Why all the flak?

[stray]

AC looks like shit. AC2, at least when played, wasn't so bad. From what I remember, some areas looked pretty good (the jungles especially). At the very least, it was still a good enough engine that Turbine decided to recycle some of it for DDO.

EQ2 models and armor look like shit, but the rest of the game (i.e. the environment) hardly does. There's a lot more you can do with EQ2's engine than you can with WoW. It's not five years behind the times. You still need top of the line hardware to get the most out of it. Which was my only point.

Old DAoC looked like shit. The new one is not that bad. To say, for example, this this is so much worse than WoW is silly. It's not amazing, but WoW isn't better.

/shrug

Whatever. I think the "shitty graphics" label should really go to AO, EQ, and SB.

[Merusk]

The spell effects in WoW have flashes of brilliance, but I think they toned it down to keep things at a 'reasonable' level for older machines.  Sad, because I'd like the option to crank them up a bit.   The fire-harnessing effect around a mage/ lock's hands, the 'seal' effect of Paladins (it just 'fits' the spell-type.) and the arrow/ bullet stuff, all fantastic.  The actual spells as they hit, though.. bleh.

You guys are mixing up two things: The graphics engine, which in Wow's case is great, in fact, awsome, and the art used with that engine. I don't need a high poligon count.

With regards to the criticism that you'd rather have cartoonish and vibrant vs realistic and lifeless, I would agree, but those two need not be mutually exclusive, l don't think.

I wasn't confusing the two.  Like I said, I like the blocky, stylized graphics.  It just 'feels' right to me.  I can understand why some wouldn't enjoy it, though.

You're right that vibrant and realistic don't have to be mutually exclusive.  L2 and GW are both realistic and vibrant.  The characters feel far more alive than anything out of Vanguard, EQ2, etc which also go in the realistic tack.    Most of that comes from talent, but not trying to be TOO realistic helps a lot as well.

[Strazos]

I'd say WoW and new-style DAoC are about equal in terms of their graphics engines...I still perfer DAoC's look.

[WindupAtheist]

Yeah, like Blizzard needs to mole F13.

[Ironwood]

Someone once did a mock up of a nice LFG system that had the wee pictures of the people looking arranged into the instance groups and you could see level, class, gear, the whole thing.

Something like that, I thought at the time, would really work.  Sadly, not for me since PUG's cause blindness.

[Simond]

I was about to post a self important suggestion about a plug-in that parsed the LFG channel and displayed a UI overtop of it when I saw that pic

what is it?!

It's the new LFG system going live (hopefully*) with TBC.

And as for the 'WoW graphics' debate: The fact that there's two parallel discussions going on (the power of WoW's graphic engine vs the quality of WoW's art), combined with the minor detail of "bad" art (e.g. pretty much anything published by SOE in the last couple of years) compaired to "not to my taste" art (e.g. WoW) means that it's not really going anywhere, IMO.


*Why 'hopefully'? Well, WoW had a halfway adequate LFG system all through beta, which was then replaced by the retard rocks just after the game went live. It's not entirely outside the realms of possibility for history to repeat itself.

[Arrrgh]

All you WoW PvP haters who are tried of getting steamrollered by groups in epics should try a 19 or 29 BG twink. It's not hard to put together a well geared twink, and then you know longer need to worry about being out-epiced. You're also safe from mudflation in the expansion.  In BG5 we usually have 20ish level 29 WS instances running at prime time, and about half that number of ABs.

http://www.battlegroundforums.com/forum/index.php

You either have to grind up a toon so you can grind for cash and farm instances to gear the twink, or buy gold from the Chinese.

There are guides for self financing twinks. I haven't tried it since I have a couple of bored 60s sitting around and the twinkage was nothing to them.

http://www.blizzardguides.com/19_warsong_gulch_bg_guide.html

[jpark]

WoW made us happy.  But, if there's one thing people here hate at all costs, it's happiness.  So we obsess about minutae until we blow them up into something hate-worthy.  Then we aren't happy anymore, which makes us very happy. 

Capiche?

Nicely said.

One topic missing so far in this thread:  playing with friends.

Wow is not just easy to get into as a solo player but to play with buds:  even slow levelers reach the level cap; with a warlock you can summon; it is not too dificult or dangerous to travel in the world.  More than any other game I have tried (except CoH) WoW makes it easy for friends to get together and kill shit.

[Morfiend]

Old DAoC looked like shit. The new one is not that bad. To say, for example, this this is so much worse than WoW is silly. It's not amazing, but WoW isn't better.

Thats a NPC. The character models still look like ass, and the animations are horrible. IMO WoW has by FAR the best character animations of any MMOG.

[SurfD]

I want to stab whoever thought meeting stones was a useful, good idea in the face.

Eh, personally, i think meeting stones were a great idea.  The problem is that the system that they were attatched to sucked balls.  Allowing a computer algorithm to randomly create your group is NOT what players want.   An acutal LFG system, similar to COH or something, showing what groups people are looking for and things is what we want.

On a side note, the stones themselves will actually have a meaningfull use come TBC also.  Rumor has it that you will be able to use the physical meeting stone in much the same way as a warlock portal, allowing you to summon in party members who are off somewhere else when your group forms.

Edit: cause i suck at dirt basic html tags appearently.

[bhodi]

When you are wanting to pug, you are looking for a number of things. Any system designed to assist the process needs to serve these needs. Meeting stones (or retard rocks as I will refer to them hereafter -- I laughed at that, if you invented it, grats) serve none of them:

1) Ease of use
Retard rocks, when they first came out, required you to hike out to the instance and touch them. Then you got to stand around doing nothing while your group assembled. More often than not it was a complete wasted trip. They eventually "capitualted to popular demand" and allowed you to join the queue from any inn. Unfortunately, by this point the entire population was soured by them. You still have to hike out to the entrance yourself.

2) Balanced parties or specific classes wanted.
Retard rocks throw people together haphazardly. No healer? No tank? That's your problem as far as the rocks are concerned. Need a mage for scholo's skeleton packs? There's no way to request one.

3) No way to duo group up
Retard rocks don't allow you to form a group and add more people. If you and a friend wanted to find a few more, the rock could just as easily separate you into two separate groups. Fortunately, this wasn't a problem as they were such a total flop there was no chance of this happening.

4) A rating system / way to censor or deny people / way to check qualifications:
Don't want to play with a certain guild who you know are full of retards? It's a good thing you aren't shy or non-confrontational, because you have to boot them instead of just not responding to their LFG request. Oh, they just rejoined becuase the rock dumped them in your group again. Joy.

5) A way to get to the instance
The BEST thing about pugging is trying to get 5-10 people to an instance. Half are in IF, but the OTHER half are off in tanaris or EPL "just finishing this quest up". Then, you get to hike out to the instance. Dire Maul? Takes 20m extra to get there, sucks to be you. It's a good thing PUG people NEVER SAY "Oh, I have to go, I only had 1.5 hours". All that time's used wisely. To be fair, Retard rocks aren't to blame here, but it would have been nice for a teleport.

6) Specific items needed
Party needs a shadowforge key, Scepter of Celebras, or Key to the city? The Retard Rocks are deaf to your pleas.

7) Don't bother people who AREN'T LFG
Since Retard Rocks were so unusable, people just went back to general chat. Retard Rocks failed on this account.
General chat is not the place for LFG, so they made their own channel. Oh, it's server wide. D'oh! It's now been renamed to chuck norris chat.

Yeah. Coming from FFXI, I coudn't believe it. WoW's AH and grouping system is a piece of trash. How hard is a "LFG" toggle flag that puts a ! over their head, and a handy search box that checks adjacent zones? How do they get so much right and COMPLETELY FLUB the grouping system?

[El Gallo]

I would not want zone-only or adjacent-zone-only LFG system.  If my lvl 40 guy wants a group in SM, I don't want to be tethered to Tirisfal, or to Tirisfal-EP-WTFeverthatzoneisbetweenTirisfallandHillsbrad.  I want to be able to go anywhere and still see if someone needs me for a SM group.

[bhodi]

I would not want zone-only or adjacent-zone-only LFG system.  If my lvl 40 guy wants a group in SM, I don't want to be tethered to Tirisfal, or to Tirisfal-EP-WTFeverthatzoneisbetweenTirisfallandHillsbrad.  I want to be able to go anywhere and still see if someone needs me for a SM group.

Edit: Insert obvious LFG system here.

[El Gallo]

I understand how a lfg tool works, I was just objecting to your suggestion of limiting it to "adjacent zones."

[bhodi]

I didn't say limit, I simply brought up ajacent zones as an offhand example. You'd obviously want some sort of anywhere in the world option. You'd want ajacent zones if you were only looking to party for a quick quest in the zone.

[Surlyboi]

Yeah, like Blizzard needs to mole F13.

WUA's right. Not a mole, just a rabid fanboy that doesn't like it when we besmirch the honor of his robot jesus.

[El Gallo]

I didn't say limit, I simply brought up ajacent zones as an offhand example. You'd obviously want some sort of anywhere in the world option. You'd want ajacent zones if you were only looking to party for a quick quest in the zone.

OK, let's make out.

[Scadente]

Wouldn't really call it fanboy-ism, just appreciation of a polished piece of game. I'm not implying that WoW is the end-all MMOG out there, but it is imho the most polished one, by far. And tbh WoW first time around was a fantastic game. I do realize that old-school MMOG players are a bit fed up with the EQ formula, but for those of us who just crashed and burned before WoW landed it truly was/is something special.

Hate the "community", but love the guilds (well, select few anywyas).

Don't play the game anylonger, due to studies, but I still get a bit surprised when I see a rant about WoW.

[tazelbain]

You guys are so easily fooled. The first mesage is like "WoW gets a bad rap from hardcore players, what's up with that?" inviting others to say good things about WoW while not having any content.  The second message is like "No not you guys, I meant the other hardcore people. WoW isn't that bad is it?"  Again another invite and no content. And now he parrots back what you guys said and invites more comments.

But whatever, if you guys found something interesting to talk about, great.

[bhodi]

Quiet, I'm making out with El Gallo.

[stray]

IMO WoW has by FAR the best character animations of any MMOG.

OK, I'll agree with that somewhat. If you stay on the Horde. Love the Trolls especially. :)

[edit]

I must reiterate: IF you stay on the Horde.

Some things from the Alliance come to mind:

The Night Elf Male Walk.
The Human Male Run.
The Human Male "Self Cast". Ughh.
Humans Males just look stupid in all kinds of ways actually.
Human/Elf/Dwarf Females are bland. Nothing particularly impressive about them.

Really, the only cool thing on Alliance are Gnomes. Male or Female.

[Surlyboi]

You might be a fanboy if:

1) You ever use the phrase "Appreciation of a polished piece of game" to describe why you created an entire topic asking people to comment on your vial of digital crack.

2) You claim to no longer play, but still feel the need to create an account on a gaming site to specifically ask people why they're hatin' on said digital crack.

Seriously. The game's a big case of "been there, done that, bought the goddamn t-shirt" Is it more polished than a lot of the other MMOs out there? Sure. But when hasn't blizzard not polished whatever they were working on to the point of almost perfection? A polished turd, however, is still a turd. And if I'm gonna play with one, I'll play with a variant that isn't, in the main, populated by the typing braindead, the latest crop of e-peen wavers and Leeeeroy muthafuckin' Jenkins.

[Azazel]

The cartoonyness bothered me at first, but I was over that in a few weeks.  I'd rather have a smooth game than a beautiful one with jerky motion - unless they make a game using the engine that built Oblivion.  I'd put up with a lot for that. 

OTOH, a lot of the environments in WoW have an almost hyper-realistic look to them rather than a cartoony one (to me, at least). Similar to the oversaturated colours you see in the BBC's show Top Gear. Having "magic hour" when the late afternoon sun comes over Westfall is something I'll take over the endless grey that is/was EQ2 on release anytime..

[SurfD]

Gotta agree there, WoW has some of the most visually impressive environments i have ever seen in a game, with some absolutely incredible ambience effects to go with them (sunrise, sunset, moonrise, fog and shadows and all sorts of shit.)

I still recall the pure joy of my first month or so of playtime, discovering the cool landmarks and the like as i explored around.

Outland will probably bring back a lot of that.  I have seen some of the new zones and they just kick total ass.  Zangamarsh, for example is just an obscenely cool looking zone.

[squirrel]

You might be a fanboy if:

1) You ever use the phrase "Appreciation of a polished piece of game" to describe why you created an entire topic asking people to comment on your vial of digital crack.

2) You claim to no longer play, but still feel the need to create an account on a gaming site to specifically ask people why they're hatin' on said digital crack.

Seriously. The game's a big case of "been there, done that, bought the goddamn t-shirt" Is it more polished than a lot of the other MMOs out there? Sure. But when hasn't blizzard not polished whatever they were working on to the point of almost perfection? A polished turd, however, is still a turd. And if I'm gonna play with one, I'll play with a variant that isn't, in the main, populated by the typing braindead, the latest crop of e-peen wavers and Leeeeroy muthafuckin' Jenkins.

Oh look - Surlyboi found teh hate. How cute. So let me ask you this - what makes WoW a 'turd'? Any more than any other MMORPG product on the market? I'm so fucking tired of people slagging what is essentially a good game just because it's popular. Do I still subscribe? No. What do i play? EVE and very little of that due to time constraints.

But listen up - either come up with articulate and accurate fucking critisicism or STFU. Seriously. Calling people fanboy's because they like a polished, functional and entertaining game is retarded. Try harder to be cool kthxbye.

[stray]

I'm so fucking tired of people slagging what is essentially a good game just because it's popular.

Who bashes WoW because it's popular? I've never seen it before. Not in this thread, and not anywhere else on the Internet.

Why do some of you keep saying this?

??

?

[caladein]

I believe he meant he's tired of bashing WoW for the same things that every other MMO does wrong as well (and not calling attention to same mistake when everyone else makes it), simply because WoW is popular. In many ways I agree. (A large reason is, I have a guildmate of mine from another game that can't stop complaining about WoW, and never really does make arguements above "omg WoW needs to burn". I'm used to this stuff :P.)

In the abstract: Game X does Field A wrong, so does Game Y. Game X gets bashed on for its poor Field A, while the virtues of Game Y in Field B and Field L are shown as reasons to why Game X sucks, while its horrid implementation of Field A is ignored. Even though they both contain the poor Field A, and Fields B and L are completely irrelevant to Game X, Game X is double bashed.

Taking the statement differently, many of WoW's problems are due to its popularity or simply exacerbated by it, and I am forgiving because of that popularity (BitTorrent being the real annoyance for folks, although the community is one we've dealt with earlier). But again, when someone complains about lag in WoW, I can't help but reference every other game that runs like ass, and the fact they're probably playing on an over-populated server that they had a chance to evac-transfer off of, but decided against it at the time for some reason. Is that being a bit unfair to people playing on really bad servers, yes, it is.

When a game can be nearly as popular and polished as WoW is and runs significantly better with a direct download system, I'll be the first to say, "WTF, why aren't you guys doing what they're doing?"

[stray]

I guess that makes sense. I try to be fair in my hate though ;). I won't complain about the lag at least. There are, as you said, worse or similar games when it comes to that.

When it comes down to it, my main gripes are only a few. You all can judge if they're legitimate.

1) Deceptive Advancement Process. Starts out catering to casuals. Ends up catering to catasses. There's too much focus on a relatively small segment of players and activity types (i.e. raids, the gear within, faction grinding, etc.).

The next two points are tied into that:

2) World PvP is crap.

BG's are OK, but rather uninspired and tacked on. This game still isn't what it could be. They need someone with as much passion and ideas about PvP as the people who design raids and dungeons are passionate about their jobs. It needs to start living up to the "Warcraft" name.....At least a little. The only thing they borrow from WC, at this point, is the lore.

In this respect, I feel the same way about WoW as I do SWG and how it doesn't resemble Star Wars.

3) Weapon and Armor crafting sucks.

[Ironwood]

I enjoy the game a lot.

Can't really argue with your 3 points tho.

[Surlyboi]

Ooooh, Squirrel, show me on the nightelf doll where the bad man touched you.

I'm not hating on WoW because it's popular. And as for reasons, what part of "Been there, done that" did you not understand? Read my statement again, this time for comprehension. I think they're all turds, but if I'm gonna play one, might as well go with an original one and not one that spawns people that start accounts on gaming boards just to ask why people hate on their game. Or people that decode my fairly plain statement that I hate WoW because it's the same shit in a slightly shiner wrapper to mean "I hate WoW because it's popular" And yes, I'm lookin' right at you on that one.

Be cool, my ass.

[Azazel]

I enjoy it enough to play it several times a week. Though I can't argue with Stray's comment either.

Nightelf doll.. that reminds me of that Dark Elf/Drow Realdoll. 

[Chenghiz]

it's the same shit in a slightly shiner wrapper

Oh, you mean you don't like it.

[Zetor]

Well,  , but I can say that there's a definite possibility that they're both making the meeting stones useful [kinda] AND actually adding LFG functionality in BC.


-- Z.

[Xanthippe]

Ooooh, Squirrel, show me on the nightelf doll where the bad man touched you.

I'm not hating on WoW because it's popular. And as for reasons, what part of "Been there, done that" did you not understand? Read my statement again, this time for comprehension. I think they're all turds, but if I'm gonna play one, might as well go with an original one and not one that spawns people that start accounts on gaming boards just to ask why people hate on their game. Or people that decode my fairly plain statement that I hate WoW because it's the same shit in a slightly shiner wrapper to mean "I hate WoW because it's popular" And yes, I'm lookin' right at you on that one.

Be cool, my ass.

Look at all the discussion that has spawned.  It's hardly a case of fanbois piling on, unless by fanboi you mean anyone who likes the game, or anyone who disagrees with you.  If the OP actually was a fanboi posting without content, wtf did you bother reading the thread and responding?

You don't like WoW because it's not original.  Ok.  You don't like the WoW community.  Ok.  Nobody in this thread has said WoW is a brand-new original game with a terrific community.  Just the opposite. 

Speaking of adding content, what exactly is your point again?  Besides that you don't like WoW and think anyone who does is a fanboi mole?  The vitriole disguised it.  Or there wasn't one.

[Surlyboi]

The vitriol didn't start really until Squirrel piled on. My fanboy response was to the person that called, "mole".

And yet again, there seems to be a lack of reading for comprehension here. What part of "starts an account on a gaming board (where we pretty much slam every game) to ask why people don't like his game", describes someone I don't agree with?

Yes, I don't like the game. Why? Too little in the way of character choices. Now, granted I come from games like EQ and UO and the original form of SWG and all the MUDs and MUSHes that preceeded them. And yes, agreed, they all suck as well, but know what? They pioneered in their own ways. UO? Open ended as all get out because it was a world simulation. Cool. Playerbase was a bunch of tools, but cool. EQ? Diku with a GUI. New? Only in that it put a debatably pretty face on the text crap I'd been playing for years. Again, playerbase were in the main, tools. But it was new and different and when I got invited into a guild, I felt special, I felt like I was wanted because I'd been playing with a bunch of the same guys for a long time and they felt I'd be a good addition to their group. Nice. SWG? Trainwreck. But the skill system was and still is a thing to be envied. It released players from locking themselves into pre-selected classes and cookie-cutter templates. (Though, again, the playerbase fucked that up too by dueling on test servers to see which combination of skills would server their e-peens best)

What has WoW contributed to any of this? There are less class options available than there were in EQ at launch, there's the illusion of uniqueness among players with the talent system, but honestly, with the exception of the already mentioned here attention to detali in things like the sunrises and sunsets, the game does nothing to make me want to jump up and shout and say, "Yeah, this is something I want to play a lot". Nothing makes me want to do that right now because, Like I said, they're all pretty much crap right now.

Please, learn to read for comprehension and follow the line of the thread.