Tiered progression and the near complete split from dungeons, raiding and PVP are where WoW went wrong after Ulduar.
Nothing wrong with MoP, IMO, if it was in the pre-ToC days.
Lazy devs and a completely hands off policy with the community has caused millions to quit WoW since it's just not an adventure anymore. Everyone has a tolerance for this sort of thing, but this is the end game for WoW. It started as an MMO that was easier, less grindy, better graphics, cooler abilities, less restrictions and just more of an epic experience than any other MMO of the time. It's now trying to be an MMO, that's easier/better/cooler than it's self... Sad, I still miss it though.
PS: Hi Roxy, glad to see you're still pwning faces in PvP!
1: they didn't have any open world content accept the stupid pickup and run archaic system of quests.
2: can't get good gear without being in a 5 man.
3: no open world events system bringing a bit more life to the world.
4: broken combat, they still haven't learned that you must separate the pve pvp combat code so that one doesn't have to respec rebuild the character from ground up continuously.
5: the talents are still the same, there's only a few worth getting and the rest are just fodder no real choices especially with the hunter class.
6: Pokemon is not worth the $15 a month sub fee
7: and finally, they still have that Marine Biologist in charge of the game development.
4: broken combat, they still haven't learned that you must separate the pve pvp combat code so that one doesn't have to respec rebuild the character from ground up continuously.
7: and finally, they still have that Marine Biologist in charge of the game development.
4: They will never learn about separating PvE and PvP skills. It's such a dead horse, it's not even worth discusing anymore. It's so much easier to ignore it and flub up PvE than make two systems...
7: GC is an absolute nightmare, if I ever randomly ran across that man IRL, I would kill him with my bare hands on basic principle.
I am annoyed by having done so and I feel that it is by far the worst expac to come out for WoW. Good going on not buying it.
1: they didn't have any open world content accept the stupid pickup and run archaic system of quests.
Yes, I agree emphatically here and is my biggest beef with MoP outside of the new talent and glyph system.
5: the talents are still the same, there's only a few worth getting and the rest are just fodder no real choices especially with the hunter class.
Also the case for Warlocks. Who in his/her right mind would not pick up the pet improvement talent ? The glyphs are also pretty much a given too. There is no more choice (in fact there is less) now than there was before.
The things I like about MoP is that they gave a bit more attention to designing the panda towns, the naming of their NPCs, and other fluff such as how the NPCs react to you. However, I find this expac to be really limiting.
Getting back to itgrowls' first point, the world in MoP is not open, not even to the extent that Vanilla WoW's or TBC or even to a point WotLK's areas were. MoP strikes me as crowded and physically small. I was surprised about how small the continent actually is in comparison to previous expansion areas and certainly in comparison to the orginal areas of the game.
And then there are fewer level path choices too. There used to be two areas per level range you could choose between, now there is just one way to go.
And too much emphasis on dailies and other forms of grind for high level content. Gotta hand it to them, they are definitely the masters of treadmills.
Overall pretty disappointed in this expac and it is the second big disappointment with Blizzard products last year (first one being D3). I am giving this game a long break now.
The first problem is the absurd amount of phasing. I got scrolled last year and my friend bought me the expansion so we could group together. However, since she was playing before I was we couldn't group as she had to wait til I "caught up" in the questing. This is an asinine development strategy. Phasing is like cooking seasoning, use it sparingly.
Pandas. Yes, Pandas are a problem since Alliance players have been asking for them for a while, but not Horde. Yet Blizzard (once again) was lazy in development and just gave them to both factions. There should of been 2 distinct races in the expansions. In theory, you could have a battleground with all pandas fighting each other. That's absurd.
Increasing the amount of 90 dailies is NOT "adding more content". It's just adding more repeatable quests. They advertised that MoP would have "more" content than Cats, yet it's just more dailies. I'm sorry but doing the same quests every day, week after week is B-O-R-I-N-G. At least back in patch 2.4 the dailies had a little variety (bombing run anyone?).
Only 5 more levels. This makes MoP seem smaller. It also leads to the problem that you will do the same dungeon over and over and over ad nauseum. TBC and Wrath with their 10 level increase spread the content out more, which meant slower burnout. Blizzard needs to stop these "mini-expansions".
Housing. If EQ2 could have housing at launch in 2004, there is no excuse why WoW couldn't of had it with MoP.
I could make more comments, but I'll stop now before I get carried away.
The first problem is the absurd amount of phasing. I got scrolled last year and my friend bought me the expansion so we could group together. However, since she was playing before I was we couldn't group as she had to wait til I "caught up" in the questing. This is an asinine development strategy. Phasing is like cooking seasoning, use it sparingly.
Pandas. Yes, Pandas are a problem since Alliance players have been asking for them for a while, but not Horde. Yet Blizzard (once again) was lazy in development and just gave them to both factions. There should of been 2 distinct races in the expansions. In theory, you could have a battleground with all pandas fighting each other. That's absurd.
Increasing the amount of 90 dailies is NOT "adding more content". It's just adding more repeatable quests. They advertised that MoP would have "more" content than Cats, yet it's just more dailies. I'm sorry but doing the same quests every day, week after week is B-O-R-I-N-G. At least back in patch 2.4 the dailies had a little variety (bombing run anyone?).
Only 5 more levels. This makes MoP seem smaller. It also leads to the problem that you will do the same dungeon over and over and over ad nauseum. TBC and Wrath with their 10 level increase spread the content out more, which meant slower burnout. Blizzard needs to stop these "mini-expansions".
Housing. If EQ2 could have housing at launch in 2004, there is no excuse why WoW couldn't of had it with MoP.
I could make more comments, but I'll stop now before I get carried away.
Very good post ! I especially agree with your comments about dailies and pandas. I didn't group up much while leveling outdoors so I don't know how bad phasing is. Is it really prevalent ? I think that Blizzard is trying to overcome the gripe that nothing ever seems to change when you do certain actions. That is a problem with the sort of on-rails questing you have in a game like WoW.
Comments
Tiered progression and the near complete split from dungeons, raiding and PVP are where WoW went wrong after Ulduar.
Nothing wrong with MoP, IMO, if it was in the pre-ToC days.
Lazy devs and a completely hands off policy with the community has caused millions to quit WoW since it's just not an adventure anymore. Everyone has a tolerance for this sort of thing, but this is the end game for WoW. It started as an MMO that was easier, less grindy, better graphics, cooler abilities, less restrictions and just more of an epic experience than any other MMO of the time. It's now trying to be an MMO, that's easier/better/cooler than it's self... Sad, I still miss it though.
PS: Hi Roxy, glad to see you're still pwning faces in PvP!
The reasons why I didn't buy mop:
1: they didn't have any open world content accept the stupid pickup and run archaic system of quests.
2: can't get good gear without being in a 5 man.
3: no open world events system bringing a bit more life to the world.
4: broken combat, they still haven't learned that you must separate the pve pvp combat code so that one doesn't have to respec rebuild the character from ground up continuously.
5: the talents are still the same, there's only a few worth getting and the rest are just fodder no real choices especially with the hunter class.
6: Pokemon is not worth the $15 a month sub fee
7: and finally, they still have that Marine Biologist in charge of the game development.
4: They will never learn about separating PvE and PvP skills. It's such a dead horse, it's not even worth discusing anymore. It's so much easier to ignore it and flub up PvE than make two systems...
7: GC is an absolute nightmare, if I ever randomly ran across that man IRL, I would kill him with my bare hands on basic principle.
The things I like about MoP is that they gave a bit more attention to designing the panda towns, the naming of their NPCs, and other fluff such as how the NPCs react to you. However, I find this expac to be really limiting.
Getting back to itgrowls' first point, the world in MoP is not open, not even to the extent that Vanilla WoW's or TBC or even to a point WotLK's areas were. MoP strikes me as crowded and physically small. I was surprised about how small the continent actually is in comparison to previous expansion areas and certainly in comparison to the orginal areas of the game.
And then there are fewer level path choices too. There used to be two areas per level range you could choose between, now there is just one way to go.
And too much emphasis on dailies and other forms of grind for high level content. Gotta hand it to them, they are definitely the masters of treadmills.
Overall pretty disappointed in this expac and it is the second big disappointment with Blizzard products last year (first one being D3). I am giving this game a long break now.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.
The first problem is the absurd amount of phasing. I got scrolled last year and my friend bought me the expansion so we could group together. However, since she was playing before I was we couldn't group as she had to wait til I "caught up" in the questing. This is an asinine development strategy. Phasing is like cooking seasoning, use it sparingly.
Pandas. Yes, Pandas are a problem since Alliance players have been asking for them for a while, but not Horde. Yet Blizzard (once again) was lazy in development and just gave them to both factions. There should of been 2 distinct races in the expansions. In theory, you could have a battleground with all pandas fighting each other. That's absurd.
Increasing the amount of 90 dailies is NOT "adding more content". It's just adding more repeatable quests. They advertised that MoP would have "more" content than Cats, yet it's just more dailies. I'm sorry but doing the same quests every day, week after week is B-O-R-I-N-G. At least back in patch 2.4 the dailies had a little variety (bombing run anyone?).
Only 5 more levels. This makes MoP seem smaller. It also leads to the problem that you will do the same dungeon over and over and over ad nauseum. TBC and Wrath with their 10 level increase spread the content out more, which meant slower burnout. Blizzard needs to stop these "mini-expansions".
Housing. If EQ2 could have housing at launch in 2004, there is no excuse why WoW couldn't of had it with MoP.
I could make more comments, but I'll stop now before I get carried away.
Very good post ! I especially agree with your comments about dailies and pandas. I didn't group up much while leveling outdoors so I don't know how bad phasing is. Is it really prevalent ? I think that Blizzard is trying to overcome the gripe that nothing ever seems to change when you do certain actions. That is a problem with the sort of on-rails questing you have in a game like WoW.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.