone loves 40-man instances that require hours upon hours of work for months-on-end to finish.
To me it is not even about the time involved. I have a bit more time than the OP here to invest, and I could run instances to get gear... but who wants to do that? (Well obviously quite a few people... but not many in my guild) This is a PERFECT solution for guilds like mine that are mostly PvP oriented and have a wide variety of players in them. We have some extremely hardcore guys (10-16 hours a day) and some very casual folks (10-16 hours a month). Now we can ALL participate together in an activity that we enjoy (BGs and such) and everyone gets the same benefit from it. Sure the guys in green gear are not doing much more than harrassing the enemy, but who cares... its about community as much as accomplishment. And, those greenies are becoming purply much faster than ever possible before with the new system.
My only beef so far is that it seems we have to wait until 70 for the next set of PvP rewards... don't know why Blizz thinks we need to spend 10 more levels of instances and grinding before we can use honor points for gear...
Yea... I have heard the same... and in a way I felt that impact too. I am in a mix of T1/2 gear, and now I see folks getting gear comparable or better in a matter of weeks... but all in all it makes the game more fun. Our guild rarely ran BGs before this because the honor was meaningless and the people we played were idiots. Winning every map every time because the opponents have no gear just stops being fun after a while. And, since there was about ZERO motivation for the raiding crew to PvP they never stepped foot into the BGs.
Now, though, you have many geared out guilds participating in the action, and even the Puggers are getting better gear, and it makes for an all-around more enjoyable experience. The more steps they get to making the playing field more equal, the more fun their game will become. I think Blizz is finally learning that lesson.
There is no part of WoW that does not require farming... so yea that should be nothing new to you. The issue here is what you have to DO while putting in your time. For those whose brain's go numb and eyes bleed when they see the same instance for the 20th time... but who don't mind running PvP instances (as they are at least a TOUCH different game to game), well this allows a more palletable grind.
I don't know if there is a way to remove WORK from REWARD, even in a game... and honestly I don't know if I would want to play such a game anyway. The important part is making the "work" side enjoyable enough to do and making the "reward" side worth the investment.
WORK | GRIND =/= Fun
Many people justify the need for hard work to get an epic item by saying "EPIC means EPIC effort".
I say that's bullshit. EPIC effort should mean EPIC FUN! EPIC should be EPIC difficulty, but difficulty =/= grinding. Grinding is a simple time sink that the companies put into their games to keep you subscribed. Designing something that is based on grinding for honor/reputation/items does not require creativity.
Ok, they designed an armor upgrade quest. It could have been fun if the results were worthy of the effort, but the upgraded stats are just slightly better than those of the old items.
I guess Blizzard is aware of the issue because - as far as I know (I may be wrong, I only say what a guildmate and friend told me about his experience in TBC beta) - some of the Burning Crusade quest items/drops are actually better than T2 items so player like me who don't like the grinding/pvp'ing aspect of the game (I'm a questing freak so bear with me) will have a chance to catch up with the raiding guys.
Btw, I agree this was a positive patch. The fact that it does not offer anything to non-PVP'ers does not detract from its positive effects.
Too bad, MMORPG's have not evolved to the point yet where dynamic content dominates the max level end-game, offering fun for all playstyles. Hell, people may argue that it is something that is nearly impossible to achieve, but the same could have been said about the MMO's of today just one decade ago.
It's posts like this that make me want to punch babies.
This kind of move by Blizzard does nothing but degrade the people who put in actual effort to attain the necessary faction to have earned epic rewards.
This casual vs. raider is a tired argument and ultimately, the direction of Blizzard currently will drive away hardcores because the poor, whiney casuals who think they're ENTITLED to the same rewards as those players who put in more effort, more hours, and undoubtedly more skill (read: have more experience) demand Blizzard cater to them exclusively.
You want a casual game, go play phucking Sim City and GTFO of my MMO. I'm trying to actually achieve something...unlike you.
Why dont you go play some asian grindfest and let the NON-RAIDERS (yes there is a thing as non-raiders, they can be hardcore or casual gamers too by the way) advance their characters.
The epics earned under the new system will be obsolete once TBC hits so the hotfix was not necessary, IMO. They should have focused on fixing the problems with the BGs and the bugs the recent patch introduced.
Blizzard has the right idea but their implementation and subsequent changes were most assuredly flawed.
Likewise I don't PvP either, Blizzard as usual don't understand the problem and can't or more likely won't put the effort into a reasonable method for casual players who don't PvP and cant attend raids on any sort of regular basis. There have been numerous suggestions as to how this could be achieved but Blizz in their ivory tower seem unable to comprehend any of the MANY real issues with the game that currently exist and this attitude WILL hurt them badly in the end.
Regardling the Original post the current method of allocating casual epics via PvP is VERY DEFINITELY NOT A WIN FOR EVERYONE. If fact most people problem loose out because of this change because,
1. People have worked for PvP epics in the past feel cheated (They did have to put too much time in for their rewards but the current method is way too easy (A Blinding example of Blizzards overcorrection policies which have been all to apparent in the last 2 years).
2. Raiders see a lot of the work they put into running instance like lab rats waster (rightly or wrongly)
3. 'Casuals' , I use this work loosely, get rewards far too easily for too little input in the PvP arena and do not feel like they have achieved anything and push even harder to make good equipment available easier in the PvE side which devalues the game for everyone.
4. True Casuals (People who do not PvP and attend raids rarely), feel isolated and ignored by Blizzard who seem intent on pushing everyone to PvP.
The solution for Casual Epics for everyone would have been to have quest chains that take a specific amount of real elapsed time to complete with cooldowns between key steps of the quest chain, ideally they should not require items that can only be obtained via raids and should ideally need a max of 5 man group to complete. The time for the casual quest chains needs to be set so that raiders and PvP'rs will always achieve their items before casuals on the quest chains (just to stop all the childish complaints) but at least then there is a method for people to obtain better equipment to grow their characters rather than the rut that a lot of people find themselves in.
I know i'm dreaming because Blizzard will never actually sit back and think about what is right to implement with their current team because they are too arrogant and in some cases too lazy to see better approaches. There are many things that could be done to enhance the game , such as armor customization, better tradeskill support, housing (guild and Personal) better quest chains, much more land mass etc etc, but it will take a large drop in population for some of these things to become reality and with the current flock of sheep mentality thats unlikely to happen soon.
I know I will be moving on this year to AoC or CoS or WAR, whichever one plays the best, i hope all three games will succeed so that that stagnating World in WoW gets a kick in the pants to revitalize it (BC is just going to add to the problems not solve them).
/end rant
I wonder what game you can name that gives an EPIC reward for anything less than an EPIC time commiment?
Take... Football. What is the time commitment to win the SuperBowl? Heck, what is the time commitment to win a High School championship... or even one GAME?
Basketball, Soccer, Baseball... yea just about any other game that is Multi-player is the same story.
Even games like chess require a large time commitment in order to achieve any sort of good victory or skill. And some might consider playing chess a "grind", I mean you do just about the SAME THING every time you play right?
The term "grind" should not be defined by the task alone, but by a measure of a) How enjoyable the task is, b) How MUCH of the task you have to do to achieve the reward, and c) The reward being significant enough.
So, A + B = C means that I am not experiencing a grind. That means I would be willing to do an UNenjoyable task for a SHORT period of time to obtain a GOOD result, or a semi-enjoyable task for a longer period of time to obtain the same result. But, I would NOT be willing to do an unenjoyable task for a long period of time for said result.
If you are looking for some story-book ending where a hardy group of adventurers go out and slay the dragon in a 1 in a million fight... then I can suggest LOTS of good books to read, perhaps even some singly player games that might work for you... but there has not been ONE mmo that has done this, and I don't even know if it fits the genre. If a game DID attempt it, then by default 1 million people would try the encounter and only ONE would succeed... giving them the epic story and the rest the natural defeat. It is just not so EPIC if everyone can do it every time without any work.
These changes make me sick. Getting a full set of high warlord or grand martial gear+weps used to mean you accomplished something, now it is meaningless. Same goes for the pvp mounts. you used to have to grind rep with a faction to exalted to be able to ride cross faction mounts, now everyone has a frickin kitty kat ooo so pretty! shiny pixels!!!! what does a casual need this stuff for anyway? so you can 'stand up' to a 'hard core' player in pvp? you lack the skill he does so your going to lose regardless of gear, they can afford to use consumables just to put you in your place, why does it matter getting smoked when you only play 2 hours a day anyway? casuals are a waste of server resources and BG slots. a hardcore player will allways be better than a casual no matter what, same as their will allways be casuals whining about how they can't get XXX but XXX can.
lol high warlord was a joke to many of us. High warlord rarely ever got respect on my pvp server. They were just nerds that had time to play 24/7. It didnt mean they had true skill. All they did was leech rep/honor from those of us that was really putting in hard work to win. there was this one player who ev1 knew they just went afk in every battleground. But because he was on 24/7 he still got high warlord even though most any player could kill him in a fair fight lol. if you think I'm lying just go to Mal'ganis realm forums and ask about Barlow lol. They had entire threads dedciated to this guy with documented evidence (screenshots) such as he never killed anyone, etc. I'm sure every realm had a 'fake' high warlord just like my old one
Not saying all high warlords blow but the old system was pretty flawed. If they want to really reward skill then I think the upcoming system in Burning Crusade Arena is the way to go. You should get credit for actual victories with small 2-5 man teams in the arena
Prob gonna switch to conan when that get out but this will be fun for a while.
What is the current honor/hour now? 600? so 129,000 honor in the time it took me to get all purpled up in raiding. 215,000 honor if you're getting 1000 honor/hour.
Just imagine if raids were cross realm and had ques like battlegrounds, with an addition of a class limit, like needing at least 3 tanks and X amout of healers, and at least one of each other class or something. The epics would be just as easy to get. Just pretend the most perfect system is in place to work around the weekly reset system. With all the zones they have now you could run one just about every night. People would eventually learn the boss fights just like most people eventually learn english after being born, or learn to use the toilet, it'll happen and once it does the epics will flow. Lets say MC was this way from the start I bet every single person in this game that's been lvl 60 for 2 months would think of that place like SUnken Temple, like not even give boss difficulty a second thought, I mean it might have taken a while for some of the tards to learn, but what's it been like 1.5 years since MC came out.
I got up to 19k honor with my blue warrior and gave up, I had already cancelled my account cause I liked my one button masher macros (my priest and warlock still have 51 unused talent points cause they're only fun with macros), but nerfing the honor after all the premades got most of their stuff and after saying they wouldn't nerf it that made me not question my decision to cancel.
The pvp changes, I think, allow some of the more casual oriented gamers the ability to gear up appropriately for the upcoming release of TBC. This way they can head out there and begin to enjoy the content just as much as the zerg raiders. Overall good changes and something that should have been in place from the beginning. Had it been that way they could well have double the amount of subscriptions that they currently have, and with the shift to smaller intimate instances I imagine that new content will be coming out far sooner. Hell, I hate world of warcrap but I am tempted to reinstall and reactivate my account now lol.
Why are you so upset my friend, trust me no need to, your "EPIC" gear will still be beter then the "casual"Epics the can get, try to think that you still have accomplished something as you had "worked" hard for it, so that must mean something atleast for yourself. And afcourse does a casual need that gear, isn't every gamer in some way or form continueing to improve himself, so getting better gear does improve new possibility's for the player, in that regard there is absolute no diverence between a hardcore/casual player. I don't consider meself a casual gamer but tend more to be a hardcore gamer "old school" see me i will help you, guide you, hunt with you, have fun with you but leveling quickly isn't my style because for me whole idea of mmorpg is i don't have to hurry cause if the game is good it isn't going anywhere and then neither am i. It would be sad if like you said casual are a waist cause for me it will only mean without them we need to get use to empty looking realms/servers and thats not a option, i welcome everyone to a game aslong they act mature, so many people , so many games, so many diverent opinions, i just like forums
It is people or kids like this this that ruin the game. Most people play the game to have fun. People think that being hardcore in a video game puts you up on the food chain. Wake up call. IT DOESNT. It just proves that you have nothing constructive to do with your time. AKA job or collage. Rewarding a hardcore gamer is only saying that having no life is good. But in the real life it doesnt mean nothing. I like the new changes. Even though I was exalted in all 3 before the patch. I couldnt invest enough time to get the rank gear. I laugh when a tier2 or tier3 warr charges and doest hamstring. Remember that WOW is pve first then PVP thrown in with no end game objectives. Wow has to counter that WAR is coming up later this year. As most of us know WAR is pvp first with endgame pvp obectives. Where the hardcore raider will not make it there. I have no problem dealing with tier2 or 3 players. Most of them do not know how to pvp but relie on the gear to make up for lack of skill.
The big distinction here that most PvPers don't seem to get is that the casuals don't really care how we compare to others, we simply want to compete fairly on the same playfields if we decide to do some PvP. Most games, and WoW is no exception, are more gear and macro-oriented (less so on macros now, so primarily gear in WoW). Sure, there's a measure of skill, but no hardcore player is going to tell me that they're far and away better than a casual player in PvP. If they were, they wouldn't be here complaining about the change, because their uberness would easily still win the day over gear.
Hardcore players often call the casual players a bunch of whiners because they are "responsible" for the game being made easier, less of a raidfest, etc. This is summarily untrue. When a developer/company makes a change like this, they are not kowtowing to the casual player base. They are, instead, looking at where the population is clustered, what areas seem to be underpopulated based on their expectations, and are adjusting things accordingly. The effort in games like this is to allow as many people as possible to experience the content that is available, because more content equals longer subscription times to experience that content. Casual players are not entitled to changes like this, but they are entitled to play a game the way they enjoy playing it, and the company can choose to work more toward that gaming style, or not. I, as a casual gamer, do understand (and I think most casual gamers understand this as well) that some MMOGs are not suited to my playstyle, such as Lineage 2. When I discover this, I move on, perhaps with a comment on how the game does not meet my expectations, but never with an expectation that it SHOULD.
Hardcore gamers feel upset that vast hours grinding away to get the best gear are now becoming less valuable under the new system, but they devalue how long they were at the top of the heap. I also think, under most circumstances, the only difference between hardcore and casual is time invested. An interest in PvP doesn't really factor into the equation unless that element is tied directly into the largest time sinks in the game that result in the best loot. Casual players simply like to have new, better items. After you cap, that's really the only form of advancement left, so why wouldn't they want it? They also enjoy being on equal footing with hardcore players who devolve into a bully mentality when they have an obvious advantage over someone else. None of these things strikes me as a bad or game breaking. If it results in fewer memberships, it will only be the memberships of those people who tend to worsen the game's community anyway.
I, for one, feel that WoW understands all of this, and is making an effort to create a game that is enjoyable for all. I'm sure there are plenty of mature hardcore players out there that see this change as a good thing. They've been wanting more people to challenge them, and this will create them. So, bravo Blizzard! Keep up the good work!
I guess it depends what side of the isle you’re on. But having played WoW in Beta and since launch and BC Beta. I am not a real hardcore player but some one that plays enough to get EPIC rewards. I have never liked the fact that I had to spend hours and hours depending on other people to show up and stay for a RIADs. So I was always understood what casual player’s complaints were. This is a game for entertainment, not a sport. When you have to work at something like a job it looses its appeal. I could type 500 pages on what is wrong with this game and most of it is the people that play it. Not that people don't have the skill to play WoW, because it takes very little to do so, and they are little cry babies.
With the changes to the battlegrounds and rewards, and when BC come out. I feel that all the time and effort that I put into the game is going to be erased, not really erased but just go unnoticed. I will give it a try when it comes out, but my new x360 "Assassin's Creed" and other MMORPG like Warhammer Online : Age of Reckoning and Age of Conan look more appealing to me atm. Every single MMO has a end to it, and it is the same, if the fun factor ever is gone then the game is done, and doing the same stuff over and over and over, is not fun to me.
i quit wow along time ago, detested the pvp grind and its ignorant decay model, and with seething hatred cursed the sony employees that coninued the raid model development in wow.
that said, it does give me some bit of satisfaction to see the developers (HAVE) to cave in to the largest part of the demographic, the casual crowd. a business model modified so that wow will survive (they hope) when the other mmo's come out in 2007.
and what is with the mindset that to me is laughable at best, that if you spend the time (grind hours and hours) or get in the uber natzi (yes,yes complain to your congressman about the natzi remark) raid guild to farm for months, YOU, deserve the "stuff". let me tell you something that may come as a shock to some of you "hardcore leeters" playing that long or that many months for one item tells the majority of the folks playing one thing, and blizzard itself said it best on southpark................
i will clarify my next statement, to those that think they are casual, get lucky and get into a guild with some common sense and run raids regularly and you get lucky and get a bunch of whatever item, you are the exception, and you label yourself casual, your not, your lucky, and there isnt anything wrong with that, if you fail to show up, fail to do this you lose standing points and your spot in the item list. which is the case most of the time, again i do say there are exceptions. arguments are made on the boards "i only play an hour a day or 2 hours a week and have all the nax gear so its possible for casual players to do it" again, your simply lucky or milking your guild members.
back to the respect thing. to the folks that have a full time job, that actually spend time with family instead of closed off in the computer room for hours or days, you know who you are, balancing all of this and actually sticking with wow, you are finally being paid attention to by the developers and well deserved.
to the hardcore leeters that think this or anything else regarding a positive decision for casual players takes away from "their" accomplishments, regardless of your age, i say to you please, there is something other than mindless grinding, friends, family, and i am sure your work, if you have a job is at stellar levels. folks make commercials or embarrassing cartoons of this kind of behaviour for a reason, and its not to flatter you hardcore leeters, its to make fun of you, and let me tell you i laugh alot when i see one.
the simple fix for the grinders and raiders, have the developers make one of, never to be gotten again items, no matter how many times or with how many different people, should satisfy the uber guilds, take that raid party in there for a few months, 40 folks battling out it to finally get to the end (sounds like an epic struggle....get your blood pumping does it?!) , for one single piece of unique gear that will never ever drop again, one time, thats it, over! now thats a prize for you grind or raid fanatics to trash talk about to those casual folks................
It's casuals like you that know i speak the truth and get so upset at what i say. If i'm not so high on the food chain than what does it matter to you? Construction? I work 40-50+ hours a week and still find time to both raid, and own you in pvp as stated in my previous posts. You will come back saying that i am 10 years old and don't know what i am talking about and that i am some elitest jerk, which is fine because you mean nothing to me and most likely never will. "Hardcore' is not just raiding, it's a way of life. I'd wipe my floor with you in pvp and pve if it was not such a disgrace to my floor. I play the game to have fun aswell, but being a 'hardcore' player i get the added bonus of stomping on kids or people like you that think i am trying to prove something.
Lets recap: I play for #1 Fun, #2 Sense of accomplishment, #3 teamwork and close friends, #4 hanging out in hillsbrad feilds killing low lvl horde with 5000+pyroblast crits. You have fun your way, i will have fun mine, i dont' have to agree with you and can make my opinions about the game AND SO CAN YOU we both are neither are right or wrong because there is allways two sides you can look at it from.
You can beleave me or not, it makes little difference. but some of us have a life and job that is good enough to be able to not be high strung stressed out about a game
Finally! An article by someone I can relate to! It even gave me some understanding of people I can't relate to (hard core gamers).
A hard core gamer is getting the same accomplishment out of his MMORPG experience that I get out of my job, family, and sports. No wonder they get so mad when they see someone spend a hundred bucks and buy a 1000g.
I play for fun and I am lucky to have 8 hours in a week to play. But its casual people who make something like WOW possible. I pay for three accounts every month (niece and brother-n-law), thats the money that pays for all this development.
Maybe I'll try the BG's out...after I get to 70. I won't have time to play before the expansion comes out because I have work, parties, and sports between now and then.
Sounds great to me
I thought it was bad seeing every Tauren running around in Might ...
I think this move was a great step in the right direction. Let's face it...you can't serve two masters... either a game is designed for casual players, with easy entry, simple controls and a more basic feel...or it contains extreme depth, long grinds (for some) and rewards long playing times over everything else.
WoW has always been for the causal player...the hardcore should really consider another game more to their favor. Many hardcores already have in fact, moving to games such as EvE and others. Let there be one game out there for casual players....
I always felt they should make a game where players could not play more than 4 hours in a 24 hour period, and no more than 20 hours in a week.... hardcore need not apply....
Yes, it will work. In the early days of MMORPG's..it was the harcore players, all 100, 000 or so per game of them who supported it. But with the coming of WoW, where I'd venture to say at least 1.5 million or more of their 2 million US membership (forget China) are casual players... so why not make the game more to their liking.
Its not about whether some hardcore player can wipe the field with everyone (like that one clown on this forum keeps posting) its about whether or not people will keep paying subscription fees. The more who do..the better it is for the developer..and the game itself. (BTW..claiming to be the best at WoW pvp.. lol... you suck... you'd be destroyed by people in other games)
Hardcore players are fickle...they move on pretty quickly to the next new thing... casuals are more likely to stay with a game to experience the content they've not completed/mastered..or hang with friends....
BTW... I consider myself somewhat hardcore, I play on average about 30 hours a week (my wife swears its much more) and I tired of Wow and decided to move on .... but I don't begrudge the causual players a chance to play a competitive game, have fun..and maintain some semblence of a normal life.
MMO's can be fun for the player who only has 12 hours a week too you know....
So people who have families, jobs, and actual real lives don't deserve something for the time and effort they put in? I mean honestly WoW is heavily lopsided to people who have nothing but free time on their hands which is bad in the long term. Granted they should of done something for those that have been in it since the beginning such as offer some free points, or a free random item or enchantement but they didnt' and you can't blame that on the players that actually do something other than sit online all day. there's still going to be plenty of gear out there that the casual player can't get a hold of because they dont have the time or maybe even the want to go into the same 40 man dungeon 10 or 15 times to get it so whats the big boo hoo about honestly?
Why ?
I manage to play high end raid farming Mc,BWL,AQ40,Naax and now they give reward to anybody who just farm BG ...
I don't like PVP and i feel spoiled when i see my silithus shaman faction reward and the PVP R14 shaman weapons ...
So what is the problem, do it too ...
I don't like pvp as i say, and i will not do pvp just for a reward ...
And ...what Can think all the ppl who are really Rank 14 and proud of it and see any reroll able to have the same gears than them ?
I have a fell of "Deja vu" when i see those reward you can buy with honor and mark...
Where i saw that already ...hummm oh yes LDON for EQ1 one of the patch what killed EQ1 :)
This is not a flam post, just ... somebody with a lot of deception than they give out epik high end gear just while farming BG few days.
That's why i decided to stop WOW now, before BC will come, and focus on Vanguard beta.
That game is great :) i have the gameplay back from EQ1 and when i log to WOW to say hello to some friend ... i just find it Ugly, very small and without interest anymore :)
(And sorry for my bad english it is not my native english)
K buddy if your gonna talk like you are than use the real numbers, 7million players, not: oh 1 million of these people, or oh lets not include mexico. the game is the same for all 7million. recompute.
WoW is serious business people!!
Hahaha, had some good laughs reading this thread...
I like the new patch thingie, but that aside, it was realy calling for this kind of vocal response... you can't realy hold it against HCers when they are mad, it's like you go to school and coledge and you bust your ass at work to afford a house and a car and when you finaly get it, there comes a new law where anyone who finishes comunity coledge gets (maybe not a mercedes like you) a lexus and an apartment for free...
But still, those HCers can be realy funny
Well, since I find the PvP boring both pre and post patch, I'm just going to keep hoping that WoW's new expansion caters to what made this game fun originally: The PvE experience. I'm seriously hoping the new expansion has a doubling of PvE content and regions, not just some 1-20 level questing options for the two new races and some 60-70 content for the high levels. If it doesn't, I am not continuing with this game; there are too many other new options looming on the horizon out there right now (Vanguard, Age of Conan, etc.)
But man, these hardcore players who get all worked up over their in-game accomplishments: I'll feel your pain while enjoying a pleasant evening with the opposite sex; if only I were willing to forego women, life, and self respect, I'd probably have some tier two epic gear, too. Darn that love of real life I have! More power to you guys who grind it in to oblivion....
I gotta admit you thinking you are achieving something by spending 40 hours a week in a game is pretty hillarious. You can do whatever you want, but don't be delusional by thinking anyone gives a rat's behind that you invest hundreds of hours into a game every month.
Sorry for the ignorance, but I keep hearing this term "premade". What is a "premade". I have an idea but I won't comment on it for fear of being entirely off center with it. Perhaps somebody can school me on this term?
Trellot
Bad example.
In basketball, soccer, baseball.... you win because you are BETTER than the other team, and not because you invested more time. In chess, you win because your brain works better than your opponent's. If two teams are equally skilled, then of course the one that put more time into practicing will have a better chance to win. Those people and teams deserve their rewards because, yeah, they were actually better than the rest.
But also, many people do sports because they enjoy the activity itself and their goal is not necessarily the World Championship. I know many people who play football, basketball, table-tennis, volley-ball and so on just for the fun of it. In chess the game seems to be repetitive, because all they seem to do is pushing chess-pieces - in reality it is the mental challenge they crave for, the challenge of outwitting the opponent, to figure out from the moves he made what he is up to. So the activity is rewarding in itself. Should not it be the same with MMO's?
With all MMO games, the developers are forced to make a decision early: which group of players they want to cater to? Those who say: skillz > time invested? Then they'll lose a bunch of players who say 'Bah, I do not have the reflexes of a hyperactive 10-year old kid, gimme something to grind'. Blizzard opted for the time sink based gameplay (which is good for them business-wise). They thought if we gave epics only to those who are the most skilled then after a while we would cry over dwindling subscriber numbers because many people would quit due to frustration. What is our goal? To keep people going, to convince them that it is worth renewing their subscription month after month, to assure them that if they invest enough time they can get the epics they want.
However, such business logic does not make time sinks more fun. And fun is the reason why people are playing games. You brought the a), b) and c) examples. I say no matter how worthy the reward of "C" is, it does not justify forcing the players to do something that is utterly boring and repetitive. If a game start to evolve in that direction, it won't be very much different from real life, and most people do not want real life mechanisms in a game that is played for fun. Gaming companies should redefine the meaning of "work" - "effort" would be a more appropriate term, because "effort" could mean something interesting, something challenging. This is why I suggested epic quest lines for epic items that do not involve mindless reputation grinding and such. I say putting hundreds of hours into grinding does not justify your getting an epic item, and does not represent any kind of achievement. A bot program can do the same.
Getting epic items should be a rewarding experience in itself. They could do it - but it requires creativity. They could do it as an option - they could keep the grinding for those who prefer getting them that way. I say, epic quest series that present an epic challenge and epic fun could be an alternative.
Right now, the game is epic boredom while you are grinding for your epic, a short period of enjoyment when you grab it, and enjoy your improved skills, and the the epic boredom starts again for the next item. What fun it is!
Let me join those who are asking the question: who will reward those who don't play PVP and have relatively little time to play....?
(you can guess my gamer stereotpye, a true casual :)
For just saying that you like to wipe low lvl horde tells me you do suck at pvp and like you said 10 year old elitest prick. For you to assume that you can wipe the floor with me also tells me you still suck at pvp and have to relie on gear then skill and trash talk. I doubt it very much that you do have a job. Bring it fanboi. Doubt very much you will come back after you taking your dirt nap. Great thing about internet is that even 10 year old elitest pricks can be tough. You have no idea of my pvp skill but you did tell me yours. Camping tauren mill ganking lowbies is your top end of your hardcore skill.
Get a job, move out of your parents basement and pay your own bills. Paper routes do not count. Like I said Hardcore in a game does not make you Hardcore in life.
Get over your childish self and move on.
For the others. I do like what blizzard is taking the pvp. Dont know for a fact but ZG runs can get some decent epics to. Great thing about ZG is do it at your own pace and rep doesnt decay. But the nature of mmo is the grind pvp or pve. It is all based on time longer you play more they make.
@ Milla...
The formula works just fine for you. YOu have just said that the Task A is SOOO unbearable that there is no amount of Time B or Reward C that justifies you doing it.
That is cool, find a different game or enjoy a different part of that one, but don't try to say that the equation is broken or that the game is broken. I think the spike in numbers speaks for itself.
As to Sports teams being about better skill = more wins... I wonder just how closely you follow sports. I say that because EVERY week I know of teams with less talent but more determination (read TIME SPENT) that win over their opponents. Less talent/better coaching wins out over better talent all the time too. And... I don't care HOW many skills you have, if you are not spending hours upon hours of conditioning EVERY WEEK, then all your skills amount to squat.
You might find it hard to believe... but I can find enjoyment in the WoW BGs for the same reason I find enjoyment in Chess. (well mostly just AB, but the others to a lesser extent). It is not the running around and killing people and claiming points that is fun, because that is the same EVERY game (much like the moving of pieces on a chess board). The fun comes in from the fact that I play vs different people every time. They may send 5 people to the smith this game and 10 the next... how do I adapt our guild's strategy to counter that?
Perhaps you are a solo player in MMOs, or maybe just a grunt in the guild... I dunno, but PvP has a strategy level to it that goes beyond the actual gameplay.
Blizzard is attempting to even the playfield a bit (and make it so people are not just PWNED by the BC mobs) and I think it is a step in the right direction. If you can't get into PvE raids OR PvP fights... then I just wonder why in the world you would give Blizz your money every month.
I don't have to prove anything to you and nothing i can say will make you beleave that i do in fact work, which is ok, i allready established that does not matter. However... moving on, i have nothing more to add to this
I'm going to let you have the illusion of winning this discussion 
Come see me on Eredar if you want to really prove something.
[edit] See you in Mount Hyjal.... sometime 5 years from now
First of all i WAS a harcore player... spent alot of time in WoW everyday... made several lvl 60s
Only did random raids now and then call me a casual harcore player then. I did some PvP but lacked the interest to get the big grind and have all the respect to all who did make it all the way to the end THE OLD STYLE! Today any 9 yr old newbie can get same stuff within a week if he wanted to.
But worst of all (for me) the free epix killed crafting. Who wants to buy crafted gear when you can get it for free. With all my chars i got alotta 300 skill crafting in allmost all crafting classes. Stocked up MATs for a year and its all useless now. All the time and efford wasted over a night. Same story was told when SOE killed crafting in SWG and see how that ended up. (And everything else in the game.. i know)
I feel high end rewards/drops/gear in MMO are MEANT to be hard to get! Thats what so awesome about it. In SWG it took up to a year to become a jedi... it was "the carrot" most players where all hunting for and kept loggin on to get.
The people that whined, and in the end, made the developers change the game to please. Was the casuals!
I truly feel that if people dont wanna work for it... they dont deserve it!
Theres room for all of us, but changing a game for the casual "1 hour a day"-gamer, ruins it for everyone else.
Wumi - EU-Kazzak (Havnt been on since the free epix... but whats 1 guy with 5mill. players around *sigh*)
Yea Wumi.. I hear you about crafting, but the same was true 3 months into the game (like 2 years ago). Fact is Blizz made crafting almost completely irrelevant to the end-game. Only herbalism has any real money-making potential. But, the new PVP patch really is not the bane of crafters... the entire game design is.
Crafting will not be a viable way to make money really until they make EVERY profession necessary to accomplish PvP and PvE goals. It looks a BIT like they might be moving this way in TBC, but really Blizz has never been big on crafting, and they don't look to be in the future either.
EDIT - And, let's not get TOO carried away with how "casual" you can be and still get rewards. On a double-honor weekend you are still doing good to get 1,000 honor/hour. So, even your basic weapon rewards will require over 22 HOURS of gameplay. That is just one weapon. The issue is not the time it will take you, but how and when you spend that time. instead of needing 40 people 6 hours on the SAME day, you can now run 5 people at any given 6 hours ANY time of the week. If people want to completely gear up in PvP stuff they are still looking to spend 100+ hours to do so.
..it kinda takes the discussion into another level.
What is MMO? Isn't it "living" in a virtual world?
The way i see it the PvP rewards are nothing different from the unlocks you can get in FPS games like BF2/Battlefield2142.
Wumi
First of all, there is a general misconception about online games here.
A game is meant to be FUN. That is its primary purpose. I repeat: not WORK, but FUN. If you have fun because of the quests, the challenges you face while you level your character to lvl 60 (or 70), the diversity that PvP presents by throwing unknown enemies at you on the BG's - it does not really matter. As long as you have fun, the game is OK for you.
However, there is a conflict of interest here. Players want fun. Companies want income. So they invented time sinks and grind instead of coming up with creative ideas that entertain you in addition to offering a challenge.
Grind and raiding instances till your eyes bleed are NOT challenge. It's a time sink that was created to make you spend your money on the next month subscription. A dungeon may be fun until you figure out how to beat it. From that point it's nothing else but DKP grind, and ceaseless re-runs, unti everbody is geared well enough for the next instance levels.
If you want to get rewarded according to the time you spent in the game -why don't you play EVE? There you can increase your skill, even if you are offline.
You mentioned SWG. and Jedi as a big carrot for people. True it was a big carrot but why. Because - if you were not a crafter - all other parts of the game lacked content, and that was the only viable goal that drove people. And belive me, subscription numbers started to drop before they introduced the Combat Upgrade.
Unfortunately, designing time sinks like grinding and raiding for the slim chance that the boss will drop the item you want and you'll be lucky to have enough DKP or to roll the highest to get it requires much less creativity (and therefore it is much simpler and more cost-efficient) than desining fun, challenging - albeit difficult - ways of getting the same items.
I have not seen any statistics about the gaming habits of the 7 million WoW subscribers but I doubt that the hardcore gamers represent the majority. So Blizzard's logic will work this way... we will rather sacrifice 1 million hardcore gamers to retain 6 million casual gamers. If you have issues with that approach, blame it on them and not on the casual players who love this game as much as you, but have different ideas about having fun.
I also have to add fyi that I reached Jedi Knight myself but I was a bounty hunter by heart as most people know from Bloodfin at that time. You are into the right path tho... the issue is content. The expirience from the minute u log on till you log off again.
I'm a little split on this tho. MMORPG its called... to my knowledge RPG means Role Playing Game ...as in entertaining yourself. Why do people of a virtual world have to get everything delivered on a silver platter? Can't people make their own fun strengthen their online community by making up their own fun?
I can't agree more to the "work" ur relating to. I feel i lost quite a few friends on that part. I have my own little guild for all my alts and turned down several merges with some fulltime raiding guilds. Just cuz I play to have fun. And i found that in crafting, upgrade quests and random raids. The free epix killed all 3 parts of that cuz everyone is in BGs getting epix! I feel I lost some good friends cuz they joined a major fulltime raidingguild and from the time they log on till the time they log off they are "working". And in between trying to convice me that its fun wiping yet again when the boss is at 5% or less. After ½-1 year they get bored and leave WoW.
As you see Im split on this cuz I fully believe that its meant to be hard to get "the carrot".
I wish there was an endgame BG for high end players only accessable by a loooong questline. Like if the gear You have kinda decides what BG You can enter. Being a casual gamer kinda sux when You run into a premade BG full of tier2 or higher opponents dont You think?
I really hope TBC will even up the raiding on current and upcoming instances so players will have more time for fun and dont have to "work" all the time.
that would mean the so-called casual players would also receive them.
it's a game. you don't grind in 40 man instances because you LOVE doing so?
do you have numbers to back up your hypothesis? if by hardcore, you mean "raider", you're wrong. kaplan gave numbers at the last e3 which showed that less than 1% of the players raid. this is followed by the massive BG changes pre-tbc and the actual changes AWAY from raids in tbc. (if anyone disputes these numbers, like some did before, please feel free to contact mr. jeff kaplan and tell HIM that he's wrong.)
so, raiders aren't the ones that keep the shop running.
have you ever gotten a toon to the highest three pvp ranks? have you ever gotten to the highest rank? what exactly are they giving away? all the people who had worked up to say rank 6 or 8 or even 10, all of a sudden don't have any honor at all and have to start from the very beginning to get new items, THEN they made it cost even more honor after the initial change/release. if it would've taken me two weeks of pvping to get from rank 6 to 7, will it only take me two weeks to accumulate all the honor to buy whatever i would have had available at rank 7, rank 8? rank 9?
there's plenty of casual players that piddle around on their multiple lvl 60s, waiting for TBC to come out. keep in mind, that wow was marketed as a casual friendly game, which is why they drew in the crowds they did. because casual players COULD play and still have a life. when someone quotes '7 million subs/players/whohas' they're talking about a lot of casual players.
pvp/bgs have been broken since they released bgs (9 months after retail, not AT retail. even though this game was also touted as a pvp game and would have those BGs available at retail release). not only the recent bg changes show they've been broken, but all you had to do was play in a bg, see some high ranking guy soloing (so that he'd get more honor and be able to advance quicker) whilst messing over everyone else on the honor points.
imo, they jacked over the hardcore pvpers in several ways. 1 bg rewards are still crap compared to the items you get from raiding. even though in order to be high level in bgs (previously) you had to spend more time BGing than any raider would spend raiding in a given week. 2 everyone starts at scratch, so those that only had a few weeks in order to get to the uber items, now start at the very beginning and well, that's fair?
anywho, i think i've rambled on too much at this point, so i'll close.
This is entirely inaccurate. Since the new honor patch I have attained the Field Marshal Shoulders for 12375 honor, Field Marshal's Boots for 12375 honor, Field Marshal's blade for 22500 honor, and the Blue Helm for 6k and the Blue Leggings for 6k. My +spell damage increased by around 200+. I PvP almost everyday from 2 hours to 6 hours (is this hardcore?) I have always considered myself a casual player, I dislike the endless raiding without reward side of the game. This system is more realistic for me with more attainable goals. I enjoy the fact that I can actually have a goal when I PvP, unlike raiding there are no guarantees. And on a personal note, I just like PvP.
Perhaps people will think I am a hardcore player and maybe I am slightly but I am not compared to most. I spend 14-25 hrs a week since the patch playing PvP, is this hardcore? I honestly think hardcore players are actually playing 6-8 hours a day 40+hrs a week.
A good PvPer makes use of the Double Honor Weekends!!!
Now if a player only plays 5-10 hours a week, it could take a month to purchase their first 22500 honor epic but even then they could have the entire set in about 6 months
Also, I don't care if this gear will obsolete at 70, it will help me get to 70 and kick ass while getting there.