F2P = Bad ideaUpdated Graphics = Unnecessary waste of time, effort and resources. WoW has never been the best looking game, instead of shiny objects (which seems to be all those under 20 look for these days) they made content. Having less "shiny" graphics also means people without high-end machines can still play. Considering what Blizzard has to put up with in order to keep WoW afloat, they've done a pretty amazing job. 9 years later, and they're still pumping out content and changes. Good on them. On one end of the scale, they have to deal with the "casual" crowd, who don't have large amounts of time to invest. To these, they have given BoAs, easier dungeons, LFR, quicker questing. This has been a great improvement for these players. On the other end, they have the "hardcore", who want difficult dungeons, long grinds, time-sinks. To these they have given heroic modes, achievements etc. The problem I see Blizzard having, is that they're not sure which crowd to cater to. The casuals will bring immediate cash, but might not stick around for very long, and catering to them will result in hardcores losing out. If they cater to the hardcores, then those players who cannot keep up are left behind, or end up quitting because content is too hard (see Cata heroics). The real result of this, is that those of us who are neither hardcore nor casual, end up getting stiffed either way. Perhaps the solution is simple - cater to both. Have normal dungeons be easy, have heroic ones be hard. Have them drop different gear. Those willing to put in more effort get better loots, but those who just want to log in for 20 minutes don't feel like they're missing out on anything (they still get their shiny loots). Heck, they could even use something similar to 'monster power' from D3, where players can select how difficult they want it, and the amount/quality of loot differs based on that. But as far as it goes, the rewards for making that effort need to be more than cosmetic (oh yay, I can spend weeks in challenge modes for some bad transmog) without making the casuals feel left out. Sadly, the majority of comments seem to come from either end. The casuals want their F2P, no grinding, LFR, easy dungeons. The hardcores want everything to require 100 hours of grinding. The rest of us just want to play the game without having things handed to us on a platter (LFR, keep it in, but drop the loot quality to below previous tier, like they did for ZG/ZA in Cata and use it as a means to 'catch up' or to see content) and without having to beat our heads against a wall. Oh, and Vanilla/BC was NOT the golden age of WoW.
Blizzard needs to realize that you can't count players with inactive accounts. I highly doubt that there's more people playing WoW than the population of Colorado.
Only if in the in game store, they offer you a item that increase your stats (damage/attributes) then you can say that WoW have become a P2W game...
The good old days were better, the game is too easy now, no pandas pls, make f2p pls, yada yada. Same story every time.
As far as "the end is nigh" comments go, I think we have at least another few years left. It's true that a lot of people who joined in Vanilla/TBC are leaving through growing up and other commitments, but that far from makes the game dead.What is probably most daunting for new players looking to start playing World of Warcraft is the sheer amount of content that people have to buy/play through in order to reach endgame. Perhaps if vanilla became available for free up til level 59 or thereabouts (stops people just raiding vanilla content so Blizzard will still get subscribers) then have level 60 bundled into TBC and the subscription model this will encourage new people to play and eventually pay through subscirptions. With this they could explore the ingame store for purely cosmetic items so that people who do choose to play for free can still get decent looking gear for transmog. Blizzard could also help entice players into playing by making more lower level content such as unranked arena for free to play to give people a taste of what they're missing.If an real currrency ingame cosmetic store were to ever be explored I would accept no less than spikey warrior gear like a few of the older sets! With a lot of current popular games such as League of Legends and Dota 2 focusing strongly on competitive gameplay it could be beneficial to have a more accomplished leaderboards/easier ranking systems for people to learn and compete in with teams earning points based on their activity. 1v1 PvP content could also be added (as opposed to just duels) in gladiator type combat with ranking sysems and rewards for players.As far as PvE goes I believe we're in a good place right now as far as content goes and the addition of LFR gives a much wider audience the ability to experience this content. My only suggestions here would be to make all DPS specs viable in a PvE environment giving people opportunity to mix and match, if this were to bring back the old talent systems where one side of the tree was developed for PvP and one for PvE this would give people a lot more choice.As for character models I believe that with new models possibly being on the cards (it has been hinted at a few times) a lot more customisation should become available with more hairstyles and a wider choice of faces etc up to even the size/build of our characters. Another possibility to explore the ability to recolour armour affordably (through dye's in the same way Diablo 3 works/similar to how the original guild wars customisation worked), this would give people a lot more control over how their character looked even beyond transmogrification. Not that any of my ideas are founded by anything other than my opinions and people are fully entitled have different views than me! I wont' be offended... honest! :)
Damnit... Even though I've quit WoW, this news is terrible. WoW can't die. It has been the sole playable MMO in it's genre since 2004. It has led the industry with state-of-art inventions, like LFR, xrealm, esports of PvE and PvP.So many people are happy that WoW recedes - but where will you go?Aion\Tera\Rift? What have they achieved better than WoW?GW2? It's a whole different genre, almost as EVE.SWTOR? It's as old as Vanilla\TBC in terms of mechanics, not to mention whole lot more things.You all hate WoW, but imagine that guaranteed PvP\PvE is not granted? That constant content and colourful world is not granted? Maybe it's just me, maybe it was bad for me to try SWTOR after WoW, and there are really better alternatives, but SWTOR is an exact copy of WoW, and I saw that this copy, which I thought would be the right place to go for a genre fan - is below criticism.Maybe TESO would be good. Maybe Titan would be good, but latter is released "soon"(tm).WoW was crucial and leading for 9 years, bringing joy and pride to gamers, why is it that after all this time, instead of "Sadly, it's over" or "No King lives forever" you all speak like trolls who haven't even played WoW for good?Sure, WoW will eventually die, either before or after Titan, but least we can do is be grateful for the time we had in it. Until there is another MMO that can outdo WoW, saying that WoW sucked\sucks and has to die - is a personal humiliation and a sign of metal challenge.WoW used to be more than a game, why is it now treated like a dying project...
Not necessarily, blizzard make enough off starcraft and diablo alone to cover the costs of blizzard, therefore they wont have to ruin the game with pay-to-win.
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Would this have made a decent raid inside Mount NeverestEchidna was called the mother of all monsters, but really she was only the mother of about six of them: the dragon that guarded the Golden Apples of Hesperos, the Hydra (the many-headed dragon/serpent), the Chimaera (see above), Orthus (a hell-dog), and Cerberus (a more famous hell-dog with three heads), the Crommyonian Sow, the Caucasus Eagle (that's the one that kept eating Prometheus' liver every day), and by her son Orthus she mothered the Sphinx (see below) and the Nemean Lion. Some people also say Scylla and the Gorgons (see below for both) were her kids, but I think they have other more likely parents. She was definitely a scary monster, half-woman half-snake, and she lived with her mate Typhon (the monster who challenged all of the Greek Gods, and ended up with Mt. Aetna thrown on top of him) in a cave in Scythia. Echidna was either the daughter of Callirrhoe and Chrysaor, the Gold Bearer, who was a son of Poseidon and Medusa (see Medusa below), or Styx and Peiras, or (as I prefer) Gaia and Tartarus. Echidna means She-Viper. There's one bizarre story that Heracles paid her a visit when Typhon wasn't home and they had a fling that produced these three future kings (apparently, they inherited none of their mother's monster genes). Another story says that she went to the Peloponnesus to harrass (eat?) travelers, and was there killed by Argus - but she was supposed to be immortal, so I don't really know how that worked.
1) Develop PVP, RP/Social Media and PVE play separately. Same models, totally different game, abilities, organization, ranking, emotes and resources. These are two different games married unhappily. Fix it.2) Upgrade the graphics engine, shrink the world if you have to.3) Dedicate a LatAm server, stop forcing cross-language play4) More guild social functions to encourage players to cooperate with familiarity and long-term relationships as a goal5) Add a learning mode, remove LFR, scale instances with more grades and link all rewards to performance or make them pay cash to get them. 6) Allow player-created content.