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Another WoW review
BigKoopa
Member Posts: 1
After playing WoW since open beta, I'd like to share with you my review.
First of all, WoW was my first MMORPG. I'm one of those guys who joined the game because i was a huge fan of the RTS Warcraft serie (since warcraft I). When i was younger, i always wanted to play Ultima Online but internet wasn't cheap at that time (woot 14k bps modems 
) and i was a little too young (14 years old). I was reading stories about an open world where you could do everything you wanted to. No level based game was a good concept in my regard at that time (and still is).
I was expecting perma-conflicts between horde and alliance, building, destroying, capturing objectives in a permanent world. During the open beta, i liked raids on crossroads and auberdine and was expecting more of the same, and even better developpers implemented ideas on the matter. I was a bit dissapointed to discover that Blizzard choose a level and item (Diablo way) based game but had faith that it won't become centric. I have memories of the first time i was discovering new landscapes and i was astonished.
That's what kept me leveling my toon, hoping to be part of huge wars between the 2 factions. PvE was fun too, and for my first mmorpg, i didn't have huge expectations in this regard, but it became rather dull, boring and repetitive in gameplay after some time, but as a warcraft fan, i was all about the lore and the story.
Nearly 2 months after release i started to discover raids and instances when UBRS was end game, then MC. (when i was leveling, i made some instances but it didnt come to my mind that the end game will sum up to that). I dont like instanced areas. The concept stinks. I mean, you are in a persistant world or what? Instances were created for loot junkies i think, to prevent perma-camp of mobs, but it removes the thrill to get ambushed by others adventurers who dont want to share the treasure of the place, the joy to find a new ally, etc ...it renders linear something that could have been much more in the pve area. Anyway, i dealed with it, i was just thinking it was some sad decision on the concept part, but no game-breaking, just removing some fun possibilities. Perhaps due to technology limitations ..
How to remove instanced areas ? Randomize spawns, make them feel alive by making them move across the lands (even for low level mobs), make loot less important. In the same way, it solves a part of the dumb quests who turn out a bit more entertaining.
Anyway, at that time, there was UBRS/MC and world pvp. World pvp was rather fun, but balance wasnt that good (rogue?). Then Blizzard created the honor system. The idea of giving another way of progression to the game was good because PvE items was the best and was the only way to developp your char post 60. But Blizzard made it a with a ladder-server system, and it became a retarded grind (like PvE where you were running MC 40 times to have your loots).
Blizzard created end-game time-sinks (PvE with raid reset one time a week/PvP) to prevent turnover. As time-sinks grown bigger, incentives followed the trend and so item loot became inflated. (Latter on, T2+ was owning T0 people in pvp, u could handle 3vs1 with no skill in T2 vs T0)
But, Blizzard should have focused more on pvp. I think people would'nt have leave either..
With the introduction of the honor system, Hillsbrad became the playground of pvpers. Unfortunately servers couldn't handle the traffic with so many people. When people expected world pvp objectives additions, Blizzard added Battlegrounds instead of spreading out people on several zones to solve the server charge. Blizzard choosed the easy/lazy way : instanced pvp area.
I was loosing faith in my expectations of what should have turn out WoW. When other patchs came out (BWL, ZG, AQ), as they were all about instanced pve, i stopped play (at AQ40 release). The game became Raid or die.
I came back many times to the game. This game is polished and there's the lore. With BC i hoped Blizzard would solve my expectations in the pvp departement, but it became even more fucked up with arena imo (made it a restriction instead of an option/alternative), though Halaa was a step in what i hoped, yet it failed because of no incentives to play it. I fear WOTLK will be the same unfortunately.
I know Blizzard have :
- lessen the burden on raiding, made the story avaible to all with 10 ppl raid (WOTLK)
- allowed item progression via pvp(restricted to arena/bg) and craft (BC)
but Wow dont feel anymore alive for me 
They killed it slowly for me with their gameplay decisions.
I know that "grind" is a relative concept of own perception, it's my review of the game, my opinion. The game still feels alive for a lot of ppl when you check the subs and i'm happy for the people who still enjoy the game. I just see WoW as a huge money machine making now... i love the concept of MMO, there's still plenty of possibilities for that kind of games to developp. WoW became a commercialy winning-standart in the MMO industry gaming. I just hope it won't kill diversity.
On a side note, if you search on internet about WoW you might find an old interview of Prado stating that WoW was planed as a PvE and PvP game (gamespot i believe). There was also a good site about WoW developpement story but got closed down, i think it was Noggalcoolic, something like that (those who made the first explorations movies i think). You can also feel that there was a 2 steps in developpement for vanilla wow (1-40 and then 41-60). I'd love to know how WoW was in alpha and pre-alpha, what was the original plan for the game.
PS : English in not my native language.
Comments
Actually your English is pretty good. Nice review. I have just a few comments.
As far as instances go, the decision had nothing to do with technology. You weren't around prior to WoW to witness some of the issues that non-instanced dungeons leads to. How would you feel if you and your party of 5 waded thru dozens of mobs to get to the boss only to find another group already there and killing him repeatedly for loot everytime he spawned? And what if your group decided to try to "steal" the boss and then your group of 5 was killed by the other group there? Or what if instead of killing you directly the other group just aggro'd a bunch of mobs and then "trained" them to your party to wipe it? These were problems that other games prior to WoW had and the reason that Blizzard decided to make dungeons instanced. It avoids some issues.
Since WoW was your first MMORPG, you really weren't sure what MMORPG's were like or maybe more accurately what they should be like. You had a different vision for WoW, partially based on what the other Warcraft games had been. That's completely understandable, but at the same time I think for most people that had played MMO's before, WoW is pretty much what was expected.
I agree with a lot of what your saying.
For me, WoW has just become stale. I dont get the same feeling of exhileration.
I did write an article on my thoughts of WoW
What Blizzard did right and did wrong with World of Warcraft
MMORPG Characters immortalized!
LLyncu: Star Wars Galaxies (Chimaera)
Xiode: Age of Conan (Mannanan)
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us.
Some random comments, in no order whatsoever,
- As said before, many games before WoW had non instanced dungeons and many games after WoW has this too. At the time the instanced part was quite brand new and developed to basically do 2 things:
1) Stop those problems, in particular mob camping and silly "you have to book your Plane raids two weeks in advance with your guild or though luck finding it empty, pal"
2)story. Having instanced dungeons permits the Devs to be way more creative with dungeons than if it would not be instanced, it is a story being told and it would be ruined if multiple groups would be there at the same time as certain events would be triggered for some but not for others. Most importantly, the dungeon became YOUR group experience, not you and the millions other campers experience.
- I might have misunderstood you here, but it seems to me you were suggesting having RANDOM mob spawns, especially for quests?
If that is what you mean, I do not think that would be a good idea as "fun", in my book, is not wandering across a huge area looking for mob "X" and no one can help me because, well Mob "X" could be anywhere!
- WoW is Blizzard's first mmorpg, even more, it is their first non-action RPG and while they had some experience with Diablo, keep in mind much they are doing is experimental (like the Arenas), some will like it and some will not. From what I heard, Arenas are very well liked by some and hated by others, personally I never tried them, so I cannot say one way or the other but they looked quite interesting and were implemented after the ladder honor system was removed to give Hardcore Competitive PvPers something to work for.
- WOTLK is the biggest and most ambitious expansion for WoW to date, it includes a lot of stuff either completely new (flying mounts fighting in a fantasy game) or tried only in few games before (phasing technology was used in limited amount in LOTRO). It also focuses a lot more on the story and returns to Warcraft root after the Science-Fantasy romp that BC was.
It also includes a fully destructable pvp region with ridable siege engines and the like, so I think there is way more to this xp than most people realize, lots of new stuff, lots of changes and it could be the biggest thing to happen to WoW since release. I guess only time will tell.
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
DAOC had shared dungeons and they were a blast .. I think maybe the player base was more mature then say WoW's player base so you could run out or disrupt the trouble maker's to the point that they would leave the dungeon. Most if not all players were courteous to respect that the camp was taken for that time and to move on. I don't like instanced games and one reason i thought Guild Wars sucked.
Warhammer is a perfect example on how instancing can actually ruin a game experience. I'm a PVPr and in WOW the lack of or having to que for it even on PVP servers was not my cup of tea. Thats what i love about DAOC RVR system. You zone in for one purpose to take land and kill other players not to mention 200% exp bonus if you want to level in a high risk zone.
I personally don't like the casual game layout. I like to always have something to do when i log on be it combat, crafting or adventuring. Most importantly i desire the threat always looming of player vs player confrontation in an open and persistant player driven world.
I too was disappointed by WoW PvP. My vision of warcraft was a massive amount of people fighting in epic PvP battles in the open world. Unfortunately, it has become item-centric, repetitive arena/BGcraft with the same few BGs for endgame PvP.
I played wow from it's launch all the way through the honor grind, got high warlord (rank 14) then full arena sets, hoping for blazing new PvP content. All the while I missed large scale PvP, taking keeps and gaining points which lead to new abilities as well as gear. Arenas were fun for a while but got old pretty quickly.
At the same time I was disappointed with months of hardwork being made obsolete in 2 weeks of obtaining quest items from TBC expansion.
WoW definitely has some good things going for it, but I could not stand the lack of world PvP or the limited, item-centric, instanced, repetitive nature of WoW's endgame PvP and the fact that PvP content was put in so much slower than PvE content.
PS: Vista, I too love the shared PvP dungeons in DAOC.
Good post OP, kind of sums up WoW for me too. I still play, but it's mostly going through the motions, and being social with family and friends that continue to play. That's also why I continue to soldier on with buggy, underpopulated WAR, because it at least has the *potential* to be something more, and sometimes it actually is. But WoW will never be more than it is now, because the formula is popular and successful. Who am I to question an successful business model? Besides, maybe Wrath will suprise me - I doubt it, however, but I'm going to give it a shot. Bliz got lots of money from me anyway
DAOC had shared dungeons and they were a blast .. I think maybe the player base was more mature then say WoW's player base so you could run out or disrupt the trouble maker's to the point that they would leave the dungeon. Most if not all players were courteous to respect that the camp was taken for that time and to move on. I don't like instanced games and one reason i thought Guild Wars sucked.
Warhammer is a perfect example on how instancing can actually ruin a game experience. I'm a PVPr and in WOW the lack of or having to que for it even on PVP servers was not my cup of tea. Thats what i love about DAOC RVR system. You zone in for one purpose to take land and kill other players not to mention 200% exp bonus if you want to level in a high risk zone.
I personally don't like the casual game layout. I like to always have something to do when i log on be it combat, crafting or adventuring. Most importantly i desire the threat always looming of player vs player confrontation in an open and persistant player driven world.
People were more accepting of non instanced dungeons then because they hadn't seen the alternative. Now that people have seen the alternative, most like WoW's instanced dungeons. Sure, having shared dungeons is nice from time to time, but they cause more problems than they cure in my opinion.
Having played EQ2, I know all about shared instances and nothing is worse than seeing an entire instance being farmed by a level 80 poop-socking hotboxer leveling 4 other alts on 4 different accounts. If you hate grouping so much, then go play a single player game. Christ, I've never seen more hotboxers in an MMO than in EQ2. Then again, it doesn't really matter since it's pretty much a solo game anyway, until you raid.
DAOC had shared dungeons and they were a blast .. I think maybe the player base was more mature then say WoW's player base so you could run out or disrupt the trouble maker's to the point that they would leave the dungeon. Most if not all players were courteous to respect that the camp was taken for that time and to move on. I don't like instanced games and one reason i thought Guild Wars sucked.
Warhammer is a perfect example on how instancing can actually ruin a game experience. I'm a PVPr and in WOW the lack of or having to que for it even on PVP servers was not my cup of tea. Thats what i love about DAOC RVR system. You zone in for one purpose to take land and kill other players not to mention 200% exp bonus if you want to level in a high risk zone.
I personally don't like the casual game layout. I like to always have something to do when i log on be it combat, crafting or adventuring. Most importantly i desire the threat always looming of player vs player confrontation in an open and persistant player driven world.
People were more accepting of non instanced dungeons then because they hadn't seen the alternative. Now that people have seen the alternative, most like WoW's instanced dungeons. Sure, having shared dungeons is nice from time to time, but they cause more problems than they cure in my opinion.
Nah I actually like DF in DAOC. It was great, hope the bring back something similar in WAR. It was awesome to run in and wipe all the players in Darkness falls or be stuck inside and mount and ambush from a certain position fighting off greater numbers using baiting or kiting tactics.