Blizzard CEO: "WoW subscriptions have stopped growing"

[Broomstick]

Or better known as fucking retards. If you couldn't take a 10 minute debuff you deserved all your gear broken 10 times over.

Well, yes, there have always been an ample supply of idiots in WoW, but I was referring more to:

I think she is refering to the practice of "dying your way through" an area that was to highlevel or when it was just easier/faster than fighting all the mobs.

and while I agree that...

Way back then when it was crap...you ran to the graveyard of the place you wanted....and revived. Eventually it was changed because that was best way of avoiding places and getting to where you wanted at low levels. Plus you were faster then normal.

Was also true, that wasn't very helpful if you didn't know the graveyard locations. And some people did it to get FP's and for other reasons, most of which didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, either.

[Dragon Angel]

I really don't feel any sympathy for the people who are going to "miss" the old Azeroth. Honestly, I can't see why nostalgia still exists for it, unless those people were playing classes that were not broken under the old system. (Or they were playing the broken classes, but liked the roles which they were forced into, or completely forgot those times...take your pick.)

Most of the characters that I played were hybrids, so I may have a darkly-tinted view of the past...but the fact that I could do nothing but healbot raids, under most circumstances, made the whole activity boring. "Roll a real tank, noob." or "Roll a dps class that was made to dps you @#$%in moron." was always the response I would get, as if I wanted to change to a different play style JUST because Blizzard failed on holding up to their advertisements.

Even with the "nice" and "casual" guilds, they were sometimes forced into fitting with Blizzard's braindead class scheme if they wanted to progress.

This isn't to say that I minded healing...I actually loved to much of the time. But, to heal a raid forever for the life of the character? PLUS no alternatives? Unacceptable. I'm glad TBC actually made steps to allow my Paladin, Shaman, and Druid to live up to their backgrounds...because otherwise, it would've driven me absolutely nuts.

...This turned into a rant quickly, didn't it? End rant, for now.

[Broomstick]

It helps that I liked to do more than just raid. My nostalgia, such as it is, was for the little, out of the way, hidden places with striking visuals or that only a few people knew how to get to. Otherwise... I look forward to the changes, in some cases eagerly. My only regret is that Azshara is probably radically going to change in appearance and I always considered it lovely... but hardly anyone ever went there, I realize I'm in the minority, and that I can't always have things my way.

[Skgoa]

Want deranged mind would call Azshara lovely? But yeah, its one of my favorite zones, ground quite a bit of money there. I must have singlehandedly slaughtered mor bloodelves than all other characters in the history/lore of warcraft combined...
I actually liked Mulgore, the Barrens, Ashenvale, Stranglethorne and many many more Zones as PLACES, but not most of the quests - although some questlines were just as good or even better than the new ones. The shaman water totem quest comes to mind. Its an epic tour around Azeroth, resulting in a feeling of acomplishment that I only got again when we started to get pretty good at killing bosses in AQ40.

[Skgoa]

Ghetto edit: And I can't understand why anyone would claim that vanilla WoW was lacking in tactical depth. You could easily beat everything, if you did the quests that were meant for your level or you had a party. But if you DIDN'T stay in this casual gamer zone, there were plenty of challanges. The totem quest I mentioned above has you (amongst a long list of other things) fetch some quest item out of the midst of some kind of bog giants (forgot what they were exacly) in southern Ashenvale. Try doing that alone in the middle of the night as a lvl20 Shaman in greens and few blues. Those fucking giants respawned almost as fast as I killed them, and since they were higher level than me their aggro range was quite long, meaning I never ever had a save zone to eat/drink. It took quite a bit of time, ingenuity and skill to pull it of... the night elve huntard and rogue trying to gank me at different points during the night did not help either. Although for the first time I spanked a higher level player, thats propably the reason why I used to love worldpvp.

[Oskuro]

in my case, the nostalgia is because I'm more into the roleplay/gameworld side of things than the actual reaching the endgame and raiding, I mean, I never got to Outland because I wanted to do all the quests in Azeroth, explore all the content, read all the stories. Before I cancelled my subscription the last time, I had joined an RP guild that was working its way through the old raids, and thus got to see Onyxia, get Quel'Serrar, do Blackrock Spire (save Blackwing), knock on C'tun's door, harass Ragnaros' minions, and, overall, get to see and do stuff I wouldn't have done otherwise, since everyone else was busy in Outland/Northrend.

But, then again, I'm part of a minority, and I understand the flaws of the original content. In my opinion, that the content became obsolete was the major flaw to begin with anyway (As happened with the original Nax). Hopefully, with Cataclysm, they'll rework some of this content so everyone gets to experience it. I mean, the different difficulty settings could be applied to make even the starter dungeons worth doing for endgame players.


And I'm sorry, but the most mind numbing and horrible set of quests are the ones that actually wore my patience down last time: The Silithus "robe" quests. My goal was to simply kill each of the minibosses once, as well as complete each of the repeatable quests exactly once. And I failed. It is horrible. The grinding. The turning in documents and hoping for the appropiate recipe to drop in the mail. THE GRINDING!


As for corpse dragging, I did that a lot during events like the Lunar festival to get all the coins possible, so yeah, I dragged my lvl 20 BE priest to the fucking Dark Portal (Although the way there was easy, as I went through a secret passage in the mountains, walking between Zul'Gurub and the Blasted Lands, they way back was tougher). Found out that, if you log out while in ghost form, upon login you can walk to the nearest graveyard and respawn there, instead of being sent to the graveyard nearest to where you died. It sucks when you don't know where a graveyard is, though.
Also found out that the Lunar festival dress has no durability, so no need to have my girl go naked (Yeah, I was bored of Silithus)

[Dragon Angel]

Sorry, I should have been a little more clear in that rant... When I mentioned nostalgia about vanilla Azeroth, I was talking more about the gameplay than the graphics. Old Azeroth had tons of absolutely stunning areas, with the exception of a few (sorry, I must disagree with Mulgore and the Barrens ), and I could see them being very much missed (I will agree with Azshara ). But, as Skgoa said, many of the quests were flawed... The words "grind, grind, grind" don't even begin to describe some of the old fetch quests; another problem Blizzard fixed well in TBC.

I also did PvP often, but even that hit its limit with me. I can't tell you how many times monumental idiots in town raiding parties killed "dishonorable" NPCs when they existed, sometimes even on purpose just to be trolls. And Battlegrounds, while they were quite fun when both teams had competent players, most of the time people in my battlegroups utterly failed to show any signs of teamwork. Though, admittedly, that isn't the fault of Blizzard, but more of certain players caring more about their kill count and HUGE DAMAGE NUMBARZ than the actual objectives...

[Edward Yee]

And it's not a problem limited to MMOs, obviously; if you've so much as peeked in the Modern Warfare 2 thread...

[Oskuro]

Though, admittedly, that isn't the fault of Blizzard, but more of certain players caring more about their kill count and HUGE DAMAGE NUMBARZ than the actual objectives...

Oooh, in that case they'll love Tatsunoko vs. Capcom! Take a look at the amount of damage being done:

[Teleros]

Oooh, in that case they'll love Tatsunoko vs. Capcom! Take a look at the amount of damage being done

We'll be doing more in WoW by the time we get to L95 or so .

As for old Azeroth... yes I'm going to miss it. Having started playing my paladin around patch 1.8 or 1.9 (I think ), I will miss a lot of it when it all gets changed, but I certainly understand the need to improve the L1-60 experience, and some of the new stuff looks good (although seriously Blizz, nuke some of the Horde towns for a change, instead of Southshore & Astranaar ).

Not surprised that subscription numbers have stabilised now (although we'll see what happens when Cataclysm hits), but Blizzard have already stated their intentions for their new MMO to steal the crown from WoW, and given we're talking about Blizzard I'm inclined to believe them. Well, unless we get another Starcraft: Ghost situation .

[Broomstick]

(although seriously Blizz, nuke some of the Horde towns for a change, instead of Southshore & Astranaar ).

Oh, they are - we're losing Camp T in the southern Barrens, for one, and the south Barrens will be Alliance territory. Don't think there's all sorts of favoritism for the Horde and no love for the Alliance.

[Dragon Angel]

Oooh, in that case they'll love Tatsunoko vs. Capcom! Take a look at the amount of damage being done:

LOL! That should be thrown into the basements of ALL the e-peen obsessed kids out there.
...Until someone makes a mod that tacks BILLION after each hit in WoW.

Battlegrounds may have been a little more tolerable, if Blizzard had just toned down the rankings system. It was either raid for the items you needed (fat chance, that Rogue/Warrior/Hunter there deserves it more neener neener), or grind Battlegrounds for the longest while in order to even have the capability to match the other side.

Not surprised that subscription numbers have stabilised now (although we'll see what happens when Cataclysm hits), but Blizzard have already stated their intentions for their new MMO to steal the crown from WoW, and given we're talking about Blizzard I'm inclined to believe them. Well, unless we get another Starcraft: Ghost situation .

Since we're talking about Blizzard here, also, this MMO will probably never come out in...[Dr. Evil voice] one million years. As a friend and I discussed about a week ago, there is still more in the lore to take from, such as the "Great Dark Beyond" (or Azeroth's outer space). Ohh my god, the things that can be done with it... (In the typical Blizzard fashion, nonetheless.)

Imagine it, Gnomes and Goblins building rocket ships for both sides, launching them from Azeroth to land on the other distant worlds. The never-ending war between the Horde and the Alliance continues to rage on, above the planet that they once considered their home. Battle has taken on a new form, as both factions fight each other to claim each of these worlds for themselves! All in the meanwhile, another Great Evil - even stronger than the might of the terrible Burning Legion - has awakened on the farthest world...and it seeks to cleanse all life on Azeroth!

Prepare for the World of Warcraft...IN SPACE!

[Oskuro]

If they managed to make a Starcraft Online I would simultaneously crap myself, come in my pants, pre-order (collectors edition) and buy a lifetime subscription. But I digress.

I've been thinking that what really bothers me about the changes is not directly related to the game itself, but to the nature of an MMO. You see, if this was a regular game, and they were releasing an expansion or a sequel, all I'd have to do to play the old contet would be to load up the previous version and play. With an MMO though, once a persistent change takes place, there's no going back, and it rubs me the wrong way to not be able to play that content ever again, but, oh well, I'll survive.

[Edward Yee]

Hey, that's what Starcraft originally was.

Then again, considering the Tauren Marines of Starcraft II...

[starfury]

Hey, that's what Starcraft originally was.

Then again, considering the Tauren Marines of Starcraft II...

Well then I consider it fitting, we have indeed come full circle, the old joke of starcraft being warcraft in space became true but in very rundabout way.

[RogueIce]

Well, as one of those 'played to level 10 but never went beyond' types* I guess I can speak up?

Essentially, as a Human Warrior (I know, how boring was I?) it was...ok at first. Of course, going into some random mines and killing rat creatures is only fun for so long, y'know? That and running everywhere got really boring. Apparently I was also something of a hopeless newb, buying armor and such at those shops rather than going to an auction house. It would be more fun for me in an RP sense, I guess, although Goldshire is just a hotbed of people who want to cyber or otherwise act like idiots.

Still, I was saddened when I heard various places would get all nukey-nukey. I've never heard of some of the places mentioned here, but I rather liked the look of Stormwind.

Still, if they can make the beginning part of the game better than 'run to mine, kill random creatures to a certain number; repeat' that will probably be worth it...

*Actually I don't remember what level I was, but whatever; I fit in the intended group.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I will miss the original content. That's why I took my main through every quest, dungeon, zone, and raid in the game (except serpentshrine, I've still never beaten that one). A lot of the introductory content sucks, but I managed to come in not long after Shattered Sun started as a dwarf and get myself up to the level I needed to be without much trouble.

I'm definitely looking forward to cataclysm. And, as was said in the thread there's a LOT more out there to exploit. The next expansion after Cat should be the Emerald Dream, and after that likely sailing space ships through the twisting nether into the great beyond, and visiting places like the Ethereal Homeworld or that planet where Nightmares come from.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

I have no firsthand experience with this, but what I've heard about the original Everquest was actually tempting me to get back into a game I had dropped for seven or so years now. Apparently the entire first twenty or so levels have been entirely revamped into a few quick, enjoyable zones that are shared by everyone, which allows very quick access to the more involved mid-game content. Quite a tempting offer to those who have played the 1-20 grind so many times they've become thoroughly bored with every damn newbie garden in the game. Maybe WoW's also hitting that point in its life cycle.

[Dragon Angel]

I have no firsthand experience with this, but what I've heard about the original Everquest was actually tempting me to get back into a game I had dropped for seven or so years now. Apparently the entire first twenty or so levels have been entirely revamped into a few quick, enjoyable zones that are shared by everyone, which allows very quick access to the more involved mid-game content. Quite a tempting offer to those who have played the 1-20 grind so many times they've become thoroughly bored with every damn newbie garden in the game. Maybe WoW's also hitting that point in its life cycle.

An ancient MMO I used to play, Nexus: Kingdom of the Winds, implemented the exact same thing into their systems. It's certainly a great way to liven the beginning grind, especially when gameplay and stat growth have both changed over the decades it's been up.

I can imagine WoW following suit in a few years, when the novelty has worn off and more popular MMOs (if they still exist) have been released. Such small things can keep a game alive.

[Teleros]

Hey, that's what Starcraft originally was.

Then again, considering the Tauren Marines of Starcraft II...

Don't forget the human Marines, power armoured space orcs, and zerg things in Warcraft 3...

Oh, they are - we're losing Camp T in the southern Barrens, for one, and the south Barrens will be Alliance territory. Don't think there's all sorts of favoritism for the Horde and no love for the Alliance.

I don't want any part of Barrens chat, thank you .

[Lord Pounder]

I genuinely feel the problem with WoW was the over abundance of assholes in every faction on every server. I've been playing WoW since the day it was released in Europe, I liked it at first but there always seemed to be a roll over from the Counter Strike type community who wanted massive end game thrills and who couldn't be arsed to put in the effort to build an even adequate character. Consequently they buy gold and fuck up the economy on every server to the point where when I was re-rolling as a Rogue i constantly had send my self gold and hit the lower level instances to get decent gear for the Rogue.

The community is pretty shit. I remember the few days before TBC came out,the main cities were full of assholes in their Epic Underpants of plus nine million Power chomping at the bit to get to the new areas, when a new player asked in the public chat for help or advise the standard replies where "google it n00b" or "thottbot junior". These same assholes then couldn't find their own ass with a GPS and a detailed map the next week in the TBC came out. When I pointed out their "n00bish" change in them I was banned from the game for a week after a lengthy session of them questioning my education and parentage in the chat channels. The ban pretty much killed the game for me.

I went back to Ultima Online for a refresher during the ban and in my first day back some randomer gave me a good katana and offered to make me good plate armor as soon as I had the strength to wear it. UO and even EVE are older now but they have actual genuine communities forming the back bone of a good gaming experience.

[Broomstick]

What you're describing is the reality of 11 million random naked apes turned loose in a playground. There are a lot of assholes in the world and WoW lets them shoot other people with impunity, both verbally and virtually. I've yet to see an on-line community where bad behavior doesn't exist.

That said - there are decent people on WoW who help others out, try to educate newbies without seeking reward, and actually build a community of sorts. And people can learn not to be assholes - just yesterday I receive an in-game mail from someone who, on their Alliance alt, had attack my Horde alt multiple times. Said person apologized for ganking me repeatedly when I wasn't troubling them, even after provocation. It's a very rare thing, but it is a sign that someone was thinking about the person on the other end of the keyboard.

I guess my feeling is that WoW is what it is, and if you don't like it then by all means find something you do like.

[Oskuro]

This phenomenom is not WoW or MMO centric, is more about gamers. Take a look at all the flak casual gamers get from the hardcore crowd, all the DS and Wii hate there is. The gaming community has its roots in a particularly assholish sector of the population (and I say this having been a gamer all of my life), wich, incidentally, is mostly composed of male teenagers, wich pushes the asshole-o-meter way past the red and into genocide-acceptance levels.

I've ranted about this in the past, games let people act without consequences, and thus people behave like idiots. And the moment you set some consequences to their actions (like the whole Dishonorable Kill* debacle back in the day) you get a tidal wave of whinning that devs have little choice but listen to.

The good thing, specially about MMOs is that, if they endure enough and get a loyal following, as they mature so does their community, and you end up getting a decent experience, since most gamer assholes are easily distracted by shiny new releases and won't stay for long on old games with "dated" graphics.



*For those who didn't play back then, when the Honor system was first implemented, killing civilian NPCs would warrant a DK (Dishonorable Kill), and make you lose honor instead of earn it. There was a wave of whinning about this, claiming that open world raiding (as in attacking towns, aka high level players griefing lowbie towns) was thus impossible, not to mention city attacks. This was all bullshit, of course, players could simply accept the consequence, or try not to kill the civilians (wich were, incidentally, the quest givers, and the whole DK system was made to avoid quest nodes being neutralized by a single high level player), but since that prevented maximun assholitude, whinning continued.
Eventually, the Honor system was revamped, and DKs removed, and so now you can get a single Boomkin neutralizing The Crossroads for lulz.

[GuppyShark]

Actually, there's a strong argument that Dishonorable Kills were an INCENTIVE to flatten starting zones.

People competed to see who could get the most, since the statistic was not actually a penalty in any way.

"now you can get a single Boomkin neutralizing The Crossroads for lulz."

There aren't bored 80s in Orgrimmar any more?

[Teleros]

Actually, there's a strong argument that Dishonorable Kills were an INCENTIVE to flatten starting zones.

People competed to see who could get the most, since the statistic was not actually a penalty in any way.

It severely harmed your honour grinding though, and I believe that if you got enough your own faction would penalise you as well.