Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
[Column] World of Warcraft: A Look at the Timeless Isle
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
The forthcoming v5.4 patch for World of Warcraft is currently on the public test realm and we've got a great preview of the new zone, Timeless Isle, in today's WoW Factor. See why we think this may be a great time to hop back into WoW. Read on!
Just off the southeastern coast of the Jade Forest, a small new island has emerged from the mists - an island frozen in time where the sun hangs still in the sky and never sets. What caused the sudden appearance of this new place remains unknown but there are a few theories being tossed around by those who have recently ventured there. Perhaps it will be you who discovers its mystery.
Read more of Reza Lackey's The WoW Factor: A Look at the Timeless Isle.
)
Comments
Sounds like a good stab at taking elements from say GW2 and putting them into WoW.
Could be a much more interesting time sink than Dailies.
Interested to see how this is perceived.
Looking forward to it ,thanks for the write-up!
I haven't exactly followed the whole thing, but wasn't there something about "Virtual Realms" with 5.4?
The reason WoW is loosing players isn't because of the graphics or how old the game is. Again, nothing in WoW is epic anymore, raid finished in days not months, everything is too easy, period.
Peace,
Lascer
If you read the post, you'd see that the Timeless Isle has very few daily quests and no quest hubs. It's all dynamic events and player driven with very little hand-holding. It's unlike anything previously in WoW.
That's exactly how I feel, nothing in WoW is epic anymore its all just part of the course.
I really don't think the graphics have much to do with WoW's decline. It was never a game that one would be attracted to for it's graphical fidelity.
I think there are a variety of factors leading to the loss of subs. There are probably a lot of players that have a "been there, done that" attitude towards WoW these days, and they're simply looking for something new. There is currently a lot of competition in the MMO genre, and while most MMO's have small player numbers compared to WoW, losing a little here and there to every new game adds up.
As far as design decisions go, I think the daily quest focus certainly didn't help subscription numbers. When people across the internet begin to refer to your game as "World of Grindcraft", that's a problem. I also think that CRZ was poorly implemented. WoW quests tend to be competitive rather than cooperative, so having quest areas filled with players from other servers only leads to frustration. For example, I recently tried the trial edition of WoW, just to check out the game again and see if I wanted to resub. During some play sessions, I honestly spent more time waiting for mobs to respawn than anything else. It seems like the quest design and respawn rates were not built for zones that are constantly full of players, so now leveling via questing can entail large amounts of standing around and waiting. Not exactly my definition of fun.
They seem to be going ahead with all of their item store plans, so I'm thinking this had nothing to do with Vivendi and is good ol fashioned in house greed. I honestly don't think Vivendi was holding them back in any way shape or form, as they have said time and time again that their dev team makes all the decisions. Look forward to more of the same.
Their are a lot of reason why people left, daily burnout likely paid a big role, however we also have the death of dungeons this expack, and LFR as the only reasonable gear path for many players. LFR wouldn't be so bad except for the queues. Poor design there, with so many wings, poorly thought out loot lists, and no catch up you have the declining player base stretched out across so many LFR wings it gets increasingly worse as time goes on. etc... etc... etc... The reason I don't feel like coming back though is besides the fact that it doesn't seem very exciting, I'm not a fan of the double dip worst of both worlds required sub plus you still have to pay for the highest quality pets and mounts, and now that they seem to be expanding it to other items seems like a good time to just say goodbye.
While the timeless isle sounds great in theory, when you stop and think about it that exploration isn't going to last you more than a couple weeks max, and hell new dailies are even fun the first couple weeks. After that you are just running the same course through the same zone fighting the same rares to get the same loot day after day after day. Only there won't even be quests as a reason to be there, and without any quests I am also going to assume no real stories to be had. Not to mention I'm willing to bet you are going to see the scenario a lot where you are fighting your way to a chest you found only to have a hunter run by with mobs chasing him, feign death and grab the chest you have been fighting your way to. Great system for people with an aggro drop not so much for everyone else. Unless chests are phased on a per player basis which would be pretty cool.
My youtube MMO gaming channel
Why would anyone do dailies any more? You want good gear just do dungeons, convert your justice points to honor then buy pvp gear to get your ilvl up to do Heroic Scenarios ( Using Oqueue add on you can find a group within seconds ) or Raid finder.
If you want dailies for rep just kill the scouts that walk around in certain areas and get their 1000 rep tokens. ( You can do this alllllll dayyyyyyy long ). But honestly my last 2 toons I leveled I did no dailies whatsoever and both have 517 Ilvl .
The game is something to do till the next best polished thing. Hopefully FF14 ARR
I know the game has been dumbed down beyond belief. I also know there isnt anything out there that I can play to burn my time and chit chat with folks doing the same thing. I play wow for something to do. What game do you play?
On the expac, yup it looks like imported ideas from other games. That's great because wow is the best overall and importing the good things from other games just adds to thier greatness already. It's a winning decision. Can't wait to check it all out. Love this game, it's the best way to pass the time if your feeling like pc gaming.
How are dailies any different to the living story content we are getting for gw2? Achievement grinding (that's what most of it boils down to) is just as boring if not more so than wow's dailies.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Yep right on the money its all about achievements and all fluff, the game is tedious beyond belief.
People have complained about WoW's graphics and aesthetic style since day 1, so I'm not sure how much of a factor that is in the present decline of the game. What I will say, however, is that the reason WoW went with the style it did was because they prioritized accessibility over graphical majesty - and that worked amazingly for almost a decade; players with any kind of computer were able to play the game to some satisfaction. Now, however, we've seen a recent rise of truly beautiful games that seem just as accessible. A certain bridge has been crossed, where even poor computers now have access to some gorgeous MMO worlds. In comparison, WoW never has and never will look amazing.
That said, I played WoW happily from vanilla through WotlK, with a 1-month return for the beginning of Cata, and I've always thought Blizzard did a really solid job updating its game's graphics. They made improvements with every expansion, culminating in the complete revamp of the old world after the Cataclysm. For its style, it really did look good imo. Now it's just falling behind the times again, and I expect Blizzard to address that in some form.
It's an open world zone like any other, intended to give end game players something to do; so one could assume it's max level. The other part of your question was addressed in the post. You're free to explore the zone solo and complete events as they come, but many of them, particularly the plethora of bosses, will require several players to take down.
If you're not used to GW2's gameplay, you might feel lost for a while. You're not going to be held by your hand and told where to go. You just explore and find things. Also, get more into the cooperative mindset. Another player questing alongside you is your ally, not your competitor. You'll be facing the events together, fighting the same mobs, whether you're in a group or not.
Sounds most like a single GW2 zone to me, they want to see how the typical WoW fanbois like a more dynamic less linear zone path..
i think this is what wecan expect from the next expansion.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
actually they tried to introduce these kind of content; dynamic/automatic quest gathering based on zone(we just had to explore certain part of map to get quests related to that area) while in cata but the players called it "too much casual and easy mode". so they scrapped it from ptr. now they are trying it again and this time everyone calling it "awesome", this WOW community i tell you the worst kind of hypocrites in the world. worse than politicians.
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
I'm glad they split from Vivendi. Also in 5.4 we'll get to kill Garrosh, I know several friends that left after we killed the thunder king a few times, they said they would come back at 5.4.
People complain about too many dailies, so Blizzard gives them an island with no dailes. People complain about the lack of dailies...The community we live in lol.