Next World of Warcraft Expansion: Cataclysm!

Verandering wrote:

K. You missed my point. I never said Blizzard was a bad company ripping the shit off Warhammer aside.

:law:

That was Games Workshops own fault, they hired blizzard to make a Warhammer Fantasy RTS and at the last second pulled the rights out from under their feet. Thus leaving Blizzard with this all but finished game and no licence for it, so they just swapped some things round, made up a plot and BAM, Warcraft.

Everything.

Take, for example, grind. If I want some sweet multiplayer action, I can hop into CoD4: Modern Warfare (for example), and even though it has levelling, it's all in equipment and perks. I can take on any other player with the options available at the start. Everything earned after that is just icing on the cake. So yes, if you want to be really wanky, it has an element of grind to it, but it's entirely optional, and if you pursue it, it's nothing like what's required in an MMO.

Most action-oriented online games don't even have that.

Meanwhile, with an MMO, you have to do a whole bunch of boring stuff before you can survive getting into the action, let alone do anything fun. And by the time you've levelled enough and have the right gear to take on the Big Bad, or be a useful member of your team/guild/clan, the challenge is gone. And even then, the combat consists of "click to swing axe, over and over, with out-of-sync target reactions." It looks really godawful.

So yes, you might find yourself involved in repetative tasks of violence. It's just the level of personal involvement that makes it interesting. If you want a slow, plodding game that punishes you for taking risks, MMOs like WoW are the way to go. If you want to get stuck in and enjoy yourself right out the gate, you should play anything else.

Oh, and plus you have to keep paying for it. That kinda sucks.

Penguin wrote:

Everything.

Take, for example, grind. If I want some sweet multiplayer action, I can hop into CoD4: Modern Warfare (for example), and even though it has levelling, it's all in equipment and perks. I can take on any other player with the options available at the start. Everything earned after that is just icing on the cake. So yes, if you want to be really wanky, it has an element of grind to it, but it's entirely optional, and if you pursue it, it's nothing like what's required in an MMO.

:law:
MMO PvP is very serious business, most serious PvP-ers tend to stay in a very low battleground bracket (39,29, and 19 being the most popular) where they stay in that bracket, getting the best loot possible for their levels and maxing out it's stats. Very little grind their unless you're hoping for that super rare drop from a super rare mob, which many munchkins do. It's not all that hard to ger good gear if you have a main character and you have skill. Skill > gear. You're probably just butthurt because everytime you go into a battleground, you get stunlocked by rogues.

Quote :

Meanwhile, with an MMO, you have to do a whole bunch of boring stuff before you can survive getting into the action, let alone do anything fun. And by the time you've levelled enough and have the right gear to take on the Big Bad, or be a useful member of your team/guild/clan, the challenge is gone.

:law:
While in one player games you do a bunch of boring stuff so that you'll get fancy achivements to show off your epeen and buy crappy downloadable stuff that, play multiplayer mode because the fun in single player mode has dried up, get to the where you killed the boss with the ultimate weapon, replay it with all those neat saved game perks?

Quote :

If you want a slow, plodding game that punishes you for taking risks, MMOs like WoW are the way to go.

:law:
WoW, unlike many MMORPGs, is very kind to players who die. All you have to do is fine your body, suffer some damage to your gear and keep on going. No XP lose, no long trips to find your body before it decays, no losing all your gear and inventory, nothing. Try playing the game so that it'll seem like you know what you are talking about, alright?

Quadratus wrote:

WoW, unlike many MMORPGs, is very kind to players who die.

Oh, okay.

Quote :

All you have to do is fine your body, suffer some damage to your gear and keep on going.

Oh wait, they still punish you for taking risks. Yeah, they might not do it as much as other games, but they still do it. And there's really no good reason for it, except to force you to have to grind to find the same shit you already have sooner.

Meanwhile, in an actually good game, I've already respawned and am back in the fight.

Penguin wrote:

Meanwhile, with an MMO, you have to do a whole bunch of boring stuff before you can survive getting into the action, let alone do anything fun. And by the time you've levelled enough and have the right gear to take on the Big Bad, or be a useful member of your team/guild/clan, the challenge is gone. And even then, the combat consists of "click to swing axe, over and over, with out-of-sync target reactions." It looks really godawful.

With that you would be dead within first 2 secs. Have you ever seen how much there are commands pinned to keys in WoW? For maximum DPS you need to get your key cycle right among with bunch of other things(like having your talent spec right).

*Goes back to leveling their mage*

Penguin wrote:

Oh wait, they still punish you for taking risks. Yeah, they might not do it as much as other games, but they still do it. And there's really no good reason for it, except to force you to have to grind to find the same shit you already have sooner.

Play the game first, and maybe then it would seem like you know what you are talking about.

Quote :

Meanwhile, in an actually good game, I've already respawned and am back in the fight.

Nice to know that most good games aren't good becuse they send you to a continue screen, or a save screen, put you back to the begining of the level, or check point. Hey, guys! Guess what only good games have you respawn at the same spot where you can get killed again by the same creature that killed you before!

Quote :

"Grind" mechanics? That's in every single game,
hon, and by MMO standerds, WoW has not very much grinding compaired to
say Maple Story or most Korean titles. You do not get much XP from
killing ehblehblehblehbleh

What you ignored about what I said was:

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It's not the fact that WoW is just killing dudes over and over that's
the problem, it's the fact that this activity is bogged down
considerably by cliche presentation, and grind mechanics that define
the game rather than enable gameplay.

There is no point to WoW's gameplay other than grinding. It doesn't matter that there are slightly different types of grinding (and yes, questing is grinding, especially in MMOs, especially in WoW. It's not special or exempt from the consequences of it's design choices just because you're a fan. You are arguing that my criticism of WoW's game mechanics is invalid by listing the game mechanics, not saying anything about why they may be worth a damn.) The only reward grinding gives you is more opportunity for grinding.

If I grind in Wipeout, I get new racers I can enjoy when racing for the explicit purpose of racing, instead of grinding.

In Mass Effect, if I grind, my character goes through fundamental changes that influence how he handles other people and how any mandatory combat plays out when it's between me and plot progression, as opposed to the random encounters I could seek out for XP.

Alpha Protocol isn't going to have much in the way of grinding unless there's a radical design change before release, since the game's progression won't allow you to master every skill in a single playthrough before starting a New Game+.

In inFAMOUS, I don't need to grind because every basic ability is given by story progression. If I choose to grind, those abilities become better, but if I stop grinding, I will always have a clear, tangible benefit to show off for the grinding I accomplished.

No, leveling up to 80 is not the same thing, because, again, it's all WoW's gameplay is. The serious conversation WoW players have with me when trying to convince me to play the game is "We can all grind up to [current level cap] together!" All of them. Thirty different people, at least. Since the game's release. Funny how when I say "What then?" the answer is always "Well...then you'll be level 80."

This argument that it's invalid to criticize WoW's gameplay because "every other game" makes use of the same concepts is retarded. Yes, of course there are certain realities of game design, things that you're always going to see. That's a given. It doesn't automatically mean that WoW is fun, because repeating a design choice doesn't mean it's been implemented well. You're not telling me about any virtues of the game, you're just saying that the mechanic somehow justified its own presence, apparently by dressing itself up on occasion. You just have have a chip on your shoulder over some of us Internet folk being in the "five million subscribers doesn't mean WoW is anything but terrible tripe" camp because these criticisms are perfectly valid and perfectly legitimate reasons for not liking the game, even though you, personally, don't care about them.

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And every game ever made with a multiplayer mode, your point being?

The games on my Steam list would like a word with you.

Seriously, every game has grinding? Do you hear yourself?

As for cliche: it's high fantasy. Of course it's cliche. It was already cliche when Warhammer Fantasy did it years ago.

Quote :

While in one player games you do a bunch of
boring stuff so that you'll get fancy achivements to show off your
epeen and buy crappy downloadable stuff that, play multiplayer mode
because the fun in single player mode has dried up, get to the where
you killed the boss with the ultimate weapon, replay it with all those
neat saved game perks?

Yes, I couldn't possibly be playing because one player games can have universal design choices with decent implimentations, a storyline that actually progresses, and a complete lack of chatspeak. I must not have even played games at all before the 360 rolled out its achievmenet system and DLC started being a cash cow.

Obviously it's a false memory that DLC used to be called "expansion packs" and much of it is still free on the PC. Which, incidentally, WoW's expansions aren't. Seriously, the generalizing here is just flat-out retarded. Yes, we get it. Games follow conventions. No one is objecting to this. There is a difference between saying "A game has no standard conventions" and "a game's standard conventions are poorly implemented." You have done absolutely nothing to argue for why WoW has well-implemented conventions, and are instead arguing that it is somehow the only game with decent design choices without actually explaining why.

Alhazred wrote:

TL;DR

Why, you've just describe every game in existance, my good sir! Killing a bunch of things in video games? Who would have thought!

Also, I don't know what Blizzard did to you in the past (Did they rape your mother and DVD player?), but you are taking the dislike of something way to seriously. Why so serious?

Penguin wrote:

Quadratus wrote:

WoW, unlike many MMORPGs, is very kind to players who die.

Oh, okay.

Quote :

All you have to do is fine your body, suffer some damage to your gear and keep on going.

Oh wait, they still punish you for taking risks. Yeah, they might not do it as much as other games, but they still do it. And there's really no good reason for it, except to force you to have to grind to find the same shit you already have sooner.

Meanwhile, in an FPS, I've already respawned and am back in the fight.

Only a small change for you there Penguin but that seems to be alot more accurate given your comments.
Not everybody wants their Online games fast and quick, and some just don't have the reflexes to be able to keep up with shooters.
The slow building of your character from a weakling to a arcane powerhouse or a wall of iron is a fun prospect to alot of people, just because it doesn't appeal to you does not make it bad, it makes it different and there is a big difference.

Oh and this:

Quote :

Nice to know that most good games aren't good
becuse they send you to a continue screen, or a save screen, put you
back to the begining of the level, or check point. Hey, guys! Guess
what only good games have you respawn at the same spot where you can
get killed again by the same creature that killed you before!

He's talking about multiplayer games, because you said his criticisms of WoW are invalid based on the argument that every multiplayer game does the same things. But now you're talking about single-player games, you realize that, right? This has absolutely nothing to do with the argument.

(For the record, quite a few single player games have introduced less artificial ways of dealing with character death, very few of which involved getting killed again by whatever did it the first time.)

Sorsa A. Jänis wrote:

Penguin wrote:

Meanwhile, with an MMO, you have to do a whole bunch of boring stuff before you can survive getting into the action, let alone do anything fun. And by the time you've levelled enough and have the right gear to take on the Big Bad, or be a useful member of your team/guild/clan, the challenge is gone. And even then, the combat consists of "click to swing axe, over and over, with out-of-sync target reactions." It looks really godawful.

With that you would be dead within first 2 secs. Have you ever seen how much there are commands pinned to keys in WoW? For maximum DPS you need to get your key cycle right among with bunch of other things(like having your talent spec right).

*Goes back to leveling their mage*

Fine, I left out a step: Bind script to mouse1. Then click to swing axe, over and over.

Quadratus wrote:

Play the game first, and maybe then it would seem like you know what you are talking about.

You're gonna have to point out how I'm actually wrong in order for that to make sense. Otherwise you're just saying "It's not like that because I say so." You have to do something to justify the punishments the player incurs beyond being removed from the action and having to hike all the way back to it.

Quote :

Nice to know that most good games aren't good becuse they send you to a continue screen, or a save screen, or put you back to the begining of the level. Hey, guys! Guess what only good games have you respawn at the same spot where you can get killed again by the same creature that killed you before!

Hey, look! We were talking about multiplayer games and now you've come completely out of left field with singleplayer mechanics! Cool!

No, an actually good game sets up a way to make dying something to avoid without making it excessively burdensome on the player. Running around to find your body and damaging your stats and equipment is excessive. Round-based play, respawn timers and spawn points are all ways of keeping everything balanced and fair, ways to make death something to avoid while still not punishing the player for taking risks.

You know, that fun that games are supposed to be.

Alhazred wrote:

He's talking about multiplayer games, because you said his criticisms of WoW are invalid based on the argument that every multiplayer game does the same things. But now you're talking about single-player games, you realize that, right? This has absolutely nothing to do with the argument.

FPS are not MMORPGs. Apples and oranges, my friend, apples and oranges.

Next you'll be compairing killing things to killing things... oh wait.

Penguin wrote:

No, an actually good game sets up a way to make dying something to avoid without making it excessively burdensome on the player. Running around to find your body and damaging your stats and equipment is excessive.

Maybe you should just not die? :lolinsane:

Somath Cegem wrote:

Penguin wrote:

Meanwhile, in an FPS, I've already respawned and am back in the fight.

Only a small change for you there Penguin but that seems to be alot more accurate given your comments.
Not everybody wants their Online games fast and quick, and some just don't have the reflexes to be able to keep up with shooters.
The slow building of your character from a weakling to a arcane powerhouse or a wall of iron is a fun prospect to alot of people, just because it doesn't appeal to you does not make it bad, it makes it different and there is a big difference.

That's a fair assumption. However, there are other games that are slower-paced like that that I do find fun. I just don't play them online, or pay a monthly fee for them. Hell, I play the shit out of Cooking Mama.

To me, if I have to keep putting money into something, I should be getting something consistently worth the money every time. If all I'm doing is paying Blizzard's miniscule server overhead and then dumping money straight into their pockets, and in return I'm getting exactly what I already bought three times over last time, I don't think I'm getting a fair return on my investment.

The Guild Wars approach made far more sense to me, even though I never got into it. Charge money for expansions, but not for a game you've already purchased.

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Why, you've just describe every game in
existance, my good sir! Killing a bunch of things in video games? Who
would have thought!

So, right now I'm taking a break from Trauma Center, where you play as a surgeon with the goal of, in every single level, saving someone.

One of the games I mentioned was Wipeout, which is a racing game. A racing game with weapons, but half the racing modes disable them. There's also plenty of racing games without weapons at all; Pure, Grand Turismo, Need for Speed, and special mention to Audiosurf, where the entire point of the game is riding your music library.

Again, you're making broad generalizations that are completely untrue in order to avoid making actual arguments, because the criticisms being levied against WoW are valid, and you don't want to admit something you like has legitimate problems that cause some to dislike it.

Penguin wrote:

No, an actually good game sets up a way to make dying something to avoid without making it excessively burdensome on the player. Running around to find your body and damaging your stats and equipment is excessive. Round-based play, respawn timers and spawn points are all ways of keeping everything balanced and fair, ways to make death something to avoid while still not punishing the player for taking risks.

You know, that fun that games are supposed to be.

Hmm, let me see.

Solo

As long as you don't pull to many mobs or that elite that's roaming around by yourself you'll be fine, take a few potions and have an escape plan you'll be fine. You will however have to find your corpse if you die.

Dungeons

If the entire group is working together nobody should die, unless the bos is broken, the just bitch to blizzard until it is nerfed. If the worst does happen you'll fine yourself fine and well at the nearest graveyard, no body finding required

PVP

Expect to die alot and be teleported to the nearest graveyard under your sides control, the resurrections are on a 30 second counter so you should rejoin the action in moments.


Yeah, so very harsh

Alhazred wrote:

Quote :

Why, you've just describe every game in
existance, my good sir! Killing a bunch of things in video games? Who
would have thought!

So, right now I'm taking a break from Trauma Center, where you play as a surgeon with the goal of, in every single level, saving someone.

One of the games I mentioned was Wipeout, which is a racing game. A racing game with weapons, but half the racing modes disable them. There's also plenty of racing games without weapons at all; Pure, Grand Turismo, Need for Speed, and special mention to Audiosurf, where the entire point of the game is riding your music library.

Again, you're making broad generalizations that are completely untrue in order to avoid making actual arguments, because the criticisms being levied against WoW are valid, and you don't want to admit something you like has legitimate problems that cause some to dislike it.

None of which are RPGs let alone MMORPGs. Try harder. Apples and oranges. You're just mad because you can't find anything good to crtique other than it's not the games YOU like. *sniff* I don't like the Sims it's not like God of War at all.

Penguin wrote:

That's a fair assumption. However, there are other games that are slower-paced like that that I do find fun. I just don't play them online, or pay a monthly fee for them. Hell, I play the shit out of Cooking Mama.

To me, if I have to keep putting money into something, I should be getting something consistently worth the money every time. If all I'm doing is paying Blizzard's miniscule server overhead and then dumping money straight into their pockets, and in return I'm getting exactly what I already bought three times over last time, I don't think I'm getting a fair return on my investment.

The Guild Wars approach made far more sense to me, even though I never got into it. Charge money for expansions, but not for a game you've already purchased.

So the guys who are constantly making bug fixes, balancing classes and races expanding dungeons in patches (Some of which are quite large, the last two added massive raids and much more items) and working on the expansions, all the while getting moaned at by warlocks case they can't wear plate should do so for bugger all?

Sorry, but 100 quid a year is nothing and with the constant updates and new content between the expansions means I'll get loads more time out of this than the 2/3 games i would have spent that 100 quid on.

Somath Cegem wrote:

So the guys who are constantly making bug fixes, balancing classes and races expanding dungeons in patches (Some of which are quite large, the last two added massive raids and much more items) and working on the expansions, all the while getting moaned at by warlocks case they can't wear plate should do so for bugger all?

Sorry, but 100 quid a year is nothing and with the constant updates and new content between the expansions means I'll get loads more time out of this than the 2/3 games i would have spent that 100 quid on.

He just sounds like the typical entitled WoW player now. "Fuck Blizzard they have nerf'd pallis too much!" "Fuck Blizzard, they've buffed death knights so much! They are so OP and I can't beat them in PvP!" "Fuck Blizzard they've nerf'd death knights too much." ect.

Somath Cegem wrote:

Penguin wrote:

Quadratus wrote:

WoW, unlike many MMORPGs, is very kind to players who die.

Oh, okay.

Quote :

All you have to do is fine your body, suffer some damage to your gear and keep on going.

Oh wait, they still punish you for taking risks. Yeah, they might not do it as much as other games, but they still do it. And there's really no good reason for it, except to force you to have to grind to find the same shit you already have sooner.

Meanwhile, in an FPS, I've already respawned and am back in the fight.

Only a small change for you there Penguin but that seems to be alot more accurate given your comments.
Not everybody wants their Online games fast and quick, and some just don't have the reflexes to be able to keep up with shooters.
The slow building of your character from a weakling to a arcane powerhouse or a wall of iron is a fun prospect to alot of people, just because it doesn't appeal to you does not make it bad, it makes it different and there is a big difference.

Not true. Give Metal Gear Online a try; everything he's saying is true about it, but it's slower paced. Unless you're on a server with special characters enabled and happen to spawn in as Vamp, in which case you'll get up where you die. Any third-person game with multiplayer is generally much slower paced than a first-person shooter, while still hitting all of these points.

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None of which are RPGs let alone MMORPGs. Try
harder. Apples and oranges. You're just mad because you can't find
anything good to crtique other than it's not the games YOU like.
*sniff* I don't the Sims it's not like God of War at all.

You have spent this entire thread talking about how criticizing WoW for it's design decisions is invalid because every other game does the same thing. Why does "apples and oranges" only apply to people who aren't you?

Quadratus wrote:

None of which are RPGs let alone MMORPGs. Try harder. Apples and oranges.

When Al dealt directly with WoW and MMORPGs, you were all "TLDR." Then you're comparing singleplayer games to multiplayer ones with your continue screens and whatnot, then you accuse others of comparing apples and oranges?

In all your defensive indignation, do you not see how silly you're being?

Somath Cegem wrote:

So the guys who are constantly making bug fixes, balancing classes and races expanding dungeons in patches (Some of which are quite large, the last two added massive raids and much more items) and working on the expansions, all the while getting moaned at by warlocks case they can't wear plate should do so for bugger all?

Everyone but MMO producers are expected to provide a working product to their customer for the base price. Funny, that.

Quote :

Sorry, but 100 quid a year is nothing and with the constant updates and new content between the expansions means I'll get loads more time out of this than the 2/3 games i would have spent that 100 quid on.

There's more you can do here with 100 quid than buy more games, especially if you're not living with your parents. Opportunity costs, and all that.

Alhazred wrote:

You have spent this entire thread talking about how criticizing WoW for it's design decisions is invalid because every other game does the same thing. Why does "apples and oranges" only apply to people who aren't you?

Why are you so dodgy? Get to the fucking point, either write a review that doesn't compair WoW to another completely fucking game or shut up. Tell us about it's technical failings, yes? Tell us about it's broken mechanics, yes? Tell us about the bug, the glitches that make the game unplayable and so awful, yes? Tells us if the the spells and ablilities work like they should. Does Stormtrike bug out when you use it? Do the player character fall through the floor at a certain spot? Does Mr. Smite bug out at 10% health?

Penguin wrote:

TL;DR

:lolinsane:

You TL:DRed my review of WoW. Every response you've made has been for no purpose other than exacerbating argument without actually defending any of your own opinions.

Penguin wrote:

Somath Cegem wrote:

So the guys who are constantly making bug fixes, balancing classes and races expanding dungeons in patches (Some of which are quite large, the last two added massive raids and much more items) and working on the expansions, all the while getting moaned at by warlocks case they can't wear plate should do so for bugger all?

Everyone but MMO producers are expected to provide a working product to their customer for the base price. Funny, that.

I think there is a slight difference between Delivering what you promised and then giving extra stuff later (WoW, WARonline and such) and not delivering entirely on a promised product until a later date (Fallout 3)

Penguin wrote:

Somath Cegem wrote:

Sorry, but 100 quid a year is nothing and with the constant updates and new content between the expansions means I'll get loads more time out of this than the 2/3 games i would have spent that 100 quid on.

There's more you can do here with 100 quid than buy more games, especially if you're not living with your parents. Opportunity costs, and all that.

I do believe you just tried to make it personal Penguin, naughty naughty, I expected better of you sir.

You know, not having an attention span is not an argument. :lolinsane:

Alhazred wrote:

You TL:DRed my review of WoW. Every response you've made has been for no purpose than exacerbating argument without actually defending any of your own opinions.

I resent that! I've tried to defend my view that just because you dislike WoW does not mean it's bad. I might not be doing very well but I'm trying dammit.