World of Warcraft Patch 2.3 Coming Next Week 198
Blizzard has officially announced that World of Warcraft Patch 2.3 will be dropped onto live servers next Tuesday. It's a huge update to the behemoth of Massively Mutiplayer games, including elements like a new raid zone called Zul'Aman, significant class changes, new questing content in the Dustwallow Marsh zone, and an increase in leveling speeds between 20-60. The full patch notes are available on the official site. "Elsewhere Guild Banks let you keep track of and organize your stocks much more efficiently, the Auction House has been revamped so it is easier to use, and you will be able to pick up daily quests so you have something to keep you from falling asleep as you go back to the same dungeons or battlegrounds again and again. The old 40-man Alterac Valley battleground has been fiddled with, too, so it should now have extra added fun, and those of you around the mid-level mark should head to Dustwallow Marsh for new quests and speedy leveling."
Quit Warcraft (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:WOW - It's So Cute! (Score:5, Insightful)
It will do it no good. (Score:5, Insightful)
The more they take content and put it into instances, both pve and pvp; the more it becomes a pointless game to play. Why play a Mmorpg which has turned into an Orpg? Does it matter that there can be 2k people on your server when you only ever see a dozen or so every night because the game is all instanced?
Then there's the cottage cheese-y-ness they've done with pvp. It used to take some skill, quick thinking and some organization. Now with resilience , other damage mitigation and overpowered healing that can keep anyone alive things like arena matches turn into long grind fests. The outcome of pvp encounters used to be maybe 50% skill and preparation, 20% luck and 30% gear and class make-up. With all of the changes they've introduced this past year, your typical arena match is determined by 10% skill and preparation, 5% luck, 85% gear and class make-up. Doesn't that sound exhilarating kids?
This happens with a lot of mmorpgs. They are released in a form that is slightly buggy and end up with all of these unplanned and unforeseen novelties in terms of gameplay, strategy, interaction. Then after the corporation that develops it spends a few years tightening the cogs and getting RID of the unplanned and unforseen elements as well as anything that gets complained about by the userbase, voila! You end up with a bland, boring game no one plays anymore.
I was a member of a guild with over 100 people and kept in touch with a former guild of 200. They've both dried up and shrivelled out of existence because every patch slowly turned the game more and more bland. Both 'realms' I used to frequent have died horrible deaths and the main cities are ghost towns.
Bring back the wild west. Bring back the buggy, unforseen, wild, insulting, violent mess that was Ultima Online back in the early years. There were no cookie cutter classes. There was gambling, extortion, confidence tricksters, scammers, spammers, raiders, looters, exploiters, thieves, honorable and dishonorable fighters and gangs. There was somewhat of a safety zone in towns. There were no factions, everyone and everything was fair game. There was no one way to play the game, I'm sure people have so many interesting stories about how they or friends played. I had a friend who liked to spend his time stealing useless items. He was a weird looking fellow and a clepto. He also enjoyed running around town naked. He would yell at the NPCs and get angry at the guards when they caught him and killed him. That was his take of the game.
If I wanted to play around in a world where everything gets regulated and restrained and anything that causes people to whine gets the axe I would... Not go pay $50 bucks + $15 per month to do it on a computer, there's plenty of it in a non-virtual world.
The only reason WOW hasn't collapsed like a house of soggy cards is that there is still an influx of new players and the game does have a great unique feel with LOTS of art and content to discover as you level. But once you're done leveling, the game is over.
Would you like some Alterac Swiss with that whine? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, guess what? We're glad you quit playing. And no one cares why!
Re:Quit Warcraft (Score:2, Insightful)
It's the biggest MMORPG in the world, but it shouldn't be on Slashdot's front page because you, an AC, don't personally like it that much?
Re:Slashvertisement? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes that's nice (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't like WoW, there's lots of other games out there, so please, don't hate on those that do. I personally think Blizzard has made excellent design decisions. I support the direction they've taken with WoW and indeed it is the first MMORPG I've played that has held my interest for more than about 8 months (DAoC holding that record). If it doesn't give you want you need in a game then don't give them your money. But don't pretend like you are the only person who's important. Many other people love it, and indeed I'm betting many of them like it for the reasons that you hate it.
Re:WOW - It's So Cute! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:My story (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Would you like some Alterac Swiss with that whi (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Was WoW simply the least bad MMORPG? (Score:3, Insightful)
exactly, you are not a game designer, it's obvious from your comments.
> * The designers don't have a clue stick about "dead time." Spending half of your time traveling back and forth across zones before you get your mount at 40 is B-O-R-I-N-G. Flying takes far too long.
dead time increases your wanting to level up to get the mount, it increases the value of mounts to players enormously: same thing for flying mounts, same thing for epic flying mounts. Think carrot (mount) and stick (time spent travelling)
> * The ONLY way to level up is to kill things. For those that only interested in creating/crafting things, you're screwed.
the amount of time the designers spend on creating mobs is way higher than the amount they spend in professions: if professions are your thing wow is probably not the game for you.
> * Quests are very limited. There 10 basic times, but only about 5 account for 95% of them: "Kill", "Random Drop", "Delivery", "Item", "Boss"
I challenge you to try to come up with a quest, any quest, that can not be boiled down to those simple constituents. (note that escort quests can be simplified as 'delivery' quests, and any sort of quest that can have you steal/manipulate things with can be simplified to 'item' for example).
> * Very limited world interaction. The world is static -- much like a ride through Disney Land. Your actions don't change the world.
how can you guarantee a consistent gaming experience to all your players if you let them change the world? Can you imagine how crappy the experience would be for a new subscriber if you let old high level subscribers destroy all the lower level areas permanently for example? (which is what would happen a second after you let people do it).
> * Crafting is not thought out. i.e. Smiths can make armor, but not repair their own??
crafting is thought out very well for what it is, a time/gold sink to give people something to do. If you allowed, say, blacksmiths to repair armor for free or at a big discount, every single raider would spec blacksmith in a second, you have to consider the balance of the game as a whole.
> Wow is NOT a great game -- but is "good enough", and certainly is "better" then anything else out there.
the incredible amounts of money it's been pulling in since release disagree with your view. WOW is a skinner box, intended to get people to be addicted to it, it parcels out rewards often enough to keep you hooked, but not so much as to overwhelm you and make you feel that you 'won', because if you did you'd cancel your subscription.
There always always always needs to be a further carrot for you to work towards, that's what people that complain that all the time bliz spends on 'high level dungeons that 1% of the population will ever see' is wasted don't understand: yes, only 1% of the players will see them, but at least 75% of the players will yearn to see them, and consequently will try to progress to that level while remaining hooked to the game (and paying their subscriptions).
Once a certain % of the players has reached a certain level, then Blizzard will release a new and shinier carrot, and the cycle continues: once they are out of carrots, out comes a new expansion, with apples, then one with bananas, and so on and on and on forever. Playing wow is like watching broadcast tv, a mindless time wasting activity, which is perfectly fine if done in moderation (everybody needs downtime) but not fine at all if you are sacrificing things you could do in real life just to spend more time in game under the mistaken assumption that what you do there 'matters'. Your GM gear, that you spent 6+ months of 50 hours a week of play, that you sacrificed 4 weeks of work vacation for the last push for, has been obsoleted by quest rewards anybody can get: was it really worth it?
I am positive blizzard employs quite a few psychologists to make sure their game is as addictive as possible (or has in