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World of Warcraft - Wrath of the Lich King Officially Announced
An anonymous reader writes "Wrath of the Lich King is official! BlizzCon is in full swing, and celebrants there are already enjoying the Northrend-themed imagery. For a look at what's going on, Joystiq has a liveblog of the opening ceremony up. Games For Windows magazine, meanwhile, will feature WLK its next cover. The post on the 1up site has a number of details on the next expansion, including the introduction of the Death Knight, the first new class since WOW's launch 'World of WarCraft's first Hero Class is a plate-wearing tank/DPS hybrid that works a little something like this: When players hit level 80, they'll be able to embark on a quest (similar in difficulty to the Warlock's epic mount quest, back before the level cap was raised to 70) that unlocks the ability to create a Death Knight character. The Death Knight starts at a high level (somewhere around 60 or 70, though Blizzard isn't certain yet), so you won't have to grind your way back up all over again. It's intended as an alternative, advanced class for end-game use only.'."
an alternative, high-end crack-cocaine for more advanced fiends.
The old EQ Skinner Box model strikes again. Every year or so, release an expansion that completely invalids any progress made in the last expansion. Problem is, it works as a money making venture, so other games follow the same suit rather than attempting to create games where content is for fun rather than for grind.
It's intended as an alternative, advanced class for end-game use only.
I feel a great disturbance in the force. As if millions of casual gamers suddenly cried out in terror, and then were suddenly silenced.
Seriously, though. I hear people on WoW complaining about "the grind" which to me is the best part. I like questing from 1 to 70. I like experiencing the story and still being able to play with friends if I want. If they're going to start only catering to the "end-game" users, maybe my WoW time is coming to an end. Full time job, side consultant jobs, a wife, a kid on the way, and everything else just doesn't leave a lot of room for a raid schedule.
Yes, you can dance to Radiohead.
Blizzard already did a poor job making the current hybrid classes playable. I don't think another one will improve the game.
Virginia is for lovers. EVE is for griefers.
Must... resist... expansion...
Mustn't... resubscribe...
cause it is...
Reminds me of geocentrism. Works for a while but the exceptions and problems build until it's over complex and unwieldy.
Deleted
Arthas!!!
PS - The lameness filter won't let me shout in caps.
I'm looking forward to this expansion .... now we can go beyond beyond Azeroth, haha. I was really hoping for a new race .... like .... I dunno .... something exotic. I'm psyched for this, plus the lvl cap is going to be 80. Looks like I gotta get to grinding harder.
WTF? So we got new early game and end game content in BC which was great. But where's the love for the mid levellers?
And what's up with an "unlockable" end game class? Too lazy to balance the new class all the way through?
"Secrecy is the Beginning of Tyranny" "No intelligent man has any respect for an unjust law" -Robert Heinlein
Isn't that what Mortal Strike or Fury warriors were before they got smacked with the nerf bat?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
Sounds like the Shadowknight from Everquest :)
Eh?
That's how it reads to me, anyway.
Obviously, I'm not much of a gamer.
I will be playing this game a little longer.
Hurry up with the Emerald Dream.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Well, I guess that puts the final nail in the coffin of the shaman as a DPS/Healing hybrid!
when all is said and done, all a man has left are his blades and his honor.
Again with the focus on End game and a 10 level rise. Not only will it now take months for the average gamer to reach endgame, they'll have to deal with the broken level 70 content as well as the broken level 60 content. I'm sure lots of people who started from scratch will remember the 'fun' of spending 500g leveling craft from 290-300 so you can then craft BC stuff, have class quests which require trying to find people willing to spend 4 hours in an instance with obsolete goods. With people leveling 60-70 post 2nd expansion they'll probably have all the fun of rep grinding as well as the empty instances they need to complete. Blizzard focus on endgame and ignore everything else. WoW is crying out for an anti-DPS class that can take out rogues and mages and have a strong focus on debuffs (spell breakers perhaps) but the devs are too lazy to balance level 1-70 content for a new class. Instead they're going the easy route and making endgame only classes
maybe we can hope for a Death Cube K patch.
or just a corn bugs level
-- Sig under construction...
Ever watch sports, it's the same damn thing over and over again. - grind
...
Ski? - Ride lift up hill, slide down hill over and over again - grind
Surf web - click click type type type - grind
Watch TV -click click click on remote - grind
Sex - in out in out in out - not grind (mebbe for hugh hefner)
Sounds like Jedi from Star Wars Galaxies.
If I get a few hours a week to game, I am pretty happy. Everything I've read about WoW leads me to believe that I will really not do well there. But those screen shots are truly exquisite. So help me out, /. folks. Can WoW be enjoyed by a family guy approaching over the hill?
If so, you'll rune the day I got hold of my sword!
Quite frankly, I find the lower level quests far more interesting.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I don't know if you noticed this, dingus, but he did. It's the first link. I know it might be hard to notice that the very first sentence links to the official site, but it does.
Idiot.
I think expanding the level cap every 12 months is actually a good thing for casuals. It adds more leveling content, and limits gear inflation for casual pvpers. Even a very casual player can get a toon from level 60 to 70 within 12 months. The thing I am most excited about is the new PvP content. New BGs and PvP options are great for people who cannot commit to a raid schedule.
The only thing I'm curious about is the new Hero class... the way they are doing it just seems very odd. My guess is that they do not balance it as a viable PvP class, since it is "free". Otherwise it makes Shamans and Pallys kind of obsolete.
why the WoW articles in Slashdot don't get the "getafirstlife" tag?
3...2...1... blech
I used to play wow (lvl 70 warrior, lvl 70 priest) for a couple of years. Guild raided MC & BWL back before TBC dropped so I have seen a good part of the content. I let my subscription lapse a couple months ago because it just wasn't fun and exciting anymore. I was wondering if the new xpack would be interesting enough to get mt to resubscribe. I guess not. Oh well, on to bigger and better things.
So long and thanks for all the epics.
Newspaper reporters - you start gathering news items, become a town crier when not out in the field.
Battlefield surgeons - you go into the arenas not for Honor from killing but Honor from saving lives - and the chance for really neat medical equipment.
Philosophers - look, noone knows what they do anyway, even if one of my Ph.D. friends who discovered most of the Tuberculosis infection mechanisms got a degree in that, so WoW could make almost anything up about this and get away with it.
Bard - songs, stories, travelling to distant lands to get new songs and musical instruments, and so on, hanging out in bars, what more can one ask - also raises morale for parties, so people let you tag along.
Things like this that casual gamers could play and feel they are progressing no matter what else goes on.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
While that's a mildly amusing observation, you are making an invalid comparison. Considering that the monthly fee for MMORPGs is technically for the right to play, your context assumption is incorrect. Primarily because you only pay to have an account, nothing else is determined by how much you pay, unlike the article you are referencing. Secondly, the monthly fees are used to keep the servers up practically 24/7 (weekly maintenance and those few buggy servers aside), moderating and updating the game, and compensating the employees for the fact that their life is basically keeping the game up and running, oh and yes I think they deserve a profit for doing this all so you can play a freaking video game. So yes while you are technically right, they are in fact two completely different examples of pay-to-play, one being valid and the other not. If you naively think it could or should be otherwise for an MMORPG of this depth/size/complexity/etc.., you sir, are a fucking moron.
"Now you know, and knowing is half the battle!"
Doesn't anyone feel just a tad ripped off by the fact that after they pay full price for a game they then have to pay a monthly fee for the privilege to play and then they have to buy an expansion pack every so often to stay relevant within the world that they're paying for!? I mean, the boring gameplay and complete lack of any objective is enough for me to feel ripped off...
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
because I was very unhappy with endgame (I enjoyed getting to endgame however). I raided TBC for about 2-3 months and cleared Kara and Gruul. Once my tradeskills were maxed it was just a gear grind. The "fun factor" was completely gone from the game. It was no longer *content* driven (exploring new lands, questing and finding out the backstories of characters). The one thing that kept me playing was getting that next piece of gear. This just wasn't fun. Some like the raid bosses because they require teamwork and strategy, and to some extent I enjoy it. But really unless your in a cutting edge raiding guild all the strategies are on WoW wiki, so the challenge is minimized.
:-/
The new expansion sounds like more of the same. Though I could very easily be wrong as the expansion has just been announced....
Some thoughts nevertheless...
-I wonder if there will be talent points from leveling gained in the expansion... It seems to me that with 70 talent points available a lot of the uniqueness of character builds goes away.
-Death Knights?... questing for access to a particular class?... what is this FFIX?! Had my fill of that game thank you very much...
Obviously many people still play and enjoy WoW, so the game certainly is not a failure, just doesn't "do it" for me anymore
This game looks good but in reality it will ruin your life! Please, Beware of WOW. Don't fall into the bandwagon! Caution! Play any other game besides games like this.
Yea, the Death Knight, which was introduced ten years ago in Warcraft II, sounds similar to Everquest's Shadowknight. Get a grip on reality. I guess you can't, since you're playing MMORPGs all day long.
That's not really the way it works in WoW; it's more like you're a shapeshifter who can cast spells. All the shapeshifting abilities use mana, but they're not interruptable, they're not dispellable, and they don't have duration, which makes them different from every other spell in the game.
If that's the way you want to define hybrid though, I'm fine with that for the purposes of discussion.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Do you think the Death Knight will be an unlockable Alpha Class, much like jedi originally was with SWG? I.e. much stronger offense and defense than other classes, with certain weaknesses that help balance? I really liked that premise in SWG, so I would be happy to see it return in another game.
The primary motivator for sticking with a game is social bonding.
Coming soon, WoW, now over 2 years old, is going to have serious competition with this Christmas' new MMO releases, and they know that losing too many key players would mean a rank 8 hemorrhage on their player base.
So they're giving us a lot to do.
It's the model that we've had all along. It focuses on grinds, and sometimes it can really seem like this style of MMO misses the mark for content which people can enjoy. At least, enjoy with an amount of time which is socially acceptable. I mean, how sustainable is the gamer lifestyle, really? Apart from what we call "game addiction," looking at things like diet, nutrition and exercise with heavy gamers makes me think that we need to demand something which won't kill us, because I swear to god, a plate DPS class? GTFO, I can't resist that.
But back to how players move, look for an article "All or Nothing Game" sometime in the next week or two on gamasutra.com - on what makes people quit a game, keep playing, or switch games altogether. In the article I talked with 5 of the worlds top games academics, among them Ed Castronova and Henry Jenkins - and they had a lot to say.
If you're interested in this stuff, or a non-hysterical view on game addiction, then check out my blog. I'd love to hear more on how you think players move to, from, and between games as well, since I may plan future research on the topic.
I apologize for the title, I had intended it to be phrased as A venerable WoW making irresponsible moves? a question. I'm more interested in feedback than to place blame on any one game maker. Thanks, and again my apologies.
Ha!!!!! thats hilarious! I don't care if it was off topic, that was funny and accurate!
The entire game is centered around end-game because the people that they are catering to are the millions of people who WANT to endlessly grind, who are in raiding guilds that raid like a full time job, because that keeps money in their pockets. If they just decided to work on mid level content, for the few people who play casually, the hardcore players would get upset and possibly leave.
The game is engineered to make you want to keep playing. It never ends. Why? Because 9million x $15 is a lot of money to make in a month, and they're going to keep catering to the hardcore players until the end of time.
reminds me of Bart Simpson's Shadow Knight.
Blizzard's plan of attack (as it pertains to expanding WoW) is simple, yet brilliant. Bump the level cap by 10 every 1 to 1.5 years, thereby making the extremely time consuming "job" of getting fully decked out in level 60 and (more recently) level 70 epics essentially a waste. I can foresee Blizzard staggering future expansions in such a way to minimize the stagnant period for hardcore raiders/grinders in order to keep the monthly subscriptions rolling in uninterrupted.
A lot of posters seem to miss what I feel was the true saving grace of WoW, heroic mode dungeons. It's no secret that once you hit 70 and gear up, if you aren't a blubbering moron WoW becomes obvious for how simple it is. If you have been gaming for years, the only challenge you might find is rolling with a crappy group or some pvp encounters. Before BC you could be a *really* good WoW player but unless you raided you were essentially shut out from some of the best gear and by proxy were at a disadvantage in pvp (unless you were willing to grind insane amounts of time).
Heroic content, get this, can actually be quite hard. The concept at first seems flawed. "Oh boy monsters that can one shot people and are higher level, woopity." But the reality is that it forces each member of a 5 man group to be competent and for many of the more difficult encounters actually skilled. Because of the difficulty a 5 man player, non-raider, who only plays a few hours a week can actually attain gear on par with people who do raid days a week. Is this fair? In my opinion it is, the challenge of most raid content is learning the encounter and the logistics involved. The challenge in heroic 5 man content is each player making very few mistakes over the course of an entire run and playing their class and talent spec extremely well.
Heroics aren't all perfect but as a first go they show a real understanding on Blizzard's part that players can be rewarded for skill and not just grinding/time invested. One of the biggest flaws is the rep requirements for running them, while normal questing will get you close on a few of them, some do require you to go out of your way to achieve. In addition it is possible to "wipe" your way through content if your group sucks, it takes forever and costs a fortune in repairs, but it is possible.
I've raided in WoW and found it to be lacking, learning an encounter is fun and the first few kills are thrilling, but the time investment is quite insane. The same thrill comes to me from a really good heroic run, say one where everyone is top notch and you blow through a place with no deaths at a blistering pace.
WoW isn't perfect, but it is a hell of a lot better since BC. If the same level of improvement comes with the next expansion it will be very hard for anything other than "tiredness of the story/world/lore" to unseat them as #1 in America.
--- I do not moderate.
I will be impressed when someone puts out an expansion that takes levels away instead of tacking more on. This DeathKnight thing smells a lot like Jedi. And by smells I mean stinks.
I thought this sounded like the Battle For Middle Earth II expansion pack "Rise of the Witch King".
This is getting ridiculous. It would take at least 6 months for a casual gamer to reach level 70. But the issue is not the length of time itself; the issue is that for people who value their scarce free time, WoW is not a sound investment, because the game developers both reserve and frequently exercise the right to dramatically change class balance and dynamics.
You can spend weeks doing research to determine the perfect class to play and invest your time in. But 6 months now, as Blizzard proved again and again, the class you will find yourself with will be very different than the same class you based your decision on 6 months or a year prior.
I certainly will never play WoW again; 6 months of my free time is too valuable an investment to put into the hands of Blizzard again.
I shudder to think what his wrath would entail... I mean, what is he liching?
certified elipsis abuser
Seems kind of ridiculous. I've thought of playing WoW, and liked my Shadowknight in EQ, and Reaver in DaoC -- "Death Knight" sounds like the class I'd actually be most interested in...
Now I can see that old players might not want to level up a new one from scratch and I don't mind that they can get a 60th level character for doing a quest with their 80th level one... but at the same time... I don't see why I shouldn't be able to play one up from level 1 if I wanted to.
I wonder if Fred Perry will sue these guys for the "Lich King"
c.f. Vol. 2 ~ish 15-22 Antarctic Press
I completely agree. Heroic dungeons are BCs strong point. However there are too few and the rewards are too few as well. Or better put, the rewards aren't good enough. I'm replacing Heroic mode drops (and badge purchases) with raid drops and Arena/PVP purchases.
I'd love to see more five man content. And it would be great if there were rewards that were as good as that you would get from the big raids. Sure, the coordination and team work of a large raid can be fun at times but I'd rather get together with a small group as I generally have more fun that way.
Maybe downing Arthas with a five man would be a little strange (only because the game has told us we need oodles of people to kill big bosses) but It would be a lot of fun.
I'm surprised hardly any commenters seem to be excited about the story. I played Warcraft 2 and 3, but I never really cared for MMORPGs so I never got into World of Warcraft. The only thing that might interest me enough to pick it up is the Warcraft lore.
If this expansion pack is titled Wrath of the Lich King, that means that Arthas (arguably THE main character of Warcraft 3 and its expansion) will finally be making his return. I always thought Arthas had some pretty nice character development, considering he goes believably from (spoiler) human paladin to Death Knight to becoming the Lich King.
Why is no one else interested in that?
grats blizzard, you just found a way to double charge everyone.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I remember all the cool dungeons, the paced Strat UD, the sprawling and details BRD, the interesting and varied UBRS, the cool ZG and not to mention Scholo, AQ20, AQ40, BWL and Naxx.
Then came the BC expansion just as I was about to at least finish these dungeons and everyone ran onto the new higher level green BC gear and I could not get people to run these old instances anymore (and who could blame them... it was too easy and the items were lame for BC players)
All of these instances were basically rendered useless... there is no point in them other than a brief popping into them during the brief 59-61 period.
I am a late-game content player, but I still love the grind and questing... the grind and questing has not been affected by this and is still fun.
Now comes a new expansion which is basically going to render all these lvl 70 dungeons useless JUST as we (our guild) barely finished Kara. Not even started on any of the serious dungeons because we were not ready.
So now I must pay because they are *replacing* a lot of content with new content? (Sure they do add a little as well...) It does not seem fair. And not paying and staying at lvl 70 until I can finish Kara lvl 70 is not an option because there will be no-one else to play along with.
Yea, perhaps it's time to have a look at Lord of the Rings Online... or go back to playing Diablo II.
Hehe...
World of Warcraft: 40th
City of Heroes: 14th
It takes--assuming no powerleveling, and playing legitimately--about a week tops to get to 14th in City of Heroes. Two weeks, if you're lazy. To get to 40th in WoW? It can takes months assuming you don't skip content.
The amount of slow travel in WoW is a major obstacle to "casual gamers".
Dude, where's my packet?
Huh!
You have yet to meet the thunderpuppies!
.
- aqk
F U
Not before 1 year even after last exp, a new expansion comes forth. Why ? Probably to "counter" age of conan, which has a vastly superior world, lore and reputation over warcraft, warhammer, which has considerable following, and potential fallout mmo.
Curious is that the solution they found is introducing more levels, items, grind to the game before even the last expansion hasnt been fully lived out - totally making long tbc grind of people for levels, items and rep obsolete, and forcing a new zone without even the old one have been fully treaded.
Not only that, but they are going the "jedi" way like soe did with swg, which was the main reason swg broke subscriber losing records. Introducing a godmode class to the game which will be uber against all classes and anything compared to the old ones, but will be acquired with much much longer effort and pain and will be another doubled pain to level up and itemize - thereby more milking of the customers.
No sir, im not falling in the same trap. Im going to age of conan as soon as it comes - at least world, lore, atmosphere there is not screwed up yet, and its much harder to screw over like wow did while trying to expand the world with their already fragile lore after warcraft 3. If im going to grind and milked, at least ill do it in a bigger, richer world which has much longevity and history compared to wow.
Read radical news here
...we'll have the +1 funnny meta-mod and all will be illuminated.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
My guild are at a similar point i think to yours, we're going through karazhan at the moment, just about up to Prince (sort of end boss), and we've had a couple of looks at the Eye and Gruul's Lair. I aint panicking though because this new expansion has only just been announced . Remember how long it took for BC to come out? I reckon there's still about 12 months until this thing actually gets released.. So don't panic, we'll all be farming BT by the time it's actually out lol.
http://www.china.org.cn/english/entertainment/2166 22.htm
Bones and skeletons have disappeared from the Chinese version of the popular on-line fantasy game, World of Warcraft (WoW), sparking fierce criticism from the nation's army of players.
Chinese mainland gamers have waited half a year longer than their US counterparts for the upgraded version of the WoW, only to find the appearances of familiar skeletal characters have been fleshed out.
The skeletons, regular characters, grow flesh in the new version and the bones symbolizing dead characters have been changed to graves.
A staff member with the public relations department of The9, which runs WoW in China, was quoted by a Guangzhou-based newspaper Southern Metropolis Daily as saying the changes were made according to "China's particular situation and relevant regulations".
"It's to promote a healthy and harmonious on-line environment," the anonymous staff said, according to the newspaper.
However, Zhao Yurun, public relations director of The9, denied the explanation in an interview with Xinhua and said the changes were made as part of an "operational strategy".
He said the company updated the game seven to eight times each year, adding patches that required no government approval to the original version.
However, he said the changes in the latest version were the foundations for the first official expansion of WoW, "The Burning Crusade", which was awaiting approval by the State Press and Publication Administration (SPPA) and is expected to be released this summer.
"We hope the expansion pack will successfully get the approval in acknowledgement of the self-discipline of our company," Zhao said.
Wang Guoqing, director with the SPPA Video, Electronics and Internet Publication Management Department, said "The Burning Crusade" was still under expert consideration and she could make no comment till the final decision was released.
The gamers thought the changes made the game dull and voiced their scorn on the official WoW website, filling more than ten pages with criticism.
More than 500 gamers signed a post, announcing they would boycott the game.
"Why should we accept the so-called 'good appearance' without the opportunity of being consulted?" wrote player "Cai Xu".
"We don't need such harmony," wrote "Xue Linglong".
Wang Cong, a journalist who has played the game for two years, said he would continue to play, but "I just think it's funny to make such meaningless changes".
Zhao Yurun said the company had received no formal complaints from gamers, which should be delivered by letters or phone calls with the petitioners real names.
The monster-killing game, first launched by California-based Blizzard Entertainment in 2004, is one of the most popular on-line role-playing games involving multiple players
It has 8.5 million players worldwide, with more than 3.5 million in China.
"The Burning Crusade" was released in other countries on January 16.
The government has been urging Internet companies to clean up websites and offer only legal and "healthy" content.
More than 100 news websites in China published a self-discipline regulation in May, pledging to purify the Internet environment.
The websites vowed to standardize news collection, editing and publication, and eliminate false news and illegal information.
They also promise to exclude pornographic and violent content from their websites.
(Xinhua News Agency July 10, 2007)
"Frostmourne hungers..."
Yes, I'm old.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
I'm glad I'm not the only one.
You can't take the sky from me.
- In-game voice chat.
- A new raid zone.
- New daily quests: dungeon, battleground, and cooking.
Announced expansion features:- Level cap increased to 80.
- The new continent of Northrend.
- Capital city will be Dalaran.
- Two points of entry, allowing for two different leveling experiences.
- WoW's first Hero Class: the Death Knight
- Plate-wearing tank/DPS hybrid.
- Can tank with two-handed weapon or dual-wielding. No shield required.
- Uses a mix of spells and abilities.
- Will use a new Rune-based resource system. Your weapon can be imbued with 6 runes in any combination of Blood, Frost, and Unholy. These runes are used for casting spells and will recharge over time.
- Unlocked via a quest chain available at level 80.
- Death Knights will start at a fairly high level, at least 55-60.
- Possibility of additional Hero Classes added in the future.
- New PvP content:
- Siege weapons and destructible buildings.
- A new 15v15 battleground that includes the siege weapons.
- A new arena map.
- A new arena season.
- An outdoor world PvP zone for all servers. PvE servers will now have a contested territory.
- Zul'Aman will be an upgrade to Karazhan.
- A new profession: Inscriptions, which will allow players to modify/augment their existing spells and abilities. Example given: adding a Knockback effect to a Mage's Fireball.
- Talent trees extended to include 51-point talents.
- Faster leveling from 1-60.
- New Caverns of Time instance.
- New flying mount options, with current mounts usable in Northrend.
- More daily quests.
Someone posted a 6-part video series covering the panel on YouTube, which is where I got this information:I recommend you come to one of the older servers. I'm on doomhammer-eu and there is always someone up for a BRD, MC, LBRS/UBRS, ZG etc. run. We don't run it for the items, we run it for fun, the thing which playing games is meant to be about.
You're missing something tho -
Azeroth was poorly itemized. Those late-game instances were pretty poorly done in terms of rewards and so on. TBC has actually been done really well, and thus there would be less of a jump between the quality of level 70 items from TBC and level 71 items in the new expansion - at least, I would hope!
TBC *needed* to give some really kick-ass stuff because unless you were a hard-core raider, the odds of your having anything actually decent were pretty slim. TBC acted as a way to clean the slate. In the next expansion, I am willing to bet that high-end raiding gear will not instantly be replaced within 30 seconds of hitting Northrend - my guess is it'll last until about level 73-75 or so before being replaced. So, people like me - super casual, don't do much instancing at all - we'll get some upgrades right away, but still nothing that'll compare to what the hard-core people have just yet.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Your post is much better when I do a comic book guy voice over on it...
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
When games were played by geeks, terms like "end-game" and "grind" didn't exist. The reason is when geeks play games, the joy is playing the game. When games went mainstream and sucked in the "jock" crowd the idea of "winning" came into the picture. What many jock-like archtypes don't understand with MMO style games is you don't "Win" you play. They try to "win" at something that was never intended to have a "Victory Condition" and to the fans of sports they have trouble grasping that idea. It's not about getting to max level and twinked gear and having X,Y, and Z.
:)
Those complaints that arise out of expansions is an attack to their concept of "winning" WoW. You cannot win or beat the game because there are no terms of victory. When they raise the level to 80 they complain that they are at 70, they "won" the level grind and now you are taking away that perceived victory. When you add new dungeons and new gear you take away that gearing up "victory" away from them.
And the people that complain, and cancel, and leave are those types of people. A form of MMO natural selection really. We gave em the arena tournaments to play in with very good arena gear. All my gear is from the BGs, I don't grind for gear, I enjoy grinding up enemy players
I played the old muds and the new MMOs and I can tell you this: "Once you give up trying to win a game that has no end you can start 'playing' the game and having a good time."
If you want to help alleviate some of those complaints from the "Winners" group give them weekly stat break downs by server and guild and let people form "Leagues" and give them digests of the following:
Most Exp This Week
Most Honorable kills the week
Most Mobs killed this week (those that give exp)
Most Money made
Most money spent
Most Damage Done
etc...
Also I strongly reccomend guild housing in contested zones with defense\raiding along the lines of DAOC's frontier system (where as DAOC has predefined keeps and towers, have guilds build and maintain fortifications) and award honor to guild members weighted by level based on how long they can hold on to the keep.
If you want to retain the "Winner" crowd you are better off having a large number of small victory conditions then try to placate larger ambitions of victory. That may reduce the complaining.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
It's now Wii Golf Fridays.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen
World of Warcraft could be such a great game if they would simply stop depending on the grind as endgame content. In Blizzard's long history, the decision to mimic Everquest's endgame is by far the worst to me.
Waiting for Warhammer Online.