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Review: World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria (video)
In this video (with transcript) we review the newest expansion to World of Warcraft, titled Mists of Pandaria. This is the fourth expansion to Blizzard's successful MMORPG, and while the quality of the content remains high, it's becoming increasingly apparent that they're basing it on a game that's been under development for over a decade. On top of that, the MMORPG genre itself is evolving, and though World of Warcraft remains a juggernaut of the industry, juggernauts are tougher to steer, and less adaptable to players' changing demands. The question for the success of an MMORPG expansion isn't simply "does it entertain?" It is: "does it entertain, and for how long?" Mists of Pandaria succeeds on the first count — it refreshes the gameplay, dangles new carrots in front of the players, and brings much-needed improvements to older systems. But keeping players engaged for a long time will be much more difficult. Hit the link below to watch/read our review.
I'm not a big WoW fan, but I have to ask, was this whole "Kung Fu Panda" thing supposed to be a joke in a Blizzard meeting that somehow made it past the joke stage, or something? Because that seems like a REALLY silly addition to me in a game whose players ostensibly take very seriously. A mean, little bits of humor are one thing, but I wouldn't add a little blue race to the Halo universe called the "Smurfias."
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Saying that WoWlike MMOs need to have permadeath is like saying that fighting games should incorporate city-building elements. It's a gameplay mechanic that simply doesn't fit with the genre.
Contrary to the general cynicism displayed in these parts, WoWlike MMOs do have a fairly solid gameplay core that is much more than just "keep people playing the subs". Leaving player-vs-player aside for now, they are, at heart, large-group co-op games (and often very difficult ones).
At the heart of a WoWlike is raiding. And at the heart of raiding is fighting against bosses. Leaving aside casual-oriented "raid-finder" modes, raid bosses are generally tuned so that, at the level of gear players will have when they are first encountered, they are challenging fights with little room for error. The satisfaction in the game comes from overcoming that challenge and working with others to defeat the bosses. The level of co-operation required goes far beyond that found in most other genres. I have no shortage of criticisms of WoW, but I can attest from personal experience that the "rush" associated with my first kill of certain bosses (Illidan, Kil'Jaeden, the Lich King) was like nothing else in gaming - and that was irrespective of whether I got any gear from it.
But with the difficulty tuned as high as it is, death is inevitable and very much part of the game. You learn from your deaths and adapt accordingly. Imagine Dark Souls with permadeath? A WoWlike with permadeath would be like that... but worse.
As the current top comment states, there's wayyy too many dailies. Let's see if I can remember them all... Klaxxi, Tillers (which have a half-dozen individuals with their own rep meters mostly independent of the main faction -- so when you get exalted with Tillers, you might barely be a bubble up on half the members!), Golden Lotus (which you must grind to then open up more grinding with Shado-Pan and August Celestials), the Lorewalkers, the Anglers, and the Order of the Cloud Serpent. For some of them, the set of dailies can take up to an hour to do (I'm looking at you, Klaxxi, with your stupid 40-kills and wing pieces).
And they're boring as hell. But it seems near impossible to really advance without getting just about all the reps up to exalted. I hate doing it on my main character, more than ever before in previous expansions. Now I can't imagine going back through this on my alt. This review brings up an excellent point -- it's time to make rep apply across all of your characters of the same faction. Account-wide pets and mounts was a good start, but now it's time to do the next logical thing and give us account-wide rep.
Part of WoW's continuing business at this point is sheer momentum. People who have invested years of play in it who are unwilling to let it go.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I happily quit WOW in February after almost seven years of playing. So I can tell you that I know something about the game. I've played all expansions through Cataclysm and I can tell you for fact, each expansion was worse the the previous one. Burning Crusade was an incredible expansion. Everything went downhill from there. MOP is sickening to almost all die hard players that played from vanilla on. Its clearly apparent that Blizzard has taken the carebear route to gaming. Instead of putting out quality content for both hard-core and casual players, they are appeasing the casual playerbase. Kung fu pandas? Seriously? I could understand a panda like race, that are similar to pandas, yet with a more ferocious aspect. Thin muscular race, with claws and fangs, sort of like Worgen but still different when compared. That is what they SHOULD have done. But no, they went with the Kung fu panda to attract the kiddies. Pathetic really..
No, they did indeed sell out. There was a noticeable decrease in developer competence and quality of gameplay corresponding with the sale.
It's not development staff that swept through, it's precisely the management you point out. Blizzard was the talented people who were there for Starcraft, Warcraft III, and Diablo 2. Those people aren't there anymore.
The queue system isnt that bad. The gear system is basically what makes or breaks an MMO.
Points grinding systems are garbage and always have been. Gated RNG bosses(and LOTS of them) as per Vanilla WoW and 3/4 of TBC are the BEST way to go. In fact there was no need for the burning crusade when it was released at all. They could have easily spent another year with minor updates to Vanilla. The biggest complaint I heard from most active guilds at the time was they were excited for the new content but they didn't really see the need.
It can get bothersome for the few hardcore players who are geared out the wazoo and need that one last piece of gear to complete thier epicness but it made the whole game feel more epic. Due to the RNG of it all etc seeing someone even in thier full Tier 1 set after tier 2.5 was released was pretty awesome. The old content got played and replayed and overgeared players could help newer players learn the content and essentially learn to raid at the same time. There is no learning curve now. Its gone. They've tried to replace it with bolted on and very frankly BAD systems that just don't work.
The raids are EPIC. They are what the designers spend a shitload of time on. The devs got pissed because at the end of Vanilla most people still hadn't even SEEN nefarian and they spent quite a lot of time designing BWL, not to mention AQ40 and harder content. The thing was I didn't see a lot of people complaining about that. All I saw was "Well my guild finally managed to down Ragnaros this week! On to Razorgore!!!!"
The move to 25 man raiding was also bad because it put too much emphasis on every single person in the raid performing at 100%. With 40 guys it was a bit easier to have someone not perform 100%, but at least play to the mechanics to make sure the raid didn't wipe. In fact many of the fights were doable with far less people than the maximum 40, which was entertaining in its own right.
Plus there are always those guys that are awesome and hilarious to have around that just aren't that good at playing. We carried at least two of these guys all the way through AQ40 purely for the entertainment value.
They've lost sight of it.
You may have someone in your L4D group thats bad but you like him IRL or something so he stays in because the other 3 of you can carry him. Same thing applies for MMOs.