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I wonder if some of the reason for the decline isn't the world/NPC-player connection becoming less present? I mean - look at it this way. Wrath was not a perfect expansion by any means. There were some goofy things up in there, and I'm not gonna hesitate to point them out. HOWEVER! When it comes to story and - dare I say it? - RP factors? Holy hannah. Here is this guy who we've known since WCIII, who's been snoozing since the end of TFT after putting on a silly hat. Then one day he wakes up, gathers his harem Death Knights, and goes 'yep, good day to wtfPWN the world, isn't it?' And we're off. Boy, are we ever off. There's zombies in our cities, people turning into zombies, necropoleis overhead--yes, I know this was a repeat of the Naxx-launch event (I wasn't there for that), but it was a damn well-informed repeat and very a propos! Arthas TROLLED AZEROTH, man and he trolled as a means to an end. That's SOMETHING. So right from the start, we have personal involvement, though we didn't know HOW personal it was until we started running around in Northrend and ran into items like the Unliving Choker. Yes, there was a big ol' hint in the expansion preview 'all must serve the one true king' cinematic, but when the spit hit the fan for real it was still a very big '...holy CRAP' moment for me. I knew he'd be in my face; I didn't realize how much so.So, for both meta and in-game fronts, we have a personal connection to Mr Menethil up there. The Shadowmourne quest got you closer still. As the endgame approached, it became clear that the preview video wasn't just a certain ex-paladin blowing hot air. In coming up to Northrend and especially in making Shadowmourne, you were VERY much following in Arthas's footsteps - which he happily reminded you of. In your brains. Often. And not only that, but you had no choice but to do so. If you'll permit me this moment of drama-rama - we got played into the palm of his hand and, once there, we could see the fist closing on us but there wasn't a damn thing we could do. The sense of inevitability was HUGE, in places. What choices do we have? Ignoring him? The Scourge will be on our lawns. Going to fight him? That's what he wants us to do. Damned if you do, damned if you don't...and very literally damned. While the gameplay may have been flawed and while I think Arthas got up to trollan in person a little too much, the atmosphere was very well done. On top of that, the DK class (which I know is flawed, but bear with me) allowed you the opportunity to see things from the other side of the fence and got you even more character development. You got to see how the Scourge worked and why it worked so very, very well. You got to see that Arthas had learned from his errors with the Forsaken and that showed in his approach to the DKs. You got to see his ego in full speed ahead, too. You met NPCs who remained your friends and who continued to show up throughout the experience.A lot was flawed, don't get me wrong. The implementation of phasing drove me halfway insane, and there were bugs, and there was the Derp Knight phenomenon, and the weird gear gap, and so on, and so on. ICC was quite empty; it felt unfinished on the inside, as compared to the Black Temple which was full of signs of life and looked occupied. Yeah, the Scourge is a war machine with many cogs and one big wheel only, but still. And I still don't understand why, from a story perspective the Argent Crusade had its tourneys where it did (in Anub'arak's front yard, WTF). I know why from a gameplay standpoint. The place they planned to put it would not have worked. But it still makes Tirion seem kind of duhh. Also, this was where Varian and Garrosh got really annoying. I kept wanting to Falcon Punch them. So, yeah. Not a perfect expansion by any means, but when it came to personal involvement? Dang. Wrath could have been very bad; what saved it in part was that it reiterated the fact that people had a personal connection to Arthas. It took advantage of that connection and expanded on it. WE basically guided him down the road to Lich-King-dom. The echoes of that fall were all the hell over vanilla!Azeroth. The Plaguelands, Undercity, the Forsaken faction itself--and when the Blood Elves showed up in TBC, there was ANOTHER reminder. Cutting right through your starting zone like an ugly skidmark, the Dead Scar. And when TBC decided Illidan was cray-cray, what event was said to have tipped him over the edge? What drove Kael into Outland in the first place? LOL EVERYTHING IS ARTHAS'S FAULT *cough* All tomfoolery aside, and at the risk of sounding like a total dim bulb of a fanboy--Wrath set out to get us personally involved, and it succeeded. This is in part because WCIII is such a ridiculously good game so Blizzard was able to use that as a trampoline. WCIII was the game that got huge. People still build DIY expansions and stuff for it. WCIII was many people's door into Azeroth. And Wrath was what ended the story that began there. And you - yeah, you, your PC, your dude - were one of the crew who closed that book. You almost got your own book slammed on your head in the process, too. (So, SO many bad-end fanfics I have in mind, still.) I think Blizzard's having a very hard time topping that. They tried, and in some ways succeeded. A lot of the new quests are fun as hell, Vashj'ir is lovely, the Twilight twerps have some really nice villain architecture, and it's fun to stand in the fire, but...here's the thing. Deathwing is not particularly concerned with us. He's a natural disaster with a bad attitude and a tendency to speech. He LOOKS damn cool, and he terraformed the crap out of Azeroth, which my lord did some places need it. He brought much-needed change, and cool things, but as a character? I'mmmmmmmm just not feelin' it. Sure, he can make me extra tasty crispy, but he doesn't care who he does that to. There are few hints of any kind of personal investment in anything that we've seen from him; the one that comes to mind is his clawing up Stormwind for having his kid's head on a figurative pike on the gates (way to go, Varian). tl;dr Arthas cared about us (inasmuch as he wanted us to be the most awesome undead army ever, not in a warm fuzzy way), Deathwing couldn't give half a crap.So there's this sense of distance again, of the player characters just being kind of along for the ride. And in some ways, that's GOOD, like, we are not the big kahunae here... but in others, not so great. I didn't mind Tirion being all Big Damn Hero. That was building up from his quest lines in vanilla. And again--his son dying is indirectly Big A's fault, because Scarlet Crusade, and then there's the Mograines, and so on...yeah. A big chapter in Warcraft's story ended with Wrath. It feels sometimes as if we're left with a handful of loose ends.You take the good with the bad, and Wrath had its ups and downs as Cata does. At the end of the day, though, when it comes to personal involvement, Wrath spanks Cata into the ground, and I think that disconnection and distance might be a big reason why Cata feels schmeh. Wrath made me feel like a n00b again. I think, maybe, that's what people want to some extent? To have the fun they did as a n00b, to have that sense of wonder and that personal involvement. I probably sound like a major navel-gazer here and like I'm wearing several pairs of rose-tinted glasses, but them's my two cents.
For individual players it has meant -assuming you are one of those players who does possess some degree of skill and has a standing spot in a raid group - that you must raid only with your guild, and you must now work even harder to schedule your life around raid nights. Gone are the days where guilds that are not world ranked can have plenty of capable backup raiders available to fill in when Joe Warlock can't raid because it's his kids' back-to-school night or whatever. WoW is now more than ever a game of haves and have-nots. Yes, it is possible to gain some gear (albeit very slowly) through the VP system. Unfortunately, experience is a lot harder to come by. So players are now either experienced guild raiders or they haven't seen anything beyond maybe the first boss of the current tier that they attempted in a "trash run" with a PUG of other non-raiders.I totally agree with this.
The problem is keeping the novelty of the game exciting.Vanilla was the starting point. The game was new, fresh, exciting. 40 players in a single raid is something of legend. Expectations were high of the expansions since the game had a frame of reference to work from considering 100% of the population enjoyed vanilla.BC had Illidan and the gothic experience of outlands. One of my favorite environments ever developed by Blizz. BC also had alot of gear ranks. ie; When you saw someone in full epics, you were mesmerized. Someone who wished to raid in BT, wouldve had to work his way up from Kara or SSC. Challenge is always a good way to attract a fan base. 90% of the wow community enjoyed the first expansion.WOTLK had the long awaited Lich King. Need i say more? Warcraft nerds have been waiting for this moment for a long long long time. Although heroics and raids weren't as challenging as the previous games, raids like Ulduar and ICC had a certain degree of challenge to keep people intrigued. And the whole map of Northrend, flawless environment graphics, areas like Howling fjords steep cliffs and storm peaks titanic structure were more than enough to keep the new players streaming in and retaining the old players. 75% of the community enjoyed ICC (and since cata i'm sure more people look back thinking, "it wasn't so bad in retrospect")Cataclysm, Deathwing, Who is he? Whats so special? The shattering; interesting that they changed up the usual scenery, the novelty wore off fairly quick though, no more kiting Overlord Mok'Morokk to Orgrimmar, several other changes like flying mounts in citys, the incredible increase of stamina, the reappearance of Onyxia 3.0. Did we really need those things? Heroics being challenging is great, if you run with competent players, while pugs became excruciatingly difficult with a tank or healer whos 'new'. Heroics being a prerequisite to raids should be difficult, but should still appeal to 50% of the community with below average intelligence. Although, as hunter, its nice not worrying about being mana burned in 3's, but having balanced classes is usually something we have to wait till the end of an expansion for, (ask any warlock about this) and at the moment, the only thing which keeps people playing cata is Arena, and the hope it will all be over soon. After Vanilla, expectations were going to be high, BC met them head on, WOTLK embraced the challenge but allowed for new players to also experience a key event in the lore of the game. Understandable. Cataclysm was a dissapointment but there will always be new players, and die-hards, but alot of the skilled players lost the initial appeal the game had, and it is a difficult task for blizzard to keep up with our demand for greatness, my opinion; stem off with a new lore. Fresh ideas. Talk with the consumers and seek out advice from the veterans. P.S.We hate Hellscream, give us back Thrall.
"I also miss being able to jump in a 10 man with a guild that is perhaps less skilled that ours every once in a while and helping them topple a boss they were struggling with. I saw that all the time in Wrath; these days it NEVER happens."^This! This! This!^ My guild is very casual. We ran instances for fun and dabled in raids. The key word...fun. We are very small and to do more, learn more, grow more, we joined with another guild in forming a 'sister' guild relationship. We 'borrowed' from each others toon pool, ran instances together, learned from each other and had a ball doing it. Now, that has all changed.With Cata, the growth of the guild has all but ceased. When it comes to recruiting..the first thing out of every person's mouth I hear when responding to LFGuild..is, 'What level are you?' Not what is your style, what are you about, do you raid, casual..anything. I respond with a sigh and a we are a really great level 11 guild..only to be followed up with silence or, no, thanks, looking for a high level guild or, just got invited to a level 20 guild.I love a lot about Cata and it brought some great things with it however some things, I really hate and think it destroyed a certain 'player style' if you will. I miss the glory of Dal and would love to see it shine againI don't plan on leaving WOW, not just because over-all I was disappointed in the content of Cata, nope, I love the game, the friends, the lore, the hope of the next big expansion...nope, I plan on being the last one and I'll leave the light on for you!
This is what I noticed. And I asked my friends why they stopped playing.Number 1 (the most qq) was about WOW is recycled. We got Naxx, then Naxx 2.0 in wrath...and then Onyxia at lvl 60, then 80...then rezzed as a zombie at 85....Same with ZA and ZG. So basically it's recycled recycled and more recycling of instances. How about some new 5 mans? Wrath was full chalk of them! None of that recycled stuff. And no I personally don't think it's cuz the game is getting old...it's just the old content is uh new contend? Oh dear.Number 2. PVP in PVE!Yeah...it's horrible. Why not keep PVP out of PVE? No ilvl on PVP gear so they can't get into PVE?I know that a lot of player can dish out the heals/dps when they're in PVP gear...but tanks in PVP....in ZA/ZG trying to pull w/out CC's....yeah uh...who cares if ur in all season 10 PVP gear! You have NO mit...and we can't kick you cuz we "can't initiate anymore party kicks...." the healer has the right to qq...qq heals qq! I'll qq right a long with you!Number 3. Which brings me to....Vote to kick (yeah I was surprised too...not really)While the intentions were good...ultimately with the vote to kick timer and not limits on kicks per encounter got my dpsing friends aggravated. For instance, can't kick when in combat...we had, on several occasions, people pull....and keep pulling and wouldn't stop...and we couldn't kick them. Or people just SIT there and do nothing...but we couldn't kick them cuz of the timer, or "can't initiate anymore party kicks". Or if somebody dc's they have a deserter timer....Number 5. Can't be changed but, people being (pardon my language) $%^&*! bags!I think personally it should be #1The longer people have played this game the more the people expect everybody to be an "elitist" and know what to do. For instance, my first ZA I had no idea what to do. I got into an argument with the heals that I should read up on it...and that they didn't have time explaining the mechanics to the boss fights to me...I can understand if you come in w/out gems or in greens in h za you'll be stared at....but why do people need to bring others down. Geezuz. People are getting more and more ruder in the game...In fact, it has gotten so bad that when I made a comment that Paragon wastes time and plays too much (even tho I play wow) that's why they get world firsts...I got A LOT of insults, threats, even death threats. I'm entitled to my opinion.....but death threats...in no OTHER game has this happened to me in. People need to understand that there will ALWAYS be noobs. Deal with it. And help them out a bit, yes?I don't know if this helps or not, but cheers.
Actually, Barret, Enrage mechanics have been part of the game since Vanilla. Soft Enrages, such as Vaelastrasz the Corrupt, and Hard Enrages, such as Patchwerk, have existed in most if not all Raid Instances ever to be implemented. And regarding the gear part - that generally began with the introduction of GearScore. People began to think (or maybe they just wanted to be !@#$%es, what do I know) that GearScore was a valid measure of skill, and that a certain level was required to beat a boss. This is not, and was never, the case - but it remains in form of "Min 365 iLvl PLZ" today. Mostly only in PuGs, though - most guilds know that people with inferior gear can still perform.
Blizzard isn't stupid enough to let a game as good as this die. If they take on the role to create a new MMORPG like wow but with far more features and complexity for advanced players it would be a big success. imo of course.
Not really in the mood to read 12 pages of wall of text so this might've been said. But to me, WoW has lost it's 'magic'. Think about this for a second: WoTLK marked the end of a time when the story was set in stone, following Illidan and Arthas as we did in Warcraft 3 and The Frozen Throne (expansion). With all that coming to an end with the fall of the Lich King, the game no longer has something to lean on in terms of storytelling. First of all, that alone is bad for players like me, because Illidan and Arthas has always been a part of the Warcraft universe since I started playing. You might say I've attached feelings to them. So for them to make way for new characters is pretty much like a lead role getting replaced on your favorite show.Now, it might not have been so bad if the new developers, producers and writers had given us new characters that we could care about. But to me, Deathwing is just a big stupid Dragon that needs a beating. There's no involvement or dedication from my part that makes me care about him in some way, like with the previous expansions. To put it frankly, I don't think the new writers have what it takes, I think they've started caring more about money than making a great game. And with all this talk of "epic experience" and whatnot, I gotta say it doesn't work that way if you don't have an equally epic story to back it up. I'm not saying this is the universal truth, it's just my two cents that explains how I feel about the game. So for now I'll stay put while I swing some lightsabers and see if BioWare have what it takes to make a great MMO :)
I think the biggest issue I had with Cata is that it isn't *finished*! They did a lot of wonderful work on it, but it's outshined by the zones that are utterly untouched (*coughArathiHighlandscough* and the unevenness of the storytelling (*coughUldumcough*).
Reworking/re-introducing ZA and ZG was ok, but people have been there, they remember what they were like the first time they went through. Then it turned out to be just a little different so people had no problems with it... I started playing at the end of 2006 just as TBC was coming out and becoming big. It was great because I knew nothing about the game or any of the maps I was seeing it all for the first time and it was good! After I rolled up a few toons to max level the quests became second nature, I knew I had to go gather <place item name here> from the other side of the map and run it all the way back, just to turn it in and then go all the way back to kill the boss in that SAME area (which correct me if I'm wrong but, you've already killed that guy once or twice before getting the quest to do so.) That got really old, really fast. I can't tell you how many times I screamed at my computer, "I ALREADY KILLED HIM 4 TIMES, GIVE ME THE LOOT JACK!" Then when they changed the way people got PUG's together for randoms, people seemed to only want to kill the main boss and requeue, missing at least half of the content that the developers worked so hard to implement into the game. People are simply tired of seeing gold farmers spamming in Trade Channel and getting their accounts hacked. It really sucks when people were trying (for example) to get the Bronze Drake from the Heroic Culling of Stratholme and the tank "didn't feel like" killing the extra boss so that you could acquire it. Now, I do enjoy the "Easter Eggs" that are implemented into the game, such as the Harrison Jones quests in Uldum, I found that to be pretty entertaining while they lasted, also the fact that when you are out questing and you run across a rare spawn, it's great to see what will drop, regardless of if you can use it or not. All in all, I think that Blizzard could keep WoW running and interesting for years to come, but they would have to do one thing... Listen to the people who play the game and implement changes that need to take place.