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World of Warcraft: Unavoidable
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
MMORPG.com's resident ranter, Adam Janovyak, is ready to take on the unavoidable: World of Warcraft's Cataclysm expansion. Adam raves about Cataclysm becoming the overwhelming force in his life right now, though maybe not for the reasons you think. Cataclysm has given Adam fodder for The Rant. Check it out and then rant yourself in the comments below.
Here is what I’m mad about right now, Cataclysm. It’s consumed all of my senses. It’s everywhere and I can’t get away from it. I really didn’t want to write about it at all. I started and abruptly deleted ten different articles, honest to god. Nothing was flowing from my creative faucet (see? Lame!), I just wasn’t feeling it. Every single website I went to, including this one, had articles and banner adds that just sent the Cataclysm disease raging inside my system. No amount of vitamin C or penicillin could combat the illness.
Read more of The Rant: Unavoidable.
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deal
this
Games i'm playing right now...
"In short, I thought NGE was a very bad idea" - Raph Koster talking about NGE on his blog at raphkoster.com
Thank you for this great article.
You know what I am tired of... I am tired of writers who write about how they feel forced to write about Cataclysm... if you don't want to write about it, then don't... there is plenty of other news in the MMO world that you can find something else to write (rant) about....
Whether you like WOW or not, it is a great day when MMOs in general get the amount of media saturation that Cataclysm has generated. If it wasn't for WOW, there would be a lot of MMO start up companies that couldn't get the venture capitalist to invest in their small fledging game..because of WOW, we get the good sandox games and see the industry grow as a whole and evolve...
Selling 3.3 million copies on opening day is good business for all MMO companies, period.
@negacrowbar +1
i see ads for all manner of f2p games that are "unavoidable" all over mmo related sites like mmorpg.com. every new mmo release gets hyped up and talked over and so on, and yet i don't hear qq rants about how writers don't want to write about them.
if you don't like seeing wow ads, simple fix, use adblock and no script. no more wow ads.
KERPLAH!
Glad you got that out of your system. Personally I like what they did. Blizzard revamped the game. The kill ten rats quests are still there, but there, dare I say, more meaningful to the quest/storyline.
The questing has been improved dramatically and makes more sense in a linear fashion. They've added more tension between the Horde/Alliance (imagine it will help world PvP), the artwork has been redone and has a richness to it. Even the UI has been improved.
Is the game easier, yes, but it's fun. They've made it much more convenient to get to a bank/AH in the major cities. Quests inside the instance instead of hitting various points around the world to complete (very easy). Crafting has never been hard, that hasn't changed.
I haven't tried the rated BGs or new instances yet, but the underwater zone is pretty fun. Flying in Azeroth - pure awesome.
I'm not a WoW-fanboi in anyway. I actually disliked it and took three times trying it to play, but to give Blizzard credit they've put out a FUN game.
Proud member of Hammerfist Clan Gaming Community.
Currently playing: RIFT, EQ2, WoW, LoTRO
Retired: Warhammer, AoC, EQ
Waiting: SWToR & GW2
Agree'd with this article 100%, I wasn't expecting much from Blizz when they announced Cata and still today I don't. WoW isn't a bad game nor is Cata, but when you have all these sites completely selling themselves out and wetting themselves on how good it is or it was going to be it gets annoying as hell. All it is now is just a race from 1-60 than a somewhat dull but small quest grind from 60-80 then at 80 you start seeing new content and new storyline and all that good stuff. Personally, from what I've seen while doing 1-60 was a big leap for Blizz, it seemed like they focused more on the end-game content which isn't a bad idea but makes the game get boring extremely quick. Now for all those hardcore fanboys who rage and troll those who may insult or even bash their game, I'm not saying that I can get all the achievements or waste my time playing and doing heroics and all that shit, what I'm saying is generally WoW is still lacking in other aspects not just the same old gameplay that has been seen since Burning Crusade. In all honesty, Cata is and will always be in my eyes, another expansion just as Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King were. And Author is right, game was overhyped. Nuff said.
The way I see things is that it's good for Blizzard but bad and may be getting worse for the MMO genre as a whole.
In the land of Predators,the lion does not fear the jackals...
Honestly these "Rants" are getting old fast for me. I got to wonder though why do so many people think that a new class will somehow revolutionize the game for more than the two or three weeks it takes them to master it? Is adding a new class REALLY going to change the game THAT MUCH? Woulden't it be a bigger deal if they, I dunno, reworked the mechanics on all the existing classes to make them play like somthing from 2010 not 2004?
Dem hibbies! Dey be wrong!
Granted Blizzard always does a good god with it's expansions, but really can't call Cataclysm a true expansion, the expansion part is minimal this time around. Like you said this is more a face lift and rework of some of the content.
Writing about a certain mmo even if you moved on from it however many months or years should not stop you from reviewing it, as long as you feel you wrote a honest articale, then feelings shouldn't really matter.
You call that a rant? hehe ... head on over to the Mortal Online section of the forums. Those guys make ranting an art form (albeit a negative art). I have to say though, half of this article is about deciding on writing the article is a smidge lame
Work hard Play Harder
Look honestly he said his peace , like mostly i said .
If you dont like negative feature about a product .
And need to illusion yourself this is the best MMO ever , WAIT YOU DONT !!
its the CURRENT best MMO ever , dont skip the CURRENT .
Now you need to boost how much fun it was , yeah it was fun but cataclysme didn´t change a thing .
Its the same old game and story , if you like WOTLK you liked TBC you liked WOW you will LOVE cataclysme .
If you hate it , then nothing in for you but a short play time of fun .
Fun cause of the quests , most people dont play city of heroes , if you did you already recognise all the system used in going rogue , has come back to cataclysme .
You recognised the voice over cinematic part thats going to be introduced in SWTOR on a massive scale .
There is nothing new to cataclysme cause end deal , if you quit before , you aint going to stick around in the end .
Cause same old gameplay of endgame , its all about GEAR !!!
Once you are done with gear you wait around till next expansions or arena or whatever , for the next set of gear .
You like it , you have fun with that system , nobody complaining you to change
Y'kno I 've got to agree, I understand that this "rant" thing is all opinion, much like all the other columns written here, but the other ones tend to have..information. They offer up tidbits of knowledge about a game or discuss experiences while playing, y'kno, it seems like gaming NEWS..sorta.
These rants just seem like someone trying too damn hard to pretend to be ranty about something. Tihs one was in particular very weak. I mean no matter what you feel about WoW, bitchin' about how you didn't want to write about something for the first entire half of your column is just sloppy.
The rants column could go away and I honestly wouldn't care one bit, they're increasingly becoming a massive waste of time.
Whats minimal about the expansion? It has more content, dungeons, and raids than either of the two previous expansions. Theres a new profession, two new races, and finally a form of guild progression (as silly as it is after the nerf). Why is Cataclysm not a true expansion in your opinion?
People will be quick to label those with similar sentiments "haters", but, in reality, the opposite is true. In the maybe-not-quite immortal words of Uncle Ben, "With great power comes great responsibility." In this aspect, Blizzard has shown themselves to be the self-centered slackers some of us over the years have suspected them to be. Frankly, I get pretty sick of seeing people treat Blizzard as some sort of latter-day demigods regardless what kind of drek they glean and recycle from less-successful ventures.
Face facts, Blizzard doesn't create. They copy, coat with glitter, and market the hell out of the efforts of more innovative developers. While tooling through Cataclysm, I can recognize characteristics of the products Blizzard scavenged to create their latest financial triumph. Heck, why do you think Blizzard reversed course and allowed people to mod the UI? They let someone else develop, then incorporate it into the core game, and slap their own name on it while the starry-eyed modders continue to do their work for them. Don't forget that it was also Blizzard who started the trend of adapting the free Bitorrent client to use for downloading patches. A penny saved...
Blizzard has no incentive to do better as long as they have worshipping fans who are willing to keep playing and paying. Some of us would like to see Blizzard live up to their own potential, but as long as they're making obscene amounts of cash, it will never happen. Sad, but true.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II
"People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
Eh Janovyak, pay your sub and play.
Crapping on the game in a passive aggressive manner looks silly when the next thing you do is play it.
Is it me, or have the past 4 WoW related articles have the same generic picture of a Tauren shaman running a BG flag?
I can see a lot of points I agree with in the original rant too.
Of course I'm one of those "casual's" now.
The shine washed off wow about the time my guild first cleared LK-Naxx, and I learned it was harder to do with lvl 60 Naxx 35x70's than it was to do in LK wioth most people wearing 70 gear.
Not to say that other things weren't much better than they had been; such as the lore and storyline and character interaction with them for example.
There were ups and downs for me, but a lot of the pleasure of achievement had been removed for me by the addition of achievement points.
Little by little I stepped back from WoW; going so far as to take a break for a few months. Of course, everything was going to change, so I had to see some old favorite zones one last time. And now I need to see everything that's changed, but I still miss the old ways and will be forever be jaded by them.
But I guess that's what comes when you look at something with an open mind.
Good things, bad things, and the dreams we see unrealized.
I think the biggest problem with the game is the fanatacism and slavish devotion to blizzard from those who have the capacity to be objectively critical and change things for the better.
So, in your estimation, would his piece be more legitimate if he were positioned as someone outside the game who was only relying on the accounts of others to base his opinions? Playing the game and then pointing out the shortcomings isn't silly at all.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II
"People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
This article claims that Cataclysm was supposed to turn WoW into a whole new game, which is wrong and any bit of research into the actual features of the expansion sans buying into marketing hype would have told the author that.
Getting really tired of people who keep complaining about Cataclysm being more of the same when that's pretty much all mmo expansion packs have ever been.
No i am geting tired of the hype or lies , like talent trees .
I got 5 more points and woot does it really matter if i spent those 5 points .
After hitting 85 , it didn´t even unlock a new talent tree options (so 10 points into a talent tree) .
So much for diversity and misscommunication of blizzard , we offer more choice ?
Thats what they stated all along , now the real cold hard fact are here .
THERE IS NO DIVERSITY , everybody has the same toon !!!
Thats 2 step back in evolution !!!
So your Death Knight is exactly the same as my death knight , aside from yours is slightly more gimped .
Cause you took worthless talents ?
So where is the people now who said , its not dumbing down the talent choices ?
Cata is a huge disappointment for me. I can't deny the work they put into the old world is extensive, and it will make a fun game for new players. My problem is the 80+ game. I have 5 80's. The journey to 85 is rediculously short, doing the same old "kill x number of these" quests we've seen many times before. Then it's off to 5 man dungeons to grind out those points/badges to get gear from a vendor. This is, in my opinion, the laziest end game mechanic I've ever seen.
I had hope when the pit of saron came in wotlk and we got the battered hilt with it's quest line to get a sword. I thought maybe we'd see more of that for tier gear when cata came out, instead of the repetetive, boring, grinding tradmill of 5 mans to gear up for raids.
No such luck! Considering the amount of money being made from WoW subs, Blizz should be on the bleeding edge of game content development. It's not like they can't afford it. They just can't be arsed.
If they have that little respect for my time, effort and money, they deserve none of them. I'm truely sorry I bought Cata, waste of money.
My sub is cancelled once more, probably for the last time. I can't see myself wasting another penny on the next expansion when it comes out in yet another 2 years.
Even if the game offered you 200 talent points, you're still going to be considered gimped unless you personally use one of the "community approved" builds. No matter how much customization is offered, players will always end up clones of each other at some point.
Why should i follow the standard community point ?
So you saying you play to be a streamline toon in a fanatasy MMO that you pay montly without any difference from other toons ?
Well then congratulations you are sold very well , so basically you dont want any difference between players .
Then this game is excellently made for you , and you follow ghost crawler and CO perfect vision .
Cause anything else then DRUIDS will be nerfed .
Dont forget DRUID best class in wow , every class optimised for 31 point system .
A HYBRID that can do everything a pure class can but beter !!! .
So here another lessons people dont play anything else but druids , thats GC and CO company vision .
I'm a survivalist hunter and was all throughout WoTLK when Marksman was the norm. If I wanted to, I could be a marksman hunter or a beast master hunter, both of which play differently from the SV hunter. Similarly, if I were a druid or paladin, I could tank, heal, or DPS. That is variety, not the min/maxing that is done by putting points into talent trees.
To be honest, I feel like WoW gives me a whole lot more variety as to how I want to play my toon than its competition including LotRO and EQ2.