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Blizzard Launches Third WoW Expansion, Cataclysm
Last night marked the launch of Cataclysm, the third expansion for Blizzard's World of Warcraft. Cataclysm includes: two new races, both of which have their own starting zones; five new high-level zones that span the new 80-85 leveling content; seven new five-man dungeons (plus two heroic versions of classic dungeons); three end-game raids; a new profession; two new PvP battlegrounds; and one world PvP zone. In addition, Cataclysm features a revamp of Azeroth, the portion of the game world that went live when WoW originally launched in 2004, providing a much improved leveling experience for new players and alts. MMO-Champion posted a comprehensive collection of information about the new content. Of course, Cataclysm's launch has brought the video game addiction debate back to the fore.
Nevermind, my queue popped.
Jay, so we can expect three sequel-sequel-sequels?
And pay for each and everyone, of course!
FTFA: "This episode genuinely contains someone advising people who game too much to go out and get drunk ("smashed") instead. It's insulting to those who for whatever specific reasons struggle to control their gaming, and dangerous for misinforming the public." I personally think that that's an excellent point. Basically gaming is bad but going out and harming your body and bank-account by drinking execcive amounts of alcohol is somehow better for you?
I have some absolutely AMAZING, AMAZING memories associated with WoW. I was in the closed and open betas, playing in my friend's basement during the summer of 2004. We had the run of his house (his Dad was in India from March until December of that year), so we set up two huge folding tables in his basement, and got a permanent 10-person LAN setup. Myself and the 9 other people spent ungodly amounts of time in WoW (during both betas and after launch.) I played religiously until about a week after Burning Crusade came out, and I haven't picked it up since.
The funny thing is, despite all the amazing memories I have with WoW, I have pretty much zero interest in making any new ones. I think it has more to do with being done with MMOs in general; not even The Old Republic has piqued my interest enough to plunk down some cash.
Living With a Nerd
With all the player friendly changes finally incorporated into the old world the game is essentially new enough for people who have never touched WOW. It also is freshened enough for existing players to want to revisit the old world. Overall, its a much better expansion than BC and possibly better than Wrath. Is it perfect, no, but rarely will changes please everyone.
FWIW, someone made maximum level with the help of their guild within hours of the game starting up in Europe. Should be fun seeing all the people crush through the zones and race an un-winnable race
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Mom, bathroom!
they are all busy playing
therefore, if my understanding of the Slashdot demographic is correct, there will be a total of 22 comments in this thread all day, and all of them will by non WoW players commenting how much WoW sucks
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
According to the level 80 shaman that lives in my basement, Blizzard has basically slashdotted themselves - there are *so* many people trying to play that their servers are basically non-responsive. Players on the WOW forums are suggesting that people open 16 games simultaneously (in windowed mode), and then start to play whichever one responds first - which, of course, makes the entire scenario 16x worse.
There is no way to win the game. The only point is to get the best gear and achievements and then sit as 'King of the Hill' until someone else comes along and knocks you off, or you get bored and quit.
Seriously, who over the age of 25 has 5-10 hours a day to spend playing a video game?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I gave the game another shot, because I really wanted to give the 'fabulous new revamped overhauled Troll starter zone' a try. It took me 22 minutes to finish it, and I was level 9 when I did so. What a shame.
I gave away all my gold (about 120k), sold all my gear, deleted all my characters, waved good bye to guild friends (which is one of the major pressures to play) and un-subscribed.
Boy have I been tempted to go back, but if the urge gets too great, I take a lump of wood, whittle a small penguin, stare at it for 5 minutes, look in the mirror and tell myself that I have achieved more in those 5 minutes than any achievement/raid boss kill would ever do.
Interestingly enough our fortnightly games night had become a WoW LAN party (5 of us). With me quitting WoW, we have rediscovered board games and those nights have been a lot more mentally stimulating than any WoW dungeon crawl I can remember.
WoW is an amazing life-sink that you justify because of the other 20-40 other people in your guild wasting their lives away playing a game that never ends. I can't fault them for playing, but some of them are failing school and divorcing over this game.
I've been playing for a long time, but haven't played in the last few weeks. Rolled an Alliance Pally last night just to see how the game starts. Used to be you could go from 1-7 in an hour just in the Abby area, without grinding. Now you get to level 5 and you're off. The rewards are better earlier (for instance, you get a bag in the Abby, along with the wine-stained cloak). Got killed once in the Jasperlode Mine because the Kobolds were respawning so quickly. What really surprised me was all the additional flight paths. Now you have them in Goldshire & the logging camp. Haven't made my way down to the garrison yet, but I'd suspect there's one there too. I'm all for refining the game, but at the same time I feel like I'm having stuff just handed to me, instead of having to earn it. Rolled a Worgen Rogue this morning but haven't really had time to check him out yet though, had to get to work.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
I "played" Fable III until about midnight last night. I mean, I was constantly interrupted but it's a great story line. I'll put in my 40-60 hours playing through the storyline and just enjoy it. Same thing with WoW. I don't understand why people treat WoW any differently. Given the monthly fee, I would think it'd make more sense to beat the regular content in that first month and let the end-game go. It's a case of diminishing returns.
Oh, one more note, if I have extra time at the end of the month, I'll sometimes go back to old content and enjoy old end-game material that is now mid-game material that I never got to experience. With the new races, you can sometimes find a pickup group to go with you.
and all of them will by non WoW players commenting how much WoW sucks
WoW doesn't suck but it's not the last game I want to play. I am a WoW player but I'm at work right now. I am the elusive sensible responsible WoW player that you seem to claim doesn't exist. If you actually looked at the numbers though, a lot of us players are in this category. We're just not omnipresent in the game so you won't see my characters in game non-stop and now it's only when the new content comes out.
My work here is dung.
I know, it's Christmas soon and everything, but this expansion is about the worst thing a gamer at university wants at the end of a semester.
A shocking number of people are addicted to something called the "real world." Many people remain addicted from a very young age until the moment of death. This is especially tragic because the stuff that happens in this "real world" is worse than what happens in any virtual world.
EVE had an expansion named Cataclysm years ago.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
It's kind of hard to play through a game like Assassin's Creed and then get excited about WoW. I'm constantly astounded that Blizzard can constantly demonstrate how much money one can make and still not have any viable competitors. Oh well, maybe cataclysm will allow us to rescue that sixth slave.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
And my social life takes another hit. Not because I play, but because a good deal of my friends do. Curse you Blizzard! (shakes fist)
I seriously dont know of any other game except maybe Everquest which has been responsible for ruining so many of my friends lives lol. I dont mean to laugh but several have lost their jobs calling off fake sick and being caught on the servers by their supervisors who are ALSO playing WOW on their legitimate days off, not very smart lol. Several close friends of mine have also lost their girlfriends and one ended his marriage all over this damn Game. Ya cant blame the game or the game designers I am certain that they didnt develop the game with the intention of wrecking homes but that is indeed what it does. They need self help groups like AA for WOW players who obsess over their DPS lol. This new expansion is going to haul friends of mine who managed to pull themselves away from the game after months and months of grinding their social interaction percentage will now fall to 0 as they quest for ever highter dps lol.
When you dislike the human race as much as I do, Karma:Bad is inevitable lol.
And, basically, who cares? Not all games are made to be won or lost. There is also no winning Elite, or Tetris, or Pac-Man.
What matters is whether you had fun playing it for X hours or not. Which fun can come from gear and achievements, but it also can come from doing quests, or exploration, or social interaction with other people, or just trying to be the biggest dick without getting banned, or really whatever floats your boat.
Essentially if the only point you can see is comparing dick size and complaining that the game doesn't give you an "OK, you won" popup, then I can see how maybe it's not the game for you. I'm sure there's a bunny-hopping and teabagging simulator... err... FPS out there more suited to your needs.
So, you know, don't? I keep hearing that complaint, and it never ceases to amaze me in it's pencils-up-the-nose underpants-on-head idiocy.
Guess what? There is no paragraph in the TOS that says "Blizzard can ban your account and kill your dog if you play less than 5-10 hours a day." You can play just half an hour a week on weekends or take a month off, if you wish. The game was designed to be playable in whatever portions you wish.
Heck, even if you're in a fairly obsessive "raiding guild", we're no longer in the pre-BC age of 40-man raids that take all night. You can do some reasonable raiding in two hours a day, which still falls short of the 5-10 hours a day bullshit. Or you can find yourself a social guild and never have any schedule at all.
Frankly, it seems to me that the only ones who come up with that stupid objection are those who think they're basically playing to prove penis size. It can't be a coincidence that it almost always comes together with the "but you can't win!!!111eleventeen" objection and with the whining that all there is to do is collect the best gear and all achievements. They end up caught in some race to have all the penis size symbols, and have them yesterday if possible, and not even seeing any other way to play than grind 10 hours a day towards that coveted King Of The Hill Position.
In reality, it's a race that exists only in your own mind, and a prize that exists only in your own mind. In reality, almost nobody actually gives a flying fuck about your being King Of The Hill or not, nor about how fast you got there. If you don't want to put 5-10 hours a day in a race that exists only in your own mind, then don't. It's really that simple.
Of course, you may have to find yourself
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
The guild leveling system is fun. You can level your guild to level 25, each level gives a perk (%5 more xp, 10% faster mounted speed, etc) The guild levels by members completing quests, dungeons, and battlegrounds. Everyone contributes a little.
/snore
According to the level 80 shaman that lives in my basement ...
yeah mom i'm running out of food down here could you bring me some pizza please?
Heh. You do realize, I hope, that the starter zone is just that. It's partially a tutorial (e.g., telling you how to use Immolate or Steady Shot or whatever on some dummies) and partially giving you some back-story for your race and helping get in-character, so to sleep.
It's basically the equivalent of, dunno, castle Cousland if you played Dragon Age as a human noble. Or that escaping-from-the-hospital-station level in Mass Effect 2, while being taught how to control the game. Or the tutorial town in Fallout New Vegas. Etc. You get the idea.
It's not like it's the end of the content or anything.
Honestly, I can't even imagine (A) why you'd actually want a tutorial longer than 22 minutes, and (B) seriously, why not go to another race's tutorial zone if you need to practice the start game some more?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Destroying students' final exam grades since 1991.
Seriously, I know they're releasing it now to get big Christmas money, but that alone makes me really glad I don't play that game any more.
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
What's your point?
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
Reports of Cheetos sales went up over 40% after this expansion was launched... :3
I've played all but 3 classes to 80, and done the endgame thing, and you know what I felt after this last patch? Even with different NPCs telling me to kill 10 different types of mobs, its still the same fucking game. I want a new decent MMO, and since for some reason blizzard are the only ones who make competent MMOs, I'm kind of stuck waiting for WoW2 or WoS, or WoD, or whatever it is they do next. Even though I'm sure there are at least 2 more expansions coming before this thing is over (we all know that level 100 is an inevitability.), I really hope that sometime early next year they announce a totally new MMO.
To end ALL discussions of "game addiction" let me say this. Ones self-worth is not dictated by the gears/gold/achieves one has in game. If it is, there are other issues at hand that do not involve the game at all. If your self-worth is so low that you get divorced, then you probably should not have married her to begin with if she did not raise your self worth from "pond scum dirty dog", to King. If you your self worth is so low that you lose your job...chances are it was a crappy job, and you were not really important to the company anyhow. If you didn't feel important then you weren't. If others around you didn't make you feel important as a provider, then you weren't.
I want to be retired when I grow up.
It's certainly one thing to motivate some people, but not the only one by far. E.g., Bartle's famous paper dates from the days of MUDs and identifies 4 types of players:
1. Achievers (Diamonds): these are the kind you describe. They play to achieve something, be it a more epic sword, more money in the bank, a funky title, or a higher score.
2. Explorers (Spades): these are the kind of people who play to find out stuff. It can be some mountain pass that nobody else heard about, or how the game works, or try to find every single quest, etc. For example the kinds that put numbers in a spreadsheet to find out the exact numbers in COH's attack formulas were explorers. Essentially these guys play to reverse-engineer the game.
3. Socializers (Hearts): these guys basically treat the game as a chat room that incidentally has a video game attached. They're there to make friends, chat, organize some guild event, tutor newbies, etc. Even actually playing the game is only a tool towards interacting with people.
4. Killers (Clubs): these guys are not the PvP gang, but the people who live to harass, annoy, gank, and make life as miserable as possible for others. Their highest reward and achievement is getting someone to leave the game entirely, effectively perma-killing them in the game. Hence the "killers" name. The rest of us tend to call them "griefers" or simply "asshats".
Bearing in mind, though, that nobody is 100% in one category, but you can still classify people that way by their predominant interest and behaviour.
And that's actually just one of many classifications.
At any rate, the moral of the story is: please don't generalize. There's nothing wrong if you're an achiever, but do realize that other people play for very different reasons than you do.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
What about the guy who follows every football game is doing nothing but hitting refresh on ESPN? The same guy who is in multiple fantasy football leagues? What about if they start doing it for money?? The same guy who goes to work thinks about how soon he can get out of work to go home and play Madden or setup more simulations for the season to better his predictions in the fantasy league. And while at work yammers at the water cooler about football constantly to the point no one cares.
I hate how games are being made out to be the "bad influence" when I look out at the office and see people just as obsessive with "harmless activities". Being obsessed with anything can throw your life out of balance where just saying "They should do something productive" or "Why not do the real thing?" while ignoring the guy trying to tweak their spreadsheets for the nth time planning out their fantasy football drafts for hours on end.
The problem is obsession not the game or activity. If your kids are begging for your attention and ignore them it doesn't seem to matter if the excuse is because they are watching a football game or running around a virtual world.
Some of us that play WoW do not fit into the same demographics as the kind of people that will wait outside a store at midnight to get the expansion as soon as it comes out and then rush-through to level 85 without actually enjoying the content.
Me, I'd rather wait until the crowds are past the initial quests: if this is anything like other expansions there will be, almost literally, lines of people waiting at all important targets from the main quest-line to kill them, and probably the secondary ones (actually, this being WoW, people won't actually form an ordered line and there will be plenty of bitching & moaning about kill-stealing) - everybody is starting from the same point at about the same time so lots of people will be going after the same things at once.
My recommendation is:
- Wait a bit before starting on the expansion and take the time to look around and explore the new content and enjoy the story.
After all, what's the point of paying for an expansion just to get the everyday rush-hour experience but in WoW (only worse, 'cause many people are arseholes when under the cover of anonymity) and only see 10% of of the new content?
What prevents me from getting into playing WoW are the payment options available to European (and US) players. It's either a monthly subscription or a 60-day timecard. With either option I'd feel obliged to play nearly every day to ensure I was getting my money's worth. I don't always have the time to do so every evening. In China, they buy game hours, which is a model that would suit me better.
I've got a fever and the only prescription is more COBOL.
but between my three 80s, I think I'd logged a couple hundred days logged under /played. When I put that much wasted time in perspective now, I'd be well on my way to a decent degree or be a guitar god. I dunno, I had an absolute blast playing it, but my personality is just too damned addictive to play it in any semblance of moderation.
I hear the new expansion is fantastic though.
With all the changes to the world and what not, they really should've just made WoW 2. Start from scratch and fix a lot of problems with the game. I'm sure the game is fun again, my wife has been playing and the changes look neat, but really there are lot of problems that could've been fixed with a fresh start (stat scaling, pvp, pve mechanics messing up pvp and vice versa, etc.). I hope folks are having fun though, just not really my cup o' tea anymore. I'm personally waiting for Guild Wars 2 and hoping it'll be as revolutionary to MMO's as they say. Been burned by that before though so just staying cautiously optimistic.
Aye. I've known people who did almost that before. Well, almost. The selling was done for them by whoever got them to download a keylogger, the gold went to some gold-seller site, and they didn't much unsubscribe as just had the password changed ;)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I quit playing WoW for quite a while, thinking the same thing as many above posters - my time is better spent on other things. After some time and careful experimentation I have found that I just don't have it in me to be productive after a day of work. I just end up wasting my time on other stupid junk (tv, movies, console gaming). Of the array of time wasting things which I have to do it turns out that WoW is actually quite a bit better than most of them. Mainly because it's a social game. Hell, I'll take it over what I did the past 6 months on my time off.
But back when Blizzard made that deal with Facebook, well. They've been really pushing the real names in game thing, and it's not something I like. They're also using real names on the new forums after all -- sure, they don't officially show them to other people, but they broadcast your real name in plain text with every page view, and they don't use encryption for it.
Which would be a really stupid thing to do if there were anyone interested in trying to phish WoW players.
Back before the ActiVision merger, Blizzard paid a fair bit of attention to security, and it was clearly the fault of idiot players when they got hacked. But back then, the people playing the game were the customers. Now, the people playing the game are the product, and Facebook are the customers.
So even though pretty much all the game mechanics changes to the game sound great, and are stuff I was really enthused about, I'm still out. Went to a game where global friending people doesn't use real names, and I'm happy.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
I play WoW eight to ten hours a day, every day. I have for six years with few breaks, and even those breaks were to play other MMOs. Between the characters I have made over the years I have recently passed the 700 days of played time marker. I have been accused countless times of being addicted, and that "it's ruining my life" and that "I should get out more" or that "I should get help".
I don't get it. While endgame raiding I have moved out on my own, finished a 'difficult' bachelor's degree program at a high end university, and am now holding a 9 to 5 secure, meaningful job in the field I studied in. It's not like there's anything constructive to do at latitude 65. To be honest, I don't even like the game, but it's all that's here. Everyone I grew up with is either dead or incarcerated.
I can understand having hostile feelings towards someone who neglects their spouse or children to play a video game, or towards those who play as much as I do but don't have a job and/or live at home with their parents. Just don't assume that everyone who plays for several hours every day fits into those categories. People that are worthless garbage while playing a video game are most likely also worthless garbage without the video game.
Trust me, the problem is the game. (I'm one of those people that can just drop an MMO cold turkey and not go back to it, so it's not obsession with me.)
Leveling/questing/dungeons aren't bad. They tend to be quicker social interactions that you can pretty much pick up at any time, and not feel bad walking away from if required.
Once you get to raid content, though, you're basically committing multiple days per week, multiple hours per committed day. The absolute *MINIMUM* I've ever heard of for a "serious" raiding guild was 3 days per week, 3 hours per day. Add the time required for consumables/enchants/gemming/etc. and you generally add another 2-3 hours in there per week.
That's far too much commitment for a working *PARENT* to put in (for that matter, it's too much commitment for *anyone* - if you think it's ok for you, you're deluding yourself.) So yeah, since the game essentially requires that level of commitment to progress through raids, I'd say it's a problem with the game.
Disclaimer: I'm a parent (and former raid organizer/participant) that chose to spend time parenting my children instead of playing WoW.
I think you need to do some more theory crafting.
The reason people don't play "above your level" is because the game rules are designed in such a way that all your spells start resisting just a few levels above your own. You will also quickly notice that you cannot enter the new instances unless you meet the level requirement. You can't get any quests because they have a minimum level requirement. The summon stones stop working because you are too low level. You can't join a raid intentionally with bad gear because people will look at your gear score and reject you.
No, the problem is very much in your approach to the game - just about any activity can be taken to the point of unhealthy obsession.
You can play at max level and have a great deal of fun without ever setting foot in a raid, much less "committing" to a "serious raid schedule." Honestly, your comments sound a lot like you have trouble *balancing* your activities so you're not overdoing it, and thus need to quit "cold turkey."
I play an average of maybe 8-10 hours a week. On a given "at-home" night, I leave work, hit the gym for a little bit, go home, have dinner, and take care of any random housework-ish stuff that needs to be done. After that, rather than watch TV or fart around on Facebook, I'll fire up some music, have a beer, and log on and have some fun with friends for an hour or two, then go read for a half hour or so before bed. It's a way to unwind - perhaps you have other ways you prefer to unwind, but if you're unable to sit down for a little bit without it turning into an all-night marathon, then the problem is not with the game, it's with your sense of balance and proportionality.
The problem is obsession not the game or activity.
Right on. And on the other end of the spectrum there are parents who get so over-involved in their kids' lives that their kids start playing WoW to try and get away from it. It would seem that some people have a greater propensity for addiction to certain things, but for now I'm still thinking obsessive behavior is still the culprit.
Okay... So this looks to be a very cool expansion pretty much all around (not that I'll play), but... "Deathwing?" That's seriously the best name they could come up with for their paragon of evil type Dragon?
Except that the major difference is that WoW is specifically designed to be as addictive as possible. I'm sure they've done plenty of math to calculate the best grind to reward ratios. But they also set up amazingly long grinds with side rewards that keep you going. They have sucked an amazing number of people into this obsession.
I agree that the problem is obsession. I disagree that WoW is not unique in it's ability to make people obsess.
...that Blizzard's WoW is done on purpose not to have a defined end.
Indeed doesn't end at all, and it's always a vicious cycle.
While with games as StarCraft II you can decide to play multiple games but you always know that when a match is over is over, with WoW there's no such thing.
This is why BBC's Panorama isn't that bad talking about WoW.
Cheers
Ps. I've played WoW for 4.5 years. Stopped when I realized the game wouldn't have anything to offer more.
Cataclysm is by far the best World of Warcraft yet in terms of how you interact with the game, the game systems and the quests and story-telling and probably in every other way as well. It's very obvious that a lot of care by a lot of competent people have gone into this. The only problem is that the skeleton of what WoW is is being stretched in the direction of even higher quality, but the identity of WoW was set when it came out and they can't just make Cataclysm a new game. It still has to be WoW, and the formula inherent to WoW has e.g. storytelling issues. WoW is not voiced and it is not cinematic - you don't get to see facial expressions of anguish as Mankrik implores you to find out what happened to his wife. You get to read a short blurb about how he is imploring you. They can't change that because then it wouldn't be WoW, yet those non-classic-WoW elements are a main part of what lends Wrath of the Lich King and especially Cataclysm their superior story telling. So what they have to do is try to make these things work in an engine that isn't made for it without having players feel that they changed the nature of the game too much. They are doing an extraordinarily good job at that, it's just that it's a lousy task to be set and the outcome is not quite cohesive.
Most of WoW is not voiced or cinematic - indeed most of the story in wow is throw-away and transparent excuses for having you go kill mobs - sprinkled with lots of puns, pop references and crazy goblin engineering. So when a tiny bit of WoW becomes voiced, kind-of cinematic and has a deeper and cohesive story, it makes the rest of WoW look shabby in comparison. That's probably why they rebuilt the whole of the original game for Cataclysm, but they have to stay true to what WoW is and so they can only go so far. E.g. the attempt is frustrated by the fact that the player character in WoW has no significant identity of his own in the game. That let's you imagine whatever you want, which is probably the point of that, but it also means that the character you are playing is always the all-important cog in the machine that makes things work out all right. Yet he has no identity or place in the story of WoW. He is an important but faceless technician that fixes the world and is never talked about except in generic and interchangeable ways, and even often in plural form like "the great heroes of Azeroth fought off the scourge." You can still do great story telling with that, as Blizzard is showing us all without a doubt - perhaps in the same way that the special olympics participants can probably all run much faster than you or I because they are so good at using what they've got. Yet the special olympics are not the real olympics.
When you look at the successive expansions to WoW, it's clear that Blizzard is putting more and more of their resources into providing their game with an ever-better-told story. It's the only reason they put phasing into their game where the world changes progressively as the player goes through the story laid out in the various quest lines. Yet the kind of game they built 6 years ago will only support them in taking that story-telling ambition so far now.
Compare this to the story telling style of BioWare's Mass Effect 1 and especially 2. I don't think Bioware has better writers than Blizzard does, it's just that WoW has not been constructed from the beginning to support excellent stories and they can only do so much to change that now - which is a lot but still there is a limit. With the resources Blizzard is increasingly with each expansion pouring into specifically story and narration, I think it's pretty clear that Blizzard themselves see this as something they must take as far as they can within their game's limitations. Bioware is coming out with The Old Republic in 2011, which is an MMO built from the beginning to support excellent and varied stories. If Bioware can approach the quality Blizzard has put into the rest of World of Warcraft outside of the story, then they will eventually supplant World
I was expecting a lot more jokes. People are taking this very seriously.