I am out of here

[Jarulf]

There are really a couple of kinds of 'time' here--one is the 'playtime' and one is the amount of 'calendar time'. It seems reasonable for casual players to have some mechanism to upgrade gear at a rate equal to a multiple of the calendar time required for a hardcore players to upgrade gear. Sure, the hardcore player is spending much more playtime to upgrade faster, but the gear gap doesn't spiral out of control.

My point is, once you hit 60, the shift in rewards per clender time (which for an individual person can be seen as per play time), changes dramatically. Before that you were always geting something, doing something and feeling progress. Once you hit 55 or so, it changes, from now on, the ammount of time 8be it calendar or play time increases dramatically per "reward". And for casula players, I think it goes through the roof and the game turns booring. The reason being appearantly, that otherwise the hard core players hit the content roof to fast and has nothing to do. Booring but sad.

[Jarulf]

WoW drop rates are high enough that the opposite happens... you have a 12-25% chance for most items, which is a legitimate chance of getting a decent piece of gear on a run. People can focus on gear and this blurs the focus on friendship / fun.

The "problem" to me is that alhtough it is a 12-25% chance. The chance for a different item is next to nill (or rather, 5 items each has 20% or something). In Diablo and Diablo 2, you havd a gazillion items possible,each with a minusculous chance. Most was of no good to a particular person, but over all, it was more fun and exciting to get surprises like that, at least for me. And you could get the same item from many different places and could play were you enjoyed the most and even while doing other stuff. You could get your essence of fire while looking for felcloth for exmaple....

[Jarulf]

I know Jarulf is in a different timezone, so if he just can't get to his computer (because of work/school/sleep/whatnot) makes that content completly impossible to access.

That, however, was a deleiberate decision by myself that I was well aware of and I can't blame the game for that:)neither do I do. On the other hand, I never bought the game primarilly for raiding anyway. The fact that I picked the US version was that it would be the only game were I allready knew people. That has been fine with me.

[kershner]

Jarulf,

Specifically targeting the comments about Tradeskills.

I have long argued to guildmates that anyone that grinds mats (with very few exceptions, BoP mats being the primary counter example) is a fool. It is far faster to grind gold and then buy mats off of the AH.

I have, in my 60 days played past capping, acquired 3 (yes exactly three) felcloth through drops. And I have made well over 100 mooncloth. There's absolutely no way I'd grind felcloth when I can simply watch the AH and when it gets cheap, buy a stack and be set for a month.

A lot of the game's fun for me is about acheiving small goal that can be accomplished in casual bite-sized pieces:
Level 60
300 Enchanting
Every available Tailoring Recipe (including the useless ones)
Exalted with the Timbermaw Furbolgs (the trinket rocks btw)
Tier 1 Set
Tier 0.5 Set (even though I had Tier 1 already)

I retired my main (UD 60 Priest in 7/8 T2) 6 months ago and just returned to the game last month with a brand new character on a new server. I intend to return to my main with the expansion.

A lot of people, myself included, find joy in the casual grind. (I define casual grind as doing repetitive tasks without obsessing over the most efficient possible means; thus Grind to 60 in 7 days does not count, whereas fishing 100 stonescale eels does). The repetitive tasks can be soothing to the mind, they present much of the escape that I find pleasurable after capping. And when those actions move toward a desirable goal (like Exalted with Timbermaw) the experience feels rewarding beyond the task itself.

Many people, perhaps most, wouldn't find the description above to appeal to them. I suspect that it is strongly associated with the gaming addiction that has become such a news fad of late. A mind which craves repetitive minimally productive behavior above intellectual highly productive behavior is more capable of accepting repetitive addictions.

That having been said. I still enjoy the repetition and I still crave it on many days. And as for tradeskills (the rambling comes full circle) they are largely useless but for a few items per skill (HotW comes to mind) but they aren't there to be useful. They are there to facilitate two things, twinking and an alternate method of grinding.

The game is a grind, for those that want a rush, play a different game and may it bring you joy.

-Kershner

[Icebird]

I'll give my perspective as someoe still as hooked as ever on the game.

I raid, and progressing through the raid encounters with a group I've been playing with for two years now keeps me motivated. We're far from cutting edge, so there has always been new raid content ahead of us to look forward to. (We have Huhu down in AQ40, and Razavius down in Naxx).

When I play my warlock outside of raids, it's often activities involved to support the raiding activities. With the Twin Emprerors looming ahead of us, I've been accumulating a set of shadow resist gear from different sources. I gathered items to craft Stygian Cloth pieces, completed two quest chains I had neglected earlier for the rewards, and farmed Bone Fragments for days to get a Shadow Guard. Now I'm working on my nature resist gear to help out our Huhu attempts.

After I moved back to New Zealand earlier in the year, I miss a lot of midweek raids due to time zone differences. A friend of mine from Malygos talked me into rolling a character on Aman'Thul and I'm having a blast levelling up a character again. (There is a thrill to see that "you have gained a new level" flash of light).

When my friend hasn't been on, I've been pvp-ing with my warrior. I'm the classic "casual" pvp player - I don't have the patience to grind out a rank 14, and I don't profess to be very good. But it requires a completely seperate set of skills to PvE.

Long queues owing to population imbalance put me of PvPing with my warlock. But in the lower ranked battlefields on Aman'Thul the queues are short, and the pool of players small enough on both sides that I can enter a game and recognize half the names. It's mucn more fun PvP-ing against someone you know (and who knows you) than against some anonymous name.

PvP is probably the most accessible form of "casual" content in the game; but if neither PvP nor raiding appeals to you then I could understand the boredom and disinterest setting in. What else is there? More 5 man runs for items you already have? Becoming a merchant supreme, play the Auction House and accumulate the largest pile of gold you can?

My warlock is a tailor / enchanter. I agree tailoring is for the most part, underwhelming (enough that I've considered dropping it on more than one occasion). I made a Robe of the Void. I purified a whole pile of Mooncloth which has sat in my bank for months. It's most useful now for crafting resist gear for, you guessed it, raids.

Enchanting has proved to be more practical. I have one rare enchant (Spell Damage), but my bread and butter is adding enchants when guild members acquire new items (stamina to bracers, resist enchants on cloaks, stamina or minor speed to boots, health on chest items).

I recently dropped mining to pick up Alchemy on an alt. As the raid content is getting more complex, consumable needs are rising (greater protection potions, healing and mana potions, damage buff potions) and it will nice not to be reliant on other guild members.

Finally, ghost mushrooms are a pain. The only place you don't have to worry about elites is the Skulk Rock cave. (I've mind soothed my way through the cave in Jintha'Alor but I have a few deaths for my troubles).

Chris

Chris

[Warlock]

Personally I was quite happy with the game up until 60 - enough to have done it three times now. I agree that soloable content at 60 is limited but I really like the small group content and there is more of that for 60's than for any other single level - it takes quite a while to go from 'just hit 60' to 'can only make further progress by raiding' which is where my game ends. I hope more solo content does get added as I enjoy that as well and groups aren't always easy to find.

I'd love to see a better system for levelling crafting skills and better results from having done so. None of my characters are crafters - I just don't see the point since most of what they can make is junk and the little that isn't I can buy or commission. In particular making items for the sole purpose of improving your skill is terrible - everything should be useful in some way. I like what I've heard of Vanguards 'fill NPC work orders' idea - along with a deeper crafting system it might disguise the crafting grind as well as WOW has disguised the levelling one.

I'd like truly random items too - not as a complete replacement for the current system (I like the ability to plan for gear acquisition) but as an adjunct to it. Some by straight drop, some by crafting, some by a combination of methods?

[oldmandennis]

Last post here.

I don't know why you are arguing with me so much. Belt of the archmage, truefaith vestments, and a couple of other items are reasonable reward/time, compared to the rest of the game and compared to what I remember of D2. Of course, you have 15 other slots where things aren't as good. If you think grinding satyrs for felcloth is too boring, I gave you two alternatives.

If you think D2's system of everything dropping everything, at a very low rate (supposedly people play solidly for 3-4 years without seeing a rune that they want) is better, bully for you, but thats a design choice not a design flaw.

/bai

[Descended]

Where did he wrote that it was not a fun experience? That it takes a long time and some setbacks does not mean that it is a bad experience.

When I said I would like such a situation, he said:

No, you wouldn't.

[Monkey]

Finally, ghost mushrooms are a pain. The only place you don't have to worry about elites is the Skulk Rock cave. (I've mind soothed my way through the cave in Jintha'Alor but I have a few deaths for my troubles).

This is really not related to this discussion, but since you brought it up; I used to farm ghost mushrooms from Mauradon (purple side) with my warlock. At 60, there's only one spot that you can't sneak through. I'd just soulstone myself, unequip my gear, and run through out of aggro range, then pop back up after the reset (nifty stopwatch helps). Once you get down to where Celebras is, most of the shrooms are gone, so just suicide back to the beginning or hearth out (depending on bag space)

When my priest friend came with me, we could even kill Vyletongue and sometimes the rare spawn on the way.

[Icebird]

Yeah, I discovered at least some of the ghost mushroom spawns are sneakable while running Noxxion and Razorlash with a guildie for nature resist gear.

[LavCat]

What is fun and what is not fun is an individual experience, but I agree with some of your observations and disagree with others. Paying off the dwarves of the Thorium Brotherhood does not compare to the thrill of giving all your gold to Wirt, but at least you can toggle your run option off while fighting to the bar in BRD.

I'm trying to remember if DII had random stats on sets? I'm thinking that the set items were fixed, but I am not sure. I don't think having random stats on high end sets is workable. I envision most guilds having to disband over loot disagreements. But I like randomness to items and I wish there was more of it in WoW. Baguette, my priest, finally got her Archivist's Cloak of Shadow Wrath and she was thrilled.

The landscapes of some areas like MC are boring. I rather like the Eastern Plaguelands though. Admittedly I am a little slow but I keep finding new things there. Last week met up with a dwarf by the name of Duggan Wildhammer. Any idea what he is for?

Some of the reputation grinding I actually enjoy. Fafner is well liked by the Timbermaw and it was an honor to be proclaimed a hero of the Alliance in Ironforge the first day of the patch.

I also enjoy advancing the story line. I know some people don't pay attention to the gray chat from NPC's, but after visiting Naxxramis I have some idea why Bronzebeard's brother is hanging out in Silithus.

One way I keep my sanity is to have my characters work on different things. Fafner raids. Baguette has just discovered PvP. Tribade has been collecting healing gear and is now at about +650 (some of it still green). She is my only character who has been to Naxxramas. So, yes, you can quest in Naxxramas with no set pieces at all.

Have you tried PvP? Up until a couple days ago I would have totally agreed with you but now Baguette is hooked. And this morning she just found the pattern for the Cloak of Warding!

[Jarulf]

Last post here.

I don't know why you are arguing with me so much.

Because you replied to me? And That I don't agree with you? Specifically when you says how my own experience and playing of the game is wrong.

If you think D2's system of everything dropping everything, at a very low rate (supposedly people play solidly for 3-4 years without seeing a rune that they want) is better, bully for you, but thats a design choice not a design flaw.

Have I ever claimed it is a flaw? I have stated my opinion that I think it is the wrong way of making an item creation system that is fun. Obviously that doesn't apply to everyone. Perhaps I "argue" so much with you because you keep making up things about what I said and how I played the game which is not true.

[Ashock]

Because you replied to me? And That I don't agree with you? Specifically when you says how my own experience and playing of the game is wrong.
Have I ever claimed it is a flaw? I have stated my opinion that I think it is the wrong way of making an item creation system that is fun. Obviously that doesn't apply to everyone. Perhaps I "argue" so much with you because you keep making up things about what I said and how I played the game which is not true.

Here's the bottom line. If you don't/can't raid or at least run instances with some 20 mans mixed in, and/or if you do not like PvP (a lot), then ultimately the game is not for you. Someone who can not dedicate at least 3 hours at a clip to this game often enough (at the main raiding time too), will not get to the whole endgame and if PvP (which does not require that much time spend in a row) does not entice them... well, there's nothing left at 60. Solo grinding for some scraps as your main occupation at 60 is for mindless drones. You made the right decision.


-A

[Jarulf]

Here's the bottom line. If you don't/can't raid or at least run instances with some 20 mans mixed in, and/or if you do not like PvP (a lot), then ultimately the game is not for you. Someone who can not dedicate at least 3 hours at a clip to this game often enough (at the main raiding time too), will not get to the whole endgame and if PvP (which does not require that much time spend in a row) does not entice them... well, there's nothing left at 60. Solo grinding for some scraps as your main occupation at 60 is for mindless drones. You made the right decision.
-A

No, I can and do run, for example instances (not raids though, tpyically due to unregular playing times and not enough time). I thought it was clear that the problem with the game is not solved by going into an instance. Tha doesn't change item creation or the tediousness of grinding for anything or that you can't do a bit of everything for a reward and so on.

My complain is not solved by getting to the endgame (or playing extra time for that mater really), my complain are still, I would say valid. Things doesn't turn more random the more I play. It is not quicker and more rewarding to level up my tradeskills if I play more instances every week and so on.

And again, I have NEVER complained that it should be a solo game, nor have I claimed to only solo. However, I have said that I don't see the reason why solo content up until level 60 seems important to implement while note after it. Most of my complains would not change if I never ever played solo any more.

[Brista]

No, I can and do run, for example instances (not raids though, tpyically due to unregular playing times and not enough time). I thought it was clear that the problem with the game is not solved by going into an instance. Tha doesn't change item creation or the tediousness of grinding for anything or that you can't do a bit of everything for a reward and so on.

It partially solves it, Jarulf

As someone who spent a lot of time playing without raiding and who has now started raiding the items are very interesting because so many are new. If an item, for example The Untamed Blade drops and I've never seen that item before then it's very interesting and exciting when it can be something that you will upgrade with. If you've never seen an Untamed Blade before (which I hadn't) the game mechanics are hidden. They only become obvious when your 10th Crimson Felt Hat drops in Strat or when you find yourself running an instance you're a bit tired off just to get one item

As for the tediousness of grinding, again raiding is not grinding. It is a difficult and challenging game. In the pinned thread in the Meeting Room it's described as

long periods of inactivity interspersed with brief flurries of frenetic activity where you play at the top of your game

by Mirajj

Not for everyone, but not "just a grind"

Things doesn't turn more random the more I play

But isn't the real issue not the underlying game mechanic but the fact that all items are known and dull. There are fresh items in raid instances

It is not quicker and more rewarding to level up my tradeskills if I play more instances every week and so on.

Actually raiding is the way to progress tradeskills once you hit 300 and have collected the ones you have to grind drops or rep for. Many top end recipes drop in raid instances or require rep that you get most easily from these instances. AQ20 and ZG both give rep that allows new tradeskill recipes to be bought, these items are very desireable and some of the few trade products that players actually want

And again, I have NEVER complained that it should be a solo game, nor have I claimed to only solo. However, I have said that I don't see the reason why solo content up until level 60 seems important to implement while note after it. Most of my complains would not change if I never ever played solo any more.

I think this thread has somehow become too personal. Possibly saying it is a bad game in the title caused this. WoW is a good game for solo or small groups 1-59 and a good game for raiding with 40 after you hit 60. Otherwise there is some interest at 60 but not enough for sustained interest

I do agree with you on the itemisation. I think it would be a more interesting game in the long-term as well as a bigger timesink if items were generated like D2 rares. It could also be more variant friendly. But despite that I'm not finding the items boring because I'm unlocking content and seeing new stuff