World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

[merryprankster]

Had a much more enjoyable session tonight. Started as a night elf which had better quests in general. Also a few friends started up new characters to play with me. This definitely made it feel less like a hollow husk and a lot more fun. Hats off to the Midget Brigade!

[Supertanker]

I keep referring to RIFT. I have not been impressed by an MMO so much since WoW. RIFT launched as a mostly bug-free WoW clone that did several things much better than WoW. It came with a modern UI, with a complex and interesting class system, and an innovative dynamic events system (the Rifts themselves) that made the typical MMO experience into something genuinely entertaining even for someone who’s completed an uncountable number of quests. Was it perfect? No. My complaint is that ultimately they stuck too close to the WoW paradigm and as I understand it the endgame is pretty much WoW except without as much content. However, they should still be held up as an example of the standard a modern MMO should hit on release, and I hope this stays a successful game.

I mentioned this in the Rift thread, but I think it was Mark who identified a category of players that are burnt out on WoW, but not on MMOs in general. I’m in that group, and I have also been very impressed with Rift for the things you describe. If anyone else still feels that MMO itch but can’t stand any more time in Azeroth, you really need to give Rift a shot.

[AaronSofaer]

It’s official; RAF to 80 now.

If anyone intends to resub and wants to RAF up to 80 fast, let me know; I can either offer you and a friend some powerlevelling with my tankadin or be your RAFer and level my Rogue with your character. :)

[TheJare]

But I’ve only very rarely had an experience in WoW which came anywhere near the highs I experienced in EQ (and I’ve experienced the very same lows in WoW, multiple times.)

As they say, if you repeatedly hit yourself in the di^H^Hhand with a hammer enough times, stopping to do it will be the biggest pleasure you’ve ever had.

Oh wait, it’s not pleasure, it’s relief.

[Tyjenks]

I mentioned this in the Rift thread, but I think it was Mark who identified a category of players that are burnt out on WoW, but not on MMOs in general. I’m in that group, and I have also been very impressed with Rift for the things you describe. If anyone else still feels that MMO itch but can’t stand any more time in Azeroth, you really need to give Rift a shot.

This is me and it is why I picked up the Rift C.E. for $15 w/ a free month. Looking forward to a fresh yet somewhat familiar MMO experience. I’ll be back to WoW eventually, I am sure.

[RickH]

Well trolled, Rick, well trolled.

Well, JM, if you had explained yourself that well before, no clarification would have been necessary.

[JM1]

Like I said, it helps when you respond to the entirety of my post rather than cherry-picking a line and going with that. You leapt to some absurd conclusions and didn’t really follow things very well. That post of mine was a rehash of what I’d already said in this thread.

I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt (such as it is) because having seen your work in other recent threads, I suspect this is a deliberate tactic for your own amusement.

So, well trolled Rick. Well trolled.

[RickH]

So, well trolled Rick. Well trolled.

before: didn’t know what the fuck you were talking about

After: understood exactly what the fuck you were talking about

That’s about it. No actual amusement.

[Pogo]

IMO the appeal of a Diku-style MMO isn’t about awesome quest design or story, but more about how all the character-improvement hooks layer on top of each other to keep you motivated, plus the expansion/unfolding/exploration of a large gameworld, plus the social interactions with guildies/friends/etc. and the sense of being part of a team in dungeons etc. When it all combines it can attain a critical mass of almost unbearable addictiveness. But if you’re just tooling around alone collecting bear asses, you can very easily feel, “what’s the big deal?”

Yeah exactly.

And when things are running smoothly, like you get into a pub group and everyone is just sorta doing everything correctly through a dungeon, and you laugh off some unexpected wipe or something, and the different classes are using their skills to work together, WoW can be a great game.

[Mark_Asher]

My free 7 days in WoW have come to an end. I enjoyed them and spent them exclusively in the Cataclysm content.

I think now, having gone back again, the phasing and putting a player on rails design is terrible. It’s a disaster. It’s a great thing to be able to solo to the level cap – don’t think otherwise – but the great thing in WoW was that you could solo but you didn’t have to, and there were multiple paths to the cap.

I hate it that content isn’t unlocked until I complete quest chains. If I’m level 81 and I want to go to a level 83 zone, let me go there. Don’t make it empty until I complete a series of 27 quests that once finished phases in the monsters. I don’t want to do those again.

I still really like WoW, but if the next expansion is heavily phased, I won’t be buying it for a year or two until it’s reduced to $10.

[JM1]

before: didn’t know what the fuck you were talking about

After: understood exactly what the fuck you were talking about

That’s about it. No actual amusement.

That’s disappointing, but having gone back and looked at my posts I think I was pretty clear from the start. You invented this whole “wanting perfection” thing. Given that the MMOs I mentioned had problems that literally everyone who knows about the genre is aware of, nothing I said should’ve been news to you. If you didn’t know about those MMOs (and let’s face it, being knowledgeable about MMOs is pretty damn low on the list of priorities), I’m curious as to why you’d jump into an argument about them.

But that’s by the by. The meta-argument is even less interesting than the original one, so I’ll leave it at that. And sorry for calling you a troll.

[RickH]

I don’t possess nearly the exhaustive knowledge you possess on the subject, having only played AoC, WoW, and a bit of LOTRO before it bored me to tears.

I jumped in because it was a provocative statement, that admittedly provoked me to inquire further. MMOs are probably the most complex games ever attempted, and exist in a state of constant flux than contradicts the prior paradigm of a “finished” game.

Your point, once I got it, was that the needed complexity is almost never realized completely competently, and especially at release. Good graphics or other impressive qualities are undermined by a bad PVP/inventory/endgame system, etc.

That said, I do believe that gamers don’t give these games much of a chance to evolve post-release, but part of that is the publishers seeking to recapture their investment by enforcing an initial buy-in followed by a running meter. That creates high expectations due to a high buy-in price in time and money.

I’m afraid that no matter how much effort Bioware puts into SWTOR, a litany of complaints is guaranteed by this arrangement.

[JM1]

I don’t have exhaustive knowledge on the subject. It’s just that anyone even remotely familiar with the MMO world - i.e. people who know what major games have been released and how they’ve done - would know what I meant. WAR and AOC in particular were seriously high profile failures that have been talked about at length on here.

I’m interested in your comment about MMOs being the most complex games ever attempted. Do you mean in technical terms or in the way the systems interact in a design sense? My initial reaction would be that once you get past the technical limitations, MMOs are very static worlds featuring an awful lot of reused content and class concepts, but I’m curious as to what exactly you mean.

[Lorini]

The back end (servers/programming/etc) are certainly the most complex but the actual game play is pretty simple compared to something like even Starcraft II. And the most complex part of the game (raiding) doesn’t even need to be attempted to play the game where you would find it entertaining.

[FieryBalrog]

So I’m starting to get the idea that this game is kinda all things to all people, and that you sorta have to go out there and find your fun. I guess that’s a cool idea, I’m just not sure I have the paitence for it.

I suppose I will find out when I try again with a friend.

And Arogan…I think I will at least play until I can do a raid. I’m not sure what it’s like, but it sounds most like what I wanted WoW to be: Teaming up with other adventures to go kill giant baddies (hopefully in an open world).

Raiding is really fun if you’re in a good guild (I haven’t raided that much- but I enjoyed what I did a lot). The solo game is like watching paint dry, I always thought it was idiotic (but understandable I suppose) that you have to jump through 150+ hours of leveling and gearing up to get there.

[FieryBalrog]

It’s a bit pedantic, but I wonder if you truly find the game less enjoyable, or if instead you simply find it less accessible.

I’m continually struck by the fact, whenever I play WoW, that I simply don’t give a damn about 99% of the people in my immediate vicinity. On EQ I knew which players were the type that I could run to if in trouble and get help from, which were likely to do nasty things to me if I stood in their way, etc… I felt far more involved.

This isn’t to say that I prefer playing EQ these days. I don’t. I quit EQ quite a while back because I could no longer access the game. My time was limited enough that I couldn’t keep up with the demands necessary to continue to play the game in an enjoyable fashion, and that frustration was greater than the joy the game gave me. But when you talk about forced grouping being a bad game design, I still don’t feel that way. I think it led to far greater involvement and investment in that game, but that it was also a double-edged sword.

To me, WoW is essentially the BigFish of the MMO world. I can dip my toes in and play around a bit and it’s generally pleasant if not overwhelmingly nifty, and that works far better with my schedule. But I’ve only very rarely had an experience in WoW which came anywhere near the highs I experienced in EQ (and I’ve experienced the very same lows in WoW, multiple times.)

In short, I found EQ more enjoyable but it’s something I can’t access any more. I found WoW less enjoyable, but it’s still accessible and it is still enjoyable (just not to the same degree) so they’re still getting my money.

This is mostly first love syndrome. People who played Vanilla WoW talk about it in exactly the same way. It appears that the essence of MMO bonding is shared suffering.

(Except me, I was never that enthralled with WoW but thats because I found it too grindy. I don’t think I could have ever played EQ for more than a few hours, hell, I can’t even play Pokemon because I find it too grindy.)

[McKnight]

This is mostly first love syndrome. People who played Vanilla WoW talk about it in exactly the same way. It appears that the essence of MMO bonding is shared suffering.

I’m not too sure about this.

Last year, I tired out a number of MMO’s looking for one where I could squander away the copious amount of free time I had back then. Of all the ones I tired WoW was by far the blandest and most boring of the bunch, even if it offered one of the more polished experience. The story was practically non-existent and the quest text was pointless and oftentimes contradictory, with starting zones lacking any real story or cohesive direction. I enjoyed my time with EQ 1/2 far more then I did with WoW.

-edit- I only got to ~50 in WoW, so I didn’t experience any late game stuff at all. Same with any of the other games.

[Ryslin]

I think the sense of community is gone. That said there is something in wow that keeps me returning.

I do find that wow some how managed to take the asshat and make him king. I don’t know why people suck to the degree they do. I really would prefer to like them overall. It is the nth druid spec’d in one spec but queueing for all 3 , or the tank in a dps spec and a two hander running off before the first heal…
and the most annoying drops at the start of the instance because it takes too long (why the hell did you queue?) folk that make me want to hang up the game.
I still enjoy wandering, I still find beautiful places that I have forgotten for a time. There is a story there and a history and all the convoluted mess trying to make sense out of history is. (have you seen our own history?)

Still … why must everyone suck. I am sure I have pissed off others as well, so why do humans as a whole suck?

This has been an argument for let solo play be viable (but not mandatory) camp.

[GloriousMess]

A lot of these reasons are why personally I’m more or less done with MMORPGs until something that emphasizes player skill is released. A massively-multiplayer Mount & Blade, or perhaps a shooter, is along the lines of what would raise my interest. Planetside 2 could be an example.

[Nephrinn]

I think the sense of community is gone. That said there is something in wow that keeps me returning.

I do find that wow some how managed to take the asshat and make him king. I don’t know why people suck to the degree they do. I really would prefer to like them overall. It is the nth druid spec’d in one spec but queueing for all 3 , or the tank in a dps spec and a two hander running off before the first heal…
and the most annoying drops at the start of the instance because it takes too long (why the hell did you queue?) folk that make me want to hang up the game.

I hear you about the random dungeons. You know how tanks usually have no queue? Well, last night some idiot tank decided to keep joining/canceling the dungeon queue. So, the queue would popup and everybody but the tank would accept and you’d be thrown back into the queue only to get an instant popup. This went on for about 5 minutes before I gave up and called it a night.