World of Warcraft: Current Year

I am confused as to how the Roleplaying and Miniatures (Sans HeroClix) Game Markets are primarily populated by 30-60 year olds, but apparently anyone over the age of 25 is incapable of scraping together a 4-hour play session of anything.

Shit, half my dad's generation's parents spent 2-4 hours a night at the bar.

In other news, looks like there will bethis itemon the new island which flags you for PvP and allows you to kill members of your own faction. Although it's use is limited to that island only I bet Goonswarm is gonna have a field day with this one.

So Dumar is basically the dude that is 40, wears a White Snake T shirt and has a mullet, and hangs out near old 80s arcade machines all day, lamenting that current arcade games are for pussies because they don't have the high score grind of Centapede, etc?

bixxby_sl said:

Or maybe...they do?!

Spending 100s of hours playing sand castles is inherently more gay than doing big in mmos. It's the guitar hero of creativity.

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It's like Salshun unmade his entire point while attempting to agree with him.

Cybsled_sl said:

So Dumar is basically the dude that is 40, wears a White Snake T shirt and has a mullet, and hangs out near old 80s arcade machines all day, lamenting that current arcade games are for pussies because they don't have the high score grind of Centapede, etc?

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Like there are any arcades left to lament. I have to leave my whitesnake shirt at home.

Wow is not as fun anymore because it is no longer Wow, at least not to me anymore. They keep changing the rules. Starting the game now is a vast change from starting the game at launch. And it is a gamut of bad changes.

Chess has been played the same way for hundreds of years. The challenge is in the other players and the constraints of the rules themselves. If ghostcrawler had taken over the development of chess, we would be flinging the pieces at each other now to score badges to get new pieces, and each of the new pieces would be made of shit to "soften" the blow.

Wow has lost the wonder for me. I no longer wonder what is over there? What does that do, I wonder if I can beat that mob. There is no adventure anymore just the treadmill with a green screen of vistas and meaningless clubbing of xp generating baby seals.

MattEnth_sl said:

I agree completely, Dumar, but I'm unconvinced that the two have to be mutually exclusive.

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I agree with the needed variation in mob and npc behavior. I'm all for that needed change, and it's one (maybe -the- one) reason the hype bubble of EQ:N has me a little excited. A ghoul lord should fight completely differently than a moss snake (although both should kick). It's quite amazing that mobs have not only generally stayed the same, but have actually gotten easier in a general sense since EverQuest over 10 years ago.

But I think many aspects of mmo design that's needed is mutually exclusive from that vid about making everything fun all the time. EverQuest taught you to respect the world, and I think that's the highest level design paradigm that the devs must be reminded of. Part of that respect involves bad things happening sometimes - and the more bad and less fun those things are, the more respect will be created.

If a newbie high elf runs from Gfay to FP, ignores the warnings in his head, and starts fighting without a bind, then dies - what happens and should happen to him? He made a mistake, and he knew about the possible consequences, but did it anyway. What happens in WoW? If a night elf makes his way to Dun Morogh, starts fighting, then dies - nothing happens, he just respawns at the nearest GY.

Look at the monumental, gigantic, difference. One mechanic makes you respect the world and its mechanics, the other nothing happens whatsoever. And that's the problem. In WoW, nothing bad ever happens whatsoever, ever. We need these mechanics that force a respect upon the world, and the less fun they are, the better.

Mobs having different requirements isn't what the "next generation" wanted, though.

Older MMOs had mobs that were easier if you had slashing rather than piercing weapons, or fire instead of ice magic. Some mobs detected with sound instead of sight.

Granted, these were all passive instead of active traits but that's the tech we had to work with 10+ years ago. What happened to it? People whined because it was too hard or too exclusionary and it went away. In EQN it's just going to be the class with the best movement speed or best collision blocking who will be FOTM instead of ice magic or whatever.

People don't like using the same skills for 60 levels - so they go play a game where you only get 4 skills total. No, the reason these games succeed is because they are accessible for a new player and simple to jump into, but you will be on learning curve (progressing) for a long time.

The problem with "bonus dmg vs X, reduced dmg vs Y" design is all it did was encourage class stacking and wasn't really a test of skill, but rather a test of "who can get the highest # of (insert class here)". It's one of those things that is cool on paper and it is cool in limited usage (certain mobs in dungeons, etc), but raids like MC took it to the extreme.

Srathor_sl said:

Wow is not as fun anymore because it is no longer Wow, atleast not to me anymore.They keep changing the rules. Starting the game now is a vast change from starting the game at launch. And it is a gamut of bad changes.

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What rules have been changed? Mind telling me some of the "gamut" of bad changes they have introduced?

I know you stated this as youropinion, but here is mine.

I played vanilla wow and I am currently playing wow. It's just as enjoyable today as it was all those years ago. Is it different? Sure, for the better, though. The only bad change is flying mounts.

There is so much to do in wow today it's really quite fun, i remember standing around in Ironforge waiting for BG pops or waiting for the raid to start. Can you still do this today? Yeah of course. But there are also some fun stuff to do outside like warbringers, rare mobs, old school raids, world pvp happening in barrens, etc. Back in the day there was absolutely nothing to do. In 5.4 there is going to be even more content to do, this is some of the most enjoyable content I've ever played through, the raids are the best and pvp is good as well (as good as rpg pvp can be).

MattEnth_sl said:

Eh, deleting my original post because there's no point in arguing with someone so dense...

MMOs are in decline because people are naturally quitting as they go through life, and the next generation of gamers don't enjoy them. I think the next "big" MMORPG will be one that keeps the immersive wold and awesome social elements, but dramatically redefines the core combat loops and questing experiences.

The "next generation" of gamers thinks that...
- It's just not fun using the exact same abilities to get all the way from level 20 to 80.
- It's just not fun or believable/immersive to have orcs, wolves, skeletal warriors, and monkeys all attack and fight me in the exact same way.
- It's just not fun having no additional path to mastery for the 20+ hours it takes to reach maximum level.
- It's just not fun doing the 400x kill quests, 400x collect quests, 100x protect quests, and 200x deliver quests that it takes to get to max level without any variance in combat (numbers were approximations).
- It's just not fun having the overwhelming majority of quest rewards being reputation or gear I don't need or meaningless amount of money. More fun would be more cutscenes or VO that don't disrupt pacing.

MoP has been a huge step forward in addressing a lot of these issues, in part by requiring players to change how they fight certain mobs. The normal rares in MoP are one of the best examples. But they've got a long way to go to recover, and they kinda blew their chance with Cata.

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So your response to me is making info up and then listing stuff YOU would like in an mmo? Who the fuck are you?

^

Cybsled_sl said:

The problem with "bonus dmg vs X, reduced dmg vs Y" design is all it did was encourage class stacking and wasn't really a test of skill, but rather a test of "who can get the highest # of (insert class here)". It's one of those things that is cool on paper and it is cool in limited usage (certain mobs in dungeons, etc), but raids like MC took it to the extreme.

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And you think having unique combat mechanics is going to result in anything different? The only difference is that right now it's on paper and we haven't seen how much it will suck in use.

Sticking with WoW to stay on topic - Frost Mages will always be better than Arcane and Fire in situations you need to kite.

Toxx, the rules that have been changed that affected me the most are based around the ease of the game. I remember the days of the ogres in Loch Modan. I enjoyed the elites that were dangerous. I remember the days of wondering what I was getting myself into when I went into a new zone. There were no easily placed level limits on the map, things were not ao streamlined. Wow was not a hard game per se at launch, it did however require a breadth of knowledge once you got into it.

I feel like Wow at vanilla was a sandbox with many themepark elements being built at the time. Now it is just so settled, there is no adventure left that has not been weighed and measured to the nth degree. Pandaland was very rote, polished yes, even fun the first time through, but like some zebra stripe gum I got a month back out of nostalgia it lost it's flavor very very fast.

The rule that change for me was vanilla wow had more character, it had sharp edges and prickly bits that could snag but it was part of the charm, the wow of today is polished mashed potatoes, still good but just mushy soft through and through. (yeah yeah heroic raids!, I was never much of a raider, even though I did it for years, it is not my preferred gameplay.)

I find it funny people can spend days played on Death knights and still barely understand them. Me being one of them, LOL.

Srathor_sl said:

Toxx, the rules that have been changed that affected me the most are based around the ease of the game. I remember the days of the ogres in Loch Modan. I enjoyed the elites that were dangerous. I remember the days of wondering what I was getting myself into when I went into a new zone. There were no easily placed level limits on the map, things were not ao streamlined. Wow was not a hard game per se at launch, it did however require a breadth of knowledge once you got into it.

I feel like Wow at vanilla was a sandbox with many themepark elements being built at the time. Now it is just so settled, there is no adventure left that has not been weighed and measured to the nth degree. Pandaland was very rote, polished yes, even fun the first time through, but like some zebra stripe gum I got a month back out of nostalgia it lost it's flavor very very fast.

The rule that change for me was vanilla wow had more character, it had sharp edges and prickly bits that could snag but it was part of the charm, the wow of today is polished mashed potatoes, still good but just mushy soft through and through. (yeah yeah heroic raids!, I was never much of a raider, even though I did it for years, it is not my preferred gameplay.)

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I remember the days of people bitching about how easy vanilla WoW was.

Itzena_sl said:

I remember the days of people bitching about how easy vanilla WoW was.

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I miss Friday nights in ironforge where we made pugs to run UBRS with a bunch of regulars that weren't in raiding guilds yet. It was always sad to see someone get geared and move up. It took me nearly 75 UBRS runs to get my blue shoulders. Over 100 baron strat runs to get the pants. It was worse for my bro, he had complete sets for most classes before he got his.
Vanilla was definitely harder by an order of magnitude. I completed my mists raiding set in 4 weeks.

I'm 40, I have a family, job and a kid, I still want MMORPGs, I don't want them a shit boring snore fest, I want involving games. Who cares if it's taking me 3 years to see it all? Somebody will see it in less time, so what?
EQ is too old, graphically it makes me cry, EQ2 is old and changed too much from when it was good, WoW is all but a MMORPG, it's pretty much diablo 3D in the warcraft universe, except it's not even difficult (inb4 heroic modes are difficult and shit: I don't give a fuck about raids in general, I hate LFR and think raiding has gone from epic to mundane boring sessions of dance dance revolution).

The video linked above has good points: people don't care, because they don't have a real challenge ahead of them, just spam whatever button you want to win. The game may as well pop a mega DING sound (YOU WIN MOTHERFUCKER!""") and then uninstall itself.

Vanilla WoW was wonderful, in many aspects it was an extremely addicting game. TBC was bearable, not amazing, but okay, from LK and beyond, it became and AE fest and everything was going downhill, with still two peaks of quality: Ulduar (ok, part of ICC was also good) and I loved those 3 dungeons they put in with ICC. Everything past that? ZZZZZzzzzzZZZZZzzzzz.

W4RH34D_sl said:

I miss Friday nights in ironforge where we made pugs to run UBRS with a bunch of regulars that weren't in raiding guilds yet. It was always sad to see someone get geared and move up. It took me nearly 75 UBRS runs to get my blue shoulders. Over 100 baron strat runs to get the pants. It was worse for my bro, he had complete sets for most classes before he got his.
Vanilla was definitely harder by an order of magnitude. I completed my mists raiding set in 4 weeks.

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Except you also didn't need a full blue set before you got into raids. I never completed any tier 0 dungeon set on any of my characters, until transmog at least. My first week raiding Molten Core I had greens in half my slots, many of which were actually better than blues or sometimes even T1/T2 epics, because the itemization was so fucked back then. "Gearing up" for a couple fights in AQ meant farming the shit out of a 40-45 instance just to stack nature resist, for fuck's sake. I don't look back and see that as harder, I see it as shitty design.

The fucked itemization helped keep mudflation in check back then, though. Non-raiders could put together a set of blues that were competitive with epics until the raiders had been in BWL for a while (provided they weren't top top end and didnt have Rag on farm for a while, etc) and the stupid 1 shot PvP faceroll didn't happen until Naxx (trinket mages excepted).