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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-14-2008 @ 5:29PM
Ravdoss said...
Hasn't WoW as a whole been homogenized? From the time I joined 2 years ago so much has been changed it's ridiculous. I'm not so much concerned with the neutral faction bit as I am with the nature of the overall game. Blizzard continually seems to be trying to make elements of the game easier or more accessible. Of course, to me that translates into more players=more money and it's hard to begrudge any company for taking that route. However, at what cost?
At the lower levels there was a real and tangible fear that crossing the likes of Mor'Ladim meant death. Not anymore, because he like so much else in the game got hit with the nerf bat. The net result is that it means more people won't be put off because this or that was "too hard to solo". Need to find that set of bones from some long missing and feared dead guards? Not to worry, just look for the floating question mark above them! Er... what?!
I know, some people will say Blizzard has just provided in game some of the very things players were accomplishing by looking all about the internet. Well, players who actually bothered as opposed to those who just suffered and gave up. Yet, isn't part of the fun in playing measured by the difficulty presented? Isn't surmounting the difficulty in itself make any reward that much greater?
So now it's easier to level up. Easier to find just about everything that counts as a gathered item be it for quests/professions. Attunements? why bother really? Ok the attuning bit was a bit overdone even for my tastes and rightly got served up the nerf bat. Yet I think Blizz got a little too happy toning down the difficulty overall. When so much in the game is made easy to come by what really is the point in playing? The greater "social" aspect of things or the growth of WoW as some MySpace/Facebook community of MMO's?
The true homogenization of WoW is all around the game to be seen though I prefer to call it a dumbing down. It's sadly unfortunate because so much of things that made WoW great like the lore get overlooked in favor of making things easy on new players. For me that's just stripping out the value and depth in a please all the people all the time mentality. What's more is that in doing so Blizzard may get more people who stay and pay to play as WoW slowly loses its soul.
Reply
7-14-2008 @ 5:59PM
zygote said...
Not to undercut your primary point, but Mor'Ladim still means death.
He's still elite, he still has that glowie sword, and he still stomps out of the fog in that graveyard and one-shots people just trying to gank skeletons.
Lots of things in the game have been made easier — but I don't think Mor'Ladim is one. Morbent Fel, now there's a newly-minted wuss.
And while the mechanics have been "dumbed down" — haven't the players already been dumbing it down?
Nobody actually gathers five people and tries to take down the dangerous Edwin Van Cleef. They get a 70 to blitz them through there in 10 minutes until they get the loot they want and call it a day.
The sad reality is that 1-60 is like the opening scene before the credits — it's exposition — nobody really cares anymore.
7-16-2008 @ 4:21AM
gareth said...
Got to agree totally with zygote (not read the post above though, too MANY capital letter words makes it unreadable and annoying :) ).
I think the big problem wow seems to have is the split between the need to get to the end game whether it be 60,70 or 80 and the need to actually have content to do before you get there.
Personally I think the dungeons should auto level depending on the level of group going in. E.g. shadowfang keep would jump to level 70 if a level 70 joined a party of 25's, but as long as you were in the range of the summoning stone it would stay about the same.
Of course the downside of this would be more time needed to get to the end game, which isn't a bad thing since all the game should be fun, but delaying releasing that new raid content will no doubt have top end raiding guilds that play 60 hours a week moaning and complaining about the lack of content.
Personally I think something along the lines of the mentoring system of EQ2 could work, maybe a temporary change in level, thinking if there is some way that people can enjoy the 60 and 70 raids as we go past them with other people who are levelling without them being trivialised by over levelling.
So far WoW has been a successful formulae, the above approach where you cannot just over level a dungeon to drag a low level through is implemented in EQ2, maybe people just do want easy mode, my gut feeling though is that what WoW should be and what people want should always be a little different.
I'd like to grind all the rep needed for X in 1 hour, but the countless dungeon runs and missions actually needed still get done and its fun in the end doing it.