Cataclysm

[Ingmar]

That makes it seem way more complicated than it actually was. Having to do a 5 man dungeon once that you were already going to do is not really "OH NOES ATTUNEMENT". The extra stuff about doing raids in order, yeah that was dumb.

Keep in mind that it wasn't just running a dungeon you were already running.  There was a very vast difference between normal and heroics back in the BC day; almost as if they were 5-man raids in it of themselves.  And unlike Wrath and Cata, they never got easier.

No heroics were required for Kara, the Kara key and Nightbane stuff was all in normals. It was only the big boy raids that cared about doing extra specific stuff in heroics.

[Setanta]

Good point.  Did you see it pre-nerf?

For those who didn't.  Imagine the mob density of the Library through the entire instance, and the library with about 25% more mobs.

At least your faction went up a lot quicker.  

You forgot the bit about how Aran had no timer limits on RNG - you could be wreathed while he force-pulled or dropped a storm

If the numbers didn't like you, your group was toast.

[Paelos]

Or you could prove that TBC/Wrath subscription highs were due to higher retention of subscriptions due to lower difficulty since you're the one who originally made the argument, instead of a more accessible low-level game and a constant stream of new subscribers.

I don't have to prove that point. There's already a strong correlation between the numbers increasing year by year on their financials in terms of subscription revenue until the point they released Cataclysm. By your argument, nothing they can do at this point would make a difference and the natural life cycle of the product will continue to decline. If the numbers go back up again in FY2012, then you'll have lost the last leg to stand on. My argument is they made poor choices and their numbers suffered.

You seem to ignore the point that from Vanilla to Wrath, and through TBC, they added in smaller raids, more nerfs, and more accessible end-game content. Unless you subscribe to the theory that people jacked around at low level and quit, which we can again prove is crap by the documented amounts of people completing progression content during Wrath, then you just have your head in the sand.

[Rokal]

End-game balance becomes more and more important as the game gets older and a larger portion of active/past subscribers have capped characters. It had the largest impact in Cata, and it'll have an even larger impact in MoP. I'm not going to argue that the balance of end-game content in TBC or Wrath had nothing to do with subscription numbers: I'm saying that, like vanilla, it wasn't the main reason for the game's success. In Cata it was, and in MoP it will be. They've plateaued on their ability to attract new subscribers fast enough to replace people who have gotten bored with the game.

I would be surprised if they pass 12 million again, even during the first month of MoP.

[Paelos]

Fair enough, as long as we both agree that difficulty and end-game balance is the imperative in current and future development, the previous editions are irrelevant.

I wouldn't be shocked to see them pass 12M again if the MMO market and gaming market in general continues to develop poorly.

[Fabricated]

It's still a large barrier to entry. For Kara, that was 7 dungeons you had to run before you could join your guild for a raid. You needed a flying mount to get to the TK dungeons, which was pretty expensive at that point, unless you had a warlock summon you. Some of those dungeons were also fairly unpopular. I still remember having problems finding people to run Durnhold and Dark Portal every time I needed to attune an alt. This would be minimized thanks to LFD and queuing for specific dungeons, but there is no way people would be happy if Kara launched in 2012 with that attunement requirement. The Nightbane attunement was even worse.

Even cutting attunements entirely out of the equation, the raid wasn't casual friendly by today's standards.

At launch I agree it wasn't very casual friendly. Aran was buggy so if you fucking sneezed the Flame Wreath went off, Illhoof was kinda overtuned, Prince would blender blue-equipped tanks on double-thrashes, and Nightbane was AWFUL (magic immune skellies, ridiculous tank damage, cleaves, fear that required a warrior tank who could stance dance or two dwarf priests).

After 2-3 waves of nerfs it was pretty good. Had way way too much trash however when you hit the library. Pugs would fail hilariously on Aran now but other than that I think it's pretty casual accessible for a raid. Split it into two like DS for raid finder and it'd be fine outside of the 20 acres of trash.

[Simond]

This thread has gone completely off the deep end. Between people completely not reading posts, people apparently now having mind reading powers and the overall weirdness of obsessing over individuals it's actually quite creepy.

I built my gold from scratch and raid led every week for 7 years. I quit WoW because I didn't like the way the game had gone and it wasnt fun anymore (I hate heroics and the concept of them). I don't need to spend time obsessing over which Blizzard designer was responsible and leading some sort of crusade to get them fired or to eternally stalk them. Come on guys - cant we not just move on when we leave the game?

Wow, talk about going off the deep end.  There are a lot of people here who seem personally offended that issue was taken with what Ghostcrawler said in that blog post.  So much so that they've projected an awful lot of things into those negative posts that just weren't said.

I can't speak for anyone else, but here's what I said:

Based on his blog post, Ghostcrawler doesn't get it.
When confronted about that opinion, here's why I think Ghostcrawler doesn't get it.

Here are things I didn't say:

Ghostcrawler was responsible for the whole dungeon fiasco.
Ghostcrawler needs to be fired.
A particular person needs to be blamed and held responsible for the direction Cataclysm took.
I stalk and am obsessed with Ghostcrawler.

You want to know why Ghostcrawler was a target?  Because he made a blog post that contained a stupid statement.  I for one at least didn't post some random non sequitur Ghostcrawler hate post out of nowhere.  I was responding to a specific thing I thought was stupid.  The fact that he inevitably engenders that kind of response when he posts might be an indication that he should stop posting, because he's terrible at it.  If he wants to make himself the 'face' of Blizzard devs, then he needs to either learn how to communicate better (ie: stop hedging on things that were obviously a huge mistake) or grin and bear the rotten tomatoes thrown his way.

The 'critiques' are the same tired complaints being repeated over and over again for months now.  We know you don't like the game.  Go troll somewhere else now.[/size]

[Nevermore]

Simond trolling.

So I was curious and checked.  The last time I said anything disparaging about Ghostcrawler was...    early June 2011.  So yeah, 8 months between even mentioning GC.  You got me! 

[Setanta]

Pretty sure this sums up Cataclysm:
http://www.sideshowtoy.com/?page_id=4489&sku=300069&ref=HZ1_030912_300069

The fact that these are being made now from a dead expansion says to me that Deathwing was never going to be as iconic as the Lich King.

It helps that WotLK just seemed to gel as a story so much more than the super-shaman vs a dragon that occasionally made an appearance in the backstory

[Simond]

TBC: "Illidan was a nobody who we never saw! Final boss was bait & switch! The plot sucked!"
*Blizzard makes sure Arthas is heavily and actively worked into the plotline of the next expansion*
WotLK: "Arthas was a Saturday-morning kids cartoon villain of a boss! We always beat him! The plot sucked!"
*Blizzard shrugs, makes Deathwing more like Illidan - out of sight most of the time, players spend most of their time dealing with his minions*
Cata: "Deathwing was a nobody who we never saw! Defeat of the final boss was bait & switch! The plot sucked!"

tl;dr - people don't know what they want.

[Ratama]

Arthas was a Saturday-morning kids cartoon villain of a boss!

People want WotLK/Arthas... they just want Arthas to be better written/designed so as not to come off as a particularly nonthreateningly emo blonde Gwar/Lordi refugee.

[Simond]

Arthas went "bored now" and wiped entire raids with a snap of his fingers and was only defeated by hax ex machina by Fordring/the Ashbringer. Not sure how you can get more threatening than that.

[FieryBalrog]

It's hard to have the final boss show up continually and spare your life, in a way that isn't goofy.

Not that Arthas couldn't have been done better.

[Azuredream]

TBC: "Illidan was a nobody who we never saw! Final boss was bait & switch! The plot sucked!"
*Blizzard makes sure Arthas is heavily and actively worked into the plotline of the next expansion*
WotLK: "Arthas was a Saturday-morning kids cartoon villain of a boss! We always beat him! The plot sucked!"
*Blizzard shrugs, makes Deathwing more like Illidan - out of sight most of the time, players spend most of their time dealing with his minions*
Cata: "Deathwing was a nobody who we never saw! Defeat of the final boss was bait & switch! The plot sucked!"

tl;dr - people don't know what they want.

Was this kind of thing really a priority for many people? Who was looking for engaging storytelling in WoW?

[Merusk]

Hey the forums were all ablaze about it!

Which tells you who cared and how much.

[Fabricated]

I think Arthas was done pretty well in WotLK. Running into him in the spirit world in one of the starting areas where he grabs you and kills you was pretty fucking creepy actually, because he talks about popping you like a grape and then does.

I think people didn't get the point that he was sparing you to see if you could beat all of his best minions. If you could (and you did), he'd turn you at the end along with Fordring when you inevitably kicked his door down.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I think Arthas was done pretty well in WotLK. Running into him in the spirit world in one of the starting areas where he grabs you and kills you was pretty fucking creepy actually, because he talks about popping you like a grape and then does.

I think people didn't get the point that he was sparing you to see if you could beat all of his best minions. If you could (and you did), he'd turn you at the end along with Fordring when you inevitably kicked his door down.

Yeah, that's exactly it and it wasnt really telegraphed well enough.  The entire wotlk storyline could be seen as arthas grooming you to be his new, elite minions but they just sort of failed that last detail to make it mesh well enough.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Raid finder is awesome.

"Do you want to raid?"
"Right now?"

Done.

[SurfD]

I think Arthas was done pretty well in WotLK. Running into him in the spirit world in one of the starting areas where he grabs you and kills you was pretty fucking creepy actually, because he talks about popping you like a grape and then does.

I think people didn't get the point that he was sparing you to see if you could beat all of his best minions. If you could (and you did), he'd turn you at the end along with Fordring when you inevitably kicked his door down.

Yeah, that's exactly it and it wasnt really telegraphed well enough.  The entire wotlk storyline could be seen as arthas grooming you to be his new, elite minions but they just sort of failed that last detail to make it mesh well enough.

Yeah, most of that was really poorly communicated.  I mean, you run into him at least 5 or 6 times, in one form or another and they are almost always "Here minion, deal with these heroes;  What? you defeated my minion?  Next time Gadget, NEXT TIME!  Exit stage left" type encounters.  Then you finally get to him in ICC to at last get the "master plan" exposition, and it's all of like 10 seconds of dialogue after he WTF PWNS you with Frostmourn and only to get Deus Exd by Tyrion.

[Tannhauser]

I call that the "Elminster Syndrome" a condition in entertainment where the NPC's are the real stars.

So how hard is it now to get in a raid to Black Temple?  Never finished it and would like to fight Illidan if he's still in there.

[caladein]

Yeah he's still there, and it shouldn't be too hard as people want the gear for Transmog.  I see PUGs on my server for it and ICC pretty regularly.

[Merusk]

Yeah, wife sent me a rezz scroll and there were 2 sunwells and a black temple spamming for people in the last day alone.   If you've got 85s you only need about 6 people to run either place and just crush it.

[Sjofn]

The problem with Deathwing was less how much he showed up and just the fact he was a boring, stupid character in the hands of a boring, stupid writer. There's not a whole lot of nuance to I WANT TO BURN EVERYTHING BLURF BLARGH. It didn't help that we were just Thrall's plucky sidekicks in an expansion that was basically one long, wanky fanfic for the character, either.

Arthas probably could've showed up less in WotLK and gotten away with it, because a lot of the quests were pretty good about telling you who he was and why we should give a fuck. TBC was terrible at telling you why you should give a fuck about Illidan. For most of the expansion, it was clearly Kael'thas that was up to shit that would actually affect anything the Alliance might give a fuck about, Illidan was a complete non-entity who seemed pretty content to just fuck off and ignore Azaroth for now. I don't remember how it came across to the Horde, but at least they had like. A reason to give a fuck about the remaining orcs in Outland and shit. No one in the Alliance gave a fuck about the broken or draenei or whatever. Not really even the draenei gave a fuck.

[Zetor]

Yeah he's still there, and it shouldn't be too hard as people want the gear for Transmog.  I see PUGs on my server for it and ICC pretty regularly.

And amusingly enough, PUGs still wipe to him at 85 (the heroic 25man version anyway... Defile Is Hard)

[SurfD]

Arthas probably could've showed up less in WotLK and gotten away with it, because a lot of the quests were pretty good about telling you who he was and why we should give a fuck. TBC was terrible at telling you why you should give a fuck about Illidan. For most of the expansion, it was clearly Kael'thas that was up to shit that would actually affect anything the Alliance might give a fuck about, Illidan was a complete non-entity who seemed pretty content to just fuck off and ignore Azaroth for now. I don't remember how it came across to the Horde, but at least they had like. A reason to give a fuck about the remaining orcs in Outland and shit. No one in the Alliance gave a fuck about the broken or draenei or whatever. Not really even the draenei gave a fuck.

Illidan was very poorly telegraphed as the "supposed" end boss of BC for horde as well.  Actually, a LOT of the bosses were very poorly linked to the story (Unless you played WC3 from start to finish, a lot of players probably didnt even have a clue who the fuck Lady Vashj even was I imagine).

I mean, hell, I think I knew more story wise about Paltheon the Calculator then I did about Vashj and what she was doing in Zangarmarsh (or even WHY she was doing it) by time it came time to Kill her in raid progression.  I think 80 or 90% of the Illidan lore we got for why we should care about assaulting black temple came exclusively from one or two qestlines in Shadowmoon Valley, an half the time I was sitting there thinking "The burning legion already wants his ass, and has been constantly assaulting BT to kill him, so lets just leave him to brood and let the Legion and Illidan duke it out killing eachother off in peace".

[Lakov_Sanite]

Because defile isn't just "don't stand in the fire, or die" it's "don't stand in the fire, or wipe the raid"

[SurfD]

Because defile isn't just "don't stand in the fire, or die" it's "don't stand in the fire, or wipe the raid"

And on heroic, it only takes ONE idiot standing in defile for like 2 seconds to effectively initiate that raid Wipe.

[Fabricated]

Also, while Illidan is angsty and Arthas is a comic book villain at least their motivations are more complex than "I'm CRAZY because an OLD GOD made me CRAZY! WHAARBLE!".

[Lakov_Sanite]

Also, while Illidan is angsty and Arthas is a comic book villain at least their motivations are more complex than "I'm CRAZY because an OLD GOD made me CRAZY! WHAARBLE!".

Personally I wish cataclysm went more into the 'why' of everything, instead of being intentionally vague.  This is even coming from someone who loves the whole 'old gods, lovecraft ripoff' stuff but there's way to much hand-waving in the storyline for my tastes. 

[Merusk]

They tried to give the "Why" in the 2nd dungeon but there's not enough back story to explain it all.  You really needed a series of quests with Nozdormu & Chromie leading you through all that crap.  Particularly for those of us who came back on a Scroll of Rez so we don't get to take the time to read all the quests and watch the cutscenes that are old-hat for the people who kept playing.

Hell, the only reason I knew a modicum of what was going on in the 2nd dungon is I'd read the Malfurion "War of the Ancients" book that was given as a Preorder bonus when WOTLK came out.  Even then you only get a minor cutscene that doesn't explain wtf this Dragon Soul is or why Deathwing is all hot over it.

Everyone knew what Arthas' deal was because of the quests in Northrend that walked you through his story.  The discovery of Frostmorne, the slaughter of his crew and the burning of their boats, the fight with Ilidan.  Everything except actually seeing him kill his father was covered in that XP (and BC given the Blood elves had "the Scar" to deal with. And Vanilla since we've had Undead since then.)  Arthas worked well because he was a big baddie that had touched the world in meaningful ways since the game first came out.

Deathwing?  Who?  No build-up could have been enough to give the background Arthas had in-place prior to WOTLK, but they could have at least tried a little harder with the quests.  They totally failed at telling the greater story arc with this XP, outside of a few quests in Twilight Highlands where you run in to Deathwing once and he kicks Alexstraza's ass.

[Rokal]

The majority of your motivation for wanting to kill Deathwing was supposed to come from 1-60, where you see all the changes and conflicts he caused with the cataclysm. I don't think those quests do a great job of setting up Deathwing as a villain either, but I imagine that was the intention. They needed to destroy a few places old players cared about (think Theramoore in MoP) in order to get people angry at Deathwing. Instead it was like "Oh, Deathwing turned Desolace into a place that could support plantlife... what a dick". Or "Deathwing partially destroyed Stormwind, now we just have a way better version of Stormwind".

I understand the desire to want to keep zones diverse, and not just turn everything to rubble, but a little bit more thoughtful destruction would have been effective. If they're willing to raze Theramoore for MoP, I don't know why they were unwilling to do something similar for Cata.

[Simond]

The best quest involving Deathwing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2xxH7xnQr0

[Rendakor]

The problem I had with Deathwing is that he did all of his destroying in the opening cut scene, then fucked off (aside from the random "WOOT I GOT AN ACHIEVEMENT" zone kills) for 90% of the xpac until Dragon Soul. Some of the zones should have been phased into their original (pre-Cata but still with new quests) form for the first few quests, then have Deathwing destroy the zones as part of their story. This wouldn't have been difficult to pull off given how linear all of Cata was, and it would have involved players on a more immediate level.

[Ingmar]

The story structure is incoherent regardless of what they did with Deathwing at this point.

1-60, you are doing "new" stuff, except for Silithus which was apparently trapped in a time warp where you never fought C'thun and Staghelm has not yet been Metzened?
60-80 you go back in time and do a bunch of build-up to bosses you never get closure on because the content they're in is deprecated. Outland is particularly WTF for the Alliance.
81-85 you are back to the "new" stuff, but when MoP hits you will have the same issue of deprecated boss content and no story closure.

When MoP hits, some of the 1-60 areas will change to some extent, but still be shoehorned in to a "Deathwing still alive" 1-60, despite happening after whatever changes to the Horde etc. ensue (Theramore getting razed, etc.)

It is a mess, in a way that seems worse than any other MMO I've seen that purports to have a story. Even CoX with all the time travel and superhero bullshit retcon nonsense that goes on constantly is more coherent.

[Rendakor]

The way they should have done it with Cata would have been to make a fresh, complete 1-85 progression in the new-old world. Cut off current methods of getting to BC and WotLK (no more zeppelins or Dark Portal) and instead put portals in the Caverns of Time to access those expansions for people who want to fuck around there. All they would have had to do is have less instances of level-overlap in content to stretch some of the zones out to fill 60-80 as well.

If they actually start to care about players feeling a sense of story closure, make part of the early MoP questing show you the cinematic at the end of Dragon Soul so you get to see Deathwing getting wrecked.