Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Why am I Not Feeling It.

There are a lot of things coming with mists that I am looking forward to.  Even the redesigned talent system that I was originally against I have warmed up to.  I like that reputations need to be worked on again instead of basically given to you just for wearing a tabard.  I like that the tabard is for exalted again.  Not sure why, I just like the BC version of reputation grinds better.  To each their own right?  There is a lot that has peaked my interest.

I love that there will not be a daily quest cap.  Probably that more than anything else is a quality of life change as I see it.  Sure, it was extremely rare I ever hit the cap anyway but those few times I did it would have been nice to be able to do more if I wanted to.  So I am really liking that.

I am looking forward to there being a new class to learn how to play, the monk.  I plan on making at least one and possibly more if I like how they play out.  I'm going to make a female pandaren monk.  Female because I think the males are way to big.  They are bigger than draenei males and I have no male draenei for one reason and one reason only, they are too big, so I would never roll a male pandaren even if someone paid me too.

I am looking forward to having a connected world again.  I really felt lost, if that is the right word, in cataclysm because I did not feel I belonged anywhere.  The disconnection of the zones really took away from the full world feeling in ways I don't think blizzard ever considered it would.  The return to a world were we are on a continent is fantastic and needed.

I am a huge supporter of the no flying until 90, although I am sure on alts I will start hating it, but I think there is something to be said about making your way walking or riding while leveling.  I leveled in vanilla content walking even until 44, I leveled in BC with a ground mount, I leveled in wrath on the ground too (until 77 or 78 at least if I remember correctly), and I leveled in cataclysm flying and for someone that loves to level and does it a lot I can tell you that leveling in cataclysm was horrible in comparison to the others.

Ground mounts give the game a different feeling, one that flying loses.  Like I said, I can see me not wanting to do it on too many alts, but maybe they will make a book like in wrath that will be BoA to get flying earlier for the alt issue.  Either way, ground mounts are a winner of a decision if you ask me and I am looking forward to leveling on the ground, it makes it feel like more of an adventure to me.

I like that the first raid will be pushed back a little.  Not like my guild will ever be world first or realm first, we are not that type of guild, realm 20th works for us just fine thank you, but if it were there it would feel like I needed to get into it sooner.  Now I can take my time and enjoy the ride a little.

I know you would say I could have done that before and sure I could have, but if the raid is there I would feel it is my job, as a good raider and a raid leader even more so, to be completely 100% raid ready as soon as possible.  I like that there is a small wait.  It takes the decision away from me.  Not saying I will take any longer to level.  I am sure by September 26th I'll have at least my main at 90 but now it will be a choice and not a feeling like I have too.

I like that you will need to finish the first raid before going to another.  While everyone seems to hate attunements, when three raids are current raids, there should be some sort of set progression.  Think of it as one big raid and that first one has the first bosses, the second one has the middle bosses and the last one has the end bosses.  It makes for a real progression and not a choose which one we think we can beat thing.

I like that there are a massive amount of reputations for me to go for to keep me busy.  I like that there are mounts to save up for.  I like that there are lots of different materials for me to grind for.  I like that there will be more to do and it should take longer to do it than it did in cataclysm where I was exalted with everyone within a week of release.

I like the new mount with the reforging vendor, I wanted one of those.  I like that there will be a portable forge and anvil an engineer can make.  I like that new blingtron thing, it will be fun and something you can drop before a raid as a gift for those that showed up for the raid.  I like that there are other quality of life things being added like those things.  Fetch for my pet, so I never need to go loot again.  AoE looting so my pet gets it all at once.  So many little things to be happy about there.

I like the new areas.  They actually feel new and not like reskins.  With the exception of the underwater zone in cataclysm all the other zones just seemed like reskins, like no effort was put into them.  They cut from here and pasted there and then cut from some other place and paste it next to it.  It looks like we have a whole new world to explore and that is something you can get excited about.

I like the idea of challenge modes even if I do have some worries about them.  Being able to assemble a group that works well together with enough CC, burst, and played together long enough to work perfectly as a team can be a great deal of fun and I am really looking forward to assembling my group.  Even have them in mind already.

I am a little worried however about this creating a little divide in guilds like mine.  We have some fine players but there are some that are just good enough, if you know what I mean.  They are good enough to raid, good enough to even get heroic modes down with, but I think challenge modes will be harder than heroic raid because of the gear standards and no one being over geared to help cover up for someone, at least if they are made right.  How do you tell this person they can't go with you?  I am sure it will not be as bad as I make it.  But it is something to think about.

I like the idea of scenarios.  A way for any group of three to get in and out and get their valor nice and easy.  I consider valor part of the grind and you have probably heard me say it here many times, a grind should be a time investment, not a skill investment and in randoms it is a skill investment and most players do not have enough skill to invest.  I also like the idea, from all I have seen and read, that as a hunter I can basically solo every scenario easily myself so I will not have to count on those other two people to do their job right.

I like the concept of giving people more ways to get valor.  Like from quests, challenge modes, scenarios, LFD, LFR, raiding.  The more the merrier.  It is a great idea to let people play the game they want to play and not make them feel like the way they choose to play effectively means they can't have everything in the game.  Loot that can be bought at a vendor should be capable of being bought by all that play.  This means valor gear.  Now even someone that just quests and quests only can buy it and not feel forced to dungeon or raid. Good move in my opinion.

Even if I never played pokeman, never desired to play pokeman, and could not be bothered to give a crap about pokeman, I am looking forward to pet battles.  They will fill a nice place when things start to slow down in other areas like rep grinding and mat grinding.  It will do what archeology did at the beginning of cataclysm.  Give me something to do when doing nothing.  The archeology thing went by fast however.  I did it while in queue, got a lot of what I wanted, and once maxed and I got everything there was never a reason to do it any more.  Pet battles will live longer than that because you can always battle, you can always level up new pets, you can always do it just for fun.  No one does archeology just for fun.  So once I am done with the archeology filling the time in queue I will move to pet battles.  A nice little way to pass the time.

I am also looking forward to the farmville of wow.  Not sure why.  Never played farmville and never cared to but once I heard I can get materials from it, it moved to the top of my list of things I wanted to do.  Another time waster way to pass the time and I can dig that.  Even more so for a game like this that has nothing to pass the time otherwise really.  Anything we can do once in a while is a good thing.  This could be one of those things in the end.

There is a lot I could say I am not looking forward too as well, don't get me wrong, it is not all rainbows and unicorns but that is another post and not the point I am trying to get at.  For as much as there is for me to be looking forward to, as much as it seems I will want to do, things that I am even mildly excited for on their own, the expansion as a whole just doesn't do it for me.

Why am I not feeling it?  I just do not have that feeling like it will be good even if there are many things I am looking forward to.  Perhaps it is just another thing cataclysm destroyed besides azeroth.  It destroyed my faith in the game and the game makers.

For all that looks good on paper I've learned that does not translate well into action.  I was excited for cataclysm.  There was a lot I was looking forward to and I had high expectations.  On paper cataclysm seemed awesome, even with the lack of a decent end character.  I was never into deathwing, never seemed like he would be a good baddie.  But I was still excited as all hell when it came out.

A few dungeon runs with people that could not understand the most basic of basic mechanics and waiting 3 months before we even had one healer willing to heal so we could start raiding really ruined the entire expansion for me because it all just got worse as the expansion went on.

I was hyped for it, I was excited about many things, and in the end it just felt like blizzard spit in the faces of everyone that was fool enough to keep playing patch after patch.  When the zul patch came out I almost quit, it made what was already a bad random dungeon experience into a horrible one when the average player is the type of person that could not chew bubblegum and walk at the same time.  I almost quit then and if I had liked rifts graphics better I would have left for it during that point.

I think what it comes down to is that the emotional investment of excitement I put into cataclysm was all for nothing.  It was horrible all around and I do not feel that connected to the game any more and I am unwilling to invest my excitement into something blizzard puts out again.  Once bitten, twice shy.

I think that is why I am not feeling it.  I had so many expectations for cataclysm and got let down every patch that came out more than I was the previous patch.  I am not feeling it because I don't want to get let down again and even if there seems to be so much I will like about mists, if I do not build it up in my own mind I can't be let down.  Simple as that.

For me, and maybe others, this is the make or break expansion for blizzard.  My guild mates kept me around for cataclysm, barely, I was going to leave for rift.  Another disaster like that and I don't think my friends can save me from leaving.  Sorry, friendship is one thing but letting blizzard take advantage of you by releasing subpar content extremely slowly and charging me for it is another and I will not pay for garbage again.  If mists can not live up to what I expect from a game, it will be my last expansion.

At least as it stands now, with no real expectations, no real excitement, no emotional investment thinking how great it will be, it should be impossible to let me down.  If I expect nothing to be good, it can only go up from there.  Right?

19 comments:

  1. Great post, very much how I am feeling as well. I really like almost everything I hear coming in Mists but I really haven't got excited for Mists at all.

    I have started to get slightly more excited lately though, the last few days I guess the actual release date helped some, also just talking about some of the new things to a friend who hasn't played in a while got me a little more excited but still a very low level for what it theoretically should be for what has been announced.

    Anyway, I'm still slightly hopeful if not fully excited yet, but as you say I definitely think Mists is the make or break for a lot of people.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Glad you liked it and glad to see someone agrees and understands how I feel.

      I think as long as they can keep from sweeping game changes after the release like the change from the start to the end in cataclysm and keep from giving us a patch like the zul one ever again, it will be a good start.

      Delete
  2. I agree completely this is a make or break for Blizzard, as two less than popular expansions in a row would hurt. Especially on the heels of Guild Wars 2 -which isn't going to kill WoW, but could be a good enough alternative to start drawing interest if Mists doesn't deliver.

    There's much I'm looking forward to with Pandaria, but I was the same way with Cataclysm and in all honesty most of what I loved in Cataclysm I could've obtained without ever purchasing the expansion. For me, that's why I'm not making the same mistake twice. If they blast one out of the park, I may buy it. But not yet.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am sure I will at least enjoy the new reputation grinds and dailies to get there, I'm into that sort of thing. The other stuff, while I am looking forward to it, is a case of lets see how it actually plays out.

      Make or break for sure for a fair amount of players I think.

      Delete
  3. I think you are right on in saying the cataclysm made it significantly harder to 'have faith' in Blizzard that everything will work out well. Diablo 3 certainly hasn't done anything, for me or my in game social circle, to alleviate those concerns. To me the last couple of years removed the armor from blizz...they no longer could no wrong...just trust us lost its meaning.

    I watched my formerly respected guild on a top 3 US server collapse, i experienced the pain that comes when 'bring the player not the class' collapses under the weight of bad design and balance. The entire experience was sullied for me when i realized how far back my shaman was in the opening weeks/months of raiding activity....and realized that i couldn't do more to make up for less skilled friends.

    If im honest though, i think a lot of it comes from a lack of distinct direction, nothing ever game me the impression that GC deep down wanted to make a 'hardcore' friendly game, but that is what he tried to do, and of course it was a disaster. The biggest thing that provides hope for MoP is that it seems to be aiming for a more broad based more casual (in time/commitment not necessarily skill) friendly play style with multiple ways to advance your character . This strikes me as closer to the game he wants to design which to me means it will likely be better.

    This of course doesn't bode well for challenge modes, which are the token 'hardcore' high difficulty content. I think these will shine a bright shining light on class balance, something Blizzard has never had success with.

    I do believe MoP will be better, but not for me. But I have GW2 to look forward to, but I will hold out faith that Blizzard will be able to win back at least this one disillusioned long time customer.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mists could very well bring back a lot of the players that left, from what it seems to be promoting. The thing is, can it deliver.

      Delete
  4. It basically sounds like you hated Cataclysm and lost faith in WoW because (Random Dungeon Finder + Harder Dungeons) = Frustration. I can understand where you are coming from, but I absolutely loved it!

    I can certainly attest that not being able to finish a dungeon after spending 20 minutes wiping on a boss repeatedly, watching party members come and go, and then eventually quitting in frustration can put you in a bad mood.

    But the bad experiences also make the good ones that much more memorable. I liked not being guaranteed a "win" in a dungeon run.

    I had hopes that more difficult dungeons would make players in early Cata eager to relearn and start using more CC and strategy. And I was thrilled when most CC was made to not cause aggro. But unfortunately in Randoms, players still refused to learn to use CC.

    Not sure I can blame Blizzard for that. Well, maybe I can for making 5-man Wrath too easy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I did not mind the harder dungeons. I loved them.

      I did not mind the random dungeon finder. I think it is a great way for quick valor.

      I do not believe the two should have been put together. That is my issue with them.

      It is the players that are the issue, but it is also blizzard for not coding to what the majority of their player base can handle. So the blame goes hand in hand for both.

      Delete
  5. It was horrible all around and I do not feel that connected to the game any more and I am unwilling to invest my excitement into something blizzard puts out again. Once bitten, twice shy.

    I call bullshit on this. Either it's just false and you still enjoyed yourself, or you have completely lost perspective that this is a game, played to have fun. No fun = Alt-F4, good bye and good riddance. The MMO/computer game offer is enormous, simply exploring and checking the market is enough to occupy you (and everyone else) for a couple of lifetimes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is completely 100% true, you just are reading it wrong.

      Cataclysm = Horrible.

      And because of that I have lost all faith in them creating something good again.

      I still enjoy the game but that has nothing to do with cataclysm. I enjoy soloing old dungeons. I enjoy playing with friends. I enjoy the dungeons and raids, but only when I do them with guild.

      I do not enjoy a disconnected world, I do not enjoy that there is nothing to do outside of sitting in your home city, I do not enjoy that the random system is completely horrible and they refuse to deny access to them to the people that make them that way, I do not like the looking for raid because of so many reasons it would take me an hour to even scratch the surface, I do not like the story of cataclysm, I do not like the bad guy we had to beat, I do not like the linear question, I do not like that they forgot so many of the basics of what makes warcraft great this expansion, I do not like that blizzard could not make up their mind with this expansion either making it too hard for the average player or too easy for the average player, pick one and stick with it.

      Do not confuse my dislike for cataclysm and it making me loss faith in their ability to release a good expansion with actual enjoyment of the game.

      Faith in a company and enjoyment of a game are two totally different things and you are thinking of them as the same.

      I've said it before and will say it again. Warcraft is the absolute best MMORPG on the market. But that doesn't mean I have faith in them continuing that trend does it?

      Delete
  6. And if you were mostly into PVP, like myself, you'd be "feeling it" even less. Blizzard had several good ideas for PVP in MoP. I liked them a lot. Now that we can look at the actual implementation of those ideas on the PTR... it's pretty clear that PVE once again overcame whatever PVP thinking Blizzard had.

    Just one example:

    Blizzard had an idea of supplying PVP items with free (out of budget) resilience and PVP power. That way, a PVP item would work as an item of the stated level in PVE (PVP stats don't work), and as an item of a somewhat higher level in PVP (PVP stats work). Then they could make raids drop items of the level between these two levels, producing the following perfect situation:

    PVP item in PVE < PVE item wherever < PVP item in PVP

    Fine, so what they actually did on the PTR? PVP armor is 489, this is the lower bound for a PVP item. The amount of PVP stats on that armor is equivalent to maybe half a tier, so the upper bound for a PVP item is 489+6 = 495. Yet the very first raid drops 502 and the second raid drops 509 and even 516!

    The equation above is broken. So much for the idea...

    There are *many* other promises that will seemingly go unfulfilled.

    And that's on top of the usual silly imbalances that accompany new expansions (ever heard of a player being completely immune to player damage? you can do it now...).

    So, no, I am not looking forward to MoP either. I am not sure why I was so optimistic about it a couple of months ago. I won't unsubscribe, I guess, but if PVP ends up being as effed up as it is now, I think I will just go very casual. Pet battles, here I come. :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am not much of a PvPer, I do it once in a while as a fill in for boredom. I do like world PvP a lot and will join in on it at any given chance I get, like halaa or something, not TB, that is not world PvP, it is a battleground in my opinion.

      Either way, I agree. I think PvP has been broken for a long time and I blame the gear for that mostly. If they would put a resilience as a natural shield, so to speak, on the class and balance it that way as needed and just let people use normal gear and make skill matter it would fix nearly all the problems with PvP. Again, as a non PvPer, so take that with a grain of salt, just my opinion.

      To me it looks like MoP will be good for PvP in theory anyway but I have heard many complaints about the gear thing as you have here.

      Lets hope it is better than it seems.

      Delete
  7. You're not the only one feeling disillusioned. My friend who's played since vanilla is barely playing anymore. He said that Cata was not ready to be released (he was in the beta) and that it just started a trend. He got burned out running for the Dragonwrath staff and hardly plays anymore.

    Whereas I started playing the end of January before Cata came out. Cata is the only expansion I've played from start to finish. I share your frustration - particularly with the troll heroics - but overall my feeling is that it was a solid but split expansion. They had half the focus on the 1-60 revamp which hurt what most players thought of as the true expansion.

    I only had one max level character when Cata dropped and I suppose Cata was when I got to properly adventure through the world. I have 8 85's now and by the time Mists drops I'll have 11 or 12 (not much else to do as raiding has stopped till Mists). So while things weren't perfect in Cata the good outweighed the bad - for me. I guess it's a matter of personal perspective.

    I am super excited for Mists. I'm also well aware that because I'm so super excited there's a danger that even if it's amazing it'll be a let down. The mind does tend to make things more amazing then reality can ever match up too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Be careful with that excitement. I think a big part of my dislike for cataclysm comes from the fact I was so excited for it and it did not live up to the expectations I had for it. Being excited is a bad thing sometimes because when you expect good, only great will be good. If you know what I mean.

      And I am the same. I only had 7 max characters last expansion and have 18 now. lol There was nothing to do this expansion but level and they made leveling so damn fast it really took a lot of the fun out of leveling, for me at least.

      Delete
  8. Nothing personal & apologies for the bluntness but:

    As long as you keep Feeding The Beast, Blizzard won't care one whit wether you like it, 'feel it' (btw: your post on the Blizzcon last year was the same ^_^) or whatever.

    It might be different if you were Chinese - as then Blizzard has to 'earn' each of your logins/time spent - but 'real' subscribers pretty much blow their money on Hopium.

    Personally I'd advise people to wait for the MoP Trial, as Bliz has made it crystal-clear they only care about the 'World First' crowd (see e.g the giant Thread on the EU General Forum) - which are the only people who 'need' to buy MoP ASAP to reach cap right out of the gate.

    All other players who have a smaller of bigger beef with Blizz should imo let their wallet speak, it isn't like Pandaland won't be there after +/- 3 months.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Guess that shows I still don't feel it. Even more data being released and testing it on beta has not made me excited about it.

      For me, what I think it comes down to, is comfort with the game. $15 a month is nothing, I spend more than that on lunch each day, so I keep paying. As you said, on hopium.

      There are many people like me, perhaps even a large portion that pay just because they always have, and it is those people that they very well could scare away.

      Those are the ones that pay the bills. The people like me that think of it as $15 is nothing so we keep paying. If they ever start to lose that crowd, that is when they will start hurting.

      So yes, we are feeding the beast so it will continue to do what it does until we stop feeding it.

      Delete
  9. I’m with you in general, and feel really let down by the way Cataclysm played out – I was hyped for it. But I think it was made worse because I DID care about Deathwing. He was one of my favourite lore characters, and the decision to turn him into a typified cartoon villain with no character depth really caused me to disassociate with the story (more than going to the Caverns of Time to enter Wyrmrest, in a fight that was happening in the present… Wut?).

    But MoP is probably make or break. The game is in decline, and we’ll have to wait and see exactly how big a shot in the arm MoP can provide it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. MoP seems to have some things that I am really looking forward too but in the same breath it seems to have some things that will make the problem with the game greater than it already is.

      It is make or break for the franchise for sure. Like I said, once bitten twice shy, so I am guessing we are heading for a break. The end of warcraft as we know it.

      The game won't die, but it will not be what we remember, that is for sure.

      Delete
  10. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete