Mists of Pandaria looks like the best WOW Expansion yet

[micrometers]

I personally bought Burning Crusade but soon after quit the game and ignored LIch King and Cataclysm. Cataclysm in particular I hear is something of a disappointment.

Mists of Pandaria looks awesome. A new class and race, and more emphasis on world pvp instead of instanced pvp. Much better.

 

[Gryz]

WoW is dead.

Some higher-up management types at Activision figured out that they can make more profit by selling the same old content to new audiences, than to make new content for their existing playerbase. So they focus on marketing the game to Russians, then Brazilians, then Mexicans, etc, etc.

They also figured out that any difficulty level will limit their potential market. 10 Million WoW players is nice. But Farmville had 25 million ! So they tried to figure out what they needed to do to get those Farmville players. That is where their attention went the last 2 years. Everything is made easier. Leveling can be done by little blind kids, who don't speak english. Gear is thrown around for free. The lore isn't important. Why develop new content for the existing customers, when most of them are happy with just new gear with higher item-levels ? Make quests quicker. More teleports. Quicker rep. Everything quick and easy. If someone is bored with their character, they can always level more alts.

The game is doomed. It started in the summer of 2009. After Ulduar, when the Colliseum came out. Tigole left (one of the old developers with a true MMO-background). Since then it's only about maximizing profits for Activision, while lowering costs. There is no hope.

Go play Skyrim. Now there is an awesome fantasy-game in a huge and surprising world. Something WoW will never be again.

 

[FallenHero]

Wow is dead...lol. Every patch since Vanilla people have been saying the exact same things. Give it a try when it is released. New character models and completely revamped talent system plus everything else. Worse that happens is you don't like it and cancel after a couple of months.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Kung Fu Panda

 

[Phobic9]

I haven't played WoW for about 5 yrs but each expansion they release looks more ridiculous than the one before it.

This one is no exception.

 

[makken]

Height of WoW was early-mid WotLK imo.

 

[coloumb]

12/20 is coming. Blizzard is shaking in their boots.

 

[magomago]

WoW is dead.

Some higher-up management types at Activision figured out that they can make more profit by selling the same old content to new audiences, than to make new content for their existing playerbase. So they focus on marketing the game to Russians, then Brazilians, then Mexicans, etc, etc.

They also figured out that any difficulty level will limit their potential market. 10 Million WoW players is nice. But Farmville had 25 million ! So they tried to figure out what they needed to do to get those Farmville players. That is where their attention went the last 2 years. Everything is made easier. Leveling can be done by little blind kids, who don't speak english. Gear is thrown around for free. The lore isn't important. Why develop new content for the existing customers, when most of them are happy with just new gear with higher item-levels ? Make quests quicker. More teleports. Quicker rep. Everything quick and easy. If someone is bored with their character, they can always level more alts.

The game is doomed. It started in the summer of 2009. After Ulduar, when the Colliseum came out. Tigole left (one of the old developers with a true MMO-background). Since then it's only about maximizing profits for Activision, while lowering costs. There is no hope.

Go play Skyrim. Now there is an awesome fantasy-game in a huge and surprising world. Something WoW will never be again.

Was WOW, at any point, ever comparable to a single player fantasy RPG?

What....the...fuck? Troll elsewhere?


Your nostalgia for a grind fest is a little too rosy; I stopped after CAT (I played a little bit of CAT, but didn't play much..probably level 82 or so), but they did a LOT to diversify the same old stale MMO model while still appealing to hardcore people. Show me people that got l337 gear with minimal effort...it doesn't happen. They got rid of game mechanics that were designed to annoy people (ie: only hunters have auto shoot; thank god they rid themselves of that so early) for no reason. They made new types of quests and tried to make it more interactive, as well make it appear as if you have an actual impact on what is going on (I noticed that in Cataclysm).

IMO WOW today is a better experience than vanilla WOW, and I went through all the expansion packs. My favorite period was definitely early BC, but that was for art design and thematic environments more than anything.

 

[KaOTiK]

This expansion looks downright terrible imo. So bad that many people had to go and double check that it wasn't a joke to start with.

 

[styrafoam]

Talent system revamp, pandas, pet battles all look miserable. Its a ramp up to attract lots of younger players more willing to buy pointless dlc. Once blizzard's yet to be named MMO in development goes live WoW can go free to play and be full of pokemon battling panda bears. Only part of it i would want to try would be playing a monk. I deleted a character to play a goblin on my home server, and have no intention of deleting another one this time around. Unless blizzard manages to somehow not flat out dodge this issue this time around then im pretty much done.

 

[BudAshes]

WoW is dead.

Some higher-up management types at Activision figured out that they can make more profit by selling the same old content to new audiences, than to make new content for their existing playerbase. So they focus on marketing the game to Russians, then Brazilians, then Mexicans, etc, etc.

They also figured out that any difficulty level will limit their potential market. 10 Million WoW players is nice. But Farmville had 25 million ! So they tried to figure out what they needed to do to get those Farmville players. That is where their attention went the last 2 years. Everything is made easier. Leveling can be done by little blind kids, who don't speak english. Gear is thrown around for free. The lore isn't important. Why develop new content for the existing customers, when most of them are happy with just new gear with higher item-levels ? Make quests quicker. More teleports. Quicker rep. Everything quick and easy. If someone is bored with their character, they can always level more alts.

The game is doomed. It started in the summer of 2009. After Ulduar, when the Colliseum came out. Tigole left (one of the old developers with a true MMO-background). Since then it's only about maximizing profits for Activision, while lowering costs. There is no hope.

Go play Skyrim. Now there is an awesome fantasy-game in a huge and surprising world. Something WoW will never be again.

Wow was a boring game the day it came out and will be the day it goes off line. The only thing that was interesting about it was the other people you played with.

 

[Ancalagon44]

The only thing that stands out to me as WTF (from a non WOW players POV, I played it once sometime after BC was released) is the pet battles. The rest I can get around, but Pokemon in WoW? That truly is World Of WarcraftVille.

 

[Via]

If you played any previous MMORPGs in any serious manner WoW was pretty easy, no matter where you started.

 

[Bateluer]

WoW players are worrying about the game's lore now? They ignored WarCraft lore right from the get go.

 

[Craig234]

I've liked every expansion and I bet this one will be great also.

 

[Grooveriding]

I don't play anymore, but fwiw, wow is a good game if you enjoy it still.

That said, they've lost 1,000,000 subscribers so far this fiscal year.

Public company, shareholders see that as $15,000,000 a month lost, $180,000,000 a year lost. Panda and Pokemon expansion will do well to attract young kids and females. :sneaky:

The game is far from dead, but it is definitely entering into morbidity leading to its death.

It will make it three more years to see through the panda expansion and then the final two expansions to level 100, through that time subscriptions may rise a little at xpac release dates but overall continue to fall. Children are not growing up fast enough to fill the spaces left by people who grow tired of the game and get sick of it and leave.

The game will enter the grave when they release their next-gen MMO, people will obviously still play, but those folks will be the ones so attached to the game they can't move on to Blizzard's next MMO.

TBC was the best expansion. Wrath and Cata were ok. Vanilla was excellent as well. Panda will be the first xpac I do not buy, won't be buying either of the final two xpacs either or paying for a subscription anymore. Voting with my wallet to hasten the subscription falloff and the game's death so we can get something new faster. WoW has gotten really stale and is starting to remind me of CoD, every expansion is just a reskin with new perks.

Sometimes refinement and streamlining can go too far, which is what happened to WoW imo. I picture rooms full of over zealous game developers going 'OK! So what else can we improve?!' missing the point that while some things can and should be improved, some other things are best left alone.

 

[Beev]

I'm just curious, but what do you guys consider to be the game's "death?" Is it when they finally shut down the servers, or just when the subscription numbers fall to <100k, or something else? Because neither of those things will happen for a LONG time. Years.

 

[Veliko]

I'm just curious, but what do you guys consider to be the game's "death?" Is it when they finally shut down the servers, or just when the subscription numbers fall to <100k, or something else? Because neither of those things will happen for a LONG time. Years.

It's usually something arbitrary like "when I stopped liking it".

 

[Wyndru]

I've liked every expansion and I bet this one will be great also.

This. I don't care how many subs they lost, as long as my server still has lots of people and guilds and I'm enjoying myself, I'll be playing.

I don't pay attention to numbers that don't affect me. The game isn't going anywhere.

 

[DrunkenSano]

Just when I thought WoW couldn't get any worse, you know they are desperate now if they make an April Fool joke from the past into reality.

 

[TechBoyJK]

WoW players are worrying about the game's lore now? They ignored WarCraft lore right from the get go.

This. I've played into some of Cataclysm.. I was never die hard. I have 1 85 a few lvl 50's and that's it. I haven't played in a few months.

I have a few friends that have almost 10 80+ characters. I was talking one of them, who is a guild leader of a guild with 300+ active players. He's cracked out on it. Double-boxes, plays 8-10 hours a day.

I mentioned some guy reading a WOW novel on the subway and his response "they have wow books?"

Seriously? You play that much and you have no idea they have books?

 

[Anteaus]

I'm just curious, but what do you guys consider to be the game's "death?" Is it when they finally shut down the servers, or just when the subscription numbers fall to <100k, or something else? Because neither of those things will happen for a LONG time. Years.

Maybe when it only has 5X as many players as the nearest competitor instead of 8-10X lmao. I think it's hip for some people to hate things that are popular when they personally don't like them. It's like how some people have a hundred criticisms for MW3 (diff genre I realize) yet the game still sells millions of copies. The resentment must be overbearing.

It's funny as hell that some people are literally waiting for some game to show up and spank wow down, as if there emotional happiness as a human being is somehow tied to wows existance.

I'm being very sarcastic here, but how how many times have we heard the term "Wow killer" in reference to different games? Time and time again it has been proven that you can't beat wow by imitating it. They have mastered that style of MMO and unless a game can dramatically change how we play MMOs today, wow ain't going anywhere.

I think TOR will do well, but after seeing gameplay, I can't see them breaking through any better than the other games that have come before it, especially with Blizzard churning out more content.

 

[Nintendesert]

Maybe when it only has 5X as many players as the nearest competitor instead of 8-10X lmao. I think it's hip for some people to hate things that are popular when they personally don't like them. It's like how some people have a hundred criticisms for MW3 (diff genre I realize) yet the game still sells millions of copies. The resentment must be overbearing.

It's funny as hell that some people are literally waiting for some game to show up and spank wow down, as if there emotional happiness as a human being is somehow tied to wows existance.

I'm being very sarcastic here, but how how many times have we heard the term "Wow killer" in reference to different games? Time and time again it has been proven that you can't beat wow by imitating it. They have mastered that style of MMO and unless a game can dramatically change how we play MMOs today, wow ain't going anywhere.

I think TOR will do well, but after seeing gameplay, I can't see them breaking through any better than the other games that have come before it, especially with Blizzard churning out more content.

So, "Whaa whaa WOW hate." Followed by "GRRR TOR me hate!"


:thumbsup:

 

[Arsinek]

They did start dumbing down WoW pretty quickly. The original version before any expansions was probably the best, it didnt have the polish the new versions have but it had more substance more cool little things to discover and actually some of the little obscure things got you the biggest rewards, ie Thunderfury.

 

[Wyndru]

...

Lol yeah, just check out MMO champion after wow releases an expansion or declining sales reports. The place fills up with "WoW is dead" threads. It's been like that since BC came out years ago. Or when a new MMORPG game comes out it's immediately a "WoW killer". Like when Rift was coming it was predicted by some to be the demise of WoW.

It doesn't matter, Blizzard has tons of money and they are still cranking out content so I highly doubt this train will stop anytime soon.