Offensive title, I can sympathize with those who might report this topic right off the bat. But it is the only word appropriate that I can think of to describe the direction Blizzard is taking the World of Warcraft. My subscription ran out today, and from what I've been watching on 4.3 and the implementations Blizz has planned, there is not an ounce of me that is excited to pay my $15 this month, if ever again.
Let me start off by saying, I am not lumping all WoW players in the "Noob" category. There are respectful, mature players who are at the of their game in raiding and would dance circles around most in PvE and PvP situations. But I'm talking about the next generation of players Blizzard is trying to pick-up, after guys like me who remember weapon skills and ammo.
What has the main focus of Cataclysm expansion been, the game plan for Blizzard if you will? Making the game more "accessible". What does that mean to veteran players, who have grinded hard in the Burning Crusade and before? It means...say it with me, catering to casuals.
Go Google up the official WoW forums and check the latest topics. I guarantee there will be at least a few venting as I am about how unsatisfied we are with the direction WoW has taken. And it has been a pretty radical shift, considering less then 23 months ago we didn't have the Dungeon Finder or merged battle groups.
The World part of WoW is completely gone, let's be honest. Newer players just know they have a couple of milestones to reach before they can have "fun".
1. Reach Level 10, pick my spec and instantly take on a class identity with a cool ability, and queue for random battlegrounds with 19 other people they'll never see again.
2. Reach Level 15 and queue with 4 other random people they will never see again for some dungeons.
15 levels are all it takes before WoW is insanely fun I imagine for the new players who never played an MMO before. I wish it were that easy when I was wandering all over Azeroth for 40 levels on foot, playing for hours at end.
In the MMO market, could some reply with a game that is even remotely as entertaining as WoW to quest to the max level? I've tried other games, if you want to be level 50 or whatever in Maplestory, you better be dedicated 100%. Not even to quest, I'm sure grinding by itself is still viable, compared to the leveling speeds WoW had 3 years ago.
So the immersion factor of WoW, in my opinion is forever lost. Now on the mechanics side is where I am even more frustrated. The gear now, when you reach 85, is going to have at most, 6 stats.
1. Stamina 2. <Agility, Strength, Intellect> 3. Spirit or Crit Rating 4. Haste 5. Mastery 6. Expertise
There is literally NOTHING exciting about obtaining new gear, to me at least. There are 5 (?) elements in WoW, but all they determine is the color of your main nuke spells. Fire, Frost, Shadow, Holy, and Nature. If the reins of this game were under my control, there would be more diversity and gear checks in place for encounters. Going into the Firelands itself, domain of the flame, and Fire Mages are #7 on DPS charts for a couple months.
I understand the initial...anger I guess, if I were a Fire Mage and I knew I had to either respec or get a lot of Spell Penetration (relegated to a pure PvP stat nowadays) to raid. But I wouldn't be all that angry, because it just makes sense. Or it would, if Blizzard ever decided to make its huge player base adapt to THEIR game.
Mechanics and Immersion are the only points I'm going to touch on in this rant, for now. But here are some other hot-button issues I believe is only adding to the collapse of WoW:
1. Heirlooms in general. I own 4 sets for each armor types myself, and all the useful weapons and I have no love for the damage they have caused this game. Absolutely wrecked low level PvP (no one cares, mi rite), took out the necessity of dungeon hunting, and all in all cheapened the entire Cataclysm expansion. If Blizzard knew how busy their dungeon-hosting servers were going to be, would they have invested so much into redoing the old Azeroth? And the "technical limitations" of being unable to mail them cross-server sounds to me like keeping the transfer payroll open.
2. The Raid Finder and Blizzard's unremarkable attempt at making it work. Only for the newest raid for now, (They will never allow any older tier raids to be used with it, too much work) with a lower tier of gear obtainable. Raid Finder > Normal > Heroic is going to be more of a headache then if they left it to attempt plain, untouched normal modes. I like Blizzard's train of thought on solving the need rolls and how proper specs get a roll bonus, but again, that is a feature they will NEVER attempt to add in older raids or any dungeon in the RDF. 4.3 is going to a complete marketing disaster and I am anticipating much flak from the community upon release, whenever it comes out in December.
3. Dropping the RPG part of MMORPG, WoW is just a glorified Facebook game now. "Let's log in, run dungeons and get phat epics in less then an hour a day!"
4. Crafting in WoW, the very definition of a tedious, unrewarding grind.
All that being said and written, I sincerely do not wish to sound like a bitter old player. I grew up with WoW, and I wish it could have stayed as epic and satisfying as it did when I started. But between how long I've been playing and how Blizzard has blatantly dumbed this game, I am totally saddened. I will be checking MMO-C the next couple of weeks to see what goes in Blizzcon, but unless they remove the RDF and heirlooms, I'll be waiting for SWTOR along with others.
Let me start off by saying, I am not lumping all WoW players in the "Noob" category. There are respectful, mature players who are at the of their game in raiding and would dance circles around most in PvE and PvP situations. But I'm talking about the next generation of players Blizzard is trying to pick-up, after guys like me who remember weapon skills and ammo.
What has the main focus of Cataclysm expansion been, the game plan for Blizzard if you will? Making the game more "accessible". What does that mean to veteran players, who have grinded hard in the Burning Crusade and before? It means...say it with me, catering to casuals.
Go Google up the official WoW forums and check the latest topics. I guarantee there will be at least a few venting as I am about how unsatisfied we are with the direction WoW has taken. And it has been a pretty radical shift, considering less then 23 months ago we didn't have the Dungeon Finder or merged battle groups.
The World part of WoW is completely gone, let's be honest. Newer players just know they have a couple of milestones to reach before they can have "fun".
1. Reach Level 10, pick my spec and instantly take on a class identity with a cool ability, and queue for random battlegrounds with 19 other people they'll never see again.
2. Reach Level 15 and queue with 4 other random people they will never see again for some dungeons.
15 levels are all it takes before WoW is insanely fun I imagine for the new players who never played an MMO before. I wish it were that easy when I was wandering all over Azeroth for 40 levels on foot, playing for hours at end.
In the MMO market, could some reply with a game that is even remotely as entertaining as WoW to quest to the max level? I've tried other games, if you want to be level 50 or whatever in Maplestory, you better be dedicated 100%. Not even to quest, I'm sure grinding by itself is still viable, compared to the leveling speeds WoW had 3 years ago.
So the immersion factor of WoW, in my opinion is forever lost. Now on the mechanics side is where I am even more frustrated. The gear now, when you reach 85, is going to have at most, 6 stats.
1. Stamina 2. <Agility, Strength, Intellect> 3. Spirit or Crit Rating 4. Haste 5. Mastery 6. Expertise
There is literally NOTHING exciting about obtaining new gear, to me at least. There are 5 (?) elements in WoW, but all they determine is the color of your main nuke spells. Fire, Frost, Shadow, Holy, and Nature. If the reins of this game were under my control, there would be more diversity and gear checks in place for encounters. Going into the Firelands itself, domain of the flame, and Fire Mages are #7 on DPS charts for a couple months.
I understand the initial...anger I guess, if I were a Fire Mage and I knew I had to either respec or get a lot of Spell Penetration (relegated to a pure PvP stat nowadays) to raid. But I wouldn't be all that angry, because it just makes sense. Or it would, if Blizzard ever decided to make its huge player base adapt to THEIR game.
Mechanics and Immersion are the only points I'm going to touch on in this rant, for now. But here are some other hot-button issues I believe is only adding to the collapse of WoW:
1. Heirlooms in general. I own 4 sets for each armor types myself, and all the useful weapons and I have no love for the damage they have caused this game. Absolutely wrecked low level PvP (no one cares, mi rite), took out the necessity of dungeon hunting, and all in all cheapened the entire Cataclysm expansion. If Blizzard knew how busy their dungeon-hosting servers were going to be, would they have invested so much into redoing the old Azeroth? And the "technical limitations" of being unable to mail them cross-server sounds to me like keeping the transfer payroll open.
2. The Raid Finder and Blizzard's unremarkable attempt at making it work. Only for the newest raid for now, (They will never allow any older tier raids to be used with it, too much work) with a lower tier of gear obtainable. Raid Finder > Normal > Heroic is going to be more of a headache then if they left it to attempt plain, untouched normal modes. I like Blizzard's train of thought on solving the need rolls and how proper specs get a roll bonus, but again, that is a feature they will NEVER attempt to add in older raids or any dungeon in the RDF. 4.3 is going to a complete marketing disaster and I am anticipating much flak from the community upon release, whenever it comes out in December.
3. Dropping the RPG part of MMORPG, WoW is just a glorified Facebook game now. "Let's log in, run dungeons and get phat epics in less then an hour a day!"
4. Crafting in WoW, the very definition of a tedious, unrewarding grind.
All that being said and written, I sincerely do not wish to sound like a bitter old player. I grew up with WoW, and I wish it could have stayed as epic and satisfying as it did when I started. But between how long I've been playing and how Blizzard has blatantly dumbed this game, I am totally saddened. I will be checking MMO-C the next couple of weeks to see what goes in Blizzcon, but unless they remove the RDF and heirlooms, I'll be waiting for SWTOR along with others.