--->
Osiris' Rogue Guide v3(New)
Stealth FAQ (EU)
Grinding Guide 1.0
In Response: Don't Worry, Blizzard Isn't Dumbing Down World of Warcraft
I don't consider myself an Elitist even though I share their views. I guess it is because I read this article and think to myself this would not be a problem if Blizzard would stop shooting themselves in the foot. I am not mad at the casual raider... I am mad at blizzard. They are screwing over the hardcore and casual alike and they are about to do it again!
The root of the problem is mudflation. The huge increase of stats from one level to another. A great example of this is the fact that you replaced purples with greens when you go into TBC.
Blizzard has stated that they like the way TBC rolled out that they think of it as a reset. Everyone gets to start out at the same place. The casuals probably even scream out that yea! this is what we want! However like most people ... we rarely know what we really want ... or to a lesser degree whats good for us.
Blizzard tunes their dungeons based on the gear you should have at certain levels. When TBC came out you had casuals that had geared up through ZG, MC and were cracking into BWL (they still had yet to experience ANQ, and NAXX. You probably had casual players that had kitted themselves out gradually in full epics and were becoming a force to reckoned with in a raid instance.
Then in one move Blizzard released TBC and reset the casual player to greens. With in months hardcore players were back in purples and raiding dungeons that require purple quality loot to break them with only a minor bump in their play. Casuals however were working their way out of greens into blues and getting their first purples. Blizzard smacked all of the casual raiders on the hand with TBC and said no no! Those epics are not from this expansion go get new ones. When if they had tuned TBC correctly with a gradual shift in power people raiding ZG would have been able to use their purples to start raiding kara... and gruul's and there would be a wide variety of gear but if you had already epiced yourself out it would be a gradual improvement.
Blizzard is about to do it again with WOTLK, they are going to smack you on the hand take your hard earned epics away and who is going to have the hardest time replacing them? Who is going to be relagated back to the bottom rung after working their way up the ladder of progression to try the next hardest dungeon. The casuals.
The hardcore raiders will blow through the levels and the gear upgrades in a month or two tops. I am mad at the situation Blizzard has created that they even need to use badge loot as a bandage. Like I said in a previous post Blizzard created this situation themselves and they are not catering to the casuals even if it does look like it from the outside.
If they were truly designing with the casual in mind they would make it so there wasnt such a huge gear gap between expansions so that the casual could continue to progress while raiding casually. How many casual guilds will be raiding a month after WOTLK? My bet... none.
The root of the problem is mudflation. The huge increase of stats from one level to another. A great example of this is the fact that you replaced purples with greens when you go into TBC.
Blizzard has stated that they like the way TBC rolled out that they think of it as a reset. Everyone gets to start out at the same place. The casuals probably even scream out that yea! this is what we want! However like most people ... we rarely know what we really want ... or to a lesser degree whats good for us.
Blizzard tunes their dungeons based on the gear you should have at certain levels. When TBC came out you had casuals that had geared up through ZG, MC and were cracking into BWL (they still had yet to experience ANQ, and NAXX. You probably had casual players that had kitted themselves out gradually in full epics and were becoming a force to reckoned with in a raid instance.
Then in one move Blizzard released TBC and reset the casual player to greens. With in months hardcore players were back in purples and raiding dungeons that require purple quality loot to break them with only a minor bump in their play. Casuals however were working their way out of greens into blues and getting their first purples. Blizzard smacked all of the casual raiders on the hand with TBC and said no no! Those epics are not from this expansion go get new ones. When if they had tuned TBC correctly with a gradual shift in power people raiding ZG would have been able to use their purples to start raiding kara... and gruul's and there would be a wide variety of gear but if you had already epiced yourself out it would be a gradual improvement.
Blizzard is about to do it again with WOTLK, they are going to smack you on the hand take your hard earned epics away and who is going to have the hardest time replacing them? Who is going to be relagated back to the bottom rung after working their way up the ladder of progression to try the next hardest dungeon. The casuals.
The hardcore raiders will blow through the levels and the gear upgrades in a month or two tops. I am mad at the situation Blizzard has created that they even need to use badge loot as a bandage. Like I said in a previous post Blizzard created this situation themselves and they are not catering to the casuals even if it does look like it from the outside.
If they were truly designing with the casual in mind they would make it so there wasnt such a huge gear gap between expansions so that the casual could continue to progress while raiding casually. How many casual guilds will be raiding a month after WOTLK? My bet... none.
Labels: rant
|
posted by Cerias Shadows at 3/17/2008
Cerias Shadows
Zyk
Osiris
Khormid
7 Comments:
Quit saying "there" (a place) when you mean "their" (a possessive).
Fixed i think... I was at work posting... which causes me to write fast and not proof-read as much. Im sure there are more significant errors then "there" as well.
~CS
The problem I see with making lower-end epics viable for longer in a new expansion is this: not all casuals are raiders who were getting gear out of these zones (MC, BWL, ZG) before the expansion. What happens to the person who starts playing WoW after the Burning Crusade launch and ends up with greens and a few blues heading into Outland?
If Outland is tuned for these "raiding casuals" and isn't giving out gear to get other people up to speed, these non-raiding casuals will find themselves having a really tough time progressing because they don't have the epics they're "supposed" to have.
Alternatively, if Outland is tuned for people going out there in greens and a few blues, and the quest rewards and drops are tuned so that they won't replace pre-expansion epics, "raiding casuals" will stomp through everything, and hardcore raiders will do so even more so.
In short, not everyone has raid gear of any tier going into a new expansion, and leaving these people behind even casual raiders will just further stratify the player base and create even more imbalances.
So you think you know what they want better than they do? If that isn't elitist, I don't know what is.
But that's not the point I wanted to make. I think your entirely wrong, and that's because your point seems to be that they should have let casuals use their epics to continue to get epics in TBC. Why should a casual player, in casual gear, automatically have the gear to start doing kara and getting 70 epics without putting some work into it? I don't see anywhere in your article where you actually talk about why casual gear should give them a head start. The truth is, it shouldn't. Casuals were sad about losing their gear just like raiders, but if they did have zg/aq20/mc gear, they are now getting kara/gruuls gear and they are (for the most part) perfectly ok with that. On top of this, Blizzard is catering to the casuals with all the badge loot, pvp loot, and honor loot and they are also very happy about that.
Please don't say people rarely know what they want and then go on to be elitist enough to tell them what is it they don't understand they want.
It could be argued that Blizzard's approach is more inclusive than what you propose.
First generation MMORPG's have hamstrung themselves by adopting the very approach you outline. Gradual gear progression between expansions creates:
-barriers to new players, who must dedicate increasingly more time to experience the latest high end content. After a while, they simply stop trying (e.g. EQ, DAOC, EQ2). Better to allow the gear reset and keep player turnover two-way rather than one-way.
- barriers to existing players. This type of gear reset allows players of all types - from the 5 hours a week single mum to the 21 yr old, about to drop out of college 80hour+ gamer to both benefit from the new content. Nothing is in the way of preventing *all players* from purchasing and experiencing the expansion.
My own thoughts are that high playtime players get the benefit of hitting level appropriate content as it was originally designed to be experienced. Lower playtime players don't get that with the gear resets. It's one of the perks of being a high playtime player.
The fun I have getting my purples isn't cheapened by new expansions. , but that may be because it doesn't bother me that someone will get the same item maybe a bit more easily later on. It was fun for me at the time, and that's what is important.
You are right and wrong at the same time, Cerias.
I think you are wrong about the "item reset" after a new Expansion comes out. People geared from lvl 60 raids got to lvl 70 first, because the lvl 60 raid items were better then Outland greens (well, at least most of them).
These same people would already be organized, and would start raiding first. Therefore, they had their lvl 70 epics first.
Hardcore players are, and will always be, better geared then casuals.
But, I must say, you are right when you say Blizz shots it's own foot at each new expansion.
I wonder how much time their artists, programmers and content directors spent on designing Molten Core, Naxxramas and zomg AQ!!! TBC DESTROYED these raids.
Why is that? Because if you can put together a well organized 25 man group, you are going to kill Gruul.
- "WTF? Who's Gruul anyway??? I want to kill Kel'thuzad!!!"
- "STFU NOOB, not worth it."
Blizzard killed its own content. And they know it, or they wouldn't be revamping Naxx for WoTLK.
My opinion? They should revamp all raids to level 70. NOW.
WOTLK is out? Revamp again. Revamp all items. All mobs and bosses.
That would at least double the number of viable raids, and certainly giving renewed life to die-hard raiders.
So now, in a follow up post you try to show how un-elitist you are by showing how much you care about casuals, the inexperienced little children that we are that don't know wtf we want. Congratulations, you sound more elitist then ever.
Post a Comment
<< Home