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World of Warcraft: Editorial: Factions
Dana
Member Posts: 2,415
Garrett Fuller is back with a brand new World of WarCraft editorial. Today he examines the issue of Faction in World of WarCraft. Fuller will frequently be contributing World of WarCraft and other articles to the site over the coming weeks.
;) With the upcoming Patch 1.9 for World of Warcraft, Blizzard is offering new faction rewards for the Timbermaw Hold. Reading this update made me think about how much time Ive spent in the last several weeks grinding through Faction points to get the better rewards. Factions in Warcraft are defined as: Hated, Hostile, Unfriendly, Neutral, Friendly, Honored, Revered, and Exalted. The system has point values for each level of faction. So getting from Friendly to Honored may cost you six thousand faction points. These points are gained through completing quests, killing mobs, or handing in items. Several runs in ZulGurub and I find myself into the early stages of Friendly. Over one-hundred runs in Arathi Basin and I am a little less than half way through Honored. Did I get a few blue items, yes, is it worth the work with all the limitations Blizzard puts onto the instanced battlegrounds and dungeons, well that is the question I am trying to answer in this editorial. |
You can read the entire editorial here.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Comments
Factions are nothing more than extended timesinks. That is about the only purpose they serve. Especially as they are represented in WoW.
I agree completely. I really love WoW and only wish for it to become a better game. I strongly feel that faction grinding is dragging the game down. There is so much potential and Blizzard only needs to tap into it. Forcing people to repeat the same content until you can do it in your sleep is not my definition of fun. Grinding faction or instances for rewards and rank becomes more like a job then an enjoyable game experience. Not sure about everyone, but I am looking to play games to escape the everyday drudgery of work. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
I would love more content that encourages and rewards people for not being in an instance. Get people out of these nice safe zones and have them play on the world map. This is supposed to be MMO after all. They can take some lessons from DAoC. Provide an open battle ground, free of queues, a battle ground that is persistent with clear goals to achieve and defend. Give bonuses to all players on each server based on how well your side is doing, how many towns they control, or how much territory they control. These bonuses will be applied to all players on that server for as long as there side maintains these objectives. So, that will encourage players from both sides to get involved in the World and not stuck grinding in an instance 90% of the time. I know this may seem to give an advantage to the side that has a bigger player base on each server, but this is War after all and that is not always fair.
I can go on and on, but you probably know where I am going with this. Thanks for the editorial Garrett. I just hope some one at Blizzard will take these comments as constructive and give them serious consideration.
Great Editorial !
Finnaly shows that you guys dont fear to present the things in real light. I greatly admire that. And certanly other readers too...
As for WOW and Blizzard.
WOW is simply excelent super polished well designed game. Unlike any other MMO and well deserved the throne of game of the year from day 1.
Day 60 is the problem though. I dont know if Blizzard decided to fire the original game devloping crew or they are all retired in Cancoon
But ever since WOW went live things started tumbling down. Support is horrible. Network crew is nightmare. And although WOW makes yearly revenue of a small country they completely avoid developing the game further or adding any really NEW content.
Game goes from level 1 to 60 - after that it is just a futile amateur attempt of artificially prolonging the realisation of a fact WOW has
GAME-OVER
"Before this battle is over all the world will know that few...stood against many." - King Leonidas
and a big AMEN to the next post!
I actually like the faction system. It gives me something to do between raiding, i dont care how good the rewards are as long as they arent completely useless. Just something unique that gives you the title of being exalted with the faction.
Thank you. This is the best I've heard it said and it's so true.
I agree with you, for the most part. True, it is only the hard-core player who is dedicated to obtaining a goal in faction, regardless with which group you are trying to gain faction with. This leads to Uber players with Uber equipment so they can Uber pwn the other side when in PvP, or help make High-end instance runs easier for their guild to loot. To say that once you reach 60 thats all there is - grinding for equipment or faction is far off the mark. There are 2 main factions - and you can switch servers and play whichever strikes your fancy at the time. There are different quests for each side, as well as the many for both. Just bringing one Horde and one Alliance player to 60 is a geat consumer of time and quite an acheivement.
Then you have the different classes. You can play more than one class, and believe me, they all play very differently - from the relatively simple Warrior, to the more technical casters. Specialty classes like the Shaman and Pallies are also very different to play in almost all situations. The different classes offer a huge amount of content if want to enjoy playing the game. Personally I have 4 Horde at lvl 60 and 4 more from 38-45 - 1 from each class. I enjoy them all because they are so different. But though I do have a Warlock main who does Molton Core and other High-end instances, I am gearing my Hunter, Warrior and Rogue to follow in her footsteps.
Many people in my guild have Alts (alternate characters) and we all have fun together levelling and passing around good "blues" and "purples" to enhance our players. It is what makes it fun for us. Recently several of us started some alliance characters on another server, and that has added to our enjoyment of the game
The game is huge, fun, and if you can't find fun beyond grinding for faction at 60, you are not looking at the rest of the game. (and I am really looking forward to the expansion)
For one more time let your madness run with mine.
This guy is the true voice of the Average Person in the WoW community.
He is 3 for 3 on his editorials written so far.
This is a very well written editorial, bringing up many points perhaps not necessairly even initially mentioned in the opening statements. Specifically in the sense that factions in WoW are the 'end game' equivelant to the type of grind that's lead you to level 60 to begin with.
He does seem to consider pre 60 gameplay as not involving grind, which in some ways is true. But -- as most people will tell you your fastest way to level is to quest, hands down. The issue is, there's a vast majority of those quests that ARE noting than grinding with a lable. All level ranges for all major race outposts have quests where you are asked to bring back X number of a given dropped item -- say X = 30 in this case. All fine and good until you've killed 200 + of the mob-type that drops X and still don't have that 30 you need to complete the quest. Basically you've had to grind in the exact same way for the low level quests as you do once you begin the end game faction grind.
So the main thing I'd see as the issue here really isn't that gaining faction for these quests is a grind, but rather it's just the level-cap version of the same grind you've been doing in quests all along only with a new facade to make it look more interesting once you get that far into your gaming experience.