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  1. #321
    I love when casuals say this game is "easy"
    Sorry, where are you in terms of Heroic progression and racing for world firsts?
    Oh nowhere.
    People who claim it's easy take months to get anywhere in progress and stick with LFR/Now flex.
    Of course it's "easy" that's what those are there for. For casuals.
    Prot Warrior 2004-2008. Hunter 2008-2018.
    Retired boomer.

  2. #322
    Quote Originally Posted by newlineGet View Post
    Funny how you said if it isin't broken don't fix it. The way everything worked in vanilla, tbc, wrath was fine and the game was growing. Didn't seem like it needed fixing.
    You're kidding yourself if you think everything was fine in vanilla and tbc. Wrath was when Blizzard started to make the game easier for "casual" players and it was the peak of subscriptions by making raids more easily accessible, making leveling a breeze etc.

  3. #323
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Orcindauh View Post
    You're kidding yourself if you think everything was fine in vanilla and tbc. Wrath was when Blizzard started to make the game easier for "casual" players and it was the peak of subscriptions by making raids more easily accessible, making leveling a breeze etc.
    Not saying EVERYTHING was fine, just a lot.
    About the growing part. It was already growing all the way up to wrath. Uncoincidentaly, end of wrath -> cata was when it started dropping aswell.

  4. #324
    Deleted
    I agree on most points. There have been a lot of very good new features in the game in the past few years, but the difficulty drop (outside raiding/Challenge modes) and linearity killed it for me. I think the worst part is that there is literally nothing even remotely challenging until you hit lvl90.

  5. #325
    Please close this retarded thread, for fuck sake.

    Infracted.
    Last edited by Lochton; 2013-11-04 at 09:18 PM.

  6. #326
    Quote Originally Posted by newlineGet View Post
    pretty horrible. Now I know that I'm just beating a dead horse here, and that this has been discussed a million of times, but what the hell, seems to be the go to topic nowadays, so I guess I'll drop my views on the problem and possible fixes to them.

    Inb4 "Not this shit again", "oh, what an exciting thread", "troll", "take off your nostalgia glasses".

    Now that we got that out of the way we can discuss the main two problems of todays WoW: Progression and difficulty.

    Let's start of with the difficulty part, because it will eventually lead up to the problem with todays progression. Now I know a lot of you will think I'm going to rant about how easy raiding is now a days, but the difficulty that I am referring to isin't related to raiding at all. It's rather related to the overall experience of the game. Leveling, grouping and ESPECIALLY the dungeon difficulty.
    I'm going to refer to the following thread : eu.battle.n.et/wow/en/forum/topic/8427632869. It explains everything pretty well, but let's touch on what I think really makes the game mind numbing and unbearable.

    First off the leveling.. what a load of bull. About 2 months ago I tried to relevel a couple characters to expand my class pool and to also try out monk. Trust me, I have never, never, felt so mind numbed before. Mind you I leveled one character with BoA gear and the other without, and it doesn't make too much of a difference, except that in one scenario you kill your brain cells for longer, and in the other, a bit less. The problem is, that everything is literally spoon fed. And I mean it. Quests? Boring as fuck. Everything is shown and extremely linear. I honestly, don't understand why people enjoy the new "flow" of quests. In pandaria, you just follow a set path or chains that just lead you from one place to another. I hate that they have done this to vanilla content as well, because honestly, I found wayyyy more enjoyable to sidetrack, search for different quest hubs, new places. Add up the fact that you now get abilities automatically when you level, and you have yourself with a brain mush deluxe - just run from one place to the other aka follow this linear path until you're 90. Group quests? Why the hell were they removed? It was always fun and exciting to see that quest that would give you blue gear, more gold, and more experience in exchange for a bit of effort. You could say that it broke the numbness of linearity and let you try something else - try to take on the challenge and solo 5 man quest alone(which I loved) or take a break and find some people to take on the quest. Either way it spiced things up a lot. The difficulty? Don't even want to comment that. It's just a mass pull fest with overdumbed mechanics now. Want to guess how many times I life tapped or stopped to drink on my warlock from 1-90? Yea that's right, zero(actually, I didn't have life tap on my bars).

    Dungeons(I felt like this needed it's own space)? Oh my fucking god, what have they done? Dungeons used to be meaningful , fun, challenging and a key into the actual endgame. What are they now? Useless and boring. They are now just mass aoe fest, with a straight patern, easy bosses and overall useless(not only the normals, but also heroics). Nowadays, you can realistically, after you hit max level just go to the AH, buy a couple of pieces to raise your iLvl , go do LFR and you're set. Damn.

    Now that we got most of those points out of the way we can move to the biggest problem: progression. Now this is a big one and honestly the one that has killed WoW for me the past 2 expansions, it's the progression or lack of it.

    I know how much people hate when other put on the "nostalgia glasses", but let me try to give prime examples here for a second.

    Vanilla - TBC - Wrath(possibly) : Okay, so at least for me, these were the expansions that I found myself logging on every day for the longest hours until the end of the expansion. Why you might ask? Because I felt an actual sense of progression, difficulty, fun and rewards. Back in TBC, after I hit level 70 on new alts I felt like I had a clear path - to get into Black temple/Sunwell/Kara(you name it). How did I achieve it? By baby steps. Hit 70 -> get all the possible best quest/rep gear(possibly buy something from AH) -> run normals until properly geared - > onto heroics -> get attuned -> run previous raids to get the latest possible gear before I stepped into the current tier. And all this while keeping me entertained also helped me find new people(no dungeon finder), and finally after so much effort help me reach the goal : to see the current tier, it's bosses, mechanics.

    Cataclysm - Pandaria(mainly pandaria): The game in it's current state doesn't have me coming back for more than a couple of months maximum. Why? I'ts cause I can't find anything to fill my time in terms of meaningful progression. This is what is done on new alts today: Hit 90 - > get a couple of pieces for iLvl requirement - > LFR - > Loot shower - > eventually make way into heroics. Yes, it's that sad. With this type of gameplay I can't imagine myself spending more than 2-3 hours actually doing something meaningful in the game. All of this is done in an automized sense(LFR, dungeon finder, etc.) which makes the process even quicker thus making the game less of a time sink.

    This sort of progression also makes the game EXTREMELY bland. You doing LFR means, that you already fought the bosses, saw their mechanics, dialogues, lore in the LFR. Do you really enjoy repeating it in normal/heroic just for those +10-20 iLvl's? I know that me, personally, would much prefer to have a carrot on a stick thrown at me, so I progress in a way that makes me reach my final goal in a climax. Reaching the final tier is the climax of doing dungeons/attunements/previous tiers, and is honestly always been the best reward.

    Think about it for a second. What do you prefer? Hitting 90 and heading straight into LFR, getting the gear and possibly continuing into normals/heroics? Or would you rather break down your game into chunks that kept you occupied for a longer period of time, thus removing the "I'll resubscribe when new patch comes out" scenario, because you'll actually have something to do until the new patch hits. I find it funny that people blame Blizzard for not producing content fast enough, when in reality, there's more content than ever, just that half of it is useless or just done too quickly.

    The game isin't dying because it's too hard/easy/aged. It's dying because of what it has become. A quick express that takes you no longer than a couple of days.

    How do we fix this? Honestly at this point, it's hard to say if we can fix this. Look at Cata's heroics for instance. They were probably the closest you can get to vanilla/tbc dungeons, and what happened? QQ shitstorm everywhere. The game has has just changed too much to back to where we started. So the only thing I deem possible - a vanilla server. Look at it as more of a test, to see which way the game is actually better off and what do people enjoy more.

    There are also other problems like class homogenization, reducing social interaction and others that I could touch upon, but the post is already too long, and probably half the people won't bother reading it anyway.

    TL;DR: Games too quick,bland, easy thus leaving people with nothing to do, but to unsubscribe and wait for next patch, cause they are already done with the previous one in a week.

    Thanks for your time and welcome to thread 9798789 discussing this topic.
    MMOS in comparison are shit, especially all the F2P ones, I tried like 90% of the F2P ones and they suck dicks, I will agree if you played WoW for more than 5 years, or like me have more than 365 days played across all my characters over a span of almost 10 years it can get boring. Just don't play it, you want WoW to be something it can't and will never be because you love the feel of it. Just take the fond memories you have for it and be done.
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  7. #327
    Quote Originally Posted by Mionelol View Post
    I feel absolutely nothing when killing bosses now. Comparatively, of course. I just check if they dropped good loot and enjoy the good time with guildies, but no emotions at all about beating the game itself.
    Something like that should be expected by anybody who's been playing the game for a few years though. Let's all face it. Those of us who've played for a long time have killed countless bosses and we're pretty much over it.

  8. #328
    I agree 100% with everything the OP said and I don't know how Blizzard can fix this now. Even stuff like Transmog and Flying Mounts I feel dampened the experience for me.

    Everything is easy, everything is picked for you, and everything is broken.

    problem is if Blizzard backtracks and tries to make the experience like WotLK and before, people will QQ like no other and whine about it. Who plays a game that doesn't feel rewarding in any way and when blizzard tries to challenge you whines that they would rather get everything for free?

    If Blizzard backtracks, it will cleanse the game of the stupidity and whiny brats and bring back all the true hardcore WoW fans that loved this game before Cata. Which I think would make the game healthier overall. sure, maybe less subs, but at least its healthy... If blizzard keeps following this path WoW will eventually just become a empty husk instead of dropping subs in a healthy way all the people who loved wow will stick with it until the end if Blizzard returns to their ways.

    Just my two cents.

  9. #329
    Quote Originally Posted by StrayFox View Post
    I agree 100% with everything the OP said and I don't know how Blizzard can fix this now. Even stuff like Transmog and Flying Mounts I feel dampened the experience for me.

    Everything is easy, everything is picked for you, and everything is broken.

    problem is if Blizzard backtracks and tries to make the experience like WotLK and before, people will QQ like no other and whine about it. Who plays a game that doesn't feel rewarding in any way and when blizzard tries to challenge you whines that they would rather get everything for free?

    If Blizzard backtracks, it will cleanse the game of the stupidity and whiny brats and bring back all the true hardcore WoW fans that loved this game before Cata. Which I think would make the game healthier overall. sure, maybe less subs, but at least its healthy... If blizzard keeps following this path WoW will eventually just become a empty husk instead of dropping subs in a healthy way all the people who loved wow will stick with it until the end if Blizzard returns to their ways.

    Just my two cents.
    Sounds like the only whiny brats are the ones who think this way. Love the statement about making the experience like WotLK. You do realize that WotLK was probably the easiest expansion ever right? Talk about getting everything for free, WotLK was that expansion!

    Keep the two cents and use it to buy a clue.

  10. #330
    I agree with the OP, but things like other magic-focused fantasy MMOs are non-existent. All of them are bad WoW clones or really bad by itself.

  11. #331
    Sounds like WoW just isn't for you.

  12. #332
    The Insane Underverse's Avatar
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    I started playing again a few nights ago (10 day trial) and I'm pretty disappointed. Pandaria is beautiful (including the dungeons, which are aesthetically great). The leveling is ok. Random stuff in the world to find is fun. Being forced to use ground mounts until 90 was an excellent decision. But that's where my list of good things ends.


    1. The Social Experience is (almost) Gone

    Not once during this process did I have to be social. I queued, said nothing, did the dungeon, and left. 'But that was your choice', you might say. Well, yes, it was. And I made that choice because the majority of social investments made in this game are nullified by menu options and cross-realm mechanics. I'm not going to invest in building a social relationship if I know I'm probably never going to see that person again.

    This is compounded by the lack of reliance on other people. Warlocks brought summons, mages brought food, some people had enchanting (and you had to get enchants in person) etc etc. We've moved into a state of almost complete non-reliance on other people. This is a bad thing. One of the main reasons we are social creatures is because we need other people in order to accomplish tasks, not only for defeating enemies but also to improve oneself. This, combined with the lack of social investment mentioned above, make it pointless, even stupid at times, to be social in this game.

    I think it's useful to here mention the adage 'bring the player, not the class'. I don't think this is true. The class brings flavor, and creates reliance, and creates a demand for people's unique skills and thus for social activity. Classes are highly homogenous now in what they can accomplish. It's important for each class to have well-defined strengths that the player can attempt to exploit and well-defined weaknesses that they can try to minimize. These well-defined characteristics are mostly gone, because every class can do a little bit of everything.


    2. Content Overwhelming

    There's a lot of content in Mists, and there's a problem with it. The problem might not be the quantity, but rather its presentation.

    Questing has evolved drastically. Now, we have a hub of quests designated to a specific part of a zone with the zone divided entirely into little parts. It's not the worst system. But it's pretty close. Questing is the single player experience. It should be as epic as multiplayer content, but right now it's just a mandatory prerequisite that few people enjoy (I do enjoy it though). A better design would be to reduce the number of quests, but make each more meaningful. Again, if we aren't investing anything in the questing process (emotionally or otherwise), we won't enjoy it nearly as much. Don't make me go to the bottom of a lake to collect 10 pieces of amber AND THEN give me increased swim speed and underwater breathing. Why would you do that? You just seriously devalued this quest. Make me work harder to collect 2 pieces of amber. Make me have to come up for air. The time it takes might even be the same. But now I feel like I'm doing something.

    Dungeons suffer from a similar problem. They're too short. They don't have complex pathways (actually incredibly linear...). Getting lost in dungeons forces us to reach out to other people for help. Not knowing the way, not knowing mechanics forces us to ask. Reliance, again, is crucial. And again, if you place higher value on the content, we as players won't feel the need to rush through it, ignoring all of the aspects of the game that make it an otherworldly experience.

    Raids. Raids are okay with one major exception - Raid Finder. It has to go. Not having access to content drives people to gain access to it. If you walk by that instance portal every day and think of what you don't have, attaining it will be incredibly rewarding (and force you to socialize - the reliance on guild members is the last real form of reliance in the game, and even it is being eroded). If it's just a menu option, you don't think twice. And then when you get inside the raid, you don't talk to anyone. You just do your rotation and then leave.

    There are also too many difficulty levels in raids. I hit 95 and was overwhelmed by the options - and I didn't know which one was the 'right' one for me.

    (Scenarios)
    Dungeons
    Heroic Dungeons
    Timeless Isle
    Raid Finder
    Flex Raid
    Normal Raid
    Heroic Raid

    Do we really need seven tiers at any one time? No. But the problem here runs deeper. By having so many tiers of gear, we as players are forced to focus on that which is only the highest attainable ilvl for us and ignore the rest of the content. What's the point of all that content if so few people see it, and more importantly, understand it?


    3. Challenge Level - Unmotivated

    Items are too easy to get. If they're easy to get, their value goes down. Simple economics. Make them harder to get, and we might actually bother to read the item's name. I'm mostly looking at timeless isle here. I don't have a solution; but I know that 2 hours and 15 epics is not a valid equation for the success of a game.

    Providing both challenging and unchallenging modes of content will result in a watering-down of the content's value. There is no thrill to raid finder. And because everyone can see the content, the exclusivity is diminished and thus the accomplishments feel diminished.

    Questing is not epic. It's 'do these chores, don't worry, they're slightly different from the 300 others you just finished'. Quality and immersion should be key here, not quantity.


    4. Exploration

    I'll be brief here: exploration is in serious trouble. A lot of this is because zones are saturated with quest material. Anywhere you go, the mobs there are probably for a quest. This immediately signals to us that it is not novel information, and exploration is not involved (BECAUSE questing is so linear). Having non-linear hubs is damage control, and it's poor damage control because the exclamation marks are on the map (...).

    Exploration means going out into the wilderness, where there is nothing, or something. You don't know. What you do know is that you're doing it to escape the guiding hand that pushes you along the quest line. If you're guided to a spot (especially by economic coercion, which in this case is xp and money), it's no longer exploration.

    -------------------------

    I see what's happened to this game as a form of capitalism. The emotional aspects of it have been drawn out and away either through removing benefits or providing incentives that lead to antisocial behavior. Gear maximization is the only goal, not character building. This is not a single player game. You can't remove its emotional and social aspects, and expect to succeed in the long run.

  13. #333
    Quote Originally Posted by Monteverdi View Post
    Sounds like WoW just isn't for you.
    Wow was for him and many other people, Challenge for reward is how MOST GAMES DO IT. The fact is, WoW is just reward now. It is in our nature to appreciate things more if we worked hard for them. If we were handed out things for free we wouldn't appreciate what we have more and the story of why its there.

  14. #334
    Quote Originally Posted by StrayFox View Post
    I agree 100% with everything the OP said and I don't know how Blizzard can fix this now. Even stuff like Transmog and Flying Mounts I feel dampened the experience for me.

    Everything is easy, everything is picked for you, and everything is broken.

    problem is if Blizzard backtracks and tries to make the experience like WotLK and before, people will QQ like no other and whine about it. Who plays a game that doesn't feel rewarding in any way and when blizzard tries to challenge you whines that they would rather get everything for free?

    If Blizzard backtracks, it will cleanse the game of the stupidity and whiny brats and bring back all the true hardcore WoW fans that loved this game before Cata. Which I think would make the game healthier overall. sure, maybe less subs, but at least its healthy... If blizzard keeps following this path WoW will eventually just become a empty husk instead of dropping subs in a healthy way all the people who loved wow will stick with it until the end if Blizzard returns to their ways.

    Just my two cents.
    Hey idiot, post your Armory, boss kills. Show us how easy it is for you.

  15. #335
    I completely agree OP. The game does not feel challenging except heroic raiding and if you have a low ilvl for normals near the end of completing the raid.

    Cata heroics where a nice step in the right direction but the amount of people not liking a challenge ruined it.

    There's a reason the game is bleeding subs. You make the game easy which allows you to get everything you want/need without as much effort as you use to need to acquire items, you get bored and this move to other games.

    Maybe blizzard will figure it out before they reach 2 million subs

  16. #336
    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Nye the Guy View Post
    I completely agree OP. The game does not feel challenging except heroic raiding and if you have a low ilvl for normals near the end of completing the raid.

    Cata heroics where a nice step in the right direction but the amount of people not liking a challenge ruined it.

    There's a reason the game is bleeding subs. You make the game easy which allows you to get everything you want/need without as much effort as you use to need to acquire items, you get bored and this move to other games.

    Maybe blizzard will figure it out before they reach 2 million subs
    I agree 100%, I doubt blizzard will care, once the game drops to near zero subs they will just discontinue it.

  17. #337
    Quote Originally Posted by newlineGet View Post
    Dungeons(I felt like this needed it's own space)? Oh my fucking god, what have they done? Dungeons used to be meaningful , fun, challenging and a key into the actual endgame. What are they now? Useless and boring. They are now just mass aoe fest, with a straight patern, easy bosses and overall useless(not only the normals, but also heroics). Nowadays, you can realistically, after you hit max level just go to the AH, buy a couple of pieces to raise your iLvl , go do LFR and you're set. Damn.

    Now that we got most of those points out of the way we can move to the biggest problem: progression. Now this is a big one and honestly the one that has killed WoW for me the past 2 expansions, it's the progression or lack of it.
    Levelling is quick because people wanted it that. If it was more difficult and more of a grind, other people will complain. Look at the reputation before the changes, it was a long grind. Many people I knew only had one char with the rep because they could not stand long grind. If it was difficult, then it would be even more tedious.

    Dungeons is just now just a quick gearing. Making it hard or difficult will just make people complain. I recall people were moaning about WoTLK dungeons. Then came HoR-H. Remember that one? Tanks and healers would normally just drop once they see it because it was such a pain to do with PUGs. You want dungeons where tanks and healers would automatically drop queue? Bring back organize groups for dungeons? Make it harder and longer to gear up alts?

    Many things sounds better on paper. They may even be fun for a short while but after 2nd or 3rd time, people just want it done as quickly as possible.

  18. #338
    Is it just me or does everyone feel like they have some valuable insight that only they can see?

  19. #339
    Your point #1 nicely captures my feelings - I don't mind the change in mechanics, but Bizzard's seeming loss of focus on what made the game social is what is most apparent to me. Not sure it's something that can be reversed, but I do miss it.

  20. #340
    The Lightbringer fengosa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Quetzl View Post
    I started playing again a few nights ago (10 day trial) and I'm pretty disappointed. Pandaria is beautiful (including the dungeons, which are aesthetically great). The leveling is ok. Random stuff in the world to find is fun. Being forced to use ground mounts until 90 was an excellent decision. But that's where my list of good things ends.


    1. The Social Experience is (almost) Gone

    Not once during this process did I have to be social. I queued, said nothing, did the dungeon, and left. 'But that was your choice', you might say. Well, yes, it was. And I made that choice because the majority of social investments made in this game are nullified by menu options and cross-realm mechanics. I'm not going to invest in building a social relationship if I know I'm probably never going to see that person again.

    This is compounded by the lack of reliance on other people. Warlocks brought summons, mages brought food, some people had enchanting (and you had to get enchants in person) etc etc. We've moved into a state of almost complete non-reliance on other people. This is a bad thing. One of the main reasons we are social creatures is because we need other people in order to accomplish tasks, not only for defeating enemies but also to improve oneself. This, combined with the lack of social investment mentioned above, make it pointless, even stupid at times, to be social in this game.

    I think it's useful to here mention the adage 'bring the player, not the class'. I don't think this is true. The class brings flavor, and creates reliance, and creates a demand for people's unique skills and thus for social activity. Classes are highly homogenous now in what they can accomplish. It's important for each class to have well-defined strengths that the player can attempt to exploit and well-defined weaknesses that they can try to minimize. These well-defined characteristics are mostly gone, because every class can do a little bit of everything.


    2. Content Overwhelming

    There's a lot of content in Mists, and there's a problem with it. The problem might not be the quantity, but rather its presentation.

    Questing has evolved drastically. Now, we have a hub of quests designated to a specific part of a zone with the zone divided entirely into little parts. It's not the worst system. But it's pretty close. Questing is the single player experience. It should be as epic as multiplayer content, but right now it's just a mandatory prerequisite that few people enjoy (I do enjoy it though). A better design would be to reduce the number of quests, but make each more meaningful. Again, if we aren't investing anything in the questing process (emotionally or otherwise), we won't enjoy it nearly as much. Don't make me go to the bottom of a lake to collect 10 pieces of amber AND THEN give me increased swim speed and underwater breathing. Why would you do that? You just seriously devalued this quest. Make me work harder to collect 2 pieces of amber. Make me have to come up for air. The time it takes might even be the same. But now I feel like I'm doing something.

    Dungeons suffer from a similar problem. They're too short. They don't have complex pathways (actually incredibly linear...). Getting lost in dungeons forces us to reach out to other people for help. Not knowing the way, not knowing mechanics forces us to ask. Reliance, again, is crucial. And again, if you place higher value on the content, we as players won't feel the need to rush through it, ignoring all of the aspects of the game that make it an otherworldly experience.

    Raids. Raids are okay with one major exception - Raid Finder. It has to go. Not having access to content drives people to gain access to it. If you walk by that instance portal every day and think of what you don't have, attaining it will be incredibly rewarding (and force you to socialize - the reliance on guild members is the last real form of reliance in the game, and even it is being eroded). If it's just a menu option, you don't think twice. And then when you get inside the raid, you don't talk to anyone. You just do your rotation and then leave.

    There are also too many difficulty levels in raids. I hit 95 and was overwhelmed by the options - and I didn't know which one was the 'right' one for me.

    (Scenarios)
    Dungeons
    Heroic Dungeons
    Timeless Isle
    Raid Finder
    Flex Raid
    Normal Raid
    Heroic Raid

    Do we really need seven tiers at any one time? No. But the problem here runs deeper. By having so many tiers of gear, we as players are forced to focus on that which is only the highest attainable ilvl for us and ignore the rest of the content. What's the point of all that content if so few people see it, and more importantly, understand it?


    3. Challenge Level - Unmotivated

    Items are too easy to get. If they're easy to get, their value goes down. Simple economics. Make them harder to get, and we might actually bother to read the item's name. I'm mostly looking at timeless isle here. I don't have a solution; but I know that 2 hours and 15 epics is not a valid equation for the success of a game.

    Providing both challenging and unchallenging modes of content will result in a watering-down of the content's value. There is no thrill to raid finder. And because everyone can see the content, the exclusivity is diminished and thus the accomplishments feel diminished.

    Questing is not epic. It's 'do these chores, don't worry, they're slightly different from the 300 others you just finished'. Quality and immersion should be key here, not quantity.


    4. Exploration

    I'll be brief here: exploration is in serious trouble. A lot of this is because zones are saturated with quest material. Anywhere you go, the mobs there are probably for a quest. This immediately signals to us that it is not novel information, and exploration is not involved (BECAUSE questing is so linear). Having non-linear hubs is damage control, and it's poor damage control because the exclamation marks are on the map (...).

    Exploration means going out into the wilderness, where there is nothing, or something. You don't know. What you do know is that you're doing it to escape the guiding hand that pushes you along the quest line. If you're guided to a spot (especially by economic coercion, which in this case is xp and money), it's no longer exploration.

    -------------------------

    I see what's happened to this game as a form of capitalism. The emotional aspects of it have been drawn out and away either through removing benefits or providing incentives that lead to antisocial behavior. Gear maximization is the only goal, not character building. This is not a single player game. You can't remove its emotional and social aspects, and expect to succeed in the long run.
    So quests are too linear but multiple gearing paths are also bad? This is nothing but a boring self absorbed rant.

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