Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Debunking
Man people are stupid....here's a review from an Amazon.com customer....I'm going to address his points and see how valid I feel his 1 star review is.
>"There are always going to be the hardcore warcraft types that will defend this game regardless >of how horrible it becomes. Just like a guy that loves his car and will defend it no matter how >many times it has left him stranded on the side of the road it's still reliable to them. "
Yea I can see that.
>Cataclysm only brought cosmetic changes to the game but really didn't add enough new content >for it to keep me interested in playing it.
I think 5 really thought out new zones on top of revamped 1-60 experience qualifies as "new content"...
>I really did not like the idea of the "zoned" quest and instances where people just disappear and you can't help them or chase them if they are trying to gank you. It just goes against the idea of an MMO.
I like the idea of zoned quests. It makes it feel like I'm actually accomplishing something in the world. Like I'm interacting with it.
>Aside from that the quest really just didn't interest me all that much. This was mainly due to the >fact that the games story didn't interest me all that much therefore I didn't care about the >quest. In WoW fashion you do so many quest and pointless side quest that the main story really >doesn't matter at all because it becomes so misconstrued by the time you finally get to the part >where it should matter.
Well I care about the lore. So this does not apply to me. And as someone who cares and knows about it, I can tell you this expansion is really lore heavy. And the lore they're introducing is great. There's bringing up so many new conflicts. One of the biggest problems I've had with WoW in general is it seems like the graveyard of lore. All the main bad guys from the RTS game were coming here and then we just killed all the good ones. It seemed like they couldn't continue on forever just killing bosses. But now they're introducing new things that will keep the conflict train going. Kudos Blizzard
>One big thing that really turned me away from the game is how empty and boring the world >seems.When you have tons of other people playing the game is fun. Honestly even the worst >games can be great if there are lots of other people around to make it interesting. I for the most >part barely ran into or saw anyone hardly outside the main cities. It almost reminded me of Guild >Wars, and that's bad(in GW you only see people in cities because all zones outside towns are >instanced and therefore exclusive only to you and the people you bring with you).
Alright this makes sense. And I have been getting this feeling lately a lot. However, that's what happens to old games. I think Blizzard should just consolidate servers.
>As I toured around Azeroth I just got to thinking about how much fun the older games were >when there were more players around. This game just made me realize how few people actually >still play this game (trust me the box is lying there's not 11 million players, heck I can't even find >5 people to do a simple dungeon). Yet I found myself once again doing the task I did in the last >expansions. Working on crafts, and trying to pvp with an unbalanced class system(Btw when I >say unbalanced I mean all classes are unbalanced to the over "balanced" Paladins).
Whine whine whine. Random dungeon finder solves this problem. But I do miss the ol days where you'd have to find it on your server. But honestly, I'm more thankful seeing more content.
>If you think Cataclysm has changed anything from before it hasn't. The new classes are only >charming when you're in the starting area. As soon as you're grown and leave the nest it's just >the same game as before.
Um, no new classes? Maybe he means races. Well then I'd say that the new races are fun. The new revamped lower level zones are the ones that got the most love this time around. And I have to say, I love it. It makes the journey to 85 very enjoyable.
>I played Wargon werewolf people or whatever and it was a nice skin. I don't think this needed to >be a separate race though. They don't add much to the game. It would of been better if you >could just change your existing character to join a Wargon faction and then have them become >werewolves because it's just a skin over the same old classes.
Um. Wrong. This is a design decision on Blizzards. Plus, his suggestion is not in keeping with the current practices. Each class is just a skin I suppose. It's just a different starting zone depending on what you want. and I like the "running wild" talent. fun stuff.
>Goblins are fun and they should of always been a choice although they are neutral so it would of >made better since if they could be the first race to be either alliance or horde. They make better >sense to be in the game as they have always had a role in the game so you should already >understand their race and their importance. Playing wise it's just a new skin.
This is a cool idea, but again its against canon. They're playing up the conflict between the alliance and horde. Having a race that could be either would undermine this. Also, it would be confusing in PvP
>I also wanted to add all the achievement updates and talent tree changes but it's really not >worth mentioning. Achievements have always been a gimmick that I never cared about and the ?>talents and class balancing of this game has always been something blizzard was clueless about.
You said it was good before, now you're saying it was never good. That's inconsistent....but yes I agree. Achievements are kinda dumb. Quantifying everything pigeon holes what people will do in the game. Its a plague, quite honestly.
>It's like they don't know how to make playable characters in their own game. Not very fun having >to relearn your character ever 6 months or every patch upgrade.
Classes evolve. That's what happens when a game is old.
>When it comes to talents WoW shows it's age with it's limited skill customization. That's one >thing new games have brought that WoW hasn't. They option of breaking the mold in the skills >you can posses. Everyone or every class uses the same standard set of moves so pvp is boring. >There's not enough variation in this game when it comes to attacks. There's no long list of skills >you can choose as you like to mix things up.
I see no evidence. But whatever. I can sorta see where you're coming from. But I don't fully agree. WoW is an old game, so it's design is not going to be overhauled. It's doing what it did back when it was released. WoW has a long list of skills that you must use. Maybe I just can't find the right spam move. Or maybe who you're playing against is bad.
>Each class has 3 paths to fulfill different roles and after you choose one your just riding on rails. >You can dual class still that's only useful in changing from pvp over to raiding. You're still stuck >playing the same old move set. In Cataclysm they only made this worse by limiting the idea of >spending points on other trees to add additional skills. Now you are really stuck going down one >skills list.
For a long time there were talent builds that were long and complicated and hard to get into. Good ones were devised and a lot of the time, people would not take you seriously if you didn't have one of the "good" talent sets. The fact that you can switch now is awesome. It allows for two different styles of play in just a couple of seconds. The lack of variety is not what is happening. The talents have been reworked in such a way that there are fewer of them, but each of them is more important. But this is less room to mess up.
>There was just nothing appealing to me about this game that made me feel that it was worth my >money or my time. If you pick it up you do so for the level cap upgrade and to explore the few >new areas. This could have easily been just a free patch upgrade. This isn't worth spending >money on. Primarily that is how I felt about the game. It's the weakest of the previous >expansions and also the worst.
Whatever
>In any case I rate MMO's by how much fun I enjoy playing it. In this version of WoW I was often >bored as the explorable world was often empty. I also spent more time in queue and typing in >AFK than anything else. I never spent so much time NOT playing a game while playing a game >before. Also, I want to add since most of the people that used to play this game casually just to >have fun have left and moved on, you can expect to run into a lot more hardcore elitist >professional WoW players now. Not the crowd I'm interested in being in I enjoy what little life I >do have.
That's me I guess.
>1 Star for the worst expansion ever released. I have permanently decided I have no interest in >playing this game again I'm done with this series. I have seen it's mountain tops and they don't >offer much.
lol ok bro
>"There are always going to be the hardcore warcraft types that will defend this game regardless >of how horrible it becomes. Just like a guy that loves his car and will defend it no matter how >many times it has left him stranded on the side of the road it's still reliable to them. "
Yea I can see that.
>Cataclysm only brought cosmetic changes to the game but really didn't add enough new content >for it to keep me interested in playing it.
I think 5 really thought out new zones on top of revamped 1-60 experience qualifies as "new content"...
>I really did not like the idea of the "zoned" quest and instances where people just disappear and you can't help them or chase them if they are trying to gank you. It just goes against the idea of an MMO.
I like the idea of zoned quests. It makes it feel like I'm actually accomplishing something in the world. Like I'm interacting with it.
>Aside from that the quest really just didn't interest me all that much. This was mainly due to the >fact that the games story didn't interest me all that much therefore I didn't care about the >quest. In WoW fashion you do so many quest and pointless side quest that the main story really >doesn't matter at all because it becomes so misconstrued by the time you finally get to the part >where it should matter.
Well I care about the lore. So this does not apply to me. And as someone who cares and knows about it, I can tell you this expansion is really lore heavy. And the lore they're introducing is great. There's bringing up so many new conflicts. One of the biggest problems I've had with WoW in general is it seems like the graveyard of lore. All the main bad guys from the RTS game were coming here and then we just killed all the good ones. It seemed like they couldn't continue on forever just killing bosses. But now they're introducing new things that will keep the conflict train going. Kudos Blizzard
>One big thing that really turned me away from the game is how empty and boring the world >seems.When you have tons of other people playing the game is fun. Honestly even the worst >games can be great if there are lots of other people around to make it interesting. I for the most >part barely ran into or saw anyone hardly outside the main cities. It almost reminded me of Guild >Wars, and that's bad(in GW you only see people in cities because all zones outside towns are >instanced and therefore exclusive only to you and the people you bring with you).
Alright this makes sense. And I have been getting this feeling lately a lot. However, that's what happens to old games. I think Blizzard should just consolidate servers.
>As I toured around Azeroth I just got to thinking about how much fun the older games were >when there were more players around. This game just made me realize how few people actually >still play this game (trust me the box is lying there's not 11 million players, heck I can't even find >5 people to do a simple dungeon). Yet I found myself once again doing the task I did in the last >expansions. Working on crafts, and trying to pvp with an unbalanced class system(Btw when I >say unbalanced I mean all classes are unbalanced to the over "balanced" Paladins).
Whine whine whine. Random dungeon finder solves this problem. But I do miss the ol days where you'd have to find it on your server. But honestly, I'm more thankful seeing more content.
>If you think Cataclysm has changed anything from before it hasn't. The new classes are only >charming when you're in the starting area. As soon as you're grown and leave the nest it's just >the same game as before.
Um, no new classes? Maybe he means races. Well then I'd say that the new races are fun. The new revamped lower level zones are the ones that got the most love this time around. And I have to say, I love it. It makes the journey to 85 very enjoyable.
>I played Wargon werewolf people or whatever and it was a nice skin. I don't think this needed to >be a separate race though. They don't add much to the game. It would of been better if you >could just change your existing character to join a Wargon faction and then have them become >werewolves because it's just a skin over the same old classes.
Um. Wrong. This is a design decision on Blizzards. Plus, his suggestion is not in keeping with the current practices. Each class is just a skin I suppose. It's just a different starting zone depending on what you want. and I like the "running wild" talent. fun stuff.
>Goblins are fun and they should of always been a choice although they are neutral so it would of >made better since if they could be the first race to be either alliance or horde. They make better >sense to be in the game as they have always had a role in the game so you should already >understand their race and their importance. Playing wise it's just a new skin.
This is a cool idea, but again its against canon. They're playing up the conflict between the alliance and horde. Having a race that could be either would undermine this. Also, it would be confusing in PvP
>I also wanted to add all the achievement updates and talent tree changes but it's really not >worth mentioning. Achievements have always been a gimmick that I never cared about and the ?>talents and class balancing of this game has always been something blizzard was clueless about.
You said it was good before, now you're saying it was never good. That's inconsistent....but yes I agree. Achievements are kinda dumb. Quantifying everything pigeon holes what people will do in the game. Its a plague, quite honestly.
>It's like they don't know how to make playable characters in their own game. Not very fun having >to relearn your character ever 6 months or every patch upgrade.
Classes evolve. That's what happens when a game is old.
>When it comes to talents WoW shows it's age with it's limited skill customization. That's one >thing new games have brought that WoW hasn't. They option of breaking the mold in the skills >you can posses. Everyone or every class uses the same standard set of moves so pvp is boring. >There's not enough variation in this game when it comes to attacks. There's no long list of skills >you can choose as you like to mix things up.
I see no evidence. But whatever. I can sorta see where you're coming from. But I don't fully agree. WoW is an old game, so it's design is not going to be overhauled. It's doing what it did back when it was released. WoW has a long list of skills that you must use. Maybe I just can't find the right spam move. Or maybe who you're playing against is bad.
>Each class has 3 paths to fulfill different roles and after you choose one your just riding on rails. >You can dual class still that's only useful in changing from pvp over to raiding. You're still stuck >playing the same old move set. In Cataclysm they only made this worse by limiting the idea of >spending points on other trees to add additional skills. Now you are really stuck going down one >skills list.
For a long time there were talent builds that were long and complicated and hard to get into. Good ones were devised and a lot of the time, people would not take you seriously if you didn't have one of the "good" talent sets. The fact that you can switch now is awesome. It allows for two different styles of play in just a couple of seconds. The lack of variety is not what is happening. The talents have been reworked in such a way that there are fewer of them, but each of them is more important. But this is less room to mess up.
>There was just nothing appealing to me about this game that made me feel that it was worth my >money or my time. If you pick it up you do so for the level cap upgrade and to explore the few >new areas. This could have easily been just a free patch upgrade. This isn't worth spending >money on. Primarily that is how I felt about the game. It's the weakest of the previous >expansions and also the worst.
Whatever
>In any case I rate MMO's by how much fun I enjoy playing it. In this version of WoW I was often >bored as the explorable world was often empty. I also spent more time in queue and typing in >AFK than anything else. I never spent so much time NOT playing a game while playing a game >before. Also, I want to add since most of the people that used to play this game casually just to >have fun have left and moved on, you can expect to run into a lot more hardcore elitist >professional WoW players now. Not the crowd I'm interested in being in I enjoy what little life I >do have.
That's me I guess.
>1 Star for the worst expansion ever released. I have permanently decided I have no interest in >playing this game again I'm done with this series. I have seen it's mountain tops and they don't >offer much.
lol ok bro
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
This guy
He's got it right.
One of the most mature and well thought out ways I've heard someone talk about Vanilla:
"The dungeon finder and the current environment of World of Warcraft makes it incredibly difficult for Blizzard to revisit nonlinear dungeons and dungeons that encourage exploration and discovery, but I would love for them to look back on vanilla WoW and look at whatworked. The vast majority of vanilla WoW has been cast aside, and in most cases that is perfectly acceptable. The MMO market (and the game market) of 2011 is not the same as the market of 2004. However, there were a lot of things they did wonderfully back then, and that's what pulled millions of players to this game to begin with."
I look forward to reading more of his stuff.
One of the most mature and well thought out ways I've heard someone talk about Vanilla:
"The dungeon finder and the current environment of World of Warcraft makes it incredibly difficult for Blizzard to revisit nonlinear dungeons and dungeons that encourage exploration and discovery, but I would love for them to look back on vanilla WoW and look at whatworked. The vast majority of vanilla WoW has been cast aside, and in most cases that is perfectly acceptable. The MMO market (and the game market) of 2011 is not the same as the market of 2004. However, there were a lot of things they did wonderfully back then, and that's what pulled millions of players to this game to begin with."
I look forward to reading more of his stuff.
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