Suppa7 wrote on Nov 7, 2013, 23:55:
In an MMO RPG like wow your skills rarely matter because it's based on level/equipment/stats/skilltree and how much time you invest. Everything is passively determined all you have to do is get the right gear/skills/stat points then everything lines up.

You are absolutely clueless. There is no denying that the story questing process is designed for casual players and nothing wrong with that. Gear at this point is not a factor. The gear you get from quests will allow you to finish this content easily, regardless of skill.

But once you reach max level, gear does become a factor but only to be able to participate in raids. No doubt about it. But to suggest that is all that matters...just makes you sound like a moron that has no clue what they are talking about. There is a a large variety of skill amongst WoW players and I'll take a better skilled player over a better geared player every time when it comes to a WoW raid. You don't just push a few buttons and win because you have the gear that allows you to participate in the content. Anyone that has done "hardcore" raiding in WoW knows this.

Crawl back into the hole you came from, troll.

Suppa7 wrote on Nov 7, 2013, 23:55:
I'm sorry but snarking at me is proof you guys are don't even get what I said. In an MMO RPG like wow your skills rarely matter because it's based on level/equipment/stats/skilltree and how much time you invest. Everything is passively determined all you have to do is get the right gear/skills/stat points then everything lines up.

World of warcraft is a casual game. You can deny it all you want to but MMO's have always been for the lowest common denominator. WoW is the Bejeweled of the videogameworld.

This isn't true though, you are ignoring evidence that people have mentioned already. You have to use your skills appropriately, adjust tactics as situations change, dodge projectiles, have precise timing, co-ordinate with many other people simultaneously and much more. You do not just get a bunch of passives allocated properly and then win the game, it is significantly challenging.

There is no seeing your side of this, you're simply wrong. It's one thing to say WoW is an approachable game for many different kinds of players but to say that it doesn't have difficulty or that its raiding is easy is wrong. You can do easy raids in WoW and you can do incredibly hard ones. Much like games with difficulty settings there is no one size fits all in WoW, that's what makes it so popular, it appeals to many different kinds of player at once.

nin wrote on Nov 7, 2013, 08:44:

Wetworks wrote on Nov 7, 2013, 02:00:

Suppa7 wrote on Nov 7, 2013, 00:56:
World of warcraft is the game for non gamers, that's why it's so successful. It doesn't require any reflexes or make demands on the player like quake/doom/descent and I believe it was ultima underworld that had 3D first person combat (even though it is seriously old). I was disappointed that RPG's went super casual passive non participatory combat.

Try getting into a Top 10 Wow raiding guild and see what they say to your "skills". Wow is successful because it has lots of content for the casual player. It also has really hard content for hardcore raiders.

Wow, his comment is laughable. Someone never raided, or was quickly booted from the pug.

I'm sorry but snarking at me is proof you guys don't even get what I said. In an MMO RPG like wow your skills rarely matter because it's based on level/equipment/stats/skilltree and how much time you invest. Everything is passively determined all you have to do is get the right gear/skills/stat points then everything lines up.

World of warcraft is a casual game. You can deny it all you want to but MMO's have always been for the lowest common denominator. WoW is the Bejeweled of the videogameworld.

Hardcore casual game player:"I'm so hardcore at WoW (Bejeweled)"

Rest of hardcore gaming community: "That's nice kiddo!" (rolls eyes).

This comment was edited on Nov 8, 2013, 00:06.

The most challenging part of Everquest was staying awake in raids, this is sadly only a half joke too. We used to do trivia games on Roger Wilco to keep ourselves interested.

Primal, I think you are misunderstanding my meaning and the difference between challenge from good design and challenge due to poor design, bugs and bloated numbers.

I'll try and explain it another way...EQ's raids were challenging for all the wrong reasons. If you take away the buggy engine, and take away the bloated health of the bosses, the boss fights were an absolute joke. Almost every boss fight was the exact same. Tank gets the boss to face a corner, clerics chain heal rotation, everyone else hits the back of the boss. Rinse repeat. Once you could do that on one boss, you could beat 95% of the bosses in the game with little effort. They required player numbers, and time, not skill.

Most WoW boss fights require valid strategy to overcome the bosses abilities and fight mechanics in any given fight. Being able to defeat one boss, or even a dozens bosses, does not mean you can walk in and defeat every boss.

Krovven wrote on Nov 7, 2013, 12:35:
Primal, you are way overstating the difficulty of EQ. Breaking into Hate or even Fear was only difficult because it was so fucking buggy that it would chain aggro half the zone if someone stepped the wrong way.

Once they fixed (mostly) those problems it was no longer an issue to the extent it was before.

Most of the raids were also only difficult because of the bloated health on the bosses requiring 60-100 people, and had nothing to do with boss fight design. Most boss fights came down to 1-3 tanks, 3-5 clerics on healing rotation on those tanks and everyone else at standing there dealing damage for 15-45minutes. Yawn.

I played EQ for 4+ years and have many fond memories. But I completed all of the raids from classic EQ up to and including most of Planes of Power and looking back, most of it was a massive waste of time. Spending hours doing raid to get 2-4 pieces of gear to distribute to 60-80 raiders...fucking stupid.

Chuckle...you do realize your post backs up everything I said, right? Risk/reward ratios...how tough it was...etc...? I've never seen a single WoW raid get wiped and result in 40 people being online for the next 4 hours trying to perform a corpse run in secondary (or tertiary) equipment.

As to it being a massive waste of time....meh...that kind of describes most of the games out there whether it be MMO or console FPS. It's a rare gem that is really as fun as the hype would have you believe.....and even those are a waste if you spend all your time grinding them instead of having the self control to have a life.

My memories of the people I played Everquest with were quite fond. My memories of Everquest itself are not fond, hours and hours of dumb camping and the shittiest reward to time ratio ever.

UO on the other hand was stupid but fun as hell, the PVP in that game was fantastic too.

I don't think I can go back to any MMO anymore though no matter who makes it, they just suck up too much time and there are way too many great games to play these days. Between work, daughter, GF, other games, etc there just isn't enough time in the day for an MMO. It was fun in university though.

Primal, you are way overstating the difficulty of EQ. Breaking into Hate or even Fear was only difficult because it was so fucking buggy that it would chain aggro half the zone if someone stepped the wrong way.

Once they fixed (mostly) those problems it was no longer an issue to the extent it was before.

Most of the raids were also only difficult because of the bloated health on the bosses requiring 60-100 people, and had nothing to do with boss fight design. Most boss fights came down to 1-3 tanks, 3-5 clerics on healing rotation on those tanks and everyone else at standing there dealing damage for 15-45minutes. Yawn.

I played EQ for 4+ years and have many fond memories. But I completed all of the raids from classic EQ up to and including most of Planes of Power and looking back, most of it was a massive waste of time. Spending hours doing raid to get 2-4 pieces of gear to distribute to 60-80 raiders...fucking stupid.

Lorcin, the change to the old zones in Cataclysm was a free update to all players. Get your facts straight before slinging shit.

Taskeen, you seem to be attributing EQ gameplay to WoW. If you just stood there watching your character swing his weapon during a dungeon or raid, you died and possibly even wiped everyone. A shitty player plays the way you describe, guess we know how you played.

Personally, I think the Everquest Next preview videos sent ActiBlizz back to the drawing board.

Mr. Tact wrote on Nov 6, 2013, 20:46:

Taskeen wrote on Nov 6, 2013, 20:32:
I played for 2 weeks and got to level 40 or something when WoW was first released. I thought to myself how I wasted 2 weeks playing that game, and quit.

Whatever floats someone's boat though. I find WoW and WoW MMO Clones boring as hell.

*Click enemy*
*Watch your guy attach stuff*
*click skills*
*repeat*

A common criticism that I have never understood. Are there any PC games that aren't a repeated series of clicking(or keyboarding)? I'm sure there must be some, but not many. And I'd be willing to bet you play some that are, if you read this site.

His comment wasn't aiming at clicking, he was aiming at the fact that every engagement is the same procedure.

BTW I have played WoW pretty steadily since launch. I feel like I got my money's worth. Fact of the matter is it's REALLY hard to keep people interested in a game for a decade. That's the only real reason why they're losing subs.

They need to change the paradigm up a little.

This comment was edited on Nov 7, 2013, 09:54.

Cutter wrote on Nov 6, 2013, 21:23:
And beside, the best part of MMOs are the world exploration. That's one thing you could give to WoW, it always made coming around the next bend or over the next hill pretty amazing to behold. I love MMOs for the exploration, not the grind. That's why I leave after I've explored everything.

You might like Guild Wars 2, if you haven't tried it. The game world is absolutely amazingly massive - and well crafted.

I play MMOs similar to they was you describe. GW2 has kept me busy.

Raiding wasn't always easy. 40 man Naxx had some pretty tough encounters. Ones were 1 person messing up meant no kill. All those fights were a lot easier on the 25 man version.

I'm not an MMO gamer but I have to admit I am really curious to see how Blizzard's next MMO is received. I have a sneaking suspicion, as others here have alluded to, that people have gotten kind of burnt out on WoW and won't be nearly so quick to move to the "Next Big Thing" that Blizzard comes out with. I think it's possible that WoW was a one-of-a-kind phenomenon that won't ever be repeated. I don't think Blizzard will be hurting too badly if that's the case, but it might put a little more urgency in the way they approach the games industry, which ought to be a good thing. It might help them recover some of the magic they clearly have lost from their early days.

Suppa7 wrote on Nov 7, 2013, 02:05:
Being hardcore at a casual game which is stat based is not something to be proud of. WoW is passive gear/stat based. Being a hardcore wow raider is like being a hardcore quick time eventer. Wow is a super casual game that's why it was so successful. Games have been so watered down because of games like wow.

Suppa, I'm right there with you on Final Fantasy....it's basically a 'press X for the next cutscene'. An interactive movie, if you will. WoW today is very similar in that it requires very little skill until higher end raids....but that was not always the case. In its earlier days a successful group at any level required strong teamwork and excellent timing. It wasn't fully reliant on twich reflexes...but it was very skill based. Quakeworld to WoW would be analogus to ping pong versus football. Both are competitive...and both can be hardcore....both stand on their own merits and do not need to be belittled.

Wetworks wrote on Nov 7, 2013, 02:14:
Wow had some of the hardest raids in the history of gaming. Raids that were so hard that 40 skilled, dedicated raiders couldn't beat the raids despite hundreds of attempts.

While WoW raids were challenging, fun, and stunningly beautiful, I think you're overstepping with how hard they were. No raid in WoW can come close to comparing to the timing and risk/reward ratios you would find in most of the original EverQuest planes. Just breaking INTO the Plane of Hate required more skill and creativity than most WoW raids.

CDWarden wrote on Nov 7, 2013, 08:41:
the only real problems.

They REALLY gotta knock it out of the park this weekend in order to stabilize. I think at this point, they can't really "turn things around". Folks want the "next gen" MMO which no one has provided yet, but they're just worn out of WoW.

Of course. You can only play the same game for so long. I think World of Warcraft was a fantastic game that did a lot for several genres but it's long since become rote.

My least favorite thing is ! questgivers in every game now. I actually preferred being forced to explore, discover and pay attention to quest text rather than have it handed to me. But oh well I get that it's a modern convenience thing for many people, I just think it creates this treadmill mentality that cheapens quest design.

Wetworks wrote on Nov 7, 2013, 02:00:

Suppa7 wrote on Nov 7, 2013, 00:56:
World of warcraft is the game for non gamers, that's why it's so successful. It doesn't require any reflexes or make demands on the player like quake/doom/descent and I believe it was ultima underworld that had 3D first person combat (even though it is seriously old). I was disappointed that RPG's went super casual passive non participatory combat.

Try getting into a Top 10 Wow raiding guild and see what they say to your "skills". Wow is successful because it has lots of content for the casual player. It also has really hard content for hardcore raiders.

Wow, his comment is laughable. Someone never raided, or was quickly booted from the pug.

Lorcin wrote on Nov 6, 2013, 22:56:
So in order we had:
MOP: Kung fu panda inspired kid friendly shite

That's so cute.

But seriously, Really the main problem with MoP is that it caused people to burn out too quickly by introducing new grind. The other problem is that HOF sucks. Those are about the only real problems.

They REALLY gotta knock it out of the park this weekend in order to stabilize. I think at this point, they can't really "turn things around". Folks want the "next gen" MMO which no one has provided yet, but they're just worn out of WoW.

This comment was edited on Nov 7, 2013, 08:52.

Lorcin wrote on Nov 6, 2013, 22:56:
So in order we had:

WOW: Quite successful generic fantasy MMO
BC: Mainly disappointing demon land
WOTLK: Awesome norse inspired land (and series high)
BC: Should've been free update to original territories (they could take the cash hit then and done it for free instead of charging)
MOP: Kung fu panda inspired kid friendly shite

The old world updates in Cata were free, just the new 80-85 stuff and new races required the expansion.