savaughn,Oct 7 2005, 01:29 PM Wrote:I keep hearing this complaint over and over. Generally followed by "Hey, Blizz, you said you were going to make this game viable for the casual gamer!".
I find myself confounded by the concept. People want to be able to get the exact same benefits through solo play that you can get through the focused and concentrated effort of 40 people working together. :blink: That doesn't even make sense.
Can you slowly but surely grind your way in the post 60 game? Sure. You can slowly accumulate honor points, you can go mine the 48000 dark iron ore required for that faction, you can pick a battle ground and play when you can and slowly grind your way through those factions. You will likely find it slow, monotonous and boring. You have two choices at that point: quit, or find a different way to enjoy the game. I don't think Blizz really cares that much which one you choose.
Let's compare the end game for WoW with the end game for Diablo 2. 48000 dark iron? No problem compared to the 150,000 Pindleskin runs people were doing. And grinding for honor in the battlegrounds is a joy compared to grinding out that last final level before capping in D2. Assuming you ever got there.
My take on it is this: there are two parts to every game. The first part is the provided content. In Diablo, you could get through this in a day and a half at which point you'd seen all there was to see. In WoW, I've been playing since December and I still find new stuff. There's a lot more out there. But even once you're done, once you've seen all there is to see, explored all that provided content... there's more.
Talk to MJ about a certain little lady who punched her way through the first part of Diablo2. Once you've exhausted the provided content, what you are left with is a toy. And it's up to you to make a fun game with it at that point. Blizz will add content now and again and it will be great. We'll get a whole EXPANSION of content - probably at the rate of once a year - as things move forward. Every couple months we'll get some changes that will give you something else new to explore or whatever.
But if you feel like you've been there and you've done that and it's lost it's magic... if you don't make the decision to enjoy the toy that is WoW - it's time to move on. If you aren't in a supporting guild, you are probably never going to get a full set of purples. If that's the only criteria you have to say if WoW is a success for you or not, it's probably time to move on.
Personally, I haven't done all the quests on the Horde side, I haven't capped a Warlock or a Shaman, and I haven't seen nearly enough end game raid content for my tastes. I'm gonna keep playing with this toy until then. But then, I was one of those idiots who was actually trying for a complete set of Uniques in D2, too.
[right][snapback]91370[/snapback][/right]
Gee I dunno, it's not that much of a toy
A ) inasmuch as it doesn't reward skill
B ) inasmuch as you can't do new things with it.
A yo-yo you can learn to "walk the dog" (or whatever) if you have sufficient skill.
The WoW equivalent might be yo'ing the yo 10,000 times by grinding honor in BG.
Or, in the case of raiding instances, learning to put a puzzle together.
Lego's you can build something new. What can you build in WoW besides your own character?
Some suggestions for rewarding skill and getting to do new things:
Make PvP zero-sum. Everybody is born with a little honor. If you're killed you or your party or your raid lose a small proportion of your honor, which is awarded to whatever unit killed you.
You and your guild share honor (if so desired.) Big guilds can make guild camps. Guilds lose honor when their camps are raided and gain honor by raiding camps, as well as by the kill-or-be-killed mechanic above.
Random dungeons. If you don't know what to expect, then skill and adaptability are truly rewarded.
Casual single-player instances. Get faction or honor by killing a boss solo, who's very difficult to kill solo. Randomize the boss and his minions to some extent. Thus, the "hard-core" gamer is rewarded for his/her hours spent by becoming extremely skilled and able to do what the casual gamer just cannot. Nonetheless a casual player could be smart or skilled or lucky and have a 0.01% chance of killing the boss - or at least *feel* that they could've ... if only they hadn't done so and so ...
Now I'm not saying WoW is totally a non-toy or totally unskilled. But the toy factor could be greatly enhanced by (1) a changing world that could be changed by you, and (2) having more skill in the equation.
A real "toy" game is like SimCity, in which you can just do things and watch their effects. In this sense, WoW isn't much of a toy world.
anyhow that's my slight, meager opinion.
not saying I'm not addicted to WC and lovin' it. I do my own "toy" things, like trying different classes and professions and character builds ...
PS over-levelled characters should not be allowed in instances. It's not about going in and grabbing the loot, people! <annoyed>