Another lost level 60

[kandrathe]

I guess I'm not at the place you are so I can't empathize, and I have no clue really what you are talking about. I will qualify my experience in that this is my first MMORPG, and I did wait to start playing the game until February. Generally, I am a tight wad, so the biggest obstacle to me diving into WOW was the P4P model. My timing at plunking along and reaching 60 is not bad as I figure just as I get there, the battlegrounds and some more new content will be released.

I've been mostly focused on Stormrage Alliance, and mostly on my main. I am playing a NE Hunter(52) who is an Alchemist/Herbalist, a Dwarf Warrior(31) who is a miner/engineer, a Gnome Rogue (25) who is a skinner/miner, a Human Warlock (25) who is a tailor/enchanter, and NE Priest(25) who is a skinner/leather worker. I have a similiar handful of Horde toons on Terenas, which frankly I have not had time to play. My point is that the game still has untapped riches and content for me.

So, in the next few weeks when I reach level 60 with my main I fully expect to jump in on some higher level content. So casual to me means that on MWF weekdays I would expect not to start until after work hours (7pm Stormrage time), on the weekends I could jump into some extended play if we started early (like 7am), or later in the day (like 4pm). It is summer here in the northern climates, so I need to enjoy the all too brief warm outdoor weather.

As for taking breaks after 2 - 3 hours in an instance... My god I would hope so, I don't want to be so commited that I need to wear a diaper. Anyway, I don't see that your situation is all that different from the majority. I hope to see you back in the fall, or whenever your craving compels you to rejoin.

[Alarick]

I guess I'm not at the place you are so I can't empathize, and I have no clue really what you are talking about.  I will qualify my experience in that this is my first MMORPG, and I did wait to start playing the game until February.  Generally, I am a tight wad, so the biggest obstacle to me diving into WOW was the P4P model.  My timing at plunking along and reaching 60 is not bad as I figure just as I get there, the battlegrounds and some more new content will be released.

I was exactly where you are at when I was pre-60. I honestly expected to be playing the game a lot longer than I am. I've played one other MMORPG, and I wasn't too heavily invested in anything with that game. I played mostly to do something with some of my friends at the time.

The payment thing isn't a problem for me. I would gladly pay if I had things to do in endgame. I just don't have the time.

So, in the next few weeks when I reach level 60 with my main I fully expect to jump in on some higher level content.  So casual to me means that on MWF weekdays I would expect not to start until after work hours (7pm Stormrage time), on the weekends I could jump into some extended play if we started early (like 7am), or later in the day (like 4pm).  It is summer here in the northern climates, so I need to enjoy the all too brief warm outdoor weather.

As for taking breaks after 2 - 3 hours in an instance...  My god I would hope so, I don't want to be so commited that I need to wear a diaper.  Anyway, I don't see that your situation is all that different from the majority.  I hope to see you back in the fall, or whenever your craving compels you to rejoin.
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I think we have slightly different views of casual. As I said in other posts, casual means I don't have long chunks of time ever to play. I can play at various times, but never for more than 3 hours in a row, and usually not for more than 2.

If I had time, breaks would be expected in long instance runs. I, however, don't have the time you do on any day. You sound like you will have time to do instance runs at level 60. Not taking the boredom aspect into account, you will have things to do. I do not, and that is why I am leaving.

[Bolty]

There needs to be more casual content in the game.  A game that places progression solely on items is severely limited in long-term content to begin with.  The "casual" content in the game offers very little new items to "progress" a character.[right][snapback]78184[/snapback][/right]

There are basically four things you can do once you reach level 60 with a character and have completed most of the quests that you want to do:

1) Play an alt.
2) Keep running the high-end instances and then raids to get phatter and phatter lewt.
3) Help others get to 60, a.k.a. just kinda hang out in a glorified chat room.
4) Play PvP. Battlegrounds will be a huge help in this, allowing for real, enjoyable PvP instead of semi-PvP that we have now.

If 1, 2, and 3 hold no interest for you, and it's clear they don't from your post, then the smart thing to do is exactly what you're doing - cancel the account and wait for Battlegrounds to come.

More detail:

Option 1) Playing alts is something that appeals to some players and horrifies others. Unlike in Diablo II, you can't just create another character and get it to level 50 in 1-3 days of play, so that has something to do with why it horrifies some people. Alts suck time away from your main character, and for those who like to play one character and identify with that character as their extension in the virtual world, this option is not a possibilty. With alts, you counter the boredom of repeating some quests that you've done before with playing a class you haven't tried before or know little about. The classes play so differently in WoW that it can be like a whole new game. If you don't like repeating quests, play the other side (Horde, Alliance) for a fresh perspective on the world. There are enough quests in WoW such that two, maybe three characters on each faction can play from level 20-60 without repeating quests.

Option 2) This is a time-consuming endeavor that personally doesn't appeal to me but I can understand why it does to some. I think the problem with the never-ending quest to find phatter lewt is that it IS never-ending. There will always be something cooler to find, and as the game progresses it will require more and more time to get that cooler item. Having 2, 3, 4 characters that can run level 60 stuff is more appealing to me than having 1 ultra-decked-out uber character. But MMORPGs REQUIRE this to be a time-consuming process. Casual players simply cannot be allowed to get this loot, because casual players will not stay in a game. You are leaving because there isn't enough content at the high end to keep you satisfied, but that's the point. If they made uber loot easy to get, the hardcore 8-hours-a-day players would leave, and those players form the addicted subscriber base that MMORPGs are built on. Casual players find themselves at level 60 being unable to get the best stuff in the game and quit. If Hardcore players at level 60 found that the best stuff in the game was too easy to get (and thus there would be nothing to make them stand out from the casual player), they would quit. Since casual players will eventually quit anyway, Blizzard has no choice but to cater to the hardcore crowd and try to find some way to keep a casual player happy...

Option 3) This works for the more social player who forms bonds with other players in-game. I'm not this type of player (gee, isn't that obvious from my recent rant), so I don't have much to comment on this. The problem with social players from Blizzard's perspective is that they only tend to hang around in a MMORPG until the next big MMORPG comes out and all their friends are moving to the new one.

Option 4) This is what may save WoW for the casual player, and what you might want to come back for when it comes out. If options 1-3 are out for you, the ability to jump on for an hour for some exciting fast-paced Capture the Flag combat sounds incredibly appealing. There's only one catch: that dedicated uber-item teams of players who have been doing Option 2 for months now and have a high amount of practice wind up dominating play so much that pickup or casual-forming groups just get obliterated by them. This could happen over time - we can only see and find out. The first week or two of Battlegrounds will be made up of groups for which half the players have no clue what they're doing, so it should be interesting. :)

-Bolty

[Raelynn]

Option 2) This is a time-consuming endeavor that personally doesn't appeal to me but I can understand why it does to some.  I think the problem with the never-ending quest to find phatter lewt is that it IS never-ending.  There will always be something cooler to find, and as the game progresses it will require more and more time to get that cooler item.  Having 2, 3, 4 characters that can run level 60 stuff is more appealing to me than having 1 ultra-decked-out uber character.  But MMORPGs REQUIRE this to be a time-consuming process.  Casual players simply cannot be allowed to get this loot, because casual players will not stay in a game.  You are leaving because there isn't enough content at the high end to keep you satisfied, but that's the point.  If they made uber loot easy to get, the hardcore 8-hours-a-day players would leave, and those players form the addicted subscriber base that MMORPGs are built on.  Casual players find themselves at level 60 being unable to get the best stuff in the game and quit.  If Hardcore players at level 60 found that the best stuff in the game was too easy to get (and thus there would be nothing to make them stand out from the casual player), they would quit.  Since casual players will eventually quit anyway, Blizzard has no choice but to cater to the hardcore crowd and try to find some way to keep a casual player happy...

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I understand the issues with letting uber gear come too easily, but I have to agree with Alarick that there isn't any game the seems to equally reward time in the long run. Someone that plays 200 hours in 3 weeks can get amazing gear, but someone who plays 200 hours in 12 weeks will never even get close to the same gear, evne though the time put in is the same overall.

I would like to see something that gives good gear, not even uber, but stuff that might even be above the blue sets, which can be done in chunks of an hour or less. These would most likely be the life quests that were talked about. I want something that the hardcore people could blow through in a few days of course, but it would allow the people who don't have the time to put into 3+ hour instances to get somewhat decent gear. Without this, since the end game is gear dependent, you're basically giving up on a somewhat big subsection of the players. Like I said before, I might be headed the same way as Alarick come the middle of the summer.

I think the Battlegrounds comment you made might be all too true as well. Not so much for the CTF, but definitely for the Alterac Valley one. People will have a juge advantage just based on them having better gear and most likely with that gear a better understanding of the game. As I've heard from the test realm forums, pickup groups are bad in battlegrounds. All I see is certain guilds who already have amazing gear and players dominating the battleground against pickup groups and only seeing some competition if they happen to set up a meeting with a major guild on the opposing faction. This will also have the after-effect of bumping them up in the PvP rankings, giving more of their guild access to the great pvp armor and weapons, which as of the coming patch are a HUGE improvement over even the epic PvE sets.

This is all without playing it and things could be different, but I see Battlegrounds as being better for the people who are in an "uber" guild which can field 40 people who know how to work together.

[Alarick]

Casual players simply cannot be allowed to get this loot, because casual players will not stay in a game.  You are leaving because there isn't enough content at the high end to keep you satisfied, but that's the point.  If they made uber loot easy to get, the hardcore 8-hours-a-day players would leave, and those players form the addicted subscriber base that MMORPGs are built on.  Casual players find themselves at level 60 being unable to get the best stuff in the game and quit.  If Hardcore players at level 60 found that the best stuff in the game was too easy to get (and thus there would be nothing to make them stand out from the casual player), they would quit.  Since casual players will eventually quit anyway, Blizzard has no choice but to cater to the hardcore crowd and try to find some way to keep a casual player happy...
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This is where some of the problem lies. I don't consider myself casual in the aspect you describe. I never entered the game intending to play for a while and quit. I fully intended to do a lot more than I currently have.

What happened is more that I found myself forced into the role of a casual gamer because I didn't have the large amounts of time necessary to do anything else.

Making the loot easy to get and making it available to casual gamers are two totally separate things. Look at the two new epic quests. Barring the colelction parts (in MC and through raid encounters), there's a very difficult single person mission. You cannot receieve any help at all in that mission or you will fail.

Why can there not be some more quests like this? Make a few every patch and you probably will keep a good number of people happy.

If you market the game to casual players, you must have some intent to get them to play, at least for a while. Most of the income for an MMORPG is subscriptions. Even some of the less casual friendly games kept those casual players longer because the "end game," which is where the casual player usually falls short, took a lot longer to reach.

Admittedly, the hardcore players are the ones that hang on the longest, but I've seen no indication that they are in all respects the majority of players. World of Warcraft succeeded because it was casual friendly to start. You could do things in only an hour, or even a half hour in many cases. There can't be this many hardcore players that suddenly decided to get World of Warcraft. It would not be as successful if not for the casual players.

I really do hope things will change. I want to come back at some point. I just don't see any indication that Blizzard will, in fact, add content for the people with less time to play.

[Bolty]

This is where some of the problem lies.  I don't consider myself casual in the aspect you describe.  I never entered the game intending to play for a while and quit.  I fully intended to do a lot more than I currently have.

What happened is more that I found myself forced into the role of a casual gamer because I didn't have the large amounts of time necessary to do anything else.[right][snapback]78370[/snapback][/right]

Oh, don't get me wrong Alarick. I completely agree with you that WoW is lacking end-game content for those without 5 hour blocks of time on their hands, and that's why I stated that you're making the right choice for your situation. I'm an Option 1 person - I have now invested heavy time in 9 characters (1 per class, 8 on Stormrage and 1 on Terenas) and these 9 will keep me busy for so long that I don't see myself ever running out of content. I love being able to jump on for an hour or two on any of my characters and feel like I'm accomplishing something.

I recently went back to my level 60 Priest for a BRD run. Went 3 hours, and only because I was the one who quit. Who knows how long it would have gone? I don't have time to do that most weeknights. Only on weekends do I have that time, and I haven't been that lucky since early March due to RL concerns. In July, I'll finally be able to go back to long runs on weekends. Looking forward to it...

...unless all content Blizzard adds from now on is more of the same, gotta-have-5-hour-time-block content. This is why Battlegrounds is so key for Blizzard, because it lets the players drive the content. Yet, if all Battlegrounds are geared for 40-person action, that will also fail for reasons Raelynn described. Uber guilds that have months of 40-person play on their belts will destroy pickup or less experienced groups.

They need a 5-player Battleground. Your new goal would be to dominate at it, and get higher PvP ranks. If the PvP gear is equivalently awesome to raid or super-long instance gear, it gives those with less time to have a chance, albeit a small one...

-Bolty

[Darian]

I recently went back to my level 60 Priest for a BRD run.  Went 3 hours, and only because I was the one who quit.  Who knows how long it would have gone?

It probably shouldn't have gone three hours in the first place, honestly. The key to end-game instancing (not MC, that's a different beast altogether) is to target your objectives. I've gone into BRD with the stated objective of hitting Angerforge, Arglemach, and the Emperor, and got it done in less than two hours. You can knife in and take care of two or three quests in one run in every "standard" instance in 2-3 hours (yes, even if you're after the fourth deed in Scholomance). It's when you try and do too much in one run that you get bogged down in the infamous 10-hour Scholomance runs...

Yet, if all Battlegrounds are geared for 40-person action, that will also fail for reasons Raelynn described.  Uber guilds that have months of 40-person play on their belts will destroy pickup or less experienced groups.

They need a 5-player Battleground.  Your new goal would be to dominate at it, and get higher PvP ranks.  If the PvP gear is equivalently awesome to raid or super-long instance gear, it gives those with less time to have a chance, albeit a small one...

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Warsong. 10-man capture-the-flag. Already on the test server. Reports from my guildies that have checked it out say it's fun and quick.

[LochnarITB]

It probably shouldn't have gone three hours in the first place, honestly.  The key to end-game instancing (not MC, that's a different beast altogether) is to target your objectives.  I've gone into BRD with the stated objective of hitting Angerforge, Arglemach, and the Emperor, and got it done in less than two hours.  You can knife in and take care of two or three quests in one run in every "standard" instance in 2-3 hours (yes, even if you're after the fourth deed in Scholomance).  It's when you try and do too much in one run that you get bogged down in the infamous 10-hour Scholomance runs...[right][snapback]78376[/snapback][/right]

Here you struck on another problem with content being concentrated in massive instances. In order to "target" a quest objective, someone has to already know the content. Essentially, those players that need to complete a certain quest are taken on a guided tour. It takes the exploration factor out of the game, something very important to a lot of players. It leaves only the wow factor of seeing it for the first time but takes away the sense of accomplishment from finding the way yourself.

There are two ways to maintain the fun for the explorers. The first is to always play with the same group of people who are on the same page. They may go in and find nothing they need but then go in the next time and be able to know what did not work and what to try next. This is very unrealistic. Even the most hardcore person does have a RL to deal with and one person's schedule interruption does the same to all. The other way to do it is to make several smaller instances that contain a few goals that can be done in the smaller blocks of time a casual player has. They could go into these knowing they will be able to accomplish something and it would be easier to find a group, on the fly, that was new to the instance.

In no way would this change farming. Once the place is known, it is no different to target the boss in such a place than it is to target a boss in the mega instances when the path is known. They both are just grinding as we now have with all the calls you hear to do "runs". Of course, you wouldn't have world bosses in such a setting and the loot tables allow there to still be special reward for those able to spend the time to defeat the worst of the worst while still allowing equipment improvement for small-chunk-of-time-over-an-extended-period players.

[Alarick]

In no way would this change farming.  Once the place is known, it is no different to target the boss in such a place than it is to target a boss in the mega instances when the path is known.  They both are just grinding as we now have with all the calls you hear to do "runs".  Of course, you wouldn't have world bosses in such a setting and the loot tables allow there to still be special reward for those able to spend the time to defeat the worst of the worst while still allowing equipment improvement for small-chunk-of-time-over-an-extended-period players.
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Dire Maul is a good way to see this. Running DM east for the first time took well over 2 hours. Admittedly, I don't believe any of the 5 in there had gone through before, and we did every quest possible.

Afterwards, Rothgar took me though a boss run. You can skip literally 80% of the content with a particular path and a rogue (or any sneaky level 60 really). A 45-60 minute run hit all of the major bosses in the instance.

The problem with the instance is finding these tricks. For a pick up group, it will still normally take ages to run though, especially for quests. A pick up group, especially without a rogue, will take longer in DM north.

I think the idea of smaller instances would be helpful to the game. I'm talking smaller than DM is even. Something that can be done with a pick up group in about an hour average. In need be, add the raid timer (assuming it gets 100% fixed) to make it so you can still only run the particular section of the instance a certain number of times in a day. I wouldn't hurt anyone if it existed, and it would certainly help a lot of players if these types of instances had good gear for them to progress their character.

I empahsize this again, short doesn't have to mean easy. Blizzard knows how to make things short and difficult. It just sucks that they don't use this skill more often.

[oldmandennis]

First off, the small BG is very fun. Its fast paced, when I played matches lasted about 1/2 hour. So poor Alaric could get 2 matches in probably.

But the instances / gear you seem to want are probably impossible from a design point of view. Let me summarize, just to be sure we are clear: you want a stream of 5 man, lvl 60 instances and soloable quests, that provide a noticable increment to the power of your character.

The problem is that you can't make an infinate amount of gear, each one being an upgrade, and still have it be better then the blue set and worse then the purple. For example, Warrior chest pieces.

The blue http://www.thottbot.com/?i=18832 : 657 AR
The MC http://www.thottbot.com/?i=27194 : 749 AR

The DM piece actually has more armor then either, though worse stats
http://www.thottbot.com/?i=35754 : 777 AR

So, your hypothetical drop/reward would have to be better then the DM piece, and significantly so to make it worth doing, but still worse then the MC piece. Otherwise, all the uber leets would grab it, and then say pffft to MC, and have nothing to do. It would be tough to design one piece like that, much less do it on a monthly basis to keep people like you interested.

But what do I know? I think you should count up the hours you spent playing WoW, and devide by the amount of money you have spent, and realize you have very likely gotten an enormus value for your entertainment dollar. Even books probably run you 1$ per hour, this has got to be cheaper. And you can always come back if they do come out with content you want to see.

[mjdoom]

I would like to see something that gives good gear, not even uber, but stuff that might even be above the blue sets, which can be done in chunks of an hour or less.  These would most likely be the life quests that were talked about.  I want something that the hardcore people could blow through in a few days of course, but it would allow the people who don't have the time to put into 3+ hour instances to get somewhat decent gear.  Without this, since the end game is gear dependent, you're basically giving up on a somewhat big subsection of the players. 

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Hmm, I'm not sure that a real "solution" is out there but this little passage made me think of one possibility. What if there were quests that involved very long chains but were still accessible to smaller groups? These quests would have many steps but have some pretty good loot at the end. There are a few quest chains like this currently in the game but off the top of my head I can't think of any other than the Battle of Darrowshire that do not require going into an instance at some point. These chains could obviously be completed more quickly by the more "hardcore" players but if you could find that magical intermediate loot level that oldmandennis talked about you could add a few of these with each patch. They could keep the more casual players occupied for days and be a little diversion from instance running for the more hardcore players. I think that the Battle of Darrowshire chain is an excellent example of how this could be implemented.

For those of you who feel that end game content is lacking for more casual players have you tried this chain? If you have do you think more like that would help or not? I personally haven't even finished the last step because it is a difficult step requiring a competent group. Still, this step would take less than an hour to do on its own so it fits within Alarick's constraints. This might give people a chance to point out to Blizzard what they did right and be a constructive way to try to influence some change. Just a crazy thought.

- mjdoom

[liffuie]

my old co-worker used to tell me some stories about his korean "guild". hesitant to say guild because from his stories they seemed more like a social clubs. You payed club dues, which was used for facilities, and hiring "guild officers" to run events. (in korea unlike na market, most gaming is done from cafe's rather then home pc's). Yes pay people to run the guild/lead raids, but the entire guild structure was different then american guilds.

1: the guild orginization itself kept and leveled "guild" characters, that were general access to all members. Given the gaming atmosphere there in korea these char's my co-worker said got more playtime then "personal" chars, members payed for themselves.

2: He also said the majority of the time (accept extreme early mornings 4 am-8am) there was at least one officer able to organize an event if player intrest was there. (have to do a note, the guild he claims was active,paying for dozens of accounts in mutiple games). at peak times he claimed they could be raiding in eq, doing a city bane in shadowbane and pvping in lineage at the same time.

Biggest thing that intrested me was he said you could join any guild event you wanted, as long as there was space. If you showed up and your personal char wasn't high enough level to join that event, you could grab any free guild char of the appropiate level and use that character to play with your friends/guild, no questions asked. He claimed that most people infact played off guild accounts, rather then personal accounts. (I'm not sure of that though, given personal experience with a korean guild in EQ, but shrug )

question I've always wondered is, what sort of response this type of orginzation would face on this side of the ocean. It does answer some of the concerns of bliz's/soe's definition of casual gaming in today's morpg gaming mechanics, but at more player costs.

[Mavfin]

Oh, don't get me wrong Alarick.  I completely agree with you that WoW is lacking end-game content for those without 5 hour blocks of time on their hands, and that's why I stated that you're making the right choice for your situation.  I'm an Option 1 person - I have now invested heavy time in 9 characters (1 per class, 8 on Stormrage and 1 on Terenas) and these 9 will keep me busy for so long that I don't see myself ever running out of content.  I love being able to jump on for an hour or two on any of my characters and feel like I'm accomplishing something.

[snip]

-Bolty
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I'm with Bolty on this one. I've got Horde chars on one server, and Alliance on the other, I have 2 warriors and one of every other class between the two servers. I have a 55 human war, a 32 troll war, a hunter and rogue both in their 20s and the other 6 are young, in their teens. I can jump on for 30 minutes to 6 hours, whatever the situation, and accomplish something. It'll be a LONG time before I run out of content, because, running a priest through the same quests I ran my warrior through is not the same ballgame, or a shaman, or pally, or a hunter, and on and on. And, then I can do it on the other faction for another set of quests. Yes, the 'neutral' quests are the same for both sides, but I'm a quest monkey anyway.

Bolty is also right about the casual vs hardcore gaming at 60. You can't make those uber-items easy enough to get that the casual gamer gets them. The addicts leave if you do. Blizz is sorta stuck on that one. So, if you're stuck to your one capped character, you may need to unsub and take a break. I'm not criticizing you for it, don't get me wrong. You pays your money and you makes your choices.

In my opinion, being stuck to one character is just like *only* playing Alliance, or *only* playing Horde. You have arbitrarily cut yourself out of a big chunk of content you could see, but it's your choice to make. And if you've made that choice to be tied to your one character, then you pay the price. I doubt that Treesh, for instance, will run off very soon, as she probably has bunches of char builds/ideas that she hasn't even tried yet.

[Brista]

A few comments on the 40 v 40 Alterac Valley battleground

First it's certainly possible to drop in and drop out. If there are 40 of you and someone goes then after a is he really gone or just ld? pause they shunt the next person in the queue into your team

Each side gets massive support in defence from the NPCs and terrain features so on the admittedly rather uncoordinated Test battles it didn't make a huge difference whether you were trying your heart out or miles behind the line looking at herb spawns (I found)

Next, and this may be intentional or it may be something they address before it goes Live, you can't pick teams. So if your pro 40 man raid joins a battle they won't all get into the same battleground. Now there are options in the join screen to pick a specific battle rather than just next available so you could probably get most of your people into the same battle if you accepted a longer wait

There's a huge amount of scope for being an effective participant and you can certainly drop in and have fun if you only have an hour free

I thought it a very exciting and very fun addition but then I'm quite pumped about the game in general. I don't know if they will change things for you, Alarick, especially since your issues seem to be as much about items as gameplay and battlegrounds isn't going to improve your stuff

[Kevin]

This post is all a pipe dream and really doesn't give any practical advice on the situation I'm responding to, feel free to skip it. I just need to vent on something I think Blizzard really missed out on and it tangentially relates to the topic at hand.

You know this is where a robust crafting system could come in handy, at least for some people. Though it would require a more dynamic world.

I'm not talking about the tacked on only really applies to combat crafting that we have now. What about tier 3 crafting. Carpentry, Masonry, soul crafting.

You raid an enemy town, you damage the walls, the buildings, you destroy a bridge. You need to build a massive bridge that takes server wide coordination to do to get to new content. You must have a defense force to hold off the attacking mobs while the crafters actually work. The crafters come in and actually do the work a bit at a time. You have structures that require magical components, you set it up so all 3 tiers can do something. You have level restrictions on some of the stuff. Bridges in Dust Wallow can only be worked on by L25-38 characters. This gives the new players and alt people world crafting to do, it gives another outlet for high level characters, That bridge to get to northrend still needs some work, I can spend 30 minutes fighting through these mobs to get some granite to put in the stock piles. Or I can spend 30 minutes fighting these mobs to defend the stockpile or protect that crafter while he works on the bridge.

Not only would this give people more to do, it would connect them to the world more. I helped work on this bridge that allows us to get to Northrend. I helped creat the forge at this new settlement in Desolace.

You add a whole new PvP aspect, you attract a whole new type of player, you provide more content, you connect players to the world more. Even if it's all staged and controlled by the devs, it still adds it in. You get server vs server competition too. Stormrage got the bridge to Northrend done before Terenas did!

Ah well. I'm done with my little rant on my pipe dream that won't happen. But the game that does this right is the one that will pull me away from WoW very quickly.

[Quark]

In my opinion, being stuck to one character is just like *only* playing Alliance, or *only* playing Horde.  You have arbitrarily cut yourself out of a big chunk of content you could see, but it's your choice to make.  And if you've made that choice to be tied to your one character, then you pay the price.  I doubt that Treesh, for instance, will run off very soon, as she probably has bunches of char builds/ideas that she hasn't even tried yet.
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This reminds me, one of my goals is actually another Rogue, pure Combat specced, no Improved Sap. Just to see how it plays out. But that'll probably come after I've played all the other classes at least a respectable amount.

[Treesh]

I doubt that Treesh, for instance, will run off very soon, as she probably has bunches of char builds/ideas that she hasn't even tried yet.
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Well, right now I'm trying to keep it under 20 characters. There just isn't enough time to play all of them as much as I'd like. I do want to chime in though and say that it is just amazing how even just different talent point placement can make things play a lot differently for a lot of the classes. Sometimes it all comes down to luck and what items drop when for how a character plays. I've rebuilt Kinmi (gnome warlock) because after some good luck early on, she got shafted and just wasn't nearly as much fun to play as my undead warlock. So she was rebuilt. The first Kinmi was able to kill all three monkeys in the house (for her voidwalker quest) solo, without either the imp dying or herself dying, at level 10. I was just flat out amazed and quite proud of myself. The second Kinmi (with slightly worse robe) died three times that I can remember trying to do that quest. However, Kinmi II doesn't get constantly swarmed by packs of roving spiders in Loch Modan so she isn't as frustrating to play. It was so annoying to never be able to eat and drink and not have drain life yet so I could health funnel the voidwalker only sometimes or else just bandage myself a lot. You can play a warlock with no down time, but sometimes I would just like to breathe! *grumbles* Much hate to the Loch Modan spiders.

Anyway, my three shaman (one restoration, one elemental, one enhancement (when she gets old enough for talent points ;) )) all play exceptionally differently despite all being tauren and all running through the same quests. And no, the fire totem quest doesn't really get any better the more times you do it. ;) Some of the differences come from being part of a duo with a different partner (one goes with a hunter, one goes with a druid, one plays solo half the time and duos with a warrior the other half of the time), but it's also the specs. My restoration shaman is just a pita unless I really keep her equipment up to date. The elemental one is extremely fun to play because she's not as dependent on equipment as the restoration shaman is since meleeing is kind of her secondary damage. The enhancement shaman is too young to really see how truly different she will become.

The differences between the rogue quests on Alliance and the rogue quests on Horde are just astounding. The different starting areas really show a difference for rogues as well (except for the races that share starting areas of course), although I don't have an undead rogue and my human rogue was an open beta creation. I'll have to make those sometime in release. Human rogues will generally have the most health pots and money early on simply because of pickpocketing all those stinking kobolds that are everywhere, if they want to get pots and money. Gnome and dwarf rogues have the simplest level 10 quest (with the possible exception of the undead since I don't know what their level 10 quest is), trolls and orcs have the most difficult level 10 quest unless you get lucky and have some good daggers on hand. Horde has the better lockpicking quest (how can you not enjoy giving a skull conned parrot an "Enormous Chemically Altered Cracker"?) than Alliance does, but the poisons quest is much more difficult for horde than it is for alliance. Alliance rogues can solo it at 20-21, but horde rogues can't even think about soloing it until level 25 at the earliest and you better have good gear.

Well, now that I've gotten that at least partially out of my system, I just want to state that while I am a freak when it comes to making and playing different characters, I can also completely understand those who hate having multiple characters and rather dislike how the end-game is set up. Aleri is starting to get to the point where almost all of her quests are in the end game instances and I just don't want to play her a lot of the time because I don't want to be in dungeons all the time. However, since I still haven't seen as much of the world as I'd like, I take her out exploring and just sight seeing. If I complete a couple of green world quests while sight seeing, fine. That's icing on the cake, but it's nice to just go off and look at things and not worry about if I take too many steps into this interesting ruin, will I get my head handed to me on a platter? Little sessions like that rejuvenate Aleri for me and then I can play her again in instances or whatever. Getting her better gear also helps to make her feel less stagnant, but I'm not really concentrating on that with her. I just pop by the AH every now and then to see what I can pick up. And, of course, getting donations from some kind people. :) I did manage to pick up one new item in BRD, but before that, the last dungeon drop that actually was an upgrade for her was Scarlet Monastery, iirc. So I'm dreading level 60 when all I can do to progress her more is dungeon crawling. I get better world drops than I do dungeon drops. Why would I want to spend hours and hours and hours to try to find an item or two that probably won't drop anyway and if I'm in a raid, the other priests will just outroll me for whatever might happen to drop? So I am also dreading level 60 and have been able to put it off for a long time now, but she's creeping ever closer and I can't hold off the cap forever. At least I can enjoy my other characters though.

[Mavfin]

[snip]

Well, now that I've gotten that at least partially out of my system, I just want to state that while I am a freak when it comes to making and playing different characters, I can also completely understand those who hate having multiple characters and rather dislike how the end-game is set up.  Aleri is starting to get to the point where almost all of her quests are in the end game instances and I just don't want to play her a lot of the time because I don't want to be in dungeons all the time.  However, since I still haven't seen as much of the world as I'd like, I take her out exploring and just sight seeing.  If I complete a couple of green world quests while sight seeing, fine.  That's icing on the cake, but it's nice to just go off and look at things and not worry about if I take too many steps into this interesting ruin, will I get my head handed to me on a platter?  Little sessions like that rejuvenate Aleri for me and then I can play her again in instances or whatever.  Getting her better gear also helps to make her feel less stagnant, but I'm not really concentrating on that with her.  I just pop by the AH every now and then to see what I can pick up.  And, of course, getting donations from some kind people. :)  I did manage to pick up one new item in BRD, but before that, the last dungeon drop that actually was an upgrade for her was Scarlet Monastery, iirc.  So I'm dreading level 60 when all I can do to progress her more is dungeon crawling.  I get better world drops than I do dungeon drops.  Why would I want to spend hours and hours and hours to try to find an item or two that probably won't drop anyway and if I'm in a raid, the other priests will just outroll me for whatever might happen to drop?  So I am also dreading level 60 and have been able to put it off for a long time now, but she's creeping ever closer and I can't hold off the cap forever.  At least I can enjoy my other characters though.
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That's where my 55 is at the moment. I pull her out and play her some, I go explore the places I never made it to, and if she sticks her head in the meat-grinder, no big deal, it was fun to find out what was there anyway. She'll make it to 60, but I'm not pushing hard. I feel a shift coming to get my Horde warrior to the 50+ range. I play whatever is interesting for that day.

And, you are right about the talent points. My mostly-protection warrior doesn't have the same fast-kill power at the same level as my arms/fury warrior does. But, my arms/fury warrior gets in the situation of having to kill fast in a multi-mob situation or get beat up pretty bad. The end result is same class, but not the same play experience. And, to me, that IS one of the big *YES* points of the game. YMMV.

[oldmandennis]

This post is all a pipe dream ....
You raid an enemy town, you damage the walls, the buildings, you destroy a bridge.  You need to build a massive bridge that takes server wide coordination to do to get to new content....
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WoW II, est release date when hell freezes over.

No seriously, that does sound cool, but the details you have to work out for all that not to break are insane. When you add massive amounts of people into the mix, who knows what is going to happen. I bet the game designers did not anticipate what a massive cluster *^& Hillsbrad would become.

I have some ideas for a more engaging world too. I might have already said them, so I'll be brief.

Have the guard towers actually do something. E.g., the horde ones between the Barrens and Ashenvale. If they are in good repair, then there is a penalty for the alliance, some thing like a 50% chance that alliance griffions flying between Auberdine and Theramore will be shot down, and the poor NE has to leg it the rest of the way through the barrens.

Also, have more factions and have it mean something. Tauren and goblins shouldn't get along, especially Tauren Druids. Druids should be locked out of nearly all goblin quests, but if an orc helps Ratchet too much, getting them saw blades and shredder plans and shredder manuals, they can become persona non grata in TB.

/end thread jack

[Treesh]

This reminds me, one of my goals is actually another Rogue, pure Combat specced, no Improved Sap.  Just to see how it plays out.  But that'll probably come after I've played all the other classes at least a respectable amount.
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Oh! I missed this post. That's what Eth is. Nothing in the stealth talents at all. She's got Improved Sinister Strike, Lightning Reflexes, Deflection, Precision, Riposte (great fun that), Improved Kick (I live to shut down casters ;) ), Malice, Ruthlessness, Murder, Relentless Strikes, Dual Wield specialization, and blade flurry all maxed out. The rest of her points are going into dagger spec, lethality, improved backstab and improved evasion (although there's still debate about how many points for backstab and evasion or maybe just putting them elsewhere).

Zhasi, on the other hand, is going to have her points spread out a bit more. Malice, Lethality, Murder, Ruthlessness, Relentless Strikes, Master of Deception, Camoflauge, Opportunity, Ghostly Strike, Improved Ambush, Improved Sap, Improved Cheap Shot, lightning reflexes, deflection and riposte.

I haven't quite figured out just what direction I'm taking with my orc rogue yet. And there are also still an undead and human rogue that I have to make so I've got a lot of builds to play with yet. I haven't even really touched maces or swords. :D