does wow suffer from split-personality?

[Amarande]

Interesting read.

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2011/10/apologies-dont-improve-games.html

[Felinae]

I think WoW is an incredibly complex construct which presents a number of different faces depending on the player.

Even within our guild we have people who prefer to PVP, other who play the AH, some who level alt after alt, deleting them to roll a new one, people with one toon they play and that's pretty much it, people passionate about raiding, people who would prefer to hang out in SW and talk trash in trade chat.

I will have been playing for 7 years come December, Brem and I starting not much more than a month after launch, when few L60 characters existed and purples were something people exclaimed over because MC was the only raid and even it dropped blues from trash. Many people couldn't afford to buy a mount at L40 because 100g was so much money, let alone a fast mount at L60 for 1,000g.

The biggest threat to WoW is simply how long it's been around, it's hard to stay fresh and keep people engaged for that long. New players are intimidated by the perceived investment of getting to the level cap, gearing up for the end game which is promoted as being 'the real game', when it should be up to them to find what it is they enjoy about the game and for guilds to support them in that.

The blogger linked is right in that apologies don't improve games, but as one of the commenters in the thread below stated, acknowledging that there is a problem can go a long way towards maintaining player good will.

While I found the world changes in Cata amazing, on the whole I've found this xpac less engaging than those that came before. Of all the raids to date, my favourites have probably been Black Temple then Ulduar. I get that the designers are finding it harder and harder to come up with novel mechanics, but the split second timing required to execute on Australia ping times is starting to wear me down. I'd love for them to design neat mechanics that didn't rely on you having the reflexes of a meercat on speed.

[Amarande]

Certainly multiple personality syndrome. Perhaps it's a case of Blizzard trying to make wow everything to everyone?

Some of the sub games (professions, achievements and even gold collecting) have become 'The Game' for many people. While the end game has always been my playground, I found that I missed most of Cata as a result. As it's focus was on redoing the world (levels 1-80).

And now the EG (end game) raids are all about the dance. Clever (convoluted) boss fights you win if everyone makes the correct moves together, like a waltz. Where it used to be number throughput (dps/heals high enough, you win), like breakdancing (Do they still have breakdancing anymore?).

With this current mindset on EG raids, I wonder how successfuly the LFR will be. I guess having 25 will offset that mechanics requirement a bit, as you can carry some people. I can see how some of the FL bosses would be easier with more people (while some are obviously easier with less). All of them however you just wouldn't want to pug.

Which means come 4.3 that raid bosses will (at the lowest level) be tuned for 25man pugs. This maybe a good thing as it could reduce the amount of convoluted mechanics Blizz can throw at you.

Makes you wonder if it's a reflection of the real world 'instant gratification' breaking throgh to the game. I know there have been comparisons between guild management and corporation management IRL. Perhaps we are now seeing the younger generations need to have everything handed to them now, echoing in game. You could also equate the current state of 'guild hoping' to the job hoping that the younger generation is also acused of. If you don't get what you want from your current job, why work for it? Just jump to a new one.

Or maybe I'm putting too much thought into this.

[Felinae]

There was a passing remark about stat deflation coming in patch 5.0, something about the current stat inflation is out of control, and once they have been realigned (all gear, base stats and mobs) you may find that mobs 5-10 levels below you won't be the pushovers they were before.

This also means there hopefully won't be quite such a large margin between 'good' throughput and 'bad' throughput (or latency handicapped throughput) in upcoming boss fights. Historically, Oceanic raiding groups were closer in downing bosses with the US guilds when the stat variance was smaller. With the current impact of ping time on performance it would be extraordinary to find non NA players in the upper ranks of the Challenge dungeon leader boards because we are losing several possible casts per minute simply due to our distance from the server, let alone reduced available reaction time to dodge 'avoidable' damage.

That said, I am really looking forward to trying out the Challenge dungeons. I was interested to see that once you get a gold ranking, you get a stacking 5% debuff each time you go back to the same dungeon (unclear whether the stacks only go up each time you acheive a gold time).

Only time will tell.

[Amarande]

So the better you do the bigger your handicap? Could be fun.

Normalisation will also reduce the amount of old world dungeons/raids you can effectively solo. May even bring them back in as a raiding target for gearing/leveling new characters.

LFG Black Morass, need to get keyed for Kara!

[Amarande]

I do like the idea of reworking Scholomance. Was always one of my favourites.

You would have to run through it 2-3 times with new quests/targets each time. Just had a good storyline.

After that it was just to farm BoE's and profession plans

[Felinae]

I think normalisation will only apply if you enter a dungeon on challenge mode. However the stat deflation will impact on the ability to solo lower tier raids and dungeons, as the mobs will be much closer to you in health and damage.

Speculation is that stats @ 90 will end up much closer to where they were early WotLk in L70 quest rewards. So people should expect to see an across the board drop in dps/hps.

I'm totally looking forward to the heroic Scholo, it was my all time favourite Vanilla dungeon. As an alchemist I ran it a heap to get access to the alchemy lab to make flasks before we got access to a lab in BWL (cleared raid IDs were a premium for alchemists). There was a rare tailoring pattern that dropped from an optional boss that resulted in an argument nearly everytime you pugged it on whether to do that boss or not - it was one of the hardest in the instance, with lots of tricky trash before it. The dungeon taught you about kill orders, good pulling of pathing mobs, aggro radius, off tanking, etc...

The quest phases requiring multiple runs, I think to get the major mana potion recipe required at least 5 or 6 runs through to finish the chain, which got you a trinket which allowed you to see the ghosts on the island so you could buy the recipe. There is pretty much nothing that layered in the game at present beyond quest chains for legendary items.