Cracks starting to show?

[ghost]

The mystery is gone.  In the past there was a "what have I missed" feeling that continued even after my second level 60/70 character.  There probably is still some stuff that I haven't done or seen in the overall world.  WotLK and Cataclysm totally ended that.  I don't mind some rail content, but this is above and beyond.  If I want rails I'll play the Witcher. 

[Paelos]

Ok, so Coca-Cola one day creates a new can with a badass sharp-looking design. The only problem is that when you drink it from the can it cuts your lips. People say, hey I don't want to cut my lips on your can, the old can was just fine, change it back. Coke says, no this can is the wave of the future, and you're supposed to drink our product over ice anyway. It tastes so much better over ice. Besides this can sells better, and makes our product better as a whole.

Customers come back and say, uh, this can sucks. I liked drinking from the can just fine. I don't want to go find a glass every time I want a Coke. Coca-Cola then releases a blog where the Coke Managers come out and show everyone how easy it is to grab a glass from the cabinet, freeze ice into ice trays, remove said ice, put it in the glass, and enjoy your frosty beverage.

Customers are all WTF, you don't get it! I just want to drink from the can! It was simpler! Why did you do this? Coke releases a website that shows people the nearest places to buy ice if you put in your zip code.

[Sheepherder]

Re: Ghostcrawler

He is the class design lead and full time internet retard.  It doesn't help to make him a fetish of your rage.

[Ratman_tf]

Ok, so Coca-Cola one day creates a new can with a badass sharp-looking design. The only problem is that when you drink it from the can it cuts your lips. People say, hey I don't want to cut my lips on your can, the old can was just fine, change it back. Coke says, no this can is the wave of the future, and you're supposed to drink our product over ice anyway. It tastes so much better over ice. Besides this can sells better, and makes our product better as a whole.

Customers come back and say, uh, this can sucks. I liked drinking from the can just fine. I don't want to go find a glass every time I want a Coke. Coca-Cola then releases a blog where the Coke Managers come out and show everyone how easy it is to grab a glass from the cabinet, freeze ice into ice trays, remove said ice, put it in the glass, and enjoy your frosty beverage.

Customers are all WTF, you don't get it! I just want to drink from the can! It was simpler! Why did you do this? Coke releases a website that shows people the nearest places to buy ice if you put in your zip code.

Now I'm thirsty, you fucker.

[Ratman_tf]

Well...it might be ok IF the players have some sense of agency and the stories are not terrible.

[Hutch]

Ok, so Coca-Cola one day creates a new can with a badass sharp-looking design. The only problem is that when you drink it from the can it cuts your lips. People say, hey I don't want to cut my lips on your can, the old can was just fine, change it back. Coke says, no this can is the wave of the future, and you're supposed to drink our product over ice anyway. It tastes so much better over ice. Besides this can sells better, and makes our product better as a whole.

Customers come back and say, uh, this can sucks. I liked drinking from the can just fine. I don't want to go find a glass every time I want a Coke. Coca-Cola then releases a blog where the Coke Managers come out and show everyone how easy it is to grab a glass from the cabinet, freeze ice into ice trays, remove said ice, put it in the glass, and enjoy your frosty beverage.

Customers are all WTF, you don't get it! I just want to drink from the can! It was simpler! Why did you do this? Coke releases a website that shows people the nearest places to buy ice if you put in your zip code.

Then Pepsi rides up on a shiny horse, and hands you a can. "Check out our product. It's different, but it's pretty tasty! And get this, our can doesn't cut your lip." Customers: Hey, I like this new guy. Maybe I'll check out this other soft drink until Coke hires some new product managers.

[Rokal]

Ok, so Coca-Cola one day creates a new can with a badass sharp-looking design. The only problem is that when you drink it from the can it cuts your lips.

Yep, it's just like that. I know plenty of sane people who would say "this coke just doesn't taste as good when it's not cutting chunks of my lip off".  

Ignoring the bad analogy, even a sucker like you should know that diet coke is king.

Basically, it's not the contents of the article that inflamed you, it's that the article was anything besides "we're so sorry, we'll make everything easy again".

[Nevermore]

Ok, so Coca-Cola one day creates a new can with a badass sharp-looking design. The only problem is that when you drink it from the can it cuts your lips. People say, hey I don't want to cut my lips on your can, the old can was just fine, change it back. Coke says, no this can is the wave of the future, and you're supposed to drink our product over ice anyway. It tastes so much better over ice. Besides this can sells better, and makes our product better as a whole.

Customers come back and say, uh, this can sucks. I liked drinking from the can just fine. I don't want to go find a glass every time I want a Coke. Coca-Cola then releases a blog where the Coke Managers come out and show everyone how easy it is to grab a glass from the cabinet, freeze ice into ice trays, remove said ice, put it in the glass, and enjoy your frosty beverage.

Customers are all WTF, you don't get it! I just want to drink from the can! It was simpler! Why did you do this? Coke releases a website that shows people the nearest places to buy ice if you put in your zip code.

Then Pepsi rides up on a shiny horse, and hands you a can. "Check out our product. It's different, but it's pretty tasty! And get this, our can doesn't cut your lip." Customers: Hey, I like this new guy. Maybe I'll check out this other soft drink until Coke hires some new product managers.

But then you run out of Pepsi in two sips. 

[Paelos]

Ok, so Coca-Cola one day creates a new can with a badass sharp-looking design. The only problem is that when you drink it from the can it cuts your lips.

Yep, it's just like that. I know plenty of sane people who would say "this coke just doesn't taste as good when it's not cutting chunks of my lip off".  

Ignoring the bad analogy, even a sucker like you should know that diet coke is king.

Basically, it's not the contents of the article that inflamed you, it's that the article was anything besides "we're so sorry, we'll make everything easy again".

No, the analogy would be a bunch of people on the forums going, "Hey moron, PROTIP: It doesn't cut your lips when you drink it from a glass. WTF is wrong with you? Personally I'm glad Coke is out there cutting up stupid people because it proves just how dumb you really are if you can't find fucking ice. DIAF"

[Rasix]

Analogy battle.  How entertaining. 

[Paelos]

Analogy battle.  How entertaining. 

Moreso than the game. 

[Rokal]

But the analogy fails because you could make a sane argument for why challenging content is fun (it's argued in GC's post that was linked), but you can't make a sane argument for why someone would want their can to cut their lip.

A better analogy would be improving the accuracy of the Wiimote for something like Wiisports. Some people would think it was more fun when the game required accuracy in order to succeed and rewarded you for it. Some people just wanted to wave their Wiimote around, and rolling gutter balls isn't fun.

[Soulflame]

You can't mandate strategy and communication for people who mainly play via the random group finder.  It's also irritating to people to hit a brick wall, and be told "Oh in one or three content patches this will all be trivial so enjoy how hard it is now."

People aren't going to do that.  They'll find something else to spend their money on.

I will agree that's what I like about BC leveling content.  I can pick up as many as seven quests that cover an area, and rip through all of them quickly.  Whereas in Cataclysm, I'm restricted to at most three quests.  I didn't manage to quest past 16 the two times I tried, and I eventually also burned out of leveling via dungeons.

I suppose I could have leveled a shaman via pvp.  

[Khaldun]

Personally it's the streamlining of the content that bugs me more. It's not just that all the 1-60 content muscles you along between mini-hubs and leaves you no reason whatsoever to be in that zone once you're done. It's also that the class redesign pretty much killed the sense that you were making complicated choices that might call for theorycrafting as you levelled up. Now you just go up a tree, it's pretty much obvious, you end up having to take some of the shitty talents just to get to the good ones, there's no choices worth talking about. The economy is mostly rationalized--most of the sources of arbitrage that were possible have been regularized or smoothed over. Most of the odd little quirky differences between Horde and Alliance are gone. As much as possible, classes have been brought into line with their intended roles and with standard metrics firmly in sight.

I once argued that WoW really lacked "WTF was that!" moments and that this was making the game feel sterile. That was a while back: I had no idea how much worse that could get.

They tried to emphasize storytelling without recognizing that for the most part their story is shitty. The characters are mostly thin, the lore is a long-standing joke, etc. The parts of the game that involve setting and atmosphere that have always worked well are the art direction, the baseline mood of gameplay, and the self-referential and pop-cultural humor. Those are still around, and some of Cata's biggest strengths. But they're not enough. Most of the rest of the appeal was stripped out in Cata unless you're a hardcore raider or have friends in-game that you're strongly attached to.

[Fordel]

It's also that the class redesign pretty much killed the sense that you were making complicated choices that might call for theorycrafting as you levelled up. Now you just go up a tree, it's pretty much obvious, you end up having to take some of the shitty talents just to get to the good ones, there's no choices worth talking about.

This has always been the case.

[Rokal]

It's also that the class redesign pretty much killed the sense that you were making complicated choices that might call for theorycrafting as you levelled up. Now you just go up a tree, it's pretty much obvious, you end up having to take some of the shitty talents just to get to the good ones, there's no choices worth talking about.

This is most true for the hybrid-classes like druids or shaman. Since every tree must be viable for pvp and you can't just say "well, really, frost(or arms, or subtlety) is the pvp tree", you literally only choose between whether you want pvp talents or pve talents. Try investing 31 points into the enhancement tree, for example, without putting points in pvp talents. There are exactly 31 points worth of talents that benefit you in pve, so every pve enhancement shaman has a 100% identical build.

I actually like the class design for Cata overall. Assassination is more fun that it's ever been before, and you actually use stuff like envenom and bleeds. I really like how focus turned out for hunters, and the Holy tree for priests is great too. Still, they could have made the changes I liked without cutting out the element of choice from the talent trees.

[WindupAtheist]

So when's the next announcement of how many subscribers they've lost? I don't think it'll be the bloodbath Paelos seems to expect, but hearing how everyone enjoys the latest 'challenging' dungeon while watching the last few years worth of subscriber milestones roll by in reverse should be amusing.

[caladein]

I definitely feel like I have more choice in setting up my talents and glyphs than I had before.  The full roll-your-own artifice is gone, but that's been replaced with actual decisions to make based on specific needs or preferences which really was never there for non-tanks before.

It's kind of like with Hunter pets.  Yes, two of three pet types do roughly the same damage, instead of there being one "right" pet (because it does the most damage, or takes the least, or is the easiest to feed), but the difference between pet families is still important.  My Hunter's active five (Turtle/Wolf/Ravager/Wind Serpent/Moth) probably looks a little different from most other Hunters just because my group and its needs are a little different from most other Hunters.

[SurfD]

Personally it's the streamlining of the content that bugs me more. It's not just that all the 1-60 content muscles you along between mini-hubs and leaves you no reason whatsoever to be in that zone once you're done.

Yet, with the pre cata zones, was there ever really a reason to go back to old zones when you were done with them either?

I mean, sure, there was a bit more of a "connected, dynamic world" feel to the place due to the large number of quests that tossed you around entire continents, such as the mid 40's where you ended up in Feralas / Hinterlands / Felwood and each zone had multiple quests that sent you to one of the others, or the interconnected quests with STV / Tanaris, and the like, but that quite often got old really fast.  Nothing like having to spend 2 hours doing a quest chain when 70% of that time was spend traveling across the planet to kill foozles in different zones.

Either way, unless you were going for loremaster or something, you had no reason to go back to Redridge or Ungoro after you out leveled their quest content.  At least now, when you do the zone, and finish it, you are left with a sense of closure, rather then wondering what you actually accomplished, and on to the next.

At least the re-done zones actually have a cohesive story flow to them, and many times while leveling my first alliance alt to check out the new stuff I stayed and completed an entire zone just to watch the story play out long after i stopped getting exp from it.  Pre-cata I pretty much would have moved on to the next available new zone as soon as i could, because there was nothing keeping me in the old one other then the EXP, which will always be better the next place on.

[Sjofn]

If they had some real writers, it would've gone a long way, I think. 

[pxib]

They produce no plot. Plot is about discovery. Just because the narrative never changes doesn't mean plot couldn't theoretically happen. All that matters is that audience perception of the narrative changes. Plotting determines how and when changes in audience knowledge occur. Plot is the part of a narrative that can be "spoiled".

Any game designed to last for years is either going to have to have an incredibly complex and layered plot, or is best served to avoid plot entirely. Echo Bazaar chose the former, WoW chose the latter. I can't think of anything I ever learned about WoW's backstory that I would have been disappointed to have heard as a spoiler. WoW was never about how all the governments are corrupt, that was just a quick layer of paint over the genocide and pillage simulator.

[Sheepherder]

I actually like the class design for Cata overall. Assassination is more fun that it's ever been before, and you actually use stuff like envenom and bleeds.

Envenom was the highest DPS per combo point finisher for an Assassination rogue in Wrath.

[Sjofn]

Yes, yes it was. <3

Managing the bleed thing is kinda fun now, though. But I'm weird.

[Azazel]

Eh? The numbers are from the end of March, that was long after many of you doom-sayers quit. WoW offers a very small discount for multi-month subs compared to other games like Rift or LOTRO. I don't know how many people are on monthly subs as compared to single-month subs, but everyone I know IRL (myself included) has always paid month-to-month. I don't care to save $3 if it means I'm locked into the game for three months even if I get bored after one. I don't know if any MMO company has ever detailed what % of their subscribers were on multi-month plans, but I would guess that unless heavily discounted (LOTRO), the majority are on single-month sub plans.

I'm not busy WoW-doomcasting, but everyone I know personally has always subbed to MMOs either 3, 6 or 12 months at a time. I've almost always used game cards for WoW, as has my wife. Sure, there was only a dozen or so of us at peak (IRL people) but it's as useful an anecdote as yours is.

[Khaldun]

Personally it's the streamlining of the content that bugs me more. It's not just that all the 1-60 content muscles you along between mini-hubs and leaves you no reason whatsoever to be in that zone once you're done.

Yet, with the pre cata zones, was there ever really a reason to go back to old zones when you were done with them either?

I mean, sure, there was a bit more of a "connected, dynamic world" feel to the place due to the large number of quests that tossed you around entire continents, such as the mid 40's where you ended up in Feralas / Hinterlands / Felwood and each zone had multiple quests that sent you to one of the others, or the interconnected quests with STV / Tanaris, and the like, but that quite often got old really fast.  Nothing like having to spend 2 hours doing a quest chain when 70% of that time was spend traveling across the planet to kill foozles in different zones.

Either way, unless you were going for loremaster or something, you had no reason to go back to Redridge or Ungoro after you out leveled their quest content.  At least now, when you do the zone, and finish it, you are left with a sense of closure, rather then wondering what you actually accomplished, and on to the next.

At least the re-done zones actually have a cohesive story flow to them, and many times while leveling my first alliance alt to check out the new stuff I stayed and completed an entire zone just to watch the story play out long after i stopped getting exp from it.  Pre-cata I pretty much would have moved on to the next available new zone as soon as i could, because there was nothing keeping me in the old one other then the EXP, which will always be better the next place on.

I actually think there was at times--you'd go to help a lowbie guild mate, you'd stop off in Kargath because you were going to Blackrock and what the heck, as long as you're there, you'd get into a PvP fight with the two Alliance toons hanging around, you'd drift from a hub and do a bit of mining or herbing for the AH or to gather for the guild. More, you had a sense that you found quest hubs in early vanilla just by ambling through a zone. There is zero sense now of discovery and I don't think that's entirely that the whole gameworld is now so familiar. There's no slack space, nothing that's just there for the heck of it, nothing where you look and say, "Gee, I wonder what that thing is". I was really struck by all this as I levelled a toon through the new Badlands. That used to be a zone that felt a bit confusing, had some odd pockets in it, had some fairly spread of levels of people who might be there (folks going to Uldaman at one end, Horde going through Kargath at the other for Burning Steppes, Blackrock, Searing Gorge). Now it really seems wham-bam-level up ma'am. The new quests themselves are very well designed, nobody misses the dumb collect-the-shredder-pages quests, but what was already an inorganic, anti-explorer world has become dramatically more so. 

[Malakili]

I actually think there was at times--you'd go to help a lowbie guild mate, you'd stop off in Kargath because you were going to Blackrock and what the heck, as long as you're there, you'd get into a PvP fight with the two Alliance toons hanging around, you'd drift from a hub and do a bit of mining or herbing for the AH or to gather for the guild. More, you had a sense that you found quest hubs in early vanilla just by ambling through a zone. There is zero sense now of discovery and I don't think that's entirely that the whole gameworld is now so familiar. There's no slack space, nothing that's just there for the heck of it, nothing where you look and say, "Gee, I wonder what that thing is". I was really struck by all this as I levelled a toon through the new Badlands. That used to be a zone that felt a bit confusing, had some odd pockets in it, had some fairly spread of levels of people who might be there (folks going to Uldaman at one end, Horde going through Kargath at the other for Burning Steppes, Blackrock, Searing Gorge). Now it really seems wham-bam-level up ma'am. The new quests themselves are very well designed, nobody misses the dumb collect-the-shredder-pages quests, but what was already an inorganic, anti-explorer world has become dramatically more so. 

The question is - are we in a minority for liking this kind of thing.  The casual players who just want to level up are probably more likely to quit if they feel lost or confused.  What we're basically saying is "the parts we liked about WoW are the things that were the least "wow-like" more like hold overs from everquest"  It seems to me that the current iteration of quests is basically the logical conclusion of heading down this quest based road in the first place. 

[Xanthippe]

I also don't think it reads as condescending at any point, personally.

Yeah, this.

GC's post was in response to player unhappiness, where players basically stated that the Wrath paradigm was really fun and the Cata paradigm was not.  GC's post can be summed up as I did (L2P and then you'll have fun), which is developer arrogance at its finest.

How's that all working for Blizzard?  The answer lies in lost subs.

See, when players tell devs "we're not having fun" and the devs' response is "you're not playing right" then the game is on the decline.  Wrath was the pinnacle of player happiness, it seems, at least in terms of subs (as well as player bitching on the boards).  Of course everybody wasn't happy, everybody won't always be.

Note: this is in the Cracks thread, not the Cataclysm thread.  I'm not trying to piss on your good time - I get where you are coming from, really I do.  I had fun in WoW for 6 years.  I'd just like to have fun in WoW again, but until Blizzard gets their head out of their ass on why the fun is gone for players like me, that's not likely.  It baffles me, frankly, that you and others don't seem to understand that there might be some problem here for some players, because you're still having fun.

[Paelos]

Wow has decided the achievers are all that matters. They've tossed some bones to the socializers and the killers, but the explorers got jack and shit. Even the stuff they give to the socializers and killers are so wrapped up in achievements, it defeats the purpose.

[Paelos]

Note: this is in the Cracks thread, not the Cataclysm thread.  I'm not trying to piss on your good time - I get where you are coming from, really I do.  I had fun in WoW for 6 years.  I'd just like to have fun in WoW again, but until Blizzard gets their head out of their ass on why the fun is gone for players like me, that's not likely.  It baffles me, frankly, that you and others don't seem to understand that there might be some problem here for some players, because you're still having fun.

Oh they get it. They just see it as a zero sum game. If we get our fun, they lose their fun. That's ridiculous of course, but their fun relies on being better than everyone in a video game.

[Xanthippe]

Now it really seems wham-bam-level up ma'am. The new quests themselves are very well designed, nobody misses the dumb collect-the-shredder-pages quests, but what was already an inorganic, anti-explorer world has become dramatically more so. 

The question is - are we in a minority for liking this kind of thing.  The casual players who just want to level up are probably more likely to quit if they feel lost or confused.  What we're basically saying is "the parts we liked about WoW are the things that were the least "wow-like" more like hold overs from everquest"  It seems to me that the current iteration of quests is basically the logical conclusion of heading down this quest based road in the first place. 

This was one of Cataclysm's biggest disappointments for me - in leveling a new character, even without rested xp, I was rarely able to finish a zone before the quests became grey.  There was no stumbling upon a quest, because everything was very linear.  There were no tucked away corners to find.  Vanilla WoW had a lot more of that sort of thing - unexplained areas with no seeming connection to anything else.  Cataclysm made Azeroth feel less world-y than ever.

[Malakili]

Now it really seems wham-bam-level up ma'am. The new quests themselves are very well designed, nobody misses the dumb collect-the-shredder-pages quests, but what was already an inorganic, anti-explorer world has become dramatically more so. 

The question is - are we in a minority for liking this kind of thing.  The casual players who just want to level up are probably more likely to quit if they feel lost or confused.  What we're basically saying is "the parts we liked about WoW are the things that were the least "wow-like" more like hold overs from everquest"  It seems to me that the current iteration of quests is basically the logical conclusion of heading down this quest based road in the first place. 

This was one of Cataclysm's biggest disappointments for me - in leveling a new character, even without rested xp, I was rarely able to finish a zone before the quests became grey.  There was no stumbling upon a quest, because everything was very linear.  There were no tucked away corners to find.  Vanilla WoW had a lot more of that sort of thing - unexplained areas with no seeming connection to anything else.  Cataclysm made Azeroth feel less world-y than ever.

I agree with you, but think about what we're saying objectively for a second.

Vanilla WoW had a lot more of that sort of thing - unexplained areas with no seeming connection to anything else.

Is this something their average player really wants? 

[Xanthippe]

The average WoW player today? Doubtful.

The people I've been playing games with for the past ten years? Very much so.

I don't think there is such a thing as "the average player."  Players like me probably aren't subscribed to WoW anymore, based upon the design changes of the last expansion.  (A lot of them are likely playing Rift right now).

[Ratman_tf]

If they had some real writers, it would've gone a long way, I think.  

Then what? People would still bitch about the plots, and we'd lose half the game content because it doesn't "make sense" with the fiction. 

[Ratman_tf]

Wow has decided the achievers are all that matters. They've tossed some bones to the socializers and the killers, but the explorers got jack and shit. Even the stuff they give to the socializers and killers are so wrapped up in achievements, it defeats the purpose.

I fucking hate Bartle. I'd Pee Kay him if I got the chance.

[Malakili]

The average WoW player today? Doubtful.

The people I've been playing games with for the past ten years? Very much so.

I don't think there is such a thing as "the average player."  Players like me probably aren't subscribed to WoW anymore, based upon the design changes of the last expansion.  (A lot of them are likely playing Rift right now).

When you start playing with that group 10 years ago a lot of current WoW players were still wetting the bed.

My point is, these games were harken back, and even original WoW itself isn't even a point of reference for a lot of players. Everquest is little more than myth for a lot of WoW's population.