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Next World Of Warcraft Raid Dungeon
GrandGranini writes "The New York Times has an interview with World Of Warcraft Lead Game Designer Jeff Kaplan (Tigole), in which he talks about the next raid dungeon after Ahn'Quiraj, the necropolis Naxxramas." From the article: "Naxxramas is going to be the most difficult thing in the game until the expansion pack comes out. It will be the pinnacle, and it's absolutely massive. You'll see this big necropolis floating above Eastern Plaguelands. It's a 40-man raid zone, and it's bigger than the Undercity [one of the main cities in the game]. Things could change, but we're up to something like 18 bosses in there, and they are really cool, too. But it's going to be hard. Really hard. We're hoping to release it in the spring." If you told me two years ago that I'd be reading about an upcoming instance in the sport section of the NYT, I'd have called you a damn dirty liar. May you live in interesting times, indeed.
PLEASE!! MAKE more content that people without ten thousand reliable friends and 8 hours of their life to waste can play. damn blizzard.
"If I were bound by all laws everywhere I'm sure I would have committed a capital crime somewhere."
Breakfast served all day!
For those of us who don't play World of Warcraft, can somebody explain what a "raid zone" is? What are the "Eastern Plaguelands"? What is the "Undercity"?
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I have never played WoW - and this is something i'm very thankful for. I have a habbit of letting things take over my life a bit, especially games. It kind of makes you feel a bit like your wasting your life when they put hour counters in the games... I'm glad i've managed to keep my time.
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
This sort of thing is why I pretty much quit and make a new alt whenever I hit about 40. I just cannot stand the gigantic instance dungeons.
And really, to me they pretty much destroy the enjoyment of the game. Elite quests and instance dungeons seem like a cop out on the part of the designers -- they just make the same monsters three times as hard to kill, for no reason that makes sense in the context of the game world. It's so amazingly frustrating when you work your way through a nice story arc, with lots of challenging but not impossible quests, and then at the end of it you end up facing a dungeon which is completely impossible for the usual group of 3 that I play in. So you're stuck either never finishing anything, or having to LFG and hope you don't wind up with a bunch of retards.
But then I guess I'm cluelessly stuck on that whole "RPG" aspect of it, which is clearly not where the money is.
Ok, I have not played WoW and I have no idea what a "40 man instance" or a "40-man raid zone" is. Can only 40 people occupy it at the same time? Are you facing imminent death unless you enter it with 40+ people? In the terms of WoW, what is an "instance" anyway?
Ronald said nothing. He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse, and rode madly off in all directions.
This is ridiculous, when I go to a movie theatre and hear someone talking about guild drama, when I talk to friends I haven't seen in years and they have a rank 8 undead mage on Archimond, and indeed, when WoW appears in the Times.... WoW has gotten out of hand.
Playing around in the world of Warcraft is absolutely amazing, due to the depth of story and rich world they've created. But I could never imagine buying and playing the game regularly unless they design a path or two you can take through the game to make it to the "end" without having to join up with a huge guild that schedules raids and grinds for gear.
Basically, I love multiplayer agmes and WoW is very good, but I can't stand playing a game on a schedule or organizing this massive efforts. Make some "end game" content that doesn't require a huge guild to complete, please. Some of us like company in the worlds we play in, but hate obligation.
That's all I've got to say about that.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Why is there nothing like Dynamic raid, like Diablo 2.The more people join the raid the harder it gets of course this would be relative to the players ability but since it is all instances But I don't think that it would cause to much trouble (in a week a walk though would be posted) and no one would claim that the devs are ignoring one group to satisfy another.
People just want something to do once they reach the end of the game. The rewards are secondary, but you're so demented you can't even remember games are supposed to be fun.
This is the final straw. I am going to sue blizzard for their obvious intent on destroying lives.
Since the Expansion pack will be raising the level cap to 70 a lot of the current raid zones will suddenly become instances that players will be capable of doing with far less people. I think that is why Blizzard keeps on releasing these high end raid dungeons since they know once the level cap is raised that people won't need to be so hardcore to do them.
The Undercity wasn't that big, from what I remember of trying to start Undead alts. Fucking annoying to navigate, but not that big at all.
The latter. Dungeons, or instances, are filled with harder-than-average monsters ("elites") followed by boss monsters who require coordination to defeat. Once all of the bosses in the instance are killed, the dungeon is considered beaten and you have to wait for it to reset before going back through. The reason to do it repeatedly is that each boss drops a few (maybe 1 or 2) high quality items, and the players that can use them roll for them. Of course, there are almost always more players than items so you keep going through for fun and to get stuff :-)
well, I find the GNAA's posts far more insightful than the average drivel posted on /.
So are the all the "regular" enemies still going to be the same model except slightly different sizes and colors? ^^
I've lost a ton of friends to WoW, and in fact i played beta and about 3 monthes of release. Dungeons are the biggest scams and time sinks. But you can't compete either in PvP or other dungeons without farming item after item endlessly (literally hundreds of hours spent doing the same dungeon over and over)
For the love of god, recognize this shitty, endless cycle. Your life has no purpose and that's why you play (are addicted to) WoW, but guess what? Your life has even less purpose while you play! Also, real life friends are better than loser virtual friends who only act like the like you so they can get purples.
In WoW the dungeons are "instanced" which means that when you group up with people and go into the dungeon only your party is in there, it creates a new dungeon for each party that goes into it. Regular dungeons are 5-man, meaning if you are of appropriate level it will take a group of 5 people to go through with a decent ammount of time. These 5-man dungeons are usually capped at a max of 5 people also, so you can't roll through with 20 people and get it done in 2 minutes. 40-man dungeons are the "end game" content. They are possible to do with less than 40 but it is ill-advised if you value your time. They differ slightly from regular instance dungeons in that you are "locked" into the instance once you kill a boss. From then on until the instance resets (once a week) you will join the same instance every time you go in. This allows groups of people to complete a dungeon over the course of a week which is often necisary. The first 40-man raid dungeons were Molten Core and Onyxia's Lair. Molten Core (9 bosses + 1 super end boss) is doable with far less than 40 now if your group has been doing it and has awesome gear. Onyxia is a 1 boss dungeon which is also doable with less than 40. (Average completion time is 8 hours for MC, 1 hour for Onyxia) They then released Blackwing's Lair which is a lot harder than either of the other 2, most servers have only managed to progress to the first few bosses by the time they released AQ (I forgot how to spell it..) There really is no average completion time for BWL because only a few guilds complete it. AQ was just released about a month ago, even harder than BWL, I'm not sure how many if any bosses people have killed. But to sum it up, you need an organized guild of either 40 extremely i-will-lose-my-job-over-a-game dedicated people or a guild of 80 pretty dedicated people to assure that you will be able to do one of these dungeons on a schedualed night. High end raiding guilds will usually have planned raids 3-5 nights a week going to the various dungeons which makes the end game content seem more like a second job than a video game. The harder they make these dungeons the longer it takes guilds to progress through them, the more raid time is REQUIED the less fun the game becomes.
Have fun, it's all about raids and it's why a lot of people are simply quitting the game. They seem to have forgotten the large number of people who made the game so popular..
*Fortitudo, aequitas, fidelitas.*
I leveled a hunter to 60, ran a number of raids with people in my guild, and really had a blast. My character is sitting there waiting for me, and I do plan on going back once the level cap is raised. When I was playing before, my wife was getting pretty neglected. I tried getting her into it, but I'd have had better luck trying to talk the pope into subscribing and playing an undead thief. Brick wall.
But now, she changed jobs, and starts very early in the morning. And goes to bed at about 9pm. Me? I stay up until about 1am. Lots of gaming time, wife is happy, therefore I am happy and life is good. I think I just talked myself into re-subscribing again. Where's my damn credit card.
http://cubemonkey.net/quotes -- fortune-mod quote generator
Agreed. They are rather offensive, but somehow amusing . . . I wish they'd post more often and maybe get away from template-based posts.
For some people getting the great item and defeating an extremely difficult boss is fun. But I guess everyone should play games your way.
Being a game designer, and writing my own MMO, I've been doing a lot of thinking about WoW (avid player for 6 months).
It doesn't find the happy medium. It is like a pyramid, with the middle missing. There is no spot for mediocracy. You have leetsauce gear, or you are a noob.
Every game has its roots. DAoC was a PvP game. EQ was a PvE game. WoW can't make up its mind, so its kinda half-assing it on both attempts.
I think its great for the extra publicity, as it helps us indies get a better grasp on what Joe Public wants and how he reacts to various scenarios.
Starcraft 2 ! Starcraft 2 ! Starcraft 2 !
Perhaps the parent poster should have said, "The Night Elves have the highest ratio of non-straight players in the game." or something along those lines.
(Brief intro, though others have covered it well:
... people would still be running out of things to do. And whining that the raiders had "more".
Dungeons are portions of the game that spawn a seperate copy for each group that goes in them. They range from 5 people working together to kill mobs and more complicated boss fights (Dire Maul, many others) to 40. Naraxammus has a max of 40 people, and you'll likely need all 40 to do it with full effectiveness.)
Whenever there's a post remotely related to raids, someone bitches about Blizzard being raid-only obssessed. This happened back when Blizzard released the first raid dungeon after release (BWL) back in July, after they had already released two 5-man dungeons (Maradon and Dire Maul) since release, and no raids. It happened with ZG, and AQ, and Naraxammus will be no different. Yes, Blizzard has probably been a little too raid-centric. But, even if they had made only 5-man dungeons
No game is going to last forever. If you feel you've played everything that's fun for you in the game, then you're done with the game. It happens even with raiders. (Nefarian first fell, what, several months ago? They ran out of content too, until 1.9, I imagine a number got bored and left).
Where it gets silly is those who make daft complaints about how their should be uber 5 mans that of course will be harder than any raid dungeon and how raiders never have fun and suck and the 5-manners should get uber gear. It's even funnier when there are complaints about how raiders are too loot obsessed in the same post as saying 5-mans should give epic loot.
Raids are fun. Particularly the learning curve. Working at a goal with friends, working together to meet a challenge that takes the skill of 40 organized, good people - it's great. People go for different things out of games; raiders take one thing, other people take others. And the raiding portion of the game at release - and after 1.3 - *was* inadequate. Frankly I think they could have stopped at AQ for a while, instead of Naraxammus, but I'm guessing this has been scheduled for a while.
And most of the well-designed raid fights (Ragnaros, Razorgore, Vaelstraz are shining examples but almost all of them fit here) *can't* be effectively changed to encounters that fit a smaller group, since they're designed around a large group. And Razorgore is fun as hell, as are most of the other bosses (Vael shows both the fun, teamwork, accomplishment side of raids and the frustating, stupid death side of it).
Yes, solo and smaller groups need progression of their own (the Field Duty quests and the 1.10 gear quest lines should provide both progression and quest content, but there should be more) but many of the complaints are silly. Or maybe I just spent too much time on the wow boards a while back.
Again you miss the point entirely. Casual players pay the same monthly fee that hardcore players do, they just want to have fun and don't want it to become like a job (probably because they have one already!) Yet the vanguard of WoW's elitist pricks continually make the argument about epic weapons and armor and how "casuals" want Blizzard to give stuff away for free. That's not the case at all, but because you're demented, you can't see that.
Why on earth do we care?
http://slashdot.org/faq/UI.shtml#ui500
Lern2UseSlashdot.
Raid Zone: Huge dungeon inside a MMORPG, populated with enemy leaders and extremely valuable treasure. Takes a group of 5-40 players hours to finish.
Eastern Plaguelands: One of the toughest outside areas of World of Warcraft. The Plaguelands are the remnants of a country that was killed by a plauge and ravaged by undead. Everything is dead, rotting, and there are undead (skeletons, zombies) and huge maggots everywhere. The Eastern Plaguelands are home to two of the first Raid Dungeons of the endgame -- Scholomance, a destroyed city full of undead, and Stratholme, a ruined city divided into two, one half is full of corrupted paladins, the other half full of undead.
Undercity: The main town of the Forsaken. Previously the capital city Lordaeron, events in Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos caused it to be destroyed by an undead Army called the scourge. Later, a "free" faction of undead, the Forsaken, took it over as their home.
Peirs Anthony had predicted these kinds of elaborate games a decade or more ago. He also predicted their wealth generating potential from intangible creations.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
I feel I have to chime in here in the defense of raids.
First, I find them a lot of fun but not for 8 hours. So, I don't join competitive guilds, I join more relaxed guilds, generally with higher numbers (about 140 or so) that has people willing to go on various raids if you'd like to that week
Second, They aren't required.
I spend more of my time on wow playing battlegrounds and leveling alts. I also like the concept of making a lvl 29 WSG character (that being a character that I don't level passed level 29 so he can play in a lvl 20-29 bracket in an instanced pvp arena) and getting the best possible gear for him and seeing how bad I can beat people (since its not going to happen in the 60 bracket.) Then do it again with a different race/class.
To me it's amazing working together in a 40 person group to accomplish a goal. It's cool to see all the rogues running around and hunters and mages unleashing ranged attacks from 41 yards. But, it does get redundant. I equate getting the best gear and (in an MMO world that means being the best generally) to being a dedicated athlete, it takes boring and redundant good ol' fashioned work! The best rewards shouldn't be easy to obtain and if you don't like it you probably should stick to FPS or RTS.
...is news about content upgrades for a single video game news worthy of being posted on /.. Gimme a break! I'm sure everyone that plays WoW already read this fantastic news on another source... those of us that don't (and there are a great many more of us) don't need to be wasting our time with this junk.
All this complaining about the commitment involved with WoW is confusing me. I have a level 60, and yes I have been part of several instance runs(no more then 6 people, not raids). This is a rare exception. Generally I solo, unlike many other MMORPGs it IS possible to reach the level cap without EVER joining a group. I rarely have more then a couple hours to play at a time and have made it to 60 without terrible difficulty.
Long ago I temporally destroyed my life playing Everquest. My lesson has be learned. I will not dedicate an unhealty amount of time to an MMORPG. In my opinion WoW facilitates leasure play far better then any other MMORPG I've played.
Seriously. Rare should mean only a few can exist in the entire world. In MMORPG parlance rare means you just have to farm the same damn mob over and over for it to drop. Nothing is Rare/Epic in WOW. It just takes longer to get. Hell most 60s are equipped in rares/epics.
Worse, its an ever escalating arms race. They keep out doing the last quest and now you have scads of level 60s running around with items that normal level 60 content can't threaten and worse, in PvP anyone not equipped on the same level is just shit out of luck.
Monty Hall.
When a MMORPG finally understand what rare means then perhaps we can get away from this incessant farming the create. Then Blizzard gets up on their high horse claim gold farmers are bad yet they continue to create the very environment which fosters them!
(sorry for the ramble)
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I stopped eating glass when EQ2 came out and my uber guild in EQ fall apart after I amassed enough DKP to get whatever I wanted, which then became totally useless. It was bad enough having to be at my computer for 4+ hours per night at the same time and participate in terminally boring raids over and over to get phat lewt, but the politics and the ass-kissing and the trivial drama just did me in.
At that point I stopped playing EQ and didn't mess with any of their competitors. But everything I'm hearing about WoW is that it seems almost identical to Everquest. It has all the same problems that plagued EQ. So what makes it a big deal? Is is just new and different eye candy but the same design? Same group sizes; same raid setup; instanced zones; epic weapons; everything?
I actually really enjoyed non-instanced dungeons. I'd argue whether the WoW and EQ2 standard is better. Yea, it's better if you want to live in a little sealed, unrealstic world, but the non-instanced dungeons were a lot more fun. Raids would accidently/intentionally train each other; opposing groups would help each other out; you could watch a powerful group break into a secured area and then sneak in and get some good loot... these are very real-world, realistic type scenarios. Instanced dungeons are lame. So exactly why is WoW such a hip game? From what I gather, it's totally derivative of other MMORPGS.
Jeff Kaplan should go back to his raiding guild in Everquest because the vast majority of WoW players HATE RAIDS.
The "war" between hardcore and casual isn't a war at all. It's just casual players have reached a point in the game where they are unable to advance their characters further. They don't want epic handouts, they just want a way to continue to make progress with their character and thanks to time/skill or other factors are unable to participate in the 40 man raid guilds that allow that to happen.
It's not surprising given that it's been over a year since a new "casual" dungeon has been added to the game (dire maul).
The issue that I see with this is the fact that starting a new character nearly becomes impossible, and nearly all the end-game content for reaching 60 is limited to 40 people during a guild's raid schedule. I, at one point, had two level 60's and enjoyed the game, but I realized it actually was taking over my life.
Initially I would only space time in for WoW, but eventually I found myself moving around my own timetable *for* WoW. Once you're in the hardcore guids, there is no end to the raiding (at night...during the day there is absolutely nothing to do at level 60 beyond PvP, and the PvP items suck compared to anything from BWL). The game became an obsession, perfectly viable business opportunities and opportunities to make a significant inroad into my career were forsakeen for...well...taking down Golemagg for the 55th time.
Now, this new raid instance merely continues the chain. Once again, there's nothing outside of raiding to do once you're 60. PvP items are becoming increasingly inferior to the epics won out of BWL or even AQ40.
Now the issue with new characters is suddenly, lets say you make a new one. You get him to 60, great. Decked out in blue items if you're good and spent your time leveling the last levels in Dire Maul. With this new Nex thing, you're incredibly behind. There are the epics from Molten Core you would want to get, which then you'll need to get the items from Blackwing Lair, then hit up AQ40 for all the latest Legendary or god knows what, then you'd be on your way to Nex. This process would take nearly 2 years to complete, and there's no way in hell you're going to AQ40 or this new zone without being decked out in Epics. There's even very little use for you in BWL if you're in Blues...especially against Vael when everyone just needs to be putting out huge numbers.
Thus, it becomes alts are...well...more of a burden than an enjoyable part of the game. You're stuck on one character and you damn well better enjoy it. You're hooped if not.
If i was at Blizzard, I would be looking for more ways to extend the story at level 60 beyond "Get a group of 40 people and kick ass". ZG was slowly making it that way...but perhaps even take it further. Most people who are casual could perhaps get 5 people together. Make a dungeon where you go and kill something that will yeild an epic item with a 200% drop rate (in other words, two epics...not 3 or 4 like from the 40 man raid bosses). Make the dungeon take around 2 hours to complete for the group of 5, and give it a reset timer akin to ZG's, or perhaps even the weekly timer. The casual players will love it because they can only ever go so often, and the hardcores probably won't want to invest all that time...unless they're more interested in just killing time.
It would be a slow process, but a good one. Perhaps the dungeon (at a level of difficulty equivilant to MC) yeild items straight from MC itself. Of course, with only 5 people the game would need to ensure an item isn't going to be destroyed, thus is sensitive to the classes in the group. At this rate, the group of 5 people should have 8 epics (the number of armor slots) by the end of 5 months. Comparatively, if you have 40 people go into MC, MC yeilds around 30 epics a month, 8 slots each, you're looking at 3 months of getting entirely equipped.
Thoughts?
To make a pun demonstrates the highest understanding of a language
from http://web.archive.org/web/20021202071205/www.worl dofwarcraft.com/wow/faq/ :
How will World of Warcraft differ from other MMORPGs?
World of Warcraft will differ from other MMORPGs in many ways. One of our main goals is to ensure that players can enjoy World of Warcraft without having to invest huge amounts of playtime. Players will be able to complete quests and experience the world at their own pace-whether it be a few hours here and there, or week-long adventuring marathons. Additionally, our quest system will provide an enormous variety of captivating quests with story elements, dynamic events, and flexible reward systems. World of Warcraft will also feature a faster style of play, with less downtime and an emphasis on combat and tactics against multiple opponents. We also plan to incorporate several unique features, which we'll disclose throughout the course of development.
Once a character reaches 60, the only playstyles are to raid or grind. At 60 you can play at your own pace, so long as that pace matches that of at least 20 other people. Story elements and dynamic events are cool, but at 60 there are fewer and fewer quests that take longer to complete and are accessible to fewer people. Fighting a huge raid boss doesn't involve much tactics against multiple opponents. And to boot, the raid itemization progression (aka mudflation) has totally thrown off PvP balance between those who raid and those who do not.
"Make your time"
Well genius, reading the title again, it doesn't have more than two x's in it. And Xerox doesn't either.
More than two would mean three or more in case you are still having trouble figuring it out.
Is that raid content is trivially easy. It takes a bit of time to learn the encounter, but once a few guilds have done it and posted their techniques, it's not hard to learn.
Within the 40 person raid, there's a few people working hard; the main tank, the leader co-ordinating, etc. But most of the 40 people are just mechanically doing their job. Working as "healbots" staring at health bars and castng heals when the health goes down, or as "damagebots" casting the same attack over and over when the leader says to attack and pausing when the leader says to stop attacking so the tanks can regain control. It's sickening how easy it is to rake in the epics. It just takes time. About 6-8 hours to complete the raid and get around 20 epics for the 40 players.
By contrast, the other content is far more challenging. Especially PvP, but even smaller high level instances like Dire Maul are much more challenging than MC. Even the blizzard quote from the article scoffs at how easy Stratholme is (a 5 man instance). Stratholme is *harder* than Molten Core. Yet Molten Core gives out epics like free candy.
it doesn't take any more blizzard man-hours to create an item for 10,000 people than for three people.
it's just not worth it to do the art/balance-testing for something that only two or three people are going to see.
lysergically yours
Is it just me or is everything that blizzard has come out with for WoW so far been mostly just a bone to keep people happy?
Just expansion areas every few months. Stuff with the proper tools could be created and impelmented in just a couple weeks.
new instance area, new attached quests that make you need to farm area many many times to get quest items. some new scenery and monsters. some loot.
Nothing really game changing. Nothing you can do can change things in game save a dragon head on a pole for a day.
Nothing for guilds to do as a guild for reward other then endless raids of the same places over n over.
Something simple like a quild registry that members can earn badges would be nice. - Guild Seal Clubbers has managed to defeat Undead lich story, etc.
Would like to see Guild ships and Zepplins. pvp and even pve would be interesting again.
Battleground maps are in a sorry state.. no point other then mindless gankfest.
if players can create maps for online first person shooters in a few days, blizzard has no excuse for not making new/random battlefield maps. same map same spots is boring.
No fixes to glaring issues since release.
From what I have seen playing the game for a year before giving up, is that there is no more developer telent left at blizzard.
They cant even keep a website up and running properly, much less even handle simple game updates.
Ahwell, lowest common denominator..
RTFM nub. How the fuck is this +2, Informative? He's ASKING a fucking nub question!
http://www.grogaddicts.org
7
Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d encule de ta mere.
I, on the other hand, am in a guild that is essentially a small group of friends. I've never even set foot into Molten Core, since we tend to RP more than anything else. I raid every now and then, but I get terrible migraines if I have to stare at the screen for too long. Between that and my full time job, my character has completely stagnated. I've got top of the line crafted gear, but it'll never get better unless I seriously raid. In essence, I've finished the game... There's just nowhere for it to take me now.
Now we have the announcement that the next big thing is, amazingly, another megaraid dungeon. Whoop-de-doo.
The expansion will probably add a decent amount of casual-friendly content (new areas to explore, 5 and 10-man dungeons that don't have to be completed in daily segments, etc.), so I'll probably be back when that's released. But for now, there isn't a single reason for me to keep shelling out $15 a month.
This game is on borrowed time. (1) The game is currently unstable and people are having to queue for a long time to actually get to play (even on medium pop servers); (2) The end game content forces you to raid if you want to progress, even if you don't like that playstyle and would prefer 10-15 person content - the expansion will give you another 10 whole levels of play if you don't like to raid; (3) The recent anti-gay "blaming the victims" stuff is the last straw.
Some people may like this, but personally, I'm done with it, and so are the friends I used to play with.
Oh and (4): Blizzard's CMs are arrogant and ignorant cretins (except for the Mac Support people, who are awesome).
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
You know, I have played this game for a long time and really enjoyed it. But now it's turning into EQ. Kaplan and his -people- are slowly caring more and more about the "next release" and less and less about the current state of the game. It would be nice to see them fix the issue that are still open with the game as it stands. Then again, he and McQuade might be buddies :)
I find a number of things interesting here. First of all, more of the same large raid rewards from Blizzard. In other words, all that is wrong with WoW to begin with, they will magnify. Secondly, the comments on Slashdot which make the most sense to me, i.e., those in the least bit critical of Blizzard, are typically ranked (by whatever arcane ranking system Slashdot uses, obviously a biased one) around a 2, while comments that add more "hype" to the WoW machine, fawning over the new phat loot in 1337speek, are typically given a 5. This is much like a White House press release, where the untrustworthy news sources (Fox News, for example) simply rehashes verbatim the talking points of the administration. In this case, it's an article in the "whoop-de-do" NY Times written by, yeah, you guessed it, a hardcore uber-raider. Well...sure to expect balance there...not. He's basically just holding up the lead developer (bandit-in-thief) and giving him a podium from which to preach. Balance is about the one thing that WoW has never had, and it's only going to get worse.
Will not have been bored at endgame already... Few people can go lvl 60 faster then 15 days (thats 15x24 gameplayed hours, which is 360 hours). You have numerous classes to explore and there's tons of dungeons to explore after your lvl 60 as well. BRD, LBRS, UBRS, Stratholme, Scholomance, Dire Mauls 3 wings.
After your done with that there is much more casuals can do. IF they love the 1-59 experience they can make a new class. A new faction, try a different server type...
I personally hated grinding 1-60. I did quests and hung out with friends but most of the time it felt like a goddamn grind because it is a grind.
Also you make it out that all casuals dont' care about epics and just wnat some form of progression. HEll, spending some time in the wow general boards is all you need to know thats not true. I've seen countless people want epics of raid caliber not just from 5 man content but single man too (from a mmorpg...sigh).
Raiding dungeons can be thrilling and just 4 hours a day consistently for at least 3-4 days a week can give you significant results. Back when our guild had trouble fielding people we conquered all of molten core minus ragnaros just raiding 2-3 days a week. We conquered him when we started raiding 4 days a week. The guild has already killed nefarion now btw.
Needing to play 8 hours a day every day is a huge exaggeration.
Hmmm... Pie...
or what passes as them to gamers
This decade please, damnit! PLEASE!! PLEASEEE!!!
Except that when Blizzard releases the new expansion raid zones, THOSE new raid zones will only be for the hardcore. And Blizzard (MMORPGs in general) typically doesn't raise the level cap too often. Don't forget, WoW initially launched with a level 50 cap and was only bumped up to level 60 because people were hitting the level cap literally a week after the launch (I think the current record is something like 4 days playtime from level 1 to 60.)
Good point about the expansion making these high end instances a lot simpler to do at the higher levels. I hope Blizzard reads some of the comments on here, and makes more light raid zones that don't require 40 people at 8 hours to complete the instances. It seams there are a lot of casual gamers that won't be able to get through some of these instances, as they won't have the time to commit to such an epic endevor. My vote would be for more simple zones for the level 50-60 players that can be done with 5 players, in 1-3 hours.
I encrypt all my files with Double XOR Encryption!
I don't know what all you casual people are whining about. There's been tons of new stuff introduced in the last 5 months for people to have fun with on their own or in a group of 5:
1) Grind furbolgs a couple hours a day for a few months and get a trinket that summons a furbolg for 45 seconds and does 300 damage!
2) Enjoy the Lunar Festival happening right now! Collect 50 coins from around the world and swap them in for..... fireworks.... and dresses!
3) A brand new Yojimba Isle. Visit there and learn about a couple of raid quests you won't be able to go on! Lots of in-depth lore if "We must kill them all" is lore to you.
4) The race to open AQ20/40! Do your part skinning 1,000s of animals or collecting 1,000s of runecloth to open up the new 20/40-man instances!
5) The darkmoon faire! Skin 1,000s of animals and collect rare drops to get trinkets!
6) The Thorium brotherhood introduced! Have you mined your 2100 ore yet? Didn't think so! Start now! Again, tons of in-depth lore and involved quests such as "give me 25 incendosaur scales!"
7) Go from Hated to Exalted with the Brood of Nozdormu. Again, tons of fun, lots of laughs!
In Blizzard's defense, Cenarion Hold had a couple interesting quests to it and the fishing tournament was a cool idea. Other than that, not much happening lore-wise or 1-5 casual player-wise.
I'm also in the same boat. Enjoyed some of the quests with interesting stories to them earlier on -- tracking down a kingdom's missing king, investigating a burnt out inn, etc. Haven't found much of that recently. Just a lot of raiding to upgrade peoples characters by 0.01%.
I've stepped away from the game a bit hoping that Blizzard puts more interesting things lore-wise into the game with the expansion. The Caverns of Time have decent potential for this, but who knows, maybe they'll just make the places you go to within the caverns lots of 20-40-man raid places with thin stories to them.
Too bad Blizzard considers the following general chat yell to be offensive, "OZ [the name of her guild] is recruiting all levels ¦ We are not 'GLBT only,' but we are 'GLBT friendly'! (guilduniverse.com/oz)" The player who said this was threatened with account suspension by the WoW gamemasters. Check out http://www.innewsweekly.com/innews/?class_code=Ga& article_code=1172 for the full story. My wife and I are canceling our accounts as a result.
And WoW's graphics look like it too! /clap
Getting old fast, Shit!
They will make StarCraft2 when people stop buying starcraft. Please god make them stop selling SC.
We've gotten good enough that we can do all but the last boss (rag) in MC at about 5 hours on the dot. Some guilds do it faster.
People come and go during this time too.
It is a bummer to have to rush home from work to make it to the scheduled raids on time.
However, a much larger complaint for me is pvp... With a full time job and family I just don't have the time to spend PVPing to continue building my rank up compared to a college student who is skipping classes and having his friends play "shifts" on his account.
I sure wish it was based more on skill than who has the most time to farm honor kills day and night. I should hit rank 9 on Tuesday but I really wonder if I'll be able to make it much higher.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
You mean vocal majority?
How many copper bars am I going to have to collect to open this elitist dungeon?
They seem to have some new templates though.
I wish we'd see some of their major trolls, like the fake hijacked Apple OS.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
I think it is time to look back
I don't think anyone has ever explained better what it takes to "enjoy" a mmorpg. And no, I don't think EQ and WoW have different gameplay concepts. In the end, they are both games designed with time-investment in mind, and that's utter and wicker design
---------
Thinking never hurt anybody --MacGyver
I'm a level 48 right now. Once I hit 60, I plan to start over with a new character (perhaps a shaman, I hear they no longer take damage! :)
Sometimes the journey is just more fun than the destination.
Whoopity!
None of that is true. The game launched with a level cap of 60, which was in place during beta. They also announced that the cap is going to be raised to 70 when the expansion comes out.
Why not just have say a game time limit of 300 hours on some time limit servers (PvsE, PvsP PvsPtimed) . After the limit expired your character dies. This'd ensure a mix of all level characters rather than the bias towards the elite 60s we see.
I'd be more inclined to play that server anyway.
My preferred approach to new content would be to drop pretty and thematic items in the more difficult dungeons but to not increase their power. I would much rather see the end-game dungeons center around player skill, rather than item power.
The problem with this is that it is not the best money-maker for Blizzard. The way they have it now, they have sucked a lot of hardcore players into an endless gerbil cage run of equipment upgrades. This is good for business (although you could argue that if enough people becoming addicted and seek help which involves quitting WoW, the equation will go the other way). And those that hate the end-game farming, still want the opportunity to see the cool content in the end-game, so they start an alt and get to 40. Then they become frustrated with the mind-numbing grind, and start another alt. Then they want to see the end-game and get to 40. Then they become frustrated and make an alt. Then they...
In my opinion, WoW is optimized for profit and that profit exploits the most addictive aspects of player psychology to ensure high subscription rate and revenue. The sad thing is that many players of these games are looking for an addictive behavior that will give them a cycle of "accomplishment" ("Got my next epic!") that has no end. Many people really are looking for a full escape from a real life where "accomplishment" is a lot less clear cut than reaching the next player level. Those of us that would rather pay $15/mo and log on for a few hours a week and still have a fulfilling experience are the minority. Or rather, let me say that those of us that insist on balance, and will not play a brain-sucking game that only rewards addictive behavior are in the minority. Therefore, the most money is had by catering to the majority. And that majority largely consists of the hardcore grind addicts and the people with a bad case of altitis ("How many level 40s do you have?"). I was in the latter category.
I left WoW six months ago, and although I would really enjoy taking a stroll in NEX and AQ, there is no way that I will sacrifice a few hours of life each day for 2 years to do it. I took that time over the past 6 months and found a nice house instead; a real one.
I seriously cannot believe some of the idiotic posts I'm seeing in this thread. Why do people think you're supposed to be able to play an MMO constantly, forever and ever, and always be able to have new content available to play? Are you people fucking retarded? It takes ten to a hundred times as much time and effort to create interesting content as it does to experience it. Hey, did it ever occur to you that maybe once you hit level 60, if you don't like raiding or grinding for loot, and you've finished all the available quests, you could stop playing WoW? GASP! NO! YOU MUST RAID THE SAME DUNGEON A BILLION TIMES!!! RAWR!!!!!!!111dragon
I mean, it's not like WoW has 3,000 or so quests, most of which you probably didn't do on your way from 1-60 with a given character. It's not like there are eight other classes you could play, or seven other races, some of whom have large swathes of entirely different quests. No, no, I'm going to bitch because I got to level 60 AND THERE'S NOT INFINITE MORE CONTENT TO PLAY! OMGWTFBBQORLY!!
Jesus. If you don't like raiding, and you don't want to start a new character (try the other faction! They have an almost entirely separate set of quests to do!), and you're bored with the game, STOP PLAYING. You played for a few months, Blizzard got some of your cash, it's quite a fair trade. Quit bitching like you're entitled to something which is impossible to create. Christ on a crutch.
(Lest anyone impugn my qualifications to rant on this topic, I have a level 60 warlock, 60 priest, 44 warrior, 35 hunter, 30 mage, 25 rogue, 24 paladin, and 10 druid. That's on ONE server. I played a lot until a few months ago (don't have the time now). Oh noes!)
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Q. Why not just let casual players get rewards comparable to those from raids?
A. It would be almost impossible for us to do, and this is a philosophical decision. We need to put a structure in place for players where they feel that if they do more difficult encounters, they'll get rewarded for it.
Sadly, the above quote indicates that difficulty in the mind of WoW designers has nothing to do with player skill so much as the ability to follow a narrowly predetermined script for N hours. The sad truth is that it's really fairly simple to macro instance runs down to putting your character on "follow" mode and taping down the macro hotkey. This simply isn't the case for 5-man content as it requires a wider set of skills and the ability to adapt, since the loss of even one person can be disastrous. Now, even 5-man dungeons in WoW aren't really difficult as they too have a predetermined script to follow, but the more granular party makeup at least makes it less likely that this can be accomplished by some well-written macro code. I've long since given up on WoW's item acquisition fetish bent for Guild Wars, in which the best items in the game can typically be bought in town. In practice, this seems to refocus the game on player skill and cooperation, and "winning" the game simply can't be achieved through perseverance.
My brother has 2 mains that are 60 and soloed the entire way, with an occasional instance dungeon with close friends. Not once has he ever been in a raid, and has enjoyed it the entire time.
It's clear that most of slashdot is crowded with casuals.. But uh.. 4 hours for 3 days a week is um not a whole lot no matter how ou look at it.
Join a medium-high pop server and find a guild that only raids on weekends. Or join a massive guild where they don't need all of their 90 members every day for 40 man raids.
Hmmm... Pie...
You drew in so many people with the ease of gameplay and the friendliness to casual gamers yet you fuck us in the ass with this uber raid bullshit. If I wanted to do crap like that I would go back to EQ.
Give us some 5 or 3 man dungeons, doesnt have to have uber gear but something nice would be good. Make it all bind on pickup so people dont farm them like mad. Maybe class specific dungeons where you use the lesser used abilites of your class to proceed. Bah.. just falling on deaf ears it would seem
He is right... alas...
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Blizzard says, 'We need to put a structure in place for players where they feel that if they do more difficult encounters, they'll get rewarded for it.' when asked why only raiders get the best rewards.
The problem is that Blizzard's idea of what constitutes 'difficult' is 90% number of people involved and 10% technical difficulty of the content and fight organization. If you need 40 people to kill something, you get epics. If you only need 20, you get blues. That's all there is to their system.
Inadequately tested, and likely unfinished, upon release. Initial MC, BWL, and 40 man AQ instance anyone?
Just to give you people a heads up... you just KNOW you're going to need exalted with Argent Dawn for some of the quest goodies! So best to start now if you've been lazy with AD faction.. ALSO, be sure to gear up on frost and shadow resist!
I stopped playing the game back in mid december. I'm not sure how i'm addicted to a game I no longer play.
there are few activities i don't spend more then ten hours on. Unless it is something truly trivial. I enjoy gaming and if i find a game i liked i will more then likely spend more then ten of the 168 hours of so availabel in the week to do so. I'm also a full time student... That takes up quite a bit more time then gaming. I also have a part time job in which i work twenty hours.
The ony thing i can think of that i spend less time doing is truly trivial like eating food or something. There are few things i "do" for enjoyment that can be fulfilling if I spend a worthless amount fo time on. The only thing I regret doing now is my part time job... i've sapped all the experience I can from that job and now everything is simply boring and repeaticuous as wow has become.
Hmmm... Pie...
From Penny Arcade:
The Timesink Cavern
Timesink Cavern is a four-hundred man raid instance that requires seventy-six consecutive hours to complete.
"LF399M TTC PST"
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dupe
Those larger 5-mannable (10-15 raidable) instances are themselves a bit annoying to reach. Most of them are keyed, and getting some of those keys takes a lot of grinding. I have a 60-warrior I've been playing for close to a year now. He's been 60 quite awhile, but I still don't have onyxia's key yet.
I've let the 60 sit a few times while I've played alts, and something interesting happened. I had fun. But, afterwhile I get tired of doing the same quests over again, and longed for something new. So I go back to the warrior and make another push.
When I think of everything I've done to get my main char to where it is, just thinking about doing all of those key quests again makes makes me just stop and shake my head. I really don't want to do them all again for an alt.
Guilds are everything. A good guild will make the game go well. Joining a bad guild can make months of dedication and helping people for nought when they self destruct. Then you're stuck looking for a new guild and back at the bottom of the pecking order, so even if you're in the guild, you may not get to go on any of the big raids. (Which is what happened to me).
Yes, the expansion will make the bigger raids easier as higher level characters will be much more effective. At the same time, those raids were designed to be a challenge for 20-40 60's. That really seems to be the game play experience that was originally had in mind, and I'd like to have the feeling of accomplishment for completing those areas. But the time commitment is killer.
The people I know who have made it past the wall I'm hitting my head against in the game are on everytime I log in, and I'm on most nights. Maybe that's what it takes.
He made a classchange you know.
http://www.youtube.com/watch.php?v=Yhm1ClW5uAY
I have exactly as much of a life as I want/need at this point. I go to work. I do fun stuff. I earn money to keep a roof over my head, food on the table, decent surroundings, appropriate toys and food for my cats, and pay alimony.
And then I go home and play WoW for the evening, because it's a crapload more fun than the other options available to me. For instance, hanging out with friends pestering me to go spend the evening in bars or clubs (ewwww) for the next three years to find someone to replace the wife who moved cross country with someone she met at a community activity we were doing together (and had a fling with, then moved in with, then drove away with), or otherwise letting the craptasticness of reality catch up with me.
Sorry, WoW's a lot more fun than an endless grind to fail to get into anyone's pants, while earning money to pay off the greatest personal betrayal I've had in my life.
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