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What's become of us?
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Post by
hoangtrunglien
I've been playing WoW for a decent amount of time now, started in BC. I really wanted to make a post going on about what changes WoW has had and how much I've disliked the change of view Blizzard has had towards our characters and their roles, but I figured it would just be another buried rant. So, instead I wanted to focus on an issue that I don't feel is really addressed often and wonder what your guys opinion is towards it and whether or not it is an issue.
Many of you guys have experienced pre-Cata leveling and pre-Cata raiding, but just in case you haven't I want to do a short spiel about my view towards it.
The questing, the dungeons, and the raids all had an incredibly different atmosphere than they do today. The questing is easily the most noticeable, going from a open world filled with quests in various parts of the world and often random nooks and crannies. You would often end up picking up quests that required you going over to the other continent and back. Quests really had very little prerequisites and maximizing efficiency became something that constantly went through your mind.
While the idea of exploration and discovery are obvious bonuses to this previous way of questing there was one more thing that it had that current quests have redone. You were a nobody. Honestly, remembering the old quests and what you needed to do were very... Unimportant to the grand scheme of things. In essence, you really felt like a traveler that was exploring this land, learning about it, and gaining reputation made sense.
Today's quests are incredibly linear and offer almost zero room to change things up. They also are all urgent. It seems like everywhere you go NPCs are in a life and death struggle or require something urgent. You feel overly needed and the world loses it's natural feel. The idea of world instead has been changed to jumping between various scenarios of over importance and no longer flows or seems real. It's a constant onslaught of forced battles and struggles of NPCs instead of the relaxing tone brought on by old WoW.
Following this up is the dungeons and for the sake of reducing this rant, raids as well. Everything pre-wrath and some of wrath, felt as if you didn't do a dungeon or raid nothing would have happened. Nothing you entered was really an urgent threat. Sure, places like Black Temple, Molten Core, BWL, etc all had the potential to damage the world. At the time though, they weren't a threat. This is what made it feel more like, again, you were travelers. You got to enter these locations and poke your head in a place you weren't suppose to be.
The easiest example to compare would be SFK. By just putting in NPCs it completed changed the way the instance felt. Before you were a group of five people that ran into a random spooky castle. Inside, you got to explore what was really happening. It became something that really helped create this experience that you had control of learning what this game had to offered and it was you taking your time to explore. Now... It's like some predetermined infiltration. You're not exploring it, but instead doing exactly what you're suppose to do. By just adding an NPC it feels like your being led around instead of exploring it yourself.
In another light, things have become to edgy. Deathwing is pretty much the best example of this. Yes, Onyxia was an enemy to the horde and the Alliance, but what was she really doing at the time of her raid. We came to her raid seeking adventure and wanting to expand our experience. Deathwing on the other hand is threatening the world. Suddenly, our character is suppose to be this great hero coming to save this world... Like 7 million other people... We're cut off from adventuring and instead put in a heroes role as if this was a cliche single-player action game.
There's a few more examples on how Blizzard is really rewriting us into this world, but this already a decent sized read and I'd rather not bore you anymore (if you read this far). While I cry and rant about this being an awful turn for the game and something that's really helped destroy the 'World' in WoW, it's only my opinion on this. So, I ask you guys. Do you guys prefer how this game has changed in terms of what our characters are suppose to be?
Post by
Adamsm
We've always been the heroes; it started in BC and steadily increased from there. You were always suppose to go into those dungeons and raids to clean out the big bad to keep people safe. Yes you could not do so...and then just run around doing nothing outside since once you completed a zone, that was it.Even Vanilla had it; you did quests to stop some evil from threatening people and you became a hero.
Questing has always been linear and on rails, it's just in Vanilla quests would suddenly stop without any actual completion; the most obvious being the Essence of Eranikus which sent you from the Sunken Temple to Winterspring and then stopped without ever telling you what happens. BC had over all story lines through out the entire zones; that was when they started the Loremaster achievement after all.
SFK has always been a pre-determined investigation; it's just the Alliance didn't have quests for it before so they skipped it while leveling. But with the change in Cata, where Gilneas came back and Sylvanas made the stupidest decision of her after-life, the Crowly team took it over so the Horde needs to clean them out, while the Alliance are stopping them.
Onyxia...Onyxia was attempting a coup to take over Stormwind; you learned that from the long quest line she was part of. Horde went after because hey, big giant dragon with world domination ideas means she needed to die just like her brother Nefarion and that firelord dude Ragnaros.
Also, Vanilla saw two instances where the entire world was under attack: the Second War of the Shifting Sands where the AQ dungeons opened up and we needed to unite to stop the Old God C'thun from getting out and destroying the world, and the Scourge Invasion where Naxxaramas showed up and Scourge attacked multiple areas intending to destroy everything. And of course, when the Dark Portal opened up, we had the Legion attempting to wipe out everything while Doom Lord Kazzak stepped up and tried to take everything out.
Sorry, but what you describe has been in the game from the beginning. Yes, we were the vanguard for our factions in Cata and MoP, and we became a commander in Warlords and the head of our Class in Legion....but our characters have been fighting wars for 10 years now; what do you expect to happen.
Post by
Lomedae
Yes, we were the vanguard for our factions in Cata and MoP, and we became a commander in Warlords and the head of our Class in Legion....but our characters have been fighting wars for 10 years now; what do you expect to happen.
Well put. I really do not get the people critiquing our roles as unrealistic. If we'd still be a nobody after all this time and accomplishments,
that
would be unrealistic. I think it's great my main character has gotten all this recognition by Bliz.
Post by
Gilmamesh
I generally liked the changes all the way up until Warlords. But I've been struggling just to stay on par with everyone because I'm not a professional gamer with nothing better to do all day. I also didn't start until well after BC was released, so I've been playing catch-up since Day 1. Several expansions later, Warlords came out, and I wasn't even in a place where I could game part time. By the time I got back to the US, I was too far behind to catch-up. I never even bothered trying to do a garrison, because I couldn't even figure out where to find everything or what half the buttons did. I couldn't get anyone to go back and help me catch-up because everyone was too busy with all the new stuff. Meanwhile, my main gets left in the dust by an automatic upgrade to Level 100 or whatever....
So I've had to watch all the new expansion changes from the sidelines... and I don't even bother logging in anymore. There is just too much to keep track of... and one of my biggest issues with the game still hasn't been fixed, and that is I still can't tell which of my alts have completed an achievement and which ones have not, because once an achievement is completed it shows as completed for all your alts (you have to manually go in and check).
I wish Blizzard would design the game so that we could roll back the expansions by choice and experience the pre-release changes first hand, and then carry our maxed out alt over into the next expansion.
Post by
Jkpman
But I've been struggling just to stay on par with everyone because I'm not a professional gamer with nothing better to do all day. .
And that's where your argument falls flat on its arse.
First define "everyone", sure if you aspire to be a server first or global first raider then no, you probably don't have time, but even those guys don't necessarily put in a great deal of effort. I've known quite a few of these guys over my time in WoW and many of them juggle a full time job and family but still stay at the top of their game.
Now if you want to be on par with the average gamer, doing latest content with a reasonable gear level, well that literally takes maybe an hour tops a day, or on the days you feel like logging in, and I tell you that because I'm that guy, I don't play every day, haven't really done so since Legion started, but I have a few characters now capped and with 900+ item levels.
So, the haven't enough time is a cop out for lazy players, and again I say this because I'm probably the laziest player you'll meet, I spend more time avoiding leveling and daily stuff than it would take to do it, and for me time is also an issue.
and one of my biggest issues with the game still hasn't been fixed, and that is I still can't tell which of my alts have completed an achievement and which ones have not, because once an achievement is completed it shows as completed for all your alts (you have to manually go in and check).
WOW! That's your issue, really? Most are shared, once you've completed it, or part of it you don't need to do it on another character, that's the whole point of sharing them.
That said if there is some requirement for you personally to see which characters haven't done something then using a simple add on such as Altoholic will allow you to check who has completed what.
Edit:-
Additionally for several expansions now there has been quite frankly a ridiculously easy catch up method pretty much rolled out with major patches.
Personally I dislike the whole thing, I kind of think the expansion ending is enough, then replacing all those epics with greens, but I understand that generally the whiny minority win out in the end and Blizzard have made a huge effort to ensure those who can't or won't spend a little time actually playing the game, can at certain points in any given expansion quickly catch up.
Post by
Adamsm
and one of my biggest issues with the game still hasn't been fixed, and that is I still can't tell which of my alts have completed an achievement and which ones have not, because once an achievement is completed it shows as completed for all your alts (you have to manually go in and check). Um, you do realize when you mouse over the completed part it shows who completed the achievement right? So if it doesn't say your current alt, then you still need to do it.
Post by
N0083rP00F
That is exactly what he stated
ie "you have to manually go in and check - aka mouse over each individually each and every time instead of just being able to scan visually as you scroll through.
I really don't know why they don't use a two tone-tier system instead of the mini popup table on the mouse-over.
Post by
Adamsm
You can set the achievements to Incomplete though; that shows all achievements that the specific toon needs to do, even if you have already completed it on another character. Yes it still shows gold for complete, but when you click on it, it'll show what remains for that character to complete.
Post by
JaviLM
I agree completely with the OP. I started playing just before BC was released and I've seen the game being dumbed down again and again to the point that playing now feels more like a chore. Also, the current story makes no sense. We're supposed to be the heads of our orders (THE archdruid, THE highlord, THE battlelord...) Warriors get to hang out with Odin himself (well, Odyn), for crying out loud.
As a druid, I own the nice condo in the Dreamgrove, but so does every other druid hanging around the zone. I wield the artifact G'Hanir and the Claws of Ursoc, but so does every other druid. It makes no sense.
My main complaints:
Story
As I said, the story makes no sense. Characters are supposed to be very powerful, but a random bear in Val'Sharah or just about any Suramar citizen can easily kill you if you're not careful.
Quest lines
Everything is a quest line: instead of exploring, discovering things, completing a few quests here and there and then moving to a new area when your level is high enough, now we are hand-held and led from one quest to the next in a very linear manner. We don't explore or discover, because we're told where to go and what to do.
ITEMIZATION
This is, in my opinion, the worst problem with modern WoW. Now every quest reward is an item appropriate not just for your class, but for your specialization. My druid always gets leather rewards, and my paladin always gets plate. Not only that, the druid gear comes with both agi and int, and the pally gear comes with both str and int, so you don't even look at the gear stats anymore: you just look at the ilevel, and if it's higher than what you have, you take it. Gone are the days of actually learning what gear you're using. At this point it wouldn't make any difference if they replaced ALL the stats on the gear with a single one: ilevel. In practice that's all we're looking at.
I don't enjoy the fact that now both my healing and tanking gear are exactly the same, or that I'm not given the chance to consider mail, leather, or even cloth items for my pally's healing set.
Gearing...
...is way too easy. Receiving epics from heroic bosses and raids makes sense. Receiving epics for spending 5 minutes fishing on a pond or killing a few mobs in a world quest does not. Let's not even mention everybody getting a free artifact weapon at the beginning or the legendary rings (plural) we all get.
Before, having a full epic set took effort. Now, a fresh 110 can reasonably have a full epic set in a couple days, and be geared for heroics and raids in no time.
There are other things that I'm not happy about, but these are the main, gameplay-wise.
Post by
Ostwind161
I have to agree that the game has changed, in some ways for the better and in some ways not. The main change I noticed is Warlords of Draenor. I have only been playing for about four years. In that you have chosen professions, Skinning or Leatherworking, etc, but Warlords assumes you have Mining. Because you need to feed the workshops that are default, no Mining, and your fort is screwed. I have to set up characters in advance for this or change professions when I start Warlords. It just doesn't make sense.
Post by
Jkpman
I have to agree that the game has changed, in some ways for the better and in some ways not. The main change I noticed is Warlords of Draenor. I have only been playing for about four years. In that you have chosen professions, Skinning or Leatherworking, etc, but Warlords assumes you have Mining. Because you need to feed the workshops that are default, no Mining, and your fort is screwed. I have to set up characters in advance for this or change professions when I start Warlords. It just doesn't make sense.
You are aware that your Garrison has a mine right? and that a level 1 Trading post has a NPC with whom you can exchange Garrison Resources for materials such as ores, dusts, cloth, leather, herbs etc? (The cost differs day by day but at it's lowest you can purchase ore for 16gr each, not that you should need to if you have alts with a Garrison)
Post by
Ithenell
I wish Blizzard would design the game so that we could roll back the expansions by choice and experience the pre-release changes first hand, and then carry our maxed out alt over into the next expansion.
God l would love that feature.
Id roll all of my 110s back to 90 / Mists and never venture beyond that point again.
Instead Im having to drudge thru the crap this game as become since 735 to get a couple new characters up to 90 and turn off experience so I can just enjoy the game again as a casual player.
Bliz seems to have forgotten the concept of CASUAL in 735.
Before 735 I could count the number of 5 man dungeons that had gone wrong on one hand.
Since 735 I can count the number of dungeons finished on a single hand where 1-3 players havent decided to just bail because of constant wipes or mostly that its just taking WAY to much time for the payoff.
I enjoyed three things in this game.
Farming
Combat
5 man dungeons.
735 has screwed the game over for all three of those for those of us who play CASUALLY.
Post by
Ithenell
not that you should need to if you have alts with a Garrison
which is one thing I detest about this game. There is pretty much no way to play it without 'alts' because of the ridiculous limitations they put in the game for each character.
Post by
Jkpman
not that you should need to if you have alts with a Garrison
which is one thing I detest about this game. There is pretty much no way to play it without 'alts' because of the ridiculous limitations they put in the game for each character.
That is nonsense, and having alts is a bonus far from a necessity. Sure having several alts helps to gather resources quicker, because of course it does, many hands make light work.
That said the Garrison made pretty much every profession sustainable with very little work.
The original comment mentioned being screwed if you didn't mine, which is absolute tosh as the Garrison provided both herbs and ore with very little effort for anyone with a Garrison regardless of profession.
Post by
Ostwind161
Thanks for the info about the Trading Post, JKPMAN. I was unaware of this, even after touring my garrisons, I did not notice this. I will have to take a closer look.
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