WoW: A Love Story

With both The Blue Ink Alchemist and Epixaricacy posting about the upcoming changes in Cataclysm a couple weeks ago, I thought I'd post my own thoughts on the game that has taken the world by storm. I have been a consistent player since I started in late 2006. I remember when Mend Pet was channeled, the ogres and Elder Crockolisks in Stranglethorn Vale were elite, and when having your epic flyer was a major mark of leetness.

Despite much of the old world dying when BC came out, I was fortunate to roll on a server (via blind choice) that had only been open for a month.So leveling and finding level-appropriate groups for everything up till level 58 was no problem.

So, I've been around a while. I've ridden out through buffs, nerfs, lag and server downtime. I just wanted to share what I do and don't like about where the game is, and where the game is going. I haven't looked too heavily at the changes, due to a combination of time constraints, and knowing that until the beta starts to draw to a close, nothing is really reliable (anyone remember dance studios?).

What I Like
The Dungeon Finder
This feature is why I still play. Otherwise, when I first quit raiding back in August, I would have probably faded off the game.  I love questing. I really do. It's peaceful, it's fun, and I really have always enjoyed that aspect of the game. But I'm also an altoholic. So I've done a lot of questing. And once you start to get into the 30s and 40s, areas to really get some good questing done is sparse. It gets even worse when you hit the Outlands and Northrend because they have a much more linear track to the zones. Been there. Done that. Bought the t-shirt. Wore out the t-shirt.

Dungeons was something I really loved though, and now I could go back to doing them with an at-level group. After I started playing on a new realm (transferring my main and my highest level alt at the time and rerolling the rest) that was a day-one server, finding dungeon groups for things like Zul Farrak, Blackfathom Deeps, and best of all, Dire Maul, Scholomance and Stratholme (which I didn't get to do at-level on my main with Outlands beckoning anyone at that level away).

Now I can completely dungeon-level my alts, and I don't even have to leave a capital city. I can level professions, play the auction house, or better yet, go do something else entirely. It's the norm for me to use my average 20 minute wait time to work on homework, clean the house, make phone calls, so on and so forth. This helps to ease my conscious about how much I play. Yeah, I may blow 2 hours on WoW, but in that same time, I've cleaned most of the apartment, or finished a homework assignment, or something.

I've personally also connected better with people and helped them out. Especially lower level hunters. I've run into hunters using spell power gear, defense gear, and had specs that would make most experienced hunters cry. I politely whisper them, and would offer my advice. While some blew me off, many were very grateful for the help. I haven't been able to do that on my own realm. No reason for lower levels to group up and connect.

I've even found it more enjoyable on my 80s. Yes, I can and have found pugs on my own server. But most players have a guild they run with, so you get a lot of alts and players that aren't very good. I have no problem playing with the less skilled, but you get some people how are really.... special. Now, I run with a wide variety of people. Some groups are chatty, others aren't. But, I don't have to bark in trade forever, and I don't have to listen to people demanding a 5k GearScore to run the easiest heroics. And I can go do my dailies while I wait instead of being tethered to Trade Chat.

It may decrease the contact pool I have on my own server, but all in all, it's a feature that I couldn't live without.

Raiding
This is something that will appear in the negative column as well, but for now I'm going to focus on what I like about it.

In Burning Crusade, pugs may have been possible, but they were far from the norm. And setting up a pug for Mount Hyjal or Black Temple was usually laughed off by everyone else. At least on my server, you didn't even pug individual spots. If you were short a person, you might pull in a friend, or someone from another well-respected guild, but you didn't just grab someone off the street, as it were. You canceled the raid. Now, pugs are plentiful for even end-game raids.

While the change to how buffs stack made a lot of people angry due to feeling like what made their class special was being given to everyone else. But really, all it did was cut down the restrictions for people to get into raids without worrying about overloading on a certain class, or fretting over class makeup. It makes putting together a raid a much easier task.

The addition of Heroic modes for raids brought in a new dynamic that attempted to balance the needs of the casual players and the hardcore. It had its downside, but that will be covered in the next section as well. 

The change to badges to allow the purchase of gear one tier behind current content has the benefit of allowing players who take a short-term break to catch up, and new players to quickly move into the current content.

Dailies
Dailies are another double-edged sword. While I'll cover their downsides later, the bonus is that it provides a steady and reliable stream of reputation and gold without long bouts of farming and grinding.

Acheivements
These are fun ways to mark things done in the game. Besides the ones for raiding and pvp, it gives something to work on. It can keep up interest in a character when the grind gets too bland. Popping around looking for rare spawns, fishing for rare fish, running old dungeons for fun. It's really hit the OCD "gotta catch 'em all" side of my personality. 

What I Don't Like
The Players
The number one thing I don't like about the game is the other players. The influx of casual players brought with them a rash of lazyness, greed, and self-entitlement. People cry over the stupidest things. Tanks and healers, because they are harder to find than DPS, believe they have a lock on whatever loot they want. And if they don't get it, they quit in a huff. Or worse, pull an entire room to attempt to kill the offending player.

If I go into a dungeon, and I say that I'm looking for gear for my tank set, the tank gets all huffy. The expectation is that I should have to spend several hundred gold to buy pieces to start tanking and have them all upgraded in a week. Now, to me at least, this is a total waste. I'd rather just build up my set through the dungeons in the first place. Most of the time this isn't a problem. Either the tank doesn't need any gear, or they are polite enough to be reasonable. A simple "Hey, if you could pass on ______ because I've been farming for that" is enough for me to give over to them.

But when the tank is rude, can't hold aggro over a paper bag, or takes hits like a clothie, then I'm not going to be nice. I'm not going to give in. And since many of my alts are currently running Outlands dungeons where gear doesn't matter and main-spec items will be upgraded in a week anyways, I see no reason not to roll on a few offset pieces. I'm usually a generous person overall, but I get tired of the self-entitlement and whining.

A couple cases to make my point: First, I was running a dungeon in Outlands on my warlock (note that I'm a cloth wearer here) and the druid healer (who wears leather) wanted a drop that I rolled need on. I pointed on that the piece was very good for me, and that the gear was more designed for me since it was cloth. They pitched a fit claiming that as the healer, they were clearly more entitled to get whatever they wanted over a lowly DPS. When I didn't give in, they quit the group in a huff.


Second, I was playing another Outlands dungeon on my enhancement shaman (who I'd been working on a healer set for) and a leather caster helm dropped. I won the greed roll. I was pretty thrilled as this was the last piece I needed. I'd been looking for a helm for a long time. The healer (also a shaman) demanded I hand it over. I pointed out that I won the greed roll fair and square, and that it was only a minor upgrade for him while it completed a set for me. The healer left in a huff, and the tank then proceeded to pull the entire room in an attempt to kill the rest of the group and "punish" me.


It's a game. Throwing a temper tantrum because you don't get what you want is pathetic. I've lost many rolls on loot I wanted. I don't cry about it. The item, or something better, will drop again.


Dailies
The problem with dailies is that it removed a lot of need to work your professions for money. As a result, the market on crafted items has crashed, and the cost of gathered goods was sky high for a long time. They can be painfully repetitive at times, and can eat up a lot of time. The high influx of easy gold has also caused the in-game economy to flip out and become horribly skewed. Low-level items sell for massive amounts of money because players with an 80 could pay for these items for these alts, but it made it difficult for new players, or players rerolling on a separate server.

The End-Game Rush
 While alleviated slightly by the new dungeon-finder mechanic, older content gets completely brushed over. If you try to find a group to clear Naxxramas, you get a chorus of "Why bother? Just grind dungeons for a day and jump into the new content." Most of the old-world is a barren wasteland. I have gone for days questing and never seen more than one other person in the entire zone. Content at x-pac cut offs are particularly hard to find groups for. Stratholme, Outlands heroics. These are almost never run because you can get far better gear in the later content.

This leads to a mad dash to 80 and then straight into end-game with little time to stop and smell the roses with people. I remember leveling my first toon, and I was in a guild that was all about the same level as me. We ran dungeons on a regular basis, quested together, and it was a fun and social environment. While we were all in a hurry to reach end game, we at least got to enjoy the game in its entirety.

The Dungeon-Finder
The dungeon finder is a great tool, and I absolutely love it for a variety of reasons. But the lack of socialization on my own server can be a hindrance. Especially on my 80s when I can't call on those good tanks and healers to put together a good raid pug.

The gear checking it performs also leaves a lot to be desired. It takes into account the level of all your gear, not the gear you have for the role you queued for. I've had tanks that get 2-shot by trash, and when the healer quits due to the impossibility of the situation, and the terri-bad tank requeues as a tank, it's ridiculous. While the requirements to tank or be a healer doesn't have to be overly stringent. But something would be nice. Enough so that they can actually tank the instance will be nice. Hopefully, in Cataclysm, Blizzard's removal of defense rating and the streamlining of their mechanics should help a lot.


The Complexity
Something they seem to be addressing in Cataclysm is the over-complexity of the current stat system. The conversion ratios, stat balancing and so on has gotten out of control. Max your hit, then hit a magical amount of armor penetration, but if you're MM or Survival make sure you stack agility, but if you're BM or a certain type of MM, stack attack power and so on and so forth.  It's ridiculous. When you have to rely on spreadsheets to decide between two pieces of gear, things are too complex.

Raiding
Raiding can be crazy complex. Fights are gimmicky to the point of frustration. If just one person misses a beat, it wipes the entire raid. it gets frustrating. Not to mention tiresome to have to watch two or three videos of a fight just to see a strategy before even setting foot in the instance. Followed by weeks of attempts on the same bosses, on 10 man and 25 man, normal and heroic. It gets tiring and leads to a quick burn out.


Tedium
Leveling, PvP, and even a lot of the PvE instances turns into one thing: repetition. Go kill 20 wolves. Great, now go kill 20 Orcs. Run flags around battlegrounds. Farm instances for drops, farm for rep. Grind. Grind. Grind. There's little difference. Little change. After a while it all just starts to run together, and interest in the game can wane. A more in depth approach would have been nice.




Overall, this is, despite its flaws, a delicious game. The things I don't like are far outweighed by the positives. and I keep coming back for more. So far, no other MMO has caught my attention. They never seem to offer anything new, different, or anything worth leaving WoW for. BioWare's Old Republic will likely tempt me away.