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World of Warcraft: Ive been WoWed sue me
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In the MMO world there is one large elephant in the room: World of Warcraft. If forum postings were to be believed, there are those who love it and those who hate it with nary a soul in between. But, believe it or not, MMORPG.com's Isabelle Parsley IS one of the in-betweens and she's got a few things to say about World of Warcraft since she's rejoined the game post-Cataclysm. Check out her thoughts and then give us your reaction in the comments below.
A quick tangent here: yes, I know WoW has issues. No, I’m not saying it’s a perfect game. I no longer debate these things with anyone who is so entrenched on one side or the other that they can’t even consider a point of view other than their own. Zealotry and fanaticism are distasteful and pointless in terms of debate, no matter what the subject. End tangent.
Read more of Isabelle Parsley's Player Perspectives: I’ve been WoWed – sue me.
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Comments
like the pics
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There are many people who are still on the middle that acknowledge the game has some of the best quest based system as well as some good story and lore to RP with. Like you said it doesn't do a lot right, PvP has been somewhat broken for years, the nerf wars, the simplification of skills....etc.
Only reason i quit WOW couple years back was it became too easy to reach 80 and i didn't find that much challenge in the dungeouns even on hard mode, PUGing sucked, and certain battle grounds had nothing but twinks playing them.
Can't dispute what WOW has done but like you said eventually that shinyness or newness eventually wears off.
Excellent article.
Dem hibbies! Dey be wrong!
So you're saying that after half a decade they actually learned something? Good for them!
Tried the game for 2 weeks, got a light form of eye cancer and finally quit because I didnt find it even remotely funny to deal with NPCs called Harris Pilton and the like. But from the choice of illustrations in this article I see again that humor lies in the eye of the beholder.
To each its own.
Nice artcle but change is only good if it leads to a positive direction. Sure WoW does some good but I'm not sure many get that warm fuzzy feeling like they did years ago.
Well, your eyesight must really suck then?
@the OP, I completely agree with you. I would play WoW but I am one of those 0.01% who have levelled up all chars and I am bored to death because I know everything about the game. I was never a hardcore player. The reason I have so many alts is that I never was much of a raider and kept rerolling
But yeah I can see where the game falls flat but it really is annoying to see so many people bashing WoW where most of them spend 1-5+ years playing the game but now it's the worst thing since the dark times when people didn't have sliced bread ;P
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
I've been playing WoW off an on since 2003, enjoyed every expansion, adapting to every change they've made to the game. If there is one thing I've learned in life, which also applies to games, it is that things will inevitably change. Adapt, overcome, endure or die.
Some excellent points in this article. I went back to after a 4 year hiatus. I left previously because of the ridiculous raiding and the strains it put on relationships. I still have a laugh at the really serious people who still play, but I have generally had fun playing the game. Although I did not like the sea instance. Seemed to have larger issues than the other areas and it gave no reputation to speak of when you now expect such when doing quests. Pugs are such that you just have to put up with bad players at times. Have had some good ones and bad ones. I do like it that the impatient ones have to suffer a 30 minute wait though when they leave early.
WoW was great until the invention of the gear score.
When people ask to do a gear check, it is time for me to remind them it is just a game and to get a life.
The entire game does a gear check now. You cannot do certain things until you have the right gear score. You want to tell Blizzard it is just a game?
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?
To those who believe, no proof is necessary. To those who don't believe, no proof is possible.
Well written.
I, like you, have come back to try Cataclysm... is it as completely changed as everyone keeps telling me? No, not really... but its still the same fun gameplay I remember.
Yes, I would actually... But i'm not the vocal majority, so Blizzard would disregard anything I suggest.
Gear score is pretty much a blasphemy and I wish I knew where the tool-of-a-person lived that decided it was a good idea to impliment that in the most popular mmo out there. Totally ruined everything good and whole about the online social community. No one cares to build friendships or allies anymore unless the gear score standard is met first, so people don't even pay attention to other player's actual talent/skill.
Gear score is just a number showing how 'good' the items are that a player has and generally rounds it all out to a net value that players use to judge other players on. This means your gear score goes up without effort since just spending the time to go back and forth into dungeons will get you better items. even if you fail at your role, you get items, and your gear score goes up and then other players think you're awesome when you really are just patient enough to wait for more gear to fall in your lap.
NO ONE has to be a good player to get a high gear score, and having a low gear score doesn't automatically mean 'no good' either.
Til I find a better timesink, I'm stuck with friends in WoW. I really wish someone, anyone would come up with a more engrossing, fun MMO.
As one of those "hardcore" raiders you here so much about, i would like to point out that people who post things like "LFG must have x gs" are almost ALWAYS bads, and we openly mock them.
GS IS meaningless, because (and again, this is coming from a raiding pov, not a casual, wherein your gear really shouldn't matter) who cares if you have an average item leel of 362 if you gear completly wrong, spec wrong, gem wrong, and play wrong?
GS is currently a gateway to get into heroics, and that's fine, they increased the difficulty enough that the average person couldn't tank or a heal any of the fights without the extra gear (and i do agree that you shouldn't be able to hit 85 and start doing heroics right away).
But, in my one daily pug run, i run into people who have the gs to que for heroics, and by and large they have no idea how to play their class.
If they implemented a skill score it would be awesome.
I am a WOW noob for rightly 2 weeks now. I too share the middle ground towards the game. I only had played WOW once before, years ago for a very short time. Seeing WOW in Cata era I must say I found the questing in the new old zones quite great, and in some zones even standart-setting. Epic storylines like Westfall or Redridge Mountains are really cool endeavors. Especially the phasing allows permanent changes from your doins here and there, a feature which really impacts the fun a lot. Moving on into the post level 60 area of Outland really feels like a step back in boredom now, seeing the old fashioned "fetch 15 of X" bore. IMVPO Blizzard has outdone themselves with Cataclysm especially in the terms of making interesting quests. I really found myself READING all the stories contained, which I rarely do usually.
The gameplay of the classes is very balanced and overall pretty much fun, especially with the dual skill trees where you can play different roles depending on whether you are PVE soloing, grouped or PVPing. This really gives a great versatility, and to a degree stole the uniqueness of Rift's soul system.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Actually, you misunderstand me. I loathe WoW, and I pretty much agree with everything you just said.
Edit: My point was that Blizzard is no longer a gaming company first, as it once was. It is all about the profit, and the easy game that everyone can do if they put in the time for the gear has proven to be the most profitable. I think that is why so many games are doing the same thing now. It makes me very sad.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?
When Cataclysm came out I noticed that Gearscore would rate my new green cata gear that's a couple levels higher and with much higher stats than my epic wotlk gear with a much lower score. The only thing that makes sense for that is if Gearscore assigns a value to the rarity of gear. That's patently moronic.
Now if you renamed gearscore to bragscore, then rarity would be appropriate. However, rarity has nothing to do with combat/raiding/adventuring potential.
Besides, there are many times I've seen people with a modicum skill clearly outdo snobs with high gearscores. Gearscore is worse than useless, it's a huge source of false evaluations.
Lost my mind, now trying to lose yours...
Even though I'm not a fan of the game, only an idiot could fail to appreciate how good WoW is. It's the same with games like EVE; I don't enjoy that game at all but I can see why it's so popular.
The problem for new games is that established favourites like EVE and WoW are so far ahead in terms of content. It's also much easier for the devs to add features to an already vast, extensively-developed game. That why, despite their shortcomings, both games trump much newer, technically superior games over-and-over. Only when both games are technically (primarily in terms of graphics) at deaths door will most new games stand a real chance at becoming top dog.
Aryas
Playing: Ableton Live 8
~ ragequitcancelsubdeletegamesmashcomputerkillself ~
Just to add, I think a few games could make a serious impact in the near future, namely GW2 (which I'm really looking forward to) and SWTOR (which I couldn't give a rats about).
However, if those games offer anything close to the WoW experience, you can bet your bottom dollar that the devs have had to bust their balls like never before to deliver it!
Aryas
Playing: Ableton Live 8
~ ragequitcancelsubdeletegamesmashcomputerkillself ~
what does that pic depict ?
I went back to WoW in Cataclysm (been playing on and off the game since release) but this was really the end point and period for me considering WoW. After I got the game 9th of Dec I played for 2 weeks and then unsubbed. The leveling from 80 to 85 was quite fun considering I had been off the game for about a year, but meh...
85. Same end game content as Vanilla, TBC and Wotlk had. Exactly the same with some different models and graphics. Unsubbing was the only choise after realizing the game still provide absolutely nothing new gameplay wise compared to it before any of the expansions. Since WoW is fluid and easy to go with, it was fun with TBC even with the same content as Vanilla, it was alright with Wotlk too since some of the major tweaks to the game, but it wasnt untill Cata when I realized Blizzard dont want to keep the old customers, since it's a lot easier with so big community to maintain the flow of new players and recycle old content. That's the only explanation I can think of.
I'm not saying it's a bad game, it's an awesome game, if you are a new player, just for the old timers the game has nothing to offer these days unless you simply like the gameplay so much that it's enough if you get your new models and textures every few years, spiced with even more polish and tweaks. I wish it was enough for me since I've spent alot time in WoW and enjoyed most of the time there. But when you cant pull yourself to log in no matter what, it's time to bury the thing.
Ofcourse I'm happy now that it's going to be awesome MMOG year and there's nothing to look back. Anyway, a big thanks to Blizzard for awesome game! Dont stall on the next MMORPGS development!
i logged into wow about 6 months ago after not playing for a couple of years. i was in goldshire getting to grips with my warriors new talents and minding my own business when i saw two players running towards me. the first player said fuck you and the other player said fuck you noob go die in a fire..i was laughing to myself at how childish this was and then remembered that i was playing wow. that has never happened to me in any other mmo, usually you need a reason to say those words to somebody.
I love the new quest system, hands down it has changed my opinion of questing... at least 1-60 and 80-85.
But yes, when you reach level 60 you realize the inevitable truth that the game really didn't change that much... yes, class mechanics changed, talent dynamics changed, everything is streamlined, everything is 'easier' for players to adapt to. But we still do the same shenanigan of going through the same motion of grinding, instancing, gearing up, and raiding.
Eventually it boils down to: Do you enjoy the game or not?
Most of my time on wow now is spent talking to people and helping out each other in stuff to just have fun, and it feels like it's all been done before, but it still keeps me entertained.
Don't play anything for the aspect of elongating your e-peen... it leads to nothing.
I've recently returned to WoW at my hubby's persistant begging. I must admit, I'm enjoying myself. The re-worked quests are actually interesting. I'm enjoying my time in Azeroth. Of course, I made my own channel and blocked out trade chat. The dungeon finder is pretty nice. It has some issues, but a rather nice addition since I played. The people I have grouped with have been, for the most part, cordial. There have been a couple of instances of bad behavior, but nothing like I remember it.
So, yeah. I had said I would never return, but now that I have, I'm having fun. Plus, teaming with the hubby is fun.