WoW -- Developers don't have a vision of what they want.

[Qhue]

I am really starting to feel that the Developers of World of Warcraft have just plain lost their vision of what they want the game to be.

They keep going through radical re-alignments of the basic classes and spent months seemingly defining and redefining what the Hunter was (including changing the ranged combat system around a few times) without even daring to commit long enough to put the class in.

With so many changes, rearrangment of basic abilities and overall confusion (changing many things at once rather than a gradual single-variable alteration) its hard to tell what the heck is going on in their minds. What I DO know is that almost all of the early press material that made WoW sound so revolutionary is no longer at all valid. All those cool ideas about a smith needing to venture deep into a special area to use that better and legendary forge, the complex ritual magic system requiring multiple characters working together in concert.. that all seems to have gone by the wayside.

I look around the game now and it just looks like the Developers took all the creativity of the initial ideas and have instead flushed it all in favor of a phat lewt pharm. The emphasis seems to be shifting away from story driven and fun content like Uldaman and moving to PVP dickwaving and dealing with the daily focus of whineplay 2.0.

It might be quite L33t and I'm sure the kiddies still get their rocks off playing it.... but it isn't fun and certainly doesnt feel like the strange and mysterious new world that it did a few months ago. It just feels like someone is trying desperately to reinvent the raiding game that existed in EQ 2 years ago and in so doing is dragging a potentially fun game and ruining it.

[Noubourne]

Try to pay attention.

Only the basic spell lines are in right now. They said right away that they were going to get the basic stuff out there, the spells that increase as you level, to get them balanced with each other first, and then they were going to add the special spell lines that make your character more interesting as you gain levels. I am guessing this is also pretty much true for melees, but in a recent post on Blizzard's boards, they said just that, specifically in relation to casters I believe.

I don't see them changing many things at once. Each patch they're adding a pile of new things to test, or making minor adjustments, not big changes. Some classes aren't in, most classes are mostly in, and if talents tend to add around 30% more power and a few more abilities to each class when they go in, then there will be much more to do before they're done. What are they supposed to do, just not add anything else because it's not perfectly balanced? Hunters have to go in. Where are these big changes you're talking about? Priest and Rogue talents are going in. Would you rather they sat on them?

Also, are you complaining that the marketing for WoW was misleading? Do you know what marketing is for? Have you read any of the marketing materials for Enter the Matrix or Gigli? You do realize marketing is all lies everywhere, and it's not just Blizzard right?

[Gar]

Raiding in EQ 2 years ago was god damn fun. Kunark, Velious, PoP (after the fixes to ele4 gods) where the best multiplayer raiding experience ever made. And shitload of us loved it. I see nothing wrong if WoW is going for velious or pop in raiding content.

That makes a fun game.

What it comes to other issues in WOW, what I have read make me more worried than it beign raid quest v2.0. (witch is good, in my opinion)

Con's that I have read from WoW that sound like real issues:

* Solo is much better than grouping
* Game is god damn easy. No real death penalty, no risk, no challenge. Average EQ dude can pretty much walk up to highest level of beta within a month playing casually. I mean.. wtf.. Whats the point in this? Make the game harder. Easy isn't good. Best moments in EQ, where those that you really were afraid that you might die and lose yer corpse.
* Quest system just means pick up all the quests you can find in area A, move to area B when all quests are done in area A.
* Hence the quest system, there is no need to explore the world beforehand.. why bother, if you cant do the quests in area B, no point going there.
*World is small, there is no adventure in it. This is a huge problem for me atleast.
* There is no real info out yet, how servers are going to be made, regarding PVP or PVE, what will be their main target and so forth. Quite many seem to like PVP alliance gameplay. Will the PVP servers have pk protection like in LN2?

Are there going to be any real multiplayer dungeons like sebilis? Or are they all instanced to your own group or raid? This might also be reason why everone complains the world is really, really small.

What comes to the DEVs pushing this to be loot fest 2.0, what the fuck you think MMORPG's are about?

Friends, mobs and loot with a good backstory (backstory, as in item/location/mob lore) you can relate into.

... its freaking simple. That is

a) rpg
b) multiplayer

You want something else? Go check another genre. I want my items, levels, loots and raids and my hope is that wow will delivere me those.

Story driven? In multiplayer rpg.. There is no such thing as real story in a multiplayer enviroment that you can participate. You know, there is no _hero_ in multiplayer enviroment. We all want to be the hero, but none of us can, try to write a intresting story for 3500+ players on each server that everyone can relate to and there really is a _story_ what you can interact with, I'll bet they give you writing nobel for that.

[CnCGOD]

Solo is only better than grouping if you grind. If you group and do quests, the speed you finnish most quests (sans collect) is a LOT faster thus you will lvl faster.

I do see the trend that doungens will ALL be instanced. I don't think they plan on haveing any meaningfull non instanced ones.

[Vorph]

I dunno about them not having a vision, but I'll definitely say that today's announcement of removing invis from mages because a bunch of gimps who suck at PvP whined about it doesn't sit too well with me.

[Noubourne]

Any changes they make as a result of the PvP gank and whine crew is really annoying.

There were 2 easy solutions to this:

1. Not put Mage invis in until warlocks detect invis spell/ability was in and Rogue stealth worked properly.

2. Not start a PvP server till warlocks detect invis spell/ability was in and Rogue stealth worked properly.

Too bad they opted to stick it in and then listen to calls for nerf instead of adjusting other abilities to balance it. They could have just slapped a no attack timer on it, so you can't attack a PC for 20 seconds after you've appeared from invis.

[Whyme]

I'm very intrigued by this change. On one hand, I am saddened that Blizzard took the "easy way-out" and instead of trying to find an alternative solution so as to stop invis abuse just completely removed the damn thing. On the other hand, I'm happy that Blizzard did something, anything about it -- I never understoond why mages had invis in the FIRST place. Maybe there's was a good reason for them to have had it, but I just can't figure it out.

Also, this change confuses me. Blizzard has stated several times that they would not be balancing PVP at the cost of PVE experience, yet what is this? I don't believe invis was so incredibly, super-duper overpowered in PVE to merit a complete removal, but then again I play a Priest so I am not too experienced with the ability

I believe I'm just going to wait out the patch and see what the Mages say after they get a chance to play around with(out) it before I take a final stance... although I'll probably have my own issues to deal with by then =/

[Cybsled]

Wtf...they're removing invis?

Heh why?

HELLO PEOPLE. MAKE FRIENDS WITH WARLOCKS YOU F'ING MORONS...WE CAN BUFF YOU.

That sucks...my favorite activity was ganking mages who thought they were in god mode invis. I can see you, suckah!!

Blizzard plan on doing anything with our see-invis line then? ;/

[Merauk]

Until I pay my $50 and $10 a month I could really give two shits what their game looks like. The end product is the only one that matters and the reviews that come out when Blizzard freezes development will be the only ones that matter in my decision to give them my money.

[Andorion]

To echo what Merauk said...

After my time spent with EQ and "The Vision," though, I'm happy with Blizzard just tweaking/breaking/adding things and seeing how it all turns out. I'm just annoyed they're screwing with classes relative balance before the last class is even in and before most of them have talents.

[kashmir]

Invis needed to be drastically altered, or removed altogether. This last push, I played a Mage exclusively, both on the PvP and Beta server, and I'll be the first to admit that Invis in its current form is way too powerful.

I would like to have seen them look at some alternate methods for retuning it before stripping it out completely, but aside from the obvious screws lent to Mages in both PvP and Questing, there were also some technical issues with client/server communication that couldn't be addressed this late in development, as I understand it.

I'm sure it will get another look at some point, but there were just far too many exploitable uses of Invis to allow it to remain in the game as it was. As with any other change, players will learn to adapt, and the game will go on.

[Solmancer]

Well, here's a few things for you Qhue:

1) They've said (and this was already posted) that the special stuff for classes to distinguish them aren't in yet. That's next after Hunters go in.

2) Who CARES if they're rearranging spell lines during a beta?

3) Not all content is in yet, so why all the bitching about the pvp dickwaving, hmm? For instance: Onyxia, Blackrock Depths, opening more zones, more quests in existing places, tuning existing places, etc. etc. etc.

4) Rituals and leet smithing: See #1 and 3

5) What Merauk and Noubourne said, too.

[FoghornDeadhorn]

Originally posted by Vorph
I dunno about them not having a vision, but I'll definitely say that today's announcement of removing invis from mages because a bunch of gimps who suck at PvP whined about it doesn't sit too well with me.

YES!

Seriously, fuck mages. I cannot tell you how impossibly gay it is that in a group the mage was always the fucking scout, those assholes could walk right through mobs while a rogue sat with his thumb up his ass because stealth was virtually useless for advance scouting. Mage invis was the last straw in totally removing the Rogue's class identity as unique. Hi, I am your superior DPS, scout, and lockpicker, suck my magic dick.

Oh, and believe it or not it is not always possible to find a warlock in a reasonable amount of time, and there is no other class ability that you must seek out a single other class to be able to guard yourself from. After playing on the PvP server with the level 50 gankmage fags with greater invisibility doing gay shit like camping the northmost camp in Stranglethorn, or the ore node at the enterance to the badlands, mages in PvP were just fucking queer. Now maybe they'll have to think about survival like the rest of the classes. Boy are they gonna get assfucked after the patch, there is a lot of resentment out there...

[Tigole]

All those cool ideas about a smith needing to venture deep into a special area to use that better and legendary forge, the complex ritual magic system requiring multiple characters working together in concert.. that all seems to have gone by the wayside.

I don't think you're quite being fair. When the next patch goes up, you'll have your special forge and anvil at the bottom of Blackrock Depths for special recipes (as promised).

Also, ritual spells are in and working in the game.

Sometimes people forget what a beta is all about. Classes will get changed. Content will get added. Most people are accustomed to not hearing about extreme beta changes due to stiff NDA's. People inherintly do not like change. It's often tough for beta testers to seperate their beta experience from a live, paid-to-play game. Beta testers want us to play the role of *live team* to make their experience fun. As much as we try to do that, our major concern is building and tuning a game that is not yet released. It's NOT finished yet.

But if you think things such as special forges in special locations were just PR fluff, I challenge you to make that same accusation when the patch goes up (a matter of hours).

And lastly, regarding mage invis, the spell was never intended to work like it was. It should have never been on the class in that implementation. The spell should have been removed before public Alpha. We have some cool ideas for invis, actually. But you won't be seeing it like it was. I don't think anyone can look me in the eye and say with a straight face that mage invis was not broken. And for the record, I could care less about the PvP whining. As the game designer responsible for the dungeons, I can state quite clearly that mage invis was breaking the PvE experience as well.

Have fun in Blackrock Depths this week... remember me when you find the Black Anvil and the Black Forge

[FoghornDeadhorn]

/hug Tigole

I tried to send you one earlier, don't know if you got it or not. So happy