Raiding Poll

[Lum]

Partly that, partly playing the 1-59 game (I'm levelling up a priest now). 99% of my guild has no idea who I am (personally or professionally) and probably think I'm my wife's alt. It doesn't help that I identify myself as such half-jokingly.

They have a RIGOROUS raiding schedule and honestly I don't have that level of commitment. It also doesn't help that they raid on Pacific time.

[Merusk]

... because of my complete and total lack of time and interest in raiding over and over again to get better pants.

A baseless internet rumor was started to day that Scot "Lum" Jennings' unannounced MMO project will have neither raids, nor nice pants.  More details as they develop are taken out of context and inflated to laughable proportions.

[Lum]

... because of my complete and total lack of time and interest in raiding over and over again to get better pants.

A baseless internet rumor was started to day that Scot "Lum" Jennings' unannounced MMO project will have neither raids, nor nice pants.  More details as they develop are taken out of context and inflated to laughable proportions.

 

[Tale]

being in a raiding guild enables me to play less

Yeah, I don't do dungeon groups, tradeskills, alts, or PvP, I just raid a couple of nights a week with my one and only character. An occasional fishing/mining loop in Azshara's Bay of Storms pays the raiding expenses. It's not much of a commitment to a game. The barrier, as others have said, is stringing a 4-5 hour block of time together on those two raid nights, which I'm lucky enough to be able to do.

[angry.bob]

So what you’re really saying is that the endgame design decisions in WoW are complete crap. I know that’s not what you’re trying to say, but it is in fact what you are saying. 

There are two activities to engage in at 60, both of which are designed poorly.

First you have PvP, which is so horribly done that it deserves its own thread. I’m not going to get into that here.

Then there are raids, each one of which is on a timer to cockblock you from completing a dress-up outfit in less time than they think you should be able to, despite it not affecting a single thing on the planet other than calling attention to the fact there’s nothing else to do but engage in a horribly designed, tacked on system of PvP. A PvP system in which you must be a hardcore raider or an even harder-core BG grinder to be able to effectively compete.

So since there’s nothing else to do but wait out raid timers except PvP, which is grindy and really pretty much pointless, you don’t log in and play except for the scheduled raids. Raids with 40 other people who you don’t know or care about except to deal with them just long enough to get loot to replace slightly older, less powerful loot, which you then sell or disenchant right before logging off until the next scheduled raid. What’s been described here as a typical raid night is not the definition of a game or fun except to raiders. If you read that description of a typical raid night to almost anybody on the planet, they’d think your were talking about your job as a contractor. And even amongst raiders, a fairly large chunk say they’d rather be doing something else but that raids are the only way to get loot.

But that’s not even where the game gets really broken. So as more and more people progress to raids, there’s fewer and fewer people online, both in your guild and in general. So PUGs become harder to form, getting people attuned/keyed gets harder and harder, and eventually character progression on a server reaches a breaking point. The point where if you’re not already in a guild, attuned/keyed, and in possession of a level XX pants suit – you never will be. The only way to get the groups together to get the gear to get into a guild is to be in a guild already. And that’s without even addressing the fact that except during a few key hours a day during prime-time the content is wasted because the server population is to low to even scrape up enough people to even do a 20 man. Will some people forge ahead no matter what and eventually make it to the designed endgame? Sure. But for everyone that does how many are needlessly alienated and eventually cancel? How many will just roll another alt when they hit 60 and repeat until something else comes out? More than will stick it out. You may not notice them because they never get to a state where you would pay any attention to them. You’d be surprised at the number of times I’ve run into the same people in the same zones leveling alts at the same times I am. The sad thing is it wouldn’t do us any good to form a guild because at the times we play we still wouldn’t be able to field the people to do MC even if we all got together. What percentage of players being needlessly locked out of doing something besides working on another alt is acceptable? Why purposely design in a barrier to entry for no reason other than “because”?

And how is that a healthy endgame? Doesn’t that scream bad, lopsided design? Wasn’t the theme of this tread a few pages back that people who only log in to get raid loot are dead weight that should be cut from a guild? How are endless, escalating, and exponentially more exclusive raids better for the long term health of the game than a variety of other things to do that encourage more players to stay logged in and be entertained? Things that will keep high-end characters logged in, but free enough to come help lower level people in their guild, or even just other players, with a quest or whatever?

How is the current emphasis on high end raids better in any way than any content that can be enjoyed at any time of day by people either soloing or in groups that are of a size that can be realistically formed at any time of the day? So far the most compelling reason to do large raids is that it’s where all the loot is at. And the most compelling reason to not make 5 or 10 mans with decent loot is that people will stop doing 40-mans. That’s just no good. It’s dumb. It’s bad, lazy design. It’s an especially bad decision when, as people freely admit, the smaller instances are more challenging and interactive. And what’s with the 40-mans anyway? Has there ever been any book, movie, or tv series in this genre that had 40 characters of note do anything together? You’d be hard pressed to come up with stories that had a dozen main characters doing stuff in the story, let alone doing it at the same time in the same place. I mean, the Battle of Pelinor Fields only had about 10 characters at it if you stretch “character” to include Gamling. And even then, some n00b chick along to see what a raid was like soloed the Witch King of Angmar.

So rather than make things more epic, 40-mans have the opposite effect. 40 people in a scheduled get-together to accomplish a task isn’t heroic or epic. It’s the dozen meetings I attend at work to decide what needs added to a report going to the sales department or telling department heads that their employees can’t store 4,000 emails with attachments in their Outlook accounts.

So really, switching design emphasis to place preeminence on 5-mans provides more compelling, attainable content for any players wanting to do it, at any time of the day. It also increases a player’s feeling of personal accomplishment and attachment to the heroic ideal typically presented in the fiction of this genre.

[Ironwood]

So what you’re really saying is that the endgame design decisions in WoW are complete crap.

I didn't need to read the rest.  Yes, that's exactly what I'M saying.

:)


Edit:  Christ, I just read the rest.  That's EXACTLY what I've been trying to say all along.  Bravo, Bob, Bravo.

[Tebonas]

You hit the nail on the head Bob, there is nothing further to say.

[Chenghiz]

Yeah, I pretty much agree.

[Merusk]

Again, it's an MMO, you guys want a single-player experience you can do with other people.   It's like me bitching in Eve when I get gang-banged by 5-10 other people, because the F13 crew don't play my hours.  Life sucks all around when you're the oddball in a large multi-player experience. 

Here's a question, why doesn't Guild Wars fit what you're asking for. You can play when you want for however long want with no required time chunks.  All the content is small-groups, soloable for most of it. Hell it doesn't even have a fee. The PvP is about as 'meaningful' as balanced PvP is ever going to get, and you get rewards for it.  You don't even have to PvE once!

There's no point in discussing further, because the lines we go down are twisted around and shot back as fuel about broken-ness in a new argument.  "Raids take too long"  "No, they don't, I don't have to play other than XX hours."  "See, the game's broken because it's not compelling enough to keep you logged in other than XX hours."  Fantastic, you win.

[Tebonas]

But then from 1 to 59 the game caters to a different target audience (how many 40 man raids do you attend at level 30?) and that changes at level 60.

The Massive in Massive multiplayer doesn't mean what you try to tell us it means. That every one of all those people has to do the same things at the same moment. It only means that masses of people are online in the same environment. Ultima Online was Massive Multiplayer as well for example.

To answer your question: Until I reached 60 and used up the content available to me WoW fit what I was asking for perfectly well.

[Ironwood]

Merusk, that's rubbish.  Total Rubbish.

[tkinnun0]

Here's a question, why doesn't Guild Wars fit what you're asking for.

Good question. At 40 €, Factions seemed like a good deal, until I looked more closely. Turns out, you don't get access to old content, but that's OK, because you still can't advance past level 20! It seems Arenanet neutered their PvE game because they couldn't separate it from their PvP. Other things that I liked in Wow that I presume Guild Wars doesn't have: mining, herb collecting, fishing, crafting, cooking, action houses, rest exp. So the question really is, would I pay 40 € for WoW's levels 1-20 with less things to do?

[Jayce]

Just a few issues I have with this...

First you have PvP, which is so horribly done that it deserves its own thread. I’m not going to get into that here.

I still don't buy this.  Are you people ever going to be satisfied with a PvP system?  I think not.

Consider other MMOGs.  There was UO, in which there was essentially one true PvP build, and if you didn't have it, then you were simply not going to win.  There were other games in which you could be one of several classes, but if you chose one of the "gimpy" ones out of ignorance or pique you were 100% useless.  If you chose one of the godly ones you could expect to one- or two-hit everyone.  And then there was AC1, where with no level cap, unless you catassed or macroed you were not going to ever.. and I mean ever.. catch the highest players.

Next to that, with every class having at least a chance in PvP,  a solid level cap, and at least a credible debate over whether purples really are an I-win button, I'll take WoW.

But that’s not even where the game gets really broken. So as more and more people progress to raids, there’s fewer and fewer people online, both in your guild and in general. So PUGs become harder to form, getting people attuned/keyed gets harder and harder, and eventually character progression on a server reaches a breaking point. The point where if you’re not already in a guild, attuned/keyed, and in possession of a level XX pants suit – you never will be.

Negative, ghost rider.  I am on a server that's been around since release and I don't see that.  Seems like there is a new raiding guild forming every day consisting of people with blues.  I started raiding at 58, attuned to exactly jack, with exactly one piece of my tier 0, the rest blues and greens - mostly greens.

Maybe it happens on some servers but certainly not all.

And even then, some n00b chick along to see what a raid was like soloed the Witch King of Angmar.

I actually lol'd at this.  So I guess reading your post wasn't a total waste of time. :D

[Merusk]

Merusk, that's rubbish.  Total Rubbish.

Why is it any more rubbish than what y'all are throwing out? All I'm really hearing is "I don't like raids/ Can't raid so get rid of raids!" In other words, "Cater to my playstyle entirely or you suck." The opposite side of the same bullshit coin the ubers were tossing about in EQ.  

 Want to argue for more small-group content and small-group epics, fine.  I agree, and I did so earlier.  To say that raiding is broken, and nobody enjoys it, and hey look there's nothing compelling because you only raid because you have to is bullshit.  I could do the solo/ small group content in Silithus and the East Plagues in the upcoming patch, but it just doesn't interest me.  Yes, I enjoy raiding, I enjoy the 40-person experience and no, I wouldn't play a game that didn't have it.  I've dropped other MMOs because while I suffer from altitis, if that's all there is, why play.

Maybe it happens on some servers but certainly not all.

Has your server ever had a queue, or been removed as a selection when creating a new account?   They did it to mine, and it still pops-up a warning if you try to create a new character on it.  (Alleria)   This has done more to hurt the server than help it.  Combined with the 2 transfers (one to a new PvE  one to a new PvP) the upper levels have cleared-out and the lower levels are now all twinks who get run-through instances.  Actual new, fresh blood is a rare thing and usually joining because they already know someone and therefore have a support structure in place.

[stray]

Guild Wars is far too instanced for my tastes. It feels very artificial and very un-massive. Or rather, it just feels like a multiplayer game. Plus, all the characters look fem and can't jump.


Granted, I'm not a big fan of WoW either, and I'm pretty much just trolling this thread to be honest. I probably would play it more often if it didn't have the item and PvP problems though.

[stray]

Are you people ever going to be satisfied with a PvP system?  I think not.

There are dozens of "PvP systems" I enjoy...

Especially the ones that don't have "levels", "classes", and "purple items" in them. Not everything is an RPG. In fact, hardly anything is.....

Next to that, with every class having at least a chance in PvP,  a solid level cap, and at least a credible debate over whether purples really are an I-win button, I'll take WoW.

.....That being said, I can tolerate classes, and even levels to an extent. To an extent. It's uber items that really mess things up though. There have been a few games (MMORPG's to be exact) where that kind of thing isn't a big factor at all (i.e. Shadowbane, CoX).

As for purples. Is there really a debate here? Just take a glance at how damage scales from a normal Mage, for example, to an epically equipped one.


[EDIT] Oops, sorry for the back-to-back posts. Wasn't thinking.

[Zane0]

You're rubbish!  

No!  It is you who are rubbish!

Here's something to gnash your teeth about if you really want to- if you're unwilling to put your money where your mouth is, then all the dissertation in the world isn't going to make the slightest difference.  Or are you hopelessly addicted, and/or see no better choice out there?

[stray]

Who are you replying to?

[Zane0]

I don't know.  Do you play WoW, post here, and hate it with a fiery passion?  That is where it applies.

[stray]

Ah. 2 out of 3 for me. "No" to the one that counts the most (I don't play WoW).

[Jayce]

As for purples. Is there really a debate here? Just take a glance at how damage scales from a normal Mage, for example, to an epically equipped one.

Yes.  See for example here: http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=6135.0.  The debate has also surfaced in a lot of other threads here but it's buried and I can't be arsed to go find them.  But they are out there.

Anecdotal point - I have a legendary weapon and mostly purples and I mostly suck at PvP still.

[Lum]

I just have to throw in that the noob warrior totally did NOT solo the Witch King, she had a rogue assist.

[Paelos]

The only problem I'm running into now is that my raiding alliance keeps trying to move more crap to Saturday nights. Apparently, I am one of the few people (and this is a sad fact in and of itself) who like to use Saturdays in the summer to travel to places like the lake, friends' houses, or anywhere outdoors away from the computer. So, despite the fact I'm the MT for a lot of these raids, I'm basically having to tell them I'm not going to be playing in that timeframe much.

I really just can't wrap my mind around why people would want to raid on Saturdays so much, especially when they are the same people who are quite happy raiding on weeknights. Anyway, blah blah blah catasses, no life, never see outdoors, etc.

[Righ]

Anecdotal point - I have a legendary weapon and mostly purples and I mostly suck at PvP still.

I tried to ignore making a remark about that the last time you mentioned it. Even a terrible PvPer with tier 1 epics can steamroller a decent PvPer who has a full set of 'tier 0' blue armor, so it can't just be that you mostly suck - if you can even control your avatar enough to raid, you must not even be trying in PvP. I'll guess that you're a raid spec prot warrior that's trying to operate alone in PvP - maybe you said, I don't recall - that's harder than most, and takes a bit of learning and some little macros. But no real skill. As my hunter approached a full set of tier 1 armor he became godly in battlegrounds (because most of the people in battlegrounds weren't as far down the raiding path as I was). It wasn't funny how much damage I could do - I could take out several people at once, even classes that were supposed to be rock to my scissors. I know a hunter in my former guild who now has Ashjre'thul, most of the dragonstalker set and a ZG trinket. His opening combo (aimed, auto, multi) kills folks in MC gear before they can react. Being a victim to that is fun PvP right there.

Anyhow, Bob did mention that it was a subject best left for another thread. Good post Bob.

[WindupAtheist]

I have a feeling that if I ever hit 60 in my latest WoW kick (playing very casual so far) my endgame will be called UO.

[Jayce]

I'll guess that you're a raid spec prot warrior that's trying to operate alone in PvP - maybe you said, I don't recall - that's harder than most, and takes a bit of learning and some little macros.

Fury spec now, previously was a mortal strike build but I updated it for raiding dps.  So yeah, my spec is not optimized for PvP, and it seems that the alliance on my server don't know what the word "teamwork" means (heals? wtf does that word mean?).

But you could have a point.  It may depend on the class somewhat.  I still think it's better than most MMOG pvp out there.  (Disclaimer: doesn't include FPS and other non persistent PvP, and I havent played Guild Wars since beta)

Otherwise, if you leave aside the hyperbole, I agree, there is some truth to Bob's post.

[Threash]

Then there are raids, each one of which is on a timer to cockblock you from completing a dress-up outfit in less time than they think you should be able to, despite it not affecting a single thing on the planet other than calling attention to the fact there’s nothing else to do but engage in a horribly designed, tacked on system of PvP

If you didnt get a whole week to work on a zone it would be EXTREMELY hard to get past content.  The raid lockout timer might be a cockblock after a few months when you already beat the zone and can do it all in a single day but if you had to start over every single day getting to that point would be nearly impossible.

[Jayce]

Then there are raids, each one of which is on a timer to cockblock you from completing a dress-up outfit in less time than they think you should be able to, despite it not affecting a single thing on the planet other than calling attention to the fact there’s nothing else to do but engage in a horribly designed, tacked on system of PvP

If you didnt get a whole week to work on a zone it would be EXTREMELY hard to get past content.  The raid lockout timer might be a cockblock after a few months when you already beat the zone and can do it all in a single day but if you had to start over every single day getting to that point would be nearly impossible.

Very good point.  I don't know why I missed this one.

The saved instance model is a balancing act between restraining the hardcore and giving breathing room to the casual.  If it reset on a tighter schedule then you'd have only the hardest of the hardcore ever able to get past the earliest bosses.

[Ironwood]

I think the hardcore would prefer a button that says 'Reset Instance, we've done it'.


Calling it a balancing act is ignoring the problem.

[Xanthippe]

So what you’re really saying is that the endgame design decisions in WoW are complete crap.

[rest snipped but go back and read it if you haven't]

Excellent post, excellent points made.  When WoW begins to decline (if that hasn't already started), these problems will snowball.

One of WoW's strengths has been the side-trips and fluff available (the crafting, the auction house, the holidays, dancing...).  The two biggest weaknesses are the pvp system, and the focus on adding endgame content.

I do hope the expansion provides more fluff and side-trips.  The focus on endgame content leaves me with little to do otherwise.

[stray]

I've never played a game heavily based on levels and uber gear that provided an enjoyable "fluff" experience.

[Righ]

If anybody does it, Blizzard should. Only the major studios typically employ fluffers.

[stray]

Lol

Fires of Heaven is now *selling MC runs to the general populace all items must go!

*Terms and Conditions apply

Here's how the pricing works; there are 3 options available:

Option One:


250 gold entrance fee, includes your first item.

200 g per Bind on Pickup item

400 g per Bind on Equip item

500 g per Ragnaros item

500 g for either an Eye of Divinity or a Petrified Leaf.

5000 g for the Eye of Sulfuras used to craft the sweet legendary hammer: http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=17182.


Option Two:


Pay 2000g up front and loot whatever you want.

Option Three:


Bring 4 friends and pay 4000 gold and loot whatever you guys all want. *Package Deal!!*

Book your trip today with Abraxis if I am not on send me an in-game mail. We are only taking 5 people per week (1 of each class) so act fast!

Terms and Conditions:


You are not guaranteed to get the item you are hoping for. It simply may not drop and we provide no guarantees that it will drop. If you pay for a trip and the item that you were hoping for does not drop then you will have to book another trip.


If you are interested in an item send a tell to the person taking tells on loot.

Here is a list of items that are non negotiable (not available for purchase):


Legendary Bindings (For Thunderfury)

Recipes

Tradeskill mats such as Lava Cores and Corehound leather.

NOTE: If an item two people on the "Loot Everything" plan both want then they have to work it out between themselves as to who gets it. /random 1-100 or whatever works best for you.

[Righ]

I know, its very sad. What's worse is that I know of half a dozen people who would actually pay that, and would happily buy the gold to pay for it. Heck, I knew somebody that bought several thousand dollars of gold per month. Some people are rich and foolish.

[Ironwood]

I'm not that foolish yet.   That's seriously stupid stuff right there.