Reputation

[Jarulf]

Some remarks, comments and thoughts, from someone who has played a LOT solo up until 60 (yeah, just reached 60 the other day!!!).

Far to many quest lines that are very fun, sooner or later or in the middle end up as requiering you to group up, and involve going to elite places (a place with elite monsters). Depending on the time of day, this is good or bad, at prime time, just run in as tons of people clear the way, at low hours, instead do those quests were you need to kill someone wihtout having to camp for an hour to be lucky to be one of the 100 people close by that go for the same monster. but many of the larger quest lines will sooner or later come to a halt as they are elite and require several people to group.

I don't know when it happenee, but the feeling of your being of a specific race was lost somewhere along the road. At the start, you was at your own race's place, there was stories and quest about it, and how it related to the world. That was lost as soon as you hit about level 15-25 and suddenly turned into a horde player. A bit later, somewhere in the 40-50 gap, I got the feeling you lost your hord identity as well. True, you often still had seperate quest towns in an area, but basically, the hord and alliance did the same thing and quests, just different quest NPC handing out the quests, but at that time, you sudenly started to meet dwarfs, night elves NPC and such that was friendly and was the one giving quests (yes, I play Horde mostly) and somehow I feel I lost the hord identity as well. In part it was made up by creating "neutral" factions such as Cenarion Circle (is that the name?) and Argent Dawn, that had both Alliance and Horde NPC, but it also meant alliance and horde have the same quest givers and identical quests. There is no longer any identiy or noticable effect of the two sides, hord and alliance. yes, I am sure that on a PvP server, it might be a bit different, but still, the NPC are all neutral, players fight out of town and then go to the same town in peace or something (no idea about the details).

This is something bad in my opinion and the game loses identity and charisma as you improve in level. Not sure what to do about it though since it would require double or more content to avoid it. Lets move to some areas (late game areas).

The problem I see with Fellwood is that it is a lot of travelling arround. The quest givers in the south are just so far away from any flightpoint. Winterspring is just a flight hub/town with some goblins, not really much to do in my opinion, some quests and the main quest give tucked away on the far corner of the map. As someone said, these late areas have less polsih, you frequently come by ruins, abandonded camps or special places, yet, nothing heppens there, it seems like just consmetic.

This is even more noticable in Azshara, you quest a little bit at the entracne of the area and do one or two trips up north for some quests (and some on the beach), that is it. There are tons of strange structures, small temples and yet, they are all empty of any special content. Have travelled the LONG way out to the waterlord for some quests (and after two or three of them it turned into a elite instance/multiplayer quest and I abandoned that line) but the south side of the area has tons of interesting palces....that are all empty. There is some sad attempt at an interest area with quest of some marooned people but it is just one pointless quest that doesn't continue and some people tossed out at various places.

I have yet not been to Burning Steppes and very little in Blasted Lands and other southern high level areas of that continent but the Plaguelands are in my opinion decent.

Something I have often wondered is why they don't populate all those remote (and sometimes not so remote) places, ruins, caves, hill tops and whatever with random interesting loot, for example a an abandoned chest or some hidden niche with some item and so on, it can be decently rare spawns. Put in occationally good items, and add quest items that you can turn in in various ways and drive some seperate story. The bones on the shore of Darkshore is a hint on how it could be. Now THAT would be a "grind" I could like, collecting strange are rare objects from obscure places. It leads back to my "explore quests", for alliance, the expeditionary dwarfs are the given quest givers, but no idea for horde. Have the players travell arround to a lot of obscure places and have some rewards for those that manage to go to all those strange places (without having to bring a whole raid group to fight some elite dragon to get there). Similary, it can be a quest to find some special bones from various pre historic animals that spawna a bit randomly over the world. Something that make travell in otherwise empty areas some meaning. There are tons of other ideas. One such can be for underwater stuff and so on.

Someone mentions the "tier 0.5" items and how they are "good". I am not into the whole raid/instance thing but to me, it seems that the good items are basically sets and they come in part from raid encounters (outside or in instances) and these were added for those that "only" want to run normal instances becasue from what I have seen, they require you to run a lot of special bosses in instances and are not even close to be soloable even in part. I am not saying that everything should be soloable, but there could be SOME content that is. I do understand that it is a MMO game and not a single player one, but that does not mean it is an absolutely nessecity to find some great guild for people to have fun in the game, which is alsomt a requirement now and I am just lucky to have the great guild of us lurkers that are quite informal anddoesn't require you to do all specific stuff to be in it, with ranks and such and targets to fulfill and whatever they figure out.

Part of the problem with the game as it is, is also in my opinion a very bad item system. I will probably make a seperate post about it in some more appropriate thread but from the "legendary staff" thread I was directed to the thread on item creation and now it is my opinion that Blizzard failed completely with item creation and its system, despite having the experience from games like Diablo and Diablo 2. I know understand why I have felt a bit frustrated and felt something missing in that area something I never understood before and lets face it, after level 60, the game is about getting better items, period. Better reputation is ONLY to get better items (or recipies which give better items).

[MongoJerry]

Someone mentions the "tier 0.5" items and how they are "good". I am not into the whole raid/instance thing but to me, it seems that the good items are basically sets and they come in part from raid encounters (outside or in instances) and these were added for those that "only" want to run normal instances becasue from what I have seen, they require you to run a lot of special bosses in instances and are not even close to be soloable even in part. I am not saying that everything should be soloable, but there could be SOME content that is. I do understand that it is a MMO game and not a single player one, but that does not mean it is an absolutely nessecity to find some great guild for people to have fun in the game, which is alsomt a requirement now and I am just lucky to have the great guild of us lurkers that are quite informal anddoesn't require you to do all specific stuff to be in it, with ranks and such and targets to fulfill and whatever they figure out.

I want to clarify some of this stuff. There's soloing, grouping, and then raiding. Raiding tends to refer to dungeons requiring 20+ or more people which in practical terms usually means getting involved in an organized guild. However, instances like Stratholme, Scholomance and Dire Maul are 5-man dunegons and UBRS is a 10-man dungeon. These dungeons are most often run by pick-up groups. In fact, it's far easier for me to get a pick-up run of these dungeons going than to try to get a group of people from my own guild to go. The 0.5 tier set only requires you to go into these 5- and 10-man dungeons, so yes, it is quite manageable for someone not involved in organized guilds to get in these parties and to get these items.

I may have missed some of your earlier posts, so I'm not sure exactly why you are avoiding grouping up. Are you trying to test something out or explore strictly the solo aspects of the game? Or are you simply afraid of what you'll find if you group up with people? The game is an MMO and as such player interaction in all its forms is an integral part of the game. My favorite aspect of the game is the feeling of comraderie that comes from defeating a challenge as a group. I particularly like the small 5-man game, because I think the experience is more intimate and intense than the 40-man game. If you're avoiding the dungeon party game out of fear, I hope you'll change your mind. Yes, I have gotten into more than my share of dud groups, but at the same time, some of my best game experiences came when playing with total groups of strangers who pulled together and worked as teams.

[Bolty]

Far to many quest lines that are very fun, sooner or later or in the middle end up as requiering you to group up, and involve going to elite places (a place with elite monsters).

Sorry Jarulf, but this isn't Diablo. Up until now, you've been playing it as such, but that's ending for you now. Progress after 60 just doesn't exist solo. It's got to come from groups. That's the nature of MMORPGs. You're going to have to make a decision - stop now, or plunge yourself more into the multiplayer aspect of the game. I can tell you the multiplayer is rewarding fun when you do it with the right people, and learning how to be a great group player is a completely different game than being a great solo player.

The complexities and tactics used in MMORPGs really don't shine until you play in groups. That's what makes WoW interesting. Group play in WoW is far better than group play in Diablo, which is basically a bunch of people soloing together. Solo strategies and tactics in WoW...well, there isn't much to it. Everything's about groups.

I don't know when it happenee, but the feeling of your being of a specific race was lost somewhere along the road. At the start, you was at your own race's place, there was stories and quest about it, and how it related to the world.

This is done on purpose. As you get older and get deeper into the questlines, the plot moves much more to interaction between Horde and Alliance. Joint ventures become more common, since both sides are realizing there are bigger threats than each other to worry about (the Silithid, the Scourge, etc). The Ahn'Quraj gate opening event brought the factions together on many servers, since the Horde and Alliance sides needed to gather different materials together to open the gate - and guilds on each side would assist each other to get it done.

I don't know, think of it as a maturation of the factions. Thrall himself mentions that Horde and Alliance need to work together. Rumors exist that Mount Hyjal will be a gigantic cross-faction raid instance, meaning that Horde and Alliance will play alongside each other to victory there...but it's just a rumor.

However, all your notes about the higher-level zones are dead on accurate, and it's something I warned about on the game's release. Reference my old posts regarding how WoW was an unfinished game at release, although my point then was not so much on this missing content, but instead unfinished game mechanics such as the missing honor system, no battlegrounds, poor class balance, and unstable servers. Everything's since been corrected except the missing content, which Blizzard has ignored for the most part except for raid content and Dire Maul.

-Bolty

[Drasca]

Some remarks, comments and thoughts, from someone who has played a LOT solo up until 60 (yeah, just reached 60 the other day!!!).

Far to many quest lines that are very fun, sooner or later or in the middle end up as requiering you to group up, and involve going to elite places (a place with elite monsters).[right][snapback]107321[/snapback][/right]

First off congratulations for reaching 60. Secondly, I pity you for reaching the beginning of the end of your solo life. You're waking up to the reality you're no longer in Diablo and inside a MMO business model.

The problem I see with Fellwood is that it is a lot of travelling arround.

The travel factor is directly related to player progress. Traditional MMO's, including WoW, use the travel factor, because that directly relates to how fast a player's character can progress. Additional travel is a way to artificially slow the player down and presumably pay more money. It is essentially another ugly grind factor to make you spend more money for their business model.

Something I have often wondered is why they don't populate all those remote (and sometimes not so remote) places, ruins, caves, hill tops and whatever with random interesting loot,

The emptiness is staggering. If you do enough exploring, you'll find strange places which are devoid of everything except weird landscaping as if giant claws the size of orgrimmar towers raked through the ground. Then there's just the odd area east of arathi highland's mountains only approachable by sea which has a farm, a couple sheep and a painting of a human female in a bikini in the basement. This has been developed a bit over several patches, but seems to have no purpose to it.

I do understand that it is a MMO game and not a single player one, but that does not mean it is an absolutely nessecity to find some great guild for people to have fun in the game, which is alsomt a requirement now and I am just lucky to have the great guild of us lurkers that are quite informal anddoesn't require you to do all specific stuff to be in it, with ranks and such and targets to fulfill and whatever they figure out.

Group content is a slower economy of scale for traditional (slow and impede player progress) MMO. I'm afraid you'll only see more, not less group dependent content. I'm glad you have a guild, but any additional solo content is unlikely with a business model that is designs content meant to slow the player's progress through the social and arms itemization requirements.

I know understand why I have felt a bit frustrated and felt something missing in that area something I never understood before and lets face it, after level 60, the game is about getting better items, period. Better reputation is ONLY to get better items (or recipies which give better items).

Yep, WoW may be able to mask it from 0-60, but all you have is an items & arms ratrace. Bigger numbers, not that much more variety or better use of current abilities. Its really one big grind, and a business model based off making the players spend money for the time it takes to make ever incremental grinds. Newer items, and the dungeons that have them, require them, will only be outdated by the newest item and locations to get them.

Molten Core, the end game for a period of time, is now completely skipped by some of the higher end guilds. Just not worth their time. Newer dungeons obsolete what used to be current, and the expansion will probably obsolete everything we've currently seen.

If you're having fun, great, but when you're burned out, it might be for good, and better that you stay out.

[Arnulf]

[..]The travel factor is directly related to player progress. Traditional MMO's, including WoW, use the travel factor, because that directly relates to how fast a player's character can progress. Additional travel is a way to artificially slow the player down and presumably pay more money. It is essentially another ugly grind factor to make you spend more money for their business model.
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I feel I should defend Blizzard on this account. Players want a vast world. And then they complain that it takes so long getting from point A to point B. You cannot have the cake and eat it too. I find it interesting that many MMO players want big spaces but only a small percentage of them is actually exploring it. Bliz did alot since release to make things easier. The last and best improvement being the flight path destination thing. If you want to travel even faster play a mage.

If you're having fun, great, but when you're burned out, it might be for good, and better that you stay out.
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I think that's good advice. Considering how much time one can spend playing WOW. There are very few games that I played that kept my interest for so long. Diablo II, FFXI, Rollercoaster Tycoon. :) Not even one of them comes close.

[Drasca]

I feel I should defend Blizzard on this account. Players want a vast world. And then they complain that it takes so long getting from point A to point B. You cannot have the cake and eat it too.[right][snapback]107406[/snapback][/right]

Actually, in this matter of having both a vast world and easy travel, you can. Guild wars has one solution. Map between cities and outposts instantly, explore the wilderness in between. Oblivion has another: Fast travel between any landmark you've explored (although admittedly that's purely suited for a single player game, it can still be adapted).

There's nothing stopping blizzard from creating the ability to go directly into instances, say through the battlegrounds NPC method, or the "pug" stone method, to allow pre existing groups to enter instances, or to allow flight times to be near instant. Clearly it is possible to be done. Certain quests even launch you from winterspring to eastern plaguelands within seconds.

The old business model however, does not want you to. It wants you to spend additional time in aggregate on their servers, because every extra moment you spend playing is supposedly revenue for them. Honestly, that model is flawed, but such mmorpgs are built on them.

I find it interesting that many MMO players want big spaces but only a small percentage of them is actually exploring it.

I don't. Much irony fails once you understand the context and motivation. They're not the same player goals. See the "What kind of WoW player are you" threads (hint: they types are not always mutually exclusive either). Explorer's one. Achiever's another. Your goals shift, and what seemed like a good idea at the time suddenly gets waylaid by other priorities.

[Watto44]

There's nothing stopping blizzard from creating the ability to go directly into instances, say through the battlegrounds NPC method, or the "pug" stone method, to allow pre existing groups to enter instances, or to allow flight times to be near instant. Clearly it is possible to be done. Certain quests even launch you from winterspring to eastern plaguelands within seconds.
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Unfortunately, that would be yet another nail in the coffin of world PvP. While that's no big deal for some players - probably the majority - there would still be plenty who'd be outraged. Personally, I love stepping into BRM on the weekends, it always exciting. :D (On a side note: Please, please, PLEASE make SOME druid tricks work indoors. ARGH!) To my mind, the benefit of travel time is that it gives you a sense that your toon exists in the world, despite the increasingly fractured nature of instanced play. For me, that benefit out weighs the PITA factor of it. :)

Going back to the reputation thing. From someone who has just started their cenarian circle grind (yeah, I know, get with the program, that's sooo 2 months ago) I feel your pain. I quite like what blizzard did with the earlier factions, where honored was a base point or standard that was very attainable with moderate effort. Honored gave decent rewards and all that good stuff, while exalted gave more specific and special rewards. (Argent Dawn, for example. You'll get honored very easily, while exalted takes much longer but doesn't give huge returns on your time invested.)

However, I don't really like the feeling of the AQ20/40 reps (Cenarian Circle and Brood of Nozdrathingy respectively) where it feels like I "have" to get exalted in order to finish sets and what not. (That feeling may stem from the complete and utter sexiness of the Mace of Unending Life.) I don't like that reputation seems to have moved from an optional extra to a must-have.

Anyways, that's my two cents. Just poked my head out of the hive to chip in. ;)

[oldmandennis]

However, I don't really like the feeling of the AQ20/40 reps (Cenarian Circle and Brood of Nozdrathingy respectively) where it feels like I "have" to get exalted in order to finish sets and what not. (That feeling may stem from the complete and utter sexiness of the Mace of Unending Life.) I don't like that reputation seems to have moved from an optional extra to a must-have.

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On AQ20 rep, I think its usually about 2k for a full clear. If you do that 20 times (to get everybody a head of ossiran and all the hilts you need, and probably there will be some distribution problems with the books) then you should be close to exaulted. I know the rep probably goes down when you hit revered, but also you should probably throw in some field duty and other assorted quests... Of course, if you got a hilt pretty early, it might seem like quite a wait :/

[Jarulf]

I want to clarify some of this stuff. 

...

I may have missed some of your earlier posts, so I'm not sure exactly why you are avoiding grouping up. [right][snapback]107381[/snapback][/right]

Thanks for the clarification, that sounds good indeed, seems I had not fully understood it.


As for the "solo" part, I don't avoid playing in groups at all, far from it. However, in part due to playing from another time zone, I tend to not be on as often when people DO group out (Lurkers at least) and I also like doing all the quests, reading all I come by and taking it generally slowly. I frequently group up with random people to complete a quest that is a bit tough or so though, but for longer playing, I tend to get a bit stressed when people rush through quests.

Due to not having played much instances at all, typically only the initial ones (both alliance and horde), up to, say Razorfen/Scarlet Monestary I feel I have not learned well how to play in them and have been reluctant to join pickup groups for the simple reason that I am not sure I would perform well. Yeah, silly, but that is one reason and the higher I got in level, the worse I have felt :) In addition, my character is quite set up for solo play and not playing for healing in instances (I play a Priest on the Horde side by the way, just reaching level 60!!). I am also looking for some good mod to help out with healing but the one I have, which is great in many aspects, typically get into problems every other patch or so.

First off congratulations for reaching 60.

Thanks!

The travel factor is directly related to player progress.

I don't mind the travell between zones, I typically go and do other stuff while flying between areas. The problem in Fellwood is that it is a long *ride* that you have to do manually. IN part you have the same issue with the Plaguelands since the western part is accessible from Undercity and I hate that extra riding out of the toww. In other areas, the flight point is relatively close by (except Ungoro Crater perhaps).

Yep, WoW may be able to mask it from 0-60, but all you have is an items & arms ratrace.

The problem here is that the item race, as oposed to say in Diablo, is not much fun since it is basically completely non random and almost surgically clean of surprises or variation with every item follow a specific design formula for power and abilities with no variation.

If you're having fun, great, but when you're burned out, it might be for good, and better that you stay out.

I am having a great time and don't play so much that I am burned out (and took a two month mostly off arround Christmas anyway). There are still a lot of quests for me to do and catch up from earlier areas that I skiped earlier due to being too hard, some have great quest line and content and I enjoy them. I am also currently trying to get all my tradeskills up to max (tailoring and cooking is there, first Aid and Enchanting is getting there). I realise how gold is quite easy to get now that you don't need to spend in on new skills constantly so I guess I will work on getting my recipie collection for the tradeskills more complete as well. Basically I enjoy the game a lot.

I will also start doing all the instances I skiped and missed so far, that includes all the way down to Razorfen Downs I think even though in part one can solo some of the quests and I like the challenge of not being allowed misstakes in an instance since you can't just run away a bit for monsters to not follow you.



Thanks to all you other that commented too, I just can't reply to every single one of you but enjoy your comments and insight to the game.

[Kevin]

Due to not having played much instances at all, typically only the initial ones (both alliance and horde), up to, say Razorfen/Scarlet Monestary I feel I have not learned well how to play in them and have been reluctant to join pickup groups for the simple reason that I am not sure I would perform well. Yeah, silly, but that is one reason and the higher I got in level, the worse I have felt :) In addition, my character is quite set up for solo play and not playing for healing in instances (I play a Priest on the Horde side by the way, just reaching level 60!!).
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And don't worry about this on Terenas if you get a group of Lurkers (but as you said your time doesn't match so well with some of us over there). Feel free to say, hey I'm pretty new to instances and not sure of my group play but we'll be patient and give you tips and tricks and if we have another healer aournd let you play as DPS too (though in many places VE can do a lot if not all of the healing needed. Treesh and I were one pull away from duoing all of the SM library with a warrior and my shadow priest as L37, same level as Doan, we just made one mistake and died to the last 3 pull of the L36 elites, VE did the majority of the healing on that run, of course I'm a very experience healer having been only healer in many instances with both my druid and my paladin and healing several of the lowbie instances with priests and shaman).

There are several lurkers over there who would be more than happy most days to head back to a lower instance with you too so you could get the quests done. Heck you might even be able to help a few lower level alts get through some of those places if they don't mind having an L60 in an L30 something instance (which at times I don't mind. I found it can be quite fun just recently my L40 mage was escorted through the SM Catherdral to finish a quest by a 60 shadow priest and a 60 rogue. I had fun seeing how much damage I could do, 15% of the total on the run, if I could pull aggro at all, yes if I hit early enough and got a crit followed by a crit fireblast, and trying to make sure I didn't get adds while vacuuming up the loot that was set to FFA). But again, I think all of us over there understand the issues with the difference in time zones. :) But lurkers do their best to try and make everyone feel comfortable. There are several examples but one that sticks out for me a lot is Mirajj over on Stormrage. He too had pretty much solo'd up to around level 36 or something and hadn't don any instances. I recall some of the runs in Scarlet Monestary and Uldaman with him. He seems to think it was a good experience getting in there with lurkers mistakes and all, at least that is the impression I get when we reminicse about it. :) So don't worry. If you make a mistake we'll do our best to let you know and try to give you tips on how you might be able to do stuff better or just give you some food for thought and maybe learn something in the process ourselves. :) Timezones permitting of course.

[Watto44]

On AQ20 rep, I think its usually about 2k for a full clear.  If you do that 20 times (to get everybody a head of ossiran and all the hilts you need, and probably there will be some distribution problems with the books) then you should be close to exaulted.  I know the rep probably goes down when you hit revered, but also you should probably throw in some field duty and other assorted quests... Of course, if you got a hilt pretty early, it might seem like quite a wait :/
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Sure, 20 full clears sounds fine. But that's four months...

(We only raid AQ once a week at the moment, although farming runs will probably start when more people get closer to exalted.)

[Mirajj]

But lurkers do their best to try and make everyone feel comfortable.  There are several examples but one that sticks out for me a lot is Mirajj over on Stormrage.  He too had pretty much solo'd up to around level 36 or something and hadn't done any instances.  I recall some of the runs in Scarlet Monestary and Uldaman with him.  He seems to think it was a good experience getting in there with lurkers mistakes and all, at least that is the impression I get when we reminicse about it.  :)  So don't worry.
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"I haven't trained any traps. I don't need them when I solo...."
"I get along just fine with only Improved Conc shot and autoshot...."
"Ooops...who's that?" (Said as my pet chased a runner into the SM library, and brought Doan back...after a bad pull already)
"Um...Oh, hell...guys...inc..." (Said after I jumped off a cliff in Mauradon, and my pet went the long way around, bringing a couple packs of slimes with her.)

Yeah, if you wanna learn instances, you can't ask for a better crew to learn with than Lurkers. ;)

[Treesh]

"I haven't trained any traps. I don't need them when I solo...."
"I get along just fine with only Improved Conc shot and autoshot...."
"Ooops...who's that?" (Said as my pet chased a runner into the SM library, and brought Doan back...after a bad pull already)
"Um...Oh, hell...guys...inc..." (Said after I jumped off a cliff in Mauradon, and my pet went the long way around, bringing a couple packs of slimes with her.)

Yeah, if you wanna learn instances, you can't ask for a better crew to learn with than Lurkers. ;)
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You forgot the "I haven't trained any stings either" ;)

[Mirajj]

You forgot the "I haven't trained any stings either" ;)
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I thought that went under the "I just need Conc shot and autoshot to solo." part. ;)