WoW, Casually: WWI news for casuals
by Robin Torres 
Jul 6th 2008 at 1:00PM
Each week or so, Robin Torres writes WoW, Casually for the player who has 2 hours or less to play at a time.
Last weekend, the World Wide Invitational rocked our world with tantalizing news about the next expansion... and of course Diablo III, but this column isn't called "Diablo, Casually" or "Blizzard Fangirl" so we'll just talk about Wrath of the Lich King. The amount of information we gleaned from the WWI is pretty overwhelming, so let's just go over the items that I think affect those of us with limited playtime.
First of all, I think the biggest news was for the individual classes, so check out the news from the Dev panel. As a Druid, my 5-man instance viability will improve with indoor Entangling Roots and the possibility of an out of combat res. Many of the changes will make it easier for us all to find groups faster which means we can get more done in the blocks of time we have to play.
Last weekend, the World Wide Invitational rocked our world with tantalizing news about the next expansion... and of course Diablo III, but this column isn't called "Diablo, Casually" or "Blizzard Fangirl" so we'll just talk about Wrath of the Lich King. The amount of information we gleaned from the WWI is pretty overwhelming, so let's just go over the items that I think affect those of us with limited playtime.
First of all, I think the biggest news was for the individual classes, so check out the news from the Dev panel. As a Druid, my 5-man instance viability will improve with indoor Entangling Roots and the possibility of an out of combat res. Many of the changes will make it easier for us all to find groups faster which means we can get more done in the blocks of time we have to play.
- 5-man instances should take less than an hour to play. This means that all 5-man instances will be available to us, even if we only have a couple hours to play. We should be able to find a group, prepare, get everyone there and still complete the instance before time is up.
- Death Knights will be viable in groups, easily soloable and will have their own new content. As long as you have a level 55 character of any kind on any server, you can make one Death Knight per server, any race, any faction. This means that you can join friends on other servers without having to transfer or level up a baby character. I want a Gnome Death Knight. Definitely. With pigtails if possible.
- All raids will have 10-man and 25-man versions. The 25-man loot will be a whole tier above the 10-man loot, but the 10-man raids will be able to see the story. This is good news for those who have longer blocks of time to play, but still can't commit to a large raiding guild.
More 5-man news
There is a lot of news for those of us who are max level and have time to enjoy the smaller instances.
- Heroics will have no attunement. This means that Heroic content will be more accessible to everyone, even if you who don't have the time or inclination to grind rep in order to get to the more advanced 5-man content.
- 5-mans will be more accessible to dungeon noobs. They don't want to make the dungeons easier, but they do want to make boss-kill strategies easier to understand so that newer players can learn advanced techniques. Training players who are new to the endgame content is a great idea and one that will benefit everyone, in my opinion. PuGs with more knowledgeable players is always a good thing.
- Heroics will accomodate different class combinations. They want to make sure that holy priests and/or protection tanks are not required for a group to be successful in Heroics. This will make it much faster to find groups in order to experience these instances.
Not every Casual player likes PvP, but the PvP content in WoW offers a lot of low time investment activities and these will get more varied in Wrath.
- Lake Wintergrasp. I have high hopes for this new non-instanced battleground. Yes, the Siege Engines and Destructable Environment look amazing, but I think this will be a great place to just spend some time when you can't find a group or just want to go out and play. It looks like it will be what Alterac Valley should have been. You will gain Honor and Marks just like the other Battlegrounds, but it's not instanced, so you can just join the throng battling for control without queues or setup time. Of course, this will only be great if people actually participate, but I think the vehicle combat will make that likely.
- PvE and PvP at the same time. If your faction controls Wintergrasp, all dungeons will drop Spirit Shards which can be spent on PvP gear along with the tokens for the PvE loot system. So your PvE playtime can benefit your PvP fun as well.
- New Northrend Battleground. This is instanced, also has vehicle combat and offers another variety of PvP gameplay. Variety is the spice of life and having a larger selection of places to earn honor will make the grind for gear much more pleasant.
Blizzard used the word "accessible" many times in many panels which is good news for us.
- Two Talent Specs! I'm sure the Raiders believe this is for them, but I claim some benefit for Casuals as well. We don't know any details about how this will be done, but "access" means not having to respec and implies that you could be so much more valuable in groups. Are you a druid? You could have a tank and healer spec and fill whichever role the group needs. Or you could have your Solo spec and your Group-friendly spec and switch between those. Anything that saves time and gets you into a good group faster benefits everyone.
- Faster Faction Farming. Again, we are not sure of the exact implementation, but we will have some item, like a tabard, available to us that will allow us to earn reputation for two factions at the same time. Fighting in a dungeon for one faction will also give us rep for the faction of the tabard we are wearing.
- More fun not related to Epics and Honor. Blizzard released no details here, but they are discussing marriages and other minor events that will be there for the sole purpose of having fun, like the activities at the Darkmoon Faire.
What are you most excited about in all of the expansion news?
WoW, Casually is a column for those of us who are playtime-challenged and proud Welfare Epic wearers. If you have questions or tips about how to get the most out of your limited playtime, please send them to Robin.Torres AT weblogsinc DOT com for a possible future column.Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Events, Expansions, Wrath of the Lich King, WoW, Casually, Worldwide Invitational
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Roxton Jul 6th 2008 1:12PM
"Easy to learn and hard to master" is the perfect principle for an MMO, and Blizzard have done fairly well on this. However, they must remember to enforce the "hard to master" aspect, and not let it slip in the expansion (like they did with allowing blatant cheating to get S3 weapons).
Daecrist Jul 6th 2008 1:14PM
We were just having a "spirited discussion" about this in guild chat last night. My friends and I are all in a weird nether region where we spend enough time in the game to not be considered casual, but we don't really dedicate ourselves to working our real life schedule around WoW content so that we can see the high end stuff. We're interested in seeing some of these dungeons just to say we were there and got the story, but aren't interested in the PvE grind to get there.
So making things more friendly to casual players can only be a good thing in my opinion. I know that there are teeming masses of self-described hardcore players gnashing their teeth at this news and screaming that the game is being dumbed down, but there are still going to be rewards for the people who dedicate themselves to the very top end of the game.
Since the game came out a lot of the high end content has felt more like a time sink than something fun, and that turned my group off of the game pre-BC. WoW is a much better place to hang out now that they've fine-tuned some things to make end game more a matter of interest and skill than being able to sink 50 hours a week into the game.
Jukasa Jul 6th 2008 2:19PM
So basically just dumb it down so everything can pass the content. Sounds cool! :P
Arioch Jul 6th 2008 3:38PM
Blizzard's statistics no doubt tell them that what has to be the top reason for people leaving the game is that for the casual player, once your character reaches 70, unless you're into PvP, there's nothing for you to do (except start over with another character, which your average player has no interest in doing). Even for the people who are interested in endgame content, finding an endgame guild on a mature server with a blue-geared character is nearly impossible, and even finding a group for the heroic dungeons you need to gear up can be very difficult, especially for unpopular class specs (like, say, a Retribution Paladin).
I have mixed feelings about the dual-spec feature... it will certainly help out a lot of people, but it sort of defeats the purpose of having talents in the first place. It may help a Retribution Paladin find a group if he can instantly switch to healing spec... but chances are the reason the player specced his character Retribution is because he doesn't like healing. Not to mention that when that melee DPS item drops, his party members will freak out when he tried to roll for it.
Also, it's easy to pay lip-service to making things more "accessible," and quite another to actually find a way to do it. I don't see any straightforward way to make most boss encounters more "accessible" to players who don't already know the fights (or won't listen when someone explains them) with just making them easier. Which will just create more of a brick wall for the non-hardcore players to run into when they get to the "hard" content.
Reduced reputation grinds are a relief to most players, but it brings up the question of why you have reputation grinds when no one likes them in the first place. The real solution to reputation grinds is to replace them with something that's actually fun to do, instead of a boring time-sink designed just to keep you playing. The daily quests have come closer to this ideal, but are still nowhere near the target. The long-promised "minor events" are few and far between, and due to the cost of developing this kind content, this is unlikely to change.
I think that the above changes are all good ideas. I just don't think they're actually going to change anything.
PeeWee Jul 6th 2008 3:45PM
Well, in reply to everyone complaining about any of the changes:
If you don't like it, GTFO and don't come back. Why the hell would you be paying for it if you don't like it? If you're dumb enough to pay for something you don't want, feel free to also remove yourself from the gene pool, make the world a better place and improve humanity's odds in the future.
Thank you.
Arioch Jul 7th 2008 12:09AM
Yeah, that's really helpful.
Rydolomo Jul 6th 2008 5:15PM
I think the SSO rep grind is just right. You can reach exalted just by doing dailies.
Worst rep grind was TB rep which is a PITA.
Oren Jul 6th 2008 6:32PM
Sounds great.
I still guess the only chance for someone like me who mainly plays solo to see the inside of a raid dungeon is going to be when they add the option to enter a dungeon as a spectator and see other people doing all the fighting. Or, when expansion number 20 is out and I can easily solo "classic" dungeons with my level 120 druid.
In other words, never going to happen.
Gazoo Jul 6th 2008 10:11PM
Wow just gets dumber and dumber with every new release. With the new expansion anyone can walk into anything and kill it just by looking at it. "But I pay 15 bucks I want the story too"... instead of earning it, now they are just plopping it on your plate. Why bother setting goals, just wait and get everything given to you.
Eh? Jul 8th 2008 4:04AM
"Earning" the right to see all the game with the current esoteric process is just laughable. The ONLY reason that people want to see that practice to continue is so they can continue to feel "special" over others who can't do it their way. This is incredibly ironic given the fact that most of the people you hear about who play the large raiding game gripe about having to put up with strangers they don't know to be able to experince the story. "Why should I have to put up and work with idiots I don't know to experience the storyline when I can just go with a smaller group of all my good friends to obtain the same result?"
Please excuse me if I'm wrong, but I play this game to, you know, PLAY the game and experience some of that little-known concept called "fun." I don't pay $15 a month to have a part-time job.
Eh? Jul 8th 2008 4:07AM
"Earning" the right to see all the game with the current esoteric process is just laughable. The ONLY reason that people want to see that practice to continue is so they can continue to feel "special" over others who can't do it their way. This is incredibly ironic given the fact that most of the people you hear about who play the large raiding game gripe about having to put up with strangers they don't know to be able to experince the story. "Why should I have to put up and work with idiots I don't know to experience the storyline when I can just go with a smaller group of all my good friends to obtain the same result?"
Please excuse me if I'm wrong, but I play this game to, you know, PLAY the game and experience some of that little-known concept called "fun." I don't pay $15 a month to have a part-time job.
Eh? Jul 8th 2008 4:07AM
naturally the site does a double-post (sigh).
Konraddo Jul 8th 2008 11:33AM
Well...
Whether a game is successful or not, it usually depends on how the perceptions of those 'active players.' These active players are usually the hardcore ones, because they play a lot, they learn a lot, they calculate a lot and they build lots of strategies / website etc and these actions help promote the game.
However, the majority of the population is the 'non-active players,' i.e. casual players, noob players, roleplaying players etc. Apart from making sure that the game receives proper attention from the media, the developers also need to make sure their revenue is okay. To do that, they need to do things to appeal to the masses. And this explains the strategies taken by various game companies in recent years. They just have to reduce the entry barrier while making the end-game interesting / challenging. This way, they can keep both groups of players happy.
WoW is doing a great job. The arena system pleases the hardcore players and the soloable content pleases the casual players. The 10 / 25-man raids please the hardcore players and the 5-man instances please the casual players.
Dont worry if you think "Wow just gets dumber and dumber with every new release," the developers need you and will give you something to do.
Ravenswing Jul 7th 2008 7:02AM
"5-man instances should take less than an hour to play"
I have to admit, I did find this funny. It sounds good until you realise that no one will want to do those instances any more. The time you would have had to spend playing the instance will be spent trying to find anyone else who wants to run it.
Swings and roundabouts. :)
Arbol Jul 7th 2008 9:21AM
"Are you a druid? You could have a tank and healer spec and fill whichever role the group needs."
Ok, but that means I need to learn to tank. I have been building a feral set on the side, but that doesn't mean I know how to tank. That'll be a fun run, the first time I'm asked to switch, lol.
Tesh Jul 18th 2008 6:33PM
One of the biggest barriers to entry for a truly casual player is the subscription fee. With the U.S. economy in serious trouble, people are cutting back on the nonessentials. Games and movies tend to do better than most in recessions/depressions, but if it's a choice of paying the mortgage/rent or feeding the family or paying for another month of WoW, the "casual" player isn't going to put a high priority on WoW.