It's official, Blizzard is retarded.

[dusematic]

Thx info.

edit: Decided on a shorter version.

Mom would be proud.

[Rasix]

I heard you dislike MMOs.

[WindupAtheist]

I saw the "strings" years ago. So did a lot of other people around here. This isn't that, at least not for me. There's just something a bit off with the game lately. Not the sort of epic failure we've come to expect from Funcom/Mythic/whatever, by any means, but something.

I get the feeling that they keep having to top themselves, they're under that pressure, but their ambition is butting up against the limitations of the engine. Hence stuff like the clunky vehicle quests, the ideas like aerial combat that were talked up and then dropped because they just didn't work out that well, and so forth. They're still Blizzard. They're not willing to push garbage out there just because. But I don't think stuff like the Argent Tournament and particularly Wintergrasp are really working out the way they were supposed to on paper, either.

The game could use a revamp. Old world zones refurbished and improved so that you wouldn't hear "The blood elf starter area was cool but then it was back to the barrens or something, bleh!" anymore. The world and engine rebuilt with vehicles and flight and 200 person battles in mind from the beginning. Phasing used tastefully from the start. Things like that, just sort of a second fresh start in general, with the benefit of everything they've learned over the years.

It would be a massive undertaking, I wouldn't even talk about it with a straight face if it weren't for the scale of WoW's success, where they could blow the same amount as the game's entire original development budget for a mere 10% increase in subscriptions/retention and still come out winners.

I know, I'm being dumb. It's better to just take that same money and develop an entirely new game. I'm just blowing smoke on a messageboard in the wee hours. But imagine if they did do it, and imagine anything else in the genre having to ever compete with it.

[dusematic]

Yeah, I know you're talking about more of a general malaise.  I was just expressing my newfound disgust in the MMO genre.  The treadmills aren't enough to keep me engaged anymore.  It's like someone turned off the tap.  I'm not getting those heroin bumps anymore. And this is different than just being burned out.  Anyway.

But yeah, your diea of a reconstituted WoW is a good pipedream.  In theory it would be sweet if they did a refresh like one of those EQ servers where everything is released consecutively.  But of course all the hardcores would ruin it for us.

[Soulflame]

Does it smell like the vault in here suddenly?

[dusematic]

No, it smells like some asshole just made a bad joke. 

[Yegolev]

Has any game ever managed to handle 200-400 connections active in the same area engaged in a related activity? It just may not be possible no matter what the server code is or the hardware.

If SAP can do it, a game server can do it.

[Lakov_Sanite]

No he's right. These boards really have started turning into the vault or at least some geriatric version of them. Wow is what, 4 years old now? Or close to it. Of course it's becoming dated, the code limitations are starting to show with things like WG.

It's a message board, I'm not going to pretend that people should be level headed and rational but the signal to noise ratio here has gone way down. When every other post is 'rah rah, this game sucks i quit' and the game clearly does not suck nor is it losing any significant amount of it's player-base then you know the people posting are either way out of touch or somehow the minority is congregating to the place they feel their voice will be most heard.

I get it, you think other people should agree with you, most don't.

WUA's first post sounded like that but he does make a sound and reasonable argument but if every other post on these boards is gonna be "wow sucks, i already quit it" then yes, it has turned into the vault.

[Rasix]

No he's right. These boards really have started turning into the vault or at least some geriatric version of them. Wow is what, 4 years old now? Or close to it. Of course it's becoming dated, the code limitations are starting to show with things like WG.

It's a message board, I'm not going to pretend that people should be level headed and rational but the signal to noise ratio here has gone way down. When every other post is 'rah rah, this game sucks i quit' and the game clearly does not suck nor is it losing any significant amount of it's player-base then you know the people posting are either way out of touch or somehow the minority is congregating to the place they feel their voice will be most heard.

I get it, you think other people should agree with you, most don't.

WUA's first post sounded like that but he does make a sound and reasonable argument but if every other post on these boards is gonna be "wow sucks, i already quit it" then yes, it has turned into the vault.

Heh, that was more or less my point.  Except I was just being a snarky jerk about it and spitting out dumb one liners. 

I'm somewhat surprised that I'm still finding WoW a worthwhile use of my time.  I have almost no time to raid, and pretty soon I'll have a squirming newborn that will reduce that further.  Both RL friends quit again.   Dumb dev moves and a game clearly in "retain the cash" mode doesn't stop it from being the most enjoyable MMO out there for me.  Hell, I'm running yet another character through STV and it's just as interesting as the first time (if less of a pain due to elite quest removal).

[Soulflame]

No, it smells like some asshole just made a bad joke. 

Are you seriously trying to start some shit?  On a site that discusses MMOGs?  On a forum that discusses MMOGs?  In a thread that's discussing an MMOG?  By whining about how much you suddenly hate MMOGs, because you've seen the light, and now you must pull back the curtains for the rest of us?

Because yeah.  That guy?  That's the real asshole.  Now shoo.  Adults are talking.

[Yegolev]

Haha, yep... Vault.

However, to make a comment that may even be worthwhile, the light reading I have done in here reminds me of Ye Olde Days of an aging EQ where people complained a lot but did not have anywhere else to go.  Well, nowhere that didn't suck.  I'm sensing a Circle of Life thing.

[Vash]

Dumb dev moves and a game clearly in "retain the cash" mode doesn't stop it from being the most enjoyable MMO out there for me. 

Not only is the game clearly in "retain the cash" mode, but they won't even use that cash to help improve the game.  That is the most damning thing this terrible attempt at a bandaid fix is revealing in my eyes.

It feels like Blizzard is so busy using WoW money hats to develop SC II , Diablo III, and their future MMO that they don't feel spending to upgrade their server hardware/code (like they did in the AQ-Naxx era pre-BC) is a worthwhile investment.

[Paelos]

Ulduar is still fun even if they break the rest of the shit into the ground. It's tougher, requires actual thought from your raiders, and generally gives a feeling of satifaction when you beat something. Naxx never really did any of that. You could one-shot bosses you'd never seen, and that hasn't happened yet in my Ulduar 25 run outside of Flame Leviathan (which I think they toned down to meaningless because of the OMG VEHICLES SUUUUUUCK shouting).

I'd really like them to put more reasons in for doing heroics. Silly vanity items you could buy with heroism badges would be cool. Tabards, pets, a couple more mounts, maybe some shirts that looked fancy.

[WindupAtheist]

"retain the cash" mode

That's what I mean by cracks in the facade. That it's getting old, and the fact that Blizzard have other things on their plate is starting to show in their attention to it. Granted that may seem obvious to certain folks here, but that didn't stop me from having to clarify "I didn't say the sky was falling!" repeatedly.

[tkinnun0]

Since this is the place where we post our "I Quit!" posts, my subscription runs out on Sunday. Here are the reasons I mentioned in Blizzard's survey, with a little more brevity:

1) Blizzard forced me to relearn to play my class by nerfing Death Knight's heroic dual-wield spec. This coupled with no two-hand weapon upgrades since level 80 means I'm ill-prepared to Ulduar.

2) Ulduar is bullshit-hardmode. Now, Blizzard has in these three weeks been "re-tuning" it, but the distinct lack of thousands of voices screaming "this is too easy, bads will get epixx too!" disturbing the Force leads me to conclude Blizzard is not going to get it anytime soon.

3) Naxx takes too long and is boring. Playing in a friendly casual guild means a 25-man Naxx is hard to come by. Playing Horde on a medium-population server with better players running Ulduar and Naxx not being nerfed means PUGs that can get anything done are not happening.

I think I could have told all this after one evening on the public test realm before Ulduar.

[Fordel]

Technically, my Druid can, in fact, make the 'sky' fall.  

[WindupAtheist]

Now that I'm about as well-geared for PVP as you can get without Arena, I can't quit. I have nubs in quest greens and crafted blues to murdalize in battlegrounds and such. I took on some crappy rogue and DK simultaneously the other night while doing a gathering quest in WG and killed them both. I did the grinding for my e-peen, now it's time to slap newbs in the face with it.

I guess I could go do Arena, but finding a partner who's the right class/spec for us to get anywhere meaningful, reasonably skilled, and a tolerable human being on top of all that? Bleh, I'm not that sociable.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I don't think wow is so much in cash retention mode as they've hit a brick wall when it comes to the limitations of their own game. I'm sure there's some super-genious programmer out there who can magically re-write the code from scratch while not interrupting the play of the 10 million subscribers but he's probably only 10 and living in some remote village atm. The argent tournement smacks of laziness but ulduar was actually really well done. 

Anyways onto this post, I'll bite.

Since this is the place where we post our "I Quit!" posts, my subscription runs out on Sunday. Here are the reasons I mentioned in Blizzard's survey, with a little more brevity:

1) Blizzard forced me to relearn to play my class by nerfing Death Knight's heroic dual-wield spec. This coupled with no two-hand weapon upgrades since level 80 means I'm ill-prepared to Ulduar.

2) Ulduar is bullshit-hardmode. Now, Blizzard has in these three weeks been "re-tuning" it, but the distinct lack of thousands of voices screaming "this is too easy, bads will get epixx too!" disturbing the Force leads me to conclude Blizzard is not going to get it anytime soon.

3) Naxx takes too long and is boring. Playing in a friendly casual guild means a 25-man Naxx is hard to come by. Playing Horde on a medium-population server with better players running Ulduar and Naxx not being nerfed means PUGs that can get anything done are not happening.

I think I could have told all this after one evening on the public test realm before Ulduar.

1. Anyone who thought deathknights dual wielding would be kept in as their main dps spec is kidding themselves. Sure, my warrior can use staves but he would be stupid to do so. Blame blizzard for that all you want but no one with half a brain didn't see that nerf coming.

2. Ulduar is harder but it's not impossible, it's actually a great raid zone if that's your thing. It's more challenging than naxx but all the top guilds still cleared it in a week and most semi-casual guilds are about halfway through. How is that too hard? Naxx is your loot pinata, enjoy it.

3. Naxx takes too long and is boring, yes...I completely agree with that statement. Wait though...are you saying naxx needs to be nerfed? Are you fucking kidding me? pugs clear naxx on a regular basis(which is a great place to find two handed weapons for ulduar btw)

This is a prime example of vault post. A complaint/quit post with a perspective that has little to no basis in reality.

Look people, stop makign me defend wow, I'm as disappointed in this last patch as anyone else and only log in to raid/daily these days but jesus christ if you keep bringing up these retarded issues I've got to say something.

[kildorn]

I'm really failing to see how DW DK and 2H DK require relearning the class. If anything, it just means not staring at rime/KM procs all day and just rolling a rotation. If you were a paladin during any of the massive design shifts, sure. But the DK changes weren't all that sweeping.

[Phred]

Has any game ever managed to handle 200-400 connections active in the same area engaged in a related activity? It just may not be possible no matter what the server code is or the hardware.

If SAP can do it, a game server can do it.

I don't believe SAP updates every client connected to it every few seconds.

Even Oracle falls over when the transactions per second go massive.

[Phred]

Ulduar is still fun even if they break the rest of the shit into the ground. It's tougher, requires actual thought from your raiders, and generally gives a feeling of satifaction when you beat something. Naxx never really did any of that. You could one-shot bosses you'd never seen, and that hasn't happened yet in my Ulduar 25 run outside of Flame Leviathan (which I think they toned down to meaningless because of the OMG VEHICLES SUUUUUUCK shouting).

I'd really like them to put more reasons in for doing heroics. Silly vanity items you could buy with heroism badges would be cool. Tabards, pets, a couple more mounts, maybe some shirts that looked fancy.

Ya I think the teiring of the badges was a bad idea too. Look at BC and how many ppl still ran kara just for badges well into the expansion. Naxx will be a ghost town by the next content release, I'm guessing. Currently, I'm spending the badges I do accumulate on frozen orbs because there is nothing left on the vendor I want. Heroism badges are even worse.

[Modern Angel]

Guys, Ulduar is super hard.

[Yegolev]

Has any game ever managed to handle 200-400 connections active in the same area engaged in a related activity? It just may not be possible no matter what the server code is or the hardware.

If SAP can do it, a game server can do it.

I don't believe SAP updates every client connected to it every few seconds.

Even Oracle falls over when the transactions per second go massive.

I totally agree with your points.  SAP is a badly-written application by the estimation of Many, but it does not update a client like a MMO.  I am interested in this topic because I'm now tasked with some performance analysis on SAP/Oracle animals and the WACKY things some people are doing to alleviate bottleneck... well it's just fascinating.  I'm of the opinion now that there might be (probably are) things that could be done to improve performance but maybe too unpalatable to implement.  Too bad I won't ever find out for real from a Blizz tech.

Apologies but I'm just somehow strangely drawn to this thread.

[Ingmar]

Dumb dev moves and a game clearly in "retain the cash" mode doesn't stop it from being the most enjoyable MMO out there for me. 

Not only is the game clearly in "retain the cash" mode, but they won't even use that cash to help improve the game.  That is the most damning thing this terrible attempt at a bandaid fix is revealing in my eyes.

It feels like Blizzard is so busy using WoW money hats to develop SC II , Diablo III, and their future MMO that they don't feel spending to upgrade their server hardware/code (like they did in the AQ-Naxx era pre-BC) is a worthwhile investment.

Do you know how long it would take to implement the hardware changes that would be necessary across the entire WoW server farm? This isn't just a 'hay guys lets put more memory in' sort of thing, this would be a massive amount of planning, a massive amount of hardware, and almost certainly would require redesigning the way they build the Northrend part of the server clusters, and thus rebuilding them. They can't just go wave a wand and fix it, I'd guess it would take 6 months to implement something like that, minimum. Maybe if everything is running on VMs they could do it faster than that, but I kind of doubt that's their setup.

[Murgos]

Has any game ever managed to handle 200-400 connections active in the same area engaged in a related activity? It just may not be possible no matter what the server code is or the hardware.

If SAP can do it, a game server can do it.

I don't believe SAP updates every client connected to it every few seconds.

Even Oracle falls over when the transactions per second go massive.

Just to butt in for a second.  We routinely have fleet fights in the 4-500 hundred active participants range in Eve and have pushed ~1800 in one system before.

A 200 person fight is considered just a moderately sized skimish at the moment.

If CCP can do it, Blizzard certainly can.

[Ingmar]

Well sure, but all Eve has to do is render a bunch of red and green + signs on a starfield. 

[Murgos]

Well sure, but all Eve has to do is render a bunch of red and green + signs on a starfield. 

That's the client side.  The server side is still tracking all those things a WoW server would have to, position vectors, targets, attacks and etc...

The big fights are super laggy but less than 500 people is pretty much pain free at this point.

[Yegolev]

Just to butt in for a second.  We routinely have fleet fights in the 4-500 hundred active participants range in Eve and have pushed ~1800 in one system before.

A 200 person fight is considered just a moderately sized skimish at the moment.

If CCP can do it, Blizzard certainly can.

Agreeing with you, CCP achieves some (a lot?) of this via hardware, such as solid-state disks.

I'd think that if Blizz doesn't have everything virtualized (I'm assuming they do not), the prospect of upgrading everything would be daunting.  Daunting!  That's the kind of shit we have had to do at my company and, to be blunt, we are fucking hard core but it still sucks.  This kind of shit is also exactly why we are pushing to virtualize everything: life-cycle management sucks.  Still, moving servers and DBs around can be done.  Do they want to do it?  Seems like a "no" there.  I'd guess their hardware/license budget is being given to the new projects.

[Ingmar]

There's also the issue of time-frame. Do they want to run an expensive 6+ month project to fix one PVP sub-system in the game, meanwhile leaving the broken lag issue in the meantime? Even if they *were* throwing money at the problem I would kind of expect some kind of 'fix' like this to tide things over in the meantime.

(I still wish they weren't nerfing the honor gain so much, though.)

[ahoythematey]

nvm, this isn't vault

[pxib]

Just to butt in for a second.  We routinely have fleet fights in the 4-500 hundred active participants range in Eve and have pushed ~1800 in one system before.

A 200 person fight is considered just a moderately sized skimish at the moment.

If CCP can do it, Blizzard certainly can.

Ship activity in EVE is much more mathematically predictable than character movement in Warcraft. The ships have speed and momentum that determines their turning radii. Guns fire at fixed rates and have enormous ranges. On the macro level, it's all just plugging assumptions into a bunch of formulae. WoW lets character turn 360 degrees instantaneously without losing any speed, has a number of split-second attack rotations and some very tight range requirements.

EVE can fudge the numbers a bit and nobody notices. The more players there are, and the further their ships are from one another in a chaotic battle, the less anybody notices if something is slightly off. None of that works at melee range.

[tkinnun0]

1. 2. 3.

1) Of course they were nerfed; Blizzard is only human. But you roll with the spec you came in, not some spec you may have once a patch hits. Until then, you do the best DPS that you are able. I realize that I painted a huge bullseye on my crotch by doing that, but it was Blizzard who kicked it.

2) I have done Naxx enough to be utterly bored with it and thus can't sustain my interest level to bring my a-game. 25-man being easier than 10-man except for a few choice bosses doesn't help any.

3) I haven't heard of a 25-man PUG clearing Naxx on my server ever and I can't imagine the horror a 10-man is likely to be. With the more capable players in Ulduar, I don't see that changing without some drastic changes to Naxx.

Re: relearning my class:

Since Ulduar hit, the consensus on elitistjerks has gone from
a) maybe DW unholy and pet with a priority system
to
b) maybe 2H unholy and faster cooldowns and hasted pet with a rotation
to
c) definitely 2H frost and rime procs and no pet with a rotation

"Luckily", I haven't logged more than twice so I haven't learned any of those. Maybe the raid DPS spec will end up at DW blood in frost presence and complete the set.

[Ingmar]

3) I haven't heard of a 25-man PUG clearing Naxx on my server ever and I can't imagine the horror a 10-man is likely to be. With the more capable players in Ulduar, I don't see that changing without some drastic changes to Naxx.

Wow - dozens of groups do it weekly on my server (although dozens more fail at Razuvious or Thaddius and break up.)

Probably the only nerf I'd ask for in Naxx is a change of Razuvious-25 to eliminate the requirement to use priest mind control. It puts too much of the fate of a PUG on whether or not the random priests who were available can handle the job.

[Soulflame]

I'd ask for two nerfs in Naxx

1.  Put in mind control orbs on Raz 25, I'm way with you on that one.
2.  Allow raids to go to Sapph + KT more directly.  Having to drag through a 2-4+ hour raid for a shot at one boss that probably won't drop your weapon is misery.

Ulduar isn't that hard.  My guild is sitting at 9 bosses down, out of 13+1 optional boss, which isn't too bad considering.  Of course, we haven't had any luck with getting to Thorim, mostly because the people in the arena cannot stay alive, and we're all not looking forward to Mimiron...  Having said that, Blizzard is likely to continue to apply slow nerfs in order to let more people enjoy their latest themed attraction.

[Rasix]

Wow - dozens of groups do it weekly on my server (although dozens more fail at Razuvious or Thaddius and break up.)

Probably the only nerf I'd ask for in Naxx is a change of Razuvious-25 to eliminate the requirement to use priest mind control. It puts too much of the fate of a PUG on whether or not the random priests who were available can handle the job.

This was the major hiccup (other than KT taking a few attempts because the melee were being noobs)  on the pug 25 that I completed this week.  One priest was a complete dick and the other priest was somewhat of a noob, so their communication was terrible.   Since Ulduar I've actually seen more Naxx pugs being successful due to already geared raiders aren't scheduling it anymore.  So you get Naxx pugs that are about 2/5 raider mains/alts,  and you still get largish blocks of other progression guild players.  The pug was very slow (I arrived halfway through and it still took almost 4 hours) mainly because the raider leader was a dickhead and a terrible at tanking (rogue playing his ridiculously over-geared paladin alt).  Didn't help that people kept dropping after every single boss.  The terrible players somehow managed to only kill themselves and not the raid on Thad. 

Shu'halo is a terrible podunk server with only two guilds on 25 man Yogg and 2 others on Mimiron.  Still, there's at least a handful of 25man Naxx pugs completed during the week Horde side.  They're also pretty well advertised and very inclusive.

There seem to be a lot less 10man Naxx happening and the volume of heroics being done also seems to be very low.  The new badge being introduced hasn't helped things. I really wish they would have approached the badge system more like they did in TBC, even if they had to greatly inflate the badge prices due to most WOLK heroics being incredibly easy for even the worst groups.

Edit: and yah, Uld really isn't too bad, but I haven't seen some of the more involved fights or just about any of the heroic due to my guild merging with another and adjusting the raid times to about 2 hours earlier than previous.  A previous guild I was in, which was mainly geared through 10 man Naxx, has made decent progress in Uld 10 despite having to carry some bad players through it.  They're like to stall out since the main tank went MIA about a week ago and came back recently with "I can't play WoW as much anymore".