Mists of Pandaria

[LetalisK]

Since you stil probably have to grind heroics until your eyes start to bleed, just so you can get the gear to get you into Raids...

Thanks, but no...

That's always been my problem with World of ActionbarCraft. They have all these little exciting things they implement(like scenarios for example), but it's always overshadowed by the great big monstrosity of grinding gear so one can participate in the end-game PvE or PvP content.

 

[anthony87]

Also I feel like the community has kinda lost it's way. Maybe it's because I haven't been in a decent guild for about 4 years, but I feel like most of the community have suddenly become elitist. When I'm in a heroic and I don't quite understand certain parts about the boss and I ask, I get called a noob for not knowing and I get told that I shouldn't be there if that's the case. Yet before Wrath and Cataclysm. it was never like that.

This is really my only problem with the game. I first played it a year or two ago without getting any of the expansions so I could only get my warlock to level 60 and even back then I mostly ran questlines without doing dungeons or pvp. A friend sent me a scroll of resurrection so I basically got all the expansions for free along with a brand new level 80 druid and I've been experiencing the end game stuff.

Really, the only thing that's stopped me from doing the stuff I haven't done yet is the people. I'm in a guild with great guys but when you're just doing random dungeons or whatever, people can be such assholes. I'm seriously sick of people who act as though they've known everything about the game from day 1 without having to learn anything regarding rotation, tactics etc. If the playerbase was nothing but assholes like that then nobody would learn anything.

 

[Keltrick]

I don't play WoW anymore. I just see Pandaria as a joke expansion that's setting the game up for a free-to-play, microtransactions model. There was a time when Pandas were the butt of April Fools jokes and regardless of your positive take on events the only thing that would ever bring me back to WoW would be a complete and utter revert to Vanilla WoW, stripped of all stupid group finding mechanics and with 40 man raids back in.

A joke expansion setting it up for a free-to-play model? Yeah, you really are disconnected from how WoW is doing. Blizzard isn't in a state where they are afraid of loosing a vast majority of their use base just because it has a subscription. Its the only game right now WITH a credible subscription model, because it isn't scared a bigger MMO is going to stomp on them. With their payment method now, they still have more players and make more money than any existing free-to-play MMO and they aren't going to change that. Free-to-play is an innovation, and I'm glad it exists and lets games keep going, but its in response to a giant juggernaut in the playground, and trying to find a way to have some fun there too without being stepped on. You can't charge $15 for YOUR mmo, because its going to be compared against the features, momentum, player base WoW already has, and is going to lose. You make it free-to-play in response to that so its less of an investment to really try it out, and once you're in the game, you can start buying things here and there.

I like other MMOs. The secret world looks GREAT and I hadn't been as intrigued with a game concept since ... ever. But I cant bring myself to pay for two games, and know they are time sinks I cant hope to get the most out of, if I try and balance them. When we see what record blizzard breaks next with this release, we'll see how much of a 'joke expansion' this is.

As for the group finding mechanics and 40 man raids, other people have already addressed this, so I can just laugh to myself over it being said in the first place. If you need to get rid of all the innovation, additions, and content these years have gotten us, to enjoy the game, good. Don't come back. We don't need more of that in the community.

 

[Vegosiux]

Fair enough you two dislike 40 man raids, but give a moment to appreciate their positives. Smaller guilds had UBRS/Strath and, more useful, Zul'Gurub and AQ20 if they wanted their small scale endeavors to gear up in, and I myself dealt with organizing weekly PUG raids of ZG that often grouped up with other PUG raids to do 40 mans when people felt up for it.

And the difficulty in obtaining epics was precisely what made those raids fantastic for me, they were the hallmarks of a time in WoW when you had to invest, what, 20 hours of gameplay in for every epic? The trade-off was that you got recognition for that hard work - huge recognition on RP servers. I didn't have much use for a Halbred of Smiting as pally but I made it work because it was almost a battle standard for my guild in BGs, and had that bastard Ashkandi, Greatsword of the Brotherhood dropped in any of the half a bazillion BWL runs I did I would have done the same.

When you did get a dedicated and passionate raid group you could achieve fantastic things, and as someone who also participated in 25 man raids in TBC I also found myself looking around at the curiously skinny group around me and feeling like nothing was quite as epic anymore.

It sounds like most of the 40man raid iffy-people just had bad luck with douches getting bored and acting out. I can't apologies for that, but I do commiserate with you guys for missing out on an epic, pure and extremely collaborative experience with massive rewards. I preferred WoW when you had to get 40 like-minded individuals together because it was a time when old gamers, young gamers, and smartass teen gamers alike all cared enough, and were immersed enough, of a universe to participate in these huge endeavors and not whinge about how much time they took, et al. Grinding was not a reward'less process either.

You don't have to justify yourself to me, really. Especially since well...in hindsight, while my WoW character was awesomely geared and pretty high profile when it comes to recognition, but that was then and this is now. Hindsight can be a ***** sometimes, and it is when it comes to me and WoW. Let's leave it at that; my reasons are more complicated than douches getting bored ^^

 

[Keltrick]

It sounds like most of the 40man raid iffy-people just had bad luck with douches getting bored and acting out. I can't apologies for that, but I do commiserate with you guys for missing out on an epic, pure and extremely collaborative experience with massive rewards. I preferred WoW when you had to get 40 like-minded individuals together because it was a time when old gamers, young gamers, and smartass teen gamers alike all cared enough, and were immersed enough, of a universe to participate in these huge endeavors and not whinge about how much time they took, et al. Grinding was not a reward'less process either.

You, my friend, must have been gifted by the titans with these 40 individuals. Having this many people act in a coordinated and responsible way was not really the norm. 40 mans decrease personal responsibility at their core, because with more people, each one is slightly less the breaking point if they aren't the best at what they're doing. 40 mans were not a good idea, because for the few times they worked and seemed epic on a huge scale they were intended for, they were vastly outnumbered by cumbersome attempts to fumble through. Having enough people attentive and skilled, to manage the others through. There were dedicated people in 40 mans, that knew their jobs and accomplished a lot, and blizzard in the better interest of the game made smaller raids to accommodate those players in an easier to balance and manage formula.

 

[Charli]

Lots of Nostalgia goggles in here...

But yeah they're giving alot more options this time around, there are problems but what I'm seeing on the beta this time gives me warm feelings. Cataclysm... I was excited but wary. If that makes any sense. I loved Tier 11, but at the same time I saw many of my friends struggle to achieve the level of play they had in Wrath and it kinda fell apart for them. So I just have to accept the more casual step and hope Scenarios and LFR fills the void adequately enough for them to step up to the main raiding plate again.

Also Vanilla was fun because playing/raiding with buddies made it fun. The actual raid designs while good for the time are atrocious now. Molten Core and Blackwing Lair really show their age when re analyzing them. Class imbalance was horribly titled, Raiders could be unfocused and just 'fuel' for the privileged raiders who were actually necessary to complete the encounter.

So don't kid yourselves into thinking it was better, it may of seemed that way if you were one of the players getting to have the most fun. But I guarantee your paladin sitting at the back doing about 2 healing spells a fight and 50 'super fun' buffs, wasn't having as much of a time of it. Not to mention the 'out of combat ressers', cracking job that was. And for new people accessing raids wasn't an option. No one wanted to re-run them through the attunements. So they just gave up.

...Warcraft's Story was never a sophisticated piece of literature either. Tongue so firmly in cheek even the writers who are charged with writing the novels can barely stitch it into a srs-face affair. (Though 1 or two have succeeded barely)

Point being, Mists of Pandaria looks pretty entertaining. They're adding much more to do for your average joe instead of just revamping already existing content just to shine up the red carpet.
I don't know how Cataclysm succeeded in making a 'world ending affair' boring, but if that's the measuring stick then I welcome our black and white fuzzy additions with open arms because they look like there might be something interesting going on in that new Continent.

All I want from them this time is not to drop the ball on the Last patch Raid because DragonSoul was pretty embarrassing as a setting/grande finale. (the encounters were...adequate if the models weren't very original on the first 6) And the last two bosses were original in appearance but not very fun in encounter terms. A real shame...

Long story short: Sunwell/ICC > DragonSoul (As endings)


Also I intend to check out GuildWars2 on the side. I'm constantly on the lookout for a new MMO. Just one hasn't managed to knock WoW off the pillar yet. And some people find that offensive about me. I really can't figure out why other than they left WoW in a huff or think being all hipster about it being mainstream is somehow what the cool kids do.

Ah well. I like what I like.

 

[Keltrick]

Don't come back. We don't need more of that in the community.

I wouldn't dream of ever coming back. And you can gave your 'community' such as it is.

EDIT: add in some 'scoff's

>dials up the snob about fifty times<

You were the one who said "the only way I would come back is if you submit to changes ___ ____ and ___" I didn't make this a personal thing, it was present to me as such. If you are the type of player who is only happy with how it used to be that many years ago, then it firmly stands that the player base and game is better off evolving without that kind of player.

If WoW hadn't came out back then, and all this had happened to MMOs, and then in this day and age they just released vanilla WoW, god would it be a disaster. WoW would not just shoot to the top and stay there as king. it would flounder for a bit and hopefully find its niche. Its the dominant game because of all the time its been around and all the lessons learned and implemented because of it.

 

[Dosbilliam]

Since you stil probably have to grind heroics until your eyes start to bleed, just so you can get the gear to get you into Raids...

Thanks, but no...

That's exactly why I stopped playing around level 73...just didn't seem worth the time OR the money when I can play a game that isn't distilled grind for free.

 

[Raioken18]

Ok... I want to make something clear...
Even though people here may be of the opinion that Cataclysm was too easy, the thing is you are most likely a hardcore player. There are harder raids and heroics for you. I doubt most of you had even finished Heroic Deathwing.

Me? I ran heroics in WotLK, our 25 man Heroic ICC runs were torture, progression required 3 nights a week for months.

Now the easier LFR raids? I loved them, it allowed for access to storyline content and people could follow the storyline without suiciding their social life. But the Heroics still existed and even ingame I knew only a handful of people who had even finished Heroic mode raids, but a few of the higher skilled players were still doing progression, but those people could still challenge themselves to do those Heroics. (I did some it was a nightmare totally not for me).

The problem I have with WoW revolves mainly around the pvp, giving the better players ever increasingly better gear means that not only are they more skilled but stat wise they have superiority in the battlefield. Which was fine if you were one of those people but unless you were towards the front of the pack you really struggled to cover the difference in gear.

Oh and also having 50 or so keybound abilities for different encounters was insane... limiting the skill choices could be part of the gameplay instead of looked down upon as "dumbing down".

I liked the original Guild Wars, but my friends refused to give it a chance (and I like being social in my games, so it's not that it was boring or anything but I felt alone). With all the hype around GW2 they actually seem willing to try it out, so it will probably be my game of choice over WoW for a while (i wish...).

I do feel that my geeky friends will be playing this... so I'm probably roped in too f I want to hear from them in the next few months after MoP... But having 10 85's... I'mma have to delete one to make room for a Panda Monk. Guess I'm deleting my Mage or my Warrior (my two least favorite classes.

 

[Ardure]

I played almost from the start of original WoW... I played through BC and WotLK... didn't bother with Cat... I was bored before it released. It is probably nostalgic but I do miss a lot of the more old school MMO experiences... there was something epic about a 40man raid that a 25 never seemed to accomplish. I liked for the most part the original PvP system because it was server only and there was a sense of server community. I played on Uldum back in the day and Horde at one point were out numbered by the Alliance 5 to 1 or something ridiculous. It created a sense of community that I think is missed on most MMO's these days.

However, in terms of PvE raid content BC was by far the best I have played. The boss fights were difficult and when I played a fire mage I remember having to time my mana gems and mana pots perfectly to never have a slow down in my DPS. WOTLK was dummed down PvE and Hardmode was boring though I know why they did it.

I'm just waiting for Blizzard's next MMO... but good to hear Blizzard does seem to learn from their mistakes.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

I've played on an off since a few months pre-BC. As far as I can tell, newer content has tended toward a higher quality, but the community has gone down the drain. I think if they were to remove cross-realm dungeon finders the game might even be worth going back to. As it stands, I don't want to buy into an empty world containing only people who join groups to run each dungeon as fast as possible, leave, and then never talk to any of them again.

Guess I'm deleting my Mage or my Warrior (my two least favorite classes.

D: Get rid of the mage. Go tank.

It's worth it just for those moments in pvp where you pull off every single interrupt, pop spell reflect at the right moment and just refuse to die.

And also tanking in pve is the only thing I actually still quite enjoy. Not enough to keep me in the game, but moreso than Dpsing or healing.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Fair enough you two dislike 40 man raids, but give a moment to appreciate their positives. Smaller guilds had UBRS/Strath and, more useful, Zul'Gurub and AQ20 if they wanted their small scale endeavors to gear up in, and I myself dealt with organizing weekly PUG raids of ZG that often grouped up with other PUG raids to do 40 mans when people felt up for it.

And the difficulty in obtaining epics was precisely what made those raids fantastic for me, they were the hallmarks of a time in WoW when you had to invest, what, 20 hours of gameplay in for every epic? The trade-off was that you got recognition for that hard work - huge recognition on RP servers. I didn't have much use for a Halbred of Smiting as pally but I made it work because it was almost a battle standard for my guild in BGs, and had that bastard Ashkandi, Greatsword of the Brotherhood dropped in any of the half a bazillion BWL runs I did I would have done the same.

When you did get a dedicated and passionate raid group you could achieve fantastic things, and as someone who also participated in 25 man raids in TBC I also found myself looking around at the curiously skinny group around me and feeling like nothing was quite as epic anymore.

It sounds like most of the 40man raid iffy-people just had bad luck with douches getting bored and acting out. I can't apologies for that, but I do commiserate with you guys for missing out on an epic, pure and extremely collaborative experience with massive rewards. I preferred WoW when you had to get 40 like-minded individuals together because it was a time when old gamers, young gamers, and smartass teen gamers alike all cared enough, and were immersed enough, of a universe to participate in these huge endeavors and not whinge about how much time they took, et al. Grinding was not a reward'less process either.

There was no real "difficulty" to attaining epics in 40m raid era WoW. It was all about cat herding, poop socking, and a willingness to endure tedium. Better players might get it done faster, but simple brute persistence usually carried the day. When I see a player decked out in super gear in a loot tier MMO, I don't think "Wow, he must be amazing", I think "Wow, he must have ALL THE TIME IN THE FUCKING WORLD".

I played vanilla EQ. I played vanilla WoW. I raided in TOA DAoC. So don't get your casual club out and try to beat me with it. I actually enjoy the encounters. What I can't stand about it is the time investment, and the people, and the psychology that goes into gear treadmills. I do a raid so I can get some loot so I can do the next raid so I can get some loot so I can do the next raid. Then I take that gear back into world PvP or PvE and now everyone has to fucking raid so they can be on an even footing with me. Whee.

You've got the raid leader screeching in vent because there's always 10-25% of the raid that just can't be fucked to pay attention, you've got the endless smoke and bathroom breaks, people preening about loot or going mad with envy, debate over DKP vs rolls and deciding which demographic of your guild/raid you want to fuck over depending on what system you choose, etc, etc, etc. Maybe 5% of the time is spent actually experiencing and enjoying the encounters. MAYBE. Your reward at the end of it is you get to stand in town in your raid gear while people you don't know, don't care about and will soon forget fawn over/spew hated at you until you leave their line of sight and become totally irrelevant to them.

This is not a functional game play model. This is why with each successive generation WoW moved further and further away from hardcore raiding, and why a lot of new games are featuring greatly simplified raids if they're featuring raids at all.

I understand you like it. I understand WHY you like it. But you need to accept that for the vast majority of people, raiding is BROKEN. It is a niche activity for a dwindling portion of the user base. Going back to 40 man raids would be hands down the stupidest thing Blizzard ever did.

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

I don't play WoW anymore. I just see Pandaria as a joke expansion that's setting the game up for a free-to-play, microtransactions model. There was a time when Pandas were the butt of April Fools jokes and regardless of your positive take on events the only thing that would ever bring me back to WoW would be a complete and utter revert to Vanilla WoW, stripped of all stupid group finding mechanics and with 40 man raids back in.

Ah yes, those times were great. When druids only existed to give priests mana, when half of your raid could be asleep and turning encounters into a sluggish affair, when you spent more time grinding outside of raids than actually raiding,...

...good times. Now I agree that WoW lost direction, but vanilla really wasn't that awesome either (and it certainly was better than anything that happened after 3.1). The difference is that vanilla mishaps can be excused since it was a new thing back then. It's like Steam problems when that came out first. The current WoW mishaps are more like...Origin problems.

My opinion? The community makes or breaks an MMO. If it's too elitist and snobby, it's bad. If it's too focused on instant gratification, it's bad. Sure you can mainly ignore those who you don't really play with, but the shifts in the community are quite apparent whenever they happen...

That said, my WoW times are over, have been for a while. What do I miss from it? A couple individuals. Not the epics, not the kills, not my position in the rankings, but a few people who were really pleasant to be around.

I agree that vanilla WoW (and BC too, somewhat) are looked at through rose-tinted glasses too often... but there are certainly "old school" things I miss about WoW that just don't exist anymore.

I liked farming sometimes. There, I said it. I have fond memories of grinding Tyr's Hand on my Fury Warrior. Farming Encrypted Twilight Texts in Silithus and Essence of Water in Felwood on my Mage. I enjoyed those things in short bursts. Now, I'm not saying the game should go back to those days, cause it's certainly better for leaving it behind... but those things aren't even a viable option anymore. Grinding/Farming in general is completely gone in WoW other than daily quests and dungeons/raids, which is a real shame.

 

[Goofguy]

While I had some fantastic times on WoW, I'm glad I don't play anymore. I haven't had the urge to go back to it in many years but regardless of my feelings towards it OP, thanks for the good read. Still interesting to see what Blizzard is doing with it.

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

Since you stil probably have to grind heroics until your eyes start to bleed, just so you can get the gear to get you into Raids...

Thanks, but no...

That's always been my problem with World of ActionbarCraft. They have all these little exciting things they implement(like scenarios for example), but it's always overshadowed by the great big monstrosity of grinding gear so one can participate in the end-game PvE or PvP content.

These days it's easier than ever. I leveled an alt character a few weeks ago and was ready for LFR raids in about 5-6 hours of playtime at level cap. It's absurdly easy to gear up with the top level heroic 5mans.

 

[LetalisK]

Since you stil probably have to grind heroics until your eyes start to bleed, just so you can get the gear to get you into Raids...

Thanks, but no...

That's always been my problem with World of ActionbarCraft. They have all these little exciting things they implement(like scenarios for example), but it's always overshadowed by the great big monstrosity of grinding gear so one can participate in the end-game PvE or PvP content.

These days it's easier than ever. I leveled an alt character a few weeks ago and was ready for LFR raids in about 5-6 hours of playtime at level cap. It's absurdly easy to gear up with the top level heroic 5mans.

Orly? Huh. What about PvP? It's it still a pain in the ball sack to get basic gear when everyone else has the latest pvp gear and stomps on you ad nauseum?

 

[The Madman]

Oh forgot about the music, best music in WoW by far, I always hated most of WoW's music. I think I may buy the soundtrack when it comes out. Reminds me a lot of Jade Empire.

I'm surprised you say that. In my mind at least the music was quite possibly the most consistently good element of the game and its expansions. I mean Shaping of the World and the Song of Elune are just such great fantastical themes I actually know the names of the songs... do you realize how rare this is?

Not just the early songs either, I've liked pretty much all the music for the game. Hell, even Karazhan had a certain creepy greatness to its music. I loved how the farther up the tower you got the more ethereal and strange the music got till finally the climactic finish.

Matter of face I just straight up loved Karazhan. That place was a brilliantly done dungeon experience, probably my favourite in WOW. The fights were great, the visuals were superb, it had some great backstory behind it and the music was fantastically creepy.

And that's my problem with WOW as last I played it... there's just no sense of ambience or story. No rhyme or reason, just a bunch of stuff being thrown in because Blizzard thinks it might be cool. To be fair I'm one of the minority of gamers who played WOW because they legitimately loved the previous Warcraft rts and was eager to explore the settings and story hinted at in that series of games, but still of all the amazing things Blizzard could have done I feel like their current path is the easiest and laziest. I mean the generic 'asian themed expansion featuring ninja/kungfu/samuria/alloftheabove' is a hallmark of MMO creative slumps. Ultima Online, Everquest, and Age of Conan just to name a few different generations of MMO that've done the same bloody theme.

And so knowing the series lore I know there are just so many more interesting places the series could have gone that would have much more sense. Gameplay isn't enough to keep me playing an MMO anymore, nor is the community. No one I know even plays WOW anymore! If I were to return it would be because the games story has finally stepped up to do something interesting that I want to witness and be a part of...

Mists of Pandaland is not that. I'll pass.

(On a side note this was a lot of fun to type up. Love listening to all this music again!)