What Mistakes DiD WoW Make - or Didn't They ?

[Rayne]

Originally Posted by Slayder

There was a grand sense of accomplishment (in my case, joy) at achieving something like that. And it’s something I’ve found completely absent from WoW.

"A T8.5 chectpiece? For me?..... awesome!!! Thanks guys!........ now is there anything else in that chest I can use?"

I couldn't agree more. But a huge part of the "sense of accomplishment" is completely missing in many of the more recent games. Its not something missing in WoW specifically.

Many gamers would tell you theres something intimately awesome about setting your alarm clock to 3am to check on that rare quest spawn for a "piece" of your epic item. Many more will tell you its the stupidest thing they've ever heard of or experienced. There are prime examples of that right here on this very board, usually found in any comparison of EQ and WoW.

Thats the rub really. And where every game beyond them has a choice to make. Do they follow the paths of old where it took great patience and commitment to obtain a particular thing? Or do they flow with the ebb and tide of the current gamespace, and the draw of more instant gratification? Its a tough call for certain.

[Bongk]

Originally Posted by Wombat

1) Too long a levelling grind. People (mainly) play MMOs for the mutliplayer endgame. Reaching max level should have only taken what level 30 or 40 took, then all endgame content.

I couldn't disagree more with this. This is part of what has made WoW a bad game for me. I like advancing my character and getting meaningful gear upgrades the whole way and playing with other people. I do not like scheduled raiding, especially when it is the same shit over and over and over.

This ruined wow for me in a couple ways.

1. Gear means fuck all because you are going to replace it in about 4 hours of playing time anyways usually. So the idea of worrying about or obtaining certain pieces of gear throught the leveling processing is almost pointless removing a large aspect of why you are doing what you are doing when leveling.

2. Since it is so fast to level, especially solo, and everyone thiknks the game begins at max level (wow design encourages this in many many ways) noone meets anyone,w orries about making friends, or really doing anything meaningful contentwise until max level.

The ways I like to advance in a game, is through metting people and advacing my reputation on the server as a quality player (yes this is character advancement for you non-social fucktards)

I like to advance my character through meaningful gear upgrades throught his life cycle (this cannot happen when you replace gear in single digits hours of played time, ever)

For me the game ends usually at max level as it becomes all about scheduled stale raiding (my opinion) Maybe if there were a huge amount of raiding targets and it was more of a community thing, not this LaN game approach. But since you raced to max level and never met anyone along the way, this is already out of the question. Most noone knows how to play in a group or be sociable unles they were taught by a guild, since again everyone solos.

I admit, quailty-wise wow is the best MMOG ever, Engine-wise same deal, Graphic-wise it looks great, but they failed in so many ways to me in the leveling game.

[TKarrde]

Originally Posted by Rayne

"A T8.5 chectpiece? For me?..... awesome!!! Thanks guys!........ now is there anything else in that chest I can use?"

I couldn't agree more. But a huge part of the "sense of accomplishment" is completely missing in many of the more recent games. Its not something missing in WoW specifically.

Many gamers would tell you theres something intimately awesome about setting your alarm clock to 3am to check on that rare quest spawn for a "piece" of your epic item. Many more will tell you its the stupidest thing they've ever heard of or experienced. There are prime examples of that right here on this very board, usually found in any comparison of EQ and WoW.

Thats the rub really. And where every game beyond them has a choice to make. Do they follow the paths of old where it took great patience and commitment to obtain a particular thing? Or do they flow with the ebb and tide of the current gamespace, and the draw of more instant gratification? Its a tough call for certain.

Relic weapons in FFXI are probably the biggest example of the time/dedication/work required for any one item in any game that I've ever played. It could take a year or more, involve spending more money than you could have on your character at anyone time, farming more items from endgame content, and just being in general the longest, most drawn out shit ever.

But then the weapons were fucking badass. And if you had them, you were part of an extremely exclusive group of people.

Originally Posted by Bongk

I admit, quailty-wise wow is the best MMOG ever, Engine-wise same deal, Graphic-wise it looks great, but they failed in so many ways to me in the leveling game.

Dear god no, the wow engine is a gigantic piece of shit. The performance loss whenever you go up in resolution is terrible. Modern FPS's with graphics 100x better than WoW will run better at 2560x1600 than it will.

[James]

Originally Posted by Slayder

In my opinion, the biggest mistake (I’d rather call it ‘unwanted differences’) that WoW made was its tendency to lean towards 'skill difficulty' rather than 'enduring difficulty'. Financially for Blizzard, it wasn’t a mistake at all—because it is the chief reason for their success. But in terms of grading the level of joy I received from the game, it’s the main reason I found it less enjoyable overall than other MMOs (EQ in particular).

What the fuck does this even mean? You LIKED being cockblocked by 24-36 hour key camps PER PERSON in stupid lowshit zones for stupid bullshit keys? What the fuck is wrong with you?

[Twobit Whore]

Come on James. You know it's true. Having a game require players to play better instead of just wait longer is a HUGE mistake!

[James]

Oh I guess you're right, silly me.

[Bongk]

Originally Posted by TKarrde

Dear god no, the wow engine is a gigantic piece of shit. The performance loss whenever you go up in resolution is terrible. Modern FPS's with graphics 100x better than WoW will run better at 2560x1600 than it will.

I am comparing it to its peers, it is a quality engine when compared to its own genre.

[The Ancient]

WoW's biggest mistake was Doomfires.

[James]

Originally Posted by The Ancient

WoW's biggest mistake was Doomfires.

Your mom's biggest mistake was you.

[Vatoreus]

A mistake that needs to be rectified is BoA items not being BoA at all. That shit needs to be redone. Have the tokens or whatever just unlock the ability to buy that particular item on the account and place a vendor in each major city for any of your characters to purchase it from.

[Flesseck]

1). Arena and class balance was huge for me. Since I mostly PvP now, I've mostly concerned myself with this facet of WoW. Unfortunately, Blizzard is too inconsistent when balancing classes for arena. You'll have Druids and melee dominate one or two seasons, then a different class mix dominate Season 5, and back to Season 6 with something else. Season 5 was a huge kick in the balls, and hopefully, I believe the designers have seen that and are quick to rectify any major balance issues.

Disallowing the 2v2 bracket to be of any importance in terms of rewarding players with titles and new gear was probably the cheap solution. Since they knew that they would NEVER balance 1v1 PvP, why the fuck then did you not foresee that there would be problems with 2v2?

2). Leveling. I remember leveling my Paladin through Vanilla when there were several ability bugs that made it easier, so that didn't really count. It was pretty killer for me though during the beginning of TBC when I rolled a Draenai Shaman. I remember there was a period in my Level 30s that there was a serious lack of quests and that I ended up having to grind which was probably the most grueling, unsatisfying thing ever during the leveling process. Blizz's answer was rewarding more quest XP and lowering the required XP per level. Again, cheap solution, but somewhat got the job done. I think they should have just populated the Azeroth zones with more quests - fill in the gaps where needed rather than just increase/decrease numbers so that they would avoid designing new shit. Anyway, with Cataclysm coming out, hopefully they relook at everything since they're redoing the appearance of most of the old world zones.

[Havelock]

Originally Posted by Vatoreus

A mistake that needs to be rectified is BoA items not being BoA at all. That shit needs to be redone. Have the tokens or whatever just unlock the ability to buy that particular item on the account and place a vendor in each major city for any of your characters to purchase it from.

I ranted about this elsewhere a minute ago, but I strongly support this proposition. If Blizzard can flag accounts for DK creation on any faction or server, they should be able to do the same for BoA gear.

[Slayder]

Originally Posted by James

What the fuck does this even mean? You LIKED being cockblocked by 24-36 hour key camps PER PERSON in stupid lowshit zones for stupid bullshit keys? What the fuck is wrong with you?

I'm not saying I liked doing it. In fact, I remember camping Commander Keys in Ssra for weeks on end for guildies and frankly, it was grueling. You are missing the point entirely.

I'm saying that, after I did it, and the entire guild was keyed. I DID like the sense of accomplishment of being among the dedicated few who actually put up with the bullshit and then was subsequently rewarded for it.

Think of it as a weeding out process. Some people weren't willing to put in the time and effort to make it happen and are therefore rewarded with nothing. Unlike WoW's loot pinata system where the only 'achievement' is a little box that pops up and congratulates you for killing a boss while patting your head and rubbing your stomach simultaneously.

[Havelock]

The problem with putting the emphasis on grinding out a key is the difficulty in catching random people up once the initial push to grind it out is over. If the emphasis is instead on doing the same kind of grind for an actual piece of gear, I think it works out a lot better. I never did the priest staff quest, but it looked like the sort of thing that I'd like to see - a lengthy and involved process to get a very useful piece of gear. That holds particularly true when it's a piece of gear that will stay useful for ages. Ideally, you want a piece of gear that's solid and a system that allows gear upgrades in a variety of ways (gems, enchantments, etc.) so the player can progress in terms of gear even when the base piece of gear stays the same.

[James]

Originally Posted by Slayder

I'm not saying I liked doing it. In fact, I remember camping Commander Keys in Ssra for weeks on end for guildies and frankly, it was grueling. You are missing the point entirely.

I'm saying that, after I did it, and the entire guild was keyed. I DID like the sense of accomplishment of being among the dedicated few who actually put up with the bullshit and then was subsequently rewarded for it.

Think of it as a weeding out process. Some people weren't willing to put in the time and effort to make it happen and are therefore rewarded with nothing. Unlike WoW's loot pinata system where the only 'achievement' is a little box that pops up and congratulates you for killing a boss while patting your head and rubbing your stomach simultaneously.

Sounds like someone who has never done Firefighter. Trust me when I say that the adrenaline rush and sense of accomplishment you get from getting that 'achievement' when you kill the lower and middle sections while the head is still at 6% is far, far greater than completing some bullshit key and setting foot in an instance for the first time.