Their original idea was to do this expansion a year and a half after wotlk, but it took more work than they expected to revamp the old world. That's why they only added 5 levels. The next xpac will come much faster. Imho, Cataclysm was well worth the wait.
Funny thing is, most WoW haters did not actually play the game, they just heard a friend of a friend of a neighbour of a friend who played it 4 minutes and didin´t like it.
And simply because hating the big bad wolf is the cool thing to do.
Actually I think most wow haters have played the game over and over and over again and are completely burned out on it. That would not be such a big deal if there was another game they could go play and enjoy, but the sad reality is that the market is filled with endless subpar games that just do not compare.
Thats why you hear people moaning about how "wow ruined the genre" or how the last expansion didn't change enough to bring back veterans (read: burned out players). They want blizzard to totally revamp the game to give them a new experience, because other companies have been incapable so far.
Cataclysm isn't going to change the minds of those who are burned out and desperately need a new game to play. It will be a big change for those who enjoy the game and it will reinvigorate the old world making it relevant again.
While most other mmos just pile on new content which further devalues the old wolds and increases the barrier to join the game. I suspect most games will have their own style of cataclysm after being on the market for a number of years.
I see so many failed arguements about how they did this expansion all wrong but guess what? If you buy or play mmos just to level or find joy out of actually how long it takes you to ding. You're going to find that more and more future mmos are going to fail in your eyes. The age of level grinding to stroke your ego is D-E-A-D. GW2, TOR, RIFT and a slew of other new mmos are foregoing that antiquarian gameplay hook. If you still find this as a key reason for purchasing a mmo, do yourself a favor and clear your preorder list.
As far as easy of use and presence of challenge, the expansion has both. Granted you have to WANT to seek out challenges to tackle this. Heroics, raids and PvP all offer challenges presently found in all other mmos. So the challenge is there, you just choose to ignore it. I mean don't get me wrong. There are flaws with the expansion (bugs), but so far I've had at least two areas to branch off into for questline exploration during my leveling so far (and I'm level 17) and I find that if you're looking for story/lore, then questing is the way to do that. If you're looking for a traditional leveling process, get together 20 friends and grind away and if you're looking for a challenging leveling process, then try doing it in battleground or heroic dungeons.
But don't try undermining what Blizzard has accomplished with this 2-part expansion:
They completely changed the world, lore and gameplay mechanics for most classes without actually taking a dip in demand for the game. And they've done this for 3 expansions in a row. Not bad for a 6 year old mmo I must say. And don't worry I'll be gone as soon as the queue for my server is up (currently 1787 with a 200 minute wait).
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
I see so many failed arguements about how they did this expansion all wrong but guess what? If you buy or play mmos just to level or find joy out of actually how long it takes you to ding. You're going to find that more and more future mmos are going to fail in your eyes. The age of level grinding to stroke your ego is D-E-A-D. GW2, TOR, RIFT and a slew of other new mmos are foregoing that antiquarian gameplay hook. If you still find this as a key reason for purchasing a mmo, do yourself a favor and clear your preorder list.
As far as easy of use and presence of challenge, the expansion has both. Granted you have to WANT to seek out challenges to tackle this. Heroics, raids and PvP all offer challenges presently found in all other mmos. So the challenge is there, you just choose to ignore it. I mean don't get me wrong. There are flaws with the expansion (bugs), but so far I've had at least two areas to branch off into for questline exploration during my leveling so far (and I'm level 17) and I find that if you're looking for story/lore, then questing is the way to do that. If you're looking for a traditional leveling process, get together 20 friends and grind away and if you're looking for a challenging leveling process, then try doing it in battleground or heroic dungeons.
But don't try undermining what Blizzard has accomplished with this 2-part expansion:
They completely changed the world, lore and gameplay mechanics for most classes without actually taking a dip in demand for the game. And they've done this for 3 expansions in a row. Not bad for a 6 year old mmo I must say. And don't worry I'll be gone as soon as the queue for my server is up (currently 1787 with a 200 minute wait).
Dont bother dude this site is full of WoW haters. I read things of 'LOL what did they do lolroflcopterwtf!?!?!' It's like ummmm they only like changed 2 continents worth of content as well as add ontop a expansions worth of content and change other things like class and UI. Thats tons of work and the 2 continents worth is for people without the expansion thats nearly like making it for free. They did a huge amount of work and if you cant see it well your blind, still people will go on and say they did nothing. Sigh.
I think that Blizzard is feeling the heat from the current/future MMO market. They knew they had to go all in with this "patch" since they have serious competition for the first time in their existence. I have never been a sky is falling naysayer about "WoW killer" games, but Blizzard has some serious competition with ToR, TERA, RIFT, GW2, DCUO (console options will make it big), and all the games going F2P.
And...I seriously don't agree with the best expansion comment. AoC RotGS and Lotro's game changing expansions are true expansions. WoW's should have been called a revamping patch...not expansion.
Never got the argument that because its popular it is bad. To state the obvious popular means a lot of people like what you are doing so you are doing something right.
Had to LOL at this. Half assed as in mixxing a few things around in Azeroth, while not adding new classes to give a veteran a reason to go back through and experience it. I mean 2 new races but for what when there arent any new classes to experience?!? Oh wait lemme guess, they added classes to races that weren't there before and we spin this to make the lemmings feel like they are playen something new. Maybe I am just bitter because I came from FFXI where there were a huge amount of options of what to play, but even my wife (who was the reason I ever played WoW) has no interest in this expansion after how easy the game has become and shes about as casual as you can get.
I hear the new heroics are hard and take time to clear. Sure for now but they will be dumbed down in no time to appease the masses. Game has lost its appeal, and this expansion failed to strike even a spark of interest. But to each his own, if you wanna pay this lazy company for a shitty product, who am I to tell you you are wrong, but I wouldn't claim its the best expansion ever released by any means. Opinions may vary.
If you played all 10 classes to max lvl you have to much free time. I doubt that the majority has more than 2-3 80s. Aside from that its not the strong point of the expansion, the storytelling reached a new lvl towering over anything else on the market
With 2 deployments and a way to communicate with my family, yes I made enough time to have more than 2-3 80's. I mentioned I played FFXI, meaning I know what it is like to plan to play rather than play for an hour when I could, so sometimes I played at length. Conciddering I started when TBC was about to release, and I have as many classes as I do, it isn't that far fetched as you make it sound. Point is 80 or not. i have tried all of the classes, just haven't geared or capped them all. A lotta us that have been around the block might want something new to keep us around. I mean I need a good reason to keep playen, conciddering the difficulty has declined, along with the shitty community. For a guy who has claimed to have played them all, I just find it dumb as shit to claim this is the greatest. I haven't played them all but I can name some that were better. Hell any in FFXI were better.
As always the same guys trying to stop the juggernaut. But they have no clue what they try to stop here.
Let me explain it to you in 4 simple words.
Blizzard raised the bar...
I know the "next big thing" will need to be better then this and I say: near impossible because of the needed resources.
The rest is an immature teenage discussion of people who simply don't have a clue what's behind the structure of that billion dollar developpers wall.
-Reality CHECK-
This game brings in more dollars per year than AVATAR.
They can afford the best game designers, the best artists, the best developpers and the best programmers.
And then add some.
Good luck in finding anything that is even remotely close to this. You will not.
so all this billions, the best concept people in the business, best devs and etc. and what Blizzard is selling for almost 40 quid is few high res textures in vanilla areas, few more raids, dungeons, two f-o races and no new classes, right on...
WoW fans must like getting milked by Blizzard, just like people who worship Apple and treat every release of their products like a revelation. A revelation from a TV evangelist more like...
As always the same guys trying to stop the juggernaut. But they have no clue what they try to stop here.
Let me explain it to you in 4 simple words.
Blizzard raised the bar...
I know the "next big thing" will need to be better then this and I say: near impossible because of the needed resources.
The rest is an immature teenage discussion of people who simply don't have a clue what's behind the structure of that billion dollar developpers wall.
-Reality CHECK-
This game brings in more dollars per year than AVATAR.
They can afford the best game designers, the best artists, the best developpers and the best programmers.
And then add some.
Good luck in finding anything that is even remotely close to this. You will not.
so all this billions, the best concept people in the business, best devs and etc. and what Blizzard is selling for almost 40 quid is few high res textures in vanilla areas, few more raids, dungeons, two f-o races and no new classes, right on...
WoW fans must like getting milked by Blizzard, just like people who worship Apple and treat every release of their products like a revelation. A revelation from a TV evangelist more like...
In a recent interview they said It took them 10 men and one year alone to redo both the cities of Stormwind and Ogrimmar and ...
you destroy the complete overhaul of the orignal huge WOW contintents, dungeons, and 3000 adventures in them ... in one sentence.
As always the same guys trying to stop the juggernaut. But they have no clue what they try to stop here.
Let me explain it to you in 4 simple words.
Blizzard raised the bar...
I know the "next big thing" will need to be better then this and I say: near impossible because of the needed resources.
The rest is an immature teenage discussion of people who simply don't have a clue what's behind the structure of that billion dollar developpers wall.
-Reality CHECK-
This game brings in more dollars per year than AVATAR.
They can afford the best game designers, the best artists, the best developpers and the best programmers.
And then add some.
Good luck in finding anything that is even remotely close to this. You will not.
so all this billions, the best concept people in the business, best devs and etc. and what Blizzard is selling for almost 40 quid is few high res textures in vanilla areas, few more raids, dungeons, two f-o races and no new classes, right on...
WoW fans must like getting milked by Blizzard, just like people who worship Apple and treat every release of their products like a revelation. A revelation from a TV evangelist more like...
In a recent interview they said It took them 10 men and one year alone to redo both the cities of Stormwind and Ogrimmar and ...
you destroy the complete overhaul of the orignal huge WOW contintents, dungeons, and 3000 adventures in them ... in one sentence.
.. that says it all really. Spoiled.
A balanced view on WOW would occasionaly be nice (not aimed at you Zao) but Blizzard did not run over your cat. Calm down.
Not best ever in my opinion, its pretty good yes but not best ever. Its more of a needed fix to old and outdated than a best ever. Best ever thing I seen added in an expansion is Skirmishes in LoTRO. Not saying the entire expansion was great either, but the skirmishes were definately up there on the scale of great 'things' in MMORPG history.
Aye very few expensions are really very good..
Lotro had a good one, I also like a lot about cataclysm... A bit of new things and a bit of back to the roots... Seeing wher things went down the line for WoW... and repairing it in an awkward manner.. Making the last 5 levels much harder then the rest of the current game...
Best expansion title ever goes to Turbine, as teh F2P expansion of D&D revived the total game... Also the first expansion of EQ was pure awesomeness.. And what about GW, Eye of the North?
But cataclysme really made the total experience of level 1 to 85 a much better one..
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
No doubt they have handled it very well and I was going to avoid this thread, but I question the last part of your post op. Many other mmo's do not draw a similar size playerbase to WoW because they have less forgiving mechanics in place, not due to their developers being any less 'passionate'.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
I would say The Burning Crusade was a terrific expansion and probably WOW's best.
While Cataclsym did redo the early part of the game and the landscape, IMO their introducing such a linear quest/cutscene/phasing layout has turned this game into a Single Player RPG experience and killed it as a MMORPG. WOW is dead to me as an MMO and that's too bad because there are ZERO games out there with WOW's polish. ZERO. Some better designs, maybe, but NONE with WOW's polish.
However, Blizzard is doing a great service by conducting this (linear/cutscene/phasing) design experiment on a massive scale. We can all see it fail and feel assured that future games will not go down this path.
It's time for MMORPG's to go back to being worlds and not limit themselves to being on-rails "stories".
I agree but it had become a single player game anyway from 1-80 so you gotta move with the times. Is Blizz's last roll of the dice (sp?) before GW2 and STWOR take over. So give the people what they want eh?
I haven't experienced it all, and although I am enjoying this expansion far more than Wrath (I do get a kick out of the Goblin starter area; the Worgen starter area is a bit flat); I think BC was the better expansion.
I haven't experienced it all, and although I am enjoying this expansion far more than Wrath (I do get a kick out of the Goblin starter area; the Worgen starter area is a bit flat); I think BC was the better expansion.
haha the worgen area does steal horribly from Fable 2 and while I am on the sunject, storylines do massively detract from the whole MMO experience. Contradicting myself a lot cause I am straddling the fence.
Well, against my son's advice, I did not roll a new character in the Goblin area, but created a Tauren Warrior. (haven't played WOW in over 4 years)
Granted, I'm only at level 10, but so far the experience isn't all that different than when I left. Usual assortment of kill tasks and what not, though I do see the underlying theme or storyline they're trying to tie most of them to.
One thing different, went to turn in a quest and found 1/2 of the NPC's including my quest giver dead. I assume this was from a Deathwing attack?
No matter, within 20 minutes everyone was back at their station but it will be interesting to see what goes on when everyone dies.
So I can't really weigh in on how revolutionary the expansion is yet but I'll wait before deliverying the verdict.
You know, I was wondering the same thing. Until I saw a video review supplement on the escapist. It showed some mode of transpor where you jump from steamtornado to tornado (reminded me of "Alice") to move around or a quest where you are firing from some tail gun, some quest where you put a box on your head to overhear a conversation to thwart some plans, a quest where you dangle some guy over a fan in order to make him tell you some info, etc. Also the review mentions watching a debate between rival clans and then hunting down the traitor.
I mean, if that stuff is in game (perhaps newer quests?) then it seems like there are things that are more than kill x of y. These are the types of things that quests should be incorporating.
Also, it mentions more cinematics for storytelling purposes.
my sense is that this expansion just cranks what was old wow up to 11. At least in the context of what would be considered 11 for WoW.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Haters be hatin'. I loved the expansion. Got me back playing again. I am quite enamored of Goblins. I doubt I'll play any other races for from here on out. Once you go green, you never... um... well, yeah.
I really enjoyed questing in Hyjal. Hit 82 last night and now I have just landed in deepholm. Awesome quest in Hyjal. The pace, the lore, the rewards, the scenary, the difficulty (many quest are easy while others actually require you to pay attention and be on top of your timing and ability control), everything in Hyjal fit well together.
I actually fully read every quest that I did and really enjoyed the lore built around Ysera, Cenarius, Malfurion, and the ancient protectors. I'm pretty pysched about doing deepholm now and I will continue to go at a slower pace so I can soak up all the quest lore.
I didn't think they would improve upon the questing layout of TBC and WOTLK, but Cata's quest are superior.
I can't comment on level 85 raiding or dungeons yet, but I hear they are very difficult - "back to the TBC days" most people are saying in terms of difficulty (5 man heroics in TBC required coordination on EVERY pull). And I am fine with that. Infact, I think it will make things much more interesting and enjoyable.
I'm loving Cata. But the best MMO expansion? Nah. Mainly because, I've hit max level on my main, which is fine, but I'm back to square one in the gear/rep grind endgame which is a tad annoying. Sure, the rest of the game is great now, playing alts never better. But man oh man, the endgame still bites the big one. This is where WoW is different from the genre and where it's main weakness is. Other games give you housing and alternate advancement points and collections and social things to do. WoW doesn't.
Now I love WoW, but if they EVER make an expansion as good as BC plus add all of the above THEN it will be the greatest MMO expansion ever.
I personally feel that Blizzard have come to rely on the formula of "resetting" the game with expansion to a degree where it is getting boring now. Whilst I can certainly understand the need to keep players motivated, this has generally come at a cost to the rest of their experiences prior. It's not a formula that they are likely to shy away from in the future, but I personally feel that they would do well to actually expand the variety of content in the game, rather than expanding the game itself, but sticking to the same content offering year on year.
I personally think that what World of Warcraft does right now is better than any other game on the market. Sadly however I think this has come at a cost, and that cost is a severe lack of depth where content is concerned. And whilst other MMOs are working to expand not only the existing content they offer, they are also looking at new content offerings all of the time. I mean, I think that while World of Warcraft is a better game generally than a lot of its peers, it's content offering is not comparable to that of games like Lord of the Rings Online, EverQuest 2 and Guild Wars.
In my opinion it's high time that Blizzard started looking at more player-driven content. Things like player housing and guild halls are leaving a massive gap in the game that, whilst some don't consider empty missing, lots do. A dye system for gear isn't hard to implement, for example, and allows far more in the way customisation. At the moment, everyone looks the same but with a simple customisation system like this, players would be able to define themselves, even if it is in a highly rudimentary sense.
It's this sort of thing that is likely to drive people into the arms of the new generation of MMOs. I've not played the SWTOR beta, but I am familiar with people that have, and have seen it being played on numerous ocassions. From what I can tell it has exactly the same level of polish and attention to detail when it comes to making sure it all works, but has a far greater scope and depth than World of Warcraft. I mean, it's all there - crafting, questing, grinding, instances, group content, solo and group PvP, etc - and is as good (if not better) than the equivalent content being offered by Blizzard. But on top of that there are things like player housing in the form of ships that just add that little extra that I'd like to see in WoW.
WoW is not a bad game. It's just an exercise of well delivered and perfectly polished mediocrity. I think reviewers are going to look at Cataclysm and go, "WoW is awesome. 9/10." Sadly however their opinion is missing one fundamental element and that is that beyond the polish, beyond the well structured content, the game is merely a mess of grinding and delivery quests, a formula that has been used for 6 years now and is getting tired and boring. If you compare where WoW is at in terms of evolution to games like EQ2, LotRo and Eve, it is archaic, bloated, and shallow. It needs NEW content, not new-old content.
Who could have thought that WOW could bring super power like USA to its knees?
Originally posted by Arcken
To put it in a nutshell, our society is about to hit the fan, grades are dropping, obesity is going up,childhood the USA is going to lose its super power status before too long, but hey, as long as we have a cheap method to babysit our kids, all will be well no? Im picking on WoW btw because its the beast that made all of this possible
Funny thing is, most WoW haters did not actually play the game, they just heard a friend of a friend of a neighbour of a friend who played it 4 minutes and didin´t like it.
And simply because hating the big bad wolf is the cool thing to do.
I played Wow longer than a year. I want my time and money back, but I wasted it and that's my own fault.
Imo, WoW sucks. It ruined an entire genre. But enjoy the happy meal, they are addicting!
Funny thing is, most WoW haters did not actually play the game, they just heard a friend of a friend of a neighbour of a friend who played it 4 minutes and didin´t like it.
And simply because hating the big bad wolf is the cool thing to do.
I played Wow longer than a year. I want my time and money back, but I wasted it and that's my own fault.
Imo, WoW sucks. It ruined an entire genre. But enjoy the happy meal, they are addicting!
Ruined? nah. Don't blame WOW if other companies wan't to go easy route and copy it. As far as addicting every MMO you like and get into is addicting. So these comparisons with Mcdonalds are really stupid.
Comments
Their original idea was to do this expansion a year and a half after wotlk, but it took more work than they expected to revamp the old world. That's why they only added 5 levels. The next xpac will come much faster. Imho, Cataclysm was well worth the wait.
Actually I think most wow haters have played the game over and over and over again and are completely burned out on it. That would not be such a big deal if there was another game they could go play and enjoy, but the sad reality is that the market is filled with endless subpar games that just do not compare.
Thats why you hear people moaning about how "wow ruined the genre" or how the last expansion didn't change enough to bring back veterans (read: burned out players). They want blizzard to totally revamp the game to give them a new experience, because other companies have been incapable so far.
Cataclysm isn't going to change the minds of those who are burned out and desperately need a new game to play. It will be a big change for those who enjoy the game and it will reinvigorate the old world making it relevant again.
While most other mmos just pile on new content which further devalues the old wolds and increases the barrier to join the game. I suspect most games will have their own style of cataclysm after being on the market for a number of years.
I see so many failed arguements about how they did this expansion all wrong but guess what? If you buy or play mmos just to level or find joy out of actually how long it takes you to ding. You're going to find that more and more future mmos are going to fail in your eyes. The age of level grinding to stroke your ego is D-E-A-D. GW2, TOR, RIFT and a slew of other new mmos are foregoing that antiquarian gameplay hook. If you still find this as a key reason for purchasing a mmo, do yourself a favor and clear your preorder list.
As far as easy of use and presence of challenge, the expansion has both. Granted you have to WANT to seek out challenges to tackle this. Heroics, raids and PvP all offer challenges presently found in all other mmos. So the challenge is there, you just choose to ignore it. I mean don't get me wrong. There are flaws with the expansion (bugs), but so far I've had at least two areas to branch off into for questline exploration during my leveling so far (and I'm level 17) and I find that if you're looking for story/lore, then questing is the way to do that. If you're looking for a traditional leveling process, get together 20 friends and grind away and if you're looking for a challenging leveling process, then try doing it in battleground or heroic dungeons.
But don't try undermining what Blizzard has accomplished with this 2-part expansion:
They completely changed the world, lore and gameplay mechanics for most classes without actually taking a dip in demand for the game. And they've done this for 3 expansions in a row. Not bad for a 6 year old mmo I must say. And don't worry I'll be gone as soon as the queue for my server is up (currently 1787 with a 200 minute wait).
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
Dont bother dude this site is full of WoW haters. I read things of 'LOL what did they do lolroflcopterwtf!?!?!' It's like ummmm they only like changed 2 continents worth of content as well as add ontop a expansions worth of content and change other things like class and UI. Thats tons of work and the 2 continents worth is for people without the expansion thats nearly like making it for free. They did a huge amount of work and if you cant see it well your blind, still people will go on and say they did nothing. Sigh.
I think that Blizzard is feeling the heat from the current/future MMO market. They knew they had to go all in with this "patch" since they have serious competition for the first time in their existence. I have never been a sky is falling naysayer about "WoW killer" games, but Blizzard has some serious competition with ToR, TERA, RIFT, GW2, DCUO (console options will make it big), and all the games going F2P.
And...I seriously don't agree with the best expansion comment. AoC RotGS and Lotro's game changing expansions are true expansions. WoW's should have been called a revamping patch...not expansion.
Never got the argument that because its popular it is bad. To state the obvious popular means a lot of people like what you are doing so you are doing something right.
Chins
With 2 deployments and a way to communicate with my family, yes I made enough time to have more than 2-3 80's. I mentioned I played FFXI, meaning I know what it is like to plan to play rather than play for an hour when I could, so sometimes I played at length. Conciddering I started when TBC was about to release, and I have as many classes as I do, it isn't that far fetched as you make it sound. Point is 80 or not. i have tried all of the classes, just haven't geared or capped them all. A lotta us that have been around the block might want something new to keep us around. I mean I need a good reason to keep playen, conciddering the difficulty has declined, along with the shitty community. For a guy who has claimed to have played them all, I just find it dumb as shit to claim this is the greatest. I haven't played them all but I can name some that were better. Hell any in FFXI were better.
RIP Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan and Paul Gray.
so all this billions, the best concept people in the business, best devs and etc. and what Blizzard is selling for almost 40 quid is few high res textures in vanilla areas, few more raids, dungeons, two f-o races and no new classes, right on...
WoW fans must like getting milked by Blizzard, just like people who worship Apple and treat every release of their products like a revelation. A revelation from a TV evangelist more like...
In a recent interview they said It took them 10 men and one year alone to redo both the cities of Stormwind and Ogrimmar and ...
you destroy the complete overhaul of the orignal huge WOW contintents, dungeons, and 3000 adventures in them ... in one sentence.
.. that says it all really. Spoiled.
A balanced view on WOW would occasionaly be nice (not aimed at you Zao) but Blizzard did not run over your cat. Calm down.
Chins
As long as anyone doesn't touch my Real Madrid I couldn't care less.
CR7 is popular and the best.
Aye very few expensions are really very good..
Lotro had a good one, I also like a lot about cataclysm... A bit of new things and a bit of back to the roots... Seeing wher things went down the line for WoW... and repairing it in an awkward manner.. Making the last 5 levels much harder then the rest of the current game...
Best expansion title ever goes to Turbine, as teh F2P expansion of D&D revived the total game... Also the first expansion of EQ was pure awesomeness.. And what about GW, Eye of the North?
But cataclysme really made the total experience of level 1 to 85 a much better one..
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
No doubt they have handled it very well and I was going to avoid this thread, but I question the last part of your post op. Many other mmo's do not draw a similar size playerbase to WoW because they have less forgiving mechanics in place, not due to their developers being any less 'passionate'.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
I agree but it had become a single player game anyway from 1-80 so you gotta move with the times. Is Blizz's last roll of the dice (sp?) before GW2 and STWOR take over. So give the people what they want eh?
Chins
I haven't experienced it all, and although I am enjoying this expansion far more than Wrath (I do get a kick out of the Goblin starter area; the Worgen starter area is a bit flat); I think BC was the better expansion.
haha the worgen area does steal horribly from Fable 2 and while I am on the sunject, storylines do massively detract from the whole MMO experience. Contradicting myself a lot cause I am straddling the fence.
Chins
You know, I was wondering the same thing. Until I saw a video review supplement on the escapist. It showed some mode of transpor where you jump from steamtornado to tornado (reminded me of "Alice") to move around or a quest where you are firing from some tail gun, some quest where you put a box on your head to overhear a conversation to thwart some plans, a quest where you dangle some guy over a fan in order to make him tell you some info, etc. Also the review mentions watching a debate between rival clans and then hunting down the traitor.
I mean, if that stuff is in game (perhaps newer quests?) then it seems like there are things that are more than kill x of y. These are the types of things that quests should be incorporating.
Also, it mentions more cinematics for storytelling purposes.
my sense is that this expansion just cranks what was old wow up to 11. At least in the context of what would be considered 11 for WoW.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Haters be hatin'. I loved the expansion. Got me back playing again. I am quite enamored of Goblins. I doubt I'll play any other races for from here on out. Once you go green, you never... um... well, yeah.
you never go gnome?
Chins
I really enjoyed questing in Hyjal. Hit 82 last night and now I have just landed in deepholm. Awesome quest in Hyjal. The pace, the lore, the rewards, the scenary, the difficulty (many quest are easy while others actually require you to pay attention and be on top of your timing and ability control), everything in Hyjal fit well together.
I actually fully read every quest that I did and really enjoyed the lore built around Ysera, Cenarius, Malfurion, and the ancient protectors. I'm pretty pysched about doing deepholm now and I will continue to go at a slower pace so I can soak up all the quest lore.
I didn't think they would improve upon the questing layout of TBC and WOTLK, but Cata's quest are superior.
I can't comment on level 85 raiding or dungeons yet, but I hear they are very difficult - "back to the TBC days" most people are saying in terms of difficulty (5 man heroics in TBC required coordination on EVERY pull). And I am fine with that. Infact, I think it will make things much more interesting and enjoyable.
I am really enjoying the xpac so far.
I'm loving Cata. But the best MMO expansion? Nah. Mainly because, I've hit max level on my main, which is fine, but I'm back to square one in the gear/rep grind endgame which is a tad annoying. Sure, the rest of the game is great now, playing alts never better. But man oh man, the endgame still bites the big one. This is where WoW is different from the genre and where it's main weakness is. Other games give you housing and alternate advancement points and collections and social things to do. WoW doesn't.
Now I love WoW, but if they EVER make an expansion as good as BC plus add all of the above THEN it will be the greatest MMO expansion ever.
I personally feel that Blizzard have come to rely on the formula of "resetting" the game with expansion to a degree where it is getting boring now. Whilst I can certainly understand the need to keep players motivated, this has generally come at a cost to the rest of their experiences prior. It's not a formula that they are likely to shy away from in the future, but I personally feel that they would do well to actually expand the variety of content in the game, rather than expanding the game itself, but sticking to the same content offering year on year.
I personally think that what World of Warcraft does right now is better than any other game on the market. Sadly however I think this has come at a cost, and that cost is a severe lack of depth where content is concerned. And whilst other MMOs are working to expand not only the existing content they offer, they are also looking at new content offerings all of the time. I mean, I think that while World of Warcraft is a better game generally than a lot of its peers, it's content offering is not comparable to that of games like Lord of the Rings Online, EverQuest 2 and Guild Wars.
In my opinion it's high time that Blizzard started looking at more player-driven content. Things like player housing and guild halls are leaving a massive gap in the game that, whilst some don't consider empty missing, lots do. A dye system for gear isn't hard to implement, for example, and allows far more in the way customisation. At the moment, everyone looks the same but with a simple customisation system like this, players would be able to define themselves, even if it is in a highly rudimentary sense.
It's this sort of thing that is likely to drive people into the arms of the new generation of MMOs. I've not played the SWTOR beta, but I am familiar with people that have, and have seen it being played on numerous ocassions. From what I can tell it has exactly the same level of polish and attention to detail when it comes to making sure it all works, but has a far greater scope and depth than World of Warcraft. I mean, it's all there - crafting, questing, grinding, instances, group content, solo and group PvP, etc - and is as good (if not better) than the equivalent content being offered by Blizzard. But on top of that there are things like player housing in the form of ships that just add that little extra that I'd like to see in WoW.
WoW is not a bad game. It's just an exercise of well delivered and perfectly polished mediocrity. I think reviewers are going to look at Cataclysm and go, "WoW is awesome. 9/10." Sadly however their opinion is missing one fundamental element and that is that beyond the polish, beyond the well structured content, the game is merely a mess of grinding and delivery quests, a formula that has been used for 6 years now and is getting tired and boring. If you compare where WoW is at in terms of evolution to games like EQ2, LotRo and Eve, it is archaic, bloated, and shallow. It needs NEW content, not new-old content.
http://www.themmoquest.com - MMO commentary from an overly angry brit. OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED!
I don't know about the best but its loads of fun.
Who could have thought that WOW could bring super power like USA to its knees?
Originally posted by Arcken
To put it in a nutshell, our society is about to hit the fan, grades are dropping, obesity is going up,childhood the USA is going to lose its super power status before too long, but hey, as long as we have a cheap method to babysit our kids, all will be well no?
Im picking on WoW btw because its the beast that made all of this possible
I played Wow longer than a year. I want my time and money back, but I wasted it and that's my own fault.
Imo, WoW sucks. It ruined an entire genre. But enjoy the happy meal, they are addicting!
mmm pizza
Ruined? nah. Don't blame WOW if other companies wan't to go easy route and copy it. As far as addicting every MMO you like and get into is addicting. So these comparisons with Mcdonalds are really stupid.
Bite Me