Cataclysm a Failure? lol?

[Diabeetus]

100% agree, they are thankfully changing that, shouldn't have taken an entire patch to do so..

Yeah, that was the one issue I had with endgame. I don't raid, and I'm not always craving a super-challenge(if I did, I'd try to raid..), but Zul'Gurub/Zul'Aman being the only two hardest 5 mans was blegh. I took a break until they would them into the same queue or release new dungeons(i.e 4.3).

There was the option of maxing out valor by doing cata heroics, then the troll ones though.

[Lordender]

My whole problem with this game in a nutshell is basically this since cata increased in difficulty vs WoTLK.

Blizzard has allowed everyone to be raiders with normal modes being for people to see the content, Hardmode is for those who want to be challenged. This is all fine and dandy, infact I agree with the model however Blizzard executed it poorly. With heirlooms, faster leveling than before people don't need to learn their class, infact when I leveled hunter back in the spring I basically 1-2 shot mobs with Aimed shot+ something else if the Aimed shot didn't kill it pretty much all the way up to 85. I knew this isn't how a hunter would play at 85 but if I was a new player, this play would have carried over to dungeons and basically leading to poor play.

What Blizzard should have done is when you hit 85 you are warped straight into a training program that teaches you something about your class, maybe it could of taught rotations, or taught the concept of CC or the basics and made it to where you cannot leave until your pass the trials you're given.

I have no problem with Blizzard allowing everyone to see the game, but they do a poor poor job IN game of teaching people how to play their classes. You don't even need to use 90% of talents you train while leveling up to get to max level. I remember dinging 85 on some classes not even knowing what some of the shit did, I had to look up to see how each spec would play after hitting 85 and that is a major problem with the game.

[sunnystormy]

You know... as much as you may think Blizzard does/doesn't care about how Cataclysm worked out, the fact is:

Blizzard needs WoW to continue to be successful in order to use it to fund other game projects.

I can guarantee StarCraft 2, Diablo 3, etc. all got their production budgets from WoW's success. If Blizzard continues to give the game surgery, and only attract a playerbase that doesn't consist of people who genuinely care about the franchise, then they're going to have to bank their livelihood on making good single-player games.

It's funny, also, that most people who quit WoW didn't do it because of the lore, but because of the changes in gameplay and community. People still want the WarCraft setting, but with EverQuest's leveling-style and gameplay. Quite frankly, just bring Brad McQuaid on-board to fix the gameplay issues, and I think that'd make most MMO vets happy.

[Frioz]

I'm having a great time in Cata tbh, but all I do is arena all night and day...and i'm a mage so

It had to be a mage who really enjoy cata. I hope you like your OP class!

-A fire mage.

[Marema]

While a lot of this is opinion based, Cata has many, many technical problems. This is what gets on most peoples nerves.

many, many techincal problems?? lol. Apparently you weren't around in vanilla.

[CrunkJuice5]

What Blizzard should have done is when you hit 85 you are warped straight into a training program that teaches you something about your class, maybe it could of taught rotations, or taught the concept of CC or the basics and made it to where you cannot leave until your pass the trials you're given.

this is another reason why im glad alot of player suggestions in this game are thrown in the trash because there so stupid.if your unable to spend the time to get on a webpage and look up specs,rotations,how to gem,etc.then why should blizzard hold your hand thru it all

[The Glitch]

Eh 41 days of farming to finish the firelands dailies, that's an insanely long grind with long intervals between unlocks. I've done almost every daily grind in WoW, and that was one of the most frustrating. The artwork on the new zones differed greatly, from Deepholms clearly amazing production, to the pedestrian nature of Hyjal.

The new questing was arguably made redundant by the fact you gained so much XP so quick that you often ended up zone skipping, that's a technical issue mostly though. The quest lines in Cata were pretty damn good, but while it was a good story there lacked some quality of the epic. There was never a point where you struggled, nothing that made you cringe with difficulty. Again, pretty pedestrian.

The dungeons were mostly unoriginal, many borrowed old art assets or were "renewed". The were plagued with problems early on, mainly the unusual difficulty fluctuations. Archaeology was almost a total wreck of a profession. It was a blatant time sink with little to offer in genuine rewards, its original intention would have made it fantastic! Path of titans etc, but sadly it never was to be.

I didn't hate this expansion, but it has had so many technical difficulties, problems with flip flopping by devs and generally a feeling of a need to get it finished that I can't say it really thrilled me. For reference, I'd give it a 6/10.

It's all a matter of opinion though

I love grinds, I done the timbermaw grind before it was *easy* I did the cenarion circle grind before it was *easy I did the winterspring saber grind before it was *easy* (although I didn't finish it in time before the rep gains got bumped up).

I have done all the old rep grinds, I don't mind them, I like knowing I can do something as long as I want and get it done when I decide to, dailies annoy me because you are artificially stopped from *grinding* it out to the end.

So Firelands though it still took time, I didn't have to spend the whole expansion doing them just to get enough currency *see seal's from argent tournie* to beable to get every item off the vendors.

You done your month or so of dailies and had access to everything.

The xp issue on questing can be helped a little by not using yer heirlooms, i didnt use heirlooms on some of my characters and felt the flow from zone to zone was alot better, however I still sometimes just ran the zone even after quests went grey just to experience the storylines, I know not everyones into that though

Archaeology is a good idea, the current way it works, is not what I would have thought it was going to be, too heavily RNG dependant, too much downtime (see. flying 90% of your time) but some of the ideas they mentioned at Blizzcon for sprucing it up, sounds like it could make it feel less grindy maybe. It's still in it's infancy so I'm all up to giving Blizzard time to figure it out.

All in all I still can't justify calling it a Failure, as it for me, clearly wasn't

[Arrowstormen]

I just can't see how in the world "Made heroics too hard for bads and too long for casuals" I just fail to see when were HC hard? I dinged 85 on day 2 and clear all HC on that same day and I still don't get how were they hard in any factor.


And before someone says: you ran HC with guild, no I didn't I was using the LFG and solo queued

I remember some of them being quite annoying the first month. DM and SFK was seen as some of the later places to do, there was this guy I can't remember the name on with adds from both sides that were a pain, and the worgen guy in DM, ugh. Not that it was bad.

[DeanyKong]

It was quite a bit more than 600k, do some googling.

Yeah, no. It was 900k. 600k the first quarter and 300k 2nd quarter. Of the NA/EU player base, which is less than half the entire 12 million subscriber number they quote. So 900k loss from 4-5 million (est). Which is in the neighborhood of 20-25%.

Sorry, most of the articles that came up with a quick google search were showing the 600k number. But I think 900k is accurate as of the June report, correct? Wikipedia is showing 11.1m subscribers as of June, and I'm sure they're more accurate than all those random gaming blogs that're popping up.

I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings with my analysis. I'll try harder next time.

[Asrialol]

People who are happy with the game tends to not go to forums, while people who are not happy with the game tends to go to forums to express their opinion.

[Sand Person]

The fact is, cataclysm pissed off the entire player base:

- Made heroics too hard for bads and too long for casuals
- Lack of heroics for variety
- Dual lockouts so now raiders got half the things to do and 25man raiding got that much more unpopular
- Community went into a vacuum without the necessity for smaller guilds to pair up for 25man content i.e. less
server socializing
- Smaller guilds were also eclipsed by guild levels as larger ones had it a lot easier gaining levels; most
players just want to join high level guilds
- The end game was not expanded upon/compensated for the increase in downtime
- People stuck in cities waiting on instances 90% of the time without the above to alleviate
- Mixed feelings about linear questing but phasing turned it from an MMO into a single player RPG
- 1-84 has no significant learning curves because it's far too easy, dinging 85 with a lot of fresh noobitards,
ruining most vets playing time

I could go on, what do you think?

wow. ive seen a lot of "cata is fail" threads but you(OP) made this one sensible. you hit a lot of points that were very true without a prejudice hatred for cata or blizz. i commend you.

i guess i will agree with you in the design aspect that it is a failure. that wont stop me from playing. as a fanboi of wow since Orc and Humans(ahhh DOS!), i cant just quit. or i wont i should say. WC universe lore is too good. for me anyways.

[Frioz]

It's all a matter of opinion though

I love grinds, I done the timbermaw grind before it was *easy* I did the cenarion circle grind before it was *easy I did the winterspring saber grind before it was *easy* (although I didn't finish it in time before the rep gains got bumped up).

When will you humans learn that your so called love keeps you from forcing blizzard to listen to your outrageous demands.

Archaeology is a good idea, the current way it works, is not what I would have thought it was going to be, too heavily RNG dependant, too much downtime (see. flying 90% of your time) but some of the ideas they mentioned at Blizzcon for sprucing it up, sounds like it could make it feel less grindy maybe. It's still in it's infancy so I'm all up to giving Blizzard time to figure it out.

Agree, I think the only people who like arch are the people who also like to collect stamps.

[The Glitch]

People who are happy with the game tends to not go to forums, while people who are not happy with the game tends to go to forums to express their opinion.

But But I express my opinions and come on the forums! ( And I am happy with the game (

I'll let you off this time, seeing as you are a panda! /giggle

[Traknel]

Sorry, most of the articles that came up with a quick google search were showing the 600k number. But I think 900k is accurate as of the June report, correct? Wikipedia is showing 11.1m subscribers as of June, and I'm sure they're more accurate than all those random gaming blogs that're popping up.

I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings with my analysis. I'll try harder next time.

Didn't hurt my feelings, I'd just suggest you check your facts a little better before trying to shoot down people's statements. Wouldn't want you to look ignorant.

[Galbrei]

People are vocal when they're mad. People are not vocal when they are content.

This argument alone could "slash thread" 99% of what's posted here or in the Official Forums. I still remember how pissed off people were back when Blizzard announced that draenei would be the new race for the Alliance. The funniest thing is that most of the threads back then were from people that believed Blizzard should have added Pandarens instead and now all we see is people QQing because they are finnally going to get what they've been asking for.

[Lordender]

this is another reason why im glad alot of player suggestions in this game are thrown in the trash because there so stupid.if your unable to spend the time to get on a webpage and look up specs,rotations,how to gem,etc.then why should blizzard hold your hand thru it all

How is it holding your hand? you still have to execute, you still have to avoid the fire/goo of death, if you're going to allow everyone to see the content you might as well do a better job at teaching people while they're playing the game. That makes no sense to send players to a 3rd party place so they can look up stuff when it should be in the game, it should be drubbed into your brain the moment you hit the level cap.

[Frioz]

People who are happy with the game tends to not go to forums, while people who are not happy with the game tends to go to forums to express their opinion.

That's a terrible lie, I come to these forums to express my opinion and I haven't play the game in a year or so.

[The Glitch]

When will you humans learn that your so called love keeps you from forcing blizzard to listen to your outrageous demands.


Agree, I think the only people who like arch are the people who also like to collect stamps.

Hey I said -I- love grinds, I totally understand not everyone does, and I would -never- go on the Blizz forums demanding they make everything a grind just cause I like it.. There's a huge difference between me liking something, and me going and bawling like a baby screaming *ME ME ME, MINE MINE MINE*

[DeanyKong]

Didn't hurt my feelings, I'd just suggest you check your facts a little better before trying to shoot down people's statements. Wouldn't want you to look ignorant.

The number I threw out was 5%. The number you correct me with was 7.5%. I don't think my hiccup was enough to completely invalidate my argument.

[CrunkJuice5]

That's a terrible lie, I come to these forums to express my opinion and I haven't play the game in a year or so.

ya,and the people who quit the game and still come to forums to express there opinions are one of the worst types of people in this game.because all they do is bash the game and say how the mmo there playing now is the greatest ever