can we say crash and burn as we leave the game
Great! been hoping there would be an update on the holiday sites :)
What kinda irked me in this year was going into a 90 only Holiday boss fight... for 470 loot. AND it can NOT even be vendored, so I had to actually DESTROY said gear. Seriously, I have to frikking destroy gear I "won?"Not to mention such bad designs that they actually encourage major griefing (like the presents under the tree, dozens got out their largest mounts and camped right next to the tree, making it impossible for anyone to actually select a present). Yeah, it cleared up today, but sheesh, the 25h is the day most folks do presents, not the day after. Yeah, that's the usual assortment to azzholes, but do ya think Blizz could design it so they CAN'T grief anyone?
Mammoth camping on presents is an act of sublime jerkweedity, but it's not "impossible" to click on the presents -- spin your mouse wheel to zoom all the way in, effectively moving your view inside the mammoth, and you should be able to access the presents just fine.It does seem like it should be a trivial thing for Blizzard to fix, though -- you just put an invisible wall up around the presents (and Santa Claus himself) so people can't stand on top of them. This sort of thing is already done elsewhere in the game, and while I realize this approach isn't a good across-the-board solution to the general problem of NPC smothering, that practice is especially bad during Winter Veil.
I definitely agree that holidays should be updated. I'd go so far as to say they need to be updated each year with new content. There doesn't need to be a 100% revamp of the event every year but something new should be added beyond just new items (or old items with new stats).The biggest change to holidays that needs to happen though is make them all either open world events (like the xmas one) but with easier access to/from the site. Or moved from dungeons into scenarios. The biggest issue I have with doing my daily holiday dungeon is the queue time when most of the encounters are easy.If they are built around the model of scenarios where you can make them have variety. And each year could easily update them with out changing the whole scenario by adding a new "mini-event" with in the whole scenario. Or just keep adding Holiday scenarios to the mix each year.
I don't really want a lot of grind in my holidays. In fact I greatly prefer it when I can do everything on one character, and buy whatever I don't get as a drop via some sort of token system (a la Hallow's End). What I like about holidays is that they tend to make people act a little nicer, work together more, and give me something diverting and fun to do for a week or two.I like when they update holidays, just like I when they update the game world (Cata was one of the best expansions in my opinion - I loved seeing Azeroth change with the passage of time). But if the player base wants more of that then they have to accept that it means less time and energy spent on making game balance changes (for both PVE and PVP) and more time in between raids being released. Which would be fine with me, but a lot of people seem to think that WoW begins and ends with endgame, and that leveling is a glorified tutorial.
update!
I'm kind of torn on this subject. I love what Dark Moon Faire has become, and frankly I'd be disappointed if we missed out on all that content in favor of a few updates to yearly events. DMF is a reliable way to level, collect pets, and gain reputation and skill ups. The fact that it's primarily a sanctuary is heavenly. That being said, there is one thing the game really needs. A newsletter sent in-game to alert players to major holiday changes when they do occur. I totally missed out on the Day of the Dead pet simply because I assumed it was all the same. I may miss out on the Rotten Little Helper too.
Well it used to be that all achievements were unique to a toon. So as you changed your main, created new toons, etc, grinding through each holiday with every toon was paramount. Of course this is no longer the case with achievements now being account-wide, and one of the cases where a game change has hindered features instead of improved upon them. In the broader picture, the change was necessary to the game's evolution. In the game's evolution, yes, it is time for all the holidays to evolve to be special once again:
First, the gear loot should always be updated to the latest raid or world event (as with the necklaces from the Love is In the Air.) There should never be a need to destroy gear that is rightfully "won."Second, Blizzard really needs to stop with the "gifts" and other deposit of trash in my bags (countless un-fun toys, uninteresting food and non pets, odd coins, boring wands that don't stack, and silly helms). In fact, I think Blizz should actually make a Bag Space Holiday where they think of ways to clean up bags, not mess them up. You would log in on that morning and all the crap from other holidays would be gone and empty spaces for your farming would be there instead.Third, the only reason I went for the holidays in the first place was for the 310% flying speed and mount (and its overall meta achievement). Now you can buy 310% speed, you don't need the Violet Proto-drake. Plus if you got it on one toon now you can share it on all toons.
I think Blizzard should really update the holidays more. For me the holidays are some special days/weeks where you can do fun stuff that isn't around normally and thats nice for a change.
