2011 has come and gone, giving an idea of what we can expect in the year to come. Cataclysm has become the expansion Blizzard wants to forget. A nobody developer came out of nowhere with Rift to show just how hungry players are for an alternative to World of Warcraft. The much hyped Star Wars: The Old Republic was released at the eleventh hour much to the relief of the C-3PO cos-players. Sony released its DC Universe only to have it go free-to-play six months later. If you were one of those suckers that shelled out the $200 for the lifetime subscription, you got butt-raped by Sony, no lube or nothing. This next year, there will be some additions to the gang of ankle biters trying to take down World of Warcraft from its pedestal. Will any of them deal a mortal wound or will Blizzard’s Mists of Pandaria be the redeemer and be a bitch slap to the upstart competitors?
World of Warcraft
It’s the 800-pound gorilla in the room, or panda in this case. I had a lot of hopes with some major game fixing announcements to be made at Blizzcon. So when the panda expansion was announced, my reaction was along the lines of, “What… the… fuck!?” This was the exact opposite of what it was going to take to keep me from unsubbing and my fling with The Old Republic. Pet battle system? I wasn’t aware Nintendo had swallowed Blizzard whole. And I swear we’ve heard this “We’re fixing the talent trees for reals this time!” conversation before. Looks like the Cataclysm “simplified” talent trees weren’t moron-proof enough. The fact that we still haven’t heard anything on the Big Bad of this expansion is disconcerting. Metzen’s speech about WAR!!!! being the bad guy sounds like a cop out to me. I think the rest of the Blizzard devs had no idea what to say with this so just turned to Metzen and told him, “Dude, just go out there and do your thing. Say something epic.” I’d think they learned their lesson not to do that after 2010′s “GEEK IS!” Read more…
One item that has gotten a lot of buzz on the PTR is Fandral’s Flamescythe. This item allows Druids to turn into a flaming cat while in Feral form! This is incredibly cool for Druids and I’ve got the feeling that many raiding guilds are going to be up to their ears with flame cats once 4.2 hits. Check out the video here.
Unfortunately for Blizzard, this item got me thinking about the amount of attention and care that they give to specific classes in game. While it’s nice for Druids to get this kind of individualized attention, it makes me wonder why all classes don’t have a dedicated team of artists and engineers devoted to adding slight graphical tweaks to classes? After all, how difficult is it to create and animate assets for existing characters in the game?
For instance, one of my wish list items for Warlocks has been to add in green flames for all Warlock fire attacks. Essentially, this boils down to changing the colors that are already in game for existing spells and abilities. Alternately, what Death Knight wouldn’t want to change the color of their eyes or what Shadow Priest wouldn’t want to alter the color of their Shadow Aura? It feels like with a minimal amount of effort, Blizzard could implement these slight changes and add some interesting choice to classes (Role Players would probably lose their minds for these alterations).
What all of this wool gathering comes down to is what are players’ expectations for $15 a month and what is Blizzard prepared to deliver? For me, some slight visual changes would go a long way towards keeping the graphics fresh and interesting and with the sluggish content release schedule, it could help appease players that would otherwise leave. What small visual changes would you make to your favorite classes?
Something is missing in this expansion and about half a million people have walked away as a result. The absence of a sufficient amount of end game content is having a nasty effect on Blizzard’s ability to keep its players playing. The biggest gamble that Blizzard made with this expansion was to focus all of their resources on fixing Vanilla WOW. After having leveled several characters through Old World content, I can’t help but feel that they’ve succeeded. The content feels fresh, the leveling curve is much less steep and the quests are interesting and compelling.
An unintended side effect of this focus on Vanilla WOW has been the absence of enough end game content. Further, the pace of additional content releases has been significantly slower than previous expansions. A couple of examples. The Burning Crusade was released on 1/16/07 and the Black Temple was released with their first major content pack roughly five months later (5/22/07). With the exception of the Sunwell, Black Temple and Zul Aman, the Burning Crusade was release with the following raid content: Gruul’s Lair, Tempest Keep, Karazan, Magtheridon, Serpentshrine Cavern and Battle of Mount Hyjal! Wrath was released on 11/13/08 and their first content release, which included Ulduar was released 4/14/09 (about five months later). With the exception of ICC, Ulduar, Ruby Sanctum, Onxyia’s Lair and Trial of the Crusader, Wrath released with Naxxaramas, Saratherion, Eye of Eternity and Vault of Archavon.
Cataclysm was released on 12/7/10 and the first content patch came on 4/26/11. Raid content included Baradin Hold, Bastion of Twilight and Black Wing Decent. The new patch included….Zul’Aman and Zul’Gurub…and no raids. Instead of releasing MASSIVE raid instances like Black Temple and Ulduar in a span of 4-5 months, we’ve received…2 heroic 5 man dungeons.
A good friend has reminded me that WOW has been going for 6 years and maybe their decaying release pace is a result of the amount of time they’ve been working on the project. I countered that if anything, they should be going FASTER than they’ve gone in the past! Content should be flying out of Blizzard instead of slowly plodding onto the PTR. What’s become clear is that WOW has finally plateaued after six years. The long tail effect has begun. In order to extend that phenomenon as long as possible, Blizzard needs to be releasing content much faster than what they’ve currently done in this expansion.
There was a blue post by Bashiok:
We’re in the process of stepping up our detection and tracking to log and action players that are botting, or habitually AFKing in the Battlegrounds. We’ll be taking aggressive action and removing earned items, Honor Points, and ultimately suspending or even banning accounts of those that are found to be botting or habitually AFKing. It’s a sophisticated level of monitoring we’re undertaking. No one actively playing in the Battlegrounds normally should be concerned that they’ll be actioned.
I know that there are bots in WoW. I just have never seen one. Also, it is something that I don’t even want to look into, given that I have years invested into my account, and I don’t want to even take that chance in the name of research.
Read more…
Saw a great Blue Post by Daxxarri looking at the thinking behind I-level requirements and Heroic Dungeon difficulty.
He basically said:
Essentially, while you may have crossed the barrier that kept you from entering a heroic instance, that doesn’t necessarily mean that your character is quite ready for those encounters until you’ve accrued more gear. It might be easier to view the minimum item level as a way of preventing those who have little hope of success from queuing, rather than carte blanche for assured victory once you hit the threshold.
If you’re willing, you might find it beneficial to spend a little bit more time in regular dungeons, as well as acquiring reputation items or crafted gear, before you pass final judgment on whether healing is the right path for you in Cataclysm. After you’re wearing gear that’s a bit more appropriate to the challenge that the content presents, you might even find it fun.
Regardless, I hope you find the path that’s the most enjoyable for you.
This feels like an issue of messaging to me more than anything else. Currently, players feel like they have reached an achievement and should receive a reward for their achievement when they have increased their Item Level to the point of accessing Heroics. The issue occurs when players step into a heroic expecting a reward and get their faces ripped off. DPS may be able to hide a little bit but any under geared Healers and Tanks will immediately feel the gear pinch when they enter a Heroic.
I actually enjoy the current difficulty of Heroics although it can often result in humiliation and anguish for undergeared players that are struggling to perform. It certainly feels like the current state of Heroics is just an extension of the teaching initiative that Blizzard has been pursuing sincepatch 4.0.1 in WOTLK. What are your thoughts on the current difficulty of Heroics? Too challenging or just right?
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Now that Cataclysm is a couple days out of the gate, people are doing dungeons, leveling and gearing. The quests seem new, still familiar but the tightening up of the linearity and the quests are being more cohesive with extensive phasing seems to be the hi-light so far. Let’s see what some others are saying.
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World of Ming-Game Riot
Over at Game Riot, World of Ming has put some thoughts up on rated battlegrounds and class balance. Describes each battleground and where some classes will excel and others might fail miserably. Also just posted an interview with SK Sansibar’s Barburas.
World of Ming at GameRiot.com |
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Jaded Alt: Impressions of Vash’jir
Jaded Alt’s Windsoar gives her opinion on the new starting zone, Vash’jir. Windsoar raises good points getting used to the Z axis, along with mandatory taking of quests to open up the rest of the zone due to heavy phasing. Also posted a list of enchants for casters.
Jaded Alt Homepage |
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Righteous Defense: Pally Gear Shopping
About to hit 85, Rhidach is ready to go shopping and gearing for heroics. Nice extensive list of what to look for, whether its BoE, BoP or vendor gear. Blog covers pally tanking with regular posts.
Righteous Defense |
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