Poster: Linlithgow at 11/26/2005 11:54:36 AM PST
Subject: World of R A I D Craft |
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Hmmm... thought when I signed up for this game about a year ago that was EXACTLY what it wasn't going to be.
I've been reading the forums (and posting some), and the Raiders have been pissing me off quite a bit, and non-Raiders have made some good points; I felt the need to post as a result.
My husband and I bought 2 copies of the limited edition version of the game when it came out last year, and we were briefly in the Beta. We also both went to Blizzcon; we both have level 60's and numerous alts. So spare me the lecture about how I don't care about WoW and don't play enough to merit a hardcore nomenclature. It's a stupid term anyway. I think I've spent more money on this game than 'hardcore' games (and Blizz products in general), and I have certainly spent a LOT of time.
I'm one of those nasty people you raiders think (to paraphrase a description from another thread), '... that play 20 minutes and expect 133t stuff'. Yes, I have been logging on for 30 minute to 1 hour periods lately; because I hate the level 60 content for me. Well, I really should say there IS no level 60 content for me. It wasn't always that way though. We both worked at a high stress job this time last year and we took off extra days during Christmas with the goal of playing lots of WoW together. We did, even though it was often through a haze of Theraflu or Sudafed. We had a blast!
We enjoy wandering off and we enjoy exploring together; it's great playing with someone who is in the same room. WoW was designed with tons of play styles in mind, right? There's nothing like trying to plan a strategy for taking out some MOBs a lot higher than you when it's just you, your man and his dog. It's even more interesting in a cave, where I can't root. Talk, plan, execute.
So, the halcyon months pass, and 60 approaches. Our playing has reduced some because of very stressful work conditions (although we still play several days during the week and almost all weekend). There's a few comments about this from guildies. After all, UBRS beckons and people are getting stuff quicker than they are! One guildie in particular hounds people for help but doesn't reciprocate (he lives at home with his mom during the summer and is on probably 18 hours a day). Friction ensues, the guild breaks up. The wedge of uber items only achievable from large raiding claims a victim and some friendships, incidentally.
Some of us re-form; my husband and I are 60 by this time. During the push to 60 a level 58 gibbering ghoul drops a Krol Blade! Wow, can I use the cash! (Herbalism/Alchemy don't make you tons of dough, but that's another story). I prattle on about it for days. The colour coded system for items is interesting; you feel like you have something special, until you run in to someone who is a mirror image of you. (In games like Asheron's Call- which I spent I spent a lot of time playing, they don't have this system; they have hundreds of really good items for any class that can drop anywhere.)
We go on some runs- BRD, UBRS, etc. Hard to enjoy them because people rush through them just to get to the end boss; you don't see the environment, which WoW does so well. "We're doing X but not the Y part", "No, the Butcher isn't a raid quest, it's 5 man" (crap, he's right!), etc, etc. Neither Fang nor I roll on a lot of stuff that drops that perhaps we should. I guess we're suckers for the "they probably need it worse and I don't want to be greedy" deal. After all, I don't play this game to be cut-throat; I leave that for the @ssholes who cut me off in traffic. I want to have fun when I play; the items in game are a bunch of 1's and 0's, truth be told.
I don't want to have the fun that a Raider tells me is fun; I want to crawl into the WoW universe and see the art, the constructs, the creative team's idea of a WoW world. I don't want to be verbally b1tch-slapped around because I didn't heal the priest in group 3 quickly enough.
So where do I go from here? When we went to Blizzcon I asked the Dungeon panel about smaller dungeons; actually what I asked about was implementing a scaling dungeon. I hadn't been ninjaed yet (although that was to come shortly after the end of the con), but I play in smaller groups; it's a choice, Raiders. Not everyone likes to weed through DKP point BS and 15 people chatting at once. I prefer the intimacy and comaraderie of smaller groups. Note to you: your way isn't the only way to play. This somehow doesn't make me less dedicated, or less talented, just different; in fact I have enjoyed some raids on occasion. Regardless of my style, you should be able to respect that it's different, instead of hurling invective at anyone who says they don't like 40-mans. LOTS of people play an average of several hours a day and don't like the repetition of RAID dungeons (whereas some raiders I know only play a few hours a week, in order to do a run. There goes the "I play most so I should get the most" argument). I respect your right to have them though, so just respect my right to disagree, without being disagreeable, okay? Over the history of the MMO, there have been lots of ways to reward 'dedicated' players; time played, money spent, number of unique experiences, places explored, numbers of quests completed, number of dungeons entered, success at crafting, etc. Yours is one potential criteria among many.
But I digress... back to Blizzcon. What made the most sense to me was a dungeon that scaled depending on the number of people in the group. Have the dungeon set for a max of 20 people, with the spawn points laid out. If 2 people enter, have the pop table for that (if more people join the group, MOBs ahead would spawn more). Adjust the loot drop accordingly if you have to (although less MOBs will generally mean a small party will leave with less and poorer loot on average). This scheme isn't bad for Blizzard; it allows them to create a system of dynamic content that is different with every pass through, depending on the group composition. Throw some different MOB tables in the mix and it's actually self generating content. Different look too, so it's not as repetitive. An alternative is to scale the difficulty of the MOBs. Everyone wins, I thought.
Didn't get too far in my explanation. The quick response from one of the panelists was "We expect people at end game to be in large groups" (wish I could remember his name; I think he was the dungeon team lead). I was embarassed and self-conscious about being dismissed so quickly. When I tried to approach him later, he was busy, so I talked with other Blues. Many were sympathetic... to a point. Fang and I talked about it; where was the "this game is approachable for all play styles" goal? I was pissed off, frankly, that as a customer who obviously loved the game enough to be at the Con, I was just brushed aside so dismissively. (My husband and I spent over a thousand dollars between airfare, admission and hotel to attend the con.) There was talk at other times that Raid groups were too big and they wanted to make them smaller if anything. Haven't seen any concrete announcements so far though, so I am not hopeful.
From polling posts, it seems more people agree with me than disagree. On one of the threads I took a random page and counted the Raiders and non-Raider's posts. It came out poorly for the "STFU noob make new toons" people; only 3 of them against 15 unique posters expressing displeasure over Raid only content.
Which brings me to another point; Raiders, why the puerile name calling? I'm beginning to think the contention that most raiders are 13 year olds is correct. Don't YOU want new content? Wouldn't YOU like to have the option of going to 4 or 5 different places to get your pieces, or at least pieces that were good for you?
The problem really boils down to lack of content.
There are set pieces for the classes- people are clamouring to get them; IF is filled with lookalikes, which is disappointing. To make the most of your character you need to 'get' the pieces. Whether you raiders admit it or not, there are tons of people who are paying monthly fees for your content, but who get none of their own. (Don't worry, I don't expect your sense of injustice to kick in). Smaller group experiences can scale up; right now, I can't even get in to AQ (patch 1.9 test server) unless I am in a Raid; it won't even let me go in and stealth around to see the ARTWORK for goodness sake. Put a dungeon in with a shiny thing at the end and see the Raiders go! The rest of us are stuck with your bills because a compelling 5 man or scaling dungeon takes a lot work up front, not just dozens of high number leet MOBs in a group thrown at it. Yes, your way CAN take coordination; so can mine.
Telling me to go start a new toon is stupid; I like the one I have, it took me almost a year to get it and the game changed suddenly for me at 60. Why am *I* the one with the problem? It's me and more than half the player base, if the forums are any indication. Don't tell me to PvP; with my gear I am eviscerated by MC !@!#&s and getting a good rank where I can get good gear requires, as people in other threads have put it, "... you and several of your friends playing the same char 24/7".
A player named Kazgrim from one of the other threads put it well I think:
".... Wow at 60 is a different game. You play because you feel you have to. Game content is something to be endured, not enjoyed."
So then there's the argument that "it's an MMO, STOOPID". Yes, but there is an RPG component you conveniently ignore. What is 'Role-Playing' about going in to a dungeon for the 20th time and killing the same boss you have killed interminable times before? I play with others, but I guess I failed to see the TMNOPYPWIF (The Minimum Number Of People You Play With is Forty) in the MMORPG acronym. The richness of an MMORPG is that there are large numbers of people playing it, which makes for a rich game experience- it's not an RTS AI at home; you HAVE to interact with other people. Saying the whole MMO in MMORPG is 40 man raids is restrictive; there are lots of ways to interact with people, including 3 man groups.
So Blizz, 'wakey wakey!". I WANT to play this game; I have met some cool people through it, and I love the creative aspect, rich artwork and story line. People who are frustrated with endgame are not telling you to change a small part of the game that is beneficial to their class, but expressing frustration that they have little to show for new experience vis-a-vis a year of subscription. Frankly, I am a geek and have been playing MMOs for over 7 years. It's a unique experience, and one I will continue, regardless. Whether WoW deserves my continued attentions (and those of others), remains to be seen.
| | | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=5978387&p=#post5978387 | | | Poster: Tigole at 11/28/2005 8:26:13 AM PST
Subject: My thoughts |
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I think there are some very valid points in this thread. You're touching on a very difficult issue. Many of the proposed solutions sound easy (and are easy in theory) but are very challenging in either implementation or execution. By implementation I mean, things such as a dungeon that dynamically scales in numbers and difficulty according to the number of people and level of those people (while certainly a very cool idea) is very complicated to do right (right being the key word here). Execution is another thing altogether. Execution refers to how and why we would do such things. Sometimes there are things that we can technically implement but make a concious design decision not to (for example, proxy bidding in the Auction House). So in terms of execution, I'm not confident at this point that some of the proposals are completely sound.
I'm a little disappointed that people criticize us as not doing things for the casual gamer. The whole basis of our design philosophy has been to create a game that appeals to players both casual and hardcore. The very fact that players who vehemently call themselves "casual" reach level 60 in our game (have max tradeskills, have epic mounts) seems like a testament to me that we achieved that goal (at least somewhat).
In fact, we often prioritized things in favor over the hardcore. For those of you who have been playing the game since release, you'll remember that the game shipped with Onyxia and Molten Core as our only raid content. Rather than rushing to get Blackwing Lair, ZG or AQ done, we then focused our attention on Maraudon and Dire Maul. We prioritized those two dungeons OVER raid content even though we were lacking in the latter department, because we wanted to fully flesh out our casual experience first.
We need to strike a very challenging balance here. We want to provide for players who raid, players who solo, players who pvp, players who tradeskill, players who merchant, etc... and the list goes on. When we add content for a group that doesn't include you, it shouldn't be taken as an affront to your playstyle. We have a lot of people we need to keep happy, and we're not going to forget about anyone.
Now the main thing we need to do is get The Burning Crusade out. Players at 60 who do not wish to raid want more of what they had in levels 1-59 which was Questing With a Purpose. When we can add a suite of new content and raise the level cap, we can give players the sense of progression they are looking for. They'll get more of that WoW experience that they came to love. The Burning Crusade has a very balanced combination of solo/group/raid/pvp content. There will be brand new, non-max level dungeons. There will be max level 5 man dungeons. There will be a 10 man raid, something we've never done before (at least endorsed). We're very aware of what people want and we're going to deliver on those needs.
But it would simply be unfair to cut our current raid game short because people think it's somehow hurting their play experience. It's perfectly ok to NOT raid if that's not your thing. But there are lots of WoW fans out there that thrive on getting together in large groups to conquer difficult content. And they want (and should be) to be rewarded for that effort.
When we put in a raid, we're not making a decision to keep content from people. We're trying to provide for an area of our game that we felt was previosly deficient.
We're going to continue to patch this game and we're going to try to make sure there's something for everyone in each patch. Sometimes, however, there might be content that's not your thing -- i.e. solo/raid/group/pvp. But please remember, we haven't forgotten about you. Making someone else's idea of fun gameplay go away isn't going to magically create more content for you. We need to provide for everyone. I can assure you, we're working extremely hard to do that.
| | | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=5978387&p=#post5999535 | Poster: Tigole at 11/28/2005 8:45:03 AM PST
Subject: Re: World of R A I D Craft |
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Q u o t e:
Why do you folks have to copy EQ so much? Why can't you develop your own forms of end-game content?
I'd love to see Blackwing Lair and the bosses and things. I think that's want most casuals want over items and things, just to do and see everything. One of my favorite moments in this game was fighting the Baron of Stratholme for the first time. Wow, a Death Knight! Here's the "Warcraft" part of "World of Warcraft"
But you chose to make that extremely difficult to engage in due to an incredibly unimaginative gameplay design
Please stop copying other games, for the sake of innovation and allowing players to experience the world, not just "work" in it
I don't think you're being fair here. You yourself pointed out that we provide "epic" feeling content for non-raiding people in 5 man dungeons, citing Baron Rivendale. I'd go so far as to say the boss encoutners in Gnomeregan and Uldman are more epic than endgame content in other games. We provided an Honor System and Battlegrounds to provide other avenues of advancement for certain players. You can tradeskill Epic items without raiding...
You're more likely to get your voice heard if you keep the posts more productive and less antagonistic. To be frank, part of the allure of Blackwing Lair to people is that it's so difficult to even get to see the content in there. Could we make it a solo dungeon? Yes. It would take less than a day. Would it still have the same allure? The answer is no.
| | | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=5978387&p=#post5999790 | Poster: Tigole at 11/28/2005 8:46:34 AM PST
Subject: Re: World of R A I D Craft |
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Q u o t e:
Thank you Tigole for the kind response. I am still concerned whether the devs recognize the issue of itemization for those who cannot raid. Are there any plans being formulated to help the casual get epics. I PVP alot, and one day my rep may be exhalted, until then I cannot stand against many of the people that can raid. It is sad that no matter how much I play I will still get crushed by someone who plays half as much but has access to places I do not due to various factors.
I agree that this has the potential to be a problem. We're working on a number of things to address these issues. Not just in gear obtained, but in the way PvP is handled on a larger scale.
| | | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=5978387&p=#post5999808 | Poster: Tigole at 11/28/2005 8:46:34 AM PST
Subject: Re: World of R A I D Craft *edited post* |
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Q u o t e:
Thank you Tigole for the kind response. I am still concerned whether the devs recognize the issue of itemization for those who cannot raid. Are there any plans being formulated to help the casual get epics. I PVP alot, and one day my rep may be exhalted, until then I cannot stand against many of the people that can raid. It is sad that no matter how much I play I will still get crushed by someone who plays half as much but has access to places I do not due to various factors.
I agree that this has the potential to be a problem. We're working on a number of things to address these issues. Not just in gear obtained, but in the way PvP is handled on a larger scale.
| | | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=5978387&p=#post5999808 |
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