Why I probably won't play wow after release

[Magicbag]

I posted this to the Beta forums:
-----------------------------------------

I feel that there are three main areas that should be improved to retain people for this game.

1) Death. This has been a big issue in this post, and rightfully so. I'm OK with leaving it as is, maybe that will appeal to more people. However, for people coming from other MMOs, they expect to mean something. Usually, it's XP,cash, or both. I'm in favor of making it an XP penalty to have the spirit healer fix you, a cash penalty (in the form of missing stamina that can be healed for a cost by an NPC) for a ghost run back, and no penalty (except rez sickness) for a ressurection. This would also make ressers more in demand and keep groups together instead of everyone waiting for people to run back.

2) Risk/Reward. I find that there is a lack of this in game. Part of it has to do with death, but a lot of it has to do with challenge. the crux of it is this: If I take down a mob 5 levels over my level I get minimally more than if I kill a mob 5 levels below my level. If I pull a camp and 2 monters come at me (joined, or call for help) I get no bonus for getting both of them. Usually MMOs have rewarded overcoming challanges of this nature for compensating for increased risk of death or increased down time. In WoW, there is little risk and little reward.

3) Forced Servers. Esablished guilds cannot afford to choose WoW even if they can swallow the first two pills because it will fragment their player base. Sure, many guilds aren't global, and within the US at elast we can choose East/West, but if this doesn't change the big boys won't be playing.

In conclusion, I'm sad, I wanted to love this game (and part of me really did), but I cannot play it seriously because of the reasosn stated above. I'm sure many people will say we like a game with low risk/low reward. WoW then has found it's casual playerbase then, but I'll say this ... Diablo 2 had more risk/reward, more in depth systems, and no server restrictions. It was also free to play after the initial game purchase.

WoW doesn't have enough to hold me if it doesn't change.
-MB

[Artega]

So does this mean I can have your CD-Key and other associated Beta stuff? :huh:

I do agree with the Risk-vs.-Reward; I'd have liked some recognition for killing a LV16 raptor at LV13, other than maybe an extra 20 XP, a minute of downtime, and a skinnable corpse.

[Magicbag]

I'll still play Beta, and try to push my agenda. I do enjoy the game an awful lot, but I can't justify devoting a long term period of play (3 Years is my average per game ATM) to it if the issues I raised aren't addressed.

They are making some improvements in the get 40 people to beat an instance mentality by limiting the number of people in a raid group on a by-instance basis.

Step in the right direction for sure.
-MB

[Bun-Bun]

I'll still play Beta, and try to push my agenda.  I do enjoy the game an awful lot, but I can't justify devoting a long term period of play (3 Years is my average per game ATM) to it if the issues I raised aren't addressed. 

I don't think you'll be gratified. My impression is that your issues are more of your preferences being outside the target demographic for the game than a "wrongness" in the game. You want a more challenging, harder game; that's great, but I don't think Blizzard will comply, at least below Hero levels. If they're targeting an audience of first time MOGers, it would probably be a mistake to accede.

As for #3, I think it's a mistake by Blizzard, but not a huge one. There's probably a business opportunity in there somewhere for providing a US billing address for those who reside outside the US.

Of course, that niche may already be filled by the eBay forwarding scammers. :)

[Lissa]

I posted this to the Beta forums:
-----------------------------------------

I feel that there are three main areas that should be improved to retain people for this game.

1) Death. This has been a big issue in this post, and rightfully so. I'm OK with leaving it as is, maybe that will appeal to more people. However, for people coming from other MMOs, they expect to mean something. Usually, it's XP,cash, or both. I'm in favor of making it an XP penalty to have the spirit healer fix you, a cash penalty (in the form of missing stamina that can be healed for a cost by an NPC) for a ghost run back, and no penalty (except rez sickness) for a ressurection. This would also make ressers more in demand and keep groups together instead of everyone waiting for people to run back.

2) Risk/Reward. I find that there is a lack of this in game. Part of it has to do with death, but a lot of it has to do with challenge. the crux of it is this: If I take down a mob 5 levels over my level I get minimally more than if I kill a mob 5 levels below my level. If I pull a camp and 2 monters come at me (joined, or call for help) I get no bonus for getting both of them. Usually MMOs have rewarded overcoming challanges of this nature for compensating for increased risk of death or increased down time. In WoW, there is little risk and little reward.

3) Forced Servers. Esablished guilds cannot afford to choose WoW even if they can swallow the first two pills because it will fragment their player base. Sure, many guilds aren't global, and within the US at elast we can choose East/West, but if this doesn't change the big boys won't be playing.

In conclusion, I'm sad, I wanted to love this game (and part of me really did), but I cannot play it seriously because of the reasosn stated above. I'm sure many people will say we like a game with low risk/low reward. WoW then has found it's casual playerbase then, but I'll say this ... Diablo 2 had more risk/reward, more in depth systems, and no server restrictions. It was also free to play after the initial game purchase.

WoW doesn't have enough to hold me if it doesn't change.
-MB
[right][snapback]57314[/snapback][/right]

You do realize that rezzing at the spirit healer does cost you EP, 5% of your level. My personal favorite for death system has to be AC/AC2. Vitae made a lot of sence and this outright loss of EP and the like is just annoying (E&B had EP debt, but it was the same as lossing EP, it just wouldn't make you lose a level is all).

Also, I think getting rezzed and getting rez sickness is totally stupid if you never release. Your spirit hasn't left you body yet and what rezzer is doing is putting your body back together enough so you're alive. To me, the only time you should get rez sickness is when you release and the fix for this would be simple, just make the release time less as it stands right now, it's 5 minutes, change it to say 1 minute and you have rez sickness back. This means that if you do a corpse run, you'll have rez sickness under my method.

As to risk vs. reward, that is where the instances, raids, and elite mobs come in. Normal monsters really shouldn't give you much of a reward, but when dealing with an instance or elite mobs, there is a definite reason to give a reward as they mobs are much more difficult that mobs of the same level (usually they have twice to three times the health and they hit A LOT harder than similar level mobs).

[Magicbag]

Sorry I wasn't as clear as I should have been in my response.

He's the policy as I'd like to see it. 3 choices for revival.

1) Pay spirit Healer, get resed then and there for 5% XP
2) Run to corpse (lowers stamina by 3 points that can be healed at an NPC for cash)
3) Get a player res which gives you rez sickness, but has no other costs.

In the current context I don't understand the concept of a timer for release.. if the timer expires I shouldn't have option 3 open to me.

I agree with you that elite and boss mobs should give better loot and XP, but this is often NOT the case. For some instanced bosses, there is a fixed loot table with good drops, but to get to the boss you often have to plow through a good many elites which are just more time consuming normal monsters. No real incentive to kill elites over regular mobs.

-MB

[Magicbag]

I think I'm prepared to reverse my descision as it stands now. At 45, I've gotten a glimpse of higher level PvE content and had a small taste of PvP. If those end-game options are polished and the content continues to arrive for low-mid game quest lines, etc, I believe that the game will succeed.

I'm OK with the death penalty.

I think that limits on raid group numbers per instance is already implemented and this is good.

Higher level instances are challenging and reward good play.

My fear now is that with the lack of lower level instances to practice in, for the most part people wont group too much and therefore be ignorant of how to function well. For example, they will not know the strengths of other classes, etc. I'm sure we've all had bad group experiences, but for the most part, this hasn't been true in beta, and certainly never true in LL groups.

I'm more optomistic now and hope that the final polish is enough to push the game over the top. I hope that the mothly fee is resonable (12-13$/mo if paid in 6 month chunks) and that they don't rush release... which amazingly it seems like they aren't.
-MB