I don't know about you, but I enjoyed WOTLK.

[blahism]

I agree and I love BG's and had fun but I long since gave up due to the in-balance of Ally to Horde ratio especially AV.

the imbalance is pretty bad... i hope more alliance get into pvp and get a little more organized

[sulfuric]

but you have to agree that saying ICC is easy without having completed the hardmodes isn't legit.

Of course, on the same token though the people claiming "hardmodes are fine" would have to killed them all to make that assessment. I had someone telling me hardmodes are fine and I couldn't find a single one on his armory, not even 10 man ulduar at present date. None!

[unillenium]

I've had a great time in Wrath.

Vocal minority will bitch and moan, loud as ever, but the fact is, most of us liked it just fine.

"WOW IS JUST A NUB FEST NOW FOR ALL OF THE PEOPLE THAT PAY FOR IT, MY MOM PAYS FOR MINE AND MY MOM LETS ME GET WHAT I WANT SO IT SHOULD BE EXACLY WHAT I WANT AND NOT BALANCED TO CATER TO EVERYBODY BUT ME BECAUSE I GET WHAT I WANT.
I DIDNT START PLAYING UNTIL PATCH 3.3.3.3.3.3.3.3.3.3.3.3.3.3.3.3.3.3.3.3.3.3.3 BUT WOWS BEEN A JOKE SINCE AFTER VANILLA WHEN I USED TO CLEAR NAXX (OVER)9000!!! EVERY 5 HOURS BUT IT WAS SO HARDKORE THEN, AND THE LORE IS DEAD, BECAUSE I READ OTHER FORUM POSTS THAT SAY THAT, I HATE HOW THEY KEEP MAKING STUFF UP..LIKE ARTHAS?! BLACK DRAGONFLIGHT? LIKE WTF THATS SO MADE UP, AND IT DOESN'T CATER TO MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME. THE RAIDING WAS SO EASY AND BORING THAT I DIDNT' EVEN BOTHER RAIDING, BUT ITS EASY AND EVERYONE JUST GETS GEAR FOR FREE, LIKE OMG I SEE PEOPLE STANDING OUTSIDE ICC WITH HIGH GEARSCORES AND IM LIKE WTF BLIZZ THEY GET FREE GEAR (WHICH I DON'T HAVE OUT OF PRINCIPAL)."
^
You mean that vocal minority?

WoTLK made WoW into more of a game. Vanilla was just grind grind grind grind grind. If you started early enough on the grind part then you might have gotten to raid. TBC was grind grind grind, more voiceovers on bosses to make it more interesting, and then after grinding enough you could grind honor for gear to do arena, or grind some more to start trying to raid.

WoTLK actually felt like a game. Even the quests had a feeling of progression behind them. The world pvp daily quest hubs in grizzly hills made the world actually feel organic and alive. The modelling and skinning is vastly superior to TBC or Vanilla etc. The phased content allowed more to happen in much more limited areas and contributed to the more organic world (because lets face it, in reality sometimes multiple events occur in the same place.)

So yeah, WoTLK was awesome. Doesn't mean I didn't like Vanilla or TBC, they were each their own things, its apples to oranges to peaches and I happen to like peaches better, but aren't going to start flaming people who like apples and oranges. (wish they had the same kind of respect)

[axelnomnom]

I would say more like "Killed wow for core gamer, made it attractive for casual scrubs, great success for blizzard, great loss for those who were longtime fans, could play the game, didnt need to hold their hands to down some bossess. Well played for casual scrubs, now go and get your free VOA loot."

Getting rid of core gamers is a good strategy, it just allows Blizzard to recycle boss tactics, recolor horses, and sell it for $25.

So because a casual player doesn't have as much time to play WoW makes them a scrub? Didn't know the more /played time you have the better you are. That's like saying "ohai i have a higher gs, im better than you!" sometimes true, but not always

[Foxhoundn]

so did I very much.

[axelnomnom]

Of course, on the same token though the people claiming "hardmodes are fine" would have to killed them all to make that assessment. I had someone telling me hardmodes are fine and I couldn't find a single one on his armory, not even 10 man ulduar at present date. None!

But couldn't you also look at your server and see who has done hardmodes? If only the top guild(s) on your server have progressed in hardmode ICC then you could say hardmodes are indeed hard, even for the hadcore raiders?

[Gron]

So because a casual player doesn't have as much time to play WoW makes them a scrub? Didn't know the more /played time you have the better you are. That's like saying "ohai i have a higher gs, im better than you!" sometimes true, but not always

Nope. Experiencing endgame content wasn't about spending time in game. It was when you were starting out fresh, but once you have played the game for some years, raided 2-3 years, you will see raiding has not received the love other parts of the game have.

Raiding should have had the depth to please casuals and old-timers alike.
What Blizzard did was they chose the easy route. They decided there are more new players who can be "sold" the same old stuff (boss mechanics) you saw in TBC. Its more financially sound, as you don't need to invest into getting lots of new things into raiding, pleasing your fans who have been around for years.

I am at ICC 9/25 Hardmodes, and people cba to log in our guild to continue... same old boss.
Those guilds that say there are casuals or hardcore, say that hardcore spend the same time in game, just turn up for raids in time, read up on strategies, focus 100% to be successful. Doing hardmodes not saying its easy, but deffo not that hard as it was in TBC. And no real rewards for doing hardmodes.

[stillnotking]

What are you smoking??? Everyone who wanted to, now are doing hardmodes... our guild will not get LK25 HM (though close to getting there) just people are sooooo bored with ICC, noone wants to log to raid.

So, your guild won't down HLK25, but you think the game is too easy.

Pugs are clearing up to LK25, don't say it can be easier than that....

PUGs may be clearing up to LK25, but PUGs are not downing HLK25 and never will be in this expansion.

[axelnomnom]

Nope. Experiencing endgame content wasn't about spending time in game. It was when you were starting out fresh, but once you have played the game for some years, raided 2-3 years, you will see raiding has not received the love other parts of the game have.

Raiding should have had the depth to please casuals and old-timers alike.
What Blizzard did was they chose the easy route. They decided there are more new players who can be "sold" the same old stuff (boss mechanics) you saw in TBC. Its more financially sound, as you don't need to invest into getting lots of new things into raiding, pleasing your fans who have been around for years.

I could be wrong but i believe Blizz mentioned that the reason why some of the mechanics they wanted to implement didn't quite make it was because it was really unfair to certain classes and also required certain classes to even attempt (example:Naxx25 Instructor Razuvious) Blizz really does try to make raid fights unique but it's not as easy as it sounds.

[Gron]

Looking forward to see Sulf and Gron among other at the same time next year still playing and paying and mourning the death of the good ole times.

Likely won't happen - I would have stayed if raiding was swinging back to the old TBC era, which actually forced people to learn to play / raid because otherwise they could not advance. You could hone your skills, trying to be more and more perfect in what you do. Now Blizzards mission is not to give larger challenges, but a bone to the old players, and make most raids casual friendly. Casual friendly will mean that those who were good at raiding in WOTLK will start to QQ in Cataclysm on the raiding being too easy.

[Alraml]

I'll admit it didn't have the "OMG!" feeling of walking through the Dark Portal did but I did enjoy it quite a lot. Ulduar was definatly the winner for me, it felt very polished. Good music, challenging encounters and unique models for almost every boss.

Likely won't happen - I would have stayed if raiding was swinging back to the old TBC era, which actually forced people to learn to play / raid because otherwise they could not advance. You could hone your skills, trying to be more and more perfect in what you do. Now Blizzards mission is not to give larger challenges, but a bone to the old players, and make most raids casual friendly. Casual friendly will mean that those who were good at raiding in WOTLK will start to QQ in Cataclysm on the raiding being too easy.

I really would like to see you attempt to pug Yogg25+0 or Mimiron HC, you know the boss even Endisida considered skipping

[Lyeranth]

I loved wrath. I can actually have geared alts without having to dedicate insane amounts of time to get them into the final tier. I have 4 toons that can raid ICC, 2 of which can do all HM's. I could never do something like that in the previous expansions and still maintain a social life.

[Griefel]

For 99% of the people that cleared Vanilla and TBC back in the day, WOTLK is a dissapointment, I didn't completely clear TBC and I feel that ...

And about the geared alts thing some people talk about, just so you know, every guild that farmed Illidan for a year or so, had what would be exceptional geared alts or offspecs.

[Moonsylvana]

Its going to be hard to beat the feeling when you downed Illidan for the first time.

I voted Fun but not ground breaking !

[DocQuantum]

I think I would have preferred a choice between "WOTLK was [a] great success" and "Fun but not ground breaking" - but, then, I like granularity.

I've really enjoyed WotLK overall. Sure, we all have the parts we don't like, but as a whole I think it was a great expansion, well worth the price.

[mmaluso]

I found WotLK as a fairly successful expansion, I have enjoyed from the moment i got it loaded on my computer after the midnight release. The questing at howling Fjord i thought was great, and the battle for the undercity was an extremely enjoyable event, expecially the first time through when you had probally 20 other people in the phased zone with you(something else wrath really kicked up a notch). I turn in a few quests after that an HOLY SHIT wrathgate pops up out of no where(i wasnt reading spoilers at the time).
I started playing towards the end of vanilla so i was only about 56 when BC hit so i never got a chance to experience naxx at level 60 so i throughly enjoyed it as an 80 progression raid. However i do understand how people who grew quickly tired of it because they either did it at 60 or the weekly grind of doing it 10 and 25 each week. I think people are really not giving maly enough credit, back when it was a progression raid in 25 man, as a dk doing spark pulling rotations through phase one, flying on the hover disks(which i still want as a mount) in phase two, and the only vehicle combat in the game i actually enjoyed in phase 3. Ulduar rocked (love the yogg fight so much). Toc ill admit was a bit underwhelming but the boss mechanics for faction champs and twin valks i thought were an enjoyable change of pace. i switched to working nights so my raiding time is no more so ill admit i havent taken on lich king or done many herioc bosses but there are still several that might not be extremely hard but they are still fun imo.
As for all the people complaining about how fast people gear up, i dont think its that much different from BC honestly. By the time I leveled my lock (3rd 70 at the time), I ran kara, za for like two weeks, ran some heroics for the sunwell badge gear along with heroic MGT a void reaver pug for my shoulders and boom, im top DPS SoCing hyjal packs quicker then i got my ret pally from 80 to ICC. Yeah some of the top geared people might be pissed because the other people that pay the same amount as they do get to see the same content... but i mean... come on you can get your Bane titles and your nice green lettered "heroic" gear and still be looked at as bad ass, you dont need your ego any bigger then it is any way.

[bullseyed]

And those who talk about "Molten Bore" and dull classic raids:

It wasn't the bosses or visuals what made these raids great, but the interaction with your guilsmates, your rivals, and the server community as a whole.

Raiding ICC now, who gives a fuck? Everyone does that.

Dungeon finder is even worse and a much greater example of the sentiment that resulted from WotLK's design. "I'll never see these kids again so who cares if that item is a best in slot for a different class, it's a marginal upgrade for me so I'm rolling on it!"

With the proposed raid lockout changes in Cata, you won't even have to kill each individual boss with the same people, you can hop from one raid and one guild to the next. Necessary of course for the cross realm raid finder to work.

How far away are we from having bots in game? For 10$ on the Blizzard store, you can get an NPC to tank for your random raid finder groups!

---------- Post added 06-15-2010 at 04:20 PM ----------

Of course, on the same token though the people claiming "hardmodes are fine" would have to killed them all to make that assessment. I had someone telling me hardmodes are fine and I couldn't find a single one on his armory, not even 10 man ulduar at present date. None!

I think the real issue is that people wrongly equate "hard modes are to easy" to "hard modes are so easy everyone can do them". Hard modes (for the most part) were "too easy" for the crowd they were aimed at. Ballpark 100 guilds have killed 25 LK heroic last time I looked (about a week ago). I would like to see that figure closer to 25 than 100.

I'm currently 11/12 hard mode ICC 25. I have some ranked dps parses on World of Logs (not top, but I'm on there, lol). Every raid has varying levels of skill among its members though. Every raid has some players who get carried by being below the average skill level of the group, and it is not always possible or necessary to replace those players. Could I join a guild that is farming LK heroic 25? Probably. More than 25% of my guild's main raid probably could. Do I think that my guild deserves to have 25 man LK heroic killed at this point in time? Probably not. We might be able to do it, but I don't think we should, the buff would be carrying us if we killed it. The fact that RNG and the buff may allow us to kill it, to me, says it is too easy.

Most people who have done the fights and killed them say that LK, Sind and Putri are the only challenging fights in ICC 25 heroic. I'd cut the list down to LK and Putri. My guild spent ballpark 2-3 hours on Sind heroic before downing it, the only challenging part was the melee controlling themselves to not dps the iceblocks down too fast. Healing gets ridiculous from what I hear, but our healers handled clearing and the RNG of the no casting debuff. Putri honestly wasn't hard mechanically, it was coordination that mattered, and a few "star" players [aka, does your Abom OT/DK suck, yes/no]. The real "challenge" of the fight was combating lag and graphical glitches to determine where the goos were going to land.

LK. LK is fairly well done. It walks the very fine line between "hard" and "overtuned". Was it probably a little on the overtuned side? Certainly. They knew the 30% buff would "fix it" and didn't worry about it.

This is a complete 180 degree change from TBC. I worked on M'uru (pre nerf) with 2 or 3 different guilds on 2 different servers. Never once did I find the fight too hard, yet I never killed it until after the nerf (we oneshot it on the first nerf, not the end of TBC boss HP reduction nerf). On M'uru it was always a hunter or rogue missing a stun on a caster, a stray void getting away from the Void tank and oneshotting a healer (remember when even random spawns in instances oneshot people?) or a dps warrior pulling aggro on one of the elf adds. There was always something to do a little better. A macro to write to make target swapping a little easier. Something clever you can do to make the fight smoother.

LK? Oh, the person we usually have stun the valk got defile and had to run out, everyone else had a stun target, no one could do anything in time you die because of it. Sometimes it is human error too, but there are far more RNG gibs now than prior. I don't mind the "you have one global and only one global to stop action X" type design, ASSUMING the other fight mechanics NEVER interfere with it.

They tried to spread about buffs and abilities so that they wouldn't have to bother designing the two to never conflict. Half the world got a healing debuff, so if you needed a healing debuff and the fight mechanics removed the warrior rogue and hunter from the action, someone else could do it. Half the world got interrupts so that you didn't have to have rogues with a kick rotation. Prot warriors have enough stuns to do whatever they want.

Somehow, all of that... made it less fun.

Stats and gear were secondary to that, but were also problematic. There is nothing I hate more than seeing a player in Dalaran who I KNOW is less skilled than I am with a piece that RNG has not dropped for me. Heroic Gunship has been killed by my guild since the first week it was available, never once have the bracers dropped. But some PUG can go kill it and get the bracers, even though he doesn't know the sharp end of the handle on a weapon. I don't care if they can see the content, and if that is what it is about, then make an easy version of the raid that drops no gear, only badges. Free tier for all so we can all look the same, whatever. But when you let RNG give in game advantages like that, completely independent of skill... something is lost. That's why hard modes shouldn't be puggable, puggable means RNG-able.



Waaah all you're doing is QQing. Okay, fine. I'll do the dev's job and offer some advice. Produce content BEFORE release and make progression nonlinear. What if Ulduar and ToC were released at the same time, but the gear was structure differently. Ulduar normal gear < ToC normal gear < Ulduar heroic gear < ToC heroic gear. You still would progress through ulduar to get geared up for ToC, go learn the bosses in ToC to help out with Ulduar hard modes, then finish up with hard mode ToC. Then you don't have to clear ToC 4 times each week with the same crap bosses, and get a more fun progression path.

Mixing up the tiers like that does kind of suck though, so maybe it would be instances within the same tier. The model used for MH and BT was a very good one. You killed Vashj and Kael to prove you were worthy, and as a reward got to relax on a few bosses in MH. Once you did the first camp in MH, you headed to BT to do the first wing. Once the first wing was down in BT, you did the second camp in MH. Etc, etc.

It was fun, it was diverse. It wasn't staring at faction champions four times a week. The gear scaling was better so you weren't geared enough to kill the last boss the second you were attuned to the instance. It was PROGRESSION, which is missing today.


Wall of text! Reading is hard for the simpleminded.