Do you think blizzard will react to the massive wish for a return to tbc style?

[Deleted]

> Do you think blizzard will react to the massive wish for a return to tbc style?

They most certainly will... if nobody plays MoP

[Tygrion]

Hmm blizzard didnt really go back to the tbc style of heroics at the start of cata. Yes they made the heroics hard again but the 5 mans/raid progression was different.

In tbc you got normal 5man gear and then could start kara which was a nice starter raid and 5 man heroics. ie the hard 5man heroics werent a requirement/block to get into raiding and were rather an alternative way to get the first level of raid gear.

But in cata it went 5mans > heroic 5 mans > raids, so instead of the hard heroics being a supplementary way to get gear in the first round of raiding, they became required to gear up to do even normal raids in the first place. The problem with this is that if you require the 'heroic' 5man gear to do normal raids, then they really cant be much more difficult that the normal raids themselves. Which is why tbc's optional heroic 5man model worked out quite nicely. You didn't have to do hard difficulty 5man stuff to do normal difficulty raid stuff. So heroics could be hard rather than just 'the next step' in between normal 5 mans and raiding.

So the cata mistake wasnt that the heroics were initially a lot harder than wraths, but that they were required to normal raids

[Deleted]

I really really enjoy the way WoW is evolving. I started playing back in Vanilla and I quit at level 49. I wasn't having fun playing the game at all. It left such a bad taste in my mouth, I didn't play TBC at all. I came back in WotLK because some of my friends where playing and I was dumbfounded. There was so much stuff to do, and I didn't have to grind crocolisk in Dustwallow to level up any more because there where enough quest! Then I noticed the achievements and the fact I could actually have ALL my pets now (my Vanilla Tauren Hunter had to use half of a bag to save my pets and mount...) and there was stuff to do outside of dungeons! I then started raiding. It was in the time of Naxx, so I could have gone forward had the progression been linear, but it wasn't. I wasn't mad about the fact someone who started after me could play Ulduar either because I am not an arrogant prick. Even now, during the 'universally' *cough* *cough* hated Cataclysm, I am still having a lot of fun because it give you options. I'm sorry, but WotLK and Cata are more fun then vanilla (and probably TBC, which I didn't play like I said, but it was surely better then vanilla.) You complain that stuff is too easy or not rewarding or whatever, but even barley cracking into heroic raids I fill like I've been challenged and rewarded for my time and work properly. The kicker is if I wanted to raid hardcore 7 days a week, I probably have the skillset. In fact, given the TIME anyone could be a hardcore raider. Hardcore raiding is time only, given the time anyone you insultingly call a casual could be as good as you. Their effort put in is exactly the same, so I don't see any reason to whine about such matters.

Wow is heading into MoP now which is promising to be the best expansion ever. I'm not even kidding, it could even dethrone Wrath which added in so so so so so much content. I look forward to the future and feel genuinely sorry that so many people are stuck looking at the past.

You have made some good points.
Vanilla sucked in several aspects, like having to grind mobs to level at some point, because there wasn't enough quests around. I did that grind, it sucked, but it didn't kill me. Actually, I think it gave me the endurance and patience to get to level 60, and to do the attunements, so I could be found worthy to get into Onyxia's Lair, per example. I had to do X before getting Y.

The major discussion between casuals & hardcores was never about limiting only the casuals from seeing the content. In fact, it is about making the game a bit less convenient, so that EVERYONE gets gated from seeing the latest content right away. «Fast food» content is not the way to go, I believe.

I hope MoP turns out to be the best expansion ever, because the game really needs it.

[Deleted]

I couldnt care less what people post on the forums. I log in to the game everyday and dont see any hate on current state of the game on the trade chat - this is majority of the playerbase and not some haters who already quit the game and spent their time on forums bashing game.
We had a talk few days ago in our guild about it, and not even one person would like to go back to TBC style of raiding, with all the attumens and stuff. That was simply horrible.

[Deleted]

I really really enjoy the way WoW is evolving. I started playing back in Vanilla and I quit at level 49. I wasn't having fun playing the game at all. It left such a bad taste in my mouth, I didn't play TBC at all. I came back in WotLK because some of my friends where playing and I was dumbfounded. There was so much stuff to do, and I didn't have to grind crocolisk in Dustwallow to level up any more because there where enough quest! Then I noticed the achievements and the fact I could actually have ALL my pets now (my Vanilla Tauren Hunter had to use half of a bag to save my pets and mount...) and there was stuff to do outside of dungeons! I then started raiding. It was in the time of Naxx, so I could have gone forward had the progression been linear, but it wasn't. I wasn't mad about the fact someone who started after me could play Ulduar either because I am not an arrogant prick. Even now, during the 'universally' *cough* *cough* hated Cataclysm, I am still having a lot of fun because it give you options. I'm sorry, but WotLK and Cata are more fun then vanilla (and probably TBC, which I didn't play like I said, but it was surely better then vanilla.) You complain that stuff is too easy or not rewarding or whatever, but even barley cracking into heroic raids I fill like I've been challenged and rewarded for my time and work properly. The kicker is if I wanted to raid hardcore 7 days a week, I probably have the skillset. In fact, given the TIME anyone could be a hardcore raider. Hardcore raiding is time only, given the time anyone you insultingly call a casual could be as good as you. Their effort put in is exactly the same, so I don't see any reason to whine about such matters.

Wow is heading into MoP now which is promising to be the best expansion ever. I'm not even kidding, it could even dethrone Wrath which added in so so so so so much content. I look forward to the future and feel genuinely sorry that so many people are stuck looking at the past.

Stuck at 49? I don't know what you were doing, but I was only left to some minor grinding at the high 50's. Also, if that's where you quit then you have no clue about the best stuff vanilla had to offer (top-end instances and 40 man raiding).

Sure, getting "fun stuff" like the pets/mounts outside the inventory was nice, but there was always the bank to cover most of that problem (and I know since I kept all tier gear, including the blue dungeon gear. There was also plenty to do in vanilla besides instancing, world PvP was alive first, then AV came, then the AQ quests came, then farming NR gear game, there were world bosses to do, etc, etc. I'm not saying it was all perfect, but you make it sound way too bad just because you never played properly back then and just don't have any clue of what it was like for people that were actually playing.

I'm wondering what "options" you have now in Cataclysm? Especially now at the end of the line there isn't anything to do except farm DS HC for 2 hrs a week. Unless you are counting the extremely boring dailies from the various cata reps / FL / DMF which all served their purpose about a year ago (not to mention shit like the "Rock lover" achievement, if anything isn't "content" then thats it). The fact that you've barely set a foot in heroic raids tells me that you're clueless about what raiding is and your claim afterward that "everyone can be a hardcore raider given time" is a load of crap. There are plenty of proper 2/3 evening raiding guilds out there with decent progress. You don't need a lot of time, you just need to be good with spending the time you got to play. Sure, the people in those guilds can be good, I'd happily admit that. But obviously you are not 1 of those players.

Also, you say MOP is promising but I'm wondering in what way? Is it the pet-battles? Is the story line? Because I'm assuming you won't be going for challenge mode medals or raiding besides LFR/normal.

[mmochamp7280]

today's gamers aren't good enough to deal with a BC-style game
today's gamers want results, they don't care about how they get them
today's gamers want everything yesterday
today's gamers aren't gamers in my opinion
today's gamers are what's wrong with today's games

wow will never be like BC again. it will stay the way it is now, just with more farmville-type minigames
minigames they push as content

[Deficineiron]

Curious, can someone tell me how difficult TBC heroics actually were. Didn't manage to experience end game content during that time.

melee mob could 2-shot avg-gear dps (say 8kish health, e.g. ilvl 115 gear). this would be a yellow and white attack (no crits), and dead. If you pulled aggro as dps, you had at most a few seconds to get saved. Threat was a major mechanic. For at or slighlty-above gear parties, cc was required, particularlly without a paladin tank. special mobs had abilities that had to be avoided, countered, or cced'/supressed or they would create problems.Bosses required understanding what they did or they would generally just kill you. there were pulls in NORMAL lvl 70 instances that gave at-gear parties problems (thinking of those 5-man pulls in blackheart's room).

I don't think numeric heroic mob dmg increased at all in wotlk from tbc despite huge increase in player health pools. Most heroic bosses in wotlk you could just kill without clearly understanding their special mechanic (there were exceptions). Threat wasn't a significant factor. And this was all 3.0.8; I never ran another wrath heroic after that patch.

---------- Post added 2012-08-10 at 12:41 PM ----------

blizzard looses 25%+ every expansion cycle. It wasn't until cata they released the sub numbers. I would have loved to see how many people left once ulduar was released.

first sentence is false, 2nd sentence is false, 3rd sentence is 'some' western subs did leave wotlk early on. I think from the peak in early 2009, anywhere from 500k-1m western subs left before the spike up into cat. release. I base this on the ~12m peak early in expansion, which quickly dropped to 11.5m, then the stated growth in china after the move to netease while the worldwide sub number stayed static.

So maybe they lost nearly 20% of subs (I suspect the western sub peak was around 5.5m)?

In BC, of course, the sub million-growth milestones were like clockwork for the life of the expansion.

[Xzan]

I read many good and contructive post lately on both mmo-champion and official wow forums. There seems to a huge wish for blizzard to change the direction wow has gone trough with Wotlk and Cataclysm.

Personally i really hope blizzard are going to listen to the commnity for once and bring back wow to glory. I think many players would come back if player progression was brought back to live.

Do blizzard know what the majority of raiders want or don't the care at all?

Bring back effort = reward

Well I still regard TBC as the most fun xpack, but I have to take into account that I was at school back then, dodging it anytime I could.
I actually went to some private TBC server and believe me, I got shocked by how much time one had to invest into anything to get basic stuff done. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but it would literally end all today's altaholists (except the jobless ones, hehe) and probably prevent everybody who doesn't play ~4 hours a day to see most of the endgame content.

It was ~hard~ in the sense of it being very time consuming. So even if you were very good player but had very little time on your hands, you'd probably be stuck somewhere in Kara/ZA for the most of the expansion.

Basically what I'm trying to say is - be careful what you wish for, people!

[sabe]

today's gamers aren't good enough to deal with a BC-style game
today's gamers want results, they don't care about how they get them
today's gamers want everything yesterday
today's gamers aren't gamers in my opinion
today's gamers are what's wrong with today's games

wow will never be like BC again. it will stay the way it is now, just with more farmville-type minigames
minigames they push as content

I agree, today's gamers can not handle challenge.

[schippie]

Cata well early cata was, and i never want to experience that again. I hate now a days the dungeons from back then, i simply want a 15 minute dungeon nothing more especially with pugs. And the people who come with but do it with a guild then ... i rather just do a dungeon when i want to and if somebody from the guild wishes to join fine. But otherwise i will just run it alone as tank.

[voidillusion]

C i simply want a 15 minute dungeon nothing more

We want very different things then.

[schippie]

We want very different things then.

Thats why things like challenge mode/timed dungeons etc are all made for you. People who want to proof how "god like" they are can now do so. And the people who thought they were "god like" hopefully bump there nose hard. (THIS WAS A JOKE AND NOT AN ACTUAL WISH FOR PEOPLE TO BUMP THERE NOSE incase people take it the wrong way)

[voidillusion]

Thats why things like challenge mode/timed dungeons etc are all made for you. People who want to proof how "god like" they are can now do so. And the people who thought they were "god like" hopefully bump there nose hard. (THIS WAS A JOKE AND NOT AN ACTUAL WISH FOR PEOPLE TO BUMP THERE NOSE incase people take it the wrong way)

You and the likes of you assume too much.

I don't want a boost to my e-peen ty, i'm no hardcore and i don't want to boost my awesomeness. What i want is time well spent in a game that already had and can have again the ability to provide that. I want to feel compeled to run a dungeon just because it's fun and entertaining and not do 15 min zombie sessions to get vp's for who knows what.

If you can't understand that or see the difference from what you assumed then i'm sorry, you can keep your baseless assumptions.

[Dvaldin]

No reason to go backward. Pushing forward, it appears that WoW's design is changing to accommodate most playing styles, and I think that design will become better and better as time progresses.

There'll be challenging content upcoming and, I'm sure, achievements and other non-essential stuff to go along with it. But that's not what a lot of the naysayers want from what I've seen. Quite a few have a point of view associating reward with the ability to see content, and that's what TBC's model was. TBC's design accommodated only a handful of guilds per server, and left all other guilds as feeders. It was great if you were a guild hopper, but not so great if you were dedicated to playing with your friends who might not be quite up to par.

I was pessimistic about Mists to begin with, but with time I've become more optimistic. I believe the best days of WoW are still ahead of it. Player character progression will be relatively simple for everyone, while those with the skill will get things like titles/mounts/shiny armor to strut. All-in-all, pretty awesome. I'm sure there'll still be plenty of complaints to accompany whatever the design. However, the complaint posts are the most entertaining to read, and I've got plenty of popcorn.

[Lilija]

And pugs in LK demanded ridiculous Gearscore to do faceroll content. M8 retards always existed and will always exist, that wasnt exclusive to TBC.

True, but the way the game is design now you have much bigger possibility to avoid them. Sure, you will meet a new breed of tards in LFR/LFD but yet again the possibility you meet those again is slim therefor you can not care about what they do. If their actions are unbearable and make it unable to finish the instance, you can just queue again. You did not have that luxury before. If you had many tards on your server you were pretty much stuck with them.

---------- Post added 2012-08-10 at 03:13 PM ----------

I didn't say you couldn't outgear them, I said you couldn't outgear them to the extent you do now, cause gear inflation wasn't that extreme. Add to that the game mechanics of the time, that didn't enable you to just run in and aoe everything down, because classes didn't have these kinds of ablities, threat was an issue and mobs actually hit non-tanks pretty hard.

Can't really agree. I aoed instances in SWP gear

That's a generalization though. I was playing a tank in TBC and I ran a lot of pugs for random people. I couldn't care less what class or spec they were. I know there were others who did care, but you're making it sound as if anyone was forced to never form any relations in the game and pug with 4 random people. Ofc, if you are playing completely anonymous, not ever talking or making any friends in the game you'd have it a lot easier now to get geared up. However, if you were dps and you'd befriend a tank or healer, or get into a nice guild, you could run dungeons a lot faster - and this was possible because you would actually play with people you had a chance of seeing again. If you were tank or healer, you never had a problem getting int a heroic anyway, more like the opposite.

Having friends should be irrelevant for an mmo to be playable. Sure, it's always more fun with friends but you should be able to play the game even when your friends aren't online. You should be able to do some stuff with people you don't know yet.

As for your experience, I can tell you that since you were a tank you did not see all of it. I mean tanks were always wanted and noone questioned them. I've been a hybrid dps without indoor CC. The chance of getting into a pug 5 man heroic - even in raid gear - was close to a miracle. It was so bad at some people like me mostly stopped considerring it an option and either rerolled, or quit, or played with noone else than closest friends. With the introduction of LFD I could finally start pugging in a timely manner.

---------- Post added 2012-08-10 at 03:20 PM ----------

I agree, today's gamers can not handle challenge.

Tedious and time consuming != challenge.

There is plenty of challenge in current WoW - the real challenge where you actually need to have skill and knowledge ... not only plenty of free time.

[voidillusion]

There is plenty of challenge in current WoW - the real challenge where you actually need to have skill and knowledge ... not only plenty of free time.

Outside of some heroic modes, tell me what.

[Skizo]

I agree, today's gamers can not handle challenge.

MMO gamers can't
Single player games have been seeing a pretty strong resurgence in difficulty
Casual MMO players are really just looking for a chat room with avatars that they get to dress up

[mvaliz]

Outside of some heroic modes, tell me what.

current tier Heroic raiding
Making millions on the AH
Cornering specific AH markets/battling market competition
Winning a Rated BG bracket for the season
Getting your Arena team (3 different sizes) to the top
Collecting every single pet in the game
Collecting every mount in the game
Soloing Lich King raid zones
LEADING a pug raid through older Cata raids
Getting very hard to obtain Feats of Strengths (All legendary weapons, ect...)

I find it ironic that in a Virtual World where you can CREATE your own challenge, people sit on their asses and just WAIT for Blizz to spoon-feed them a hard challenge.

Get off your ass and think for yourselves. There's PLENTY of challenge...

[Skizo]

current tier Heroic raiding
Making millions on the AH
Cornering specific AH markets/battling market competition
Winning a Rated BG bracket for the season
Getting your Arena team (3 different sizes) to the top
Collecting every single pet in the game
Collecting every mount in the game
Soloing Lich King raid zones
LEADING a pug raid through older Cata raids
Getting very hard to obtain Feats of Strengths (All legendary weapons, ect...)

I find it ironic that in a Virtual World where you can CREATE your own challenge, people sit on their asses and just WAIT for Blizz to spoon-feed them a hard challenge.

Get off your ass and think for yourselves. There's PLENTY of challenge...

Massive time sink =/= challenge
Players want challenging content that they get rewarded from, instead of beating their heads against a wall and having nothing to show for it.

[voidillusion]

current tier Heroic raiding
Making millions on the AH
Cornering specific AH markets/battling market competition
Winning a Rated BG bracket for the season
Getting your Arena team (3 different sizes) to the top
Collecting every single pet in the game
Collecting every mount in the game
Soloing Lich King raid zones
LEADING a pug raid through older Cata raids
Getting very hard to obtain Feats of Strengths (All legendary weapons, ect...)

I find it ironic that in a Virtual World where you can CREATE your own challenge, people sit on their asses and just WAIT for Blizz to spoon-feed them a hard challenge.

Get off your ass and think for yourselves. There's PLENTY of challenge...

I bet you're trolling me.