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  Epics everywhere, but not a soul to use them |
05/21/09 04:18:39 AM
Patch 3.1.2
Pegbundy |
Since the advent of the burning crusade, the curve on which
gear has scaled and been made available has gone off the
charts. Once upon a time the focus of the typical level 60 was
twofold... to group with others in raids to clear Strat,
Scholo, (eventually MC, then BWL etc) or to group with others
to do PVP. With the proliferation of the epic, arguably
beginning with the removal of PVP ranks and the implementation
of an honor+token system, the paradigm has subsequently shifted
from MMO to MSO (Massively Singleplayer Online Roleplaying
Game).
I believe that this fundamental shift in design philosophy on
the part of Blizzard has changed the game for the worse. While
some might say it's been changed for the better (lots of
gameplay options), stalwarts like me decry the loss of,
essentially, this game's innocence. To the contrary, I believe
that the game has been made more linear. The epic (along with
the Individual WoW Trophy Case... I mean Armory) has become the
sole motivation for today's WoW playerbase. The problem has
been completely exacerbated with Wotlk. Literally, epics are
everywhere... but there seems to be no souls to use them. It's
like an online pyrrhic victory... yes, you got your epic, but
what now? It's hollow.
Players seem to have an epics first mentality anymore;
appreciating the social aspect on which this game was founded
is merely ancillary to that goal... and in fact a hindrance to
many. This is evidenced by the fact that players now desire to
completely forgo regular dungeons and dash straight for the
heroics to rack up their tokens. Others attempt to slip in Naxx
groups rocking 1100 DPS. Still others will claim to want to
PVP, but in reality their grind is no different from the heroic
or raid junkies.
I know plenty of people will flame me because they think, oh
well, another nostalgic poster who can't accept that times
change! Others will say, how dare you question Blizzard,
creators and stewards of the most popular online MMO of all
time! Clearly they know something that you don't! The fact is
that I have no problem with times changing but I don't believe
that design philosophies should. I also question the motives
for why these particular philosophies were forced to change.
Sure businesses exist to make money, but even this goal can
only be attained with sound philosophy in mind. I believe
Blizzard has lost a bit of perspective, and generally lost its
way, in this regard.
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05/21/09 10:57:29 AM
Patch 3.1.2
Bornakk |
I am not entirely sure where to start on this, so I'll go with
what came to mind.
We changed some of the base design of the game to cut down on
the idea of content (and the items come with it) being only for
a certain group of the playerbase. We have tried to open up
content and give more people more things to do.
I don't have any numbers to share, but we are seeing more
people in the raid instances than in the past, so people are
running things and picking up as many epics as possible. A lot
of players are skipping normal dungeons because it's faster to
do so, but they have done it on other characters already so
they know the fights and just want to get geared up asap. Sure,
we could limit the number of epics to certain content and
whatnot, but we don't feel that would be a real benefit to the
game.
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