"I've got a bad feeling about this..."

[Kelarese]

Something occured to me soon after Blizzcon ended. It's not that Blizzcon wasn't great. Ok...maybe I could have done without Corpsegrinder. But a realization hit me...and I'm actaully a bit concerned. It didn't hit me until I looked at the new talent trees.

I know people are going to look at this go: "Oh great, someone else bitching about the new expansion."

I'm not bitching. But I am seeing something I haven't seen since 2004. Please don't get me wrong. Blizzard is in no way Sony Online Entertainment. Blizzard is leaps and bounds above them. But from what I've gathered, I really am starting to worry that the new expansion is looking alot like an NGE (New Gaming Experience). On the one side, this is not being dropped on a secret day and Blizzard not telling us. And I know Blizzard is leaving nothing to chance and not looking at things without having them under a microscope.

But on the other side, I'm very concerned (and yes, I know it's VERY early to go saying this) because there is absolutely NO INFORMATION on any skills or abilities for any class. And I know Ghostcrawler has enjoyed nerfing the ever loving bejesus out of us (Probably an exaggeration, just voicing concerns. Put down your pitchforks and torches). And I WISH they would stop listening to the PvP'ers. If they're going to do anything, take a hint from Guild Wars. They seem to have no problems with seperating PvE and the PvP versions of the same skills.

I'm more worried for us as the hunter class. We were the last class to be put in at (nearly) the last second. They've hardly ever been able to leave us alone and not nerf skills into near obscurity.

I'm afraid that this is becoming another NGE that drove so many subscribers away. And I know with their so many billions of dollars, Blizzard is really not going to care what a few hundred thousand might think. But the game itself has in essence left its roots and some of it was not for the better.

Thoughts?

[CrystalKitten]

To be honest, at least one aspect of the game has been completely redone for almost every expansion. WoW was a LARGE learning curve for Blizzard. They'd NEVER done an MMO before, and as such, they were, and probably still are, in the process of learning what works, what doesn't work, and what they THOUGHT would get across the gameplay they wanted, but really didn't turn out that way (Ie... the last talent tree revision was SUPPOSED to give us back freedom and get rid of "mandatory" talents.. we all know that didn't work, so now they're trying something new).

But there's only 3 ways that Blizzard can keep wow going these days:

We can either put up with the game being unbalanced, and having "mandatory" specs for each tree (sometimes even mandatory trees for certain content), and just have minor tweaks that don't really change the fact that some talents will ALWAYS be mandatory, and that any given spec will only have 2 or 3 talent points that are deemed "experimental" and even then... there's usually only 2 or 3 "acceptable" places to put those "free" talent points... This would involve new content sometimes, like expansions, but since we don't want a "new game" or rebalancing, we couldn't have anything too drastic added.

We can Let wow stay as it is... Exactly as it is.. Have Blizzard keep up working on it for a little while longer just to make sure all the bugs are out, then drop the subscription price and stop ENTIRELY with new updates. This would probably lead to the game really not lasting much longer before it went down. In this case, Blizzard would be free to move the WoW dev team into a NEW mmo/game where they can apply everything they learned and WANTED to apply to wow but didn't due to not wanting drastic changes, or whatever to something else.

We can let them allow WoW to expand, change, and evolve as they learn more about what makes WoW successful, unsuccessful, fun, or not so fun. Yes, this means we could be in for some DRASTIC changes, but honestly, without some of the drastic changes, would they still have people playing as long? The fact that each expansion changes the game enough that it DOES feel slightly different is something I like. It keeps things fresh. It allows the skill level to be reset somewhat so that you don't end up with insanely elite players, and so that there's always something new to learn (yes yes.. there's new bosses and dungeons, but face it.. these days MOST players just wait and then read up on the strats online, or even now, on the dungeon journal).

Personally, I'd rather the last. Getting a semi-new game every year or so without having to spend more money (yes.. there's buying the xpacs, but that's not necessary to experience class reworks) is kind of nice. And I'd rather they update WoW to their new vision than just let it die because they want to apply their ideas SOMEWHERE and move to another project cause everyone complains too much.

The only issue that I DO have with it is when the changes are something which doesn't carry through the entire leveling experience. Much how going from vanilla, to bc, to wrath, and so on sometimes feels like you're playing 3 or 4 entirely different games (especially before they updated bc dungeons with the maps, and all that). Or how the new raid finder will only apply to raids made AFTER the current point in time.

[Worba]

I agree with the idea that an xpac pretty much perforce means you have to shake things up dramatically, and as Zarhym recently said "break a few eggs to make an omelette", however there are a couple things I don't like about the game and which don't look like something Blizzard sees as a problem e.g. likely not something they think needs fixing or changing -

1) Xpac schism and the obsolescence of old content. You kind of touched on this but here I mean specifically the way each xpacs starter green items have an ilvl that is equivalent to high end epics from the last xpac. Initially this is a good thing - you do want players motivated to try the new content and there is certainly no stronger motivation than better gear (for everyone even / especially power gamers), but once you've played through the new content or even say a good 60% of it on one toon, hit max lvl and etc - is it still necessary for this effect to remain in place for your alts? Because as it presently stands, every xpac basically means taking all of the last xpac's end content, and rendering practically null and void outside of the occasional pet farmer, when instead that content could at least remain vibrant for like 2-4 levels past the old cap, instead of resulting in an increasingly boring alt-leveling experience like we have now.

2) Babyfood outdoor questing. Blues have flat out stated that they specifically want outdoor content to be boring to the point that it requires no thought. I'm not kidding - they think most wow players just want to sleepwalk their way through the earlier levels. If I'd started wow recently I guess I wouldn't question this so much because it's all I'd know - but I started on year one and so I got to try it all in its original form - specifically TBC - still plenty of easy stuff, but you had a fair amount of challenging content mixed in. Some you could solo, some you had to get a few friends for, but all basically inside the realm of stuff you run across when solo'ing. And not just tough mobs - challenging solo quests of the sort of difficulty you don't really see outside of raids or heroics nowadays. I don't care what the Blizzard focus groups say, I hold to the view that this is counterproductive and bad for the game. You can by all means devote 70-80% of outdoor content to mindless pap, and still have a segment to offer gamers who want a challenge (or even just something different thann what they've done on previous alts). Honestly I suspect the true reason behind the present state of affairs is more to do with senior devs being allowed to believe that solo content is beneath them, since wotlk.

[CrystalKitten]

Worba, while I'm all for changing the game each expansion, I totally agree with your points as well. It does seem like they're trying to bring back world travel, and group stuff... hopefully this means things will get a bit better... But as it is, not having the time to raid, the only real challenge I get is seeing how much old content I can solo (so far, I've done most of the wrath heroics).

I also totally agree with how the expansion makes old gear obsolete... There needs to be some other system to encourage people to experience quest content. Of course.. then you need to decide what "experience quest content" means... Because the people that are gonna breeze through it without reading the quest text, other than skimming for the objective, just to get the gear.. so they can do dungeons, are going to do so whatever the prize is. Whereas those who do the quests for the loremaster achievements, or cause they like the lore, are again.. going to do so because they want to. I think a slightly better option, especially if they're going to start having more account wide stuff, would be to make it so you have to do a quest chain to unlock each dungeon for the first time through. That way they "force" people to see the new zones, but we also don't feel like the last year spent gearing up our toons in the most amazing drops from epic battles like Nefarion, and Deathwing, the dragon so epicly powerful he nearly tore the world in TWO! After countless guild wipes, and perfecting guild strategies.. only to have that totally amazing epic helmet replaced by the first green quest item that looks like a tin can <.<

[Worba]

But as it is, not having the time to raid, the only real challenge I get is seeing how much old content I can solo (so far, I've done most of the wrath heroics).

This ^.

I recently grinded through eastern plaguelands on my hunter who was over-leveled for the area at 45-47, largely because I wanted to see how soon I could solo Garginox (did it at lvl 48 as it happens, with a tenacity pet and the help of the NPC pallies - not sure if I could have kited him; I know he was immune to conc shot, not sure if aspect of cheetah could outrun him).

Even though he drops no special loot and isn't really tied into quests in any major way, it's still worth it for me to have something challenging to work towards.