Awesome post about WoW and it's problems/changes since launc

[Sokaris]

It's a well thought out post, followed by a lot of well thought out posts about it and it's surrounding issues.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... ost5138511



Swear to God, leveling from 1 to 60 with my Rogue, World of Warcraft was the best videogame I have ever played in my life.

When I hit 60, the fun continued for quite a while. Hunting down my endgame gear and getting my Shadowcraft was fun. The first 20 or 30 runs. But after a while, wasting hours looking for groups in Ironforge got tiring. Running hour-long instances, saving my blue-roll in hopes of that [insert item] dropping, only to have a piece of plate drop, SUCKS.

Pre-60, everyone is happy to do instances, regardless of whether they actually win the rolls on the loot, because everyone in the party is helping each other LEVEL UP. Grouping was a treat. Everyone was (generally) polite, talkative, and just all-around helpful and happy to be playing and enjoying the game atmosphere together. As a general rule, you hearthed out of the instance feeling like you just completed it and made four new friends in the process.

We loved being level 19 and being in the majority when there were just a few level 60 players running around protecting us from the opposing faction's elite players. We turned in our quests; the level 60 waved to us. It was exhilarating. We worshipped the 60s as gods and couldn't imagine ever being that powerful.

General Chat in the major cities was like Thottbot but better. You could ask ANY question about the game--ANY QUESTION AT ALL--and at least 3 kind people would answer you, happy to be able to display their knowledge of the game.

Didn't dueling used to be exciting? It was difficult and new and everyone was experimenting. Rogues would beat Warriors because the Warriors didn't use Overpower. Warlocks would beat Rogues because the Rogues were confounded by the Demons (you control your Warlock AND the Succubus? Wtf!). Mages would lose to Rogues because they hadn't perfected Blink. Druids would lose to everyone, because no one realized how amazing Bear form > caster is when done correctly. Paladins beat everyone because they wore plate and could heal (wtf!).

Running into the opposing faction out in the wild generally got our hearts beating and our hands shaking. The ensuing fight, win or lose, would make you feel good inside. And better yet, you could choose to fight the opposing faction, or you could try your hand at diplomatic relations. Walk up to an Undead Priest, and wave hello. Have a nice emote conversation. Part ways feeling like you did something to bring the Alliance and the Horde a little closer together. It was truly breathtaking, the way this game used to make us feel.

Now, it's been a year since release. Every idiot has rolled a class to 60. There are pretty much no "nice" players left. No one cares to help you with your question about a quest anymore; everyone just says, "Check thottbot." No one answers you anymore unless your sentence starts with WTB.

Everyone knows what to do now in duels. Even the "bad" players have been playing for a year and have some notion of how to play their classes. And in this game, in solo-PvP, you don't need a whole lot of knowledge to do okay in duels. The winner of the duel is almost entirely predetermined by a complex formula of the time each person put into collecting epic gear, multiplied by whether or not the two classes involved in the fight are weak or strong vs. each other. That's it.

Post-60, the groups for instancing have become increasingly hostile and discriminative, and the instances themselves have become even less forgiving and even more time consuming. This game's original appeal was that it was an MMO that catered to the casual player. Once you're 60, though, the only thing left to do is try out for a high-ranking Guild, run 3-4 hours of Molten Core over and over, nightly, until you acquire enough DKP to actually roll on an item you want. There are no pick-up games for Molten Core. Your guild will give you the scheduled times each week where you are to be online. Good luck, casual players.

As for "building Horde-Alliance relations..." these days, it's impossible. The honor system, ironically, killed any kind of Honor that people had before that patch went through. Maybe it was needed; surely Blizzard wanted a feeling of hatred between the factions. But it's almost a moot point, now: with the Battlegrounds in place and the endgame instances as the only way to get loot, no one is out in the wild now. Everyone is either in MC, or in a major city, waiting for the BG queue to let them in. The World of Warcraft just isn't a bustling place anymore. No one cares about quests anymore, because our XP is capped and the rewards never justify the work (example: Quest for Breastplate of Bloodthirst requires 5 Skin of Shadow, a slew of Arcanite Bars, 50 gold, and 15 Abomination Stitchings... Why? Why the HELL does this sub-par epic cost so much!!?)

I dunno... Personally, I really used to love this game. But lately it's been nothing more than trudging through MC runs or waiting around for a queue. This game needs a higher level cap and about a thousand new 5 man quests in instances that actually give decent rewards. Less of this 40-man raid bull$!@%. It kills inter-player communication and also destroys the game for all but the hardcore players.

Maybe some people enjoy the 40-man raiding aspect. I admit that it was fun at first, but after a few runs I began to feel so unimportant in a 40 man raid. I liked the 5-man exploration aspect. Following a troupe of 39 other people through a slew of mobs that will drop any of the non-plate wearers with 1 hit gets old. In MC, the game feels less like World of Warcraft and more like Lemmings.

I also admit that a lot of the problems that have made WoW less enjoyable are problems with the players and not the game. Blizzard has no control over that. But IMO, if there was some endgame content based around 5-man quests and instances, people would have more of a reason to interact outside guild chat.

Anyway, I guess I'm done speaking out. Let me know how you feel about the endgame content of this game and if you agree/disagree with my points. Heck, even if you just want to talk about some of your nostalgic pre-60 memories, do that.

Note: I didn't even bother mentioning endgame itemization in this post, because that particular subject has me so pissed off at this point that I don't even want to start on it.

[Gekha]

While i find some of this true, im not in a place to complain about it. Regardless of whats wrong this has still beat every other mmo ive played combined x 1000%.

Whats good is this; Blizzard listens to this stuff, which is why they are now working on 5 man content for slith, and outdoor quests ecouraging random world pvp. The player base is constantly comming up with new things to hate, i guess they need more man power to keep up with it...