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Surprising Burning Crusade Details for WoW 278

Posted by Hemos from the good-move dept.
Heartless Gamer writes "There is quite a few surprises waiting in World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. The raiding scene in World of Warcraft is going to dramatically change once Burning Crusade is released. Here's the long and short of it: all of the new high-end raid content will be capped at 25 heads. Indeed, all the raid content that was mentioned in today's demo, with the exception of Kharazan (which is designed for 10 players) is being designed around a force of 25. Blizzard has completely done away with 40-man raiding; Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj, and Naxxrammas will still exist, of course. There just isn't going to be any new 40-man content. How's that for earth-shattering?"
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Surprising Burning Crusade Details for WoW

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  • "How's that for earth-shattering?" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by keyne9 ( 567528 ) on Saturday August 12, 2006 @04:14PM (#15895411)
    I prefer the term "sanity."
    • ..."too little, too late".


      Oh, well.

  • Big deal (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Aadain2001 ( 684036 ) on Saturday August 12, 2006 @04:17PM (#15895422) Journal
    There won't be any at launch time, but that does not preclude Blizzard from adding 40 person raid content later. Remember, WoW had only a single 40 person raid when it was released: Molten Core. Over the past two years, we have seen the addition of three more 40 person raid instances, and two 20 person raids. It would not suprise me at all of Blizzard caves into the raiding minority and releases several 40 person raids in a row, each following the same pattern as before: give out the best items and best store lines to raids with 40 people.

    • Re:Big deal (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12, 2006 @04:35PM (#15895487)
      It's always possible, but it's definitely not the focus for the Burning Crusade expansion. As we add new content to the game, it's influenced heavily by everything that we've learned from past design implementation. From a design standpoint, there is much more we can accomplish in creating smaller raid environments. From a player's standpoint, it represents a greater potential for less time devoted to downtime and also allows for easier and faster coordination.

      We're still very focused on creating epic raid encounters that provide epic challange, and from what I've seen we're dead on course. So, to answer your question, there are no plans at this time to create raid environments that exceed a player-cap of 25, however, we will always evolve this game in the direction that we feel is most beneficial and on a long enough time line, it's difficult to state what's in-store.
      Eyonix: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=w ow-general&t=9480853&s=blizzard&tmp=1#blizzard [worldofwarcraft.com]

      • Basically what it comes down to (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Saturday August 12, 2006 @05:42PM (#15895732)
        Is they'll do what they feel makes their players the happiest, and thus keeps them playing the longest. My guess is that their experience with their current raid instances shows people like the 20-man concept more. If there's demand for 40-man raids though, they'll come back.
      • So, to answer your question, there are no plans at this time to create raid environments that exceed a player-cap of 25, however, we will always evolve this game in the direction that we feel is most beneficial and on a long enough time line, it's difficult to state what's in-store.

        Translation : We got bitched at by the majority of players for making end-game too hardcore. We're gonna try going with a 25-man cap and see what happens seeing as the 10-man runs turned out to be a total waste of time due to sh

  • OMG (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12, 2006 @04:19PM (#15895431)
    That means 15 people in my guild are now expected to go out and get jobs and girlfriends instead of raiding?!? INSANITY!!

  • wow = horrible game (Score:2, Insightful)

    by brennz ( 715237 )
    WoW is a horrible game.

    The vast majority of endgame play revolves around endless rep farming, honor farming in BGs, and doing yet another instance run.

    So many PVPers played WOW, only to find out how bad the PVP system really is. Risk free pvp. Nothing remotely comparable to UO during the tank mage era. Instead, overgeared dimwits burning cooldowns. != skill. This led to a huge PVPer exodus from WoW.

    Soon, there will be a huge exodus of the sheep out of WoW, I'm not sure to which game yet though.

    Promisin

    • Re:wow = horrible game (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Incoherent07 ( 695470 ) on Saturday August 12, 2006 @04:23PM (#15895454)
      Do you really, honestly think that the "sheep" you talk about have any desire whatsoever to play a game that demands any more out of them than WoW does? (Vanguard, I'm looking at you.)

      • Re:wow = horrible game (Score:4, Insightful)

        by brennz ( 715237 ) on Saturday August 12, 2006 @04:35PM (#15895490)
        WoW's requirements for nonstop grinding instances isn't fun.

        MMO gamers want balanced skill-based pvp, functional economies not exploited by chinese-farmers, the freedom to create unique player-made content (like Shadowbane/EVE-Online), and to determine their own friends/enemies rather than being forced into pre-made "factions".

        WoW fails in all those regards.

        MMO gamers would move, provided a good improvement emerged.

        • Re:wow = horrible game (Score:4, Insightful)

          by MuNansen ( 833037 ) on Saturday August 12, 2006 @04:47PM (#15895536)
          lol. I love how someone proclaims that "MMO gamers" want everything that the #1 MMO in the world fails to give. Thank goodness game development is left to the professionals and not the average board poster.

          • Re: your fallacious logic (Score:5, Insightful)

            by brennz ( 715237 ) on Saturday August 12, 2006 @04:59PM (#15895575)
            Popularity does not mean satisfaction.
            Primacy in the market does not mean superiority either.
            It could be merely because a better alternative does not exist, or how horrible the other competing solutions are, or a game learning curve issue.

            Considering how many MMOs have actually been a market success versus the recent number of failures, perhaps the average board poster should be more involved in game development or requirements solicitation?
            • So if MMO players like games like Eve and not WoW, why are they all playing WoW and not Eve? Perhaps you've miscalculated what most MMO players want, assuming your own preferences are universal.

              People like WoW because it's easy. You don't need to think, there's no risk, nothing surprising, you can zone out, go afk, anything, and still progress.

              Talk about pvp is irrelevant. I for one like pvp, but I'm in a minority, most people don't like it as it's unpredictable and you can lose even when you do everything
            • I found WoW fun...at first. It is very slick and the PvE is good until the endless raiding at level 60 becomes a bore. The PvP was a weak point but still pretty fun, until the honor system killed world PvP and hid it away in battlegrounds.


              There isn't much out there that avoids WoW's problems without having even more glaring issues of its own. I'm finding the Saga of Ryzom to be pretty good, though.

        • Re:wow = horrible game (Score:5, Insightful)

          by tacarat ( 696339 ) on Saturday August 12, 2006 @05:06PM (#15895606) Journal
          WoW's requirements for nonstop grinding instances isn't fun.

          MMO gamers want balanced skill-based pvp, functional economies not exploited by chinese-farmers, the freedom to create unique player-made content (like Shadowbane/EVE-Online), and to determine their own friends/enemies rather than being forced into pre-made "factions".

          WoW fails in all those regards.

          MMO gamers would move, provided a good improvement emerged.

          What I want is for MMOs to make a lot more variety in the lowbie quests. Doing the same lame little quests in the begining just to same quests at level cap isn't fun. It kills replayablity. I'd like long term, story driven choices. Hell, I'd even support having a server where everybody started off maxxed out (rocket server, anyone?).

          I'll agree with everything else but the farmer bit and WoW being a horrible game. I personally don't care about the farmers as long as they don't harass me, at which point they're just being individual pricks and should not represent the entire community. I've known enough gold farmers that mind their own business and grind, not bothering anybody. Many of the people who complain about farmers driving up prices the most are the first ones to snatch up the cheap, mass farmed goods and then resell at higher prices. If not, they're the ones ignorant of how prices would be if it was 100% player orientated. Supply and demand, plus the farmer's need to sell quickly, benefit many players, whether they admit it or not. This is especially true of commodity items like cloth, skins and even potions. Every time that the prices on those skyrocketed, it was due to "regular players", and was always brought back down by farmers that continued to sell at the lower, older price or cheaper. There are problems with quest mobs on occasion, but that happens with regular players who are farming the quest mob for the drops. The only difference between them and the regular farmer is the language barrier.

          As far as WoW being a horrible game... Well, I liked it. I got bored eventually, but that's true of all games. I was heavily into CoH before that. Just because a game can still be improved on doesn't mean it 100% sucks right now.
        • Actually, considering that most players that play MMOs tend to pick PvE servers as opposed to PvP servers when both are offered, that we can easily poke holes in your assumption that "MMO gamers want balanced skill-based pvp".

          WoW has been successful because the casual gamer can play it easily. It isn't for the die-hard PvP'er.

          Since Shadowbane has been a major flop as a primarily PvP game, I would hardly call it a great model. And V:SoH is going to be mostly PvE, with PvP servers offered in limited amounts

          • Re:wow = horrible game (Score:3, Interesting)

            by brennz ( 715237 )
            Most MMO players want PVP. Although more Americans want PVE type of servers, americans as a percentage of total MMO players cannot shift the balance towards PVE thanks to our asian MMO brethren that prefer PVP. (There is a study on this, but I don't have a URL for it)

            Casual gamers are not competitive in WoW. They may hit 60. They will never have the big raid content, or obtain highend PVP rewards. If they were obtaining those things, they wouldn't be casual gamers because of the massive time contributio
        • "functional economies not exploited by chinese-farmers"

          Sorry, those days are long gone. Now MMO players just hope for games not completely controlled by chinese-farmers. Those games too are getting very very rare.

          • Re:wow = horrible game (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Eskarel ( 565631 ) on Saturday August 12, 2006 @10:41PM (#15896626)
            The gold farmers only exist because people want to buy gold from them. If people stopped buying gold/items, and/or the game was designed so that it was unecessary, then you wouldn't have gold farmers.

            That said the only reason half the stuff is affordable is because the gold farmers farm the item while the rest of us are having fun.

        • You mean to say "some MMO gamers" want those things, I'm sure.

          I'm an MMO gamer and I don't really give a shit about those particular issues.

          I want:
          Cooperative play that rewards good teamwork, and where the outcome of a fight is in doubt right up until the end.

          Multiple ways to achieve a goal or quest. Maybe I can just charge in and whack some Lieutenant Dorkmeir to get the Symbol of Snazziness. Or maybe I can sneak in, pick his pocket and take off without a fight. Maybe I can walk in and simply persuade him
    • I agree with you, WoW end game is the reason I quit. I had finished all the bg grinding (got all the exalted rewards in AB, WSG and AV for my rogue). I just got sick of having nothing to do end game other than farm for gold to use for repairs/etc while farming molten core once a week. It's just repetitive and Not Fun(tm).
    • Bitter much?

      I hate to break it to you, but 1-60 is actually pretty fun. I love it. The dungeons, the small groups, the pvp ( the possiblity of getting ganked on a moment's notice ).

      Once I hit 60 I retire that character. The 60+ farming isn't fun, I won't argue that. Oh, I may pull him out to do one of the lower 60 dungoens a couple times, but I refuse to grind.
      • I'm not bitter.

        WoW has its merits, primarily pre 60.

        However, the endgame is a continual sore point.

        If you compared this to UO endgame, or Shadowbane endgame, those games actually *BEGAN* at level/skill softcaps. Hitting 60 in WoW starts the instance grinding softcap instead.

      • Re:wow = horrible game (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Wildclaw ( 15718 ) on Saturday August 12, 2006 @07:04PM (#15896012)
        Raiding is one of the absoulte worst inventions ever. While at first, it may look like an excellent idea, it suffers from one serious flaw. It effectivly limits every single character(class) to what they are absolutly best at. (And if they are an all-round character they can just go home)

        What you end up with is heal bots, buff bots, tank bots and damage bots. Whereas in a five man group, players will need to use their secondary skills because there isn't anyone in the group that has that skill as a primary. Five man groups also can contain more interesting combinations, while a raiding group always is constructed after the same formula.

        The absolute worst part about raiding is how it tears the community apart. Unless you whore (whoring is the correct term since you effectivly is selling your body and soul) yourself out to a raiding guild, you will have no access whatsoever to the high end content. A pickup group of 5 people is workable. 10 people is possible, but tough. 25-40 people is impossible.

        World of Warcraft had two big selling points. Excellent level 1-60 solo/party fun. Secondly it is a Blizzard product which automatically created a big fanbase (Although Blizzard has lost most of its original developers by now). After the release they have added a lot of raiding, and simultanously destroyed PvP due to messed up items strengths. Level 80 items doesn't work when you have level 60 special abilities, where some of the abilities scale with item strength, and others don't.

        It also suffers from the same flaw as other MMORPGs. Beginner areas quickly empty, and at the end you end up with all the people in high level zones (Or instances). This is however something that I have no idea how to fix.

        • It also suffers from the same flaw as other MMORPGs. Beginner areas quickly empty, and at the end you end up with all the people in high level zones (Or instances). This is however something that I have no idea how to fix.
          Maybe rather than having multiple realm servers, have fewer (or one) realm servers and a bigger world map?
          • The larger the population per server the more opportunity there will be for scaling problems on both the client side and the server side when too many players enter one area and interact. EQ faced this problem a lot when players organized very large raids in single zones. Players would increasingly go link dead during the raid or worst case the zone would crash and reset kicking everybody off often with disastrous (or humorous depending on your point of view) results if they logged back on individually an
        • I'm not sure if this is an indictment against raiding or raiding in WoW, but I found raiding in EQ2 to be a lot of fun. No uber gear necessary for most of the zones, just a sturdy grasp of the classes and tactics. Everyone makes full use of their abilities. Once you get decent gear you can run with a raid party of far less than the cap, which is at 24 right now. There was a pickup raid alliance on my server that was raiding three, four times a week on the easier zones just for fun.
        • Theres a huge problem with 5-man dungeons. They are next to impossible to balance without completely leaving some of the classes of the game out. Look at any 5 man dungeon in the game, and although all of them have been nerfed to being easy regardless, they all have certain class combinations that make them incredibly easy, and certain class combinations that make them very difficult. If they ever release 5 man content that requires actual skill (instead of mindless gear farming), people will quickly fig

    • Re:wow = horrible game (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Oopsz ( 127422 )
      http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/ [kingdomofloathing.com]

      Which has proved to me that great gameplay, clever writing and an absolutely huge community can make up for graphics in a MMORPG.
      • http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/

        Which has proved to me that great gameplay, clever writing and an absolutely huge community can make up for graphics in a MMORPG.

        People keep saying that. And I've been meaning to find out whether it's true, but a horribly slow site always makes me throw my hands up in frustration. I've never been able to sit for more than 20 minutes in this game, and the ocassional puns and wordplay that I've seen doesn't make up for it.

        I know it's free and all, but I've never been able to
    • Why would people leave WoW? Didn't you read the article? They're totally revamping and expanding the PvP system, and nicely adding onto the raidgame.

      Expect a surge in subscribers when the expansion is released.

    • Soon, there will be a huge exodus of the sheep out of WoW, I'm not sure to which game yet though.

      I'd say Sociolotron [mmorpgdot.com]. You can't beat sex as an attractor, and after grinding WoW for a few years I doubt they're looking for another fighting game.

    • Re:wow = horrible game (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Shivetya ( 243324 ) on Saturday August 12, 2006 @06:54PM (#15895978) Homepage Journal
      and yet the continue with numbers that many games would be happy to have 10% of.

      WOW isn't for you. It also isn't all about raiding, let alone PvP. It never was. I know people who have played multiple characters to 60 who don't see PvP or raiding as the game. To them its the world. See, not everyone looks to be uber. Many people, and probably a majority considering their numbers, look for an engrossing world that is fun to play in with friends. WOW succeeds brillantly because it is easy to play.

      So many comment on the need for "hardcore" or difficult games. Well news to ya'll, they are already out there and most of them are floundering. Why? Because its a game. It isn't supposed to be work. The raids of WOW offer that *IF* you choose to devote time to it. There are many "simple" raids that can be done with friends and those are good enough for a lot of people.

      If wow lost 1 player for every claim an exodus was coming because of PvP and Raiding there would be no one left. Fortunately some of the people making the claims do leave. People who cannot be satisfied in a game should not play a game.

    • Re:wow = horrible game (Score:2, Informative)

      by genner ( 694963 )
      Wow, how long has it been since I heard the word tank mage and UO used in the same sentence.
      UO was a such beatiful game before EA got their grubby mits on it.
      Thanks for reminding me how far MMORPG's have fallen.
      Oh well back to Guild Wars. At least they don't charge monthly.

  • Re: Surprising Burning Crusade Details for WoW (Score:5, Insightful)

    by drivinghighway61 ( 812488 ) on Saturday August 12, 2006 @04:20PM (#15895440) Homepage
    So you still have to treat WoW as a second job to play in the end-game? Great. Hopefully Blizzard will introduce some good non-set items in 5 or 10-man instances. I don't have the time to invest in raiding for 10+ hours a week, nor do I even have that desire. I do, however, have a few real-life friends that I'd love to be able to play with through the end-game. I realize Blizzard can get away with the crappy end-game WoW currently has, but it would be great if it were possible for players like me and thousands of others to still be viable without having a second job.

    • Dude! The endgame isn't FOR you (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The OTHER 85% of the content in WoW is for people like you --- people with jobs, lives, and no desire to spend 40 hours a week grinding the same instances time and time again in WoW.

      Endgame content is for hardcore players, period. It HAS to be, because those players max out their characters the fastest and complain the loudest, that the game is boring because there is nothing for them to do. If you make it any easier or any less time-consuming, it will be too easy for the hardcore players and it won't con

  • MMORPG (Score:2, Interesting)

    by LParks ( 927321 )
    When I played WoW, I liked the idea of large raids. I would've liked to see larger than 40 man raids IF the server and clients could handle it. I was in a guild that frequently had to turn away players from 40-man raids.

    I think it is conducive to the idea of a MASSIVELY Multiplayer Online RPG to have large scale raids. It gives an epic feel.
    • Have you ever tried to manage a 40 person raid? Now try and imagine managing 80 people... In most raids all it takes is 1 person to fuck up and wipe everyone. Dealing with 40 people is bad enough, let's not get crazy now.
      • Have you ever tried to manage a 40 person raid? Now try and imagine managing 80 people... In most raids all it takes is 1 person to fuck up and wipe everyone. Dealing with 40 people is bad enough, let's not get crazy now.

        I used to mange 72 people raids in everquest, back when there was no spiffy raid tool, and btw back then god help you if one of your raid members screwed up the whole raid died (80% of the time).
    • I agree, I don't see the 'massive' aspect of MMORPG's currently. Sure, 40-man raids can get chaotic, but 40 people, Quake could handle that number concurrently years ago. Guess it's a balance between the number of people able to fight together and the complexity of the gameplay.

      I tried WoW 18 months ago, it was great fun having large-scale inter-faction raids, but all the instanced extra PvE/Battleground content more or less stopped all of that. In time, I do hope to be able to pick up my sword again and

    • Large scale raids with lots of PCs are only ONE component of an epic feel. In many ways, the aspects of the large raids that give the game an epic feel don't make up for the aspects of the large raids that don't (The waiting, the gear-mongering, etc).

      The devs could create an equally epic feel by implementing more epic LOOKING dungeons (although MC and BWL and Onyxia are definitely epic looking enough), speeding up the gameplay, and adding (instead of one IMPOSSIBLE to kill giant turtle, for example) hordes

    • Re:MMORPG (Score:3, Informative)

      by jesdynf ( 42915 )
      Try Planetside. Not an RPG, but any game that can have three factions fight it out, 133 people a side, can't be ALL bad.

  • And Naxxrammas is...? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Psionicist ( 561330 ) on Saturday August 12, 2006 @04:36PM (#15895493)
    For all you three reading this wondering what this is all about: An instance in WoW is a dungeon cut off from the rest of the WoW-world, sort of like a mums basement for the ubergeek. You and your friends enter an instance, and you can be completely alone in there, killing NPC-monsters (and get nice equipment) and not having to deal with those outside the instance.

    The most difficult instances require up to 40 players to complete. Molten Core is a Dungeons & Dragons-like dungeon full of fire-monsters. Blackwing Lair (more difficult than Molten Core) is a place full of dragons. Naxxrammas is full of undead, spiders etc, and is probably the hardest instance atm. Chances are that previous friend of yours you haven't seen for the past 16 months run around in Naxxrammas, killing bosses such "The Four Horsement".

    Of course, requireing 40 mans to complete, these instances are usually reserved for the "hardcore". Since WoW's success is because it was casual friendly, it doesn't surprise me Blizzard concentrate on 25 man stuff, that is probably easier for the casual to join in at.
    • Why thank you. I always thought Naxxrammas was prescription medication for severe hemarhoids. Good thing I didn't "ask my doctor"! Guess I'll have to find something else to tame my Molten Core.

  • The Dumbass Probablity. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Zephiria ( 941257 ) on Saturday August 12, 2006 @04:58PM (#15895571)
    The real problem that MMO's face, like Warcraft and in my case in Guildwars is the dumbass probability.
    IE the more people you have in a group the greater the chance that one of them is going to be a dumbass.
    Which requires that you somehow vet all the players, otherwise you have to go through a very long process to get decent players.
    Allot of complaints people have about MMO's is that sometimes its nice to log in, blast about then log off, not wait about for an hour to get a group and then only to find out that because its a random group you have X number of dumbasses that get you killed 5 minutes or less into it. Or god forbid just at the very end of it.

    I think that their needs to be a kind of rating system for players, so other players can rate them based on their experiences with them.. Sure it could be griefed... but I think overall it would be good.

    • I think that their needs to be a kind of rating system for players, so other players can rate them based on their experiences with them.. Sure it could be griefed... but I think overall it would be good.

      Such a system will be abused. Suppose a really good player (player #1) makes a constructive remark to a less good player (player #2) on improving his skills. Player #2 is agitated, and puts a bad review on him with "steals items" as an explanation. Player #1 notices this and puts up a bad review with "need

  • Why this matters (Score:4, Funny)

    by Lord Aurora ( 969557 ) on Saturday August 12, 2006 @05:32PM (#15895700)
    As long as there are people like this:

    http://server1.plunder.com/994/OnyxiaWipe.swf [plunder.com]

    we know that WoW is a very important and integral part of everyday life, worth every second and every screamed WTF!

  • i am sick of... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jimfinity ( 849860 ) on Saturday August 12, 2006 @05:58PM (#15895794)
    people constantly complaining about how this stuff "isn't news" or "doesn't belong on slashdot" just because you aren't interested in playing world of warcraft doesn't mean other people won't find this interesting. I don't care at all about, say...VOIP, but i don't start threads saying "HOW IS THIS NEWS?!?!?!" whenever a VOIP article comes up. i just don't bother reading or posting on those topics. please try to understand that while you don't care about this game, there are more than 6 million people out there who do.

  • Raids take too long (Score:5, Insightful)

    by EvilMoose ( 176457 ) on Saturday August 12, 2006 @06:19PM (#15895858)
    So you're at 60 and what do you do? Join a raiding guild. The trouble is, most of those guilds raid for 4-7 hours a night and require you to have a 40% raid attendance or be kicked from the guild.

    That's on top of your usual requests from the guilds to get NR, Frost or Fire resists up. They need to somehow figure out a way to force guilds to trim the time down.

    Let's also not forget that most guilds either run a DKP (Dragon Kill Point system) or Zero-Sum. Which adds to the madness because you're never going to get any loot unless you attend every single run.

    4-7 hours a night is too much for one video game. Some of us have other things... 2 hours is cool. Blizzard would be really nice to implement some new scheme for loot, one that is a mixture of raids attended and luck.

    Also, ever notice the "females" in guilds tend to get free loot even when they don't even have a microphone. I was halfway tempted to create a female character with no voice communication to get loot, then seduce all of the men in the guild with a fake picture I picked up from Google. But alas, I quit before attempting that.
    • DDO had the loot system done right. Despite the many flaws of that game, taking all loot distribution of the hands of the players and leaving it up to the CPU to figure it out made the quests a lot more enjoyable.

    • Special Equipment, Mats, bagspace, repairs (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Nazmun ( 590998 ) on Saturday August 12, 2006 @10:28PM (#15896583) Homepage
      If raiding 3-5 hours a day for a few days a week was sufficient to be a decent team player, I'd be all up for it. After my last guild broke up (after attendance waned and our server broke 3x per day or lagged us to hell while raiding) I was reluctant to join another raiding guild because it made you fucking tired. I wasn't a big fan of farming bosses we've killed ages ago but I loved going into new instances and figuring out how to beat the next boss even if it took many deaths.

      What I got tired of was collecting god damn new resist equipment for every new dungeon with still limited bagspace along with new potions. I already need two sets of gear just to be productive as a damaging warrior and a tank. So just for MC i used three sets of gear near the end, then i had to get nature gear, then some shadow, and now frost. This after blizzard said they'd stop going the resist route over a year ago. Which of course turned out to be false (yeah lets see you do all of aq with no nature resist gear).

      Ridiculous amounts of required farming for mats, + ridiculous amount of equipment sets required, + ridiculous server uptime and performance (monstrous amounts of lag during prime raid time) just made me want to quit.
  • WoW needs improvements in how it works. As it is, you get in a guild, and go around killing monsters to get items that let you kill more monsters. The monsters all come back to life, and so do you. How about a MMORPG where there is a significant story that you play a part in? e.g.:

    You start out as a soldier/merchant/etc. for some faction (e.g. Alliance or Horde). If you do a good job, you get promoted/become more powerful and maybe get to have some choice in what you do. At the beginning, the people in high
    • As someone below said, "great in theory, lousy in practice", though the problem isn't griefers. The problem is that persistant storylines and such sound great when you're starting, but offer far less benefit to grinding the story than grinding for yourself. In short, few players really get into advancing the story in their direction. If you force players to adhere to the story arc, you cut your pool of players to nothing; if you don't force players to do so, the ones who don't play the story get pissed o
      • Without having read Bartle, I'd speculate a large part of the problem is the developers and publishers want a big-hit game. Since treadmills seem to get the largest audience, that's what they've been doing.

        Has there yet been an MMORPG that tried to immerse the players in a changing world? By immersion I mean:

        NPC guards and in-town characters with changing dialog
        NPC travellers along the roads with stories of what lies ahead
        NPC armies that actually march instead of spawning
        Enemies that actually move and mig

    • Work it out (Score:3, Interesting)

      by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 )
      Your rant sounds like a small child fantasizing about how live should be. That is great but don't expect an adult to do anything but pat your head and ignore you.

      A new type of MMO with a different core of gameplay then the current PvE grinds and PvP un-balanced balancing act would indeed be nice if for no other reason then the novelty value.

      But it requires more then just a vague rant.

      The problem with a promotion system is that there can only be one person at the top of an army, yet in this army all the s

      • The game doesn't have to be fully realistic, it doesn't need potato peelers. As I said, you could introduce "mercenary bots" to do things people don't want to.

        Nobody in WoW want to be a weak, new player (who pays as much as a level 999999999 player). So they participate to become stronger. The same would apply for ranks.

        The factions wouldn't be meant to stay equal. If yours capitulated, go find another to join.

        The only real issue I can think of is time. If group A wants to attack group B, but no one at grou

        • Exactly (Score:3, Interesting)

          by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 )
          I am not coming down on your idea. I in fact LIKE the idea but I have been playing MMO's and their predecessors mud's and even BBS games for too long to think anything is going to change soon.

          The problem of A and B fighting together is very real. It was a big problem in SWG where towns/guilds could have military bases as part of PvP. These bases were only vulnerable at certain times (wich could be found out) so that the defender didn't have to maintain a 24/7 defence but even maintaining a defence for thos

      • Planetside solved a bunch of these.

        You can earn "Command Rank", which is unique from Battle Rank (conventional XP), and earning CR actually renders you ineligible for some BR awards. CR buys you access to higher level chat channels, certain strategic powers, the right to broadcast to your faction... it, at least allegedly, makes you a person worthy of some measure of respect. Politics aside, if a CR5 says something is worth doing, someone will likely heed him.

        As for factions being unequal... Planetside went
    • "How about a MMORPG where there is a significant story that you play a part in? "

      Its called Guild Wars / Guild Wars Factions

  • Don't belive them (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Archimonde ( 668883 ) on Saturday August 12, 2006 @07:57PM (#15896162)
    Blizzard always said that wow is a casual friendly game. I have 130+ days played on my warlock (main) and rogue (alt), and I can without shadow of a doubt say that this game is hardcore gamer only. There are 2 things you can do in the game:

    1. level character(s) to 60
    2. raid at lvl 60

    Leveling is to be honest boring an repetitive. 98% the quests can be summed up in this scheme:
    a. Kill X number of mobs Y on location Z.
    b. Kill mobs Y until they drop N number of items I.
    c. Take item J and take it to place P.

    And once you leveled your char to 60, leveling another one will lead you doing the same quests all over again. True, if you reroll on another faction (horde/alliance), you get different quests, but only superficialy, not fundamentaly.

    Then when you hit lvl 60 there is only one way to progress: getting better gear.

    Better gear can be obtained through raiding 5, 10, 20, 40 man instances. You get best gear in 40 man instances. Comparing gear from 5 man instances, and 40 man instances is like comparing tiger to a cat. Considering equal skill, player with 40 man "raid eq set" will eat another player geared in 5-20 man instances.

    Well, there is another way to get good gear and that is by doing pvp. To get comparable gear from pvp to 40 man (purple=epic) gear, you will have to get a pvp team and farm pvp battlegrounds whole days. Problem is you are competing against whole server, and to get first part of the epic/purple set you need at least 2 months of weekly full-time pvp-ing. And that is far from easy and casual.

    Well, one would ask: "Why don't you farm 40 man instances then?". This is easier to say than do. Consider:

    1. You have to be in end game instance farming guild
    2. Be active (4-8 at least hours/day)
    3. Have good gear
    4. Raid every day, only with toilette breaks, from i.e. 6:45PM, to 1:00AM
    5. Compete with other players from your guild that have the same class for points which you get from attendance, because points get you the loot/gear you want.
    6. Farm money/materials(herbs, ore etc), so you can raid in the evenings.

    And belive me this isn't casual, nor pleasant.

    To be honest, in the game I always liked pvp most. But the problem was: Battlegrounds imbalance. Problem is simple:
    1. Premade groups>>pickup groups (game is over in 10 minutes or less, if you are in a pickup group, you get nothing, premade gets all: honor, reputation etc. and 3x more faster than you)
    2. Premade vs premade (they exit battlegrounds if they meet each other because fights are "too long" and premades need pickups so they can utterly destroy them)
    3. Pug vs pug: I was the unlucky one which rolled alliance warlock. On our server horde pug beats alliance pug 9/10 of times.
    4. It is not easy to have a good premade group.

    One thing to note is this: few patches ago (2 or so), when you were in a pug and faced a premade group (who will eat you in 10 min and you will get next to nothing), you could "go afk", or in other words exit battleground and rejoin some other battle. This was bad for premade farmers so they complained and blizz introduced Deserter debuff. So if you exit battleground you get that debuff and you can't rejoin another one for 15 min. So when faced against a premade as a pug, the most dominant tactic was to do nothing and be killed as many times possible in 5 min. You get nothing, but at least you didn't get debuff. Premades were very happy because they could farm pugs more easily that way. And premades got smarter: when the battleground was open for their group, they would send one player which would scout if another group is premade too. If it is, nobody would join and that scout would exit, and the group would just rejoin another battle. That way, premades didn't fight each other, and the farmed non-deserting pugs. And this is very very unfriendls and uncasual. Blizzard as to this day did *nothing* to help casual pvper against premade groups. More so, they did exactly the opposite.

    So I joined good p

    • Re:Don't belive them (Score:3, Insightful)

      by TheLink ( 130905 )
      "Leveling is to be honest boring an repetitive. 98% the quests can be summed up in this scheme":

      98% of basketball games can be summed up in this scheme:

      a) get ball
      b) dribble/pass or go straight to c)
      c) get ball through hoop somehow
      d) repeat

      Sounds a lot like your "c. Take item J and take it to place P." doesn't it?

      But lots of people love playing it. And lots of people love watching it being played.

      So you don't like WoW? Well lots of people don't like basketball either. Try some other game instead.

      BTW I don't
    • Right on. I played WoW (Kel Thuzad, Night Elf Priest) for around 9 months casually (total around 14 days playtime), and I have friends who have essentially "beaten" the endgame (4-6 hours every night since the game shipped, both around 130 days now and in serious raiding guilds).

      Around level 52, I got in a casual guild (Legion of Fate), which, over time, became less casual. We started mass recruiting (which is, of course, stupid, since you neither know nor trust the others in your guild). We started running
  • I agree wholly with the folks that casual gamers are turned off by the MMORGS. While I never into WoW, I had my fill with DAOC, which I felt was a actually a better system. Drops had finite lifespans, so you limited the farming aspect of the game. PvP was initially weak and limited, but got better over time. The server lag on the raids was horrible, IMHO, and my involvement was limited to walking into the raid and reading "You have died". But driving force that went against the casual player is that once

  • Just a ruse; top gear will simply be other grinds (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 0biter ( 915407 ) on Saturday August 12, 2006 @09:28PM (#15896405) Homepage
    Don't be fooled into thinking that 25 man raids means that your chance to drop top-end gear will be improved. If you read the rest of today's announcement, the intention is to shift top-end rewards from raiding to PvP, honor and reputation grinding.

    IN other words, grinding will still be the way you get the best gear, it just won't be raid grinding.

    hopefully Blizz begins concentrating development on actually making the war between teh Horde and the Alliance a war. More outdoor world PvP with geo-political and economic consequences should be incorporated into the game so that players can actually begin generating their own content and conflicts rather than running on one of three or four kinds of treadmills. Todays announcement about including a capturable city was a good start, but I wonder if this approach can be retro-fitted onto the existing zones and cities? Could you imagine how amazing it would be to see full-scale Horde attacks on Stormwind, or to log-in one day to find that the Alliance have blockaded Onyxias lair? I reckon we'd actually have a game that was perpetually amusing on our hands.
    • Don't be fooled into thinking that 25 man raids means that your chance to drop top-end gear will be improved. If you read the rest of today's announcement, the intention is to shift top-end rewards from raiding to PvP, honor and reputation grinding.

      IN other words, grinding will still be the way you get the best gear, it just won't be raid grinding.

      hopefully Blizz begins concentrating development on actually making the war between teh Horde and the Alliance a war. More outdoor world PvP with geo-political an

  • This isn't good news at all! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SupremoMan ( 912191 ) on Sunday August 13, 2006 @07:14AM (#15897722)
    I am at a point where all I do is raid. Login, go raid 3-4 hours, log off and go play something I enjoy (Like cov4: Warlords). I despise this game with every fiber of my being, and just like anyone who remembers a better MMORPG (Like UO circa 2000) I hope for a better game to come along. A game with skill based PvP and a very dynamic social scene where player actions have concequences. Do I expect this game to ever come out? Let's just say I also hope for world peace....

  • How hardcore players stole WoW (Score:3, Insightful)

    by RzUpAnmsCwrds ( 262647 ) on Sunday August 13, 2006 @04:12PM (#15899290)
    Hardcore players stole our game. WoW started as a nice, easy to play, fun and casual game. It had a wonderful world and a lot of fun quests, and a unique style.

    Then the hardcore players started complaining. "We reached 60, and there's nothing left to do", they said. They were right. Blizzard game them more. But soon the hardcore players grew tired of the new content, and Blizzard decided to give them even more. And more.

    18 months later, WoW is still the same game for 60 players. Yes, there are battlegrounds, and a lot of nice new features, but for the casual player, WoW has never really changed.

    See, the problem is that level 60 players represent about 5-10% of the total userbase. Hardcore players who enjoy the high-level content are a fraction of those players. Why should 2% of a userbase get all of the new content?

    What do you do when you get to 60 in WoW if you're not a hardcore player? You quit. PvP is no fun when you are playing against opponents who are so much better equipped.

    Casual players don't spam the forums with compliants. We don't play the game for hours a day, so we aren't going to invest time in complaining. But we do exist. We are most of the community. But Blizzard has ignored us.

    Is WoW a good game for new players? Yes. But there isn't any major new content for casual players than there was when the game was released. WoW, like many games, has low replay value for casual players. And, like all games of its type, it eventually gets old.

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