World of Warcraft: Current Year

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Miele

Miele

Lord Nagafen Raider
916
48
LadyVex_sl said:
Essentially, WoW made some decisions and design moves that were necessary for the health of the game, but not healthy for the experience of the game. If you can suck up the fact that your golden era is over, you'll be able to dig into better content, and better designed things, but the cost of that is the soul of the game.

And that's why people use the "rose colored" glasses to describe what is going on here. We talk about things like old raids, and old dungeons and old gear etc,but all of that got betterand even those dissenting voices would see that if they took a gander. What changed (and got worse/different) was how we perceive them. It doesn't do anyone any good if you spout off reasons for why you think the game got better/worse andthey're the wrong reasons.
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Let's put aside your opinions about what is better, which is subjective enough and let's talk about the "necessity" to change the game approach towards a more bite sized consumption rate.
As of today, there is no proof large enough, or none that I've seen anyway, that in the western market (the only one that counts) WoW was losing popularity and required the changes that many players called the "dumbing down" of the game. Between Vanilla/TBC era WoW was around the 6 million subs in the western market, the other 6 millions during LK came from the far east.
From what I could see WoW lost as many as it gained, within a certain margin of course, in EU/US until Cataclysm, where it started slowly going backwards (mostly because the game was quite old already). We're in MoP and the game is approaching the 9 years mark, a drop in subs is understandable and frankly expected, yet I find the xpack quite enjoyable and it finally provided my favourite content, 5 players challenges (similar to the good old timed baron runs).

I don't believe the changes made during the years (when supposedly the "B" team took over) were dictated by a few posts by window lickers that didn't make the cut for raids, nor from amazingly deep market researches, let's say that the new team had a plan and said plan was good enough to keep the cash flowing in.
WoW was the trend to follow although and this caused a flood of clones, each with their own twist that saturated the market with unmemorable gameplay. Games were copying WoW down to the last bit of the UI, but none of them made an impact big enough to get an equal slice of the pie.

Then we got Vanguard, Tabula Rasa, SWTOR (biggest budget ever?) a few others I guess plus recently the walking dead Copernicus and somebody started shitting in their pants ("You can throw money away after all!"), which probably brought SoE to the decision of changing completely the direction for their Next title (pun intended).
 
W

W4RH34D_sl

shitlord
661
3
So 496 epics in chests to help make my heal set and alts sets for raiding. Cool.

Is the new raid open today or do I have to do a quest line first or what?
 
Cybsled

Cybsled

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
17,087
13,610
It's open. Lfr doesn't open 1st wing until next week, though. Flex is in if you can find a raid.
 
L

LadyVex_sl

shitlord
868
0
Miele_sl said:
Let's put aside your opinions about what is better, which is subjective enough and let's talk about the "necessity" to change the game approach towards a more bite sized consumption rate.
As of today, there is no proof large enough, or none that I've seen anyway, that in the western market (the only one that counts) WoW was losing popularity and required the changes that many players called the "dumbing down" of the game. Between Vanilla/TBC era WoW was around the 6 million subs in the western market, the other 6 millions during LK came from the far east.
From what I could see WoW lost as many as it gained, within a certain margin of course, in EU/US until Cataclysm, where it started slowly going backwards (mostly because the game was quite old already). We're in MoP and the game is approaching the 9 years mark, a drop in subs is understandable and frankly expected, yet I find the xpack quite enjoyable and it finally provided my favourite content, 5 players challenges (similar to the good old timed baron runs).

I don't believe the changes made during the years (when supposedly the "B" team took over) were dictated by a few posts by window lickers that didn't make the cut for raids, nor from amazingly deep market researches, let's say that the new team had a plan and said plan was good enough to keep the cash flowing in.
WoW was the trend to follow although and this caused a flood of clones, each with their own twist that saturated the market with unmemorable gameplay. Games were copying WoW down to the last bit of the UI, but none of them made an impact big enough to get an equal slice of the pie.

Then we got Vanguard, Tabula Rasa, SWTOR (biggest budget ever?) a few others I guess plus recently the walking dead Copernicus and somebody started shitting in their pants ("You can throw money away after all!"), which probably brought SoE to the decision of changing completely the direction for their Next title (pun intended).
Click to expand...
I don't really know what your post was written for; parts of it seem to support my post, other parts seem really out there.

For the record though, Blizzard themselves actually released reports of how many people they lost, and what types of people they were. (Raider vs. Casual)

If you think the changes to wow were made because some guy waltzed in and said HEY GUYZ LET'S DO THIS INSTEAD, then you are off of your rocker. Don't change what isn't broken; that is pretty much an MMO mantra.

Whether it was play tests, or specific metrics that they looked at, it's been known for quite awhile that they wanted to make it so everyone could at least see content, while keeping the top teir/echelon available to those who put the time in.

The MMO market is not what it once was; those of us who played UO/EQ back in the day are older now and wiser, and the new blood are more interested in instant gratification.

It was necessary - but certain things that they did implement made it a piecemeal type of existence, serving to alienate some of the people they hoped to get back.

Come on now, you could literally google this shit and find out why people stopped playing, or why they changed things in certain ways.
 
Cybsled

Cybsled

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
17,087
13,610
Cata was the first expansion where I eventually cancelled by sub (I resubbed for MoP, though). Primarily it was because I didn't want to suffer through 4-5 hour fail-raids anymore and there really wasn't anything outside of that to progress my character. MoP fixed most of that by fleshing out LFR and adding other avenues of progression that > 5 man heroic dungeons.
 
L

LadyVex_sl

shitlord
868
0
Cybsled_sl said:
Cata was the first expansion where I eventually cancelled by sub (I resubbed for MoP, though). Primarily it was because I didn't want to suffer through 4-5 hour fail-raids anymore and there really wasn't anything outside of that to progress my character. MoP fixed most of that by fleshing out LFR and adding other avenues of progression that > 5 man heroic dungeons.
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Yea, Cata coming on the heels of Wrath was hard - it was almost a complete about face. I liked Wrath, but it wasn't my favorite. It did however implement a lot of things that were good for players; like 7 weeklies instead of 1 daily, progression paths, and (while I hated it) the teired system of raids made for a very large pool of things you could do to gear up.

I almost unsubbed during wrath, just because I felt really burned out with all of the raids and their subsequent difficulty levels. But guilds and friends are what have always kept me going, and both existed for me then, so I didn't go anywhere.
 
alavaz

alavaz

Trakanon Raider
2,003
714
Timeless Isle is decently fun. It's novelty will wear off quickly, but I will say that is a step in the right direction making the grind a bit more free-form where you can explore without feeling like you are wasting your time. The BOA stuff is also a decent bonus. Just make sure you change your loot spec (and not your actual spec) before clicking the armor piece.
 
Miele

Miele

Lord Nagafen Raider
916
48
LadyVex_sl said:
I don't really know what your post was written for; parts of it seem to support my post, other parts seem really out there.

For the record though, Blizzard themselves actually released reports of how many people they lost, and what types of people they were. (Raider vs. Casual)

If you think the changes to wow were made because some guy waltzed in and said HEY GUYZ LET'S DO THIS INSTEAD, then you are off of your rocker. Don't change what isn't broken; that is pretty much an MMO mantra.

Whether it was play tests, or specific metrics that they looked at, it's been known for quite awhile that they wanted to make it so everyone could at least see content, while keeping the top teir/echelon available to those who put the time in.

The MMO market is not what it once was; those of us who played UO/EQ back in the day are older now and wiser, and the new blood are more interested in instant gratification.

It was necessary - but certain things that they did implement made it a piecemeal type of existence, serving to alienate some of the people they hoped to get back.

Come on now, you could literally google this shit and find out why people stopped playing, or why they changed things in certain ways.
Click to expand...
What I meant was simple: there is no correlation between subs rise/fall and changes in the "accessibility" of content. For what we know, sticking to a vanilla/tbc style of design may have mantained the same number of subs over the years. What they likely lost is long term retention (many on these boards say you can be done with a wow patch in 1 month or two), maybe compensated abundantly by a high turnover.

Are the changes they did good for the game? In my opinion they did more good than bad, but some of what I consider bad another may consider great, you know what they say about opinions.

Anyway, it's not that upon launching WotLK a multitude of players read in the news "Now you can beat wow by headbutting your keyboard, come play it". The game was still expanding and it'd have likely still expanded, no matter the design behind it.

Moving to another topic: I picked up my paladin that was still stuck at 85, protection spec, ilvl was full 378 with something a bit higher, so nothing special. I equipped a 410 blue weapon I had banked.

I noticed something weird with threat, namely that it sucked on AE pulls for a few seconds, then suddendly bursted sky-high (if I can believe Omen) and this wasn't apparently related to using consecrate, HotR, or HWrath. Coupling this with braindead retarded dps in LFD made dungeon runs quite annoying. Asking politely to wait and don't pull themselves fell of course on deaf ears. I know vengeance, bla bla, but Captain America shield used to generate good threat right away, so did shield of the righteous at 3hp. (before you ask I had Righteous Fury on
wink.png
).

Maybe it's just a matter of equipping all 400+ items, really don't know, but my Death Knight and Druid didn't give me any problem when I started tanking at 85.
 
Cybsled

Cybsled

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
17,087
13,610
Timeless Isle is alt-loot or off-spec loot heaven. Too bad I don't have a shaman/hunter alt that is 90, though...I keep getting mail armor from the chests I find.
 
Ryoz

Ryoz

<Donor>
845
194
Not bad for mains either I guess since you can use those burden items to boost those 496 pieces to 535.
 
Asmadai

Asmadai

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
3,196
9,204
Yeah, just make sure you don't click the token to make the 496 armor if you're wanting to upgrade it. The Burden only upgrades the token itself, iirc. Though honestly these tokens are so plentiful it won't be hard to get more.
 
Cybsled

Cybsled

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
17,087
13,610
Really? Oops.

Although that kind of sucks, since the tokens give random stats. So you upgrade a token and possibly get a random crap item?
 
Rime

Rime

<Donor>
2,638
1,612
Ryoz_sl said:
Not bad for mains either I guess since you can use those burden items to boost those 496 pieces to 535.
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If you are after pure item level, yeah.

But my experience with Burdens (4 of them so far) is that the item they give you can be absolute garbage. Cloth boots, level 535, with barely 100 more INT than 522s, and the only stat being 890 Hit. Wat.
 
alavaz

alavaz

Trakanon Raider
2,003
714
The timeless isle stuff is basically for the purpose of getting a brand new 90 into the newest LFR without doing heroics and all the other stuff. It will all be replaced with gear from the SoO LFR or valor / TI Coin gear if you plan on playing the toon any significant amount.
 
SimSimSalabim

SimSimSalabim

Molten Core Raider
874
351
Cybsled_sl said:
Really? Oops.

Although that kind of sucks, since the tokens give random stats. So you upgrade a token and possibly get a random crap item?
Click to expand...
Yep, you could get stats that aren't really ideal for you. Granted if the 535 timeless isle gear is the best gear you're going to get, then worrying about maximizing stats isn't a really big concern.


Also you can't use the burdens on trinkets, they have to be bought straight up with 50000 coins.
 
Cybsled

Cybsled

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
17,087
13,610
Can you use the burdens on rings? Rings usually are the only random stat epic items that seem worth a damn usually, since even their raid counterparts don't have gem sockets/etc.
 
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