[Column] World of Warcraft: Patches, Mists, and Mechanics

garrett

In this week's WoW Factor, we look at Patch 5.0.4. Also, we stack the game up against some of the new MMO mechanics being seen in games recently.

I was about to write this week’s WoW Factor on Patch 5.0.4 when I started seeing all kinds of reports from payers about Warcraft taking the hit from Guild Wars 2. Now before you get the wrong impressions, I want to talk about World of Warcraft’s staying power in this article. WoW remains one of the best MMOs ever made and while new designs and concepts coming into play over the past few years have made other games amazing, Warcraft still remains an amazing game.

Read the rest of the article here.

TyvolusNext

"For a game that was built on an RTS legend of Warcraft, I still think World PvP is an area that WoW really needs to improve on."

As someone who first experienced warcraft way back when Warcraft II came out, I cant agree more...sadly I gave up on warcraft and Blizz many, many years ago.  that cruel, harsh oftentimes dark world is long gone.

 

 

 

Leethe

"There are some great elements which allow you to check out of the theme park and back into some of the more social and sadbox features of MMOs coming to the table."

I'm sure that was a mistake right? 

Ozmodan

You are correct in that no game to date has really changed the popularity of Wow.  It continues to be the 800 pound gorilla in the genre and I do not see that changing in the near future.  I am not sure if world pvp would help it either considering there are just two factions in the game.

rygard49

Originally posted by Leethe

"There are some great elements which allow you to check out of the theme park and back into some of the more social and sadbox features of MMOs coming to the table."

I'm sure that was a mistake right? 

A freudian slip, perhaps.

Rohn

Originally posted by TyvolusNext

"For a game that was built on an RTS legend of Warcraft, I still think World PvP is an area that WoW really needs to improve on."

As someone who first experienced warcraft way back when Warcraft II came out, I cant agree more...sadly I gave up on warcraft and Blizz many, many years ago.  that cruel, harsh oftentimes dark world is long gone.

 

 

 

 

Whether talking about ganking, griefing, or "FFA full loot PvP", to crafting interdependecies, to economic interrelationships, when boiled down to its most basic element, the fundamental game design question every game company must ask itself when at the initial drawing board is:

"Exactly how much do we want players to have a real impact on the play experience of other players?"

For the last several years, the answer to that question from major game companies has been a resounding "None."

That's why various games have stripped out most things that allow players to have a real impact on others into segregated, "consensual" areas.

Players being able to have an impact on the gameworld, and other players, is what makes such things "meaningful".  Game companies are not willing to risk it, unfortunately.

Blizzard could probably add some contrived, consensual RTS features to the game, but it would likely feel as meaningless as the PvP in any other game.

theniffrig

The best feature this patch added was the ability to black list 2 battlegrounds from your random choices. You never have to play strand of the ancients again! And for that reason alone, this patch was epic!

Yamota

World of Warcraft has been the king for quite a while, and altough I don't think GW 2 is all that good, it is time for the old king to die and a new one be crowned. The genre needs to move on...

Bladestrom

Rhon that is a great observation! I think you have hit the nail on the head there. I'll apply +1 to that.

Bladestrom

Out of curiosity do u work n the industry?

Yakkin

Honestly, I wish city raids were still viable. Stupid overpowered guards, and the lack of people interested in city raiding...

SirBalin

I do agree that where WoW fails is the owpvp...allowing clans to have keeps that are siegable all over, not just in a zone would add epicness to the game!

maplestone

edit: removed.  I read something out of context.

TyvolusNext

Originally posted by Rohn

Originally posted by TyvolusNext

"For a game that was built on an RTS legend of Warcraft, I still think World PvP is an area that WoW really needs to improve on."

As someone who first experienced warcraft way back when Warcraft II came out, I cant agree more...sadly I gave up on warcraft and Blizz many, many years ago.  that cruel, harsh oftentimes dark world is long gone.

 

 

 

 

Whether talking about ganking, griefing, or "FFA full loot PvP", to crafting interdependecies, to economic interrelationships, when boiled down to its most basic element, the fundamental game design question every game company must ask itself when at the initial drawing board is:

"Exactly how much do we want players to have a real impact on the play experience of other players?"

For the last several years, the answer to that question from major game companies has been a resounding "None."

That's why various games have stripped out most things that allow players to have a real impact on others into segregated, "consensual" areas.

Players being able to have an impact on the gameworld, and other players, is what makes such things "meaningful".  Game companies are not willing to risk it, unfortunately.

Blizzard could probably add some contrived, consensual RTS features to the game, but it would likely feel as meaningless as the PvP in any other game.

who said anything about adding RTS features to the game.  The references to RTS applied mainly to the fact they were far more dark and violent and war filled prior to wow.  Its too late for Blizz to make any changes now -- that ship has sailed, the pvp crowd that appreciates open world pvp abandoned this game in droves.  Its a great game for kids and soccer moms and the carebear crowd.  There is literally nothing Blizz can do to win me back for any of their games.  I didnt even remotely consider buying Diablo III and no changes to wow would ever bring me back, and TITAN is D.O.A for me.  if you still like and enjoy Blizz games and look forward to their future -- thats fine with me, but unless you were playing warcraft back in the 90s, I wouldnt expect you to understand what the author or I was getting at.

And if you want to experience open world pvp try out AION. 

 

sketocafe

Isle of Quel'Danas on Bonechewer was the most fun I had in wow with open world PVP. Everyone was level capped, everyone wanted to be there once a day for their dailies and you were allowed to fight each other, so it all added up to some chaotic pvp'in fun. I think you need those two elements of every is level capped and both sides have a heavy population in the area and it works out. 

ThaneUlfgar

Originally posted by sketocafe
Isle of Quel'Danas on Bonechewer was the most fun I had in wow with open world PVP. Everyone was level capped, everyone wanted to be there once a day for their dailies and you were allowed to fight each other, so it all added up to some chaotic pvp'in fun. I think you need those two elements of every is level capped and both sides have a heavy population in the area and it works out. 

Agreed. Granted I was on a different pvp server, but agreed anyway.

Treekodar

Quick, let's not talk about cross-realm zones.

 

scritty

Great - but what about the 68% of players with no interest in PvP (Source - this very site last week) Yeah I like crafting interdeps and assists and raids - but PvP is where the game is suddenly "twitch" and as a 45 year old gamer - I lose (simple as that really) skill and planning is out the window in favour of keyboard spamming and the ability to orientate quickly - like playing some 3 year olds balance game. So bring back inter deps. Add more PvP for sure, but don't assume that 68% with no interest in PvP are are suddenly going to change their minds and start loving it.

Doozerglue

 Scritty I'm 48 and pvp quite well. It's not age, it's will and a 27 inch monitor.   But I agree with most of what you're saying.  You should give GW2 a shot.  Playing with my kids and their friends now (Blackgate Server).  It's not perfect, but it's pretty fun.  Crafting is fun too. 

daltanious

I agree with op that wow is indeed amazing game. Got 1st place in my heart after week into gameplay. Stayed so for long years before my new best game ever become SWTOR.

About "Somehow over the past few years people forgot that MMOs are social games." i do not agree at all. They CAN be of course this, too. Have nothing against. But I would never play games with forced grouping. MMO actually only mean "a lot of players at same time on same server". Nothing less, nothing more. What they actually do, should be left to them. Socialising should be done as I like to say far far aways from computer keyboard with real friends. I guess companies should create for people that can not live without socializing online new kind of games MMCO, massive multiplayers cooperative games. Would be much better. Same goes for PVP. Is hard if possible to create games to be great in PVP AND at the same time PVE. It would be better if game would be PVP *OR* PVE. Just my opinion of course.

Now back to wow and MOP expansion. In short, I actually love or at least have no problem with anything they have changed but two. This two alone I think will decrease per se sub number of wow.

Bigest mistake ever of Blizzard with Wow - imo - is new talent system. Bad. Bad. Bad. Terribly bad.  There are no words to describe this.

Second which have made completely uninteresting to play this class, are changes to shamans. What they were thinking?? Since day 1 shaman's trademark are TOTEMS! Totems! And more totems! And now they have made totems actually obsolete, something just casual. Resubbed back to wow 2 days ago and I'm already 100% sure shaman - once my preferred class - will be my last alt to level if ever. All fun is gone. This is like if they have removed shapeshifting from druids! Immagine druid in human form prowling on ground or doing tanking in human instead of bear form. No longer druid. 

For the rest as I said, love some, I'm at least neutral to other changes.

Time will show how deeper have they burried Wow, how many subs will loose to insane changes.

 

 

Hrica

Originally posted by Doozerglue
 Scritty I'm 48 and pvp quite well. It's not age, it's will and a 27 inch monitor.   But I agree with most of what you're saying.  You should give GW2 a shot.  Playing with my kids and their friends now (Blackgate Server).  It's not perfect, but it's pretty fun.  Crafting is fun too. 

Doozerglue, I don't really think it's the age or monitor...I pvp'd since Fel in UO..over 10 years and I think my eyes are just shot from staring at the screen. Also in that 6 month daily grind to Field Marshall didn't help....wow I need a new hobbie..

 

JeroKane

Originally posted by Rohn

Originally posted by TyvolusNext

"For a game that was built on an RTS legend of Warcraft, I still think World PvP is an area that WoW really needs to improve on."

As someone who first experienced warcraft way back when Warcraft II came out, I cant agree more...sadly I gave up on warcraft and Blizz many, many years ago.  that cruel, harsh oftentimes dark world is long gone.

 

 

 

 

Whether talking about ganking, griefing, or "FFA full loot PvP", to crafting interdependecies, to economic interrelationships, when boiled down to its most basic element, the fundamental game design question every game company must ask itself when at the initial drawing board is:

"Exactly how much do we want players to have a real impact on the play experience of other players?"

For the last several years, the answer to that question from major game companies has been a resounding "None."

That's why various games have stripped out most things that allow players to have a real impact on others into segregated, "consensual" areas.

Players being able to have an impact on the gameworld, and other players, is what makes such things "meaningful".  Game companies are not willing to risk it, unfortunately.

Blizzard could probably add some contrived, consensual RTS features to the game, but it would likely feel as meaningless as the PvP in any other game.

It's not the game companies fault that they don't want to risk it!

It's because the internet is so full of asshats who will take every opportunity to abuse such systems to get sole enjoyment of ruining other player's experience!

We have already witnessed this in Open World PVP, where high level players are ganking low level areas... camping on rezz points to the point where people affected have no other choice then to log off.

If so many people would stop being such an asshats.... game companies might reconsider and take the risk.

But as asshats will always be asshats.... game companies are not going to take these risks.

 

sargey123

Dont think that will help that game anyhow.. this updates are seriusly are uselesss

roo67

"For a game that was built on an RTS legend of Warcraft, I still think World PvP is an area that WoW really needs to improve on."

This is a simple one to put right . Remove cross server looking for a group systems , instant access to BGs from anywhere in the world on PVP servers ( keep them on PVE ones ).

I'm playing WoW at the moment and I'm seeing a lot of negativity about this latest patch in chat .

As a returning player its not really made a lot of difference to me because I had to remember how to pay my characters but boy is there a lot of anger over it  .

fahadjafar

after this patch all of the older EU servers are completely full, even most of the new servers are full, only a handful servers are in medium condition while it is peak hour for gaming. there are a lot of people who are really pissed about "farmville", but most of them(including me) are hoping that this farm system  will become a source of major pvp fun, like anyone can attack some other players farm anytime and then the player will have to create group and defend farm etc. but one thing i found out that everyone hates, is how hard tanking and healing has become with this new patch, personally i am pretty disappointed that my paladin is no longer a uber tank but i like the fact that  now i have challenges to overcome to tank. i hope they let us create our own scenarios too, like WC3, it will let us spend more time in game and create something to share with the server. also the new pvp resilience system is awesome, i created a low level to see the effect of it in low level pvp, guess what, the heirloom premades can no longer one shot us who don't have heirlooms. how cool is that? but i was really hoping they would give us something like..did you guys see tera or bns or gw2 character creation system? wish WoW would give us somthing like that. sometimes less is more you know, something trivial like character creation can make things even more interesting. but anyways i guess with all of the polished contents they are providiong we will have to do with the "new and not nice at all" character creation system.  

Xstatic912

As someone said earlier, open world pvp can be a bitch to implement because you will always has person who main enjoyment is to cause grief... Unless games implement a system like Gw2 where if a high level comes back to a lower zone and that high level is reduce in level to that of the zone.. ganking of lowbies won't stop..

Blizz themselves said it best... What work when wow launch won't work now, the mmo crowd is much more casual, they play mmo like how they play console games.. Rush to end then quit, nothing can stop that current trend..

The old days of fighting at taren mill or in the barrens won't happen again, because as it is in mmo now.. Unless there is some reward tied to something most person won't go out and do it..