Mists of Pandaria

[tmp]

The point wasn't that you can't have a story with both orcs and smurfs in it; of course you can (I'd be shocked if there wasn't a smurfs episode with at least ogres in it).  It's that people have very different (and fairly predictably different) aesthetic reactions to, e.g., orcs and smurfs.  If they added smurfs as a playable race in WoW, I would expect some people to object that they don't like the aesthetic.  Unfortunately, I'd also expect someone to reply HURRRRRR GAME ALREADY HAVE FANTASY BIPED WITH UNNATURAL SKIN COLOR, THIS IS EXACTLY THE SAME!!  And I'd feel entirely free to call that reply idiotic.

Note that this doesn't prove anything about whether adding pandabearmen or smurfs to the game is a good or bad thing.  Just that "they are exactly the same as tauren/orcs" is far from a justification for the inclusion of either.  

The thing is, when it comes to WoW out of all things, this "different aesthetics reactions" argument falls short imo, because it's a game which built its very identity around deviating from standard 'race expectations' in favour of cartoony aesthetics and "y so srs, we've heard u like pop culture references" approach. As a result, this is not a matter of vague 'game already has fantasy bipeds' but rather the entire style of these fantasy bipeds in WoW is such, it makes kung fu bears fit such settings pretty much seamlessly. Whereas having these bears next to 'traditionally' rendered minotaurs or orcs could indeed generate a sense of clash like you say.

Or to put it differently, if you make your smurfs like this e.g.:



the "aesthetic reaction" of such design is going to be quite different from the 'traditional' smurfs, and they'll fit where no 'traditional' smurfs would. WoW does similar thing to the 'traditional orcs' etc, except in opposite direction so to speak.

[El Gallo]

No, they just got a totally back-breaking spine.  Like painful looking it's so bent out of shape.

That's what makes it hot.  I bet you're gonna play Pandaren, aren't you?

[luckton]

For those concerned about the leveling curve, some analysis has been done. 

For starters, XP needed to level from 70-80 was nerfed in patch 4.3 by 33% across the board.  This was also in addition to a 20% nerf to 70-80 when Cata first launched.  Prior to 4.3, level 70-80 took a combined amount of 14 million XP.  4.3 reduced it to 8.5 million.

For patch 5.0.4, it looks like XP from 10-39 was cut by 20%.  From 40 all the way to 82, the numbers look to remain the same they are now.    82-84 looks like it got a 33% cut (a combined 9.2 million XP cut to 6 million XP), and 84-85 was cut by 50% (9.1 million to 4.5 million).

The new MoP content is where you're gonna hit that wall.  Hard.  85-86 will take 13 million, 86-87 will be 18 million, 87-88 is 22.6 million, 88-89 is 27.3 million, and for the final bout of 89-90, 32.8 million XP will be needed. 

Keep in mind too that the only heirloom slot that'll work post 85 is the new legs they're introducing for guild purchases, so overall the new content should last a while before you reach the end.  Also, with the new legs, combined with everything else, and you can breeze through vanilla, BC, Wrath, and Cata like nobody's business.

[Ingmar]

Good lord, 10-40 was already too fast.

[Tannhauser]

Agreed.  I hated leveling out of a zone before finishing its story line.  That they revamped the zones for.  At least in Rift I can finish them and still gain xp from mobs and quests.

[luckton]

Agreed.  I hated leveling out of a zone before finishing its story line.  That they revamped the zones for.  At least in Rift I can finish them and still gain xp from mobs and quests.

Don't use heirlooms, and only kill what's needed for quests.

[Fordel]

Or just finish the zone if it interests you?

[luckton]

Or just finish the zone if it interests you?

Damn you and your logic!  You know common sense is a fucking super power that not everyone has 

[Tannhauser]

Mobs were gray so I didn't finish zones. 

[Lakov_Sanite]

Mobs were gray so I didn't finish zones. 

than clearly levels > story to you.

[Rokal]

than clearly levels > story to you.

You shouldn't have to decide between seeing the end of the story in a zone or gaining experience/fighting mobs that put up a challenge. The game is giving you feedback that you shouldn't be in zones anymore (grey mobs and no character progress) when you're only halfway through them. It's a broken xp curve.

I think the xp changes Luckton posted are beta specific. They wanted characters to level faster and get to MoP content. Hopefully that means that they won't be nerfing 1-60 further in MoP, which already goes much too fast.

[Rendakor]

80-85, on the other hand, could do with a nerf.

[Ingmar]

Mobs were gray so I didn't finish zones. 

than clearly levels > story to you.

They shouldn't have to be exclusive.

[SurfD]

Mobs were gray so I didn't finish zones. 

than clearly levels > story to you.

They shouldn't have to be exclusive.

Except that in a level based game with a world the size of WoWs (with multiple branching paths across multiple continents) you can't really have it both ways.   Especially once they figure in Heirlooms and guild +exp bonuses. 

Unless you want them to completely re-invent the standard MMO experience system, I dont really see how you are going to fix the problem (especially when there really isnt a problem to begin with).

[Ingmar]

It would not be hard to balance XP gain so that someone without the extra bonuses didn't outlevel every zone they went through. Even on characters with no rest XP, no heirlooms, and no guild bonuses, I was having trouble not outleveling zones before I finished them.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, that was the weird part, I'd go out of my way to slow my XP down and I'd STILL outlevel zones a little too fast. So I find it bizarre they made it even faster.

[Zetor]

They're probably just going all-in on the "get everyone to endgame ASAP" thing. Maybe they had metrics that showed people abandoning their characters in the 10-40 range, so they figured this'd be a solution?

[Fordel]

It would not be hard to balance XP gain so that someone without the extra bonuses didn't outlevel every zone they went through. Even on characters with no rest XP, no heirlooms, and no guild bonuses, I was having trouble not outleveling zones before I finished them.

Then you end up with an opposing issue. What if I want to leave a zone early, but can't because I need to finish it for my proper XP curve?

[SurfD]

It would not be hard to balance XP gain so that someone without the extra bonuses didn't outlevel every zone they went through. Even on characters with no rest XP, no heirlooms, and no guild bonuses, I was having trouble not outleveling zones before I finished them.

Then you end up with an opposing issue. What if I want to leave a zone early, but can't because I need to finish it for my proper XP curve?

Well, at that point you could just skip zones entirely.  You are level 30, skip to a level 35 zone (assuming they dont prevent you from grabbing the starting quests in the higher zone due to level gap). Of course, then you run into the "but that breaks my story progression" problem, and we are back to square one.

[Zetor]

Well you can turn xp off at your capital city...  

It'd work better if there was an xp-off toggle ala COH. It'd be even better to have automatic sidekicking/mentoring to the zone/quest's level like COH, GW2 and RIFT. Of course, these are all attacks against the Sacred Cows of DIKU, so they're not very likely to happen.

[Xanthippe]

I haven't read most of this thread, and haven't even kept up with WoW since I quit a few months after Cataclysm.

I just saw the trailer for Mists of Pandaria and didn't see anything in it that makes me want to come back. It's the worst trailer ever. Not even as intriguing as the first WoW trailer.

I saw mention of Farmville and Pokemon in another thread. If anything would make me want to play, that would do it.

Alas, I think I'm done with Blizzard.

[Merusk]

Was it the trailer or the opening cinematic?  I didn't think there was a trailer for the x-pac yet.

[Kail]

Well you can turn xp off at your capital city...  

It'd work better if there was an xp-off toggle ala COH. It'd be even better to have automatic sidekicking/mentoring to the zone/quest's level like COH, GW2 and RIFT. Of course, these are all attacks against the Sacred Cows of DIKU, so they're not very likely to happen.

I'm not sure what the term is, but couldn't they just broaden the con range thingies?  Like, when a mob is grey or red?

Like right now, you're going to get grey mobs if you're fighting something five levels lower than you (I think, something like that) but they could expand that to seven or ten levels and allow you to keep gaining XP throughout the zone.  That way, rather than having to chop off the last half of every zone, you could just skip the next zone altogether.  You'd still get to the endgame faster, but you'd still get to experience a full zone before moving on.

[Xanthippe]

Was it the trailer or the opening cinematic?  I didn't think there was a trailer for the x-pac yet.

This one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvYXoyxLv64

[LK]

Supporting many different playstyles and many different priorities in leveling can be very difficult, yes.

[Merusk]

Was it the trailer or the opening cinematic?  I didn't think there was a trailer for the x-pac yet.

This one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvYXoyxLv64

Ah, yeah, that's mislabeled. That's the opening cinematic you'll get after installing the game that we were discussing a page or so back.  Not a trailer.

Still the best DIKU, IMO and I've got pokemans to play with as well.. which are damn fun.   I haven't tried the farmville stuff yet.

[Lantyssa]

Unless you want them to completely re-invent the standard MMO experience system, I dont really see how you are going to fix the problem (especially when there really isnt a problem to begin with).

<cough>GW2<cough>

[SurfD]

Unless you want them to completely re-invent the standard MMO experience system, I dont really see how you are going to fix the problem (especially when there really isnt a problem to begin with).

<cough>GW2<cough>

Which is fine, if your game is GW2, and was designed from the ground up to be that way.  Trying to turn an existing Square Peg into a Round one often does not work out quite as well.

[Simond]

The words "New Game Experience" spring to mind.

[Xanthippe]

Was it the trailer or the opening cinematic?  I didn't think there was a trailer for the x-pac yet.

This one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvYXoyxLv64

Ah, yeah, that's mislabeled. That's the opening cinematic you'll get after installing the game that we were discussing a page or so back.  Not a trailer.

Still the best DIKU, IMO and I've got pokemans to play with as well.. which are damn fun.   I haven't tried the farmville stuff yet.

I called it the wrong thing. What I was trying to say is that I thought this was the least compelling of all of the cinematics so far. I thought it was so completely not-awesome, unlike the others.

For me, Blizzard's like a bad ex (and has been for a long time, I think) that I keep going back to. This time, though, I don't think I will.

(Unless pokemon is completely awesome and minecraft doesn't add pokemon ever).

[Rendakor]

(Unless pokemon is completely awesome and minecraft doesn't add pokemon ever).

Pokemon in Minecraft? There's an app a mod for that.

[Lantyssa]

Unless you want them to completely re-invent the standard MMO experience system, I dont really see how you are going to fix the problem (especially when there really isnt a problem to begin with).

<cough>GW2<cough>

Which is fine, if your game is GW2, and was designed from the ground up to be that way.  Trying to turn an existing Square Peg into a Round one often does not work out quite as well.

Considering they've been revamping the XP curve with every expansion and several patches, it's completely doable.  They have heirloom items, and probably metrics out the wazoo for every level.  It shouldn't be that hard to make going back to out-leveled content not be a complete waste of time while also providing a bit of fun.

Since they also spent a huge amount of effort to revamp the 1-60 game, it would benefit them, too.

[Merusk]

I'm totally lost in this discussion as I've ignored GW2 as a waste of my time because I couldn't stand the 1st one.   What is GW2 doing that you're touting as a revolution for the DIKU experience system, Lant?

[Lantyssa]

Each area has a level range.  You're de-leveled to the top of the range automatically so the content poses at least a little challenge.  You also get xp and level-appropriate drops.  In PvP everyone is 80.

Level still determines traits known and has an effect on stats an equipment, but it's not quite the end-all be-all.

[Pennilenko]

Bah, everyone knows guild wars is terrible, that is why they cant charge a sub...