[WoW] Dug their own grave?

[Nilden]

Wait so everything we are doing is going to be useless, all that rep and honor, like flushing it down the toilet when Lich King comes out...

[The Walking Gentleman]

Originally Posted by Drajakur

I don't know why they don't just charge you 40 bucks to /buff you to 70 and let you take it from there.

Woot, I could get an alt!

[Twobit Whore]

Originally Posted by Nilden

Wait so everything we are doing is going to be useless, all that rep and honor, like flushing it down the toilet when Lich King comes out...

If you are having fun doing it now and you get some junk that helps you get started in the new content, then so what?

If you aren't enjoying it.. then why are you doing it at all?

[Ashbery]

Originally Posted by Drajakur

I've been wondering about this too.

On my server (Bladefist) the pre-TBC zones are totally and absolutely dead. There is no one there doing anything. And I mean NO ONE. But even the TBC starter-zones are basically empty. Where the hell is everyone? Either playing PvP, end-game raiding, or farming the highest-level zones for rep.

In my view, the mistake they made was making PvP gear so vastly superior to anything a casual could get; and then they made PvP progression the easiest to master. They are basically killing the world by concentrating people into their own little instance-pockets.

I've found leveling this character a totally different, and basically lonesome existence, in comparison to the first few characters I leveled to max. Its funny because if I wasn't such a solo-fiend, and if there was any game that even came close to all the many things WoW does right, I'd have switched long ago. But, as they say, a challanger has failed to appear...

P.S. Oh yeah, I also totally agree that doing anything other than getting to TBC as fast as possible is totally retarded. Why waste your time with mobs that die for less xp; have less loot to drop; and allow you only to complete quests for gear that either sells at a fraction of the cost for TBC quests; or which you would never use in a million years either.

Even before TBC came out, Azeroth leveling zones were pretty dead. Just the way the game flows, beyond that initial push to Max level the only people in those zones are alts and latecomers. The one solution for empty leveling zones that pops to mind would be a dedicated leveling realm that offered/forced free transfers when you hit max level. And that would have a ton of issues associated with it as well (community building, inability to twink, dedicated PKers/griefers, etc).

[Kheldin]

I hate how Blizzard did rep grinds in that every zone has a new faction, even though it's the same people from the faction you grinded out in another continent (Cenarian Circle v Cenarian Expedition to name an easy one). Past efforts should make things easier on you for the new grinds, else what is the lasting benefit from doing all the grinds previously? From a story point of view, it would make more sense for you to be able to take that Eranikiss fight in moonglade, and your efforts in silithus, to have a higher starting point with the new cenarian factions in their new endeavor. You are battle-tested and tempered to the challenges, so why have to start out at neutral?

Just one of many possible examples that would have helped WoW feel more continuous, rather than disjoint quest hubs.

[Kodylan]

Originally Posted by Quineloe

So that's why EQ is dead now and WOW will announce 10m players in a few weeks?
WoW raises the level cap as frequently as EQ. EQ only didn't raise the level cap every expansion because they were pumping out expansions TWICE AS FAST as WoW. How can you NOT realize this?

Good god, don't kid yourself. EQ's mudflation isn't the reason it has 200,000 less subscribers than it did in 2002 (yeah, they only lost 200,000 people - damn we sure killed the game). It was the buggy and poorly tuned expansions that were being rushed out the door at the time because of no competition. I can't really speak for recent expansions, but Omens of War was a lot better in terms of progression and bug-free content from what I recall. Gates of Discord on the other hand, as well as Plane of Time and Plane of Earth (lookin' at you Rathe Council) is what "killed" EverQuest most of all - not the game's progression model.

The only thing that WoW's progression model benefits is solo players or people making new alts/changing classes at expansion time. Other than that, the progression system is dogshit.

[Jedite]

EQ for all its flaws did a couple of things right.

First off they didn't raise the lvl cap every expansion. After Kunark it took 3 expansions for the lvl cap to be raised again from 60 to 65.

Someone earlier mentioned if Velious was still visited during PoP by raid guilds, and the answer would be yes. BoC nuff said.

Eventhough SOE pushed out expansions at a faster pace, they didn't seem to kill off the previous expansion. With every expansion the old world still seemed to be alive, and the old Raid content was still a viable target.

Kunark -> Naggy for CoF, Vox for rez stick, Planes particular items
Velious -> Trak/Vs for gear and general drops.
Luclin -> Armor sets, ToV, AoW, and Sleepers Tomb
PoP -> VT, Ssra

Im sure im leaving out some stuff, but I guess i make my point. This is actually the same discussion we had in another thread about umm 5 months ago.

[Quineloe]

Kodylan, we're talking about "EQ Mistakes" that WoW is repeating. Thank you for agreeing that mudflation didn't kill EQ

[Kodylan]

Originally Posted by Quineloe

Kodylan, we're talking about "EQ Mistakes" that WoW is repeating. Thank you for agreeing that mudflation didn't kill EQ

Eh, the quote I responded to made it sound like you were blaming EQ's progression for its demise and keeping older content viable from expansion to expansion, which isn't the case at all. If that's not what you were intending to get across as your point, then my bad.

At any rate... WoW is hardly repeating any EQ mistakes. Blizzard quickly destroyed any difficult/cockblocking progression in the raid game with TBC when people started complaining about it and turned it into the same style of "you progress to this instance when we release it" progression that Azeroth's raid content had.

I hope to christ Wrath of the Lich King is actually content complete when it launches, because that's the biggest issue I see with the game. Other than that anyone claiming that WoW or Blizzard has dug a grave is out of their minds.

[GrobbeeTrull2.0]

Originally Posted by Quineloe

Kodylan, we're talking about "EQ Mistakes" that WoW is repeating. Thank you for agreeing that mudflation didn't kill EQ

Mudflation is still a problem in EQ, but the difference in EQ and WoW is the speed at which you reach "mudflated". With TBC, you're already "mudflated" past the first 2-4 years of content. Easily. And this isn't a problem, except... there's been so "little" content, and it's done at such a fast pace that people are "done" with it much quicker.

And as soon as WOTLK comes out, you won't even need to stop in TBC. It's become a memory. All of the work put in for arena gear, t4/t5 gear, poof gone.

If there's one thing EQ did right, it's making you feel like you're not wasting time while you're wasting time. Case in point (pre-WoW mudflation): Expansion announced, more people log on and start to raid to get their characters in a position to better tackle the new content and new raids. People talk about finally getting to do content they've been blocked from and experience new content.

In WoW, when the next expansion comes out (or you even hear about it) all but the hardcore (and even some of those) lose all motivation to raid because they know that the next tier's *group and solo* content is going to put what they're fighting for to shame.

That is the difference in mudflation. And like it or not (and most don't), that is why EQ "flowed" better, because at least you always knew where your next upgrade was coming from - the next hardest raid. Unlike WoW, where your next upgrade is from a solo quest in the next expansion, thereby invalidating the work you've put in to raiding thusfar.

[Ortega]

Don't have time to read the entire thread, but they fucked up when they put in instanced battlegrounds and fucked up even more making them X-Server. WoW is by far the most community disconnected MMO ever. The addition of flying mounts and the fact that 99% of the content at 70 is instanced (excluding daily quests) makes it even worse... O yea and I'm not a fan of the overly restricted item system.

[Twobit Whore]

Yeah that's really hurting the popularity of their game.. oh wait, most people obviously could give a fuck less about 'community'. I play with my guild, my friends and myself.. and that's enough for me.

[Zarcath]

Blizzard should take the Heroic dungeon model and retro-actively apply that to every past instance. Also whenever they release a new expansion, they should add a new high level version of that zone.

Blizzard should also go back and reitemize all of the pre-50 instances entirely. I know they talked about doing that in 2.3, but I think it was only with some select boss drops? Tier 0 and 0.5 should be totally redone, at least use the 3 Class Armor Mold system. They should also open Onyxia up, or have an alternative key quest that doesn't involve UBRS.

The terrible thing is people who join during TBC or WLK will never have the experience of doing the older but good zones, and if TBC is an example of the model they're taking, it's just going to get worse as we continue. I've had people ask me where I got my conquerer's shoulders from. The only thing I worry about is 4-5 expansions down the line and we're looking at level 80+ caps, how they're going to handle old content. If they're going to keep adding new continents like EQ did, it'll be like reliving a nightmare.

I predict in about 2-3 years time all of the WoW kiddies will start growing up and realize what a shit deal WoW is. Except by that time, all of the MMOs on the market will be WoW clones and they won't want to touch another MMO again. We'll have a massive fall-out in the MMO market and all of the developers who made WoW clones will be eating shit pie. Studios will scramble to take back niche genres and we'll see a resurgence in quality titles, but this won't happen until we're all in our late 30's.

[woqqqa]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

Yeah that's really hurting the popularity of their game.. oh wait, most people obviously could give a fuck less about 'community'. I play with my guild, my friends and myself.. and that's enough for me.

Amazing as it may sound, your views aren't representative of those of the whole community. After all, where'd those dead servers come from? And don't quote me population statistics, I don't care if a million new people in China now play the game... they're not on my servers.

[Twobit Whore]

I'm pretty sure as long as 9 million people or whatever are playing that Blizzard doesn't care and isn't going to make sweeping alterations to their money printing machine because a few jaded MMO players are unsatisfied with the 'community'.