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

[regret]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

They removed potion/flask farming for the most part. Going from 40 to 25 had mixed results.

Yes, but that doesn't remove the scars from doing completely untuned Gruul and then SSC and it's horrific trash respawn timers, in addition to having to farm elixirs and flasks just so you could bang your head against that spiked wall. It was fucking terrible and if you experienced it it's small comfort they did eventually fix it.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Well, if you want to split hairs loatheb was even worse and he cited potion/consumable farming as one of the reasons he preferred 40 man to 25 man. It didn't make much sense to me. If you hate farming consumables, why would you be less annoyed by having to do so much more of it?

[Guzrog]

Originally Posted by SalaciousTunare

One thing I wish they would have done for Battlegrounds is to have made multiple maps of the same game type.

I could ramble on and on why Isle of Conquest is crap compared to original Alterac Valley, or why Strands of the Ancients is horrible compared to Wintergrasp... but something that is inexcusable imo, is to have only one capture the flag map in six years.

How many "Kill the bad guy at the end of this cave/room/spaceship" PVE dungeons do we have?

I would change the queuing system from queuing for just warsong gulch, to queuing for capture the flag. Have several pvp maps of the same type in the same block, on a rotation. This time it's Warsong Gulch, then the next map in the rotation is Plaguelands Depths (cave capture the flag), then it's Cliffs of Azshara, Stranglethorn Ruins, etc. I'd like to see outdoor, indoor, a mixture, cliffs, water, etc. I'd love to see some completely indoor dungeon based capture the flag.

This would do two things, one it would give us some new maps that could use existing established coding that could easily be copy and pasted then altered. Secondly, it would help reduce the queuing problems of queuing for the newest map, instead of queuing for the newest game type.

Right now, if they added a new capture the flag map, I know they'd just make you queue for it by map name, and warsong gulch would die.

Man finding shit on Quake 1 on google is like looking for virgins in LA. Give me that Q1 CTF map, with the water and the bridges, McKinleys Base or whatever? Tunnels in the water, grappling hooks, and WOW. I'll buy one of those cheesy lifetime subscriptions yesterday!

[regret]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

Well, if you want to split hairs loatheb was even worse and he cited potion/consumable farming as one of the reasons he preferred 40 man to 25 man. It didn't make much sense to me. If you hate farming consumables, why would you be less annoyed by having to do so much more of it?

Then I would agree, they were both awful. I'm sure someone still has a screenshot of their buff bar for Sapphiron in Naxx40, and the horror stories of too many buffs popping their main tank out of defensive stance.

[Malakriss]

Loatheb was barely even the frosting on the cake for pot requirements. You knew exactly what you needed per attempt on that fight (3 shadow pots, 2 bandages, 1 health stone), there was 0 threat issues thanks to spores and your healers only needed to get 1 heal right on the main tank the entire fight. Hell shadow priests trivialized the encounter as well since their healing was unaffected, Alliance's judgment of light cheezed for melees as well.

As stated earlier in the thread Patchwerk, 4H, Gothik, and a few others were supremely intensive on the potions, where guilds would need all 40 practically ODing. Then there was the Thaddius lag issues on servers without upgrade hardware, Heigan's splash 1 shotting anyone who failed (at least 50% of a raid). We literally had a priest who would use the stone flask (1 minute ice block) on Heigan's altar just so he wouldn't have to bother dancing.

[Guzrog]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

So uh...pug more and use trade and general chat channels? What exactly are you complaining about?

Or are you one of those dumbasses that complain about the lack of socialization in WoW and then will go and whine about shitty pugs and barrens chat. Who the fuck do you think you'd have to socialize with if the game forced you to start interacting with more people.

It's like some of you don't even think.

I mean complaining about the Auction House? Really? I mean fucking really?

If you miss it that goddamn much use trade channel. I've made a killing in trade auctioning off services. Besides, I'm not exactly sure what you miss out on here. The spam in OOC when you entered your severs specific trade zone? Or was it that amazing interaction with the person you traded with.

"How much?"
"400 plat."
"Okay brt."
"thx"

Goddamn. How can we live without it?

Fuck.

I'd wager this comes down to the social dynamic, which is far beyond the comprehension of the majority of the garbage that posts on the boards these days. Personally I enjoy networking, meeting new people, making new friends, etc. However, you won't see my ass at an ice cream social or speed dating thing (place?) In the context of the EAST commons trader: Hitting him up at some point to see if they had something to offer you might really want and get a deal based off your previous relationship.

It's the same shit with grouping. Yeah you meet alot of fucks and terrible players. Alot of fucks and terrible pseudo merchants in EC... but at the end of the day you remembered their names and at least speaking for myself, took a certain satisfaction in the knowledge I gained of their character in dealing with them whether it was picking up a Runed Bone Fork at a steal, or them pulling 5 frogs into the group then going "LOL AFK GUYS, PIZZA HERE!!!"

At the end of the day people are going to take the path of least resistance. While you present a very valid point that the options are out there, and available to the player... we are human, we'll take the path of least resistance every single fucking time

...and cry about it later.

I don't want to be forced or deal with complete fucking idiots but I do appreciate the flavor it brings to games. This subject maybe unique to me because if I don't like someone's ass in real life I don't pretend like I do, courtesy be damned.

[Simas]

Id say wow's biggest mistake was lack of progression in the end game. If the common wisdom is end game is 95% of the game it makes no sense thats there so much more shit to do when you're leveling.

When you're leveling you can always level and get new abilities. You can level your trade skills. You can browse trade or the AH looking for an upgrade. You can travel for experience, to get new quests, or to unlock flight paths.

If you wanted to get to end game the fastest then doing alot of the above might not make sense. But if you didnt care how fast you were max level you could hop on, do some stuff, and feel like you made some progress.

At max level it did not take long at all to reach the point where the only thing you could do to progress was raid and hope whatever system your guild used awarded you the loot you wanted if it dropped. After a while they added welfare epics to PvP which were hugely popular because it was progression w/o raiding. Later they added dailies and the like and it got better still.

I still think there should be alot more to do at end game. The progression doesnt need to be numerical. People love shit like the elf masks in EQ. Make a long ass quest you can do at max level to get an illusion mask. Make quests that will make your armor glow like its enchanted. Make quests that put spikes on your mount. Make quests that allow you to summon a banker etc. Even silly GM events (just have mutilple ones around the server so you dont crash zones)

Raid, do some dailies for gold/badges, and the same pvp since vanilla isnt enough at end game. Contents always going to run out but hitting max level and then two weeks later only wanting to play during raid hours is lame. They've done alot to address this but I think theres still alot more to do and it should have been in from the beginning. Luckily for Blizz people just rolled another alt.

[Cryptin]

Originally Posted by Itzena

So your point is "Why was there no event at the launch of WotLK and also why was the WotLK launch event so annoying"? Um....

No I'm talking primarily about GM events. You ever play EQ? Like the Butcherblock hammer event ect or GMs playing important characters in WoW lore. Not that scripted shit that they do now.

[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. Possibly reduced in CAT*.

*Cataclysm will get annoying to type out in full soon. Start your clocks.

2) Too much of a difficulty jump from solo levelling to end game dungeons. Little Timmy, spamming buttons to get to level 60, got wrecked once he set foot in Strat. Mostly fixed in BC (though 2.0 heroics were ugly), completely fixed in LK.

3) Rep grinds were too way too long. It's what, six months of hitting every raid clear to max out Hydraxian Waterlords? Fixed (arguably over-fixed) in LK.

4) No Job system. Heirlooms, hybrids, old world exp bonuses, veteran portion of recruit a friend are all bandaids to the problem of no Job system. One character per server, anyone can be any role they want if they level it up. Also means more use of intro areas. Fixed never, unfortunately.

5) One rule set for both PvE & PvP. And a litany of badly thought out nerfs/redesigns followed. Fixed never, unfortunately.

6) Old world too big. Takes too damn long to get from place to place; really a problem when quest X introduces you to an area by telling you to go halfway around the world so some guy can tell you to go right back (although that does build on long story arcs). Partially fixed via geography in BC (from Shatt, even Arcatraz was only 5-10 mins away), totally fixed in CAT. Though I can't wait to hear people complain that Deephome portals are PoK 2.0 (they shrink the world too much!).

7) Poorly integrated PvP. First off, I'm not fond of the storyline. There are ancient unspeakable evils trying to take over the world down the road, but I am going to stop fighting for my life against them so I can kill some cowman (that I had never seen before two years ago) because... he wants to use the resources to supply an army fighting off the unspeakable evils. And none of the grownups in the world (i.e. the reputation factions) tell you to knock it off. Second, the goals never change (same BGs), and much of the time, non-storyline Arena combat is the only thing that matters. A series of ever changing subterfuge campaigns against the other side might make more sense (i.e. new smaller BGs every point patch or two) rather than both sides bleeding each other dry to leave themselves defenseless before the Legion / Old Gods / Azshara / etc. Actively made worse in CAT.

And that's just off the top of my head for release issues.

[Guzrog]

Originally Posted by Cryptin

Lack of GM based events or better world events. I was expecting something spectacular for the release of Lich King prior or on it's release date. Nothing at all. Only thing I can remember that was remotely fun was the opening of AQ gates. Fuck the undead infesting the major cities. Shit was annoying. At least EQ had GM events.

This really comes down to WOW's volume. Can you imagine setting up a GM event over NA 200 servers? We had roughly what, 10+ in EQ?

At the end of the day this is a business, and while I appreciate and love GM events to no end. You, or anyone of us didn't see 90% of them in EQ, we just heard about them. Many of them were quickly ruined by fucks which are wide spread across WOW.

"HAI SAND GIANT BATTLE @ NRO PLATFORM Y U BATTLING FAGGOTS???"

Terrible example but I'm not wrong.

Now, imagine rolling that same "SG battle for a shit robe" across 200 US realms. All the servers they have in other countries which I didn't post cause looking up US realm stats was way easier than global and tell me, from a global perspective how YOU would roll that shit out without losing subscribers. I've thought about it many times and I fondly recall a few fantastic GM events, but each time I resolve to myself to "I don't have shit to contribute."

You have casuals, hardcores, roleplayers who will bitch about consistency issues (and rightfully so they were/should be story based the majority of the time), guy who showed up 20 minutes before, guy who showed up 30 minutes late, hardcore who showed up 5 minutes late and got the robe he can't use, casual who showed up and didn't get said robe, and 400,000 other people bitching about the event and cancelling their accounts because of it. That 400,000 only takes into account 2,000 players per server across 200 realms. Now, globalize that shit, and ponder why GM events aren't in WOW.

I'm just sayin!

[Tullaeniel]

Off the top of my head.

Removal of content - One thing that always has stuck me as odd is the removal of old content. In the WoW world as mentioned before once an expansion is released 100% gear reset (retarded design) so many of the old raid zones are typically no longer used. However, no other game removes content from players who didn't buy an expansion. So far WoW is the only game that does this I am aware of.

Both removed from Vanilla.
Lord Kazzak
Naxxramas

Soon to be removed.
Onyxia

Once Cataclysm hits.
Molten Core
BWL

I know you are like who the fuck doesn't buy all expansions. Like many of you I typically have mine the day of release. Still I have mixed feeling on this, on one hand to see the world change is a positive thing for this genre so I am excited to see what it will bring. However, I still thing it's bad design to remove content from players as WoW has done so far.


Retard Rocks - A.K.A. Meeting Stones - If you remember the first incarnation of these fucking abominations of game design they were complete shit. They were later turned into Summoning Stones and suck much less but have restrictions on level which is gay. The reason they suck now is they make a lazy ass populous even more lazy. I know I am not the only one who has been at a stone by themselves waiting on another group member to come over since they all are expecting someone else to summon.

LFG System - The LFG system has been more developed recently, and the addition of the tank/dps/healing choice is nice. However, once again much like the Retard Rocks adding restrictions on level is gayer than aids. I should be able to join the LFG channel and select what I want to look for without Blizzard telling me what I should be doing. Or if I simply want to log into the LFG channel without selecting an instance or zone should be possible.

Level Restrictions on zones/ Twinking - I add twinking because that is really the only valid reason I can think of why this exist. If I want to take a lower level character into an instance and baby sit them through it for loot this should be my option.

Neglect of World PvP - I know this has been brought up before but the advent of the Arena and Blizzards E-sport nonsense suck asshole. There is no reason to have two different factions in the current state of WoW, there is no War it's BG's or Arena, world PvP for all intents and purposes has been dead for a long while.


To agree with some of the other post already made.

No new BG maps.
No custom ruleset servers.
Seperate PvE/PvP ruleset.
DK's
Daze

[Treesong]

I was going to post a couple of features/mechanics that would have made me happier with WoW, but then I realized that putting those mechanics in would probably have been mistakes, from Blizzards point of view.

Just to be clear, I am not talking about shit like hell-levels or sitting on your ass to med, but even so these mechanics would have not benefitted the game much, just me personally.

I do not know the game well enough to really pinpoint stuff that could have been done better, everytime I resub to WoW I enjoy the smooth ride untill I get bored after 2 weeks. That means they still got a good 4 months of subs from me all together.

(For the record, a more involved crafting system (ala EQ2 or even the random lottery that is EQ1 crafting) and features like being able to "merchant-mine" (player sells stuff to NPC, other player can browse merchants all over the world and find player-sold stuff) is what makes up 70% of my playing time. Hell, I love to sit in Qeynos Hills and see those random NPCs walk by, wondering what the hell they are doing here, half a continent away from their usual spawn-spot. Like I said, not the stuff that will rake in the subscribers).

[Guzrog]

I feel like I should add that I have many, many complaints with WOW which is why I sub 3 months at a time when expansions come out but they have been addressed already in this thread so I won't regurgitate them ad nauseam.

[Twobit Whore]

Originally Posted by Tullaeniel

Off the top of my head.

Removal of content - One thing that always has stuck me as odd is the removal of old content. In the WoW world as mentioned before once an expansion is released 100% gear reset (retarded design) so many of the old raid zones are typically no longer used. However, no other game removes content from players who didn't buy an expansion. So far WoW is the only game that does this I am aware of.

Both removed from Vanilla.
Lord Kazzak
Naxxramas

Soon to be removed.
Onyxia

Once Cataclysm hits.
Molten Core
BWL

I know you are like who the fuck doesn't buy all expansions. Like many of you I typically have mine the day of release. Still I have mixed feeling on this, on one hand to see the world change is a positive thing for this genre so I am excited to see what it will bring. However, I still thing it's bad design to remove content from players as WoW has done so far.

I'm sorry, but WoW is not the first game to revamp zones. Naxx is still there, it's just higher level. Kazzak is higher level.

Just like way back in EQ when they revamped Nurga or Droga.. Vesshan's Peak, etc.

I'm sure someone else can come up with other examples.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by Treesong

(For the record, a more involved crafting system (ala EQ2 or even the random lottery that is EQ1 crafting) and features like being able to "merchant-mine" (player sells stuff to NPC, other player can browse merchants all over the world and find player-sold stuff) is what makes up 70% of my playing time. Hell, I love to sit in Qeynos Hills and see those random NPCs walk by, wondering what the hell they are doing here, half a continent away from their usual spawn-spot. Like I said, not the stuff that will rake in the subscribers).

I agree that the whole "CRAFT 10 TIN POTS TO MAKE 10 IRON POTS!" design of crafting is lackluster but I hated with a goddamn passion EQ2's tskill system. If you're going to to turn it into a mini-game, make it an actual goddamn mini-game.

I'm not big on the EQ1 style of being able to lose mats. I also don't like the 'random chance to be +2 gooder!' style either because that makes all the non-gooder ones basically pointless and turn into vendor fodder.

Honest to god decent mini-games like "defend the logging camp against orcs" resulting in a high score that determines how much lumber you get. Allow you to replay it over and over again, get the guys behind popcap games to design it. Then you submit your high score once per day and that's how much lumber you get.

I would find that 1000000x more entertaining then flying in a slow circle around Sholozar Basin dropping every once in awhile to hit a node or spending 8 hours farming the same 10 mobs over and over again for high quality cat and bear pelts.

You could go even further with like a trade prince/guild NPC system where you can go around to different area's of the world to try to trade your stockpile of items against the trade guilds if the player market isn't providing you with what you need or something.

As for the actual crafting itself, depends on the item but I'd rather see something like the more rare, powerful items taking weeks to finish combining once you have all the materials. Have an NPC hireling who does the work or for those of you who enjoy the thought of their character making the items, he just minds the forge while you're off being a faggot or whatever it is you roleplayers do these days.

Personally I feel that would be more engaging then spending 3 weeks trying to gather the mats for a rare combine that takes 6 seconds to put together or that it can fail or I have to make sure I hit my "don't get my dick caught in the angle grinder" EQ2 button to make sure I don't die while combining and lose my mats.