World of Warcraft

[bileduct]

What did you hate about MoP?

I'll admit I baulked at the cheesiness of pandas and pet battles, but I found the zones were all beautiful and the questing experience was a lot more fun than previous x-pacs had been.

WoD is beating it hands down, though. Is it wrong that I'm reluctant to have to go 'back' to Azeroth after this? :lol:

I recently broke a vow to never play WoW ever again by taking advantage of the 10 day trial period, and I gotta say I am pleasantly surprised at how much more I have enjoyed the MoP content over the Cataclysm stuff.

Cataclysm was just the same old stale go here, see this guy, get a quest of him and his mate, kill 8 of these, pick up 12 of those, use this on 6 of them. And the constant 'arcade game' sequences along with the meaningless cutscenes. MoP, at least the two zones I have played of it so far, had much better quest hubs, etc. The whole experience was much more enjoyable.

What I found a bit disappointing was that I got all the way to level 90 while barely changing any of the gear I've had since I stopped playing WotLK era.

I only just cracked level 90 and am about to go check out the WoD content.

 

[Apey]

I recently broke a vow to never play WoW ever again

 

[Dutchy]

I was genuinely surprised when they didn't announce it at Blizzcon, but Overwatch needed to stand on its own.

I've heard rumours that WarCraft 4 + an update of the original trilogy was in the works. Would love the opportunity to play them again with improved graphics and their lore properly aligned with the new setup.

With equal budget, would make a better film series than LotR.

 

[Misanthrope]

The WoW community is in meltdown today. Announcement yesterday that the upcoming 6.2 patch will be the first and last content patch for Warlords of Draenor. Adds a new raid, opens up the Tanaan Jungle area as a kind of Timeless Isle knock-off, adds shipyards as a separate garrison, and that seems to be it.

Expansion has been out six months, hasn't delivered on a lot of what was promised, and now it's just done.

The game is ten years old now and has suffered a huge nosedive in subscriptions as a result of attrition and player feedback to WoD. Even so, it's bringing in huge revenue each year (albeit not as big as it once was).

What can be done to 'fix' it?

Some have said let it die.
Some have said it needs a proper, major expansion.
Some have said release WarCraft 4 set a century or so ahead and then do World of WarCraft 2.

No MMO so far has managed to be the WoW killer that people keep waiting for, but perhaps WoW is going to be the WoW killer with the company's lacklustre attitude to developing new content?

 

[Apey]

No MMO so far has managed to be the WoW killer that people keep waiting for

Maybe not but I'd say the sheer number of them these days has played a big part.

Gw2 is releasing an expansion soon, hopefully it's not a failure like WoW's WD seemingly has been. Not holding my breath though, I have a fear of 'change for the sake of change' when it comes to mmorpg expansions.

 

[Misanthrope]

Maybe not but I'd say the sheer number of them these days has played a big part.

Gw2 is releasing an expansion soon, hopefully it's not a failure like WoW's WD seemingly has been. Not holding my breath though, I have a fear of 'change for the sake of change' when it comes to mmorpg expansions.

I just... couldn 't get into Guild Wars 2. I bought it on launch and played it a lot, but the setting just didn't interest me. It wasn't helped by Chinese internet always hanging up when I tried to log into the main questline areas.

WoD had its merits. Raiding has been well reviewed (although there have been complaints that there wasn't enough of it), garrisons were briefly fun, and the 90-100 leveling experience was arguably the most fun I've had leveling in a long while.

It lost out on lack of dungeons, on completely fizzling when it came to delivering on promises, on turning the game into a glorified Facebook game in which people never left their garrisons, and on just not giving a lot of content.

It's the most expensive expansion they've released yet lags behind the much maligned MoP in almost every way. It makes Cata look like a complete and fun expansion.

One MMO that I think has handled expansions really well as been LOTRO. Rather than reinventing the wheel constantly, they're just expanding the game world in a logical and enjoyable way.

 

[Apey]

One MMO that I think has handled expansions really well as been LOTRO. Rather than reinventing the wheel constantly, they're just expanding the game world in a logical and enjoyable way.

I was going to mention LOTRO but felt one off-topic mmorpg was enough, heh.

Agreed, although I haven't played the last few. The release of the Mines of Moria expansion was one of the best times I've had in the mmorpgsphere. Such a good addition to the game at the time.

I think it's pretty much dead in the water though now.

 

[Misanthrope]

I was going to mention LOTRO but felt one off-topic mmorpg was enough, heh.

Agreed, although I haven't played the last few. The release of the Mines of Moria expansion was one of the best times I've had in the mmorpgsphere. Such a good addition to the game at the time.

I think it's pretty much dead in the water though now.

LOTRO? Was alive and well when I was playing a couple of months back. It doesn't have the sheer numbers that WoW or GW2 might, but it's a close-knit and vocal community. Didn't take long to feel welcome, whereas there's too many griefers and dickheads playing WoW.

 

[redvscotty]

Nothing will ever be a difinitive 'WoW killer'.

WoW will die off and people will remember it for what it was. No MMO will come remotely close ever. Many have tried and failed for the last 10ish years and they just cant nail it.

I loved WoW mostly during The Burning Crusade. Mt Hyjal was my favorite raid ever and would go close to my fav gaming moment of all time. Something about co-ordinating a raid as big as that was just epic at the time and still holds me in awe. Kara was just as awesome on friday nights doing it with 9 mates. f**k I loved that time for gaming, it just felt so good.

Having said that, I feel WoW has ruined gaming for me for the rest of my life. Sure I love games, and have spent every night this week playing Lego Jurassic World trying to finish the minikits and such, but my attention span is shot thanks to WoW and its endless grinding, etc...

I will never invest so much time into a single game ever again and until any game can capture my imagination and feeling of awe and wonder, then I am effectively lost to the gaming world. It's gone from an avid hobby to a passing interest (kinda).

Ironforge and Stormwind (Orgrimmar too I suppose) once had a feeling of absolute awe when you visited. That's long gone. Will never return. Let it die.

 

[Apey]

LOTRO? Was alive and well when I was playing a couple of months back. It doesn't have the sheer numbers that WoW or GW2 might, but it's a close-knit and vocal community. Didn't take long to feel welcome, whereas there's too many griefers and dickheads playing WoW.

It was probably reinvigorated a bit after the last expansion then. I haven't been on in a while, it was super dead on one of the bigger servers when I went on maybe a year ago.

It's a shame I didn't know you were still playing occasionally. I gave away 2000 gold last time I was on as a 'final goodbye' of sorts. Although I don't think you can trade cross-server still :lol:

I know those feels scotty.

 

[Misanthrope]

Big call to say no MMO will ever be as big. I'm sure people thought that MySpace would never die either :lol:

There'll be a bigger, better MMO someday. It might not be an MMORPG in the same vein as WoW when it came out, but there'll be another. It might not grab us because we've grown and changed and have certain expectations, but it's a bold call to say it's the Bret Hart of MMOs.

 

[redvscotty]

WoW is the Shawn Michaels of MMO's. WoW asks who the f**k is Bret Hart?

Nothing will surpass WoW.

 

[Misanthrope]

WoW is the Shawn Michaels of MMO's. WoW asks who the f**k is Bret Hart?

Nothing will surpass WoW.

I was more referring to the "Best there was, best there is, and best there ever will be" line of Hart's.

There's no way that in the entire future of gaming, no game will be as good an MMO as WoW was.

That's like somebody from the 80s saying there'll never be a better fantasy epic than The Dark Crystal. Was it awesome? Sure. Does it hold up? You bet! Has it been surpassed a hundred times by now? You know it.

 

[redvscotty]

I disagree. People will *think* WoW can be surpassed.

People clearly have no f**king idea.

 

[Misanthrope]

From a graphical perspective, it was surpassed 4-5 years ago >_>

I still cannot fathom how Dungeons & Dragons or Warhammer, both with vastly superior lore and settings to draw on, cocked it up some tremendously.

 

[reanimate]

Kill the trash and make WarCraft 4. I'll always hate WoW for taking WarCraft 3's story and locking the conclusion and subsequent storylines behind a subscription paywall.

 

[redvscotty]

From a graphical perspective, it was surpassed 4-5 years ago >_>

I still cannot fathom how Dungeons & Dragons or Warhammer, both with vastly superior lore and settings to draw on, cocked it up some tremendously.

True on the graphics!

I'd forgotten about Warhammer. Was so keen for it then so disappointed with it

 

[Misanthrope]

D&D was unforgivable. Decades of lore, multiple iconic settings, thousands of pages of classes/creatures, an established rule set... and we got a dog's abortion inexplicably set in a new setting.

 

[redvscotty]

Don't think I played D&D.

You would think though, given how popular it is and what you've mentioned above, it would go off.

I've been meaning to give SWTOR another go but havent got around to it. If you got the right company onto the Star Wars or LOTR franchises you could give WoW a run for its money.

I'd like a MMO in a futuristic setting, but with a gritty feel, like roaming the streets in the early Jedi Knight FPS games. Doesn't have to be Star Wars but that kind of thing would get me so moist.

 

[Misanthrope]

Anybody ever played on a private/legacy server?

All of the WoD drama had me all nostalgic, so I'm in the process of setting up to play a WotLK private server. Will be fun to see the old 51 talent tree, the world pre-Cataclysm etc.