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  1. #81
    Deleted
    I want MMOs where skill and not time investment is king. I want a MMO without boring point and click combat and boring fetch quests. I want a MMO where I can drop in a couple hours and despite not having invested hundreds of hours in farming gear can have fun and enjoy myself in a competetive environment. Getting better at a game and seeing the results of improving your playstyle is rewarding in a way that getting better gear can never hope to be. I want a MMO where if I kill someone it isn't due to me having better gear than him, or if I get killed him having better gear than me: It should depend on the skill and awareness of the two players involved. It should depend on teamwork and strategy.

    WoW doesn't do any of those correctly. A freshly dinged player can be the most skilled player in the world, but he will still be freshly dinged. He will still have ½ the health of a dumbass with 1000 hours player decked out in the best gear, and when the two fight the dumbass will win 9/10 times only due to time investment. Thankfully the MMO market has in recent years begun to move away from the point and click combat that was standard for so many years, but WoW will still be there as the monolithic beast that it is reminding everyone with it's big sign in red almost shouting "12 mil subscribz" that "WoW is the way to go". It will still do that for years to come, sadly.

    As Profyrion put it: WoW has not made the genre any favours. When WoW launched the MMO-market was in an interesting time where hardware and internet capabilities was rising and more complex games could and were made, but WoW came out on top and put it in a 7 year hibernation. If WoW hadn't been as successful as it was I am half-certain that we would be seeing a wide variety of MMOs by now and not just fantasy-rehashes of the same thing, and that the technology for it would be much better than it is today. WoW hasn't pushed any boundaries, practically everything in the game, from every pixel to every bit of binary code is from somewhere else before it, and even if each piece has been improved nothing new has come out of it, and it is only now that we see what MMOs are truly capable of. Blizzard has caused more harm than good imo.

  2. #82
    Quote Originally Posted by fizzbob View Post
    now rift didnt' feel like wow. didn't look like wow and has been extremely successful. swtor is 100% fine, successful, both will be around a long time and both feel different than wow
    Are you SERIOUS? Did you actually play SWTOR? Maybe you played some different SWTOR, because the one I played looks and feels exactly like a 99% WoW ripoff with some voice acting.
    The night is dark and full of terrors...

  3. #83
    Quote Originally Posted by namelessone View Post
    Are you SERIOUS? Did you actually play SWTOR? Maybe you played some different SWTOR, because the one I played looks and feels exactly like a 99% WoW ripoff with some voice acting.
    For me going back to check out WoW after playing TOR ... WoW shows its age way too much. Leveling PvP in TOR is great, some say it's better than max level pvp. It's horrible experience in WoW. Your character has a story ... not in WoW. Armor in WoW looks like they model it with 10 polygon limit ... not a big motivator to farm conent over and over and over. What WoW has is ok raiding and 5 mans. For anything else there are way better MMOs out there
    . Ppl say you will try this new MMO and go back to WoW ... by doing so you notice how many flaws WoW have. Going back to WoW after WAR or AoC was great ... but that was 4 years ago.
    Last edited by Repefe; 2012-05-08 at 10:19 PM.

    My part in this story has been decided. And I will play it well.

  4. #84
    I don't see how WoW is to blame for the MMO genre going down. What is to blame for the stagnation of the MMO genre is lack of vision and competition from the makers of MMOs. They focused too much on making the next generation WoW and not on the next generation MMO. If I were to make an MMO I would require my dev team to play some of the popular MMOs and get to level cap. I would want them to do no more than 20 levels a month and sit down and form a detail list of what they love, liked, and hated. I would also want them to get into those MMOs fan site communities and see how their experience matched up with others. From there you see how you can add some of the most loved/liked parts of those games into your game concept. A game that does this does not have to be a WoW clone if done right. I feel like this is the reality of WoW's endgame and why they continue to do well in the MMO market.

    But to try and answer the question above. I don't think they devalue WoW so much as they value it too much and look to what WoW has done wrong and try to fix it from there. Take LFG it is a big improvement on how groups where put together in the past. There is a vocal group that hate and wish it never happened to WoW blaming all the problems of the community on LFG. So new games say we are not going to put that in our game but that is one of the things WoW got right, I am not saying it is perfect but if a new game had server only LFG were you had to be in that dungeon's zone to use it I am betting people would love it. But because it is not in the game in any form people dislike the game for not having what as become to them a standard feature.

  5. #85
    What they should do is have their devs be forced to play WoW 10 hours every day for a year and they might be close to where many MMO players who are so tired of WoW are. Then they won't go make a Rift type game, they'll realize they need to make something new.

  6. #86
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Ebildays View Post
    I don't see how WoW is to blame for the MMO genre going down. What is to blame for the stagnation of the MMO genre is lack of vision and competition from the makers of MMOs.
    I don't agree, not completely anyway. When pretty much the entire market plays WoW (which isn't far from the truth) and all these people automatically reject anything that isn't WoW, you will end up with that state of affairs. Alot of different games that were just as bad (aka buggy, underdeveloped, empty) as WoW was on launch, some actually alot better, have been developed over the years, but none truly took off. I think it is Blizzard's fault that the genre is pretty much ruined, but only because they made a game that was better than everything else and because they lucked out entering the market at the right time. They arne't bad or evil for what they have done, but they have reinforced practices that shouldn't be practiced in a MMO. Well, that's my stance anyway.

  7. #87
    Quote Originally Posted by vanin View Post
    I don't agree, not completely anyway. When pretty much the entire market plays WoW (which isn't far from the truth) and all these people automatically reject anything that isn't WoW, you will end up with that state of affairs. Alot of different games that were just as bad (aka buggy, underdeveloped, empty) as WoW was on launch, some actually alot better, have been developed over the years, but none truly took off. I think it is Blizzard's fault that the genre is pretty much ruined, but only because they made a game that was better than everything else and because they lucked out entering the market at the right time. They arne't bad or evil for what they have done, but they have reinforced practices that shouldn't be practiced in a MMO. Well, that's my stance anyway.
    Well ... they should at least do a good job at maintaining the game; that's the real deal breaker for me. If you make hundreds of millions from the game every quater ... don't be cheap.

    My part in this story has been decided. And I will play it well.

  8. #88
    Wow paid for SC2 and Diablo 3, both amazing games, WoW is also paying for Titan.

    Look at Diablo 3, it has elements that were refined in WoW. WoW is no longer going to push the boundaries, WoW is now a rather large testing ground for Blizzard. They are making Titan, my guess is that what we see recently in WoW is where Titan will be born from. Titan will be what Blizzard has deemed to be the best from WoW distilled. What is Challenge mode if not for gear normalized skill based competition (just like vanin wanted). What is pet battles if not for making something simple and fun for the collector's among us. Arena pass is skilled PvP with "normalized" gear. Farmville is a casual way to enjoy the FB type games.

    Before WoW, MMO's were punishing grindfests. Died in EQ? Good luck finding your corpse. Died twice, well spend a week and a half recovering from it by grinding a pull in a dungeon.

    I have played EQ, I have played AC, I have played Shadowbane. WoW did us a favor. WoW set the standards. Before you judge Blizzard with WoW, look at why the game is still the strongest in the market. Are you arrogant enough to believe that these drones are just playing because they are being told to? Are WoW players inferior to you that they can't make up their mind as to why the like the game? WoW is the biggest game because it is also the best game for the most people.

    Does it cater to you? No. Live with it, move on. Is it Blizzards fault that SWTOR is a WoW clone with voice acting? No.

    I played SWTOR, I played RIFT, I am playing Tera (shelved WoW for Tera). Tera gives me something new and fresh, it appeals to me because I feel it has more skill required. Find the game that suits you and leave us to make our own choices. Right now, I don't play WoW, I don't feel like it, I play Tera, I will play D3, I am finishing Kingdoms of Amalur and Skyrim.

    Play the game that's fun for you, give credit where it's due. WoW saved us from the grinding MMO of old where time investment was king. Now the casual gamer is King, long live the King. WoW's time for innovation is up. It doesn't have much more room to innovate. Blizzard is working on Titan and until that time comes, it's up the other devs to step it up and move the genre forward. What's Blizzard going to do? "We are shutting WoW down, we don't like money and we feel responsible for slowing the genre down. We are sorry. We will release Titan when it's ready, until then, Tata".

  9. #89
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Rakoth View Post
    Wow paid for SC2 and Diablo 3, both amazing games, WoW is also paying for Titan.
    Nononono, don't use that as an argument. SC2 and Diablo 3 will pay for themselves else Blizzard wouldn't make them, they aren't a charity which we all know well enough. If a game that is deemed to have a profitable future can be made, there will be investors waiting to back it and Blizzard has Activision to do that for them, and one thing is certain: Both SC and Diablo are very strong IPs and alot of people would buy the games without any thought what so ever.

  10. #90
    SWTOR is a WoW clone that didn't bothered to implement basics that WoW did right, and no surprise that it is failing.

  11. #91
    Quote Originally Posted by vanin View Post
    I don't agree, not completely anyway. When pretty much the entire market plays WoW (which isn't far from the truth) and all these people automatically reject anything that isn't WoW, you will end up with that state of affairs. Alot of different games that were just as bad (aka buggy, underdeveloped, empty) as WoW was on launch, some actually alot better, have been developed over the years, but none truly took off. I think it is Blizzard's fault that the genre is pretty much ruined, but only because they made a game that was better than everything else and because they lucked out entering the market at the right time. They arne't bad or evil for what they have done, but they have reinforced practices that shouldn't be practiced in a MMO. Well, that's my stance anyway.
    I don't think it is right to blame Blizzard for being better than everything else. You admit that "they have reinforced practices that shouldn't be practiced in a MMO" so there is room for someone to come in and make a better one. I still blame companies that don't try to compete with what is WoW now. They should not launch a game that can not compete with WoW as it is now. Now I am not saying they have to have as much content as WoW but they do need to bring in some of the standards that WoW has set. A game should be released with the ability of server mergers, LFG, PvP rankings, a good craft system and transfers. Now they don't have to release the game with all of that but if/when the need arises they should be able to patch it in quickly.

    Companies are still holding on the launch of WoW almost 10 years ago which is not going to fly. People want to start playing a game that is almost bug free and with the features they have come to expect. That is the nature of any business that deals with people. It is like the birth of movies, at first they had no voices and were in black and white, then came the talkies and next came color. I am sure that people saw these things as fluff at first but they soon became industry standards and even now we continue to push the bounds of movies setting new industry standards. Blizzard set this first round of industry standards and it is up to new MMOs to refine those standards and set new ones not try to WoW2 the New Cash Cow.

    tl;dr

    Times change and so do the standards for the MMO industry it is the nature of business and life. No one company or person is to blame if other refuse to move with the times.

  12. #92
    Quote Originally Posted by Arrowstorm View Post
    For 2-3 years, everybody blamed LFD and LFR for the game going downhill and "bad". It seems like they finally stopped after TOR showed just how wonderful life is without it.


    Wait did you say ToR proved life is great WITHOUT LFG? I cant tell if you were being sarcastic because I dont see how sitting in Fleet for hours and hours spamming an empty channel that Im LFG and getting nothing is a better system. My latest 50 has been 50 for 2 weeks and I still have daily PvE stuff I got the first day I hit 50. Why the hell do they call them dailies if theya re impossible to do every day?

  13. #93
    Quote Originally Posted by fizzbob View Post
    keep in mind that maybe 1-2 million of the wow players like MMOs. the rest like the social aspect, the "get something for no effort" facet of the game, the facebook gamers are mostly what you see in wow. if you make a great MMO, you do not hook these players. 1-2 million is considered failure (and it fucking isn't of course) but that's what rift attracts. that's what gw2 will attract.
    wow-addicts don't want a new game, they want a better wow. making a new game that doesn't feel like wow pisses them off and they go back to wow. they dont' want to go back to wow but they're addicted

    now rift didnt' feel like wow. didn't look like wow and has been extremely successful. swtor is 100% fine, successful, both will be around a long time and both feel different than wow

    that pisses addicts off. gw2 will piss them off too

    they want wow to not suck, but wow is focused on maximizing profit at the expense of fun. accountants run wow now, not gamers or artists. every decision made will be made by an accountant from now on.

    the only thing that hasn't degraded in wow is the music and i love it. probably the only reason i play anymore. the people are horrible, they're rewarded for being horrible so will certainly stay horrible, the game is as stale as 2 week old bread and nothing is going to change.

    when a new game comes out and isn't wow, good, we have wow and it's not something others want to imitate.
    As hilarious as you post is, sadly it's all true imo. The GW2 part is kind of confusing, not sure on you point there, were you saying GW2 is gonna attract the 1-2 mill or the facebook gamers? Because I disagree on the latter.

  14. #94
    Bloodsail Admiral shimargh's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by fizzbob View Post
    keep in mind that maybe 1-2 million of the wow players like MMOs. the rest like the social aspect, the "get something for no effort" facet of the game, the facebook gamers are mostly what you see in wow. if you make a great MMO, you do not hook these players. 1-2 million is considered failure (and it fucking isn't of course) but that's what rift attracts. that's what gw2 will attract.
    wow-addicts don't want a new game, they want a better wow. making a new game that doesn't feel like wow pisses them off and they go back to wow. they dont' want to go back to wow but they're addicted

    now rift didnt' feel like wow. didn't look like wow and has been extremely successful. swtor is 100% fine, successful, both will be around a long time and both feel different than wow

    that pisses addicts off. gw2 will piss them off too

    they want wow to not suck, but wow is focused on maximizing profit at the expense of fun. accountants run wow now, not gamers or artists. every decision made will be made by an accountant from now on.

    the only thing that hasn't degraded in wow is the music and i love it. probably the only reason i play anymore. the people are horrible, they're rewarded for being horrible so will certainly stay horrible, the game is as stale as 2 week old bread and nothing is going to change.

    when a new game comes out and isn't wow, good, we have wow and it's not something others want to imitate.
    pretty much what this guy said.
    and may i call it "/thread" but then ppl would rage and probably flag me or whatever.
    the comunity makes a game, and in this case a forum, if everyone is a douche it wont grow a bit, that's why most (or some, take it as u like, i didn't say ALL so fu) ppl hate cross server LFG.
    Quote Originally Posted by Gaexion View Post
    The loss of the ability to pass on loot is the loss of the ability to choose. This is communism
    Quote Originally Posted by Torched View Post
    A year from now someone on these forums is gonna say that the (wod) launch went smoothly..... I am gonna remind that asshole of this launch, this shit is not going smoothly at all.

  15. #95
    Quote Originally Posted by shimargh View Post
    pretty much what this guy said.
    and may i call it "/thread" but then ppl would rage and probably flag me or whatever.
    the comunity makes a game, and in this case a forum, if everyone is a douche it wont grow a bit, that's why most (or some, take it as u like, i didn't say ALL so fu) ppl hate cross server LFG.
    What evidence do you have that most people hate cross server LFG? There is also no evidence that only 1 or 2 million players of WoW actually like mmos and the rest are there for social reasons. The argument against LFG is that it kills community and social interaction.(The only evidence of that is anecdotal) If there isn't any social interaction in WoW because of cross server LFG how can 80% of its subscribers be there for social reasons?

    People come up with weird ideas that they can't support in any meaningful way. I personally don't like tomatoes. That doesn't mean tomatoes don't taste good and it certainly doesn't make everyone who enjoys tomatoes an idiot. It just means that I personally don't like tomatoes. People have to realize it's the same with gaming. You not liking the game doesn't make the game bad and it doesn't affect how other people feel about it.

  16. #96
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    I don't understand why people always use "well WoW is 7 years old and ----- is only 7 months old!" as their rebuttal to try and give ------ an excuse to not include certain features. While WoW is indeed a much older game, why would a company release a game in 2012, that would only be considered "up to date" in 2008?

  17. #97
    Bloodsail Admiral shimargh's Avatar
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    i didn't call anyone an idiot here.
    Quote Originally Posted by Whitepepper View Post
    What evidence do you have that most people hate cross server LFG? There is also no evidence that only 1 or 2 million players of WoW actually like mmos and the rest are there for social reasons. The argument against LFG is that it kills community and social interaction.(The only evidence of that is anecdotal) If there isn't any social interaction in WoW because of cross server LFG how can 80% of its subscribers be there for social reasons?
    pretty anecdotal... you remember the names of the ones you've rolled a dungeon with?
    until some time ago it was imposible to maintain comunication with those ppl. that asuming you've had a great time with them in other cases things just go wrong (almost imposible with the state of wow today) and ppl just rage quit to never be seen again. despite the part in with noone speaks until the dungeon is done: "ty guys" "gj" or whatever only IF they say anything, or the part in wich anyone is just a douche doing the fast run not caring for the group just because, surprise, you're not seeing them again!
    yeah, you can run with the same guy again but odds don't make it easy.
    like I said, maybe now you can, with the last changes in BN, but again, it was a long time before that, if you want things to happen just now, without reason but NOW, or you're just specting to get 6 years of FIXES in new games is plain idiotic, other companies don't have to play other games to give you what you want. not all the games are the same.

    I don't like a game you don't play it, if by any chance the company of the game gives you the oportunity to feedback and give you those things you whined for, don't spect this to happen on all games. it's just wrong.

    Quote Originally Posted by Whitepepper View Post
    People come up with weird ideas that they can't support in any meaningful way. I personally don't like tomatoes. That doesn't mean tomatoes don't taste good and it certainly doesn't make everyone who enjoys tomatoes an idiot. It just means that I personally don't like tomatoes. People have to realize it's the same with gaming. You not liking the game doesn't make the game bad and it doesn't affect how other people feel about it.
    well, that's nice, with that argument we can say "/thread".
    no game is bad based on that. ppl who like LFG want games with LFG, ppl who don't, wait for it... don't want LFG in their games, thats pretty much the argument here:

    -u liek some features, the game you play has > win
    -u liek some features, the game you play has not > damnyoudamndirtyapestupidgamehowcouldanyonedoagamelikethisandallthatinthesedays.

    GAMES lacking "spoonfeeders" or QoL, how many like to name it, is not a bad game nor a failure.

    Quote Originally Posted by Pipboi View Post
    I don't understand why people always use "well WoW is 7 years old and ----- is only 7 months old!" as their rebuttal to try and give ------ an excuse to not include certain features. While WoW is indeed a much older game, why would a company release a game in 2012, that would only be considered "up to date" in 2008?
    what do you consider as "up to date"?
    it's just the same with the post above, he nails it, but he's blind to see more than is own part.
    pll argue on "opinions" of their own, of more ppl, of two ppl, of critics whatever.
    what you think as "up to date" may be not the same as "up to date" for others, or the company making a game, so we end here just with personal povs and opinions, but it's funnier that EVERYONE call BS on others argument but usig just the same logic.
    Last edited by shimargh; 2012-05-17 at 04:06 PM. Reason: typos & points
    Quote Originally Posted by Gaexion View Post
    The loss of the ability to pass on loot is the loss of the ability to choose. This is communism
    Quote Originally Posted by Torched View Post
    A year from now someone on these forums is gonna say that the (wod) launch went smoothly..... I am gonna remind that asshole of this launch, this shit is not going smoothly at all.

  18. #98
    Quote Originally Posted by Pipboi View Post
    I don't understand why people always use "well WoW is 7 years old and ----- is only 7 months old!" as their rebuttal to try and give ------ an excuse to not include certain features. While WoW is indeed a much older game, why would a company release a game in 2012, that would only be considered "up to date" in 2008?
    Because most software is released buggy, MMO's more so due to their complex nature. Period. No ifs, ands, or buts. It's a fact of the medium. Despite the bitching it got, TOR was remarkably bug free for an MMO. The "WoW" crowd was just so used to playing on an 8 year old platform, and that comes with a certain amount of bug free play.

    You don't add features like cross-server things until you know that the single servers are running smooth in a player environment.

    New MMO's being bare bones is a purely logistics move, and the 7 year/ 7 month thing is a valid reason. Work the bugs that are there by nature of it being an MMO before adding to it. And yes, you may say that they should know how everything reacts to everything else, but it's just not the way of things.

    I mean, take a look at WoW here this year. There was a brief amount of time where Ret Paladin were doing insane damage. Like, mastery proccing off of mastery and stuff. It was caused by changing something completely unrelated (to us) and simple as all hell. Like, an Icon change or something. I honestly forget, as the offending change was so minor.

    That's why MMO's launch without what people call "core" features. Because they are not core features. Core features enable the game to run in a contained environment. Which is what MMO games aim for at launch, as it lets them see the most amount of bugs, fix them, and then expand.

    Though, in the case of TOR, I will say they got screwed over on the LFD tool. Their fan base was famous for not wanting an LFD tool. Cheering in the streets, thongs hanging from lamp posts, people yelling about community immersion. They listened to their fans (which is funny, as they get a rap for not listening to their fans) and boom. You get TOR.

    Though, on the subject of WoW killers.. It took WoW a long while to break 1 million subs. Took them longer to overtake EQ as number one. Why do people expect new MMO's to do it to WoW within a few months?
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  19. #99
    Bloodsail Admiral shimargh's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by yeaimresto View Post
    -During original WoW alpha, Scholomance was supposed to be an outdoor elite area (probably where sorrow hill is now), but the developers made it so big and good that they decided to make it an instance.
    -At the beginning, there were shields and bucklers. Rogues and hunters could use bucklers, but they later removed them, and rogues/hunters couldn't equip shields anymore. There are still bucklers in game, but they are labeled as "Shields".
    -Survival talents for hunters was the "melee" tree and they had a lacerate ability which dealt less than 100 damage at lvl 60.
    -Discipline tree for priests was supposed to be a "melee" tree (think of like monk), which is why Inner Fire increased attack power.
    -All of you know this already, but Dwarves could be Mages.
    -Hunters were using focus as their resource system, but it regenerated while standing still, and was very overpowered so they gave them mana instead.
    -Several classes had talents which increased stats by a raw number (for example 20/40/60/80/100 spell power (not percent but just 100 SP)), and they didnt scale at all with gear/level.
    -There was almost no Spell Damage on gear during early vanilla. It wasn't a strange thing to see a lvl 60 mage with less than 30 SP.
    -The reason why there are so many cloaks with exactly the same stats in the starting areas was because cloaks also had armor types (for example cloth/leather/mail/plate cloaks)
    -There were two big islands off the western coast of STV, which were removed, but if you go far enough with mount and water walking, you can reach the area where they were. You will see that you are zoning in Isle of Doctor Lapidis or Gillijim's Isle.
    -Elwynn Forest, Stormwind and Westfall were the first zones that blizzard made back before 2001. That is why they are crappier than other starting zones.
    -Azshara has very little quests because Blizzard has designed it with a terrible layout, and they realized that too late. They thought most people would hate it so much, so they just didn't bother and left it for future expansions (Cataclysm)
    -Their original design(back before alpha) was that horde and alliance each had only 100 quests in the game.(was said in a recent interview)
    -At release, there were no quests at all in Silithus(or anything important), and it was added in the AQ patch(or earlier I don't remember)
    -There were much less quests past level 50 at release, so players complained that they had to grind mobs in order to level, and Blizzard added more quests later.
    -Blackrock Spire, Stratholme and Scholomance were all tuned for 15 people raids, and they were still way too hard even with 15 people, which they later toned down to 5 players (except for UBRS which is 10 player)
    -Before TBC was released, you were able to blink through deadmines portal and glitch it, cast slow fall off an unfinished tunnel, and reach a very early version of Hellfire Peninsula. Here is a video of it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiL64...eature=related
    -Emerald Dream was supposed to be released in vanilla, as either zone/raid/continent. They scrapped it, but there are emerald dream zones in the game files, though not accessible in any way on official servers. You can also see it on Youtube.
    -T2 sets dropped in Molten Core, and had different graphics.
    -Epic Mounts at release were just recolored normal mounts without armor. They removed them and replaced with armored mounts later(R.I.P Ivory Raptor). Oh and Tauren didnt have a mount at all, they had a plainsrunning ability.
    -Ironforge was by miles the largest city in game, because it had two floors instead of one, and the one which exists today is smaller than before. The Great Forge was also visible in game. Here is a video of it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91ZKb61xxX0
    -Gnomeregan was supposed to be a city like all others, Ironforge had an elevator which led into Gnomeregan, but they turned it into an instance because it would create faction imbalance.
    -Undercity was even more complicated to navigate, so they removed the second floor (it is still accessible in game).
    -Humans and Orcs were the first Races Blizzard created in game.
    -Human females and Orc males used a slightly different model.
    -You would be scared if you saw how Female Trolls looked in alpha.
    -Goldshire was a lot bigger, and it resembled a real village. But Blizzard realized that they can't make other starting zone hubs that big, and they removed a lot of buildings in goldshire so it would be even for all zones.
    -Overall Graphics in WoW are definitely improved since it's release, but in alpha, the graphics looked more realistic(but lower quality than now), and they toned them down.
    -Naxxramas is still physically present in Eastern Plaguelands today. There is no way to enter it or see it(it is invisible). If you logged off your character in old naxx before wotlk was released, you would appear in EPL naxx with portals to northrend. Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpLjxvPBE8M
    -Undead were able to communicate with the Alliance.
    -Undead were really Undead, so they could have been targeted by Exorcism and such spells(back when it only worked on undead and demons)
    -Will of the Forsaken was a passive buff which made you immune to sleep, polymorph and fear effects. That didn't last long.
    -Cloaks weren't visible at all until beta, due to player request.
    -CC effects didn't have reduced duration on pvp targets, so a rogue or mage could cc you up to 1 min(or more)
    -Mages had an invisibility spell earlier, but you could cast Pyroblast while still invisible. It was removed because of an outcry from other players.
    -There were no guards at neutral cities, so most of them were slaughter fests.
    -Maraudon was added in a content patch.
    -Warrior charge ability used to teleport you to your target instead of increasing your run speed.
    -Wands couldn't auto-shoot so you had to click it each time you wanted to hit.
    -Spell schools used to have a skill system similar to todays weapon skills. "Your skill in Fire has increased to 93"
    -There was only one flight path and graveyard in the Barrens. Ugh.
    -Warlock spell Banish had a 30 minute cooldown for some reason.
    -Rogues and Druids had "feign death" abilities before they were moved to the hunter class.
    -Mages had an ability called "Khadgar's Unlocking" which was like rogue pick lock spell.
    -The only enchanting trainer at higher level was in Uldaman.
    -Each major city had it's own special auction house, so Darnassus was pretty useless.
    -Although Azshara crater, a scrapped battleground, never appeared in game, it is in the game files.
    -All wings of Scarlet Monastery was once a single instance, but they have split it into four because it was too big.
    -The Black Morass instance(without the mobs and bosses) was in the game files since 2004.
    -Hellfire peninsula was supposed to be a 54-60 zone.
    -Andorhal in Western Plaguelands was a very hard elite area(MC geared players had problems with it). Araj the Summoner was tuned for 20+ people. It also had ruined wall around it's borders, which was later removed.
    -There are Programmer isle and designer isle in the game files but aren't accessible.
    -As one reply reminded me, player housing was briefly tested and scrapped completely. Here is an interesting picture http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/8...Housing3.0.jpg
    -If you look at the beginning of the original wow cinematic, you'll notice half of Silithus is missing on the map. That's because it wasn't there at that time.
    -Here are some more realistic graphics I was talking about http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/8...Ashenvale1.jpg
    -The original Hellfire Peninsula resembled the WCIII HFP a lot more. Here is a very old picture of it http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/8...20Outlands.jpg
    -Blizzard definitely wasn't wrong when they said emerald dream was gonna look awesome. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5oHucJj90s
    -Another reply that reminded me: The very first legendary item that dropped was a necklace (http://www.wowwiki.com/Talisman_of_Binding_Shard) that dropped off Baron Geddon. It was removed from the loot table, but the guy who got it was allowed to keep it. Here is his armory http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...rock&cn=Savorx (you can't actually see it because it shows an error).
    -Hunters were the last class to be introduced in beta.
    -Paladin Judgement had a cast time.
    -Shaman enhancement tree had a couple of tanking talents/spells, although they were never really able to tank anything other than occasional trash.
    -Warlocks were able to summon people off cliffs, and mages/some other classes were able to cc people underwater and make them drown.
    -Warrior Recklessness used to reduce targets armor to 0.
    -On release, there was no PvP content at all. It was added some months later(battlegrounds and honor system).
    -Flight masters didn't summon mobs to help so they were sometimes camped constantly.
    -Many people don't know this, but there is a "click to move" option in WoW. You can click on the spot on the ground, and your character will move to that spot, like in RPG games.
    -Paladins had about a dozen seals removed, namely Seal of Fury, Seal of the Crusader, Seal of Sacrifice, Seal of Wrath and others. They also had Crusader Strike and Holy Strike in beta.
    -I'm not 100% sure on this, but when you died you lost a small amount of XP.
    -Warlock Felsteed mount was called "Nightmare".
    -Kick and other interrupts had a 75% chance to hit.
    -Mages had to spend 5 talent points in arcane tree to make Arcane Explosion instant. Evocation was a talent also.
    -Shamans had Magma Blast and Lightning Shock spells.
    -Since the vanilla definition of "Hybrid Class" really meant "Hybrid Class", the itemization was quite strange. Paladins/druids/shamans had all stats on their gear, and for some reason rogues, warriors and some other classes had spirit or some useless stat for them on their gear.
    -Though most people know this, Windfury weapon procs could proc off eachother. So theoretically shamans could one shot a raid boss if stars aligned.
    -Paladin reckoning talent could be stacked to infinite stacks. It was used to one shot Lord Kazzak, and it was hotfixed within 24 hours of that event. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMGTL6BC_cg
    -Mages and priests had a "Sleep" spell.
    -Eviscerate had a base damage that didn't scale, so a naked rogue would hit the same as a full T3 rogue.
    -The best lvl 60 warrior dps item was a level 44 mail gloves(Edgemaster's Gauntlets), because they had weapon skill bonuses.
    -Rogue and warrior mace specialization used to randomly stun people. They were changed to ARP bonuses in WotLK.
    -Mortal strike hit for 200% weapon damage, making 50% healing debuff almost useless because you would 1-2 shot cloth.
    -You weren't able to see buffs on enemy players, but mages had "Detect Magic" spell.
    -Deathwish and Enrage could stack for some scary DPS increase.(enrage was 40%)
    -There was a way to gain reputation with Wildhammer clan and Revantusk trolls, but they had no reward at all and they just removed it later.
    -Bosses had only 8 debuff slots, so warriors were sometimes kicked for speccing into deep wounds.
    -Hunter and warlock pets didn't scale with any stat at all.
    -Many players think that worst quest in vanilla was "Deep ocean,Vast sea...", because the breath timer was only 60 seconds and murlocs could move through walls. Ouch.
    -There was no arcane resistance, but there was holy resistance. Today it's vice-versa.
    -Hunter arcane shot scaled from spellpower, which is why hunter T2.5 sets have SP on them.
    -This was recent but, healing and spell damage were two separate stats. So leveling as a holy priest/paladin would be a suicide.
    -Mage arcane tree and priest discipline tree had talents that improved wand damage. This was removed in 3.0
    -Wound poison would stack to 5 for 10/20/30/40/50% healing debuff.
    -Dispelling poisons was actually a good tactic because it's application chance was much lower.
    -Although never confirmed, there is a rumor that Ironforge Airstation was supposed to be a gnome starting area.
    -Priests had racial spells, but some of them were turned into baseline priest spells and some other removed. (human-desperate prayer/troll-hex of weakness/undead-devouring plague)
    -There was a period in TBC when orcs had bugged shoulder size(2x smaller), and worst of all, it took Blizzard 2-3 months to fix it.
    -Undead had slightly bigger shoulder size than today.
    -Recently, in the Ulduar patch, a Gm accidentally mailed a player with Martin Fury. That is an artifact level shirt that has a "on use" effect that one shots everything. He used it to one shot Malygos, and couple of bosses in Ulduar. People noticed on his statistics tab that he had an abysmally high "Highest hit ever" number, and he got a permanent ban shortly after.
    -Female Tauren had a lot of doors/obstacles that they couldn't fit through. They still do, but much less.
    -Tauren not being able to fit through the MC entrance window(next to the high elf quest giver)
    -And the best one! instance servers being full, and 40 people jumping through the window of MC to zone in, inevitably falling into the lava, getting "Instance servers are full, try again later" message
    -Trolls used to have a joke ( /silly emote) that said this "I kill two dwarves in da morning,I kill two dwarves at night,I kill two dwarves in the afternoon, and than I feel alrgiht.I kill two dwarves in time of peace and two in time of war,I kill two dwarves before I kill two dwarves, and then I kill two more." This was removed from the game, because it was a reference to smoking weed.
    -There is a very creepy crypt behind Karazhan which is currently inaccessible except for hunters/shamans chain farsighting/eagle eye. It is pretty well done, and was probably shaping to become something, but Blizzard abandoned it because the game is rated "12".
    -In alpha WoW, all instance portals used a "Dark Portal" model as a placeholder. There was one dark portal in underwater Azshara, which would lead to assume that there was supposed to be an instance in Azshara underwater. Maybe they just threw it there randomly, who knows. Pic http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/8...r%20Portal.jpg
    -Meeting stones weren't used for summoning other people, they were used so you can look for other people who queued for that instance.
    -Retaliation had no animation, and you couldn't see the buffs of your enemies, so warriors could pop it against rogues who had very little chance to notice it.
    -After a patch in vanilla, something got bugged and warriors received one extra talent point, which allowed them to spec 31/21/0 and be very overpowered.
    -People used to pay a lot for people that had a key to Upper Blackrock Spire.
    -The Unstoppable Force(AV exalted weapon) used to knock back players instead of stunning them.
    -There was a hunter that stacked spellpower gear(for mend pet) and soloed Azuregos.
    -The term "Globaled" which people oftenly say today when they get killed very fast, doesn't actually exist today. In vanilla, mages could actually really "Global" you, using PoM/pyro macro and double spelldamage trinket in one button.
    -Warlocks could kill people in duels. (and I really mean "kill")
    -There is an achievement called "Old School Ride". You need to have a first epic mounts that blizzard added at release(the ones without armor). Since it costed 1000g(that was really a lot of money back than), and was removed pretty shortly after release, very few people got that achievement.
    -Warriors oftenly fell through the world when using charge/intercept, and charge could be used in combat.
    -Walljumping allowed you to carry the flag in WSG to an unreachable spot, making you invulnerable. If both flag carriers did that, the game could last until the players log out/dc(which could be days).
    -Intellect increases the speed you gain weapon skills.
    -Warlock succubus pets used to have less clothes, but they added more later.
    -Druids couldn't cast for a few seconds after leaving a form. There was a talent to allow that.
    -Shamans had a talent that allowed them to equip two handed axes and maces.
    -Since there was no casting bars, shamans and druids used hearthstone to lure interrupts so they can heal.(they have the same casting animation).
    -There is an NPC next to Haris Pilton in shattrath city, that is only viewable by priests who have level 60 trinket equipped. (forgot it's name)
    -You could communicate cross-faction by using lines to make words( /,|,_,\)
    -Gurubashi catacombs was an arena that was supposed to be the first arena in TBC, but got scrapped. You can see it on wowwiki.
    -After feign death timer ended, hunters would really die.
    -There is a cloth blue item set that drops in Scholomance. For some reason, it's set bonus increases defense.
    -Hippogryphs in Azshara used to drop more money than any other mob in the game, so it was usually farmed by bots 24/7.
    -Sap was breaking stealth, and there was a talent that gave 90% chance to the rogue to remain in stealth after using sap. Sucks if it didn't work and get killed immediately in instances.
    -In TBC beta, there was a quest reward dagger in Netherstorm that dealt arcane damage instead of physical. It scaled with spellpower, so mages would hit really hard with it in melee. There is a video on youtube.
    -Balance druids were utterly useless at vanilla release. Than they added Moonkin form halfway through vanilla, but they still sucked.
    -Deeprun Tram was supposed to connect Stormwind and Darnassus.(not 100% sure on that one)
    -Baron Rivendare's mount had about 0.02 chance to drop, so anyone that had it was considered a god(especially alliance). Today it's 1% chance.
    -Rogue detect traps ability had a "Swirly Ball" animation. All rogues loved it and spammed it all the time, and there was a huge outcry when Blizzard removed it.
    this is so nobody forgets how wow used to be, and stop bitchin' about other games, remember this things were FIXED along the game, it took months, even years for some of this treasures.
    Quote Originally Posted by Gaexion View Post
    The loss of the ability to pass on loot is the loss of the ability to choose. This is communism
    Quote Originally Posted by Torched View Post
    A year from now someone on these forums is gonna say that the (wod) launch went smoothly..... I am gonna remind that asshole of this launch, this shit is not going smoothly at all.

  20. #100
    I wouldn't call it "devaluing" so much as "critically evaluating the pros and cons." In fact, Dev's often value WoW too much (hence all the "WoW clones" that have popped up in the past 4+ years). If you think World of Warcraft's prime was anytime after Burning Crusade you are sadly mistaken and not looking at the big picture. I was never a supporter of the Arena system or a fan of the addition of Resilience. In fact, that is why I stopped PvPing for the majority of the Burning Crusade expansion (well, that and the god-awful class and team imbalances in Arena) despite grinding out Rank 12 under the original system Pre-2.0. Arena was the only way to get the best PvP gear; why should I be forced into Arena, where in some cases entire classes were barely viable in any sort of team composition, to get the gear I want when there were 4 Battlegrounds that still remained in the game. Furthermore, Resilience (Valor in Rift) ruined PvP by reducing it to a competition of "who can take the most time off of real life to get ahead of the curve, and then faceroll to victory because other players do a significantly less damage to me than I do to them."

    While I have always agreed that players who put in significantly more time than other players should see rewards at an appropriately quicker pace, letting those rewards severely affect game balancing at any level of play should have been completely unacceptable. I'm going to get so much flak for this next sentence but here it goes anyway. PvP at the end of Vanilla WoW was the most balanced it has ever and will ever be. Bomb = dropped. It is sad but true, because while it was very easy to kill someone in a matter of seconds, every class could do it equally well, and do it equally well in both the Rank 14 gear (best PvP gear) or in the Naxx 40 gear (best PvE gear). Hunters had Scatter/Trap --> Aimed Shot, Warriors had Mortal Strike + Sword Spec ---> Hamstring spam. Mages had POM Pyro, Warlocks had a seemingly unbreakable combination of Fear and Death Coil chains while DoTs and Shadowbolts dropped you dead. I could go on, but I think the point has been made.

    PvE gear granted you better stats (more hit and damage stats) but it lacked in granting you HP, which honestly made all the difference in most fights. As unbalanced as it seems, it was a flip of a coin as to who crit more abilities, and if those critical hits were on the right abilities. Using recent 40 man raid gear gave you the extra damage to overcome the disadvantage of you having comparably little health to someone in PvP gear. Using the Rank 14 gear granted you slightly more critical hit and a very sizable boost to your HP pool to overcome the disadvantage of doing less damage per attack/spell than those using the Naxx/AQ40 raid gear. So, it truly was a flip a coin, but last I checked a coin flip is still a 50/50 (even/fair) chance. I quit World of Warcraft completely after Wrath of the Lich King so my comments on Cataclysm are limited in PvP regards, but I remember seeing a thread that asked everyone's opinion on the top 5 or so overpowered abilities in Arena. Everybody's #1 was Smoke Bomb, and then the other 4 we primarily the same Rogue and Mage abilities if memory serves right. Giving so much powerful utility to so few classes is undeniably one of the most idiotic things that the game has ever done. When the outcome of an encounter is decided before the match has even begun, be it gear or class, it fails to maintain any "pros" and as such should be devalued or at minimum listed as a "con".

    Furthermore, the quality of content has been unstable at best, there were 3 fights in all of Wrath of the Lich King that in my opinion were even remotely near the level of half the bosses in Naxx 40 and Sunwell Plateau. Yogg-Saron 0 Light, Trial of the Grand Crusader Anub'Arak, and Heroic Lich King. Sure, other bosses were interesting and had some redeeming qualities, but these were the only ones that seemed to retain the quality of the earlier raids. When the player interaction in an MMO has been degraded to a point where you hit a button and get automatically put into a severely toned down and nerfed raid encounter that is 100% doable by pounding your head on the keyboard, what is the purpose of it remaining an MMO? There is none, not when everyone has the mentality of "Hey I pay for and log on the game, where's my reward?" So this too, is a one of those "cons" and general devalued which a new developer would not try to imitate. After all, why bother making an MMO if it's basically a glorified single player game; right, because you could not get away with charging $15 a month for a single player game, and since it is 100% about turning profits now, why bother keeping quality of content and frequency of player-player interaction anything above the bare minimum of general acceptability. And I do say general acceptability because it is not acceptable by anyone that is sensible and looking in from the outside.


    So, what were the main points a reader should have gotten out of this essay? Lets summarize:
    • it is not so much devaluing WoW as it is critically thinking and evaluating the pros and cons on the larger scope of things
    • gamers love the "eSport", but when the eSport is turned into a gear grind and comp/counter-comp, where having X amount of gear allows even mediocre players with Y team composition to ride those 2 factors to victory lane, it is not competitive; at least not as a "sport" is typically defined
    • when the mentality and difficulty of the game shifts from that of needing community and player interaction to be successful, to being about oneself and doing activities in the game with minimal social interaction while still being able to remain successful in said game, it is no longer an MMO, but a glorified single player game
    • when the game is governed solely by the question "How much money can I make/sucker people into paying off this idea," its way of doing things no longer has merit; that is not to say some things are not good or even great ideas, but it should first and foremost be about delivering the best experience possible


    So what did the Guild Wars 2 devs do when they were critically evaluating other MMOs pros and cons?

    They said, "Well, eSport gaming seems to be popular, so lets give them 5v5 objective based PvP; but, we don't believe gear should matter because it is no longer a battle of strategy and skill, but a battle of who nerds out in their mother's basement longer"

    They said, "Leveling the most hated process in MMOs, because it is immensely stagnant, uninteresting, and involves doing the same archetype of quests, and it is required to reach max level before end-game can start. Lets take out the quest hubs, add NPCs that actively try to take over outposts or camps and make local dynamic events out of them, and let exploration of the world around you be as beneficial and rewarding as grinding NPC kills.

    They said, "A lot of games have bland, non-intuitive UIs and and give players a lot of skills early on and that hurts the ease of access for new gamers to the genre. Lets allow a little customization, but lets make it so intuitive, simple to understand, and intelligently designed that you won't want to change a lot, if anything. Furthermore, lets not make the game about quantity of the skills, but the quality of the skill based on the situation; by gradually introducing new skills, weapons swapping, and utility/elite skills, it should ease the pain of trying to grasp everything at once right off the bat."

    They said, "A lot of old-school gamers seemed to like world PvP, but most games fail to implement it well, if at all. It turns into either a gank fest during questing, or kill trading to complete dailies in the dedicated zones. Lets dedicated large worlds to solely this purpose, but make it resemble an ever changing war scenario. Supply lines that allow for fortress and tower upgrades, siege equipment for strategic anti-army, and siege attacks on fortified positions, and that add a different dynamic promoting both small and large group PvP, with the possibility of some epic sized faction battles that constantly vie for control of a neutral world.


    They took a lot of the things that themselves and other people liked about a lot of different MMOs and said, "Lets take these pros, and make them 'pro-er'" The stuff that people didn't like, or they themselves thought were unacceptable, they either changed them to model their views, or left them out entirely during design. So no, I don't think Devs "devalue" WoW at all, in fact most idolize it and over-value it and see a WoW clone as the only way to make a successful (successful meaning raking in piles upon piles of money) is to give the people what they already know and (somehow) still love, more WoW. When in truth, if you make a badass game to begin with, it doesn't matter what game(s) it does or doesn't copy, word will spread and people will try it, and that's all you can do with an up-and-coming MMO, is draw people to it, and make sure the stuff that is there makes them stay.

    Innovation will be what forces companies to stop developing and releasing the same old pile of shit with a new cover to disguise it. And it is the only way the genre will move forward as a whole. I'm just glad a company finally had the balls to go do it, and it looks like it will pay off greatly. Good show ArenaNet, good show.

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