It's pretty clear to me based on conversations with various people that "the height of WoW" is just code for "when I started playing" or possibly "when I became a progression raider/pvper."
Raiding is the same as it always was; hardly anything has been as hard as sunwell since sunwell but that's a good thing (fucking felmyst, ugh.) What I realized after a while is that most of the fun I had in BC happened 1) during raids and 2) during all the "time wasting" that's mostly been stripped out of the game since. Meaningless fights over skettis or elemental plateau just so we could farm mats for raid consumables provided some great memories.
Raiding is still kind of fun but server shrinkage has made recruiting a huge hassle and the non-raid components of the game don't seem to provide the opportunity for much random enjoyment
hold your head high soldier, it ain't over yet
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Yeah, the earnings call comes out in a few weeks and I'm honestly expecting them to have gained subs since last quarter, but a lot of that is probably people who already came and went for dragon soul, and the annual pass, which I still think is the most genius marketing move they've ever pulled, since I'm betting right AFTER it expires is when Mists of Pandaren will be coming out.
It's pretty clear to me based on conversations with various people that "the height of WoW" is just code for "when I started playing" or possibly "when I became a progression raider/pvper."
I think this is about right. Another one might be "when the class I played the most was most powerful."
The game has in general objectively improved over each subsequent year of its life, at least for the first 6 years. The first year of Cataclysm is a sticky exception, as it by far improved the new player experience and made new players not feel like they were playing a stale, 6 year old game, but made some strange steps backward in accessibility and also seemed to suffer in the high level content front (likely a result of so much effort being spent in reinventing the leveling experience, as has been discussed here before). The problem is that for long-term players, diminished novelty -- a direct consequence of continuing to play the game -- is constantly fighting against these improvements to the game.
Unrealistic expectations for changes to the game aside, most players can't be expected to have as much fun doing approximately the same things (i.e., some iterative development of those things) now as they did 3, 5, or 7 years ago, no matter how much various minor additions and improvements have been made around and to these activities.
I'm pretty much over dailies now, make that shit weekly, yo.
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HalfmexI mock your value systemYou also appear foolish in the eyes of othersRegistered Userregular
Tol Barad was the last bit of dailies I did, and I just can't bring myself to do them anymore. Weeklies would be a good first step, but also making your rewards actually worth your time. A month and a half of dailies for some off-set pieces for certain specs and a shitload of vanity items? No thanks.
What I'd like to see is another event like that one in Ogri'la (something Darkrune) where you controlled 3 different demons in a stage-like progression until you killed the boss with a (sometimes) decent reward at the end. It was relatively challenging (most people I watched do it failed), but it was actually pretty fun. The demons had some pretty unique abilities for a player to be using at that time, and you couldn't just snooze your way through it like your typical vehicle quests.
I'm sure now they could do it with less clunky controls (having skills bound to a pet bar is shitty), although they'd probably want to make it phased somehow since only one person could do the Ogri'la one at a time. Granted, it it was limited by a daily grinding drop, but that was definitely the most annoying part of it, so I'd prefer they come up with a different limitation for a new version.
molten front was just dailies. even without isle of quel'danis BC(and wrath) had 2 full max level zones with lots of stuff to do. cata had.. half a zone?
molten front was just dailies. even without isle of quel'danis BC(and wrath) had 2 full max level zones with lots of stuff to do. cata had.. half a zone?
Neither Netherstorm nor SMV were max level zones -- you could start doing quests there at level 67 or 68 -- but I get your point. I think that's just a restatement of the problem of the level 80-85 experience being limited to only 4 sequential zones (Hyjal/Vashj'ir are meant to be parallel), and most reasonable theories suggest the number of high level zones was stunted by the large amount of work they did to Azeroth.
I think it's only fair to note, though, that the Cata zones are generally bigger/longer than the TBC zones were. The zone quest achievements in TBC are generally around the 70-80 mark, as I recall, while the Cata zones are all over 100.
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
I think it's only fair to note, though, that the Cata zones are generally bigger/longer than the TBC zones were. The zone quest achievements in TBC are generally around the 70-80 mark, as I recall, while the Cata zones are all over 100.
I'd argue that this isn't a good thing. I would personally prefer 15 smallish zones to 5 really big ones. Change of scenery and all that.
I'm not saying it's a good thing on its own, but one Twilight Highlands does have more content than one Netherstorm. Just a way of saying you can't strictly compare zone to zone.
Then to bring up Vanilla and the Suppression Room of all things? I played a rogue back then, and what you did was sit in stealth for 20 mins disabling traps while the rest waded through trash, before getting to a boss you got your gun / bow / throwing skills up with. Why did Blizz not repeat this? The answer should be obvious.
To be fair, if you weren't a rogue the Suppression Room was kinda fun. It could definitely use some tweaking but the constant run and gun fight was a pretty cool idea.
It's pretty clear to me based on conversations with various people that "the height of WoW" is just code for "when I started playing" or possibly "when I became a progression raider/pvper."
Raiding is the same as it always was; hardly anything has been as hard as sunwell since sunwell but that's a good thing (fucking felmyst, ugh.) What I realized after a while is that most of the fun I had in BC happened 1) during raids and 2) during all the "time wasting" that's mostly been stripped out of the game since. Meaningless fights over skettis or elemental plateau just so we could farm mats for raid consumables provided some great memories.
Raiding is still kind of fun but server shrinkage has made recruiting a huge hassle and the non-raid components of the game don't seem to provide the opportunity for much random enjoyment
I raided every expansion and WOTLK/Cata was the best the experience ever was. I'd probably give the edge to WOTLK since Cata was kind of annoying in some ways. Progression raiding in Vanilla and TBC was fun at the time but that's cause we didn't know any better. It was only changed for the better.
It's pretty clear to me based on conversations with various people that "the height of WoW" is just code for "when I started playing" or possibly "when I became a progression raider/pvper."
I think this is about right. Another one might be "when the class I played the most was most powerful."
The game has in general objectively improved over each subsequent year of its life, at least for the first 6 years. The first year of Cataclysm is a sticky exception, as it by far improved the new player experience and made new players not feel like they were playing a stale, 6 year old game, but made some strange steps backward in accessibility and also seemed to suffer in the high level content front (likely a result of so much effort being spent in reinventing the leveling experience, as has been discussed here before). The problem is that for long-term players, diminished novelty -- a direct consequence of continuing to play the game -- is constantly fighting against these improvements to the game.
Unrealistic expectations for changes to the game aside, most players can't be expected to have as much fun doing approximately the same things (i.e., some iterative development of those things) now as they did 3, 5, or 7 years ago, no matter how much various minor additions and improvements have been made around and to these activities.
I think that's been the big problem. I think WoW may be the first MMO to die from simply wearing out it's welcome. As many improvements as Cata made to the game, it didn't change it fundamentally. The endgame now feels like what I was doing all through WOTLK. More of the same and it's getting dull no matter how well polished it is.
also having done the cata questlines I don't really think they are superior. 1-60 in essence got final fantasy 13'd. extremely linear questing feels out of place in what is supposed to be an expansive world.
Jars on
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
edited January 2012
The three highest level zones of TBC, Netherstorm, Blade's Edge and shadow valley whatever, were all fucking horrible desolate shitholes. Yet another reason why TBC sucked.
In fact, the only good zone of TBC was Nagrand. Well, blood elf level 1-10 area too and Quel'Danas, but that wasn't until later.
If only for the second point I have to forgive it pretty much completely
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
edited January 2012
Karazhan was awful. Boring to look at, too much running about, too much trash. Some of the bosses were fun, though.
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HalfmexI mock your value systemYou also appear foolish in the eyes of othersRegistered Userregular
Kara is by far my favorite raid, nothing else even comes close. The appeal for me really boils down to its variance in aesthetics, from the ghostly stables and dining room in the entryway to the opera, onto the library and into the crumbling upper reaches, everything seemed different enough that it wasn't just "here's one architectural theme and three colors, go nuts". The only other raid I can think of that did that was Ulduar.
Karazhan was one of the most amazing raids from an environment and boss design point of view. It was truely unique and memorable.
From an implementation point of view, it started out so bad. Itemized below heroics (ilvl 105 epics were 98% of ilvl 115 blues, crafter gear topped that, as did badge gear). Ridicilously overtuned in the strangest places (All initial TBC content started out overtuned except perhaps Gruul which was still hard but at least doable), with the peak of hilarity Romeos big uninterruptible attack being nerfed 3 patches in a row. Some of the trash possibly harder than most bosses (Just before the theatre had 2 nightmare pulls iirc) The final fight made completely trivial by positioning, something only fixed perhaps 9 months in. Stupid 17 step attunement quest.
I also remember tanking that damn entrance horse on my shadowpriest at times because a) At the very start spriests did ridicilous things with both damage and threat and b) I ran that place while my guild was a revolving door feeding the 2 guilds higher up, and I ended up ridicilously overgeared.
Edit: Oh yeah and the 'no magic dps at all' trash. I skilled up my dagger on those stupid fish.
SanderJK on
Steam: SanderJK Origin: SanderJK
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
Man, you guys must've played through an entirely different version of Karazhan than I did. The Karazhan I saw was a gray monotonous castle. Y'all make it sound like it was some fantastic rainbow-filled fount of variety.
Man, you guys must've played through an entirely different version of Karazhan than I did. The Karazhan I saw was a gray monotonous castle.
That was ICC for me, which was such a disappointment. It was so...sterile. I had hoped to see some truly impressive horrors decorating the walls and floors there, and instead it looked like a set for some emo metal band's new video. So much squandered potential there.
Ulduar was the best raid for me and Kara was second. Ulduar because it had a good storyline and interesting encounters (along with the proto-heroic mode which was the best way to implement that system). Kara because of the whole mansion design with tons of floors being a refreshing change of pace from all of the sprawling one or two story dungeons and the bosses and the trash were all memorable.
ICC disappointed me because you basically waltz in and there's almost no resistance and nothing going on. I mean when you enter the upper area shit should be coming after you for invading, not just sitting around with their thumbs up their asses. The Lich King should have been involved, helping the bosses out by supercharging them or spawning adds or forcing you to murder prisoners he's made undead, not just brooding on his throne till you get to him. The whole weekly quest thing they shoehorned in was dumb as well, since some punished dying to a boss which meant if you were learning heroics you weren't getting it that week.
Man, you guys must've played through an entirely different version of Karazhan than I did. The Karazhan I saw was a gray monotonous castle.
That was ICC for me, which was such a disappointment. It was so...sterile. I had hoped to see some truly impressive horrors decorating the walls and floors there, and instead it looked like a set for some emo metal band's new video. So much squandered potential there.
ICC should have had more corpses and torture stuff everywhere. I bet they would have not been able to ship to some markets though had they done that (cough cough China)
I think it's only fair to note, though, that the Cata zones are generally bigger/longer than the TBC zones were. The zone quest achievements in TBC are generally around the 70-80 mark, as I recall, while the Cata zones are all over 100.
I'd argue that this isn't a good thing. I would personally prefer 15 smallish zones to 5 really big ones. Change of scenery and all that.
Yeah the cata zones all felt like they went on far too long.
As for dailies, I think they've wrung that idea dry. If they're going to have psuedo grindy repeatable end level content like that just let me do it at my own pace. The idea of stuff like "this takes 38 days minimum to complete, hope you don't forget or miss days!" needs to go away.
Cata zones might have been long but they were broken up in staged areas. This is pretty much the same as several small areas as there is little to no flying around. You just move across the map in little bits and pieces to complete the next set of quests.
Also Kara is the best ever. No doubt about it.
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GrobianWhat's on sale?Pliers!Registered Userregular
Anyone ever leveled/played more than one character of the same class? My main all the way from start of TBC to end of WotLK was a Druid, who has long since been given away, but as an unending symptom of my altitis I kind of want another one.
I think my brain's broken :<
(that, and troll druid hell yes.)
I have two 85 priests (on the same server/faction). I have also started lot's of alts in classes that I already have, but since my main server is full, most of those alts don't go anywhere. I think my highest are a ~40 mage and druid, where I also have 85s and I have two rogues at 6X and 7X.
The leveling process of all classes changed dramatically with Cataclysm, so it definitely feels fresh and new if you last leveled the class before that.
Also I think @SabreMau has 4 Paladins or something like that.
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Raiding is the same as it always was; hardly anything has been as hard as sunwell since sunwell but that's a good thing (fucking felmyst, ugh.) What I realized after a while is that most of the fun I had in BC happened 1) during raids and 2) during all the "time wasting" that's mostly been stripped out of the game since. Meaningless fights over skettis or elemental plateau just so we could farm mats for raid consumables provided some great memories.
Raiding is still kind of fun but server shrinkage has made recruiting a huge hassle and the non-raid components of the game don't seem to provide the opportunity for much random enjoyment
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
The game has in general objectively improved over each subsequent year of its life, at least for the first 6 years. The first year of Cataclysm is a sticky exception, as it by far improved the new player experience and made new players not feel like they were playing a stale, 6 year old game, but made some strange steps backward in accessibility and also seemed to suffer in the high level content front (likely a result of so much effort being spent in reinventing the leveling experience, as has been discussed here before). The problem is that for long-term players, diminished novelty -- a direct consequence of continuing to play the game -- is constantly fighting against these improvements to the game.
Unrealistic expectations for changes to the game aside, most players can't be expected to have as much fun doing approximately the same things (i.e., some iterative development of those things) now as they did 3, 5, or 7 years ago, no matter how much various minor additions and improvements have been made around and to these activities.
that's what cataclysm is. only there are fewer raids and they forgot to include out of raid stuff like level 85 quest zones.
I'm sure now they could do it with less clunky controls (having skills bound to a pet bar is shitty), although they'd probably want to make it phased somehow since only one person could do the Ogri'la one at a time. Granted, it it was limited by a daily grinding drop, but that was definitely the most annoying part of it, so I'd prefer they come up with a different limitation for a new version.
I think it's only fair to note, though, that the Cata zones are generally bigger/longer than the TBC zones were. The zone quest achievements in TBC are generally around the 70-80 mark, as I recall, while the Cata zones are all over 100.
I'd argue that this isn't a good thing. I would personally prefer 15 smallish zones to 5 really big ones. Change of scenery and all that.
It was still better then Vanilla in most ways. But that's more just due to time to improve the game formula.
There's no way TBC is the peak of the game though. Not a chance.
To be fair, if you weren't a rogue the Suppression Room was kinda fun. It could definitely use some tweaking but the constant run and gun fight was a pretty cool idea.
I raided every expansion and WOTLK/Cata was the best the experience ever was. I'd probably give the edge to WOTLK since Cata was kind of annoying in some ways. Progression raiding in Vanilla and TBC was fun at the time but that's cause we didn't know any better. It was only changed for the better.
I think that's been the big problem. I think WoW may be the first MMO to die from simply wearing out it's welcome. As many improvements as Cata made to the game, it didn't change it fundamentally. The endgame now feels like what I was doing all through WOTLK. More of the same and it's getting dull no matter how well polished it is.
also having done the cata questlines I don't really think they are superior. 1-60 in essence got final fantasy 13'd. extremely linear questing feels out of place in what is supposed to be an expansive world.
In fact, the only good zone of TBC was Nagrand. Well, blood elf level 1-10 area too and Quel'Danas, but that wasn't until later.
1) Isle of Quel'Danas
2) Motherfuckin' Karazhan
If only for the second point I have to forgive it pretty much completely
Your opinions are terrible
(when it comes to trash you're dead right about the curator->aran->netherspite stretch, though)
From an implementation point of view, it started out so bad. Itemized below heroics (ilvl 105 epics were 98% of ilvl 115 blues, crafter gear topped that, as did badge gear). Ridicilously overtuned in the strangest places (All initial TBC content started out overtuned except perhaps Gruul which was still hard but at least doable), with the peak of hilarity Romeos big uninterruptible attack being nerfed 3 patches in a row. Some of the trash possibly harder than most bosses (Just before the theatre had 2 nightmare pulls iirc) The final fight made completely trivial by positioning, something only fixed perhaps 9 months in. Stupid 17 step attunement quest.
I also remember tanking that damn entrance horse on my shadowpriest at times because a) At the very start spriests did ridicilous things with both damage and threat and b) I ran that place while my guild was a revolving door feeding the 2 guilds higher up, and I ended up ridicilously overgeared.
Edit: Oh yeah and the 'no magic dps at all' trash. I skilled up my dagger on those stupid fish.
ICC disappointed me because you basically waltz in and there's almost no resistance and nothing going on. I mean when you enter the upper area shit should be coming after you for invading, not just sitting around with their thumbs up their asses. The Lich King should have been involved, helping the bosses out by supercharging them or spawning adds or forcing you to murder prisoners he's made undead, not just brooding on his throne till you get to him. The whole weekly quest thing they shoehorned in was dumb as well, since some punished dying to a boss which meant if you were learning heroics you weren't getting it that week.
ICC started good but after Saurfang the whole thing just became a series of dull, life-less loot pinata corridors.
I want more raids and instances like the ICC 5-mans or the new Caverns of Time 5 mans. With more story and sense to the layout.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
As for dailies, I think they've wrung that idea dry. If they're going to have psuedo grindy repeatable end level content like that just let me do it at my own pace. The idea of stuff like "this takes 38 days minimum to complete, hope you don't forget or miss days!" needs to go away.
although the molten front was kind of stupidly onerous
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Also Kara is the best ever. No doubt about it.
I have two 85 priests (on the same server/faction). I have also started lot's of alts in classes that I already have, but since my main server is full, most of those alts don't go anywhere. I think my highest are a ~40 mage and druid, where I also have 85s and I have two rogues at 6X and 7X.
The leveling process of all classes changed dramatically with Cataclysm, so it definitely feels fresh and new if you last leveled the class before that.
Also I think @SabreMau has 4 Paladins or something like that.