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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: What is WoW's biggest mistake?
by Zach Yonzon 
Mar 25th 2009 at 8:00AM
That said, not everything's perfect. I haven't played Arenas in quite a while, and apparently a lot of people haven't been queuing up, either. I do enjoy all the Battlegrounds, and I definitely try to get my daily (or several times daily) dose of Wintergrasp. But Wintergrasp still lags like a poor version of a Ray Harryhausen movie. As much as Blizzard has gotten a lot of things right in Wrath, I'm sure a lot of people feel that they've gotten things wrong, too. In fact, some of the things I like might be the exact same things some people don't like.
So far, what do you think is WoW's biggest mistake? Do you think opening up raiding to more people was bad? I know a lot of you will yell 'Arenas' at the top of their cyberspatial lungs. Were Death Knights a mistake? Frankly, I can't think of anything truly egregious -- I'm having a lot of fun like I mentioned -- but maybe some of you feel otherwise. Where has Blizzard taken a misstep? What direction do you think is wrong or would be wrong for the game?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 13)
sassal Mar 25th 2009 8:09AM
arena needed for high-end pvp gear
Irshalthra Mar 25th 2009 10:21AM
I second this. Forcing battlegrounders to play the arena for high end PVP gear was a HUGE mistake.
Andi Mar 25th 2009 6:15PM
I concur!
Jimtac Mar 25th 2009 8:15AM
to me it's giving everyone the pure awesomeness of flying mounts in Outland, teasing flying mount combat in the DK starting area, and then the swift kick to the ol' imbued netherweave bag... taking them away in Northrend until nearly endgame (77/80). and wtf is up with artisan flying being 5k ... though this is not as big a deal really.
vyx Mar 25th 2009 9:05AM
Did it *really* kill you to use a regular mount for 7 levels? They design an entire continent and they want you to see it the first time. The game is not just about end game -- they put effort into the questing and levelling and want people to really experience that content and not jump past it all.
Jimtac Mar 25th 2009 11:13AM
It's not so much the lack of a flying mount... Frankly I still prefer using my trusty epic pally mount w/ crusader aura to zip around at super speeds smiting stuff, (after all you level faster when you have to kill things rather than just fly over them), but it shows an an apparent lack of caring (for lack of a better term) for the continuity of experience for the player. The flying mount thing just stands out to me as another glaring example of Blizzard's propensity to use the carrot and stick approach, so much so as to (in this case) take the carrot from your mouth after you've spent all the time grinding for a major new gameplay element.
"Congrat's on making it to 70 intrepid WoW player! To reward you (and keep you interested in playing until the next expansion), here's a great new part of the game: flying mounts. you will be able to explore the world and access new areas previously out of reach, adding to what you loved before The Burning Crusade!"
"Congrat's on purchasing Wrarth of the Lich King Intrepid WoW player! To reward you here's a great new part of the game: Northrend. you will be able to explore the world and access new areas previously out of reach, just like you could before The Burning Crusade! And in 4 level's you'll be able to get to the capitol city, and just grind 3 more after that, and you'll be able to travel like you could back in Outland all of which you could do 5 minutes ago when you started your journey here. It's awesome, I know!!! You'll thank us later"
Maybe it's simply a lack of respect for the time already spent by players grinding the XP for new content or maybe it's just laziness. Taking away a gameplay element, and giving it back 7 levels later is not a reward for your time, it's an incredibly haughty way of saying "Ya we just smacked you in the face, but you know what, you're going to keep playing because we said that you can get it back, once you've proven yourself to us again."
Now I understand that I'm taking this one point to hyperbole, but it's really not much different than saying that rogues can still stealth in Northrend, but they'll just need to re-learn it as "arctic stealth" at, oh lets go with 73 for fun, or pally's need to learn "long-johns" to wear Northrend plate armor. Now it's not taken away, it's just now become a "reward" for grinding out a few more levels. Flying mounts were a significant addition to WoW. taking them away, and giving them back is not, it's hubris on Blizzard's part if they think that it is, plain and simple.
RogueJedi86 Mar 25th 2009 12:09PM
They don't take anything away from you. You can go back and fly in Outland anytime you want. There's also no rule saying you have to go to Northrend immediately at 68 or 70. You can happily quest in Outland a few more levels with your flyer if you want. Do it and tell us how many levels you can get.
As for Capital City at 74.........well that's roughly analogous to questing through Outland and finally arriving at Shattrath roughly 4 levels later you start Outland, after questing through Hellfire and Zangar. Plus Mages go at 71, which is only 1 level later. :D
TJ Mar 25th 2009 12:58PM
I agree that there's no rule saying that you HAVE to go right away. but i think the point is that it IS just like Outland. I got to Shattrath just before hitting 61, though admittedly I'm an explorer type who feels the need to find as many flight paths as possible, as quickly as possible. I had half of Northrend's before completing my first 20 quests up there.
I know that when I bought WotLK I was pretty excited to be flying over everything taking in the scenery, esp. with the screenshots looking so spectacular, but was disappointed when I found out that I was a LONG was off from getting to do that as a casual player, and found myself pounding through quests just to get there, and not truly enjoying the game like I had before.
With BC flying was cool to get as previously stated it is a way to extend things past the "end game" content, but for all of those who did those quests after reaching 70 don't get XP credit for doing them, they already got the cash, and would really feel the need to move onto Northrend as soon as they picked up the lovely blue box. Those are the players I really feel for, the ones who have been happily flying around for many moths, picked up their epic fliers, and then have to change their gameplay style because the skills that they worked on were put on hold until 77.
I prefer the "what-if" analogue of not being able to use your mount in Azuremyst until you reach 60 but you can in the old kingdoms. I think that would be closer to the point. and just saying well you could always go back and play old content if you want to fly... just isn't something that I'd feel comfortable saying to someone who bought the game thinking that they would be able to do everything from BC AND more out of the box.
But I don' think the point is really about the flying, but rather about the repeating of the same things, but with a different skin on them.
danawhitaker Mar 25th 2009 2:36PM
"There's also no rule saying you have to go to Northrend immediately at 68 or 70. You can happily quest in Outland a few more levels with your flyer if you want. Do it and tell us how many levels you can get."
I just finished up Shadowmoon Valley last night and got the Loremaster achievement for Outland I'm 75% of the way to level 76. That excludes doing most of the instances in Outland at all yet. I still haven't touched any Northrend zones. So I'll only have a level and change to go before I can buy cold weather flying. Let's just be thankful we don't have to buy Epic Cold Weather Flying for 10k gold.
I both loathe and like the idea of having to wait for cold weather flying. On the one hand, it's frustrating to go from being able to fly everywhere at 280% speed back to a ground mount. At the same time, I think Blizzard wanted to put everyone on a level footing coming into the new content and that was the best way they could figure out how to do it. By the same token, I think their plan backfired in that they got a LOT of people burning to 77 just to get cold weather flying and ignoring the content they wanted them to slow down to see in the first place.
As for the wait to get to Dalaran...um, yeah, I can see that being annoying. Shattrath you could to immediately after getting to Outland just by walking without outside assistance from someone portaling you. I ended up going to Dalaran in my mid-level 50s because I needed the higher jewelcrafting trainer there. I had a friend portal me. It's doable at least, it's not like it's a hard level cap to get in. They could be a lot worse about stuff like that, and they choose not to be.
What I think the biggest mistake is lately? Death Knights. Not their existence, but the fact that they start at level 55. I think you get a lot of people jumping into higher level instances and content who don't know what the heck they're doing because of it. Just because you can play a 55 or higher of one class doesn't mean you know how to work a DK out of the box. I prefer to learn my abilities as I level and integrate my skills into a cohesive pattern to use in combat, not just hit the ground running like that. But that's just me. I'm sure eventually the learning curve balances out but it's just not for me. I want them to add more normal classes that start at level 1 (hand to hand combat, anyone?).
The PVP/PVE thing that's been mentioned is a huge mistake as well. Trying to balance those is a crapshoot and has resulted in a lot of problems.
Making the content easier to solo and get through so more people can see it? Sorry, that's a winner in my book. The people complaining about that are just elitist and liked walking around in fancy gear that anyone else with a full time job or kids or any sort of life outside the game couldn't accomplish.
AxisOfJustice Mar 25th 2009 3:08PM
@ post #39
The reason they didn't allow you to use your flying mount until 77 is because being able to fly right when you arrive to Northrend at 70 would've ruined the atmosphere and plot development of the game. They also didn't want to spend years developing a continent just so that you can fly over and explore it in minutes. Questing in Northrend was a very epic experience and a flying mount from 70 would've ruined it.
You are just complaining just because you can.
Sarabande Mar 26th 2009 9:46AM
While it was inconvenient, I didn't mind not being able to fly. But I wish I could've gotten the flying training for free since I already had that. I like exploring and I know some quests would be too easy if you could fly right away.
captainandro Mar 25th 2009 8:15AM
My general complaint about WoW as a failure is the frequent disregard taken towards pure class tress, which causes probably half of the hybrid vs pure debate. When a Rogue frequently jumps to combat or assassination or subtlety to earn his raid spot, he's not going to think a Druid is limited to one spec. If all of his trees were more even, and a pure could have played the way he prefers to play, the game would be much better.
As a sub-comment to the Death Knight tanking comment, I'm on the fence - on the one-hand, all three Death Knight trees play differently to justify it, but on the other, it causes balance issues not incurred by other tanking-oriented classes. The main thing is this: could you tolerate one tree being the tanking tree AND having a DPS option?
unvme331 Mar 25th 2009 7:00PM
This is why WoW does things like making all the content easy to anyone that can press a key, and this is why anything like mounts or anything hard to get ends up getting nerfed so whiny people like you don't have to do anything! you want everything handed to you, and god forbid you have to enjoy northrend on a land mount. you sir are the reason WoW is turning into the game it is. congrats at being the average QQ'er and complaining about something cause you can. I loved running on my mount again and i loved to see northrend, I hate the fact that anyone and everyone has t7 and t7.5 now. Nothing good to work for, and i don't really feel a title and recolor of mounts is something amazing, I missed BT/Sunwell when people had to work for things, not get it handed over.
naciliya Mar 25th 2009 8:17AM
Gameplay nitpicking aside, the biggest thing that comes to mind when I think 'I wish Blizzard hadn't done that' is the removal of the Alliance Onyxia quest chain and the replacement of Bolvar Fordragon with Varian Wrynn.
I understand the desire to remove lengthy attunement from the game, and the Horde version of the Ony quest was clunky, but to see one of the most well-written quests in the game disappear into the ether was heartbreaking.
To say nothing of the fact that Varian Wrynn has all the personality of a potato with a Tough Guy Scowl drawn on.
ustilago Mar 25th 2009 8:52AM
Especially considering the fact that they didn't even bother to remove the old Naxx quests, which you can't even do anymore.
Amaxe Mar 25th 2009 9:57AM
But doing the attunement quests for Naxx does get you faction rep... not so important now, but back before 3.0 came out, 1000 rep was a nice jump
Matthew Rossi Mar 25th 2009 10:07AM
Actually, as I read the comic book I'm coming to realize Varian has a very well defined personality: he's completely bonkers.
Spoilers for the comic would be needed to really put it into context, so I'm going to space bar down a bit.
He got split into two people, one of whom was Ony's puppet for a while (and may well have been her plaything in... other ways, if you catch my drift) and the other was a freaking gladiator. Then the two contrasting people they'd become, with different personalities and memories from the point of division, were recombined. So now when Varian tries to remember any part of his life from the split to the recombining, he's got two contradictory memories, one from each life. He remembers being the brainwashed puppet and the indomitable warrior simultaneously.
Combine that with his childhood (watching daddy die right in front of him, being taken to live in Lordaeron and becoming friends with Terenas, losing his wife and having his head messed around with by Ony, Terenas dies by his own son's hand and Lordaeron, the city of his exile, gets turned into walking corpse central) and you've got a guy with precious little good in his life and a cracked brain that remembers things differently from day to day.
Varian's bonkers. I think it's kind of awesome.
naciliya Mar 25th 2009 11:47AM
Oh, I made my comment concerning Varian with the first 15 or so issues of the WoW comic in mind. Having read all that - and having been massively disappointed with the whole affair - the guy still holds no more interest for me than a baked potato.
And this is coming from someone who's read Warhammer 40K fiction - so I have no aversion to Generic Square-Jawed Heroes Who Rant About the Awful Greenskins. Or completely batty guys in plate armor, given my love of dudes like Arthas.
I was just disappointed that, given the emotional complexity the Alliance/Horde conflict has come to have over the past few years, they would go back to the blunt Warcraft I "ORCS R BAD, M'KAY' direction for a lore-prominent character. It lacks subtlety.
Jason Mar 25th 2009 8:18AM
Achievements. I would be more interested in them now if I got credit for all the achievements I had already done before the system came out.
Batleth Mar 25th 2009 9:35AM
This^^
It's annoying as Hell to have nearly every single dungeon (both normal and heroic) in Outland unaccounted for in my Achievements log, knowing good and well that I ran those things dozens of times. Achievements are a great addition to the game...leaving large chunks of achievement progress out of my profile, however, is not.