Quote from: Elsalvador;783279Thanks for the welcome! Always been a bit of a lurker but only now  decided to make an account.

Honestly, I loved WoW when it started and even up til the Cataclysm Expansion; I think this is the point where they decided that casual gaming was a very real revenue stream they weren't capitalising on. And as a consequence simplified and streamlined much further than was (imo) necessary.

I like when things are challenging and levelling used to be challenging enough to enjoy the storyline and also provide enough varied levelling zones that levelling alts felt like an entirely new experience.

With the majority of development centred around endgame now, it feels like players are tunnelvisioned into levelling as fast as possible, leaving all of the rich scenery and 75% of the entire gameworld behind so they can hit 90 and start gearing up for raiding.

Sounds about right. Sadly I got to play very little pre-Cata. Before leaving WoW I spent most of my time doing BC and WotLK content.

And ironically, I suspect rushing leveling in favor of getting to the endgame had the opposite effect with this very casual gamer. I've had enough of the rushed dungeons, the wipes, the LOL L2P NOOB and the kicking. WoW players sure are entitled as fuck, at least when PUGing.

The attitude displayed by a LOT of players, especially in PUGs, is pretty disgusting.

I don't find it particularly reasonable that you should have to do a large amount of research into certain aspects of the game (using means OUTSIDE the game to do so...) before you can join groups yet you're right - people are entitled as FUCK.

Quote from: Elsalvador;783279Thanks for the welcome! Always been a bit of a lurker but only now  decided to make an account.

Honestly, I loved WoW when it started and even up til the Cataclysm Expansion; I think this is the point where they decided that casual gaming was a very real revenue stream they weren't capitalising on. And as a consequence simplified and streamlined much further than was (imo) necessary.

I like when things are challenging and levelling used to be challenging enough to enjoy the storyline and also provide enough varied levelling zones that levelling alts felt like an entirely new experience.

With the majority of development centred around endgame now, it feels like players are tunnelvisioned into levelling as fast as possible, leaving all of the rich scenery and 75% of the entire gameworld behind so they can hit 90 and start gearing up for raiding.

WoW was interesting for me until I had to go through the whole "Burning Crusade" section. This is pre-WoTLK in a period between the two expansions. I was enjoying the first 20 - 30 levels, then it dragged. Then everyone hyped raids, end game content and the rest of it. I tried and it bored me. I went to some RP servers, but the RP was either non-existent or deeply entrenched in canonical back story. The WoW canon is not actually something I really dig/dug. Plus you could not actually affect things. You could set up shop in an inn, and use it as a base of operations, but it was still a public space offered at the whim of Blizzard or whoever.

I would love to explore some RP in Second Life, and some other virtual spaces, but it is so freeform that I might as well play via skype or something (Or meta-game and RP using avatars sitting at a table in Second Life).

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;783330WoW was interesting for me until I had to go through the whole "Burning Crusade" section.

Grindlands sucks.

Quote from: Elsalvador;783279Thanks for the welcome! Always been a bit of a lurker but only now  decided to make an account.

Honestly, I loved WoW when it started and even up til the Cataclysm Expansion; I think this is the point where they decided that casual gaming was a very real revenue stream they weren't capitalising on. And as a consequence simplified and streamlined much further than was (imo) necessary.

I like when things are challenging and levelling used to be challenging enough to enjoy the storyline and also provide enough varied levelling zones that levelling alts felt like an entirely new experience.

With the majority of development centred around endgame now, it feels like players are tunnelvisioned into levelling as fast as possible, leaving all of the rich scenery and 75% of the entire gameworld behind so they can hit 90 and start gearing up for raiding.

Blizz turned WoW's greatest advantage --it's huge number of lower level areas-- into a disadvantage with Cataclysm. They redid the Old World but never bothered to go back and rework Outland and Northrend, so the story goes completely off the rails when you reach L60.  

And their long term solution to this problem? Buy Warlords of Draenor and you get a character at L90 right off the bat. You can then go to the Proving Grounds and learn to play your class (push the right buttons), and then off you go to Draenor 2.

Leveling game? What leveling game?

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;783330WoW was interesting for me until I had to go through the whole "Burning Crusade" section. This is pre-WoTLK in a period between the two expansions. I was enjoying the first 20 - 30 levels, then it dragged. Then everyone hyped raids, end game content and the rest of it. I tried and it bored me. I went to some RP servers, but the RP was either non-existent or deeply entrenched in canonical back story. The WoW canon is not actually something I really dig/dug. Plus you could not actually affect things. You could set up shop in an inn, and use it as a base of operations, but it was still a public space offered at the whim of Blizzard or whoever.

I would love to explore some RP in Second Life, and some other virtual spaces, but it is so freeform that I might as well play via skype or something (Or meta-game and RP using avatars sitting at a table in Second Life).

While I freely admit that there's a lot of weirdness and "WTF??" associated with real history, WoW's fictional history a) feels like a total mashup, b) reads like a David Eddings novel where it's all the people at the top doing all of the important stuff, and c) has gone so far off the rails of the "D&D-style medieval game" into steampunk with some medieval trappings that I feel that certain classes should have been made completely obsolete by technology (like the Warrior).

Quote from: flyerfan1991;783377Leveling game? What leveling game?

I agree with every word of this post. If the leveling process in your game is "a grind" and not fun, you fail at game design. And the thing is, I think WoW's leveling is actually fun; it's just that (a) people rush through it, and (b) replay value has gone down after Cataclysm as Elsalvador pointed out.

Quote from: flyerfan1991;783382While I freely admit that there's a lot of weirdness and "WTF??" associated with real history, WoW's fictional history a) feels like a total mashup, b) reads like a David Eddings novel where it's all the people at the top doing all of the important stuff, and c) has gone so far off the rails of the "D&D-style medieval game" into steampunk with some medieval trappings that I feel that certain classes should have been made completely obsolete by technology (like the Warrior).

WoW's lore is a guilty pleasure for me, like Star Trek's or the old World of Darkness'. Meaning, I know it doesn't really hold up to close scrutiny, and that the novel cruft accumulates as different authors contribute to bits and pieces of the setting, but seriously, it's fun. I love the Kirbyesque science fantasy bits, and I am at peace with the gross unlifelikeness of sword-swinging warriors in plate in a world where armies field riflemen, steam tanks and armed airships. It's (b) that really grinds my gears; the Lich King fight being a particularly grievous example of NPCs suddenly and unjustifiably stealing the spotlight from PCs.

QuoteWoW's lore is a guilty pleasure for me

Agree with this so much. It's easy to find fault and loopholes with fantasy literature (especially if that fantasy is within the context of a video game), but WoW's lore does hit a soft spot with me.

I read that War Crimes novel that came out a few months ago and absolutely fell in love with it - despite the fact that it wasn't even "really" a fantasy novel and in fact just a blurb of an event that the game glossed over.


WoW's lore as a guilty pleasure works for me; enough that I'm happy to suspend my disbelief to enjoy it.

(Just a shame about other aspects of the game as I've noted in my former posts.)

I just had a quick look at Strife (which is open beta now)

Nope. Not my cup of tea. I got past the first demo combat, wanted to exit and couldn't. There is no way to exit the game whilst in "training" mode.

Looked nice, the character had a British accent. You click buttons to hit things. I don't want to click buttons to hit things. I must accept that I am not a computer game player.

I'm playing Defiance pretty solidly right now, and recently got a gift of X-com: Enemy Unknown, and have already lost three soldiers! Yep, an X-com game. Having fun with it.

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;783615I just had a quick look at Strife (which is open beta now)

Nope. Not my cup of tea. I got past the first demo combat, wanted to exit and couldn't. There is no way to exit the game whilst in "training" mode.

Looked nice, the character had a British accent. You click buttons to hit things. I don't want to click buttons to hit things. I must accept that I am not a computer game player.

I don't think I've ever played a computer game where you don't have to click a button to hit something, whether it's a "how quick can you click" first person shooter or a "I move this stack to attack that stack" turn based game.

Quote from: flyerfan1991;783631I don't think I've ever played a computer game where you don't have to click a button to hit something, whether it's a "how quick can you click" first person shooter or a "I move this stack to attack that stack" turn based game.

Yeah, my comment comes from the raid experiences in WoW. It really felt like a button click ballet. There is a difference between that, and say Police Quest, or a shooter like R-Type etc.

Heh, button click ballet is a very nicely romanticised version of WoW's raiding. (That is not a criticism, the ability to romanticise gameplay that way is something I find engaging and quite appreciative).

I was more of a PVPer myself and that went from ballet into something off the charts at times - although this somewhat touches on another immersion-breaking part of the game for me.

The fact that every single player so utterly scientifically either wants to or is forced to by their teams, to break down every component of skills and abilities that are meant to have flavour and some degree of roleplaying relevance, into numbers and timers and percentages - that really turned me off the competitive PVP scene.

I think gaming of this type - and roleplaying, of course - should be art and not science and anything which stifles creativity in favour of empirical DPS data or some other such nonsense greatly diminishes the experience for me.

Quote from: Elsalvador;784312Heh, button click ballet is a very nicely romanticised version of WoW's raiding. (That is not a criticism, the ability to romanticise gameplay that way is something I find engaging and quite appreciative).

I was more of a PVPer myself and that went from ballet into something off the charts at times - although this somewhat touches on another immersion-breaking part of the game for me.

The fact that every single player so utterly scientifically either wants to or is forced to by their teams, to break down every component of skills and abilities that are meant to have flavour and some degree of roleplaying relevance, into numbers and timers and percentages - that really turned me off the competitive PVP scene.

I think gaming of this type - and roleplaying, of course - should be art and not science and anything which stifles creativity in favour of empirical DPS data or some other such nonsense greatly diminishes the experience for me.

WoW's PvP is so heavily dependent upon whatever the flavor of the month is --last I checked, it was held by a Warrior spec with Disco Priest and BM Hunter close behind-- that I finally got tired of it. It's also hard to enjoy a random PvP battleground when there's no conscious attempt to make the teams equal in terms of healer and gear composition.

Quote from: Elsalvador;784312The fact that every single player so utterly scientifically either wants to or is forced to by their teams, to break down every component of skills and abilities that are meant to have flavour and some degree of roleplaying relevance, into numbers and timers and percentages - that really turned me off the competitive PVP scene.

I think gaming of this type - and roleplaying, of course - should be art and not science and anything which stifles creativity in favour of empirical DPS data or some other such nonsense greatly diminishes the experience for me.

Well, that's because it's a vaguely fantasy-themed shoot-'em-up, not an actual roleplaying game. You're playing the wrong game... and yeah, the video game industry's habit of naming anything with numbers that lets you change the character's name an "RPG" is shit, but there it is.

It's like the old "hardcore vs casual" game dichotomy; both are fine, but players in one expecting the other aren't going to enjoy themselves, and it's their own fault, they're in the wrong place. If you don't want to have to play to win, don't step into the arena; if you want to be in the arena but play with your own rules, find a group of friends to do some casual fighting with who all agree to your rules.