Faction Changes Coming To World of Warcraft

A Blizzard representative today announced that they're working on a service for players to switch factions in World of Warcraft, going from Horde to Alliance or vice versa. "There's still much work to do and many details to iron out, but the basic idea is that players will be able to use the service to transform an existing character into a roughly equivalent character of the opposing faction on the same realm. Players who ended up creating and leveling up characters on the opposite factions from their friends have been asking for this type of functionality for some time, and we're pleased to be getting closer to being able to deliver it." They also said there would be "some rules involved with when and how the service can be used."

Comments

Lame

[tuxedobob]

Yet another step closer to "everything for a price" and another step away from the original vision of the game.

Re:Lame

[Canazza]

Just wait, it's only one step away from starting ANY character at level 55. When that happens, I know it was the right choice to leave the game :P

Re:Lame

[fractoid]

And yet, if you're Alliance and all your friend are Horde, it's yet another reason not to quit. See how those things go hand in hand?

Re:Lame

[fractoid]

Dude, have you tried to level a new character recently? It's a long, boring solo grind because so few players are still levelling. It'd be fun to do with a bunch of friends, but face it - the original, populated game that we played back in vanilla is gone. The real game starts at 80.

Re:Lame

[IBBoard]

...another step away from the original vision of the game.

Is it? Surely it'll keep people playing if they can switch and join friends rather than starting from scratch. I'm fairly sure that the "original vision" was closer to "get lots of people addicted and bringing in monthly subscriptions to make us lots of teh moneyz" than "get lots of people playing, but then lose them because we're too dogmatic in our rules and won't change anything to make it more enjoyable for the masses".

Re:Lame

[Kartu]

Erm, so what's wrong with not having to lvl 1-55 for the fiftienth time?

Re:Lame

[tuxedobob]

If all your friends are horde, why did you roll alliance? See, when I started playing the game, I asked my friends what server and faction they were on, then I made my character. Of all the reasons people want to change factions, I imagine that's the least common of them.

Re:Lame

[Canazza]

It's not like it's HARD to level up a character any more. You play for one, maybe two more months and you'll get there. 5 days of play time can get you to max level (that is 120 hours) If you only play 3 hours a day, you can easilly level one level every 3 hours, meaning you can level in about 80 days, and that's WITHOUT power-levelling.

A proper attempt at power levelling can give you 1 level every 2 hours, and if you play 4 hours a day that's you at level 80 in little under 40 days.

Not only that but if you get the 'recruit a friend' thing you each get 3x the experience when you party together, meaning that anyone can get to 80 in under a month.

couple that with mounts at level 20 (easilly reachable in 4 hours) next patch - making it alot easier to get around and thus, faster levelling.

the whole game is based around making things easy for new players at the moment, Blizzard got a right bashing by reviewers regarding the last patch and the lack of low-level content that they're trying to remedy it by, essentially, letting people skip low-level content.

Re:Lame

[tuxedobob]

Leveling in a new environment and doing new quests can be fun, don't you think? Like, say, making a horde character and doing horde quests if you've already done all the alliance ones.

And you'll recall that last line was used 4 months after launch, except the number then was 60. I still don't buy it.

Re:Lame

[tuxedobob]

Considering some of Blizzard's own past statements, I don't think the original vision was simply to sell subscriptions. The first couple months of the game were pretty crazy considering they sold... what was it, their goal for a year within one month?

Re:Lame

[fractoid]

Yeah, the first time or two. I have two level 60 alliance, two ~70 horde, and three 80 horde. New classes are still fun to learn and master but there aren't many quests I haven't done multiple times and the pre-60 quests are nauseatingly familiar.

And the last line I used was just as true back when UBRS was 'endgame' as it is now. The levelling process is basically a glorified tutorial in how to use your class. Disagree? Check most characters' /played time, I bet the average character at level cap has spent more than half of their playtime there.

Long story short, there are still bits of the game I have yet to get sick of but I have to go through a lot of the boring repetitive bits to get there and that annoys me.

Re:Lame

[fractoid]

3 hours a day for three months may not qualify as 'hard' but it certainly qualifies as 'far more time than I should have to waste doing something I'm already sick of in order to get to the bit I would find fun'.

Secondly, because 90%+ of a server is at level cap, large parts of the early game are unavailable because it's impossible to find instance groups.

Lastly, there's the quality issue. The lowbie content is just not as good as the later stuff. In the four years between launch and WotLK, Blizzard's team has learned a HELL of a lot about MMO design. The quests in Northrend are far more varied and interesting than the ones in vanilla content. It's like being made to read all of Dickens' schoolwork before you're allowed to read Oliver Twist.

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[AuMatar]

I take it you only have 1 set of friends? And that they all still play WoW, on the same faction they originally rolled? The first half of that is rather sad, the second is pretty unlikely.

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[fractoid]

Honestly I don't think they had an 'original vision' at all. They just wanted to make a really, really big War3 hero map. Then they started making it better a bit at a time and look where they ended up!

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[Sobrique]

Because the game is based around a level system. If the level system is dull or a chore, then the game is fundamentally broken. Putting in grind just for the sake of being a grind is just sloppy game design.

Re:Lame

[Sobrique]

The danger is though, as you make things easier, you end up trivialising the gameplay. Playing through doom with cheats makes it easier, sure. Does it make it as compelling and interesting a game? I don't think so.
*shrug*. Not that my opinion will influence Blizzard or anything, but this is another step from them just selling level whatever characters outright.

Re:Lame

[Talisman]

I started playing WoW from Day 1. I leveled, the old-fashioned way, a Warrior from 1-60 (and with the original Hit% bug with Warriors, I can not exaggerate how painful that was), then over the next several months, a Rogue, a Druid, and a Shaman, all the 'intended' way.

By then I was *so*sick* of doing the same quests over and over, I decided to start dual boxing.

Lo and behold, the game was new again.

Used my 60 Warrior, who was very well geared by this point (BWL gear) and used him to level up a Mage, Priest and Warlock through instance grinding.

FAR more fun than mindless quest grinding.

Then TBC hits. I role a Paladin and get him to 55 with my Warrior leading the way.

I then realize I can 'solo' most TBC instances if I triple box with 1 Tank (my Warrior), a healer and an AoE class. So I start triple-boxing.

Game is new yet again!

Use this arrangement to get all my toons to 70. Did every quest in Hellfire and Zangarmarsh, then all the rest of the XP came from instance grinding. I left the remaining quests from higher lvl zones for gold because by this time the XP -> gold from quests implementation was in the game.

So now there is Refer-a-Friend triple XP, the 10% XP shoulders, zone buffs when towers are captured for more XP, festival buffs, etc. etc. etc.

Blizzard knows how much leveling sucks, and they are giving people many ways to make it less painful, but even with all this, IT STILL SUCKS.

I don't play anymore, but I never saw any problem with giving people who obviously know the game and their class a huge break when it comes to leveling. Say 10 free levels for every 60 toon you have on your account, or something along those lines.

I do not need, nor want to do any more Azeroth or TBC quests again, ever.

As for the "original vision" of the game, the original vision, as with every single video game produced by large companies, is to make money, and WoW did that incredibly well. It's a business. Period. Their customers are the players. If the players want 55 free levels, faction changes, name changes, welfare epics, and on and on and on, and are willing to pay for it, either through a direct fee (name changes, faction changes) or by virtue of continuing to pay their monthly fee, they will keep getting it because at the end of the day, Blizzard, and every other major game manufacturer cares about one thing and one thing only: MONEY.

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[drsquare]

the whole game is based around making things easy for new players at the moment

The game has always been about making things easy for new players, that's why it's so popular. And I really doubt Blizzard give a shit about what reviewers think of them.

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[node 3]

It's a business. Period. Their customers are the players. If the players want 55 free levels, faction changes, name changes, welfare epics, and on and on and on, and are willing to pay for it, either through a direct fee (name changes, faction changes) or by virtue of continuing to pay their monthly fee, they will keep getting it because at the end of the day, Blizzard, and every other major game manufacturer cares about one thing and one thing only: MONEY.

This is a fundamentally incomplete view of reality. While there are certainly people at Blizzard for whom the company is only about money, there are also people who are there because they want to make great games.

In order for a company to be truly great, it has to make a place for those types of people. I don't know first hand whether Blizzard is such a company, but looking at their products, it would appear to be the case.

On the other hand, companies that are only "about one thing and one thing only: MONEY", as you put it, are soulless places that I think should not be encouraged to exist in such a form.

That's not to say that money isn't important, but when you choose what you want to do in life, what your passion is, you don't choose to do that simply because of the money, but because it's what you love. By stating that businesses are solely about money, and nothing else, you make it just that much more difficult for the truly great companies to exist.

Re:Lame

[centuren]

Dude, have you tried to level a new character recently? It's a long, boring solo grind because so few players are still levelling. It'd be fun to do with a bunch of friends, but face it - the original, populated game that we played back in vanilla is gone. The real game starts at 80.

And I'd like to think it still includes a bitter divide between factions. Fostering the rivalry has always been part of the fun. By your argument, why not let the two factions communicate and raid together? Perhaps that would be all right for those that feel the merit of the game is entirely end-game raiding, but why make the game environment and lore suffer?

After all, if you don't feel the faction divide and find yourself wanting to play on the other side with some friends who are already finished with levelling, it's really not the horrible grind you make it out to be. After all, there are all the lvl 80 friends to whisk you through every instance and throw gold your way.

Factoring in the popularity of alts within a guild, many of those end-game players will levelling toons anyway, so I really don't see a long, boring, solo grind, if indeed you're doing it to play with friends.

So really, you can enjoy experiencing the quests from the faction you haven't been a part of before. You can power through everything with the help of your geared 80 friends. You can level your new toon while your friends are leveling their alts.

And, of course, there's the classic (obviously biased in this case) approach of "friends don't let friends roll alliance" and make them come to you (if only to let them salvage their dignity). ;)

Re:Lame

[Jack9]

It's a business. Period. Their customers are the players. If the players want 55 free levels, faction changes, name changes, welfare epics, and on and on and on, and are willing to pay for it, either through a direct fee (name changes, faction changes) or by virtue of continuing to pay their monthly fee, they will keep getting it because at the end of the day, Blizzard, and every other major game manufacturer cares about one thing and one thing only: MONEY.

This is a fundamentally incomplete view of reality. While there are certainly people at Blizzard for whom the company is only about money, there are also people who are there because they want to make great games.

Incomplete view of reality? Can you begin to explain that statement? There's no contradiction in the 2 viewpoints. Making a great game has little to do with motivations. They have the money to make great games because of their priorities, but also because of their thoroughness in every aspect.

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[ubrgeek]

> Not even Blizzard really cares about the old content

True and valid point. It's like the old world areas kind of froze when you moved on to BC, WotLK, etc. Nothing new in politics, events, etc. There are quest lines they never seemed to finish up (such as returning some note to someone after Deadmines. I don't remember the specifics.) They did add some new stuff to Dustwallow Marsh ages ago (new quests, new flight point, etc.) but that's it. I have to agree with the others - if it wasn't for the refer a friend, I'd be tired of it. I'm using the program to level a rogue (one of the few classes I haven't played) solely for PvP purposes. That's going quite quickly (level 1-61 in a couple of weeks) otherwise, I'd be gone.

Re:Lame

[KarlIsNotMyName]

Games should never be about "hard", "work", "having to do" or "being allowed to not do". They're all about fun and etertainment. If I can't have fun with a game the first evening I'm playing it, and every evening or other time of day that I play it, it's not a good game.

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[Opportunist]

Leveling in a new environment and doing new quests can be fun, don't you think?

No, not really. Instead of slaughtering 50 Murlocks for their eyes for Count Hurburk, you slaughter 50 Murlocks for their fins for Grunt Gruggrug. Instead of delivering this important set of papers to Councilman Elebuk, you deliver this package of food to Guard Urgel. Instead of...

Re:Lame

[Opportunist]

Here's a scenario for you: You start with your friends on Alliance side, your friends quit, you're alone. You reroll on another server, meet people there who also rerolled (to see the other side of the fence), realize they are on your original server too with their mains, only that they're on Horde side.

Re:Lame

[goldspider]

They aught to do it like how they implemented the Death Knight class (slightly more restricted). I've maintained for a long time that if you have a level 80 character, you should be able to start any class (of the same alignment) at 55. It's up to you to learn how to play the class. If you don't, your guild or PUG groups will find out fairly quickly.

IMHO there's no reason why one should have to spend weeks leveling up a character to fill a gap in one's guild.

Re:Lame

[Erie Ed]

WoW is a chore, hell if your in a top tier raiding guild then it's a job. I'm so glad I broke this addiction to this crappy game.

Re:Lame

[Rocketship Underpant]

I think the whole level-based paradigm is a flawed (if ubiquitous) way to build an MMORPG, and I hope Blizzard manages to do away with it in their new MMO. It makes no sense to design a game so that all the fun comes after you've completed a long, gruelling level grind. An MMO should be fun and allow rich interaction with all or most other players the entire way through. Wow may still be the best online RPG at the moment, but Blizzard really needs to get out of their current rut, a Red Queen situation in which new content does not augment the old, but entirely replaces it in practice.

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[poetmatt]

Plenty of people on both sides do communicate together. I remember on dark iron we had a faction-shared teamspeak for horde and alliance. Oftentimes spies would come up during pvp and pve events and try to ruin our moment, etc. It was a pvp server, so it was all in good fun.

Meanwhile, as the OP said is correct. This is blizzard trying to channel more money because they are losing people. Sadly, it's been working to a point but I hope they hit critical mass real soon. I'm guessing starcraft 2 will be that point considering there won't be lan support.

Re:Lame

[sortius_nod]

I dunno about that one.

I stopped playing after TBC and recently re-reged to see what changes had been made in WotLK (new account too). I've found it stupidly easy. I'm almost unable to finish quests before they go grey. My highest level char is now 50 after 2 weeks, with over 500g. It's almost stupid now.

The game sucks because it's too easy, absolutely no challenge and filled with emo kids and arrogant wankers who play all day.

The issue with WoW is that it's become too big to keep the game interesting.

Re:Lame

[poetmatt]

It only takes a single ceo or upper management person with a greed streak, as is commonly the case, to make bad business decisions to subvert all the good work the other people who are success driven and not profit driven, do. Unfortunately, that whole thing is usually called corporatism/capitalism.

Re:Lame

[hesaigo999ca]

Not everyone..., I have 1 lvl 80 and thats it, a few low level other characters for AH and stuff, but the time spent playing, I have no time to waste to redo another character let alone 3 or 4 others to lvl 80...I do know the achievements might change (lose alliance if you go to horde)...but it would be nice to keep the overall achievements alone and just add to them, meaning you get achievements (sort of) just from switching factions.

I always thought once you have a lvl 80, then ANY character you make after that unless you answer "no start from beginning" should be like the death knights and start at lvl 55
this would make alot more alts, and alot more fun, for those having spent too much time already leveling a character.

Re:Lame

[redcaboodle]

The fact that you start with a lvl 55 char with next to no money, having to do the starter areas to raise your profession. It's ok if you level your profession while you play, but spending days running areas where you only meet grey - but still annoyingly aggressive - mobs while you try to get your gathering skill up to the level appropriate for the outlands is a major pita. For the herd-players that may not be a problem, for a solo it's a real fun-killer.

I am waiting for a third faction: scourge. The DK starter quests are real fun, except the one where you get shot of your stupid flying mount. Arthas may make my fist itch, but he's still a lot better than those crusading idiots. RP-PVP ing as Scourge, now that'd be something to look forward to.

Re:Lame

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been levelling two alts right now, one for mindless relaxing because it doesn't need a perfect spell rotation to do raid DPS, and a healer.

With the exp changed, its a nice break to level an alt in the old world, and get to level 65 without setting foot in Outland. Its also a nice change of pace to finish up all the quests in Outland which should end someone up at level 72-73 before starting in Northrend. The added levels make the final push to 80 easier, although if one just uses gear found in quests along the way, they won't be as geared as someone who started at 58 or 68 in Hellfire or Borean Tundra. That's always easily fixed by a trip to the AH though, and/or a couple account bound items such as the shoulders and a weapon.

Faction changes are understandable, but there are some head scratchers. A lot of people have a ton of mounts. How will Blizz devs handle the faction specific stuff? Turn kodos into elekks? Similar with race. Its obvious what druids would end up as if they jumped factions, but what about other classes.

Finally, I play WoW because RL friends do. Once you hit 80, you are pretty limited in what you do. You can do dailies so you can earn faction and gold for some armor pieces the 20,000 gold mount, 5000 gold epic flying, and skill up a profession. You can raid the same two raid zones over and over again, both in 10 man, and in 25 man every week, as well as the small raid zones like VoA, OS, and EoE. You can spend your time in the same BGs and arenas and grinding PvP gear. Finally, you can run the same seven heroics. This gets old after a bit.

There are other MMOs out there with a lot of interesting content. EQ1 and EQ2 come to mind. Yes, they have less population than WoW, but almost everyone knows their class and is able to function in a group. Content is also plentiful.

Re:Lame

[bFusion]

Recently, though, the game has become based around end-game raiding and experiencing things like the Argent Tournament and other world events. Blizzard seems to be focusing *mostly* on new content. I don't see an issue on letting people skip the low-level grind if they've already done it before.

Hell, they're already doing this with Bind on Account gear. After the 3.2 patch, there will be shoulders AND a chest piece that will increase XP gained by a total of 20%... this makes the grind a LOT faster... I expect to see more gear like this in the future that will allow an experienced WoW player to level alts faster.

Re:Lame

[bFusion]

Well I have two very good friends that started playing before I met them, they are unfortunately Alliance on a different server, meaning that even though we WANT to roll together, they'd have to change servers AND factions to play with all of our other friends.

Re:Lame

[bFusion]

I've been leveling a character recently, and I just hit 60 with 2 days and 19-something hours.

Granted, I was trying a paladin, so it was pretty much easy-mode. But it's entirely possible to blitz through old content to get to the newer stuff.

Re:Lame

[Jim_Maryland]

IMHO there's no reason why one should have to spend weeks leveling up a character to fill a gap in one's guild.

Remember back when you started your first character? Did you find it easy or difficult to find players for group quest or running instances? I only started playing after TBC was out for a while and I hardly did any quest that required groups since finding players to work with was almost impossible. While I can appreciate starting at level 55, I can also see the benefits of keeping a population stream working through all the levels (even if some are going to speed right through them).

Re:Lame

[Kierthos]

Good lord, no. I've played mostly on the Alliance side, but I've created a few Horde characters. And every time, I wonder, "Why did I stop playing my old Horde character. OH YES. THE BARRENS."

Re:Lame

[Endo13]

Yet another step closer to "everything for a price" and another step away from the original vision of the game.

WoW is on its way out. Blizzard is just doing everything they can to get as many subs as possible for the last few months. There won't be another expansion for it. Next year this time, WoW will have less than 2 mil active subs.

The reason for this is basically two-fold:

1. Diablo 3 is going to have multiplayer through battle.net only (no lan support) and battle.net for it will be a fee-based service. Only Starcraft 2 users won't have to pay for it.

2. They've got a new MMO in the works. It'll probably hit beta sometime Q3 or Q4 of next year. Look for the first announcements Q1.

You heard it here first.

Re:Lame

[eudaemon]

Agreed... once you've dinged 80, do you really need 80 levels to learn how to play another character? From 55 to 80 seems like plenty, frankly. Obviously there was pent-up demand for both starting at a high level and a new class w/o all the levelling: look at all the DK's floating around! WoW is lousy w/em.

Re:Lame

[RodgerDodger]

It's an easy statement to explain. GP said Blizzard was only about making money. Parent post said "No, there's also people who care about making great games". Because the GP left out this extra motivation, their post reflected "a fundamentally incomplete view of reality". It was incomplete because there were bits missing

Simple, really.

Re:Lame

[EMCEngineer]

It's time to stop using the MMORPG label. It is not just a MMOG. Role-playing has been replaced by money-taking.

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[argStyopa]

You're the one that's either naive or misunderstanding.

The PEOPLE can be about making great games.
The COMPANY - as any company - is about making money. Perhaps not solely this, but this is the essential nature of it as it is a business. If they weren't about making money, they'd be a NONPROFIT, because it would be stupid to pay taxes if you don't have to.
Hell, they could go the L Ron Hubbard route and be a RELIGION, it doesn't take much time on the WoW forums to see that it would be staggeringly successful.

The people EMPLOYED there* can have all the passion and idealism that you posit, but ultimately everyone has bills to pay.
(* and if money's so irrelevant, then why do they accept paychecks? I mean, if they worked probono, the game could be lower priced and reach even more consumers, no? If their goal is artistic excellence, why wouldn't that be better?)

Look, I'm not criticizing them for getting to do what they must enjoy for a living - that's a rare and fortunate situation. But it's a very naive viewpoint to suggest that they aren't in it to make money.

Re:Lame

[tnk1]

Actually, I found that going from a direct damage class to a pet class or to tanking would benefit from a tutorial. Not as much as simply reading builds and guides and practicing at top level would, but it is a decent grounding if you are new to those classes.

The problem is, you need groups to actually make the tutorials work, otherwise you are solo grinding to 60,70,80 and you learned nothing you can use in an instance since you spent most of your time in the solo grind mode and damage builds with almost no input from other players on how you are doing your job. You therefore arrive at top level with another few weeks of actually learning how to play in a group with your desired role. Healing and tanking were the major ones, since you spend almost no time being a healbot or tank when soloing.

Re:Lame

[Talisman]

You're referring to the individual programmers, artists and game designers. I know many in the industry, and yes, they love the design aspect of gaming. But Blizzard, the corporation, only cares about game quality to the extent that it positively affects their profits.

Re:Lame

[ubrgeek]

Yeah, but that's what makes Barren's chat so much fun ;)

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[brkello]

Are you the person who keeps making all those "Obama is not an American" e-mails as well?

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[Domint]

The problem with tutorials or other assistance with learning how to level your class (either solo or in group) is that you end up with a leveling build, rotation, and habits that will not work in end-game. Anyone who knows anything about how WoW works will tell you the first thing you do after dinging 80 is respec.

Re:Lame

[knight24k]

Dude, have you tried to level a new character recently? It's a long, boring solo grind because so few players are still levelling. It'd be fun to do with a bunch of friends, but face it - the original, populated game that we played back in vanilla is gone. The real game starts at 80.

You're kidding, right? I have 3 80s and could level another if I wanted to in a month, probably less if I really pushed it. I have done 35 levels in a weekend. Leveling is so insanely easy now that I can get to Outland in less than 2 weeks, Northrend the week after and max out to 80 the week after that. When I started a DK (as everyone did when they came out) I was 70 in less than 5 days and no I don't play WoW every waking moment. I have a full time job. I play a few hours a night and probably quite a few on the weekend and some days I don't play at all. Outside the initial burst of levels at the low end I can usually do 5+ levels a day on the weekend and 1 or 2 levels a day during the week depending on what level I am working on. The only levels I usually have an issue with are between 55-58. I tend to run out of quests and have to resort to instances or outright mob grinding.

Yes, this is all solo. If my guild helps it goes by way faster as we can grind instances and level faster than the quests, but I like questing and it takes so little time and depending on the server there are still a lot of players either leveling alts or new to the game. ZF, ST and BRD groups are still fairly easy to come by, but it is true that many of the former high end instances are pretty vacant.

Still, if I want to I can get any class to 80 in a matter of a few weeks. That is actually not really that long considering at launch it could take at least 2 months or more to get to 60 and that was with pretty much every zone filled with people. Well, considering I don't have to fight over quest mobs now, maybe all those people were slowing me down. =)

Re:Lame

[tuxedobob]

I'm one of two people I know of on my server with the Insane title. Back at level 60, I was one of a handful with a Winterspring Frostsaber. Both (at the time) required a lot of hard work, and after a while having to do what is necessary for the reputation grinds got a little tiresome. In the end, of course, I completed both of them, and it's a lot of fun to show the title, or back then, the mount. There's a fair amount of entertainment that goes into, "Oh, wow, you have that?"

Moral of the story: putting effort in to achieve a goal is fun.

Re:Lame

[tuxedobob]

Exactly how many "friend sets" does one require?

Re:Lame

[tuxedobob]

When it takes a few months to reach the level cap and it isn't raised for another 2 years, yeah, I'd sort of expect most players to spend most of their /played time there.

Of course, that's not true for my rogue and the current cap, because I've been playing her since '04.

Re:Lame

[ImprovOmega]

EQ's big flaw is complete lack of a solo game (beyond a handful of classes and those tend to be painfully slow anyway). With WoW at least pretty much any class can solo non-instances at level appropriate times. Thus, the low levels can be gone through in WoW without *needing* a group and without substantially increasing the time required to level. If you are a warrior in EQ just starting out you are pretty well boned.

Re:Lame

[pHus10n]

Because all classes/races start at Silvermoon, right? It's an alternative for experienced characters with a friend (or friends) who can help summon, or otherwise get them to the starting zone... but not for newbies, as referenced above.

Re:Lame

[hesaigo999ca]

However, it is quite interesting that you mention about playing for the end game...
I have to say , if you belong to a guild, and they need a certain class & spec,
and you volunteer yourself/account to get the missing link to a raid group...
chances are they will all be pitching in to lvl you at lightning speed,
as well, the respeccing at lvl80 anyways means you are stuck relearning how to play
for about 1 week, to use and know your character to the fullest extent.

Any guild will also pitch in to get your epic mount as fast as possible
to travel the last 10 levels about 25% faster.

Re:Lame

[static0verdrive]

*COUGH* Star Wars: Galaxies *COUGH*

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[UnknownSoldier]

> I think the whole level-based paradigm is a flawed (if ubiquitous) way to build an MMORPG

I used to think that too, but

1) I don't see to many other RPGs doing it, aside from UO, and, um, who else?

2) Levels provide a direction / goal for the player (along with virtual power.) Without levels, how do you make the game interesting? It's solvable, but that requires a helluva lot of more work -- its just easier to fall back on what worked in the past.

--
WoW (TM) is the McDonalds of MMORPGs. (TM)

Re:Lame

[Blakey Rat]

I could never figure out why the Night Elves were Alliance and the Tauren were horde, since both races seem to have a back-story which pretty much sums to "we just want to be left alone." Frankly, I always thought they made a huge mistake by not "borrowing" an idea from Everquest and having a couple of the races available for both factions in the first place.

If nothing else, being able to play Night Elf on Horde would have addressed the imbalance issues that the servers had until Blood Elves were introduced.

(Not that they asked my opinion, but I could have told them long before release that they'd have vastly more players on the faction with the hot characters, and few fewer on the faction where every single character is an ugly monster. Duh.)

Re:Lame

[Omestes]

Huh?

Get through the newb zone, run to Orgrimmar (about five minutes), take the Zeppelin to Undercity, take the port to Silvermoon, run to Ghostlands. This will take you less than 15 minutes, and you won't run into a single hostile mob the whole run. The Horde is not the Alliance, pretty much every race can travel to any early zone in 15 minutes (30, for the poor Tauren). Its nothing like getting a Night Elf to Goldshire.

Re:Lame

[immcintosh]

I hate to break it to you, but most people would call a month of marathon gaming getting to level 80 "a long, boring solo grind."

Re:Lame

[fractoid]

...and no I don't play WoW every waking moment. I have a full time job. I play a few hours a night and probably quite a few on the weekend and some days I don't play at all.

This is a great illustration of the difference between 'normal people' and 'casual' MMO players. I'm not saying you're bad or abnormal - you probably play about as much as I do. I'm just pointing out that spending "a few hours a night" is an order of magnitude more than 'normal' people are willing to spend, and like it or not, what's made WoW so massive is the fact that those normal people can play a couple of hours here and there and still feel like they're getting somewhere. Or, alternately, 'casuals' like us can play a couple of dozen arena games or run a couple of heroics, and then work on an alt for half an hour and still feel like the alt's made progress.

55-58 used to be 'run BRD and replace the worst of your greens' time, at least now there's a few more quests in Silithus and EPL to fill some of it. The Tirion Fordring questline is awesome too, especially if you can get groups for the bits in Stratholme.

Re:Lame

[SL Baur]

WoW is on its way out.

The death of WoW has been predicted here many times.

Blizzard is just doing everything they can to get as many subs as possible for the last few months. There won't be another expansion for it.

Those two statements are contradictory. World of Warcraft is a cash cow in a time of severe financial stress. What company would willingly give up something like that? Especially a company often accused here as an excessively greedy one?

Next year this time, WoW will have less than 2 mil active subs.

Perhaps without a future expansion coming and maybe not. You don't say, but where do you expect the other 10 million of us to have gone by then? Oh, and I *do* expect another expansion, and I still expect it to piss people off.

1. Diablo 3 is going to have multiplayer through battle.net only (no lan support) and battle.net for it will be a fee-based service. Only Starcraft 2 users won't have to pay for it.

No weapons of mass WoW destruction here.

I may well buy Diablo 3 on strength of my WoW experience and the fact it will run on Mac, but I can't see any set of circumstances where it could be a replacement.

2. They've got a new MMO in the works. It'll probably hit beta sometime Q3 or Q4 of next year. Look for the first announcements Q1.

True. I'll try it out for the same reasons listed above. Hitting beta in Q3/Q4 2010 isn't soon enough to make it a WoW-killer. The biggest competitor to that game will be World of Warcraft as it also likely to be the strongest candidate as a WoW-killer.

The thing to look for, once they do make the announcement, is what kind of WoW tie-in does it have? ie what incentives are they giving WoWers to switch to a new game?

The one thing they have said is that it would be a departure from an RPG. I like swinging swords and hacking up monsters, or waving a wand and casting fire at enemies. I've been playing games along those lines for longer than many folks here have been alive. I don't particularly care for fighting space battles.

I've been a subscriber for over 2 1/2 years and what I see is a company that genuinely cares about its product. I don't necessarily agree with or like everything they've done. I do see steady improvement and consistent attempts to make improvement. I don't see them doing anything stupid enough to kill a wildly successful game. Certainly not before they have a guaranteed replacement in hand, as you suggest.

You heard it here first.

Re:Lame

[obeythefist]

The reason the barrens suck so much is because for some reason Alliance players who roll Horde can only ever manage to get as far as the barrens. Then I guess they stop there because they think they're in Stormwind or something and must therefore be at max level.

Re:Lame

[obeythefist]

WoW has always been easy. Blizzard has just changed the "easiness" scale significantly. Leveling from 1-80 now takes about as long as it used to take leveling from 1-60. This is a commendable decision as it means new players won't be frustrated that they can't play with their friends at the end game, but at the same time they still see a lot of the content that leads players to that end game. Smart business move, as it means they'll attract and retain new players, as well as keeping the old ones.

As for "easiness", is WoW really that easy? You say it is, so, you've clearly "beaten" the game... so you must be able to link your armory with full Ulduar heroic and hard mode achievements.. right? Ok... maybe you're a PvP'er then... what's your personal Arena ranking? Got the 310% drake? No?

Didn't think so... maybe it's harder than you think, and you're just not willing to put in the effort to prove yourself to a guild and use teamwork and skill at the end game.

I commend blizzard for making the game content easy enough to be accessible for all kinds of players, no matter how casual, but for adding challenges that even mighty Slashdot posters are happy to dismiss as "too easy, absolutely no challenge and filled with emo kids and arrogant wankers who play all day." (Despite never even reaching level 80 so they can attempt them...)

Re:Lame

[Shadowmist]

With the direct ferry from Auberdine to Stormwind, getting to Goldshire is no longer a problem for a Night Elf or Draenei.

Re:Lame

[knight24k]

This is a great illustration of the difference between 'normal people' and 'casual' MMO players. I'm not saying you're bad or abnormal - you probably play about as much as I do. I'm just pointing out that spending "a few hours a night" is an order of magnitude more than 'normal' people are willing to spend, and like it or not, what's made WoW so massive is the fact that those normal people can play a couple of hours here and there and still feel like they're getting somewhere. Or, alternately, 'casuals' like us can play a couple of dozen arena games or run a couple of heroics, and then work on an alt for half an hour and still feel like the alt's made progress.

Sorry, that don't wash. A couple heroics, a dozen arena matches along with leveling an alt for an hour? That's about 4-5 hours of play if not more. Hmm, sounds exactly like the amount of playtime I was talking about. Everything in this game from instances to quests will take a couple hours of play to finish, sometimes more depending on the instance or quest line.

An hour's work on an alt, depending on level should net you 1-2 levels. Are you trying to tell me that isn't enough? Also, if these normal players are only playing 1-2 times a week they should have full vitality and might be able to get 3 levels in that hour....every single week. Again, this is not enough?? What, should they login and immediately get 5 levels? What about reward for work done? Putting in, yet another easy button, is not the answer. New players will have to level up, make friends to help them etc. and sorry, I feel the current level progression is more than fast enough to allow even casual players to level quickly while experiencing the lore and fun of all those old zones. This is more about making 55 the new starting level for players who ALREADY have a level 80 character(s). I have no sympathy for these players since they should be more than competent to level though faster than any new player and spend a minimal amount of time doing it.

I create new characters only because I am bored of dailies, BGs, WG etc. I level so fast now, sometimes not even meaning to since I am trying to finish every quest in the zone, that questlines turn grey before I can complete them. It is just silly and now people are crying that leveling is too slow?

Tell you what, if these jokers want instant 80 they should go create an account on a private server where they do that. It is one thing to want easy levels its another to be given it. You know that old saying "Be careful what you wish for".

55-58 used to be 'run BRD and replace the worst of your greens' time, at least now there's a few more quests in Silithus and EPL to fill some of it. The Tirion Fordring questline is awesome too, especially if you can get groups for the bits in Stratholme.

I haven't seen a Strat group in ages and have only been able to do LBRS or Dire Maul a couple times in the last year or so. I started this game at launch and quit after 6 months because I felt it was too easy. 0-60 in 2 months was ridiculous in my opinion. Now I can do that in 2 weeks. I came here from EQ1 then and EQ2 recently. Go level a character there and get back to me on how difficult it is to level in WoW.

WoW players have it easy, but that isn't enough it seems. They want it so they can have an instant 80 and then complain there is no content after they get it.

Re:Lame

[AuMatar]

As many as one can get? I have friends from work, friends from old employers, friends from high school, friends from college, friends from various activities and cities I've lived in. These aren't totally disjoin groups, but out of them there's several sets of WoW players on multiple servers and both factions. It's quite easy for someone to start on one faction with one group of friends and then end up with them leaving and noone to play with without rerolling a new faction.

Re:Lame

[KarlIsNotMyName]

Not saying that games shouldn't be challenging, or that we should always have access to everything. But whatever effort I'm making has to be entertaining too, I'm not gonna sit and spend 5 hours doing something I don't want to do, to be able to do something I do want to do (for games, if I have to specify that).

Especially repeating exactly the same task many times for 5 hours, there's no challenge in that. That IS a waste of time.

Re:Lame

[fractoid]

Hmm, sounds exactly like the amount of playtime I was talking about.

You might want to re-read the second sentence there, bucko. :P I'm 'casual' compared to my guild (who are working on Algalon now) but I play a lot more than, say, my wife, who will spend a couple of hours maybe two or three days a week levelling alts and tradeskills.

What I was saying was that with a 'normal' level of play it'd still be possible to make progress on one of those alts, OR to play a bunch of arena games, or whatever. Obviously if you're doing all of the above it'll take more time.

This is more about making 55 the new starting level for players who ALREADY have a level 80 character(s). I have no sympathy for these players since they should be more than competent to level though faster than any new player and spend a minimal amount of time doing it.

Obviously they won't find it 'hard' to level. I watched my wife level her mage to 70 as a 'melee magetank' so anything's possible. O.o Can you explain to me why, though, someone should have to spend 5 - 10 days of their life redoing trivial tasks in order to have another high level character? It's not hard, it's not new, all it is is a waste of time.

Re:Lame

[knight24k]

This is more about making 55 the new starting level for players who ALREADY have a level 80 character(s). I have no sympathy for these players since they should be more than competent to level though faster than any new player and spend a minimal amount of time doing it.

Obviously they won't find it 'hard' to level. I watched my wife level her mage to 70 as a 'melee magetank' so anything's possible. O.o Can you explain to me why, though, someone should have to spend 5 - 10 days of their life redoing trivial tasks in order to have another high level character? It's not hard, it's not new, all it is is a waste of time.

Then I would suggest those people find a different genre of game to play instead of forcing the entire community to adapt to their lazy attitude. WoW is by FAR the easiest game out there to level in and yet people are still, to this day, complaining its too hard, and too long.

If you want a lvl 80 character you have to put in the time to create it. It is not handed to you. I don't care if it's your first 80 or your 8th. No one is forcing you to create another character. This constant crying that you can't instantly make another 80 is pathetic. Go play on a private server if you want everything handed to you on a platter.

This is a game that everyone knows, going in, takes some time to level to 80. If you can't handle that - leave. This game isn't for you. Go buy an xbox game that you can beat in an afternoon. Don't screw up the game for everyone else that likes a challenge and the feeling of accomplishment that leveling a character entails. Don't trivialize it to the point where you login and immediately get to max level. I swear, this complaint has been going on in one form or another for 4 years and yet every day people continue to roll new alts. Go Play EQ if you want a taste of what a real level grind is like. I am getting tired of people continuing to cry to put in an easy button for them and dumb down the game to the point where you can macro everything to one button and faceroll to win.

The problem is not that it takes a long time to level to 80. It's that Blizzard has made the game so easy now that people finish and get bored with the high end content before they can even finish creating any new content.

So what will these new fast 80s do when they instantly have 80s of every single class, dual spec'd into every conceivable build? The main reason people make alt's in the first place is because they are bored at the high end and you want to speed up the process where they get back to 80 again and get bored yet again?

Whenever Bliz puts out new content these crys up and quit immediately until the new content is finished and then they rise again, because people are bored again. The leveling mechanic is not broken. People's attitudes that they should be given things without working for it is. That goes for outside the game as well.

Re:Lame

[tuxedobob]

Faction balance varies from server to server. I'm on a release server, and have been since release, and the balance has typically been 1.5:1, swinging back and forth between the factions over time. I think they expected night elves and forsaken to be much more popular than the other races, which is why it was NE vs. orc/troll/tauren on Kalimdor and UD vs. human/dwarf/gnome on Eastern Kingdoms. I think the post-BC numbers were probably a bit better balanced, and if they were to release the game today, I suspect that factions and servers would be more uniformly balanced with that particular change.

I could see this potentially backfiring for servers that already have a severe faction imbalance, though. If your server has a faction ratio of something like 10:1, wouldn't it make a lot of sense to switch sides, thereby exacerbating the problem?

Re:Lame

[StickansT]

o wow, I 100% agree with everything SLBaur said in reply to Endo13. I personally was a vanilla wow player with only touching all content except Naxx and I actually got to step foot into bwl. I played the shit out of D2/D2;exp.

Re:Lame

[marknik]

LAME is a free software application used to encode audio into the MP3 file format. The name LAME is a recursive acronym for LAME Ain't an MP3 Encoder, reflecting LAME's early history when it was not actually an encoder, but merely a set of patches against the freely available ISO demonstration source code. mark456 Buy WoW Gold

More is Less

[Dutchmaan]

Still not sure how I feel about this. While on the surface it will provide a new level of convenience for playing the game, it conversely takes away from the 'value' of the conscious decisions made when creating a character. Every time Blizzard does this the game just feels more and more watered down. The very things they are doing to cater to the very casual players are the very things that are making the game less special and easier to leave.

Re:More is Less

[phantomfive]

Nah, it's ok. How many times have you chosen a character at the beginning of a game not having any clue what you actually wanted? No reason to force people to do it; as long as there are enough limitations that changing is a serious decision, so people aren't switching one way in the morning then the other in the afternoon, it should be ok.

Re:More is Less

[furby076]

How conscience is the decision? When I first started the game I joined alliance because my friends told me to - but even if I joined the game on my own how would I know what is more fun? So I work my way to level 60 and figure alliance is OK> Now i want to try horde but to work level 1- 60 without any resources (after already getting those resources) is tiring. This may not be a bad thing and will give people a new chance. I can see a lot of new gnome Mage/Warlock/Rogues and a lot of Undead Mage/Warlock/Rogues.

Interesting option to offer but really desired?

[ran93r]

Some of my guild have on occasion mused about switching faction, still under the "grass in greener" assumption that the opposing side has less asshats or are better at pvp. Be warned, the asshats are everywhere.

Re:Interesting option to offer but really desired?

[boaworm]

Some of my guild have on occasion mused about switching faction, still under the "grass in greener" assumption that the opposing side has less asshats or are better at pvp.

Be warned, the asshats are everywhere.

Oh noes! We all know that all alliance players are 14 year old ninja-looting griefers while us horde players are all mature, outstanding intellectuals with a good set of social skills and lots of humor. That's why I spent 3 years grinding anything from flowers, deviate fish (Yarr!) and whipper roots, while the long-eared low-level elves I killed while grinding said consumables tried to get past level 30. And then said elves would make forum posts, complaining about immature horde players! How immature! :-)

Plz don't quit our game

[MasterNetHead]

That'll be a hard one to weave into the canon.

Re:Plz don't quit our game

[Rogerborg]

Oh, purleaze. And lo, did cometh the $MYSTIC_UR_GEM_OF_SOULRENDING. Either that, or the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter. I choose... Hordlepuff!

Re:Plz don't quit our game

[fractoid]

Nah, goblins will do anything at a price. And I'm sure they have a few stolen Gnomish autosurgeons... :S

Re:Plz don't quit our game

[Canazza]

Time travel! It's the answer to everything!

Re:Plz don't quit our game

[Opportunist]

Whenever something like this happens, a wizard did it.

Original Vision?

[K3ba]

Given the original vision of this and every other MMORPG is to see how much money they can syphon from the customers, this is totally in-line ;)

City of Heroes - Going Rogue?

[MortimerV]

City of Heroes announced the same thing, nearly two months ago, with their Going Rogue expansion.

Neat that WoW seems to be following in their footsteps. I like freedom in the games I play, and being able to switch sides rather than starting a new character from scratch appeals to me.

Re:They are badly losing people...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've noticed something. We hear from people who have done the majority of the content that WoW has, they beat Vanilla, they beat BC, they made good progress in WotLK. But then the game changed and it was ruined! Because there isn't a single chance in the world that after you spent 4 years beating all the content, both PvE and PvP that maybe you just got tired of the game? For instance, I love pasta. But if I ate great big helpings of pasta for dinner 4 or 5 days of the week for four entire years, I bet I wouldn't like pasta as much. And no, its not because someone 'ruined' pasta, it because I got tired of something I did a lot of.

Re:New WoW service

[fractoid]

Yeah but the transportation options suck, there's no way to switch off 'hard mode' and they delete your character once you get to max level. Who designed this crap anyway?

Re:They are badly losing people...

[emanem]

Sir, you're missing the point.
I'm talking about PvP...the game is not balanced now and has been totally biased towards certain classes for the most WotLK.
I never liked PvE that much but I did it to see new things...I managed to have two characters at rank 11+ in vanilla WoW, I was around 2000 rating for all TBC, but WotLK is totally crap.
That's where they started to ruin the game...
Cheers,

Why would you have to change your character?

[yogibaer]

Why not simply change factions, with whatever character you have? It is a bit pointless to change character (or morph into another). The real social interaction (or call it Paranoia) would start, if - with the click of a mouse - yesterday's enemy could be today's friend and vice versa. Whole guilds changing sides would also be a nice touch especially in PvP mode. Again: With the click of a mouse, in the middle of a battle. All the cold-war amneties in mercenary heaven. "You do not pay me enough and I'll go rogue" is a whole new business model, a whole new industry waiting to be born. "Realpolitik" in the virtual world. Bliss :-)

Re:Why would you have to change your character?

[TheThiefMaster]

EVE Online has had that all along...
Characters switching sides frequently sabotage their old corp or steal as much as they can :)

Re:Why would you have to change your character?

[furby076]

Nah. Chances are it will be 1) pay to change and 2) give you a 60 day restriction from changing again. So if every 60 days you want to spend $20 to change sides you can do it. In all honesty, at $14.95/month it would be better to have a second game account so you can spy on the enemy. Just pay a chinese farmer to get yu a level 80 toon and you can play horde/alliance at the same time to help you gank.

BTW my assumptions do have a basis...to switch servers you have to pay a fee and can only do it every couple of months.

Re:Why would you have to change your character?

[fractoid]

That's what I'd really like to see - a 'defector' or 'freelance' option where my orc warrior could group with a bunch of Alliance or vice versa. Don't turn me into no stinkin' huuman though, yuck!

Re:Why would you have to change your character?

[Hoi Polloi]

You'll end up with people joining a server and finding out that it is biased population-wise towards one faction (usually alliance). Currently you'd have to either reroll your toon or suck it up. Now they can get annoyed and instead of working through it they will be tempted to just switch to the majority side. Keep doing this and one side dominates completely and competition dies. I see this happen in on-line FPS games.

And yet..

[leathered]

EQ(II) has had the option to betray your faction from the get go..

So what other "innovations" can we expect from Blizz in the years to come; player housing, guild halls?

Re:And yet..

[Jarnin]

WoW made the mistake of forcing players to choose a side from the get-go. The game is Player vs. Environment first, Player vs. Player second, and even though they've been adding more and more PvP content over the years with each expansion, you still have to grind through PvE to get anywhere in PvP. There's no reason why players of Alliance and Horde PvP factions couldn't group and raid together for PvE content, except that Blizzard doesn't want them to. I figure if everyone started out neutral and could group with anybody else in the game, you'd see a lot more grouping and raiding going on and a lot less PvP. You'd also see a lot less re-rolling on different servers or for different factions too.

What they really need to implement is some kind of Lackey/Sidekick mechanism like they have in City of Heros/Villains. Allowing players of different levels to group together makes a lot of sense when they're already limited to those in their PvP faction. Plus that would allow their older content to get more visits, since people might not feel forced to solo most of their way through levels 1-70.

Re:And yet..

[SupremoMan]

Yes however this seems to be different. You will be transformed into another race I think. Which is kinda lamer than the EQ2 version. I loved the betray function of eq2 which allowed you to use the races of your opposing faction.

Re:And yet..

[Cheeko]

Did you play EQ2? It most certainly has a long standing storyline that the factions are key to.

Most of it goes back 10+ years into the original game.

They don't do morphing, and while it might be awkward having a DE playing on the light side, it does allow for interesting class/race combos you couldn't normally get.

Additionally you still have faction impacts, etc. Some races exist on both sides already so thats less of a racial thing.

When you switch factions all of your spells reset to their base quality, and a bunch of your factions get altered, so its not like switching is free. There is a significant in game penalty to doing it.

Additionally there is a non aligned faction you temporarily (or in some people's cases permanently) join, which has significant penalties (no major cities to use, PKable by both sides, etc).

The system added a great element to the game when it first came out (though some of that was neutralized).

People would run smuggling operations betraying people back and forth to sell and get goods from the other cities before they had cross faction vendors (though they have a 40% penalty so some of this still probably happens). It allowed for very uncommon race/class combos. It allowed for some interesting dynamics between factions since the factions couldn't directly communicate with each other.

Re:And yet..

[0xdeadbeef]

There's no reason why players of Alliance and Horde PvP factions couldn't group and raid together for PvE content, except that Blizzard doesn't want them to.

I was hoping that was where they were going with it. The whole faction thing is pretty retarded. Instead of Horde vs. Alliance, it should really be everyone versus the Lordaeron and Stormwind nobility, and the only marginally more corrupt Forsaken they became. Those are the real villains of the game.

The WotLK storyline hinted at that, but no, they invented an excuse for ever more pointless conflict. They have to, or the PvPeeners will quit the game.

What would be awesome is if they reversed the faction allegiance of entire races. Blood Elves would get over their irrational hatred of Humans and other High Elves, Tauren could realize that Night Elves aren't so different from them after all, and Humans and Orcs could form secret colonies together to write Jaina / Thrall fanfiction. Everyone could decide, together, that they really, really, need to wipe out those whiny emo terrorist Forsaken.

Betray your faction

[serano]

I've always thought they should have a special quest that lets you betray your faction. At the end of that quest you are officially part of the other faction. Because of your betrayal, you wouldn't be accepted back into your original faction, so this would be a one-way switch.

Re:They are badly losing people...

[Cheesy Fool]

The game has never been balanced for PVP. It is impossible to balance for PVP and PVE.

Re:New WoW service

[Opportunist]

Some bozo with a god complex, IIRC.

Yet again, they further homogonize the game

[Da w00t]

Alliance had the Palladin class.
Horde had the Shamman class.

Then the Burning Crusade expansion comes out, further blurring Alliance and Horde by giving each of them what the other had, and they did not.

Now they're going to let you flip sides years after being stuck on one side? What's the point of having factions? Where's the lore of the hostility between the races?

More to the point: what's the bloody point?

Re:Yet again, they further homogonize the game

[CrashNBrn]

I dont think there is a point. A game ought to be designed with limits from its inception - thus you would get a true diminishing returns curve, and a limited number that ever reach "max_level". Instead Blizzard repeatedly releases expansions adding another linear-curved level cap. They will continue to do so, so long as it is profitable (and no I am not saying they are all about the money).
It just doesn't have a point, you know the level cap will be raised again and again (and again). It has little effect beyond giving more grind for your buck (lengthening the game) and diminishing what "value" the previous level had.

Re:Yet again, they further homogonize the game

[SupremoMan]

They have to homogenize. If the two factions were either perfectly balanced or not in competition with each other it would not be a problem. But because it is very hard to balance the factions if they are different, and because the factions are competing with each other for player, move to a more uniform factions is natural. When one faction has an edge over the other, however small, it is detrimental to both factions! This has been proven over the history of WoW and many other games.

Re:Yet again, they further homogonize the game

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

A game ought to be designed with limits from its inception - thus you would get a true diminishing returns curve, and a limited number that ever reach "max_level"

So if I don't have 100 hours a week to devote to play time, I should automatically get crushed by the guy that does, because he's 5 levels higher than me?

It just doesn't have a point, you know the level cap will be raised again and again (and again). It has little effect beyond giving more grind for your buck (lengthening the game) and diminishing what "value" the previous level had.

If you ask me, it's really good to wipe the slate clean every once in a while by raising the level cap. Yeah, the guy that plays all the time will get to the new level cap faster than me, and get nice gear faster than me, but he still has to start over at the same level as me, replace all their gear again, and (even if only for a few months) the bulk of the population isn't supremely overpowered when compared to the casual gamer.

In my opinion, there *is* a nonlinear curve after you reach the level cap: you have to spend a lot of time playing to get minimal incremental benefits. A character in full top-notch epics isn't that much more powerful than an equivalently specced one wearing "welfare" epics (or whatever the 1337 hardcore people are calling epics you don't have to live in the game to get nowadays).

I think Blizzard has done a pretty good job of giving me entertainment at a fairly low cost per hour. But then I'm just somebody that plays casually for fun; I don't treat it like an important endeavor.

Re:Yet again, they further homogonize the game

[ukyoCE]

Their original vision was certainly to keep Shamans on Horde and keep Paladins on Alliance. But the reason they had to break that limitation is for class balance.

For instance, the Shaman class was TERRIBLE 1-60, and even up to 70. Look at how many new abilities and massive buffs they've had to give Shamans to get them remotely close to balanced with the other classes in the game. They could never have fixed the Shaman class as long as all the Alliance whiners kept insisting that Shamans are OP just because an overgeared one got a 2-handed windfury crit on a clothy once upon a time.

Compare that to Paladins, who have always been an invulnerable class, and now they got the damage buffs to go with it. Big surprise, they've been extremely overpowered and continue to need nerfs every single patch.

But if you look at the community, Paladins were all Q.Q and everyone claimed Shamans were super-OP. Penny Arcade even made a comic about how OMG A SHAMAN KILLED ME AND I CANT PLAY THEM SO THEY'RE OBVIOUSLY OP.

The reality behind this was that there were many more alliance players than horde, so the community leaned towards Paladin buffs and Shaman nerfs. Even though that's the opposite of what was needed.

Back to factions, the point of the faction changing is only to let people switch to play with their friends without having to level new characters from scratch. It will most likely cost money ($25 or more) and have other restrictions applied, just like the server transfers.

I would be extremely surprised if they make this something that lets you randomly switch back and forth from day to day. I'd also be surprised if the faction change doesn't have a huge downside to it, like losing all of your achievements and gear when you switch.

Re:Yet again, they further homogonize the game

[furby076]

I agree the paladin/shaman killed the original lore, but remember, these guys MAKE the lore..so they can change it with some story telling. But even if we agree that the paladin/shammy thing was a waste (on the story side i did think it was, but I do love shammies on alliance) the swapping factions is complete meta-gaming. You won't see humans on horde faction...more then likely swapping factions = swapping races...they should just let you swap races. If i still played wow then my human lock would become a gnome lock :)

Re:Yet again, they further homogonize the game

[BobMcD]

More to the point: what's the bloody point?

You're looking too deeply, my friend.

It is a game (and a hobby).

The point is to enjoy the time you spend doing it. This should help some do that without impacting other's ability to do the same.

Does there need to be more of a point than that?

Re:Yet again, they further homogonize the game

[brkello]

The point should be obvious. People have friends who play with different factions. If two people find they both play WoW, but are on opposite factions, they would have to level another character from scratch. If they are on the same server, one would actually have to buy a whole new account. Now Blizzard will allow people to switch so they can play together. It is actually a good thing as it allows people a way to play together.

This has nothing to do with lore. There is no in game mechanism to switch factions. This is the same as a character realm transfer.

And as far as giving both side the same classes...that actually made a lot of sense because having unique classes made raiding easier for one faction over the other. They could have given both classes similar abilities but then what's the point? Now that both factions can have all the classes, it simplifies end game raiding because then you just balance it to the same classes rather having to take in to account differences between factions for each boss fight.

Re:Yet again, they further homogonize the game

[kaputtfurleben]

It's pretty obvious, I would say: - To keep subscribers that might have otherwise stopped playing. - To perhaps regain previous subscribers. - To allow people to enjoy the game more than they already do (through various means, such as playing with new real-life friends, or having a better pvp experience on imbalanced realms, etc.). - To make money doing so. It doesn't make sense in the game world, but really who gives a crap, it's a video game.

Re:Yet again, they further homogonize the game

[SL Baur]

However, I think the whole clean slate idea is stupid.

You misunderstand. "Wiping the slate clean" in WoW terms is that within a level or two into a new expansion you get access to greens and blues with the power of purples that took months of grinding from the previous cap.

They pretty much have to do something like that for newer players who sign up after the expansion comes out.

Re:Yet again, they further homogonize the game

[SL Baur]

I would be extremely surprised if they make this something that lets you randomly switch back and forth from day to day.

This is Slashdot, you aren't expected to actually read the article.

The Blizzard blue poster wrote in TFA:

As with all of the features and services we offer, we intend to incorporate the faction-change service in a way that won't disrupt the gameplay experience on the realms, and there will be some rules involved with when and how the service can be used

I anticipate that it will be done similar to how realm transfers are done now, with an emphasis on easing factional imbalances.

Re:They are badly losing people...

[Anonymous Coward]

You learnt to play a bit (rank 11, 2000 rating isn't anything special) when your class was the OP one. You've just failed to learn to play again now that things have changed and you aren't OP. Also, they're not badly losing people.

Re:They are badly losing people...

[Opportunist]

I think WotLK was when a lot of people realized that the last glimmer of challenges and "player skill" in WoW have been patched out. It's been reduced to basically a complete skill-less game.

Now, it wasn't a hard game from the start. But it was good, quick fun. A bit like the fast food of online games. It's not really rewarding for a long time and getting anything ain't something you brag about because you know you could put a 6 year old there and he'd succeed (and if you don't have a 6 year old handy, slap together a script), but it was ok for the time.

The rewarding moments ceased to exist with the advent of certain abilities that made even the tank scriptable. AoE aggro that can essentially not be broken. Now where's any kind of challenge left? That you can fire your spells and styles in the correct order to maximize damage (because you won't have to worry about aggro anymore, at least if the tank is at least as good as a small script)? Please, google the correct sequence...

I don't want to brag to others how much I accomplished, but at least I want to have the feeling that I didn't just waste my time doing something anyone can do. But that seems to be the appeal, and I don't care too much that people want to play that. To each what they like.

What bugs me to no end, though, is that other MMO makers dumb and water their games down in an attempt to attract the WoW players. Even EQ2, which started out as an insanely HARD game. And I mean insanely hard. I don't mind challenges, but EQ2 was like pulling teeth, without any kind of drugs, every single level was a battle, right from the start. After a few months it had a fairly good challenge level and was quite playable. In the meantime, it has been reduced to lalaland as well. And it's not any better for any other game that I'd know of.

So, IMO, essentially what keeps WoW afloat is that there are no real alternatives if you're fed up with EZ-Mode gaming. The rest of the games have been turned into copies of WoW, so you can just as well stay there.

Game code isn't set up that way

[Sycraft-fu]

For one there's the simple matter of races. Each side has races that are totally unique to it, there's no overlap. So to change sides necessitates a change of race. that is just how the game is set up. That's not the only thing, of course, but just a major example. the game was designed such that when you are on a faction, that is that. There's no switching back and forth. It wasn't made as some other games where you can declare allegiance, which can be switched. This is a long standing war and races have chosen sides that don't change. Game code reflects that. So it would be a major rewrite to implement that, not to mention a major shift in game mechanics that many players might not like.

Instead, they are likely going to implement a system that just does a conversion on your character data. Basically it'll pull your data from the database, change the necessary things so that you are on the other side, and then place your character back in the database. It'll probably be an offshot of the existing character transfer script, which deals with all the checking to make sure a character can be moved to a different server (which sometimes is in a different datacenter) without problems.

You also have to remember that the problem with what you describe is that games HAVE done that and in almost all cases they make a rapid run to the bottom and fail, or at the very least have few players. The problem is that humans are not nice and don't want to work together, especially when there aren't consequences, and even when there are. A short look at human history tells you this. Our democratic societies where most people enjoy rights are the exception, not the rule in history. Even today there are many societies where the strong dominate the weak.

Well, that's what you get in games, especially since there aren't permanent consequences in them. The griefers get powerful and stomp on everyone else. Life sucks if you aren't the elite. This happened in Shadowbane to an extreme.

So if you want a game with balance and rules, those rules must be enforced by the design and the game masters. The players won't do it themselves. The power gamers will oppress most people, and most people will up and leave to play something more fun.

That's one of the reasons why WoW works. You have instant and enforced allies and enemies. There isn't a case of "Anyone who is good joins this group, everyone else is excluded." No, everyone on one side is allied, period. The PvP system is controlled in a way that Blizzard wants it, it isn't a free for all.

If you want games like that, they are out there, but WoW isn't one of them and I don't think Blizzard wishes to make it so. They've got a model that works for them, to the tune of billions of dollars per year. I doubt they are anxious to radically alter that.

So I imagine this'll be quite limited in scope, much like the current realm transfers. You pay Blizzard a fee, and if everything checks out (in terms of what you can bring with you and so on) they execute the transfer. You then can't do a transfer for some length of time (30 days currently I think). The idea is if you play horde and your friend plays alliance, you can switch so you both play the same. The idea is not to radically alter the game.

They also may use it to try and balance out sides. Some servers have a big numbers imbalance, and it perpetuates since the side with more people has more new people join to play with friends. They could entice people ot switch with cost-free transfers and such. They already do this on high population realms. When too many people total are playing, they offer free transfers to new realms with low population for those that want to.

Re:Game code isn't set up that way

[Rocketship Underpant]

I think what Yogibaer is asking is: why can't you switch factions and become an Orc who fights and quests for the Alliance, if that's what you really want? Or be a turncoat night elf who throws his lot in with the Blood Elves?

Re:Game code isn't set up that way

[ukyoCE]

The lore does not accomodate that. An Orc who tried to join the alliance would be slain or at least ostracized. It's rare that the factions intermingle. They don't speak the same languages. They've slaughtered each others families. Etc.

That said, WOW does have other reputations that can be switched on a whim. There's a goblin town called Booty Bay that is at odds with a group of Pirates nearby. The default is that you're friendly with the goblins. But you can (and it's a blast) turn on the goblins and kill them all (including NPCs) and switch factions to the pirate side. You even get a pirate hat out of it =)

That goblin/pirate faction is probably the best one currently in the game, but they've tried it several times from several different angles. Eg. 2 different factions of centaur in Desolace, 2 different factions in Outlands that have independent banks and Inns and faction rewards, 2 different factions in Sholazar where you have to pick a side to do their quests.

So yes, there is the ability to switch factions in the game, but letting Orcs join the Alliance would pretty much decimate the faction lore and storyline, and allegiance/loyalty to your faction and race.

This is another reason they tend to charge for features like this - it's something they're only implementing grudgingly to help out players stuck apart from friends. But they absolutely do not want players to be changing race, faction, and class on a whim.

Being able to change your character dramatically on a whim make it feel like you're playing with Mr. Potato Head instead of playing with a long-lasting character who's worthy of investing your time and efforts. For an RPG, character progression is a huge part of the game.

Re:Game code isn't set up that way

[redcaboodle]

Because you'd get lynched in the opposing factions towns before you can explain. Friend and enemy are well-defined in WoW.

It's bad enough with the DKs, when they ally with a faction. RP-wise they should get attacked, not pelted with fruit.

Re:Game code isn't set up that way

[RodgerDodger]

It would have been nice to see something more done with the whole Aldor vs Scryers issue. Here was another faction option that was orthogonal to the main - there could have been a form of contests between them.

Not battlegrounds (that would be at odds with the "we're allies" aspect) but how about some sort of team sport? Ostensibly non-lethal. This would have allowed Orcs and Humans to compete together against the Blood and Night Elves. ;)

Re:Game code isn't set up that way

[BigGar']

Yeah, I agree there about the DK's I kinda thought there should be at least a couple of additional quests to do for the King before being granted Friendly/Honored status.

Re:Game code isn't set up that way

[brkello]

He answered that question.

Re:Game code isn't set up that way

[daveywest]

Being able to change your character dramatically on a whim make it feel like you're playing with Mr. Potato Head instead of playing with a long-lasting character who's worthy of investing your time and efforts. For an RPG, character progression is a huge part of the game.

But toons are no longer unique. Before the first expansion, the devs had invested so much time in creating unique and class-specific gear, most players were were individually identifiable just by visual appearance. As BC progressed, gear homogenized within each class. By the time I quit playing, I couldn't tell one warlock from the next. Everyone had the same set of PVP and arena gear mixed with an occasional Kara piece. There was no longer diversity. Everyone WAS MR. POTATO HEAD and we all looked the same.

Re:Game code isn't set up that way

[ukyoCE]

Totally agreed. I used to see tauren warriors walking around in their big orange PVP shoulderpads, and always thought it was my friend at first. IMO there's a lot to be said for gear discrepancy in keeping unique toons looking unique.

However, realistically, that would mean having 2-3 versions of every BiS item for every class. Cause no matter what if 2 warriors get BiS for PVP, or for PVE, that means they're getting the same gear. Once you get to endgame I don't see a lot of options. At least nowdays it makes it easy at a glance to see how Well-geared a player is, if you know the tier gear for that class.

Back to Mr Potato Head, even if you end up looking the same, you had to work to get there, and it's somewhat prestigous and gives you a sense of pride to get there. Even if every other warrior has the same axe as me once they've raided Ulduar, I still had to work to get it for my character. It's very different from dropping into Counterstrike and pressing 4-3 to get your M4-A1.

The more you can change your toon around without penalty or effort, the more the game will turn into an FPS where you pick your character each time you login. It's definitely a grey area between the two, so it's not like letting you switch factions on the fly would be the end of the world. But those are the two extremes, and Blizzard wants to keep WOW closer to the RPG end of that scale than the FPS end.

Re:Game code isn't set up that way

[Hoi Polloi]

It would be interesting if players could become outcasts to their own faction and become open to "attack on sight" by all alliance and horde and visa-versa; sort of like bandits. There would be a problem of how to handle NPCs (would they only be able to use goblin/neutral towns?). Still, it would be interesting and maybe even give folks a chance to get revenge on jerks that play for thier own faction.

Re:Game code isn't set up that way

[Graff]

What I'd love to see is that each gear set also has several design families which you can choose from and which continue from set to set. Lets say that warriors have two types of tier gear: dps and tanking. They should also be able to choose a design family within those gear types and the look of gear in each family would be consistant from tier to teir.

For example, a warrior's tier 1 tanking set could have two designs: protector and defender. Each design would be colored differently and maybe have a different look for the helm and the shoulders, so lets say the protector would be red and the defender would be blue. On the tier 2 tanking set you also offer a protector and defender option with a similar color and look to the tier 1 set. You still want to make the tier 2 gear look different from the tier 1 but the gear in the same design family would obviously be related.

It would be a bit more work for the design team which is why I would say that the uniqueness should only be on the two most unique pieces, shoulders and helm. This would cut down the work needed to produce the additional looks.

The cool thing about this is you could have a consistent look for your character while leveling. You could always choose stuff from the protector design family and even though you are upgrading gear you would always have a similar feel to your character.

Re:Game code isn't set up that way

[SL Baur]

The lore does not accomodate that. An Orc who tried to join the alliance would be slain or at least ostracized. It's rare that the factions intermingle. They don't speak the same languages. They've slaughtered each others families. Etc.

I see you haven't made your triumphant return to SW City (or where ever hordie Death Knights go) after you've turned your back on Arthas.

One of the quests you have to complete before you graduate from the training area is to go into town and kill cowering women and children who do not fight back.

There certainly is precedent for this, but please, all you Belfs, stay Horde. Please.

Re:Game code isn't set up that way

[SL Baur]

It would be interesting if players could become outcasts to their own faction and become open to "attack on sight" by all alliance and horde and visa-versa; sort of like bandits.

They originally had that. I remember reading about it in the manual. Kill enough guards and you could eventually become KOS to your own faction. That feature was removed by the time I started.

Re:Game code isn't set up that way

[ukyoCE]

Human death knight rejoining humans is not the same thing as Orcs (let alone orc death knights) rejoining humans.

While the human death knight kill his fellow humans, he has also "recovered" and still has friends, and "with the blessing" of the king (or thrall, for horde) is allowed to rejoin the Alliance.

As a representative of the Horde we'd like to return belfs to the Alliance, so all the noob 10-year olds can get back to the faction of fairies and adolescents playing as hot chicks. Please, take them back. They promise they'll stop abusing magic, and after that they're no different than nelfs, really!

Re:Game code isn't set up that way

[SL Baur]

so all the noob 10-year olds can get back to the faction of fairies and adolescents playing as hot chicks.

There certainly seems to be some advantage to that. If you're going to spend dozens if not hundreds of days[1] staring at a butt in the middle of your screen playing a game, shouldn't it be something you enjoy looking at?

Just asking.

As a representative of the Horde we'd like to return belfs to the Alliance

As Ambassador of the Alliance and Champion of the Draenei, no thank you.

[1] Our guild record is 147 days of /played. Not me, whew.

This is just retention

[WeirdingWay]

They have a new MMO on the way. Title quite possibly to be announced at Blizzcon 09. Blizzard has earned the benefit of the doubt on how to keep people playing and adding content isn't the only carrot out there. Eventually everything short of buying gold/gear with real money will be available.

Probalby why they are accelerating it

[Sycraft-fu]

They continue to make it faster to gain the lower levels. I imagine this will continue, as the level cap raises. Seems like the over all idea is that it takes the same amount of time to max out, regardless of what the max is.

to that end they've already reduced the XP it takes, increased rewards and so on. Next step appears to be ot make transportation available earlier. Mounts are going to be made available at much lower levels.

They seem to do a good job of refactoring the game to keep it fun for new players. At least if they aren't, I'm at a loss as to why their subscriber base keeps growing.

Re:Probalby why they are accelerating it

[zwei2stein]

Its seems that they have 'target time' in which players can reach max level. Is max level is raised, part of leveling process needs to be changed to keep time spent reaching max level the same.

Which makes sense because player who joins game later has to catch up with population at level cap where the content is, and after several expansions it would be quite frustrating trying to catch up

Now, if they simply abolished concept of levels ...

How so?

[Sycraft-fu]

At this point, all the fees they have are related to meta-game type things only, none are related to in game content. You pay to access the game, you don't pay a special fee for access to raid content. Likewise they offer you the ability to transfer to a new server to play with friends, not the ability to buy gear. They sell a change of appearance, not a bag of gold. Now they are going to offer the ability to change sides.

The idea seems to be that if you make a meta-game choice you later dislike, you aren't stuck with it. You can change your mind. In the game world itself, you have to do everything in there with the tools available. This purchase system is only for things that you don't control in game and that really don't have an impact on gameplay.

If they were selling in game items and such, yes I'd dislike it. However they aren't, they are just saying "If your friends play on a different realm or a different faction, you can pay to switch over and go play with them."

Also the fee seems to be as much based on making people think about it and only do it if serious as making money. I'm sure they don't mind the extra cash, but notice that they also impose time limits. You can't transfer characters all the time, there's a 30 day limit. If it was only about money, they'd let you transfer as often as you liked to make more fees.

This seems to work. Because of the fee and the time limit, you don't see people jumping servers often. It is reserved for those that have a real reason.

Original Game

[WorkingDead]

In the old RTS game there were neutral hero's that any race could acquire. I wish they would use their already existing reputation system and incorporate neutral races that could go to either faction through in game mechanisms or questing. They might even be able to finally use the language system into something fun. They could do the same thing as they did with the Death Knights and start them out at a higher level. I think that would be more in tune with the spirit of the original game than paying Blizzard a $15 indulgence for the Horde/Alliance to absolve your character slaughtering their faction for the past 80 levels.

WOW ain't packing so much WOW anymore

[MikeyinVA]

I was a late starter in WOW but I was playing last year and into this year. I enjoyed it to a point but then it got boring and the grind of it all got to me. But I loved the game overall and was only planning to take a hiatus. I've been gone longer than I expected and dreaded coming back and having to spend hours doing things but at least that was the way the game *used* to work. I'm reading that patch 3.2 they will be lowering first mount to lvl 20 and other mount lvls will be lowered to. What? Is Blizzard going to get to the point where you get a mount at lvl 1. Noobs need to pay their dues in sweat. I was broke, penniless and lost when I first started playing...now people are boo-hooing and getting what they want. This game is ruined. I've been looking at Runes of Magic as a free alternative...Free Realms...Perfect World...maybe I'll take up AOC of LOTRO. But someone really needs to redefine MMORPGs because the concept is getting old and played.

Re:WOW ain't packing so much WOW anymore

[Yosho]

You know that this isn't the first time Blizzard has lowered mount requirements, right? It sounds like /you're/ one of the "noobs" who hasn't paid your "dues in sweat." Real men got their mounts at level 40 and paid 90 gold just for the riding skill. Except Tauren, who couldn't even use mounts.

Or maybe -- just maybe -- players getting a land speed increase so they can get from 20 to 30 a little faster isn't the end of the fucking world. Let's face it, getting through those mid levels in Azeroth is boring as hell, especially now that the old zones are practically empty. The point is that Blizzard doesn't want players to dread spending hours doing things. If that's the kind of game you're looking for, maybe Final Fantasy XI is more your style?

Re:WOW ain't packing so much WOW anymore

[SupremoMan]

Yeah honestly I made 90 gold with a lvl 19 character mining copper and selling it in AH for 1g a stack. Some people are just lazy :/

Re:WOW ain't packing so much WOW anymore

[SL Baur]

I'm reading that patch 3.2 they will be lowering first mount to lvl 20 and other mount lvls will be lowered to. What? Is Blizzard going to get to the point where you get a mount at lvl 1.

That part I strongly disagree with. I didn't like lowering the first mount requirement - it takes away the class bonuses from Druid Travel Form and Shaman Ghost Wolf Form.

Noobs need to pay their dues in sweat.

To some extent, I agree. Every single highest level mount I bought on my way to my first epic flyer required borrowed gold from a guildie (all of which was paid back with interest).

The epic flyer mount cost was "fixed" by adding all the Quel'Danas daily quests that paid quite good gold when level 70 was the cap. That doesn't work so well with a level 80 cap.

But someone really needs to redefine MMORPGs because the concept is getting old and played.

Blizzard says they're doing that, but the oldest profession in the world is still the most lucrative ...

Re:WOW ain't packing so much WOW anymore

[SL Baur]

Yeah honestly I made 90 gold with a lvl 19 character mining copper and selling it in AH for 1g a stack.

It was level 40 the first time I bought a ground mount. I very nearly had 100g by fishing up Mr. Stonescale Eel and selling it in the AH. Borrowed maybe 10 or 15g from a guildie when I hit 40 and then paid it back *before* I bought all my level 40 class training.

The 2nd time I bought a first ground mount (my second overall, I had switched mains in the meantime), I had enough gold on my own and had exalted with SW City so I could get a horse instead of an Elekk.

I'm leveling a priest now and I sure could have used a ground mount between 20 and 30. Darkshore/Ashenvale are pretty cool places to level up, but they sure suck up time getting from place to place while questing.

I want to have fun when I play a game

[Jsox]

I honestly think that Blizzard has the right idea. The vast majority of content is in the end-game; the number of things you can do at Level 80 far exceeds what you can accomplish (or even set out to do) prior to level 80. There are areas you can't even access without a flying mount (required level 77) and plenty of raid zones you can't even dream of without first hitting 80 and getting some better gear (or maybe having friends to carry your weaksauce along). Level 79 and 80 are worlds apart. It's always been like this - It was the same when the cap was 60, and the same when it was 70. It was the same in EverQuest and I'd bet good money that to varying degrees it's like this in most popular MMOs. Personally, I've already leveled 2 characters to 80 - I will take no joy in leveling a 3rd if I ever want a 3rd 80. Blizzard is just making my life easier - cutting the BS grind and giving you more freedom. I honestly don't feel like I am a vastly better player or that I am "better" than any other player simply because I had to level my toons "back in the day" before they did things like making mounts faster, easier to get, and letting you switch factions. The game exists to be enjoyed, Blizzard is simply making it easier to try different things without having to hassle with grinding money/levels/whatever just to try something new.

Re:I want to have fun when I play a game

[MikeyinVA]

They should just cut out the first 60 levels then. What's the point now? People will zip through the game now and not even take time to appreciate all the terrain, mobs, etc. The experience. I like MMORPGs in part because I like to explore. If 10 years olds want to jump to the end, fine. But I think that's a problem in our society. That people want a Youtube version of a movie or a Cliff notes of a book. People need to slow down and "enjoy" things.

Re:I want to have fun when I play a game

[BigGar']

And at the same time they're introducing a feature to turn off experience gathering to more fully support twinking which is almost exclusively a lower level endeavor.

Re:They are badly losing people...

[Jack9]

I think WotLK was when a lot of people realized that the last glimmer of challenges and "player skill" in WoW have been patched out. It's been reduced to basically a complete skill-less game.

So what you're saying is that all the people who claimed they were good are running for the hills because the game is being normalized to an abstract, where everything is essentially the same. It lowers the barrier for those who are hindered by specific mechanics, and raises it for others, who depend on inequalities. Those people who claim that skill has something to do with differences (as if they were elite), were always playing a different game anyway. This has nothing to do with skill, but I can hear your inner qq (couched in a "I'm one of the elite). A normalization of the game is what most mmo gravitate toward in all cases. This is certainly not a surprise, given the history of mmos and the persistence of WoW.

Re:They are badly losing people...

[SpartacusJones]

That's why I was pretty excited to hear Square is making a new MMO. If it's somewhere between FFXI and WoW in difficulty and required skill, I'm sold. FFXI was great except you could do NOTHING without a party, and even when you got one odds were they had no idea what a skillchain/magic burst was. Most of the time was spent sitting in Jeuno waiting for a group.

WoW got something very right when it was possible to play solo and accomplish something. They started getting it wrong when I can kill 3 elites at once who are 2-3 levels higher than I am without needing to even pop a health potion just by pressing one button over and over.

Re:New WoW service

[demonlapin]

replying to kill mistaken mod, meant to select funny but got overrated. Why can't there be a separate confirm button? Or an option to change a specific mod?

Re:They are badly losing people...

[Opportunist]

Mandatory grouping? Now I could kick myself for dismissing FFXI without even trying it. I guess by now it's too old to start?

So now everyone will be Undead

[TheRealRainFall]

Because Wotf has and always will be OP in arena. Now we'll see 2342344 Undead Mages, Priests, Rogues than before.

Re:So now everyone will be Undead

[Hausenwulf]

Nope, the bulk of population will continue to be either human or nightelf.

Re:They are badly losing people...

[Opportunist]

What I'm saying is fairly simple: WoW used to be halfway decent fun. It was a nice game when I was tired of trying to be "elite", I didn't have the time anymore to spend countless hours grinding away in DAoC and EQ. It sure was fun while it lasted and I enjoyed being one of the few that made it "up there" because you needed at least halfway decent knowledge of your character and how to play in a group to prevail. WoW offered it all in a toned down, more forgiving way. Death wasn't as harsh as in EQ, basically it was little more than an annoyance. And even a PUG could succeed if it didn't consist of 5 idiots. You needed to play together, you actually had to make use of CC and aggro control, but it all had a "lighter" atmosphere.

Aggro loss wasn't an almost certain wipe as in DAoC where casters can't cast while they take damage, where healer+aggro=wipe was a given rather than an exception. In DAoC, you weren't scolded when you allowed this to happen, you were praised when you somehow managed to avoid the total wipe after the tank fubar'd. CC was a necessity and an artform, you could keep as many enemies mezzed as you could... if you could. You just had to know how long, what enemy, how far, and so on... and only if they didn't take damage yet.

It was all a lot easier in WoW. It was a quite enjoyable change. More laid back. No sitting on the edge of your seat, sweating into the keyboard and getting your spells out just right or else ... you could easily dish out your heals with one hand, a beer in the other, it was leisure instead of work. It was actually enjoyable.

It stopped being enjoyable when I noticed, after a few patches into BC, that I'm not even really playing anymore. I came up with an experiment where I tacked myself to the heels of the mage and spent the entire instance only (!) pressing a single button (i.e. large heal, target tank). Granted, a few others would have helped to make things easier, but the mere fact that this is possible showed me that the game has lost any kind of challenge.

It's one thing to play a game that's not "work". I like challenges, but it's nice to play something easy from time to time. It's something different to play when you already know that you have won. I don't need to play chess against a 4 year old, I know I will win (provided it's not some chess prodigy). Why bother playing?

This is not good

[ITJC68]

As a WOW Player I think the reduction of time for the mounts makes sense. Walking around was the worst part of leveling. However leveling a "toon" from 1 to 80 should remain. That is how you learn how to play the toon. Especially if they are an entirely different class like cloth armor from plate. I have plate toons (Pally and DK) and I enjoy them at level 80 as well as when I was leveling them. Clothies have their advantages and I will be working on one for various reasons but starting at level 1 is good. I will have to learn how to attack and work on strategy to become proficient with the class. Changing this would be a mistake IMHO. Also allowing people to take a high level toon and switch sides I have mixed feelings about. I think if they allow it they should loose all achievments that are not available to the other side. Not get the equivalent. There should be a penalty for changing sides otherwise people will do it for various reasons that could ruin the game mechanics and achievments.

Further server imbalance

[Hausenwulf]

The population balance on most servers swings for one faction or the other. It's seldom balanced. Being able to swap factions just means that those imbalances will get more severe, since those on the weaker side are tired of losing at world pvp. Nobody wants to be on the "losing" side.

Re:Further server imbalance

[ComaVN]

Switching realms to an imbalanced realm is already prohibited if your faction happens to be the most numerous there. Conversely, switching to a realm where your faction is in the minority is often free. They'll probably do something similar with this.

Re:They are badly losing people...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think WotLK was when a lot of people realized that the last glimmer of challenges and "player skill" in WoW have been patched out. It's been reduced to basically a complete skill-less game.

You could always macro to some extent even before Wotlk. When the game first came out there were mods that would make decisions on what to do for you. Healbot was this way I think, where it would pick the most efficent spell to use.

Blizzard's concept right now is to have Normal modes for players who are not hardcore and hard modes for the people who want a challenge. If WoW was so easy, why doesn't 75% of the player base have their Rusted Protodrakes by now? Should be easy to do if WoW wasn't a challenge in any aspect of the game. According to WoWProgress only 18 guilds have taken down Agalon between the US and EU. Ensidia just got a 72 hour suspension for using an exploit to do the last achievement that hasn't been done by anyone yet. Couldn't do it how it was susposed to I guess. Blizzard isn't going to cater to the top 1% of the playerbase, and why should they? Why is the top 1% of the playerbase/guilds used as a measuring stick on what is challenging anyway?

Permanent PvP

[ubrgeek]

I always thought it would be cool if you could switch from Alliance to Horde and vice versa but the move would permanently set your PvP flag for your old side. So switch from Alliance to Horde and Alliance could always attack, without it turning on _their_ PvP flag.

Re:Permanent PvP

[AntiNazi]

And then on PVP servers it would... Oh, your "pvp flag" is already on all the time?

Alliance are fu*king emo cocksu*kers - really!

[itedo]

As George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher would say:

****** FUCK THE ALLIANCE! ******

Check out the booklet from the Album 'Kill' or just watch this video. ;)

http://www.sk-gaming.com/video/5099-Cannibal_Corpse_Interview_Corpsegrinder_likes_WoW

Attitude!

Re:They are badly losing people...

[fractoid]

But if I ate great big helpings of pasta for dinner 4 or 5 days of the week for four entire years, I bet I wouldn't like pasta as much.

I've been eating nachos at least a couple of times a week (sometimes 3-4 times) for like the past 12 years. I still love nachos.

I've also played WoW since about two months after launch.

Shit, I think you might be onto something. O.o

Re:They are badly losing people...

[fractoid]

You're correct if you're talking about Burning Crusade class abilities. Blizzard spent a lot of time trying to make all playstyles 'harder' and more interactive. Slightly annoyingly (to me at least) they've done this by adding random procs everywhere that you have to utilise as efficiently as possible to do good dps. There's no such thing as a "dps rotation" now, it's more of a flowchart that you're following while trying to stay out of the fire, make sure you're hitting the right target at the right time, etc.

Also I'd argue that 'skill' is in the player's ability to adapt, rather than what you're talking about. It's like the difference between sending a rocket to the moon, and setting a hot lap in an F1 car. They're both 'physics' but one requires you to be able to do it in realtime. :)

Re:They are badly losing people...

[SpartacusJones]

Well, people still play. I think they still have several hundred thousand subscribers, though many may not be active. They just released a new expansion in the last few months or so.

You have to solo the first 10 levels, then get ready for some hot sitting-in-town-for-hours-afraid-to-go-to-the-bathroom-because-you-may-miss-an-invite action with your "Looking for group" flag up. Eventually I made a White Mage just to get in groups when I realized my thief, no matter how good I was, just wasn't going to get me anywhere. It worked for awhile, but they raised the level cap and Red Mages became the healer of choice. When my static group broke up because they wanted to play wow, I stopped playing.

Do You Know What This Sounds Like?

[Nom du Keyboard]

Sounds like a sex change to me.

Re:Do You Know What This Sounds Like?

[cfalcon]

They already have that for like 25 bucks.

Edward, Tellah

[halsafar]

Nice, Edward and Tellah icon for the story. I bet a few select servers will become near 100% Horde or 100% Alliance.

WG balancing is Lame

[SL Baur]

This is blizzard trying to channel more money because they are losing people.

My first thought is that they are finally addressing factional imbalances on servers.

I suspect that will be easier to do than any other thing to get Wintergrasp balanced.