Burning Crusade is so good

[Modern Angel]

An extremely solid expansion pack. They plugged holes we bitched about for two years. The new zones are aesthetically pleasing in a way the old world wasn't alot of the time. Both dranei and blood elves have a cool factor with good, solid noob areas. The new dungeons are, almost top to bottom, better designed and paced than anything Azeroth had to offer. Karazhan is (annoying trash respawn aside) simply breathtaking in aesthetics and design. PvP mechanics have been revamped with arenas only requiring an hour out of the week to get your reward. This expansion pack was, in short, everything I ever asked for.

So why does it leave me feeling dry after a month and do the same for alot of my guildmates and friends?

It's not just me. Several guildmates are planning on unsubbing or curtailing their playtime before they even hit 70. I was speaking to one I'm rather close to last night and we both feel a sort of blah feeling we can't quite place our fingers on. I have RL friends I've never played with feeling precisely the same way.

And we all agree that the expansion pack is just so GOOD; we'll set aside whether that's good from a general game standpoint or from a MMOG standpoint as it's irrelevant. In the context of this particular game it's staggeringly good.

As I said, I can't quite place why I feel that way. Everytime I do something lately I guess the shallowness of the whole thing is starting to peak through a little bit. I craft (STILL without a way to organize my recipes the way I want to) and I think how much better EQ2 did it. I arena pvp and I think how much better the mechanics for GW's arenas are and how completely pointless from a metagame standpoint it is. They made the itemization curve so gentle that Karazhan drops are actually DOWNGRADES to alot of folks; even if they were upgrades with a few extra points here or there itemization went from boring to super duper boring (thesaurus fails me).

Maybe sitting at 60 for two years doing the same thing shut all of our brains off. Maybe by the fiftieth MC raid we'd all put so much time in that we couldn't go back. With a new horizon, with everyone ostensibly on the same playing field again, the cracks started to appear, that little bit of self loathing with the realization that you'd spent so many man hours on a game ("It's a game, not a lifestyle. We play so much some weeks it's easy to forget that. Human nature... we're fundamentally broken," I said to a friend frustrated with one of the worst priests I've ever seen healing.) started to creep in.

Help me out here. I can't make this materialize for me but I know I'm not alone. I've gone from love affair to thinking even a new flavor of diku would be nice in about a week.

[jpark]

Interesting.

My guild is behaving the opposite in a way - at the moment.  The guys who seem to have time to play every day - all day - are now idling waiting for the rest of us since they are struggling to find the needed classes to finish their next keying objective.  When they look at our guild, they get frustrated at seeing how long it will be before we can field a 25 man of properly keyed 70s for regular raiding.  So.. some have left because of this.

It took 2 years (?) to bring us this expansion.  It can easily be at least a year before this game sees any signficant new content again.  My impression is that folks have just burnt themselves out plowing into it - and feel frustrated at the staggered rate of progression of their guild mates.

For myself and my friends it is all about heroic 5 mans.  If those runs are challenging and offer some genuine loot - fantastic.  If the heroic 5 mans are "meh" - we might stop playing.

[Ironwood]

I know exactly what you mean, Angel, because that's exactly how I've been feeling.  I can't explain it any more than you can.  Last night I ran Old Hillsbrad for the first time and though it was stunningly good, engaging and fun (with some nice warrior drops, yay), I still found myself unexcited by the whole thing.

I thought, however, that it was just me.

[ajax34i]

So why does it leave me feeling dry after a month and do the same for alot of my guildmates and friends?

I resubscribed, took a draenei and blood elf to 20, then logged on to my 60 priest to check out the new areas.  Felt really self-conscious being the only player on the server still wearing that stupid glowing staff above my head.  Spent about an hour or so riding around the first outlands zone, then logged off, and I haven't logged on since.

For me it's a combination of things:

- I'm not in a guild that I like, and all my old in-game friends are off on other servers and stuff.
- I don't want to do the whole grinding for faction, keying up, and pursuing tier x pieces all over again.
- I'd probably find it more fun to start over from scratch, play a new class, find a new guild, but having to hit the mid-level zones all over again turns me off.

I figure, I'm going to wait until Blizzard opens up a new RP server, and start over on it, see how it goes.  Although, with several servers still labelled as New, and several others remaining at Low population even after transfers, I'm not sure they'll open another set of servers any time soon.

[jpark]

Thinking about this again - I was very disappointed in a fundamental design decision in BC:

I had hoped that their would be upgrade paths for hte existing armor sets we had assembled on our characters (e.g. they become socketable).  That way you don't have that feeling you are starting all over again.

It really seems a shame that the art work for the T1-T3 sets will likely not be used by the player base again.

[Modern Angel]

I know exactly what you mean, Angel, because that's exactly how I've been feeling.  I can't explain it any more than you can.  Last night I ran Old Hillsbrad for the first time and though it was stunningly good, engaging and fun (with some nice warrior drops, yay), I still found myself unexcited by the whole thing.

I thought, however, that it was just me.

It's fucking nuts. I keep going OOOOOO and AHHHHHH over stuff, making good progress in Karazhan and it still leaves me high and dry on some lizard brain level. I've never played anything, ever, which I really, really liked and just didn't like at the same time. It's very weird.

I'm not planning on unsubbing since I want to keep the social network alive for Warhammer and/or Conan; I really like most of my guildmates. I've generally been a two MMOG guy anyway but for my next dual sub WoW might be the secondary, less played one. I'm thinking maybe a little EQ2 for a bit since their expansion intrigues me.

I think you might find the Heroics a bit disappointing, jpark. They're generally considered to fall after karazhan in terms of progression/difficulty. While I think that's overstating it a bit I've found them to be wildly untuned for the most part. Way too hard for the reward.

[Zetor]

A lot of the T1-T2 set graphics are recycled in endgameish drops, crafted items and quest rewards. There's a level 70 "Might" set (at least helm and shoulders, not sure which items), a level 70 "Arcanist" set (frozen shadoweave), a level 70 "Prophecy" set (primal mooncloth). There is a recolored "Netherwind" helm from the spectrecle questline in Shadowmoon; you can also get a purple "Judgement" pally helm (and some other pieces) from a boss in one of the l70 instances.

Anyway, me and my guild have been mostly enjoying the expansion so far. It has a lot of new, good content, though it's worrying that the heroic content seems unfinished, untuned and the rewards are underwhelming when compared to Karazhan (which is for all intents and purposes going to become puggable, at least for some bosses). Can't comment on the arena system yet.. as fun as it'd be to repeatedly get steamrolled by random uberguilds and/or stacked teams, I have yet to try it with my mix-match blue/green gear. :p

Also, whoever thought that farming for BOP enchants would be "fun" needs to die in a Vanguard fire. Especially if the mobs in question that drop the enchant have a longish respawn, with only 5 of them in the entire camp, and the camp itself is an aggro nightmare (not to mention the target of several quests).


-- Z.
still bitter after farming for the +40 damage enchant for 2 weeks, on-and-off... and no, it hasn't dropped yet.

[AcidCat]

Hmmm. I also agree that the expansion is outstanding. But I've also been experiencing a bit of frustration, though it's kind of my own fault. I just have too many characters and too much to do basically. First I thought I'd just rotate through my 3 60's and work a couple alts on the side. Well I soon realized that doing a boatload of quests on my Priest, then logging on my Druid and running those same quests, then logging on my Shaman and doing those same quests, was a sure way to burn out quick and get nowhere.

So I shelved my Druid for a while. Played a few different Draenei and BE alts.

Now, the thing about the new characters is that great feeling of quick progress. Plus shiny new zones. My Draenei and Blood Elves have been good times. But then I spend too much time with them. So I go play my Priest and Shaman. And it's fun, and at first there was a lot of gear upgrades. And Terrokkar and Zangarmarsh are really cool zones. But after a bit, the gear upgrades became few and far between. That level bar just moved sooo slow. And all the while I see guildies and random folks already at 70. Clearly people who have the ability to focus on just one character! Sometimes I just sit at the character select and I'm not even sure what I want to do.

So I've shelved my Shaman at 62. My Priest is halfway through 63. Blood Elf Mage is shelved at 17. Still playing 14 Blood Elf Rogue, 24 Draenei Hunter and 24 Draenei Paladin. Though the alts are fun, my Priest is starting to feel like work. Because I just want to get to 70 so I can *rest* and not feel pressure to get on with it and get some xp already. Which is not llike me, I'm usually an "enjoy the journey" type.

This is all compounded by the fact that I really don't have that much time to play. Wife/2 kids/job means I sneak an hour or two in at night when the kids go to bed. And my wife yells at me because I'm playing my game instead of sitting on the couch with her watching random TV shows.

So in a way, the game is slowly driving me crazy, even though I still love it.

[Driakos]

I really dig the expansion pack, but it is frustrating to know that aside from a few added dungeons, this is it for more than a year.

So I can see friends and guildmates who've resurfaced, hitting 70, then disappearing once more.  Depressing to know that the same cycle is coming again.

[Modern Angel]

And that may be part of it. I know what's coming in the back of my head.

I've decided that one thing is skill. Skill is the main factor in the new raid game and that's sort of what we always said we wanted. Except I'm grouping with people who can't clear the 70 bloobie dungeons and thinking, "Oh god... oh no. Not you. Not five hours of wipes becase of you."

I'm getting old. I turn 30 in a couple months (haha, old). Maybe I just can't handle other peoples' incompetence for numerous hours on end anymore.

[Ironwood]

Yeah.

"Manage your aggro, you fucking Tit, I don't care how fucking special you were when you were in a group of 40 people, you obviously know fuckall about handling a 5 man, so here's a hint, it doesn't involve using a macro to blow all your DOTS, then incinerate then death coil and then Fearing the whole fucking bunch of them because they're angry with you.  You fucking knob."

And that's just the TS conversations I can safely write down here.

[Jayce]

Maybe you're just tired of WoW, and the expansion is still WoW.

Personally I am having a great time, but I only saw the beginning of the new areas before I switched servers/sides/classes/everything.  I am taking it slow, as always, and I find that as I get to the "new" content, it's no longer new, but all the bugs and issues have been fixed.

Also, I'm not sure why everyone is forecasting another year before any content is added.  Wasn't Dire Maul and/or MC added shortly after the original release?  I don't remember how long it was, but I don't think it was a year.

[Merusk]

Thinking about this again - I was very disappointed in a fundamental design decision in BC:

I had hoped that their would be upgrade paths for hte existing armor sets we had assembled on our characters (e.g. they become socketable).  That way you don't have that feeling you are starting all over again.

It really seems a shame that the art work for the T1-T3 sets will likely not be used by the player base again.

I agree with you on the models, not so much on the upgrading of T1-3 items.  The entire idea WAS to hit a 'reset' button, and force a reboot for everyone.  The game fundamentally changed.  The early levels could use some tuning for this change, but 61-70 is an entirely different game from what the last 2 years have been.

 It's also part of the burn-out that y'all are expressing here (and I've felt a touch of as well.)   Lack of 5-man skills from some player with more time than skill but were able to hide that in larger groups.   Friends who are a lot slower than you at leveling, but you didn't know that because you made friends with them at 60.  (Thus you and idiot-healer_403 are at 70 while that really good priest you know is still at 62-63 because of RL commitments. )

 You're there, ready to move on to new content but realizing that 'moving on' will likely get wiped with the next expansion, yet again.  So frustration begins to set-in.  Then angst and aggrivation at the slowness of the folks you actually want to play with while they take their time and continue to only login the 9-10 hours a week they've always done.   I've watched at least 5 guilds on my server alone splinter because of this.  Then there's the splintering that happens when the 'favored cliques' or 'A-team' start getting taken into Kharazhan and the other 3-5 70s sit on their thumbs because the only 2 healers at 70 are in the Khara group.

Honestly, I was feeling the same aggrivation until I realized that a lot of it was I'd pushed too hard.   I was way too eager to get to 'the end stuff' without realizing that, hey, what'll I do if I get there and get everything I want.   Sit on my ass doing nothing, that's what.  If I were running Kharazan with my old guild already, I'd STILL be waiting on 15 other people to get to the same level so we could do 25-man, and feeling even more frustrated about that.  Then after that  happened, what next?  Wait however long for the next new content and repeat the cycle?

So instead I took a step back from 'the push' and now I'm leveling my alts, putzing around with quests I didn't finish before I hit L70, farming a bit and waiting on the rest of the server to catch-up so I can run PUGs of some of this stuff.   I realized what I was feeling was burout from trying to 'get there' so quickly I wasn't enjoying the journey.

I'm getting old. I turn 30 in a couple months (haha, old). Maybe I just can't handle other peoples' incompetence for numerous hours on end anymore.

Yes.  Which is another reason I stepped back.  I mentioned a few of the nightmare groups I had in a guild of 'competent raiders.'  And that was the problem.. they were still in raid mindset.   At L70 on the hunter and L63 on the priest I'm still running instances with "Uber" guildmembers who can't fucking play the game, because all it ever was to them was pushing 2-3 buttons and leeching off the other 39 folks.  I'm done with that and building up a friends list of competent players once again, like I had when I was running Strath/ Scholo/ UBRS when they were 'hard.'

[AcidCat]

I'm getting old. I turn 30 in a couple months (haha, old). Maybe I just can't handle other peoples' incompetence for numerous hours on end anymore.

I must be really old. I don't want to deal with people at all for hours on end, competent or no. I solo 95% of the time, so I rarely have the angst of dealing with idiots. When dealing with people, I'd rather just socialize and RP with guildies than run dungeons.

[Morfiend]

Im having a great time with the expansion. I rerolled a BE Pally for my guild, and have got him to 65 so far. Also my old main (rogue) is at 63. I plan on pushing the pally to 70, and getting all my keys, then using the pally for PVE mostly, and probably an arena team. After that Im going to go back to my rogue and get him to 70, and just have fun running around with him ganking other level 70s and getting gear in 5 men raids, and bringing him on the occasional guild raid. Oh yeah, Grats on 70 Hat. Jayce, your lagging.  :-D

[Jayce]

Im having a great time with the expansion. I rerolled a BE Pally for my guild, and have got him to 65 so far. Also my old main (rogue) is at 63. I plan on pushing the pally to 70, and getting all my keys, then using the pally for PVE mostly, and probably an arena team. After that Im going to go back to my rogue and get him to 70, and just have fun running around with him ganking other level 70s and getting gear in 5 men raids, and bringing him on the occasional guild raid. Oh yeah, Grats on 70 Hat. Jayce, your lagging.  :-D

Haha, tis true.  However, I'd just like to point out that I didn't have the luxury of a 60 horde toon I could transfer :)

[Morat20]

I'm having a blast. I've gotten my main to, um, 61. And a Draenai Shaman to 20. And my wife has leveled a Dranaei Shaman to about 10, and a Blood Elf mage to 15.

Then again, I have a lot of real life commitments-- and I'm not in any hurry. So......I enjoy what I enjoy. Admittedly, if I only have a little time I log in my main and go drop bombs in Outland. Too fun.

[jpark]

Yeah.

"Manage your aggro, you fucking Tit, I don't care how fucking special you were when you were in a group of 40 people, you obviously know fuckall about handling a 5 man, so here's a hint, it doesn't involve using a macro to blow all your DOTS, then incinerate then death coil and then Fearing the whole fucking bunch of them because they're angry with you.  You fucking knob."

And that's just the TS conversations I can safely write down here.

It's so bad - ironically - I don't group with guildees.  PUG guys - I can lay down the law - and remove from group as needed.  Can't do that to a guildee without much drama.  So - it sucks - my solution - I stick to non guildees - who I can boot from group.

[MrHat]

Heh, hit L70 and promptly spent 1 hour trying to put together a decent group to get keyed.  Spent 3 hours wiping in Black Morass (hard w/ idiots) because the warlock couldnt' figure out how not to aggro mobs.

Apparently I'm notorius for kicking people out of groups who act stupid.  I've done this a couple times, someone rolls on a BoP they can't use + are generally not playing very well, I start running back to the meeting stone and kick w/out explanation.  When you've spent basically your entire WoW play time doing PuGs you learn that stupid now will be even more stupid later on when you're beating your head against the wall because you've died so many times everything is red.

So ya, hit L70 and started a new toon.  Enhancement shaman ftl.  Shadow priest ftw.  And I love me some rest experience.  L69-70 was a 6 hour level.  On a side note: L60-70 is faster than L50-60.

[Modern Angel]

I think you pretty much got it for me, Morphiend. I was the first 70 in my guild and while I have plenty of other 70s I've been there for awhile. Grats me, I killed some of my enjoyment by doing it on some level.

And I rolled an enhancement shaman I intend to switch to as my main if I can get through the 40s and 50s. That's a very big if but I'm enjoying it alot so far. Mage is fun but simple so a little more complexity like playing a shaman as a GASP actual hybrid is a nice change of pace.

[AcidCat]

 On a side note: L60-70 is faster than L50-60.

Wow, not for me at all. And I'm going on pure rested XP. 50-60 just kind of flew by for me, wheras I'm only 63 on my highest and it is just taking forever.

[jpark]

When you've spent basically your entire WoW play time doing PuGs you learn that stupid now will be even more stupid later on when you're beating your head against the wall because you've died so many times everything is red.

Small derail.  Absolutely - once I booted a guy - our only healer complained - so I admitted him back into the group on the condition the healer became the leader - and was responsible for leading the group.  By the end of the Baron run - the healer pretended to disband the group for the night - sent tells to everyone to stay - except the idiot.  So we finished the final boss fight without the guy in the end. 

Your summary on this is quite accurate - I lead my RL friends not because I am a good strategist - but because I can be the prick when necessary and dump people.

Back on topic - what I like about BC - is that it is making it harder for guys to have a cadre of high level, keyed alts in which they can hop to.  Fewer alts, in my opinion, fosters more of a community, since you cannot easily evade the consequences of your actions by hopping on another toon.

[MrHat]

Your summary on this is quite accurate - I lead my RL friends not because I am a good strategist - but because I can be the prick when necessary and dump people.

I have absolutely no quams about kicking someone in a group mid instance either.  Just don't be a fucktard.  I only have an hour and half a night to play, and I don't want to waste it on people like that.  Then other people in the group are always amazed.

[jpark]

Your summary on this is quite accurate - I lead my RL friends not because I am a good strategist - but because I can be the prick when necessary and dump people.

I have absolutely no quams about kicking someone in a group mid instance either.  Just don't be a fucktard.  I only have an hour and half a night to play, and I don't want to waste it on people like that.  Then other people in the group are always amazed.

And it is for this reason I DESPERATELY WISH FOR A 3RD PARTY SITE THAT CAN SHOW ALL THE ALTS ASSOCIATED WITH A SINGLE ACCOUNT.

After all, I don't want the toon on my ignore list - I want the account 

[Morfiend]

On a side note: L60-70 is faster than L50-60.

Wow, not for me at all. And I'm going on pure rested XP. 50-60 just kind of flew by for me, wheras I'm only 63 on my highest and it is just taking forever.

60-70 is not faster in terms of pure played. It seems for level 60-70 its about 6-7 hours per level, with 50-60 being 5-6 hours a level. Its not faster, just that the quality of the zones and quests are so much better the time flies by. It is nowhere near the 1-60 time some people where predicting though.

[Paelos]

I get a little of the "meh" feeling, but that's mostly because I'm the one people rely on in the raiding alliance to make things happen. That's also sort of shitty because a lot of the people I used to raid with now aren't ready to raid yet. Then, I have to make decisions about who to shoehorn into raids based on old loyalties and the new go-getters who leveled quick and well.

I think my main feelings stem directly from that gap that will close later. Also, there's the stress of leveling early yourself and having a ton of "leeches" always trying to guilt you into helping their slow asses get to the top. That's a whole different PITA.

[pants]

cOULD IT (damn caps) be a simple case of burnout?  TBC is good, but at its core is more diku WOW.  I had a nice long break over Christmas where I played very little, and due to guild drama created a new char on a different server with a different group of people.  This has resulted in everything being nice and fresh and new for me - I'm only just hitting Hellfire now, thus missing all the overcrowding etc.  I'm having a great old time right now.

[Ironwood]

After all, I don't want the toon on my ignore list - I want the account 

But then you're missing out on the sensible older brother, because it's always the little brother playing on his account that's the retard, right ?

[Fabricated]

I'm enjoying the hell out of the expansion, but I had to take a break from my warrior (66) since I was getting burnt out on finishing out zones (which you kinda have to do to get a decent amount of rep with each area's factions...most of which have the Heroic Mode keys) and I had some really bad PUGs for Slave Pens/Underbog due to my guildies having real life stuff to do.

I'll say this: Fucking raiders have no idea how to do 5-mans anymore. I've had pugs with full groups of people in full Tier 2/3 where I was just that lag cog needed (on my mage alt, and my warrior main), and I've wiped over and over and over with them because they just have no idea how to do anything but hit the same 2 buttons over and over. Warriors who have no idea how to hold aggro on multiple targets, Warlocks who don't get that fearing is BAD in most 5-mans (and that blowing their whole DPS wad before I even get a sunder in as my War is bad), worthless arcane/fire mages who have similar DPS control problems, priests that toss me heals once every 5 minutes or go OOM because their UI consists of one gigantic flash heal button, etc. etc. It's frustrating to group with people who're like "wh-what i don't get it i have this claymore of unholy might/soulkeeper/wrath/etc why aren't i owning".

Another forum I visit started a level-locked guild sheerly for the hell of it on a PVPRP server, where there was a guild level cap so we could all instance/quest together. Some of the WoW resubbers were annoyed at having to stop and tradeskill a bit but everyone is really having a good time since we're all doing the same stuff.

[Chenghiz]

I've really enjoyed the Dranei starting zone, but hitting the 20+ content was a bit like running into a brick wall. This is my first serious Alliance toon and, well, A mjority of Alliance lowbies seem to be bleeding idiots. Meanwhile at the end-game my guild has mysteriously run out of healers (well, the entire level 70 population, more like) and it's impossible to find groups for anything, so I've given up the hope of even seeing Kharazan, much as I'd like to, and I'm hoping a transfer to Mal-Ganis to hang out with Shavnir will help. If that and my Alliance foray (level to 70 with a RL friend and arena PVP) do not work out, I'm done with the expansion.

Burning Crusade is done well, but it still doesn't address any of the soul-crushing problems that lie in the domain of diku gameplay.

[lamaros]

I'm loving the expansion.

Doing Kaz with a group of competent people has been some of the most fun I've ever had in this game.
Flying mounts are AWESOME!
The grind to 70 only took a week (I hate leveling)
Encounters are varied and fun, I know more people on my server now so I'm grouping with less randoms. I'm in a decent guild.

I think a lot of complaints people have is just that they've been playing WoW for a long time an expected the expansion to be radically different. It's not. It is without question better, but the fundamentals are still there. I don't mind this because I only resubbed late last year for the expansion  .                                                       

[ajax34i]

Meanwhile at the end-game my guild has mysteriously run out of healers...

Run out of healers, or run out of priests?

My guild seems to be down to one priest (the class leader), and, while I haven't looked at what the paladins and druids were doing, from what I hear they can heal as well as ever, so there should be healers around...  Plus, there's supposed to be a whole wave of eager-to-be-healing shamans levelling up, no?

[Tannhauser]

I've got the blahs too.  Made it to 65 and now I'm a bit frustrated because it's stunningly hard to find 5 man groups for the Zangarmarsh instances.  I want to do them before I move on. 

And my guild..my god it feels like high school it's so cliquey (sp?).  Haven't been in a guild group instancy YET.  Everyone is gonna race to 70 and ignore all this sweet content beneath it.  It's the journey not the destination!

OH well. 

[Chenghiz]

Meanwhile at the end-game my guild has mysteriously run out of healers...

Run out of healers, or run out of priests?

My guild seems to be down to one priest (the class leader), and, while I haven't looked at what the paladins and druids were doing, from what I hear they can heal as well as ever, so there should be healers around...  Plus, there's supposed to be a whole wave of eager-to-be-healing shamans levelling up, no?

Paladins.. and we have 3 mains, I think. It's not that they have actually disappeared, they are all just loldps spec and as such not ideal main healers. Our guild, however, has always been dps-heavy.

[sinij]

60 content practically trained people to be mindless pigeon-holed zombies, why is it now big surprise that they can't adapt? What scares me is that eventually these people will move to other games but will expect exactly same thing out of them.