This killed world PvP, which was my favorite part of the game. Tarren Mill vs. Southshore battles were epic.
Arenas
This is the worst thing that could've happened. After accepting the fact that BGs were gonna be the mainstream PvP, the release of this nuked that as well.
BG Tokens
Yes, there were irritating, but in vanilla they were great. I have fond memories of leveling my rogue from 40 to 52 off of straight BG token turn-ins.
Gear
I'm so sick of grinding for months in raids/PvP to get the "best" loot, then turn around and have it replaced by the first quest green. It's just pointless.
Addon Stealing
Blizz needs to stop adopting the most popular addons into their folds. One of the big additions was the quest mapping stolen from Carbonite and Questhelper. "ZOMG, this addon is popular, let's steal it and put in our game as a "standard" feature" Way to rip off the author community.
/ezmode
Upped XP? Lower level mounts? Dungeon tokens for the tier-below gear? The difficulty level for WoW has been dramatically lowered. The game takes no skill/dedication anymore. Just stick a quarter into LFD and out pops our your epics.
The game needs to take a step back from trying to cater to everyone. I'm not a "hardcore" player, but I still don't want to have everything just handed to me. WoW is currently three bowls of porridge:
WotLK - too easy
BC - too boring
"Vanilla" - just right
NEWS FLASH! PAYING THE SUB IN F2P = NO DIFFERENCE THAN P2P GAMES!
I would have liked for them to remove arenas and battlegrounds, focus on world pvp as it was back in the days of launch and the first half year or whatever.
Remove cross-realm stuff.
Stop giving out free epics and makeing all the content easy mode.
Remove the helicopters, motorcycles and i saw they are adding cars in cataclysm... this shit is so lame and a huge immersion breaker for me.
And prolly tons of other reasons, these were the ones out of the top of my head.
They have taken the game in the exact opposite direction of what i liked about it, wow just feels like a lobby based game now where you just queue for dungeons and battlegrounds.
^ This, except for the thing about motorcycles and the sort that just makes sense with engineering. It doesn't have the feel of an mmo due to cross server lfg that just takes you to where you want to go. Only raiding at end game or static boring pvp games ruined it too, the leveling was actually kind of enjoyable and they keep taking away from that. I made use the the easy epics from the LFG farming and after i had everything i could get from there, all i got to do was raid here and there or que for pvp.
The biggest fix that would make WoW have some of that old shine is to remove bg's. They could keep arenas and wg for ppl who were into that but add something that motivates people to just go out and pvp. Who really wants to pay for and MMO and get a big lobby game feel instead. Spontaneous pvp is what makes fighting other people fun, not knowing exactly where they'll be, what they'll be doing, and have no need to think of strategies. Halaa was their closest attempt at helping the pvp but it was too small scale.
Unfortunately, I think they would have to remake alot of the already existent game to help it at this point for people with similar viewpoints as myself. Since like you have said plenty of people still enjoy it, they have no reason to cater towards anyone but the people who still like the game. That being said I still remember vanilla WoW, hunting people and being hunted in the open world. Epic battles would start when we both called for back up, that is what you call pvp.
Except that the game has never really been balanced for PvP. Thats why we have all had to suffer through endless nerf and buff cycles over the last 5 plus years. They should keep PvE and PvP separate. Many, MANY of us have long since grown tired of having to deal with gank squads. Looking over your should all the damn time gets way past tiring after awhile.
Thats just one of the reasons that games that allow such end up in narrow niche markets. Those who want an e sport in PvP should have their own rule sets and own servers, so that they can gank each other to their hearts content.
Its not about the ganking. Its about the ability to do so. I agree it can get tiring, but something that is even more tiring is not having to watch over your shoulder and endlessly doing them same thing over and over. I like pvp because it keeps people on edge, thats a good thing. If you don't like keeping an eye out for other people they had/have pve servers. Thats how they seperate them. As for balance yea thats always going to be an issue and anyone who pvps has to come to terms with that. There were normally ways to beat oerpowered classes and if it wasn't working thats when you call for help. PvP is not always about 1v1 which is for the most part the only part class balance effects.
As for the e sport thing thats more the people that like bgs and arena. I think the arena is ok, but bgs are just a terribly boring predictable repetition. I am by no means a career pvper i just like to do it when im not doing pve stuff. The worst thing they did was making sperate gearsets for pvpers. They made PvP and PvE "too" sperate and that was a mistake.
My gf and I just recently returned to wow after a long break, and so far it has been enjoyable and I personally have been surprised at how friendly the groups I have gotten through the dungeon finder have been. So I do think they are doing some thigns right, but the biggest problem for me happens to also do with the games biggest carrot.
It has probably been mentioned before in this topic, but I feel the gear in the game is its biggest problem. I started after BC launched, but I can't help but notice that the gear is becoming exponentially stronger rather than more of a linear way. Just a quick guess, and these numbers are not ment to be exact or from max gear, but at level 60 I may have had 3,000 hp, at the end of level 70 I would have 7,000 hp, and now at level 80 I have 18,000 hp. I am sure I will be able to hit 20,000 once I get a bit more gear too as I am not even geared enough to do the latest raids. It is just getting a bit crazy with the gear strength. By the time I hit level 85 after the next xpac I may have 35,000 hp!
Pretty much would like it to go Vanilla route. PvP was fun and not everybody was getting epics for it you had to work to get rank to get the armor. 40 man raids I have never had a problem getting into a guild and not have enough people for MC or BWL. Ever since TBC the game has just gotten boring and easy. 1.12.1 was the best days of WoW since then has gotten easier and boring which is no fun at all.
Originally posted by Wraithone Many, MANY of us have long since grown tired of having to deal with gank squads. Looking over your should all the damn time gets way past tiring after awhile.
Take this with a grain of salt: they already cater to your desires on this. They're called PvE servers. If you want to not worry about ganking and STILL roll on a PvP server, then that's your own fault.
NEWS FLASH! PAYING THE SUB IN F2P = NO DIFFERENCE THAN P2P GAMES!
My gf and I just recently returned to wow after a long break, and so far it has been enjoyable and I personally have been surprised at how friendly the groups I have gotten through the dungeon finder have been. So I do think they are doing some thigns right, but the biggest problem for me happens to also do with the games biggest carrot.
It has probably been mentioned before in this topic, but I feel the gear in the game is its biggest problem. I started after BC launched, but I can't help but notice that the gear is becoming exponentially stronger rather than more of a linear way. Just a quick guess, and these numbers are not ment to be exact or from max gear, but at level 60 I may have had 3,000 hp, at the end of level 70 I would have 7,000 hp, and now at level 80 I have 18,000 hp. I am sure I will be able to hit 20,000 once I get a bit more gear too as I am not even geared enough to do the latest raids. It is just getting a bit crazy with the gear strength. By the time I hit level 85 after the next xpac I may have 35,000 hp!
You haven't seen good geared tank then. 35k-40k unbuffed, 60k+ buffed. ;-)
NEWS FLASH! PAYING THE SUB IN F2P = NO DIFFERENCE THAN P2P GAMES!
Pretty much would like it to go Vanilla route. PvP was fun and not everybody was getting epics for it you had to work to get rank to get the armor. 40 man raids I have never had a problem getting into a guild and not have enough people for MC or BWL. Ever since TBC the game has just gotten boring and easy. 1.12.1 was the best days of WoW since then has gotten easier and boring which is no fun at all.
This. Very much this. In Vanilla, the world was hostile and mysterious. There were actual frontiers to explore, and places where you felt all alone. As opposed to Outland and Northrend where there were enough Horde and Alliance npcs wandering around that you have to wonder how these bad guys haven't lost the battle yet. There was far less homogenization in Vanilla, so there were always things to discover.
Important facts: 1. Free to Play games are poorly made. 2. Casuals are not all idiots, but idiots call themselves casuals. 3. Great solo and group content are not mutually exclusive, but they suffer when one is shoved into the mold of the other. The same is true of PvP and PvE. 4. Community is more important than you think.
The inability to fight on a flying mount transformed PVP realms into dead zones. There are no choke points anymore. You just fly to wherever you need to go, protected by your flying mount. PVP realms are emptying out. Players (PVP and raiders) are just transferring to highly populated realms hoping for more action. Dungeon Finder and other Cross Realm activities are a nice addition, especially for low populated realms. Blizzard should put more incentives than offering free transfers to balance their realms (such as experience bonus, or random generated events?)
Sanctuary cities need to go. Shattrath was just plain boring, while Dalaran is now the floating capital of lag. I'm sure those game servers could take many more players should they stop forcing players to stay in tiny zones.
Blizzard devs usually abandon zones and instances upon release. Few or no changes are made to keep it up to date. This is a MMO with a subscription, which should be treated as eternal, not as a short lived FPS or RTS game. When Burning Crusade was released, the entire vanilla End Game content was rendered useless. Though, the entire End Game content of Burning Crusade was still active (Players still raided Kara/Gruul/...) the day before Wrath was launched. In Lich King, however, the older tier of content are rendered useless at each content patches. All of this contributes to boredom, and this is the main reason why most of my friends (and myself) left WoW within the last 6 months.
This killed world PvP, which was my favorite part of the game. Tarren Mill vs. Southshore battles were epic.
Arenas
This is the worst thing that could've happened. After accepting the fact that BGs were gonna be the mainstream PvP, the release of this nuked that as well.
BG Tokens
Yes, there were irritating, but in vanilla they were great. I have fond memories of leveling my rogue from 40 to 52 off of straight BG token turn-ins.
Gear
I'm so sick of grinding for months in raids/PvP to get the "best" loot, then turn around and have it replaced by the first quest green. It's just pointless.
Addon Stealing
Blizz needs to stop adopting the most popular addons into their folds. One of the big additions was the quest mapping stolen from Carbonite and Questhelper. "ZOMG, this addon is popular, let's steal it and put in our game as a "standard" feature" Way to rip off the author community.
/ezmode
Upped XP? Lower level mounts? Dungeon tokens for the tier-below gear? The difficulty level for WoW has been dramatically lowered. The game takes no skill/dedication anymore. Just stick a quarter into LFD and out pops our your epics.
The game needs to take a step back from trying to cater to everyone. I'm not a "hardcore" player, but I still don't want to have everything just handed to me. WoW is currently three bowls of porridge:
WotLK - too easy
BC - too boring
"Vanilla" - just right
In the current MMO market, very few can afford NOT to cater to *everyone* that they can. Blizzard understands this very well. That is why they still have millions and millions of players after more than 5 years. They have gone the inclusive, rather than the exclusive route. It has paid off BIG time for them. As for the Dungeon Finder system, and the emblems, its one of their best ideas in years. It allows many more people to have access to semi decent gear. I don't expect raid epics, since I no longer of the extended focus that is required for raids. But those who begrudge those who run dungeons their T9 from emblems, have other issues I suspect.
Many, MANY of us have long since grown tired of having to deal with gank squads. Looking over your should all the damn time gets way past tiring after awhile.
Take this with a grain of salt: they already cater to your desires on this. They're called PvE servers. If you want to not worry about ganking and STILL roll on a PvP server, then that's your own fault.
LONG since moved. I started out on deathwing(clan went there) and leveled a warrior to 60. Finally had enough. Moved to silvermoon and have four 80's there.
"World of Warcraft" ...the name it self imply something that got lost a long time ago. A faction based war. The alliance against the horde. Today a memory only.
In vanilla you actually had a love/hate relation to your enemy. You did know their names. You did know their skills and PvP style. You did know who to aviod and fear. Some you respected. Some you hated. Some you just laughed at.
I really loved possibility to know the enemy on a individual basis and the chance to develop a relation - good or bad - over time. Sure, the introduction of battle grounds was the end to world PvP, but the faction war still existed within the BGs.
The real deal breaker to me was when Blizzard totaly removed the immersion of a faction based war with the introduction of cross realm battlegrounds.
So if i had to pick only ONE thing that i whished Blizzard could do, then it´s to remove X-BGs.
While theres plenty of people still happily playing Warcraft there are also plenty of people that have given up for one reason or another . I would like to ask those of you who are ex-WoWplayers what you would have done differently ? What would you have prefered the WoW of today to be like ?
No arena. No instanced battlegrounds. NO super duper uber rediculous epic gear. Shaman still horde only, Paladin still ally only. To sum up, remove everything they have added from BC onwards.
Yeah, i'd go along with everythihg here and add one more, optional rule set servers, specifically a FFA PVP server.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
In the earlier days WoW had a "World"- feeling too it (not just in the name) . I would have preferred a direction towards even more of a "World", and not going the "Game" direction that it ended up going.
I was Warlock 80 level and haven't soleved that quest for Doomguard.
I went there, dont know the name of the zone, but i entered the cave and fought some level 40 elties.
i had more fun there, then blowing that hodirs horn or entering some aoe , done, loot badge hc instance with no CC control or strategy involved. I tried to love the game, but when i saw that motorcycles at first boss of Ulduar, i was , uh, someone sad, feeling like want to throw up.
I saw my Guild progress, they killed like 70% of the bosses in Naxx at that time, i fought, uh, somethings wrong, thats to easy, they always had like 30% boss kills in any 10/25 man instance.
Then I realised what I miss, sense of acomplishment, hard work, feeling happy inside, kind of those Underborg instances, cc this , fear this, strategy. I went there for abut 50 times for epic wand beforei got it, i was happy.
I dont want 100% content on the plate. Give me 20%, and if my Guild and I can work hard, we can see maybe 20%, i dont mind.
Give me hard work, sweat and wipes, give me 20 wipes, i miss wipes, now groups fall apart wher there is one wipe.
Sorry for bad english, my first post, will improve
umm the complete opposite direction they are going now. Remove everything and bring it back to vanilla, make epic items epic. Make tough 5 mans tough. Game is stupid easy now, I tanked 10 man ToC with an argent lance, and we finished, game is so retardedly easy now.
A lot of people here want to apply a niche-style MMO to World of Warcraft. WoW has 11 million subscribers for a reason: it's accessible. It's no secret that WoW is the cool game to hate, on this site, but why would Blizzard mess with something that clearly works? The game is tailored to be accessible by the majority, with added incentives for those who want a harder challenge. Those looking for the older, more hardcore atmosphere of accomplishment need not apply.
I've personally stopped playing (I'm in LotRO now). But WoW gives people an MMORPG who otherwise wouldn't touch one. It's a mistake to try to apply different MMORPG paradigms to WoW. People speak with their pocketbooks, and the vast majority say "game on, Blizzard."
A lot of people here want to apply a niche-style MMO to World of Warcraft. WoW has 11 million subscribers for a reason: it's accessible. It's no secret that WoW is the cool game to hate, on this site, but why would Blizzard mess with something that clearly works? The game is tailored to be accessible by the majority, with added incentives for those who want a harder challenge. Those looking for the older, more hardcore atmosphere of accomplishment need not apply.
I've personally stopped playing (I'm in LotRO now). But WoW gives people an MMORPG who otherwise wouldn't touch one. It's a mistake to try to apply different MMORPG paradigms to WoW. People speak with their pocketbooks, and the vast majority say "game on, Blizzard."
Accessibility does not have to equal stupid easy gameplay. You can give people access to a dungeon and still make it hard. Don't forget the original WoW WAS for a niche genre, it's called the mmorpgers, the people that play games. It EVOLVED into something for people that don't play games.
A lot of people here want to apply a niche-style MMO to World of Warcraft. WoW has 11 million subscribers for a reason: it's accessible. It's no secret that WoW is the cool game to hate, on this site, but why would Blizzard mess with something that clearly works? The game is tailored to be accessible by the majority, with added incentives for those who want a harder challenge. Those looking for the older, more hardcore atmosphere of accomplishment need not apply.
I've personally stopped playing (I'm in LotRO now). But WoW gives people an MMORPG who otherwise wouldn't touch one. It's a mistake to try to apply different MMORPG paradigms to WoW. People speak with their pocketbooks, and the vast majority say "game on, Blizzard."
Accessibility does not have to equal stupid easy gameplay. You can give people access to a dungeon and still make it hard. Don't forget the original WoW WAS for a niche genre, it's called the mmorpgers, the people that play games. It EVOLVED into something for people that don't play games.
First and foremost, you've confused "access to dungeons" with access to content. That being said, look what WoW has become, in terms of popularity. I believe you're discounting that many people who play WoW have zero interest in any other MMO aside from WoW. If WoW shut down today, many of those gamers may initially look for a replacement, but won't be satisfied. As I've said before, WoW is an amusement park. Gamers ride the rides.
WoW did quite a bit, during launch, to open the doors. At the time, much of the game was scoffed at as a "care bear" game. Soloing to max level, death penalty, quests the entire way, none of this was in line with games like EQ and UO. Blizzard initially designed the end game around the more hardcore, assuming the casual gamer would either stop playing or level another character. Blizzard realized that their core gamer was the casual gamer, and one cannot fault Blizzard for actually listening to the gamers (the very vocal minority on the forums is exactly that: the very vocal minority). Companies like SOE figured they could just do what they wanted with their game (e.g. SWG and the NGE), and we've seen what happens when companies do that. Blizzard has done well to develop their game into something that more people want to play.
This doesn't discount the fact that some old school mmorpgers don't like WoW, and that's fine. WoW is not for you, it's not developed for you. Each gamer has a criteria that they want in a game. Now, to state that WoW is for people who don't play games, this is just a throw-away statement or a silly quip. Either you're stating WoW isn't a game, or you think only hardcore mmorpgers are gamers. Either way, that's a silly point of view (not to mention bigoted).
A lot of people here want to apply a niche-style MMO to World of Warcraft. WoW has 11 million subscribers for a reason: it's accessible. It's no secret that WoW is the cool game to hate, on this site, but why would Blizzard mess with something that clearly works? The game is tailored to be accessible by the majority, with added incentives for those who want a harder challenge. Those looking for the older, more hardcore atmosphere of accomplishment need not apply.
I've personally stopped playing (I'm in LotRO now). But WoW gives people an MMORPG who otherwise wouldn't touch one. It's a mistake to try to apply different MMORPG paradigms to WoW. People speak with their pocketbooks, and the vast majority say "game on, Blizzard."
Accessibility does not have to equal stupid easy gameplay. You can give people access to a dungeon and still make it hard. Don't forget the original WoW WAS for a niche genre, it's called the mmorpgers, the people that play games. It EVOLVED into something for people that don't play games.
Considering how dumbed down the general population has become, the only wonder is that so many play WoW in the first place. Look at the standards from even a generation or two ago. Its not just WoW that has become easier. Blizzard is focused on being inclusive. That means that everything tends to be easier to match the general populations inability to deal with complexity and creative thought. Blizzard has made a huge amount of money by their focus. They obviously know what they are doing.
Without putting on the nostalgia goggles (well maybe a little anyway), I would have liked them to stick to some of the principles of vanilla WoW.
Things went awry after the first expansion hit imo.
25 man raids were a good change instead of the tiresome 40 mans, and making content more accessible is always a good thing; but the way the handled that expansion vs the original game was bad.
All gear and stuff you did in the vanilla version basically didn't matter at all when the expansion hit, and soon no-one was to be found in Azeroth (which they're trying to fix now, way too late imo), they had better built on what was there with expanions instead of throwing it all away imo.
Basically the whole game is sick with the thirst for higher numbers, DPS shot through the roof in the expansions, and so did health and healing, which meant introducing a lame ass pvp only stat called resilience to try and fix that.
Another problem is the way the game promotes anonymity now and the way server identity has been lost, which is a very bad thing indeed imo, I would have preferred if they didn't do things like X realms and the LFG tool but searched for alternatives.
Such as trying to support world pvp, or at least center it around some areas and creating an open group system like in WAR.
The focus on highly repeatable forms of PvP like arena & BG's is not a good thing imo, and I loathe the way they made battlegrounds like AV mere shadows of themselves.
The whole story / setting focus of TBC was also wrong, they should have stuck with the steampunky original WoW feel, not the cyber / space opera stuff that doesn't fit at all imo.
Wotlk wasn't all that bad, but it repeated TBC's mistakes and also made the content even more focused on repetition through making it extremely easy to do, which makes people feel tired of it imo.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
So let me get this straight: you're upset because WoW has garnered interest and brings attention to the world of gaming? And since WoW doesn't cater to how you want a game, the game and everyone who plays WoW are retarded.
At what point did you forget that games are designed for fun? I grew up with an NES and an SNES, and onward (being 30 years old now), and at no point do I recall a game being something that put challenge above enjoyment. If you enjoy challenges, then power to you. As a kid, I played Mario Bros., Excite Bike, and Mach Rider because the games were fun.
If you play video games, you're a gamer. I'm sorry that WoW's success has disrupted your state of being. But don't get bent out of shape simply because there's a demand for a certain style of gaming, and a company fulfilled that demand. If feeling like a hardcore elitist makes you sleep at night, then off and away with that.
I've never ever pondered about that question, but i'd just like to add something on a side note. Blizzard has done a great job in securing subscriptions for WoW, they deserve credit for their marketting/game strategy. I myself played WoW for 5 years but gave up. As the saying goes, no matter how good something is, repetition will breed boredom eventually or otherwise. Most of my friends who still play WoW, dont play it because its a "blow-your-mind,out-of-this-world" game anymore, only reason they're left there is because of the friendships they've built in the game and the fact that, there's no current decent replacement for WoW, thats about it. Gotta think about it, there's a huge difference between playing an mmo cause its awesome and playing it cause there's nothing better.
A lot of people here want to apply a niche-style MMO to World of Warcraft. WoW has 11 million subscribers for a reason: it's accessible. It's no secret that WoW is the cool game to hate, on this site, but why would Blizzard mess with something that clearly works? The game is tailored to be accessible by the majority, with added incentives for those who want a harder challenge. Those looking for the older, more hardcore atmosphere of accomplishment need not apply.
(...)
This "11 million subscribers achievement" was completed in December 2008, which is right at the launch of Wrath of the Lich King. Only the hardcore guilds had stepped into Naxx back then, as most of the players were still leveling.
Out of this 11 millions, 5.5 were from Asia, and WotLK was not released at that time.
So basically, this 11 million subscribers came from the Burning Crusade era, when raiding was challenging.
While theres plenty of people still happily playing Warcraft there are also plenty of people that have given up for one reason or another . I would like to ask those of you who are ex-WoWplayers what you would have done differently ? What would you have prefered the WoW of today to be like ?
No arena. No instanced battlegrounds. NO super duper uber rediculous epic gear. Shaman still horde only, Paladin still ally only. To sum up, remove everything they have added from BC onwards.
Yeah, i'd go along with everythihg here and add one more, optional rule set servers, specifically a FFA PVP server.
I'm sorry Kyleran but FFA just makes absolutely no goddamn sense in Warcraft. None.
Sure, maybe Orcs but that's it...
I mean, I'm all for different server rule sets and such but they need to logically make sense. This one would not, at all, not even in the slightest.
And what I am about to say is going to either garner flames or irritate some people.
I quit WoW about 2 months after TBC was released. I quit because I didn't even have the time to level to 70 in that time.
I used to have tons of time and raiding nightly for hours was no problem. That was before I was married and had a kid. Also before I had a demanding job.
But now I read about how carebearish and dumbed down WoW has gotten and how solo-friendly and easy it is to get stuff and I am thinking I want to get back into WoW.
I quit because I didn't have the time to commit hours on end. Now I hear that you can start a heroic in 15 min from clicking a button to finishing it in less than an hour or two. To me, that sounds great. I can play an MMO that I can accomplish something in the time I play.
I can remember when it took 30 minutes or more to get a UBRS or LBRS run setup and it took well over an hour to run it. And forget finishing it if you had someone new. Thats just not feasible for me anymore. I'd love to be able to dump 6-10 hours a day into an MMO but I am lucky if I get 30 minutes in a day to play games.
Too many people on this site are so short sighted and full of themselves to think beyond thier own room and look at why so many people enjoy WoW. 11 million subscribers. You say 6 million are in China? Ok, lets discount them(because, you know, you all are racist/bigoted to think they dont matter as not 100% of them are gold farmers). 5 million US/EU combined. Lets say that only 2 million are US. That is still more than 10x the size of the average P2P MMO.
I plan on resubbing with Cata because WoW can give me some fun with the time I can give it. I'm rather happy with many of these changes. And, to top it off, I cant wait to deck myself out in all of those "welfare epics".
If WoW can give me a persitant world, progression, achievements and something to work towards in the time I have available, then WoW is infinitely better than any other MMO that cant.
FYI... It sucks being a hardcore player at heart but a casual player in availability.
Comments
Battlegrounds
This killed world PvP, which was my favorite part of the game. Tarren Mill vs. Southshore battles were epic.
Arenas
This is the worst thing that could've happened. After accepting the fact that BGs were gonna be the mainstream PvP, the release of this nuked that as well.
BG Tokens
Yes, there were irritating, but in vanilla they were great. I have fond memories of leveling my rogue from 40 to 52 off of straight BG token turn-ins.
Gear
I'm so sick of grinding for months in raids/PvP to get the "best" loot, then turn around and have it replaced by the first quest green. It's just pointless.
Addon Stealing
Blizz needs to stop adopting the most popular addons into their folds. One of the big additions was the quest mapping stolen from Carbonite and Questhelper. "ZOMG, this addon is popular, let's steal it and put in our game as a "standard" feature" Way to rip off the author community.
/ezmode
Upped XP? Lower level mounts? Dungeon tokens for the tier-below gear? The difficulty level for WoW has been dramatically lowered. The game takes no skill/dedication anymore. Just stick a quarter into LFD and out pops our your epics.
The game needs to take a step back from trying to cater to everyone. I'm not a "hardcore" player, but I still don't want to have everything just handed to me. WoW is currently three bowls of porridge:
WotLK - too easy
BC - too boring
"Vanilla" - just right
NEWS FLASH! PAYING THE SUB IN F2P = NO DIFFERENCE THAN P2P GAMES!
Why the hell can't the whiners comprehend this?
Its not about the ganking. Its about the ability to do so. I agree it can get tiring, but something that is even more tiring is not having to watch over your shoulder and endlessly doing them same thing over and over. I like pvp because it keeps people on edge, thats a good thing. If you don't like keeping an eye out for other people they had/have pve servers. Thats how they seperate them. As for balance yea thats always going to be an issue and anyone who pvps has to come to terms with that. There were normally ways to beat oerpowered classes and if it wasn't working thats when you call for help. PvP is not always about 1v1 which is for the most part the only part class balance effects.
As for the e sport thing thats more the people that like bgs and arena. I think the arena is ok, but bgs are just a terribly boring predictable repetition. I am by no means a career pvper i just like to do it when im not doing pve stuff. The worst thing they did was making sperate gearsets for pvpers. They made PvP and PvE "too" sperate and that was a mistake.
"cinnamon buns"
- Pickles
My gf and I just recently returned to wow after a long break, and so far it has been enjoyable and I personally have been surprised at how friendly the groups I have gotten through the dungeon finder have been. So I do think they are doing some thigns right, but the biggest problem for me happens to also do with the games biggest carrot.
It has probably been mentioned before in this topic, but I feel the gear in the game is its biggest problem. I started after BC launched, but I can't help but notice that the gear is becoming exponentially stronger rather than more of a linear way. Just a quick guess, and these numbers are not ment to be exact or from max gear, but at level 60 I may have had 3,000 hp, at the end of level 70 I would have 7,000 hp, and now at level 80 I have 18,000 hp. I am sure I will be able to hit 20,000 once I get a bit more gear too as I am not even geared enough to do the latest raids. It is just getting a bit crazy with the gear strength. By the time I hit level 85 after the next xpac I may have 35,000 hp!
Pretty much would like it to go Vanilla route. PvP was fun and not everybody was getting epics for it you had to work to get rank to get the armor. 40 man raids I have never had a problem getting into a guild and not have enough people for MC or BWL. Ever since TBC the game has just gotten boring and easy. 1.12.1 was the best days of WoW since then has gotten easier and boring which is no fun at all.
Take this with a grain of salt: they already cater to your desires on this. They're called PvE servers. If you want to not worry about ganking and STILL roll on a PvP server, then that's your own fault.
NEWS FLASH! PAYING THE SUB IN F2P = NO DIFFERENCE THAN P2P GAMES!
Why the hell can't the whiners comprehend this?
You haven't seen good geared tank then. 35k-40k unbuffed, 60k+ buffed. ;-)
NEWS FLASH! PAYING THE SUB IN F2P = NO DIFFERENCE THAN P2P GAMES!
Why the hell can't the whiners comprehend this?
This. Very much this. In Vanilla, the world was hostile and mysterious. There were actual frontiers to explore, and places where you felt all alone. As opposed to Outland and Northrend where there were enough Horde and Alliance npcs wandering around that you have to wonder how these bad guys haven't lost the battle yet. There was far less homogenization in Vanilla, so there were always things to discover.
Important facts:
1. Free to Play games are poorly made.
2. Casuals are not all idiots, but idiots call themselves casuals.
3. Great solo and group content are not mutually exclusive, but they suffer when one is shoved into the mold of the other. The same is true of PvP and PvE.
4. Community is more important than you think.
The inability to fight on a flying mount transformed PVP realms into dead zones. There are no choke points anymore. You just fly to wherever you need to go, protected by your flying mount. PVP realms are emptying out. Players (PVP and raiders) are just transferring to highly populated realms hoping for more action. Dungeon Finder and other Cross Realm activities are a nice addition, especially for low populated realms. Blizzard should put more incentives than offering free transfers to balance their realms (such as experience bonus, or random generated events?)
Sanctuary cities need to go. Shattrath was just plain boring, while Dalaran is now the floating capital of lag. I'm sure those game servers could take many more players should they stop forcing players to stay in tiny zones.
Blizzard devs usually abandon zones and instances upon release. Few or no changes are made to keep it up to date. This is a MMO with a subscription, which should be treated as eternal, not as a short lived FPS or RTS game. When Burning Crusade was released, the entire vanilla End Game content was rendered useless. Though, the entire End Game content of Burning Crusade was still active (Players still raided Kara/Gruul/...) the day before Wrath was launched. In Lich King, however, the older tier of content are rendered useless at each content patches. All of this contributes to boredom, and this is the main reason why most of my friends (and myself) left WoW within the last 6 months.
In the current MMO market, very few can afford NOT to cater to *everyone* that they can. Blizzard understands this very well. That is why they still have millions and millions of players after more than 5 years. They have gone the inclusive, rather than the exclusive route. It has paid off BIG time for them. As for the Dungeon Finder system, and the emblems, its one of their best ideas in years. It allows many more people to have access to semi decent gear. I don't expect raid epics, since I no longer of the extended focus that is required for raids. But those who begrudge those who run dungeons their T9 from emblems, have other issues I suspect.
LONG since moved. I started out on deathwing(clan went there) and leveled a warrior to 60. Finally had enough. Moved to silvermoon and have four 80's there.
"World of Warcraft" ...the name it self imply something that got lost a long time ago. A faction based war. The alliance against the horde. Today a memory only.
In vanilla you actually had a love/hate relation to your enemy. You did know their names. You did know their skills and PvP style. You did know who to aviod and fear. Some you respected. Some you hated. Some you just laughed at.
I really loved possibility to know the enemy on a individual basis and the chance to develop a relation - good or bad - over time. Sure, the introduction of battle grounds was the end to world PvP, but the faction war still existed within the BGs.
The real deal breaker to me was when Blizzard totaly removed the immersion of a faction based war with the introduction of cross realm battlegrounds.
So if i had to pick only ONE thing that i whished Blizzard could do, then it´s to remove X-BGs.
http://mmofocus.se
Yeah, i'd go along with everythihg here and add one more, optional rule set servers, specifically a FFA PVP server.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
In the earlier days WoW had a "World"- feeling too it (not just in the name) . I would have preferred a direction towards even more of a "World", and not going the "Game" direction that it ended up going.
I was Warlock 80 level and haven't soleved that quest for Doomguard.
I went there, dont know the name of the zone, but i entered the cave and fought some level 40 elties.
i had more fun there, then blowing that hodirs horn or entering some aoe , done, loot badge hc instance with no CC control or strategy involved. I tried to love the game, but when i saw that motorcycles at first boss of Ulduar, i was , uh, someone sad, feeling like want to throw up.
I saw my Guild progress, they killed like 70% of the bosses in Naxx at that time, i fought, uh, somethings wrong, thats to easy, they always had like 30% boss kills in any 10/25 man instance.
Then I realised what I miss, sense of acomplishment, hard work, feeling happy inside, kind of those Underborg instances, cc this , fear this, strategy. I went there for abut 50 times for epic wand beforei got it, i was happy.
I dont want 100% content on the plate. Give me 20%, and if my Guild and I can work hard, we can see maybe 20%, i dont mind.
Give me hard work, sweat and wipes, give me 20 wipes, i miss wipes, now groups fall apart wher there is one wipe.
Sorry for bad english, my first post, will improve
umm the complete opposite direction they are going now. Remove everything and bring it back to vanilla, make epic items epic. Make tough 5 mans tough. Game is stupid easy now, I tanked 10 man ToC with an argent lance, and we finished, game is so retardedly easy now.
A lot of people here want to apply a niche-style MMO to World of Warcraft. WoW has 11 million subscribers for a reason: it's accessible. It's no secret that WoW is the cool game to hate, on this site, but why would Blizzard mess with something that clearly works? The game is tailored to be accessible by the majority, with added incentives for those who want a harder challenge. Those looking for the older, more hardcore atmosphere of accomplishment need not apply.
I've personally stopped playing (I'm in LotRO now). But WoW gives people an MMORPG who otherwise wouldn't touch one. It's a mistake to try to apply different MMORPG paradigms to WoW. People speak with their pocketbooks, and the vast majority say "game on, Blizzard."
Accessibility does not have to equal stupid easy gameplay. You can give people access to a dungeon and still make it hard. Don't forget the original WoW WAS for a niche genre, it's called the mmorpgers, the people that play games. It EVOLVED into something for people that don't play games.
First and foremost, you've confused "access to dungeons" with access to content. That being said, look what WoW has become, in terms of popularity. I believe you're discounting that many people who play WoW have zero interest in any other MMO aside from WoW. If WoW shut down today, many of those gamers may initially look for a replacement, but won't be satisfied. As I've said before, WoW is an amusement park. Gamers ride the rides.
WoW did quite a bit, during launch, to open the doors. At the time, much of the game was scoffed at as a "care bear" game. Soloing to max level, death penalty, quests the entire way, none of this was in line with games like EQ and UO. Blizzard initially designed the end game around the more hardcore, assuming the casual gamer would either stop playing or level another character. Blizzard realized that their core gamer was the casual gamer, and one cannot fault Blizzard for actually listening to the gamers (the very vocal minority on the forums is exactly that: the very vocal minority). Companies like SOE figured they could just do what they wanted with their game (e.g. SWG and the NGE), and we've seen what happens when companies do that. Blizzard has done well to develop their game into something that more people want to play.
This doesn't discount the fact that some old school mmorpgers don't like WoW, and that's fine. WoW is not for you, it's not developed for you. Each gamer has a criteria that they want in a game. Now, to state that WoW is for people who don't play games, this is just a throw-away statement or a silly quip. Either you're stating WoW isn't a game, or you think only hardcore mmorpgers are gamers. Either way, that's a silly point of view (not to mention bigoted).
Considering how dumbed down the general population has become, the only wonder is that so many play WoW in the first place. Look at the standards from even a generation or two ago. Its not just WoW that has become easier. Blizzard is focused on being inclusive. That means that everything tends to be easier to match the general populations inability to deal with complexity and creative thought. Blizzard has made a huge amount of money by their focus. They obviously know what they are doing.
Without putting on the nostalgia goggles (well maybe a little anyway), I would have liked them to stick to some of the principles of vanilla WoW.
Things went awry after the first expansion hit imo.
25 man raids were a good change instead of the tiresome 40 mans, and making content more accessible is always a good thing; but the way the handled that expansion vs the original game was bad.
All gear and stuff you did in the vanilla version basically didn't matter at all when the expansion hit, and soon no-one was to be found in Azeroth (which they're trying to fix now, way too late imo), they had better built on what was there with expanions instead of throwing it all away imo.
Basically the whole game is sick with the thirst for higher numbers, DPS shot through the roof in the expansions, and so did health and healing, which meant introducing a lame ass pvp only stat called resilience to try and fix that.
Another problem is the way the game promotes anonymity now and the way server identity has been lost, which is a very bad thing indeed imo, I would have preferred if they didn't do things like X realms and the LFG tool but searched for alternatives.
Such as trying to support world pvp, or at least center it around some areas and creating an open group system like in WAR.
The focus on highly repeatable forms of PvP like arena & BG's is not a good thing imo, and I loathe the way they made battlegrounds like AV mere shadows of themselves.
The whole story / setting focus of TBC was also wrong, they should have stuck with the steampunky original WoW feel, not the cyber / space opera stuff that doesn't fit at all imo.
Wotlk wasn't all that bad, but it repeated TBC's mistakes and also made the content even more focused on repetition through making it extremely easy to do, which makes people feel tired of it imo.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
So let me get this straight: you're upset because WoW has garnered interest and brings attention to the world of gaming? And since WoW doesn't cater to how you want a game, the game and everyone who plays WoW are retarded.
At what point did you forget that games are designed for fun? I grew up with an NES and an SNES, and onward (being 30 years old now), and at no point do I recall a game being something that put challenge above enjoyment. If you enjoy challenges, then power to you. As a kid, I played Mario Bros., Excite Bike, and Mach Rider because the games were fun.
If you play video games, you're a gamer. I'm sorry that WoW's success has disrupted your state of being. But don't get bent out of shape simply because there's a demand for a certain style of gaming, and a company fulfilled that demand. If feeling like a hardcore elitist makes you sleep at night, then off and away with that.
I've never ever pondered about that question, but i'd just like to add something on a side note. Blizzard has done a great job in securing subscriptions for WoW, they deserve credit for their marketting/game strategy. I myself played WoW for 5 years but gave up. As the saying goes, no matter how good something is, repetition will breed boredom eventually or otherwise. Most of my friends who still play WoW, dont play it because its a "blow-your-mind,out-of-this-world" game anymore, only reason they're left there is because of the friendships they've built in the game and the fact that, there's no current decent replacement for WoW, thats about it. Gotta think about it, there's a huge difference between playing an mmo cause its awesome and playing it cause there's nothing better.
<QQ moar plz. kkthxbai.>
This "11 million subscribers achievement" was completed in December 2008, which is right at the launch of Wrath of the Lich King. Only the hardcore guilds had stepped into Naxx back then, as most of the players were still leveling.
Out of this 11 millions, 5.5 were from Asia, and WotLK was not released at that time.
So basically, this 11 million subscribers came from the Burning Crusade era, when raiding was challenging.
I'm sorry Kyleran but FFA just makes absolutely no goddamn sense in Warcraft. None.
Sure, maybe Orcs but that's it...
I mean, I'm all for different server rule sets and such but they need to logically make sense. This one would not, at all, not even in the slightest.
This is pretty entertaining stuff to read.
And what I am about to say is going to either garner flames or irritate some people.
I quit WoW about 2 months after TBC was released. I quit because I didn't even have the time to level to 70 in that time.
I used to have tons of time and raiding nightly for hours was no problem. That was before I was married and had a kid. Also before I had a demanding job.
But now I read about how carebearish and dumbed down WoW has gotten and how solo-friendly and easy it is to get stuff and I am thinking I want to get back into WoW.
I quit because I didn't have the time to commit hours on end. Now I hear that you can start a heroic in 15 min from clicking a button to finishing it in less than an hour or two. To me, that sounds great. I can play an MMO that I can accomplish something in the time I play.
I can remember when it took 30 minutes or more to get a UBRS or LBRS run setup and it took well over an hour to run it. And forget finishing it if you had someone new. Thats just not feasible for me anymore. I'd love to be able to dump 6-10 hours a day into an MMO but I am lucky if I get 30 minutes in a day to play games.
Too many people on this site are so short sighted and full of themselves to think beyond thier own room and look at why so many people enjoy WoW. 11 million subscribers. You say 6 million are in China? Ok, lets discount them(because, you know, you all are racist/bigoted to think they dont matter as not 100% of them are gold farmers). 5 million US/EU combined. Lets say that only 2 million are US. That is still more than 10x the size of the average P2P MMO.
I plan on resubbing with Cata because WoW can give me some fun with the time I can give it. I'm rather happy with many of these changes. And, to top it off, I cant wait to deck myself out in all of those "welfare epics".
If WoW can give me a persitant world, progression, achievements and something to work towards in the time I have available, then WoW is infinitely better than any other MMO that cant.
FYI... It sucks being a hardcore player at heart but a casual player in availability.