[cat666]

Blizzard have really let me down with World of Warcraft of late. Pretty much the entire Catacylsm expansion has reeked of laziness, and shown that subscriptions are all that really matters to them.

Patch 4.0 was OK. Everything was new and exciting and although people said the new dungeons were too hard (they were) it was the first patch and this is forgivable.

Patch 4.1 was awful. No new raiding tier, and only 2 more dungeons, both of which were recycled old content. Initially I let Blizzard off for this as I’d read that they were changing the way patches were released, and we’d be getting more of them, more often, but with smaller content. However it transpired that this was rubbish, and that Cataclysm would have the same amount of patches as WotLK, but far less content.

Patch 4.2 brought the Firelands, a few annoying quests and no new dungeons. As a casual player this meant I spend 2 patches doing 2 old dungeons. Not fun.

Patch 4.3 was worthy and restored my faith (briefly) in Blizzard. New raid and dungeons and they made raiding open to casual players. Back to the patches of old that we were used to from WotLK.

However my praise for 4.3 only lasted so long. It just gets boring with no new content. It has been over 6 months since 4.3 and there has been zero updates to WoW. Even with the wondrous patches of WotLK, we still got a filler raid before Cataclysm. My complaint doesn’t end there though. I was foolish enough to sign up for the Annual Pass, basically if I agree to subscribe for a year I get a free mount, access to the Mist of Pandaria beta and a free copy of Diablo 3. None of these things particularly interested me, but since I’d be paying them anyway, what was there to lose? As it turns out, I’ve not actually played WoW seriously for 3-4 months now. 3-4 months where I could have not been paying a subscription.

You can’t help but compare the patches of Cataclysm to the patches of WotLK. 2 troll dungeons V Ulduar and 2 dungeons. Firelands V Trial of the Crusader and a dungeon. ICC and 3 dungeons V Dragon Soul and 3 dungeons. Oh and in WotLK we also had Ruby Sanctum as a “bonus”. It just doesn’t add up to the same quantity or quality of content.

Blizzard are all about old content in Cataclysm it seems, so would it really have hurt them to have released a 4.4 with some recycled content? Nothing major, maybe Firelands and the 4.0 raids being released as LFR so people can experience them when they are not a faceroll. Or maybe another old dungeon revamped. I know it wouldn’t get much use, but if it is an early dungeon then most alts will go through it at some point. I’d imagine Ragefire Chasm will get a facelift in Mists of Pandaria due to the whole Garrosh thing, but Blackfathom Deeps would have been nice.

Anyway rant over.

[Tal'shiar]

I left retail just before christmas, although I came into wow half way through tbc.

To be honest, wow is just getting to its end. When you consider how long its been the top dog, its pretty much unheard of. Nearly 7 years of complete market dominance, and its seen off bigger budget and better looking games. But the gameplay gets old, and beyond making it more time sensitive, the game has done all it can do with the mechanics.

Remember, you also have the mighty guild wars 2 coming, and blizz is no fool, they will not try to compete so openly with them. Plus blizz have most of the WoW makers working on titan, so that will be out int he next few years to finally put the nail in the well loved, more hated god that is World of Warcraft.

If you happen to love pvp, there are other places you can go to enjoy just the pvp elements if thats your thing.

[Brigon]

I played WoW from the Molten Core/Blackwing Lair days up to Cataclysm 4.0 patch. Blizzard really started dropping the ball around the end of Wrath of the Lich King. I loved that game too.

[ChipChomper]

Aye we have played since launch and Cata really was a bad direction.
Totally agree about the lazy feel.
I understand they want to pull in new players but have you seen how easy the older/revamped zones are? lvl 1 to 49 in like a few days and thats truly not even playing non stop.Half the time you reach a questing zone with it all in green the XP they heap.

I have serious doubts about MOP.One new Race seems a mistake when Cata really punched the game hard in the Gut.

[fluffed]

The next expansion is the first I have no intention of buying, and have been playing on and off since day one. Last time I played it was a brief stint of pvp only which was fun as far as it went, but even that got repetitive fairly quickly. Pve was of no interest to me whatsoever by then, I had tried it with 4.0 but I had seen it all before, and done better. I'm MMO free at the current time, wouldn't mind looking at Secret World, but am not too keen to spend 40 notes finding out if I might like it, GW2 will probably get picked up when it's out though.

[cat666]

To me Mists of Pandaria is looking a whole lot better. Blizzard have admitted to the flaws of Cataclysm, and patch 4.3 did go a long way to put this right. If every 5.x patch is in a similar vein to 4.3 then there will be no issues on that front.

Also all of my minor gripes of Cataclysm are done away with in Mists. We have a new continent to explore, not just randomly scattered zones. The questing is going back to a more "hub" like feel, rather than a linear pattern. The dungeons are do-able in a PUG, not much skill involved, so it feels like you are getting somewhere rather than facing wipe after wipe. All the raids will be LFR'able. For the people who like the harder challenge, there are challenge mode dungeons, normal raids, then heroic raids. An area like Dalaran exists for hanging out in end game, not both factions though, 2 hubs separated by an expanse of land, probably more to avoid lag, but think of the PVP battles there. This is before you think about the rep grinds, farming and pet battles. Basically it's going to be new content, which at release will be well worth the £25 it will probably be costing.

Oh and also there is the whole Panda/Monk thing which is guaranteed to bring players back. Look at how many players rolled DK's back in WotLK. I'm not a huge lover of the Pandas, I border on the "why make a joke race playable" side of the fence, but I understand that people do like them, and do want to play them so I have no issues with them. At the end of the day we have been able to play as cows since lauch, so pandas are not too far removed. As for monks, I think the last thing the game needed was another melee class (althugh I see the whole armour class reason) but with no doubt roll one at some point.

All in all, I can't say I'm mad enough with Blizzard not to buy Mists. It just looks too good.

[Rooks]

Originally Posted by fluffed

The next expansion is the first I have no intention of buying, and have been playing on and off since day one.

Ditto. Played since the beta but gave up a year ago. I've periodically dropped in and out of the game but always returned for new expansions. Not this time.

I like a challenge and WoW has been dialling down both the difficulty and complexity of the game for quite a while. Sure there's still a challenge at the very very top end of the game but the same dungeons endless times to get there just saps the willpower out of me. I still shudder when I remember that to get to heroics I had to do the same 3-4 dungeons about 30 times because Blizzard hadn't provided enough content at level 85.

Blizzard have really lost their edge in the last few years. They used to focus on the quality of the game, now there's a "what's the minimal amount of content we can get away with" attitude. It started with Starcraft 2, but WoW: Cata and Diablo 3 are just as guilty of this. Blizzard games used to be amazing value for money, Warcraft 3, Diablo 2, Starcraft.. all games that people got a massive amount of playtime from. Seems Blizzard are now just another EA

[cat666]

Originally Posted by Rooks

I like a challenge and WoW has been dialling down both the difficulty and complexity of the game for quite a while. Sure there's still a challenge at the very very top end of the game but the same dungeons endless times to get there just saps the willpower out of me. I still shudder when I remember that to get to heroics I had to do the same 3-4 dungeons about 30 times because Blizzard hadn't provided enough content at level 85.

I disagree.

WotLK dialled down the difficulty, and everyone got used to "facerolling" dungeons, Cataclysm actually upped it. The normal version of the 80-85 dungeons were sheer hell with a PUG, and the heroics were damn near impossible, what with people leaving after 1 wipe. Likewise the 1st raiding tier was stupidly hard, with no "starter" raid so to speak.

In any MMO you expect a degree of grinding, be it dungeons, mobs, raids etc. You can't moan that you couldn't go into heroics as soon as you dinged 85. I'll admit it was a chore, but that was mainly due to the difficulty increase. It's even more annoying now, when you have to grind those harder dungeons and then you hit the item level for 4.3 dungeons and it suddenly all gets easier, but thats the game.

Blizzard provided plenty of content at launch for 85 players to do. The issue is it was all far too difficult for the casual player, which by there own admission makes up a large number of the userbase. It seemed they were making the game better for casuals with LFD, then made doing dungeons via that method a royal pain in the bum. As the expansion progressed, yes, there was not a lot for max level players to do, especially casual ones. If I have to run another troll dungeon I think I will scream.

Mists however is looking to be different. LFD and LFR mean there will be content for casuals, and I think Blizzard has learned that making these stupidly hard is not the way forward. They have introduced Challenge Mode dungeons for the hardcore people who do like a challenge, and as always the normal/heroic raids will offer people who like the challenge, a challenge. This is before you even get started on the new rep grinds, Pet Battles, farming etc. All in all it's looking good.

[Pinkvelvet]

Just release the release date please Blizzard!

[cat666]

Originally Posted by Pinkvelvet

Just release the release date please Blizzard!

They've known the release date for ages. The whole Annual Pass thing was just a big con to keep people paying them in the 11 months they released no updates. What annoys me the most is the lies they tell.

We were told Cata updates were going be smaller and more often, as opposed to WotLK. Looking back it was just an excuse not to release a raid with the 2 re-worked troll dungeons. Firelands was then released with no dungeons, but again they came out with smaller but more frequent update line. 4.3 was released, and we were told it was the final patch of Cata. So there was less content, in the same amount of patches as WotLK, and most people had already agreed to the Annual Pass deal by now.

Then they were touting a summer release for Mists, which given past ETA's was never going to happen. Stores still don't have a release date, it's not going to be for at least a month, more likley 2. My money is on early November, approx 2 years since the release of Cata, and 11 months without content. That will be £99 I will have paid Blizzard, for basically nothing. Amazon has Mists listed as £34, far too high given how much we've all paid Blizzard for so long without updates.

[Rooks]

Originally Posted by cat666

You can't moan that you couldn't go into heroics as soon as you dinged 85. I'll admit it was a chore, but that was mainly due to the difficulty increase.

No, the issue wasn't that I couldn't do heroics immediately, it was that the progression path was running the same 3-4 dungeons over and over. Seriously, at L85 normal mode they only had 3-4 dungeons. In heroic mode you had the choice of all the Cata dungeons, but not in normal mode. I never found the normals difficult but after the 10th time doing the same dungeon I really just wanted to poke my eyes out

Originally Posted by cat666

This is before you even get started on the new rep grinds, Pet Battles, farming etc. All in all it's looking good.

Ah yes, they are introducing Pok-e-wow into the game Must.. resist.. urge.. to.. resubscribe Seriously, though, the things you mention are exactly the type of things that pushed me away from WoW. Rep grinding.. farming.. not really making me excited. Pet Battles, again not my type of thing. I can see how it would be exciting to the younger players but I'm far from that demographic.

Besides, you mention a lack of content in Cata and beyond but MoP isn't exactly flush with new content either. 5 new zones is around the same as Cata but without the extra world revamp. A new class IS something new and would have taken time to develop but the rest.. paint me underwhelmed

As daft as it sounds, I miss locked zones. I remember spending ages on the Mount Hyjal key quest. Or the key to Karazhan. It was stuff that gave me a reason to log in. It wasn't all about grinding for gear, gear came naturally as part of progression.

Rant over, nothing in MoP makes me want to resubscribe so I'm still MMO-less. 14 months and rising

Edit: This is actually the longest I've ever been without an MMO since 1999. I went from EQ to WoW just breaks in between those two playing Camelot, Warhammer, Conan and Eve. But EverQuest too 6 years of my life and WoW 6 years too.

[Inspiration]

For me I just struggle to find a reason to log into WoW and i've played it since Vanilla (Around patch 1.11.. original Naxx era). So perhaps it's no wonder i'm burnt out. But I just don't see the point anymore. MoP has nothing that has made me go 'OMG that looks so awesome!'. It's just the same routine over and over again. You accept quests, you go kill 10 mobs or collect 20 items or whatever.. and then you get some XP. Repeat for 5 levels. Then do some dungeons. Get some gear. And maybe do some dailies to grind for some mount perhaps or some more gear.

And the lack of content between Cataclysm and now has been absolutely shocking. And they expect you to go to the shop and spend another £40 odd quid on another expansion? And they introduce new features like shared mounts across characters that players wanted years ago as if it's some amazing feature that you should feel fortunate to be spending money on.

They're just milking us for all they can get while the key talent works on their next game Titan.

[fluffed]

Originally Posted by Rooks

Edit: This is actually the longest I've ever been without an MMO since 1999. I went from EQ to WoW just breaks in between those two playing Camelot, Warhammer, Conan and Eve. But EverQuest too 6 years of my life and WoW 6 years too.

Blimey, that's almost my exact same history of gaming too, swap AO for Camelot though I added up the amount of money in MMO subs I had spent over the years, was alot! Is one of the reasons GW2 is starting to look appealing, no subs, getting good reviews, isn't the same stuff as every other game I've played over the last 13 (yikes) years.

[cat666]

Originally Posted by Rooks

No, the issue wasn't that I couldn't do heroics immediately, it was that the progression path was running the same 3-4 dungeons over and over. Seriously, at L85 normal mode they only had 3-4 dungeons. In heroic mode you had the choice of all the Cata dungeons, but not in normal mode. I never found the normals difficult but after the 10th time doing the same dungeon I really just wanted to poke my eyes out

That's been the same in every expansion though, not just Cataclysm. Don't forget Cata was the first expansion which let you easily run dungeons to gear up at the start. LFD wasn't released until mid WotLK. At 85 you had access to all the dungeons, 8 I think. I'll grant you that you did seem to the top 5 over and over but if you didn't you'd be moaning the item level of the gear being dropped was too low. I know exactly how you feel with the dungeons, but I can't see what else you expect, other than ding 85 and be granted all the gear you ever want. Cata dungeons were too hard and it made it feel worse than the previous dungeons. Other than that I can't fault them.

Originally Posted by Rooks

Besides, you mention a lack of content in Cata and beyond but MoP isn't exactly flush with new content either. 5 new zones is around the same as Cata but without the extra world revamp. A new class IS something new and would have taken time to develop but the rest.. paint me underwhelmed

MOP has a ton of new content. Pandaria is huge, 8 zones total (although 1 is the starter zone). So thats 2 more zones than Cata had for end game. Dungeon wise it's roughly the same as Cata was, but theres the whole new LFR raid. Then there is the whole monk class, and the implementaion throughout the game. This is before you start looking at the rep grinds, pet battles, professions, quests and all the stuff people take for granted.

Originally Posted by Rooks

As daft as it sounds, I miss locked zones. I remember spending ages on the Mount Hyjal key quest. Or the key to Karazhan. It was stuff that gave me a reason to log in. It wasn't all about grinding for gear, gear came naturally as part of progression.

I think your view of locked zones is tainted by nostalgia. All the locks in Vanilla/BC and in someways WotLK made the game unnecessarily frustrating. I'm all for a rep grind, or epic quest but not if it makes everyones life miserable. Why did everyone need heroic keys in order to access BC heroics? I knew players more than geared enough but who couldn't be bothered doing the rep again on an alt. The whole Molton Core attunement was painfull, you needed 40 players, all attuned, and had to run people through previous raids first. It was all a bit of a faff, and fair play if it is for something petty like vanity gear or pets/mounts, but for content which should be available to all it just built walls.

As for it not being about griding for gear, it was. The whole point of most MMO's is gear. Maybe it's this constant grinding for items which become obsolete almost as soon as you have them is why you don't play MMO's anymore.

[cat666]

Originally Posted by Inspiration

For me I just struggle to find a reason to log into WoW and i've played it since Vanilla (Around patch 1.11.. original Naxx era). So perhaps it's no wonder i'm burnt out. But I just don't see the point anymore. MoP has nothing that has made me go 'OMG that looks so awesome!'. It's just the same routine over and over again. You accept quests, you go kill 10 mobs or collect 20 items or whatever.. and then you get some XP. Repeat for 5 levels. Then do some dungeons. Get some gear. And maybe do some dailies to grind for some mount perhaps or some more gear.

And the lack of content between Cataclysm and now has been absolutely shocking. And they expect you to go to the shop and spend another £40 odd quid on another expansion? And they introduce new features like shared mounts across characters that players wanted years ago as if it's some amazing feature that you should feel fortunate to be spending money on.

They're just milking us for all they can get while the key talent works on their next game Titan.

I agree totally.

The trouble is the grind you speak of is true for all MMO's. I have friends who have quit because they were bored of constantly renewing gear, and the gear they get being obsolete come the next patch. However as it is the nature of the beast, we can't really moan about it. I have a friend with 9/10 classes at 85 who insists on gearing them all "just in case" he decides to raid with them. I think he is mental, and I give him until 5.1 before he stops that malarky and concentrates on 1 or 2.

What we can moan about however is the lack of content. We know it will be more of the same grindy stuff but that's what we want, thats what keeps us playing and paying. One of my main issues is this Annual Pass, which was made out to be giving the player a good deal, when instead it guaranteed them revenue whilst they released no new content. Totally underhand seeing as they had promised more patches in higher frequency during Cata. Would they have got away with 2 troll dungeons in 4.1 had we known in advance that there would only be 3 patches? I doubt it, but people let it slide as they were promised more frequent patches.

For MOP to be £40 is a disgrace. Sure let the new players pay that price, but give them Vanilla/BC/WotLK/Cata as well. That's worth £40, but for the players who have stuck with Blizzard, paying them £8.99 a month, for basically nothing, it is stupidly overpriced. I'm happy to pay £20-£25 for it, but if they insist on the full £40 then I probably won't be upgrading.