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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm To Launch Dec. 7th
Blizzard announced today that the third expansion to World of Warcraft, dubbed Cataclysm, is set for launch on December 7th. In addition to upping the level cap to 85 and including several new high level zones, the expansion will revamp the parts of Azeroth that have been around since WoW's initial launch, bringing the 1-60 leveling experience more in line with the improvements Blizzard has made in the expansions. Cataclysm will also give players two new races to play, Goblins and Worgen, who have joined the Horde and the Alliance, respectively.
I've been playing since just a few months after launch, but "playing" is used loosely for the last 6 months or so(I've been logging at most an hour per week during that time).
The community aspect - guildies to log on and talk to for a bit, is a big part of staying, but aside from that sometimes I just wanna kill some time. WoW feels like a decent way to spend that time. Repetitive? A bit, sure, but life itself is repetitive. Nobody asks the sports fans why they watch the same sport every Sunday, or why the fisherman goes out catching the same kinds of fish every Saturday, or why people go down to the same bars with the same group of people each weekend. People do the things they like because they enjoy doing them, and just because you can reduce it to "doing the same thing over and over" doesn't necessarily mean that it loses all appeal.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
I started with MUDs, moved on to Meridian 59, Ultima Online, Everquest, etc...I absolutely LOVED my time spent with MMOs, especially WoW (closed and open betas, continued until about 1.5 years after launch), but the genre got boring for me. Not even The Old Republic can get me excited about an MMO.
I still find it surprising when I hear so many people are still playing WoW. Anyone on here still playing since launch? What's kept you with it all this time? Gameplay, community, what?
Been playing since early 2005. Blizz has managed to keep it interesting, despite some missteps. About time for the old world revamp though. Bring on the Cataclysm!
As a Beta Tester, I gotta tell you - the water effects ALONE are worth the 4.0 patch. So much has changed, yet alot is still the same, or just slightly different - but it feels like a new game, truly.
The author failed to mention a primary feature of the expansion: flying allowed in Azeroth. The world was previously not setup to allow players to see the ugly transition between zones, and this is seen as a major update.
They announced a PLAN to make RealID required to post on the official forums (an activity that only a small percentage of players even participate in anyways). After community backlash they NEVER IMPLEMENTED that plan.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Yes, they backed off from it, but that's like an abusive spouse apologizing after hitting you.
Did you seriously just compare an company considering then declining to disable anonymous commenting on their forum to spousal abuse? Fuck you. Seriously, fuck you.
WoW jumped the shark when Blizzard created achievements and players started to use them as a criteria to participate in a raid.
Gear-score came along and gave the finishing blow.
I have nothing against requiring some prerequisites like completed a lower level raid or have a reasonable gear score. Unfortunately most players who spam the trade channel for a raid pug require that you've already achieved that particular raid instance or a gear score so high that requires you to have farmed that raid repeatedly.
I read an opinion, which isn't necessarily mine by the way, that basically said that Cataclysm was the answer to all of these woes introduced by the new meta-game. The theory goes like this:
1) The talents and values on gear are simplified, making the basics of the game very easy to grasp without help.
2) The difficulty is ramped way, way up. The standing intention now is mana/resource conservation along with the return crowd control. Also, there will be a progression of 'Normals > Heroics > Raids' that cannot be skipped.
3) Two deeply-critical roles are seeing huge nerfs - tanks/healing - while damage is getting a sizeable buff, creating an inherent conflict of interests.
4) Guild are getting rewards, which translate into costs when one leaves said guild.
This is said to result in a climate where you're never, ever, ever going to want to play with people you don't like. Everyone will be dieing together, a lot. Victories will be by the skin of your teeth, and only when everyone is playing at their best. The days of 'one-wipe-and-bail' will be gone, and the players who seek to judge your ability by Gearscore+Achievement won't be worth playing with. You'll be intended to foster relationships with players and keep them around. You'll guild up for the rewards, and you'll focus on doing this stuff together to get more of them. As you do so, you'll work on getting more skill for those that need it, as pugging just won't be a workable idea.
Or so the theory goes, anyway.
Sociologists will wonder in vain why final exam grades in 2010 were so abnormally abysmal.
Signatures are the new names.
The stock market is highly correlated nowadays. With everyone using computers for analysis and such almost all the stocks move in unison. There is almost no point in buying individual stocks any more. If it weren't for dividends then it probably wouldn't be worth buying anything other than an index stock (like SPY or whatever).
Kind of sad actually (I say this as a day trader). Not sure how to "fix" it though. The market has turned almost completely into a short-term game.
Tell that to my wife.
Sony ha