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To WoW or not to WoW, that is the question!
Rhinotones
Member UncommonPosts: 250
When they announced Panda's as an expansion with pet battles, it dawned on me that it had turned into a game for a younger generation. No worries, time for me to move along.
Still a fan of WoW I kept updated on what was going on in Azeroth.
When WoD was announced with a number of concepts that greatly appealed to me (Garrisons/going to a new Outlands), I admit I got carried by the hype train. Several months ago I honestly believed I'd be one of those 7.4 million people getting ready for WoD.
Now that I've calmed down and derailed that train, I'm debating whether or not to hold out, listen to the general concensus over the first few months of release before making my decision.
I adore WoW, but I harbor this underlying fear.
a) I'll walk away with a sour taste in my mouth after playing this expansion, realizing the game I once lived for is truly gone
or
b) Yeah Baby, your BACK! Plug me in and let me lose myself to you again.
Having not played since pre-release of Panda's it's actually a very daunting step for me to make. I've played around 450 days of WoW and it consumed me. I put on weight and felt horrible, yet felt awesome and alive in game.
Since stopping, I lost over 20kg (66lbs) competed in triathlons and became a new person.
I understand that we need balance.
I also understand that for me, WoW can very easily unbalance me.
Comments
It's not the same game that you have those fond memories about.
Don't return, You can get the same fix from an array of f2p titles.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
It's still the same WoW. It's not like it fundamentally transformed into a new MMO. If you quit because of MoP, then all the MoP features are still in the game, plus additional changes like new character models, skills, and UI tweaks.
There is still leveling, dungeons, achievements, raids, battlegrounds, etc.. The core game hasn't changed.
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
Except they are all drastically different then years past.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
MoP comes with the new expansion, and all other previous expansions too i think.
WoW has undergone many dramatic changes, mostly due to the evolving community that asks for a different experience from the game than they did 10 years ago. If you can accept that, WoW is imo, the best mmo on the market and offers so much. Warlords looks to be no exception with garrisons, the new dungeons, the new raids, all of the new open world dynamic-ish content at max level, and all the other trimmings that WoW expansions always come with. The game has changed, but it's still great fun.
However, in your case it sounds like you don't know how to strike a good balance and get too consumed by WoW, which I believe to be a very precarious position to put yourself in. I'd recommend staying away from it if you can't balance real life with it. Real life always comes first.
For myself, I have a good balance with it and I can enjoy it for what it is. Sure there is other free mmo's out there, and other paid mmo's too, and some of them are pretty fun, but at least for me I always return to WoW.
Not necessarily. Dungeons and raids are still linear, with bosses, with trinity classes, rinse & repeat. Battlegrounds are basically the same, with new maps that have scoreboards and time limits. Leveling is still the same, with quest hubs, dungeons, or pvp.
The only innovative things MoP brought to WoW, were Scenarios and Pet Battles.
Not necessarily. Dungeons and raids are still linear, with bosses, with trinity classes, rinse & repeat. Battlegrounds are basically the same, with new maps that have scoreboards and time limits. Leveling is still the same, with quest hubs, dungeons, or pvp.
The only innovative things MoP brought to WoW, were Scenarios and Pet Battles.
The dungeon experience has become: "lets see how much i can aoe tank, then you can all loot pinyata" there used to be atleast some strategy to dungeons now im prety sure you can roll your face on the keyboard and still get by.
Granted, this..."progression" of dungeons has been a long and drawn out affair.
As for pvp, The amount of changes done to character progression and skills available to them has basically sucked any type of complexity out of pvp.
when I used to play I had a vast toolkit to deal with any type of situation that might arise, now i would be limited by only a few tools because the type of enemy attacks are finely tuned.
So yeah. Looks the same, Doesn't act the same.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
Thanks for all your thoughts/opinions.
SethuisX and Jacker1991 may be right and I should stay away from the game. Greymantle4 comment on easy leveling does not appeal to me either.
Anyone here with a similar history to myself currently playing the Beta?
If so, how does the game play feel after such a long break from WoW?
If you're not a raider at heart I know there is still a ton to do in WoD I'm sure...how challenging is it though?
If MoP was what made you lose interest in WoW then you can boost a character to 90 and totally pass it up. WoD is really looking interesting to me. It looks like it will at least have the feel of the better xpacs (BC and Lich King). If your any kind of fan of those 2 xpacs and/or vanilla, I'd say take it out for a spin.
Congrats on your new life btw! Making life changes like that isn't easy. I'd hope if you return to WoW that you wouldn't be as obsessed and could make room for WoW and a healthy lifestyle. I seem to balance it and everything else okay. but of course, everyone is different. gl with your decision.
On the dungeon point (as in, they are too easy), Blizzard recently enacted a "tank squish" to go along with the stat squish, nerfing tank power by 5-10 times in addition to the squish everyone got. This makes tanks much more squishy relative to their power in pandaria. Additionally, they have changed the healing model over to a Triage system, whereby healers cannot just spam big aoe heals and win anymore as they have been doing for quite some time, but rather must pick their targets carefully and choose the right spells for the situation.
This is all magnified by the difference in heal power vs. the health bar. Heal numbers are about 8+ times less than before (due to the stat squish) but they bumped stamina's contribution from somewhere around 12 health per stamina to 60 health per stamina (health numbers are actually remaining around pandaria level despite the squish), meaning healers can no longer expect to keep people at max health all the time, and will have to get comfortable with many people in the group sitting at low health levels at times due to a limit in throughput.
The point is, Blizzard sees the issue with the current model being too simple, and is trying to fix it in WoD. They have also stated that dungeons will be harder than pandaria (but not quite as hard as Cata which was overtuned for most players) without even considering the tank/healer changes. Of course, this will affect raids even more, as raiding is what the game is ultimately tuned for (and always has been).
They've even gone so far as to put in a requirement that players must get at least a silver medal in your role in proving grounds in order to queue for random Heroic dungeons, as silver requires you to be somewhat competent and know your class. They need this with the harder dungeon model to ensure that players in lfd can actually complete the dungeons.
The complains about the Pandaren annoy me to know end. This wasn't a random race added to appeal to the Asian market or younger players. It was a natural progression pulled from the existing Warcraft lore. If you don't have any issues with the giant cow people called Tauren, I'm not sure why that would sudden change for the pandas.
Protip: Pandaren monks predate the Kung-Fu Panda movies by about a decade.
Not necessarily. Dungeons and raids are still linear, with bosses, with trinity classes, rinse & repeat. Battlegrounds are basically the same, with new maps that have scoreboards and time limits. Leveling is still the same, with quest hubs, dungeons, or pvp. The only innovative things MoP brought to WoW, were Scenarios and Pet Battles.
The dungeon experience has become: "lets see how much i can aoe tank, then you can all loot pinyata" there used to be atleast some strategy to dungeons now im prety sure you can roll your face on the keyboard and still get by. Granted, this..."progression" of dungeons has been a long and drawn out affair. As for pvp, The amount of changes done to character progression and skills available to them has basically sucked any type of complexity out of pvp. when I used to play I had a vast toolkit to deal with any type of situation that might arise, now i would be limited by only a few tools because the type of enemy attacks are finely tuned. So yeah. Looks the same, Doesn't act the same.
On the dungeon point (as in, they are too easy), Blizzard recently enacted a "tank squish" to go along with the stat squish, nerfing tank power by 5-10 times in addition to the squish everyone got. This makes tanks much more squishy relative to their power in pandaria. Additionally, they have changed the healing model over to a Triage system, whereby healers cannot just spam big aoe heals and win anymore as they have been doing for quite some time, but rather must pick their targets carefully and choose the right spells for the situation.
This is all magnified by the difference in heal power vs. the health bar. Heal numbers are about 8+ times less than before (due to the stat squish) but they bumped stamina's contribution from somewhere around 12 health per stamina to 60 health per stamina (health numbers are actually remaining around pandaria level despite the squish), meaning healers can no longer expect to keep people at max health all the time, and will have to get comfortable with many people in the group sitting at low health levels at times due to a limit in throughput.
The point is, Blizzard sees the issue with the current model being too simple, and is trying to fix it in WoD. They have also stated that dungeons will be harder than pandaria (but not quite as hard as Cata which was overtuned for most players) without even considering the tank/healer changes. Of course, this will affect raids even more, as raiding is what the game is ultimately tuned for (and always has been).
They've even gone so far as to put in a requirement that players must get at least a silver medal in your role in proving grounds in order to queue for random Heroic dungeons, as silver requires you to be somewhat competent and know your class. They need this with the harder dungeon model to ensure that players in lfd can actually complete the dungeons.
All that basically tells me is that they have scaled the whole trinity down by making tanks and healers work harder, which will eventually will be cancelled out by getting better gear and the impeding "nerf patch" that soon follows because of community concerns of it "being to hard".
The design of the dungeons ie: strategy behind pulls and encounters doesn't depart from the model i described above.
How long has it been since you have seen a tank use a LoS pull?
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Everytime I join a raid. o-o
Whenever I ran gold CMs.
Most times that I level alts through MoP dungeons
When I played through WoD beta dungeons they were used quite frequently as well.
Did you not read Normal dungeons? It's common in raids, unfrequent in dugneons.
It used to be a staple of success along with add management.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
To be fair, the Tauren didn't have a whole expansion dedicated to their species. It's also a perceptual thing. Pandas in the real world are seen as cute and cuddly furry creatures in popular culture, which makes them seem ridiculous to have as a playable character, especially when you revolve an entire expansion around this perception.
I am not even a huge fan of wow and I will buy it cause there is so view good games out there.
I have played hundreds of hours dark souls 2 and now are living from dark souls game to dark souls game.
WAITING for the only good game coming next year BLOODBORNE.!