WoW questions, suggestions, observations...

[Griddle]

I know the thought of a Heroic version of Deadmines has been beaten into the ground thoroughly. But personally, I think it would have been pretty darn cool, being as how it's my absolute favorite instance in the entire game. Also, I was thinking that the Dranai starting area could have used a nice little low level instance, just something to get newbies feet wet in.

So, what kind of neato things would you all like to see in WoW, I'd love to see what the hive mind thinks. Oh, and a quick question. Does anyone know what the deal with the PvP quest thing in Silithus is, the one where you pick up the red dust junk off the ground?

[rei]

When the zone was populated it was a PvP thing like the towers in EPL. The theory was that players would contest it for a minor zone-wide buff for their faction. Now the area is deserted and the content obsolete.

[Griddle]

Hmmm, kind of like the towers near Shattrath that allows you to get shards from instances or suchlike I suppose. Also, I heard something about that red dust stuff being used to summon raid bosses in Silithus, or is that just a load of hoohaw?

[rei]

Way back in Patch 1.12: http://www.wowwiki.com/The_Silithyst_Must_Flow

It was a riff on Spice I imagine. Hmm. Looks like it awards rep too.

[Tyjenks]

Things I want from WoW that will never ever happen:

[a] Deeper crafting.


That is all.

[Tankero]

Sandlol is the colloquialism for the Silithus PvP stuff...

The thing about WoW is that it's always designed as if the current patch/expansion will be the last. That might not be the case wit WoLK, but it was with that immediately Pre-BC stuff and throughout BC itself.

It also designed world PvP to be, essentially, insignificant.

If I were to make a single suggestion that'd be heard, it'd be this:

Make a new type of realm, one which max level characters are the only ones there, and stuff it full of PvP objectives. Make WoW truly War there. No levelling, no raiding, just the horde and the alliance going at it.

[Creole Ned]

I'd like to see more classes. Not hero classes, just regular classes.

The original zones revamped for a more streamlined experience.

The removal of at least one desert zone.

More mini-instances that can be played through with 1-3 players.

Some public (non-instanced) dungeons (really, just more specific points of interest instead of the usual "assorted mobs sprinkled across the landscape").

An animation for climbing onto or off of your mount (fast enough to keep the ADD types from complaining, not so fast it looks silly).

etc.

[RickH]

What I'd like to see:

(1) either single-player versions of instances or a rule that quests can't require items from dungeons.

(2) some whay to tell whether that thing you just got has any value. (and no, the vendor value tweak in 3.2 isn't good enough, selling to vendors is a sucker's game)

(3) the ability to add comments to auctions or the ability to make enhanced versions of special items stand out in auctions (pre-enchanted armor, for example)

(4) better references as to what the reagents do or what will result from crafting actions. Enchanting would be impossible without the ability to see what would likely result from a DE.

(5) some reason to use the neutral AH other than Stranglethorn pages

(6) the ability to play as a neutral race

(7) an introduction to PvP content that's as well-done as the introduction to PvE play

(8) easier teleporting/travel in the world, it shouldn't just be limited to mages. How about letting inscriptionists do major-city teleport scrolls?

(9) a way to transfer items/gold from one faction's characters to your other factions' characters on the same server.

[Skipper]

1) Portals to/from every major city within faction or faction neutral. Charge for the portals if needed, but for god sakes put them in there. Let us spread out a little from Dalaran.

2) Make all mounts faster. Period.

3) Bring back a more congregated area for dailies. Better yet, increase the gold drop rate for all instance bosses be they party or raid based. Give folks incentive to go there versus solo all the time for money.

4) Creole Ned's idea:
More mini-instances that can be played through with 1-3 players.

5) Another bag slot and another bank slot.

6) An expansion that won't reuse a single mob model from anywhere else in the game. Freshen the game up.

[Brian Seiler]

(2) some whay to tell whether that thing you just got has any value. (and no, the vendor value tweak in 3.2 isn't good enough, selling to vendors is a sucker's game)

(4) better references as to what the reagents do or what will result from crafting actions. Enchanting would be impossible without the ability to see what would likely result from a DE.

Auctioneer plugin has been working well enough for me. Sometimes it's a little off, but so long as you scan the auction house every few days to build up a robust database, it'll happily tell you how much everything that drops is worth and in what situation it's worth that and what you would be best advised to do with it. It handles both of those.




You know what I'd settle for? Better fast travel, better organization of quests (physical organization - I'm currently running all over hell and halfa Georgia trying to do the prerequisite quests for ZF/ST), and free respec. So....basically all the right decisions that Guild Wars made.

[Creole Ned]

oh, a bigger quest limit. Why keep it at 25? Make it 50 or even 75.

[LesJarvis]

You guys forgot to ask for a pony.

[Brian Seiler]

You guys forgot to ask for a pony.

They're giving those away in the next patch.

Well.....PRACTICALLY, anyway.

They can totally get that out before I hit 60, by the way. I know you're listening, Blizzard.

[AndrewM]

Accessible server side auction completion information. This would give the user more useful information about what things are going for (as opposed to what people are just trying to sell for). I'd also like a way to have "reverse auctions", where you could say that you'd pay X gold for Y items, and people could fulfill those orders and be instantly paid. I think Eve and some other games have this.

[RickH]

You guys forgot to ask for a pony.

I got one. It came free with my level 30 pally.

[RickH]

I'd also like a way to have "reverse auctions", where you could say that you'd pay X gold for Y items, and people could fulfill those orders and be instantly paid. I think Eve and some other games have this.

This would be cool, like a "job board" for gatherers and crafters.

[BigWeather]

Some public (non-instanced) dungeons (really, just more specific points of interest instead of the usual "assorted mobs sprinkled across the landscape").

Shadowmist yells 'Camp check!'
Violet yells 'FG'
Johar yells 'BR~'
Wilee yells 'King!11'
Mee yells 'AssSup'

/ah, the good ol' days. =)

[rei]

I'm all for making leveling alts easier with a lot of these "wants" but it has to be balanced against making people reach the upper leveling plateau too fast and running out of things to do when endgame malaise sets in.

I'd like some sort of lore or game mechanic to encourage some sort of activity in old-world or earlier/all zones so that they're not constantly deserted/abandoned as soon as new content hits.

Also, if you aren't around when that new content hits and join months later, there's no one around to play WITH.

[Skipper]

Shadowmist yells 'Camp check!'
Violet yells 'FG'
Johar yells 'BR~'
Wilee yells 'King!11'
Mee yells 'AssSup'

/ah, the good ol' days. =)

Wow ... flashbacks. It's like 5 years of my life all cried out at the same time and was suddenly silenced.

[Brian Seiler]

I'm all for making leveling alts easier with a lot of these "wants" but it has to be balanced against making people reach the upper leveling plateau too fast and running out of things to do when endgame malaise sets in.

You know, I think it'd be better if alts weren't necessary. I've held this weird theory for the longest time that no MMO should have more than 1 choice that you cannot take back with a minimal amount of effort (hence my enthusiasm for free respec). So, you know, you should be able to respect your character, maybe into any class you want? Maybe you've got to level it up (which gets us not a lot of anywhere), but at least that way you don't have eighteen characters you have to mail between and wait wait I'll go get my alt scenarios when you're trying to get together a group to do a raid in a small guild. Probably a stupid idea, though. I am a notorious moron.

That said, alts are awfully quick if you do them just right. I mean, I was recruited by a friend with a couple of other guys and last week after we finished our raid he rolled up a Warlock and was all the way up to 45th level or some ridiculous number in 10 minutes after my brother and I pumped all of those levels we had earned him his way. It doesn't solve the Outland/Northrend levels (for now - I expect that with the next expansion Blizzard will speed up the leveling through Outlands), but it's better than nothing if you've got a friend or two you can trick into buying this lousy addiction machine.

He said before he started the game up to start scanning the auction house while he ate dinner.......

[Anaxagoras]

It doesn't solve the Outland/Northrend levels (for now - I expect that with the next expansion Blizzard will speed up the leveling through Outlands), but it's better than nothing if you've got a friend or two you can trick into buying this lousy addiction machine.

Outlands is already sped up; I leveled a mage from 60 to 70 not too long ago, and it was really fast. Northrend, on the other hand....


I am a notorious moron.
This faux modesty would be a lot more believable if you didn't act the part of a self-important blowhard so often. Pick a persona & run with it; we won't know (or care) who the real you is. Online anonymity is fun!

[Ryslin]

Leveling is absurdly easy.. I would like to see old instance content with a alternate load for duo /trio at level. I can usually find three people, but not all five.

I want to reverse some of the simplistic crafting changes. I applaud not having to do ridiculous quests to get over the late 40's area, but removing things like beer from the beer basted ribs is silly.

We are level 80 now.. Content from here on out will likely involve things outside Azeroth as a whole. Can we please drop from the factions and become part of .. hell Argent if we must, and thus allowing the crossfaction communication we desire. Put a timer on it or make it cost money to drop in and out of Argent Faction. (So you can go BG/ PVP if you want) For the love of, just let there be a neutral faction.

Last but not least on my please list, Open up classes already.
I don't care if it is ridiculous for a gnome priest, a undead paladin or a troll lock. We have them as npc's I want them as players. If they would normally not be part of the race (Say a nelf warlock) make them start at the original locations for that class. (Welcome to Nelf warlock, would you like to start in Dun Morogh or Elwynn).
If it is the racials then remove them, they have caused nothing but annoyance from the beginning.

[Thoro]

Last but not least on my please list, Open up classes already.
I don't care if it is ridiculous for a gnome priest, a undead paladin or a troll lock. We have them as npc's I want them as players. If they would normally not be part of the race (Say a nelf warlock) make them start at the original locations for that class. (Welcome to Nelf warlock, would you like to start in Dun Morogh or Elwynn).
If it is the racials then remove them, they have caused nothing but annoyance from the beginning.

This.

If there's anything that could get me to resubscribe, it's the opportunity to create a dwarf mage.

[TheWombat]

The one and only thing that would get me to resub to WoW is if they launched a group of servers that were true "war" PvP servers. No BGs. No Arenas. Full-on open world PvP (at least after level 20, and outside the zones right around the capitals). No "honor" system, but scaled rewards based on level difference. Just toss the factions into the world with the existing PvE content and let them fight it out for access and questing.

Other than that, nope, not much they can do to get my interest up.

[Spect]

Bards as a playable class.

That's all I want from WoW.

[Joe M.]

The five minutes I spent playing bard in Vanguard made me wish that game wasn't such a colossal trainwreck.

[Blackadar]

Leveling is absurdly easy.. I would like to see old instance content with a alternate load for duo /trio at level. I can usually find three people, but not all five.

I want to reverse some of the simplistic crafting changes. I applaud not having to do ridiculous quests to get over the late 40's area, but removing things like beer from the beer basted ribs is silly.

We are level 80 now.. Content from here on out will likely involve things outside Azeroth as a whole. Can we please drop from the factions and become part of .. hell Argent if we must, and thus allowing the crossfaction communication we desire. Put a timer on it or make it cost money to drop in and out of Argent Faction. (So you can go BG/ PVP if you want) For the love of, just let there be a neutral faction.

Last but not least on my please list, Open up classes already.
I don't care if it is ridiculous for a gnome priest, a undead paladin or a troll lock. We have them as npc's I want them as players. If they would normally not be part of the race (Say a nelf warlock) make them start at the original locations for that class. (Welcome to Nelf warlock, would you like to start in Dun Morogh or Elwynn).
If it is the racials then remove them, they have caused nothing but annoyance from the beginning.

Sorry, I don't like some of your ideas.

WotLK has the Horde and Alliance at each others' throats again. I don't like the idea of being buddy-buddy with the alliance pukes. If anything, I'd prefer even more WAR in Warcraft. So having a neutral faction just doesn't do it for me, nor does it really work in the lore. I just don't see it adding anything to the game and, in some ways, I see it detracting from the game. I can see the chat spam now: "LFG H VH, must be able to group with Ally". Yuck!

Also, I don't like the idea of opening up the races for more classes. In the WoW lore, there's no way we should see a NE mage. Ever. Nor an undead paladin. Nor a dwarf mage. You might as well have spaceships come down and have giant blue goat people running around. Oops, bad example. :) But you get the point - while WoW has adjusted the lore from time to time, putting in those types of class/race combos really throws all the lore right out the window.

Finally, I don't like the idea of making low-level crafting harder again. With some professions, finding the materials just to level is problematic since you can level so quickly now. I know with my warrior, I had to go and farm mithril just to level my blacksmithing because it was prohibitively expensive at the AH - if you could even find it. I also got on my level 80 and farmed thorium ore in southern wintergrasp because my Blacksmith couldn't find enough thorium either. Having to run around and farm ore isn't exactly fun leveling and making crafting even harder by requiring more materials really goes against the easier leveling. If anything, they need to reduce the amount of raw mats you need while leveling your professions...

However, I do like your suggestion of reducing the difficulty of low-level instances to 3 people instead of 5. It's almost impossible to get a group anymore at low levels, so either you skip the instance or you have a level 80 run you through.

[Brian Seiler]

Also, I don't like the idea of opening up the races for more classes. In the WoW lore, there's no way we should see a NE mage. Ever. Nor an undead paladin. Nor a dwarf mage. You might as well have spaceships come down and have giant blue goat people running around. Oops, bad example. :) But you get the point - while WoW has adjusted the lore from time to time, putting in those types of class/race combos really throws all the lore right out the window.

Ehhhh......this wasn't a particularly persuasive argument back when third edition Dungeons and Dragons was getting ready to publish and all the pen and paper RPG nerds were collectively crapping their pants at the prospect, and from a game design perspective, I think it was a good decision. I'll confess that I don't get how anybody could confuse an MMO with a role playing game (maybe you've got to be on the right server for that), but what value do you assign to the lore in this case that you would allow it to constrain what's basically a decent design choice? Given the racial stats and effects, min/max players will still end up in the races they're "supposed" to take and my group of friends can all roll Drano and we can still have a Druid. I was trying to get into the story in WoW and the gargantuan walls of text that the endless stream of quests ended up turning me into one of those guys who just clicks the little green button at the bottom of the window because the time and eye strain aren't worth the effort to read along - is the lore for this game really so critical a component that it shouldn't be sacrificed to make a good gameplay decision?

[Gedd]

1) Every city portal should go both ways. Put a level restriction on it if they don't want level 1's flooding Dalaran, but there's no reason why I should have to depend on my hearthstone to get from Orgrimmar to Dalaran at level 80 for fast travel back to Northrend.

2) More attention to the non-combat portions of the game. LotRO wasn't the most exciting game for me when I was out questing, but I thought the attention to detail in the social game were fantastic. Instruments you can play actual songs on (with others), player/guild housing, and city buildings that actually feel like buildings instead of tents.

3) More frequent, smaller patches between content patches. Way back they told us they wanted to slim down the patch size so they could implement relatively basic changes faster. Instead, they've trended towards enormous mega-patches that spend 2-3 months on the PTRs, and still come out with a bunch of problems. I really do appreciate the amount of content they give us for free, but there's no reason why things like the upcoming changes to mounts couldn't have been part of a smaller patch that spent a week or two on the PTR instead.

[RickH]

. . . there's no reason why things like the upcoming changes to mounts couldn't have been part of a smaller patch that spent a week or two on the PTR instead.

Absolutely true, that should have been implemented within 48 hours of it being announced. As it is, I'm not leveling any alts beyond multiples of 20 until the 3.2 patch.

[Blackadar]

Ehhhh......this wasn't a particularly persuasive argument back when third edition Dungeons and Dragons was getting ready to publish and all the pen and paper RPG nerds were collectively crapping their pants at the prospect, and from a game design perspective, I think it was a good decision. I'll confess that I don't get how anybody could confuse an MMO with a role playing game (maybe you've got to be on the right server for that), but what value do you assign to the lore in this case that you would allow it to constrain what's basically a decent design choice? Given the racial stats and effects, min/max players will still end up in the races they're "supposed" to take and my group of friends can all roll Drano and we can still have a Druid. I was trying to get into the story in WoW and the gargantuan walls of text that the endless stream of quests ended up turning me into one of those guys who just clicks the little green button at the bottom of the window because the time and eye strain aren't worth the effort to read along - is the lore for this game really so critical a component that it shouldn't be sacrificed to make a good gameplay decision?

Yes, it is.

Let's just take Night Elves being mages. Well, if that's allowed, then the whole history of the game is changed. Because the ability of elves to use magic (or not) was the fundamental split in the game that started the entire warcraft universe. If you let NEs become mages, there shouldn't be any High Elves (now called Blood Elves). There is no Malestrom caused when Lady Azshara tried to summon Archimonde. There is no Illidan, the #1 baddie in Outland. Orcs probably don't ever invade Azeroth, which was the entire storyline in the RTS games. In fact, there's probably not even an Arthas if NEs could use magic freely.

Frankly, you're talking about allowing incredible changes to the lore...and for what? Humans, Gnomes, Draenei, Trolls, Undead and Blood Elves can all be mages. So what's the big reason for allowing the few other races (Orcs, NEs, Tauren and Dwarves) to become mages?

Now none of this may matter to you. By your own post, you don't keep up with the lore. However, to many who do know the lore, it would effectively negate the entire storyline, the RTS games, the books and even the rumored movie in development. As such, I think the lore takes precedence over the need for a few players who can't settle on one of 6 classes to play a mage.

[Lorini]

Some of us role players care a lot about the lore and about the logic of the lore. I'm not a big role player but the game would become less interesting if every race could be every class. Also, I like games that offer hard choices. If you want to be druid, you have to be a NE or a Tauren. End of story.

Also in D&D, yes every race can be every class. But the designers of D&D are assuming that you will use the rules to create your own world, where perhaps there are restrictions on what race/class combo's you allow in your world. This is essentially what Blizzard has done, taken a rule set and applied it to a world.

[Brian Seiler]

Let's just take Night Elves being mages. Well, if that's allowed, then the whole history of the game is changed. Because the ability of elves to use magic (or not) was the fundamental split in the game that started the entire warcraft universe. If you let NEs become mages, there shouldn't be any High Elves (now called Blood Elves). There is no Malestrom caused when Lady Azshara tried to summon Archimonde. There is no Illidan, the #1 baddie in Outland. Orcs probably don't ever invade Azeroth, which was the entire storyline in the RTS games. In fact, there's probably not even an Arthas if NEs could use magic freely.

Wait....what?

Why does any design decision in this game necessarily need to be retroactive back to the beginning of time? Since we're stuck on Night Elves and magic (which as far as I can remember is the only major Lore hurdle to jump, but I could be missing something), let's posit that Blizzard decides to let donkeys be Mages, but that those donkeys are not particularly well-loved by their brethren. They still work to do good and maybe they have a tiny village within Darnassus where they all huddle to escape the rotten fruit lobbed at them by the giant tree monsters, and maybe the flavor text for any donkey that gives them a quest has some name calling in it. How would that be inconsistent with the history of the series? I mean, the way you're putting it, the entire body of lore for the game is this fixed, monolithic entity that can never change or deviate from it's current path lest the universe come to the end.

I think Dungeons and Dragons is a particularly apt metaphor for this situation, because they had to deal with the same problems. I remember when Dwarves were basically anti-magical. They got a bonus to their saving throws against magic and everything. And the story in every campaign that followed the standard rules was that, well, Dwarves can't do magic because that would be like a dolphin trying to do a handstand. It's not in them. Then third edition comes along and now anybody can be anything. How'd they deal with it? A little bit of clever writing in the campaigns that were affected (though if I lived in Faerun I'd be sending letters to my representative at Wizards requesting that they kindly stop visiting catastrophic disasters upon my world just to rearrange the game rules).


Frankly, you're talking about allowing incredible changes to the lore...and for what? Humans, Gnomes, Draenei, Trolls, Undead and Blood Elves can all be mages. So what's the big reason for allowing the few other races (Orcs, NEs, Tauren and Dwarves) to become mages?

Well, I'd have two responses. The first is basically along the lines of my sentiment upthread about how MMOs shouldn't limit your choices so much, precisely because they're such a time sink. In my ideal world, I wouldn't need to roll a different character for my Mage to keep him separate from my Priest (in a world where race exists and matters and you have factions - when I make this argument with respect to Guild Wars I generally say that your Primary Class should be your only fixed choice, but they don't have all that faction stuff). The second is more direct - why limit player creativity? I'm not saying that every race should be equally good at doing every class. It's fine to make Night Elves the best Druids and Humans the best Paladins if that's the way the lore goes. The incentives should motivate players who care at all about that sort of thing to play along. I don't see that as a persuasive reason why you should stop a player from making an interesting role playing decision, though. I mean, if this IS a role playing game, so long as the disadvantages are appropriate for the choice (i.e. Night Elf Mages would have extremely poor racial synergy), I don't see the harm. If anything, it makes the story a lot more believable. Most families have a black sheep, and I personally find it difficult to fathom that in this gigantic world there doesn't exist even a couple of donkeys who put in the time to learn how to be Mages because they saw the Humans totally rocking for the Alliance and thought they could do some good that way.

[Blackadar]

No, Brian, I still don't buy it. Frankly, a lot of your arguments boil down to "well, I just want it". Well, you don't get to decide that.

I don't think your D&D examples apply here. While it may be played by many players, but not all at once. D&D campaigns are played by a very limited set of players in any given campaign, each with its own story, game world and occasionally unique rules. As such, players have the ability to accept, reject and change the rules of the game to suit their needs as long as it's permissible within that campaign. For example, if someone didn't like the rules in the 3rd edition, they could change them or reject them outright and keep playing the 2nd edition. And I'm sure some players did.

Warcraft isn't like that. It's played by 11 million players at essentially the same time. Changes impact all players with no ability to accept, reject or modify the changes. As such, I think changes that impact the fundamental game play or lore of the game are much harder to pull off. You run the risk of alienating your customer base by playing willy-nilly with rules and lore. And allowing NE mages IS playing willy-nilly with the lore.

Why is it such a big change? Because you're dealing with the driving reason for the way the world of Azeroth/Outlands/Northrend is today. We're not talking about donkeys...we're talking about Night Elves and mages. You know what a NE mage is? It's a blood elf. And while you may think it's a simple change, it's a fundamental contradiction to 10,000 years of the lore of the game. If you're going to come up with a reason for allowing NE mages, it's not because a few players decided they wanted to roll one. You just can't say *poof, they're allowed now* and have the game world make sense anymore. You're talking about coming up with a huge, momentous event to allow such a thing.

Plus, there are other problems. Who is going to teach your NE mage? The elves won't and they would be violently against any of their allies teaching them too. So after you're turned away from Stormwind and Ironforge, you're talking about your "black sheep" having to be on the horde side to be taught. Starting to see the problem? Or should a NE be allowed to become a horde character?

Frankly, I don't see the huge need - if you want to play a mage, why can't you choose one of the 6 races that allow that? If your problem is choice, I'd say you're being unreasonable with demanding to allow everything to everybody. We could apply that logic to so many things in the game that it would ultimately destroy the game. Maybe Blizzard should let your mage tank heroics? How about the ability for horde players to shop in Stormwind? Would you like your level 80 should be able to solo Arthas? No. Why? Because there are limitations within any MMO to ensure balance and the ability to continue on with a story line that applies to all players. That's the price for playing a MMO.

I think Blizz has done a remarkable job of allowing players to customize their characters to break out of traditional roles. I really fail to see how this would improve the game for all but a very limited number of players, while at the same time possibly hurting the game for what is likely to be a larger number of players. And with all that Blizzard could add into the game - new races, classes, instances, areas, housing, battlegrounds, etc. - why would they spend what would ultimately take so much time to allow this (not from a programming standpoint, but a lore standpoint) and possibly alienate a substantial portion of their player base while doing so?

[Griddle]

I'm most likely going to get choked for suggesting thins, but I think that in all non-instanced areas, you should be able to kill ANYONE, even your own faction. Imagine some smarmy jerkoff blocking the Dalaran fountain on his mamoth... *gank*. Not to mention killing all the gold sellers. I think it would add a cool dimension to the game to be able to kill someone of my own faction for taking the named mob I was obviously clearing trash to get to it.

[JM]

I don't think you've really thought that suggestion through...

[Blackadar]

I'm most likely going to get choked for suggesting thins, but I think that in all non-instanced areas, you should be able to kill ANYONE, even your own faction. Imagine some smarmy jerkoff blocking the Dalaran fountain on his mamoth... *gank*. Not to mention killing all the gold sellers. I think it would add a cool dimension to the game to be able to kill someone of my own faction for taking the named mob I was obviously clearing trash to get to it.

I think you'd need to set up special PvP servers for this...I imagine it would be a griefer's paradise. "Hey, lets go to the newbie area and gank everyone! YAY, I have an outlet for my feelings of inadequacy!" Er...no thanks...but you go right ahead and play on that server.

[Brian Seiler]

I don't think your D&D examples apply here. While it may be played by many players, but not all at once. D&D campaigns are played by a very limited set of players in any given campaign, each with its own story, game world and occasionally unique rules. As such, players have the ability to accept, reject and change the rules of the game to suit their needs as long as it's permissible within that campaign. For example, if someone didn't like the rules in the 3rd edition, they could change them or reject them outright and keep playing the 2nd edition. And I'm sure some players did.

You're...uh....not particularly familiar with the ridiculous multimedia (well, games and books, anyway) empire that is The Forgotten Realms these days, are you? It's not eleven million people because I'm not sure there are eleven million people that play pen and paper RPGs in the entire universe, but the shrieking nerd contingent is about as big and, trust me, your argument is EXACTLY the same. And yes - some people stuck with the second edition rules when the change went through because they couldn't wrap their heads around Dwarves being Wizards or everybody being able to level up to 20 in their class. That does not, however, imply that it was wrong to make the change from a rules standpoint or from a game lore standpoint. I honestly don't get your thrust here. Night Elves and Blood Elves don't even LOOK the same any more. Night Elves aren't addicted to magic. Night Elves wouldn't be able to wave their arms around and belch a screaming torrent of arcane power at their foes, because magic isn't their natural element. They're operating outside their comfortable niche.

I STILL don't understand how that devalues the lore. If anything, the arbitrary restriction that "well, these people aren't Mages because they just aren't, okay - back in the day this bad thing happened and now every single individual in the entire racial group agrees that they shouldn't do this thing and nobody ever deviates from that course ever ever EVER, so shut up" strains credibility to me more than the idea that some few members of a race would want to dabble with power that had turned on them before and walk a fine line between the madness of history and the power that they can contribute to the effort. Think about it. Humans use magic and THEY'RE not all uniformly evil. Gnomes use a couple of kinds of magic and they aren't either. Right now, the only reason we have to explain that in the lore is that the races operate according to some strange hivemind that denies them ever doing certain things. It seems to me like it would actually HELP the lore if you COULD do whatever you wanted, but when you tried to do things that violated the norms established in the lore for your chosen race, you had a serious uphill climb to deal with. At that point, you're granting the player and character volition, but you're incentivizing the choice that tells your story the way you want it to be told.

One is an arbitrary restriction with a paper-thin justification based on your fictional history while the other is an understandable, but not universal, choice made by the members of that race, informed by the history, but also bought into by the player at the point that he makes his choice. How is that not an objectively better way to tell the story? I'm having a hard time seeing the downside. Now, you could argue play balance based on racial synergies, and that probably would be an issue with some combinations because WoW was built following the AD&D arbitrary rules assumptions and it's entirely possible that some combinations you don't want would be incentivized. I don't think for a second that this is a change that would work unless the racial benefits were rendered completely useless and the silent majority agreed to sort of disregard the history. To suggest, however, that the motivating reason not to make this change is the backstory....that seems very, very wrong to me.


Maybe Blizzard should let your mage tank heroics? How about the ability for horde players to shop in Stormwind? Would you like your level 80 should be able to solo Arthas? No. Why? Because there are limitations within any MMO to ensure balance and the ability to continue on with a story line that applies to all players. That's the price for playing a MMO. I think Blizz has done a remarkable job of allowing players to customize their characters to break out of traditional roles. I really fail to see how this would improve the game.

Frankly, this is a straw man - we're not talking about adding additional functionality to players at this point. As much as I might like to be able to hit a button and switch my level 80 Priest to a level 80 Warrior, I also recognize that I'm stupid in that regard and, for whatever reason, other people seem to like not being able to do that. I don't quite get it, but I accept it. What we're talking about is allowing players to put a different skin on the character they could already create, and adjusting the lore in the game to fit with that decision. That's not adding the ability to tank to a Mage (which does bring up the subject of just how in the hell a Mage breaks out of his "traditional role" as the guy what does a lot of damage from over a-here, but we'll leave that whole argument to a different thread, and I hope never to have it in the first place anyway). That would be new essential functionality that gives a player more advantageous play options. Opening the races to disincentivized pursuit of classes that don't fit with their lore only gives a player a DISadvantageous method by which he can further customize his character. From a role-playing perspective, this is good. The DM loves it when his players take on disadvantageous character traits in pursuit of a well rounded and formed character, which is precisely what would be happening in this case. The only case in which I can conceive of this as an undesirable change is one where your conception of the lore is so fixed and brittle that you can't allow any character, anywhere, ever to deviate from his archetype as written in the Sacred Scrolls of....well, those novels and that one section of the website, but still, it's important. Maybe it's just different tastes talking here, but I find that to be an incredibly shallow piece of world-building artifice done to paper over a gameplay decision. Don't tell me I can't be a Drano Druid because my people never communed with the Emerald Dream and learned the secret ways of the hippies. Tell me that I can't be a Drano Druid because if I do that I'll have to go up this hill and over that mountain and through that ravine and roll around in this cactus patch, and if that's what I want to do, hey, it's my funeral, but wouldn't it be better to just roll a freaking Shaman?

[Griddle]

I think you'd need to set up special PvP servers for this...I imagine it would be a griefer's paradise. "Hey, lets go to the newbie area and gank everyone! YAY, I have an outlet for my feelings of inadequacy!" Er...no thanks...but you go right ahead and play on that server.
Well, they could make it so you couldn't gank anyone say maybe 5 levels or so below you.

[Brian Seiler]

Well, they could make it so you couldn't gank anyone say maybe 5 levels or so below you.

You'd still need to put it on its own server. What you're basically talking about is Age of Conan as far as I understand it, and everything I've heard from YouTube, Yahtzee, and the brief flirtation the Gamers with Jobs podcasts had with the game that if you played on a PvP server, you kind of expected other people to ruin your day.

I would throw my keyboard through my television. It was pissing me off last night in Gadgetzan when some Rogue thought he was being sneaky and following me around in stealth and busting an occasional Sap on me. I know where you're coming from, because there have been a couple of times when I wanted to throw down with some other Alliance jerkass that, for instance, just used his Hunter sprint to get over to that Briarthorn that I need to freaking level my freaking Alchemy and yanked it out from under me after I saw him going for the other one and deliberately turned and went for the one that was further away so we could split it, but my irritation was fleeting and I suspect that for most people, the frustration of having dedicated griefers booting you off of a bridge you have to cross would eventually outweigh the occasional satisfaction you'd get from taking a poop on the guy who cut in front of you at the boss spawn.

[The Mad Hatter]

Most of the world PvP suggestions fall apart when faced with one simple fact - the vast majority of people playing WoW (and arguably most MMOGs) do not want their gaming time to be impacted by other players. They may choose to join guilds, run instances, do Arena, etc but they do not want that choice made for them. I can think of two examples where that was proved in spades: the original "Tarren Mill rush" world PvP days and the pre-WotLK zombie event.

Everyone who waxes nostalgic about the good old days when everyone fought back and forth in Hillsbrad forgets the torrents of complaints generated at the time from people upset that their quest NPCs were being whacked, the flight master always being dead, the zone lagged to unusability, etc. There was a collective sigh of relief when the world PvPers settled into the new battlegrounds and remained instanced away from the rest of the player base. Likewise, when the zombies were everywhere before Lich King went live the official servers were overloaded with nerd rage, tears, and people begging Blizzard to get rid of the zombie event so they could go back to their normal daily activities.

Ultimately, these kinds of ideas make no sense from a business point of view. Most players just want to do their own thing, MMOG or not. Your world PvP needs must always take second place to that.

[Griddle]

I was just thinking it would be a nice change of pace to be able to kick someones ass for being an assneck once in a while. Then again, the mentality of most gamers I've seen, they couldn't handle it and would spiral into a nerdrage fit. I played one MMO, forgot what it was, maybe Shadowbane, I could be wrong, but you could literally kill anyone, and it was kind of silly just running around knocking people over and taking their stuff to hold for ransome. That kind of meta-gaming is refreshing once in a blue moon. It has nothing to do with inadequacy issues as previously stated, it's just about playing the game within the game i guess.

Enough about that, lets talk about level 25 raids, how cool would that be. I've seen a video of a level 1 hogger raid, I was in stitches the whole time. WoW has lots of shenanigans to be had, you just have to look for them. Personally, once I get some internet back, I'm going to take my Ret pally and attempt to get all the old world dungeon achivements. There's lots of really cool dungeons that people don't really visit any more, when's the last time you saw "LFG MARAUDON".

[The Mad Hatter]

I was just thinking it would be a nice change of pace to be able to kick someones ass for being an assneck once in a while. Then again, the mentality of most gamers I've seen, they couldn't handle it and would spiral into a nerdrage fit. I played one MMO, forgot what it was, maybe Shadowbane, I could be wrong, but you could literally kill anyone, and it was kind of silly just running around knocking people over and taking their stuff to hold for ransome. That kind of meta-gaming is refreshing once in a blue moon. It has nothing to do with inadequacy issues as previously stated, it's just about playing the game within the game i guess.

You missed the glory days of old school Ultima Online. Now that was gaming.



Enough about that, lets talk about level 25 raids, how cool would that be. I've seen a video of a level 1 hogger raid, I was in stitches the whole time. WoW has lots of shenanigans to be had, you just have to look for them. Personally, once I get some internet back, I'm going to take my Ret pally and attempt to get all the old world dungeon achivements. There's lots of really cool dungeons that people don't really visit any more, when's the last time you saw "LFG MARAUDON".

You see a variant of it now - "LF FOR 80 TO RUN ME THROUGH MARAUDON". It's so common now that they even went back and modified instances like Uldaman so they can be completed with two people (originally you needed three or more to get through to the end).

[Blackadar]

At that point, you're granting the player and character volition, but you're incentivizing the choice that tells your story the way you want it to be told.


This is the crux of the matter. You're right...but you're neglecting that it's not your story to tell. It's one story that impacts everyone. That's the limitations of MMOs and WoW is no different - you're stuck within the context of their story. As such, you walking around as a NE Mage impacts everyone elses understanding of this story. Maybe I'd like my story to allow my Troll Priest to join the Alliance and fight against the Horde because my parents were killed by the Forsaken. But I can't because should I do so, that hurts the overall story for all involved. It's fundamentally the same thing you want to do, but while it might please me, I'm sure the overall base won't be happy with it.

When you're making the story as you go along in something like D&D, you're right, the DM loves it (I was one back in the early 80s). On the fly, you have a great backstory, obstacles that can be thrown in your way (who trains you, how you're accepted) and the possibilities are virtually endless. You can't program for those possibilities in a MMO because of time constraints. To use your example, if Draenei can't connect with the Emerald Dream, they can't become druids - it's a fundamental prerequisite, no different than being able to use magic to be a mage. Now could Blizz program in that ability and an epic storyline to allow Spacegoats to take that journey to become a druid? I'm sure they could...but it's a matter of resources. How long would it take versus how much benefit would the player base get from it? It's a resource issue..and should Blizz take up precious resources to allow this?

Now if you want to get around the resource issue, you could advocate that Blizz take the easy road and say that Spacegoats woke up today with the ability to connect to the Emerald Dream. And could they decide Night Elves had a change of heart and decided to allow the use of magic willy-nilly. Sure they could - and this is what you're advocating. They could have Archimonde come through a portal to give me flowers and a pony too. But does it make sense? Not particularly. Would it piss off large parts of the player base? Yes. Does it effectively hurt the backstory and detract from the overall game? Yes. And since these changes were made arbitrarily, would it piss off a large portion of the player base who created their characters under the old limitations? Absolutely.

So what's the real benefit to Blizzard to allow this?

[Blackadar]

You missed the glory days of old school Ultima Online. Now that was griefing.


Fixed that for you. :)

I played a lot of UO - even before the split worlds - and it was absolutely brutal. You'd get killed at the bank with some jackass launching fireballs down the street. You'd get gang-raped fighting wolves and your gear would be taken. Some high level was ALWAYS in a low-level cave creating a major train of monsters that would instantly kill anyone trying to hunt in there. I remember getting corpse-camped for hours on end by some bored dickwad.

Never again. I *shudder* just thinking about it.

[Blackadar]

Most of the world PvP suggestions fall apart when faced with one simple fact - the vast majority of people playing WoW (and arguably most MMOGs) do not want their gaming time to be impacted by other players. They may choose to join guilds, run instances, do Arena, etc but they do not want that choice made for them. I can think of two examples where that was proved in spades: the original "Tarren Mill rush" world PvP days and the pre-WotLK zombie event.

Everyone who waxes nostalgic about the good old days when everyone fought back and forth in Hillsbrad forgets the torrents of complaints generated at the time from people upset that their quest NPCs were being whacked, the flight master always being dead, the zone lagged to unusability, etc. There was a collective sigh of relief when the world PvPers settled into the new battlegrounds and remained instanced away from the rest of the player base. Likewise, when the zombies were everywhere before Lich King went live the official servers were overloaded with nerd rage, tears, and people begging Blizzard to get rid of the zombie event so they could go back to their normal daily activities.

Ultimately, these kinds of ideas make no sense from a business point of view. Most players just want to do their own thing, MMOG or not. Your world PvP needs must always take second place to that.

Excellent point. I remember both of these episodes. The Hillsbrad one you could get around - you didn't HAVE to quest in Hillsbrad to level up - but the zombie one you couldn't get around. As such, I remember the outcry from that. Hell, I stayed offline myself during much of that because it was really...annoying.

Another one was the bomb from Baron Geddon in Molten Core. It used to be that pets would get the bomb and you could dismiss your pet. Of course, when you summoned your pet again, it still had the bomb. It wasn't long before people started summoning their pets in the Ironforge AH during prime-time. It wasn't uncommon to see about 50 corpses in the AH after it went off. Blizz quickly put a stop to that...

[LesJarvis]

Another one was the bomb from Baron Geddon in Molten Core. It used to be that pets would get the bomb and you could dismiss your pet. Of course, when you summoned your pet again, it still had the bomb. It wasn't long before people started summoning their pets in the Ironforge AH during prime-time. It wasn't uncommon to see about 50 corpses in the AH after it went off. Blizz quickly put a stop to that...

Obligatory link to Biny's video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGHZJG6X_fs)

Edit: and who could forget wowaids (http://wowaids.ytmnd.com/) (additional info (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrupted_Blood_incident))

[Tankero]

You're forgetting the ZG plague too. Lord, the days of pandemic Jihadd..

[Brian Seiler]

So what's the real benefit to Blizzard to allow this?

I think we have very different understandings of how this works. I don't see there being anything inherently Night Elfy to hooting at the Emerald Dream and getting the power to shapechange into an ugly tree. It's a process that the Night Elf goes through. Even in the lore that you write, it's a series of steps they take, the same way that Mages go through a series of steps to learn magic and Warlocks go through a series of steps to....well, to also learn magic, but it's a different kind of magic. Why does there need to be an original campaign segment written so that my Drano can learn the same thing? Why not just make him jump through approximately the same hoops? As far as I can tell, all you would really need to do is write some "disfavored" or whatever dialog bumps for relevant characters when talking to members of their own race that are pariahs. That's not trivial, but it's not thousands upon thousands of man hours. It's just dialog boxes. Even if you assume you have to lay out starting quest lines for all the professions physically located in the racial starting zones, that's not THAT many chains, and you'd just need to drop a little colony of exiles or a teacher from another race into the map. For the Drano Druid, for instance, all you really need is a Night Elf standing around in the general vicinity of the crash site to give you a couple of quests until you're high enough level to hop on the boat to the mainland and get your quests from the original source. In the case of the Night Elf mages, well, all you really need is either a human or a couple of old wizened Night Elf mages squatting out in the wilderness, clearly not embraced and loved by their kinfolk, teaching the ways of the wizard to aspiring youths who are willing to bear the hardship.



As such, you walking around as a NE Mage impacts everyone elses understanding of this story. Maybe I'd like my story to allow my Troll Priest to join the Alliance and fight against the Horde because my parents were killed by the Forsaken. But I can't because should I do so, that hurts the overall story for all involved.

??

How?

I mean, this seems to me to be the BEST way to implement this faction changing service they want to introduce. Instead of arbitrarily transmorphlifying your dude to a completely different species, he goes off to work for "the enemy" and is forever cast out by his own people AND the ones that he goes to work for. Plus, then you don't have min/maxers rolling all their Priests into Drano, which avoids the problem of having to explain not just how you grew hooves and a new dye job, but also how you managed to sneak into that giant spaceship along with the hundreds of thousands of other people that cannot possibly have fit in there.

Are you really citing verisimilitude of story as a motivating factor for an RPG where a space ship barely big enough to widely scatter debris across two kind of small islands apparently carried ten million neon blue goat people to the planet, some of whom apparently stayed passed out in the exact same spot of ground for, well it was more than a year in my case, before waking up and doing exactly the same thing as all their kind that came before them? That's like trying to explain why it is that Onyxia is back in her lair when I killed that wingly sack of crap and put a video of it on YouTube.

I'm just not getting where you're coming from here. For one thing, I deeply suspect that you might be overestimating the average player's involvement with the lore for the game, but even so, how does my Mage, mistrusted by his kin and cast out, in any way hurt your understanding of the game? I mean, just because it's an MMO doesn't mean that the plot writers need to operate like a five year old with his big crayon in his fist and his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth.

[Athryn]

The one and only thing that would get me to resub to WoW is if they launched a group of servers that were true "war" PvP servers. No BGs. No Arenas. Full-on open world PvP (at least after level 20, and outside the zones right around the capitals). No "honor" system, but scaled rewards based on level difference. Just toss the factions into the world with the existing PvE content and let them fight it out for access and questing.

Other than that, nope, not much they can do to get my interest up.

They had servers like this already, at release. Obviously they are gone now, but to be honest it really wasn't all that fun when they were around.


also: I am really glad Brian doesn't work for Blizzard. :P

[TheWombat]

Well, I never said I was offering good business suggestions. I'm offering suggestions to make the game a game I want to play. I'm perfectly aware that most people do not want true open world PvP. Most people enjoy the game systems themselves and dont' want other people injected into the mix, particularly not in a non-consensual hostile manner.

I'm not those people, and neither are the core group of peole I've been playing MMOs with for years. We want PvP, we don't mind the ganking, we tend to not attack first but become relentless when provoked, and yes, we've played (and still play sometimes still play) games where FFA PvP is allowed. And actually, AoC is nowhere near the gankfest people say it is, outside of White Sands island. People are just too wary unless they are in a group of griefers, and most people seem to hate each other too much form good groups! :)

In the case of WoW, I simply think that given the bajillion subscribers they have, and the many, many servers, they might be able to create some real PvP servers. I'm not even talking about FFA, just pure faction-based stuff without instanced arena-style BG style stuff. I do think Griddle's idea about FFA is also a good one, for specific servers--nothing, but NOTHING, focuses you and makes your question interesting like having to watch your back 24/7.

Unfortunately, most discussions about this topic turn into holier-than-though anti-PvP types going at it with antisocial seemingly bloodthirsty "griefing is good" nihilists. No one is forcing or advocating forcing anyone to do anything they don't like. Virtually all PvP suggestions involve server choices--and if you choose a FFA server in any game, you have no right to complain about griefing, ganking, or anything else other than rules violations and hacks. And people who don't want that are not carebear, or weak, or anything else, they just prefer a different style of MMO gaming.

For me, I love the basic MMO mechanic of carrot on a stick. I love chasing the rewards, but I also get mightily bored with PvE. It boils down to either leveling up or grouping up, and there's virtually no surprises. It's a very considered and often challenging puzzle solving and patience regimen, which is cool and all, but if there's no one attacking me while I collect the Goretusk livers, I pretty much fall asleep at the keyboard. Even if I never gank anyone--and I rarely do--the possibility of being ganked is essential for me to enjoy the repetition that is MMO land. YMMV.


Most of the world PvP suggestions fall apart when faced with one simple fact - the vast majority of people playing WoW (and arguably most MMOGs) do not want their gaming time to be impacted by other players. They may choose to join guilds, run instances, do Arena, etc but they do not want that choice made for them. I can think of two examples where that was proved in spades: the original "Tarren Mill rush" world PvP days and the pre-WotLK zombie event.

Everyone who waxes nostalgic about the good old days when everyone fought back and forth in Hillsbrad forgets the torrents of complaints generated at the time from people upset that their quest NPCs were being whacked, the flight master always being dead, the zone lagged to unusability, etc. There was a collective sigh of relief when the world PvPers settled into the new battlegrounds and remained instanced away from the rest of the player base. Likewise, when the zombies were everywhere before Lich King went live the official servers were overloaded with nerd rage, tears, and people begging Blizzard to get rid of the zombie event so they could go back to their normal daily activities.

Ultimately, these kinds of ideas make no sense from a business point of view. Most players just want to do their own thing, MMOG or not. Your world PvP needs must always take second place to that.

[Adam B]

[edit] In response to Athryn:

Err, no, they didn't. Well, PvP servers didn't have arenas or BGs since they didn't exist yet, but the PvP server ruleset hasn't changed at all since release.

[TheWombat]

They had servers like this already, at release. Obviously they are gone now, but to be honest it really wasn't all that fun when they were around.


also: I am really glad Brian doesn't work for Blizzard. :P

I disagree; the game was ONLY fun while it was like this. I played on Tichondrius from the get-go, and pre-BGs and pre-Arenas and pre-Honor, it was a hell of a lot more fun. The problem was that too many people who signed up to play on a server labled PvP really didn't want to PvP, except in sanitized conditions. You're right in that the majority of players preferred the changes made, but wrong in assuming that there are only a very small minority of players who liked things the way they were. All those players are now in other games. It's not enough by a long shot to affect Blizzard's bottom line, but I don't care about that. I care about finding a game that meets my needs. I haven't found it yet, but I keep looking.

[The Mad Hatter]

I disagree; the game was ONLY fun while it was like this. I played on Tichondrius from the get-go, and pre-BGs and pre-Arenas and pre-Honor, it was a hell of a lot more fun. The problem was that too many people who signed up to play on a server labled PvP really didn't want to PvP, except in sanitized conditions. You're right in that the majority of players preferred the changes made, but wrong in assuming that there are only a very small minority of players who liked things the way they were. All those players are now in other games. It's not enough by a long shot to affect Blizzard's bottom line, but I don't care about that. I care about finding a game that meets my needs. I haven't found it yet, but I keep looking.

What you're talking will never exist in a true MMOG game. As you noted above, you have the "don't impact my game" players and the "bloodthirsty nihilist" players, and a small minority of people who enjoy the risk of playing in a chaotic, dangerous world but not wanting to grief other people. Many of the old player towns of Ultima Online were like that, abut they are long gone. These days you're pretty much limited to smaller venues like a NWN 2 game server.

[Athryn]

[edit] In response to Athryn:

Err, no, they didn't. Well, PvP servers didn't have arenas or BGs since they didn't exist yet, but the PvP server ruleset hasn't changed at all since release.

Yes they did. I played Wow on a PvP server at release, prior to the honor system, battlegrounds, etc. It wasn't as fun as people would like to think, and it is one of the reasons I play on a PvE server now.

I say this having come from DAoC to Wow. Playing Wow on a PvP server ruleset almost made me go back to playing DAoC, except for the fact that the classes were so much better. Playing on a severely unbalanced population server might have a lot to do with these feelings, unlike in DAoC, there's no 3rd faction for the overpopulated side to fight against.

[Blackadar]

I'm just not getting where you're coming from here.

That's obvious. You think your idea is brilliant. I think it's not only unnecessary and petty, but fucks the game lore up for the rest of us. So at this point I think it's safe to say we'll just disagree and move on.

If I ever see a NE mage, I want to be on Griddle's PvP anywhere server so I can repeatedly KOS that fucker. :)

[Blackadar]

I disagree; the game was ONLY fun while it was like this. I played on Tichondrius from the get-go, and pre-BGs and pre-Arenas and pre-Honor, it was a hell of a lot more fun. The problem was that too many people who signed up to play on a server labled PvP really didn't want to PvP, except in sanitized conditions. You're right in that the majority of players preferred the changes made, but wrong in assuming that there are only a very small minority of players who liked things the way they were. All those players are now in other games. It's not enough by a long shot to affect Blizzard's bottom line, but I don't care about that. I care about finding a game that meets my needs. I haven't found it yet, but I keep looking.

I disagree Wombat and I've played on both PvE and PvP servers since release. I think most people who signed up for PvP servers don't mind PvP. But the line between griefing and PvP is different for everyone. Is getting one-shotted a dozen times in a row PvP or griefing? For me, it's griefing...for you it may just be the normal course of PvP. All I know is that my co-worker is one of the biggest PvP whores you ever saw - your post above could have been written by him - yet even he transferred off a PvP server because he got sick of the ganking/griefing.

I liked the PvP pre-BGs too, but I think your memory is pretty fuzzy because it got old and pretty dull. On most servers, Horde was pretty outnumbered and the Tarren Mill PvP would become a gankfest as the Horde players drifted away. I think perhaps the best PvP on the server was the old Alterac battleground, where matches could last for days. The PvP action was pretty non-stop, with detailed objectives and some pretty epic battles. Then the reward system came out and ruined all of that. I hear the new BG in 3.2 is supposed to be like the old Alterac and I know I'm looking forward to it.

I'd say Warhammer is more along your lines, though it has some fundamental flaws that prevent it from being the wide-open world-war that the ideal PvP game would become.

[Soapyfrog]

When you have played games with meaningful PvP (e.g. DAOC, Planetside, WAR, EVE, etc etc) then playing games with meaningless PvP (WoW) is a lot less fun by comparison.

[Adam B]

Yes they did. I played Wow on a PvP server at release, prior to the honor system, battlegrounds, etc. It wasn't as fun as people would like to think, and it is one of the reasons I play on a PvE server now.

I say this having come from DAoC to Wow. Playing Wow on a PvP server ruleset almost made me go back to playing DAoC, except for the fact that the classes were so much better. Playing on a severely unbalanced population server might have a lot to do with these feelings, unlike in DAoC, there's no 3rd faction for the overpopulated side to fight against.

Explain to me where exactly the ruleset changed? I played on PvP at launch as well, and outside of the guard changes and the additions of arenas and BGs, it hasn't changed.

That said, throwing myself a party when I hit 50 and playing troll under the Wetlands bridge was pretty fun. That, and the huge running battles that inevitably spawned in Arathi when someone would gank, reinforcements would get called, and things escalated from there until everyone got bored.

Good lord did playing Horde suck, though. Un'goro was impossible to level in. In fact, I never did take my original character up to 60. All my buddies rerolled on a PvE server, and I went with them. I think that mage is still parked at 53 on Stormreaver.

[Athryn]

Explain to me where exactly the ruleset changed? I played on PvP at launch as well, and outside of the guard changes and the additions of arenas and BGs, it hasn't changed.

April 8th, 2005 (http://www.wowwiki.com/Patch_1.4.0).


The Player versus Player Honor System is now active. Players will be able to gain rankings based on their PvP performance, with lucrative rewards for those who distinguish themselves on the field of battle! Read more about the PvP Honor system.

[Blackadar]

When you have played games with meaningful PvP (e.g. DAOC, Planetside, WAR, EVE, etc etc) then playing games with meaningless PvP (WoW) is a lot less fun by comparison.

Funny...I've played UO (the ultimate in PvP), WAR, EVE and MUDs and I enjoy the PvP in WoW more than all of them, though WAR is a pretty close 2nd. I suppose it's because that I want to PvP on my terms and sometimes I just want to be left the hell alone to quest and explore.

I'll agree there is a certain level of excitement that comes with being on a PvP server and having to always look over your shoulder, but there's a level of frustration when you're getting ass-raped and losing your hard-earned stuff. It's all a matter of whether the excitement outweighs the frustration...and it doesn't for me, so I play on PvE servers and PvP when I want to.

To each his own.

[LesJarvis]

April 8th, 2005 (http://www.wowwiki.com/Patch_1.4.0).

The activation of the honor system applied to both PVP and PVE servers, and did not alter the PVP ruleset.

[Athryn]

I suppose it's because that I want to PvP on my terms and sometimes I just want to be left the hell alone to quest and explore.

You would have greatly enjoyed DAoC's PvP then.

I really wish a game would marry Wow's awesome PVE and questing with DAoC's 3 sided persistent zone RvR system. I would definitely play that game.

[Soapyfrog]

so I play on PvE servers and PvP when I want to.

I also play WoW on a PvE server. When I want to PvP I go play a different game that does PvP well and meaningfully.

WoW is for PvE.

[Brian Seiler]

You would have greatly enjoyed DAoC's PvP then.

I really wish a game would marry Wow's awesome PVE and questing with DAoC's 3 sided persistent zone RvR system. I would definitely play that game.

Guild Wars 2 is theoretically supposed to be trying something like this, but they've been sparse at best on the details for World v. World and I have no idea how many sides will actually be there and what sort of persistence the WvW realm will have.

[Athryn]

The activation of the honor system applied to both PVP and PVE servers, and did not alter the PVP ruleset.

Do I need to requote what Wombat described again?


The one and only thing that would get me to resub to WoW is if they launched a group of servers that were true "war" PvP servers. No BGs. No Arenas. Full-on open world PvP (at least after level 20, and outside the zones right around the capitals). No "honor" system, but scaled rewards based on level difference. Just toss the factions into the world with the existing PvE content and let them fight it out for access and questing.

Other than that, nope, not much they can do to get my interest up.

What he is describing is (without honor system) PvP servers prior to that patch (and the subsequent ones that added arenas). I think you guys are getting bogged down in semantics, over what "ruleset" means.

[Adam B]

I think you guys are getting bogged down in semantics

No. Never. Surely we would not do something like that, here on Qt3 of all places.

[Ryslin]

-chimes back in on the lore part-

Wait wait wait..
you are telling me there are no night elven rogue (as in not members of their society) mages running around.
I bring you the Master's Glaive sitting in Darkshore and infested with the Twilight Cultists.

My beef is if an npc can be seen as that class , I should be able to rp as that class. Yeah ok, I am on an roleplaying server. Sue me. There are dwarf mages, in lore even. There are dwarf shamans, again in the lore. Just because they decided not to put them into the game due to an original concept of balance that is long since outdated is not my problem.

Alternately, and from a rather logical stand point, the current feud between Alliance and Horde is not going to get better. Bliz keeps giving us neutral third parties to make up for this lack. We brave heroes trudge into the maw of hell , only to be told later by our superiors. "Thanks ..we couldn't do it without pissing -enter faction here- off"

To heck with it, just let me be a permanent member of said faction. Perhaps you can only raid dungeons from lvl 90 on that way. Alternately, you can only pvp as a card carrying member of the original factions.

Wanna make a bet how many people , the player "heroes" would stay in that neutral faction?
Story wise we have the lore in place. From a roleplaying stand point I already have characters that subscribe to a different faction, I just want to make it a reality on some level. Preferably without the addon, but it is a good addon none the less.

There is no definable reason to only have the "useful" parts of society to be the only classes allowed. Especially when they allow warlocks anywhere openly.

[Soapyfrog]

Were there actually any night elves in the Twilight Cult?

[ahoythematey]

Saying that players shouldn't have total choice in race and class selection because of WoW lore is still a very weak argument. A great many players refer to it as "lollore" for a reason.

[The Mad Hatter]

Saying that players shouldn't have total choice in race and class selection because of WoW lore is still a very weak argument. A great many players refer to it as "lollore" for a reason.

I think a better reason not to do it is "this will require a lot of time and money spent on new art and animation that could be better used on something else."

[Blackadar]

Saying that players shouldn't have total choice in race and class selection because of WoW lore is still a very weak argument. A great many players refer to it as "lollore" for a reason.

That's your opinion...and I think you're incorrect.

[TheWombat]

My memory is always in danger of being fuzzy--comes with age--but no, it WAS better back then, at least for me. As Horde. As the underdog. Frustrating? Yeah. But you did get through it, and when you did, it meant something to you, and it made it more fun to go back and dish out the same grief to those on the other side.

Warhammer is pathetic when it comes to open PvP unfortunately. There's even less non-RvR lake PvP, even on open RvR servers, than in WoW, sadly enough.


I disagree Wombat and I've played on both PvE and PvP servers since release. I think most people who signed up for PvP servers don't mind PvP. But the line between griefing and PvP is different for everyone. Is getting one-shotted a dozen times in a row PvP or griefing? For me, it's griefing...for you it may just be the normal course of PvP. All I know is that my co-worker is one of the biggest PvP whores you ever saw - your post above could have been written by him - yet even he transferred off a PvP server because he got sick of the ganking/griefing.

I liked the PvP pre-BGs too, but I think your memory is pretty fuzzy because it got old and pretty dull. On most servers, Horde was pretty outnumbered and the Tarren Mill PvP would become a gankfest as the Horde players drifted away. I think perhaps the best PvP on the server was the old Alterac battleground, where matches could last for days. The PvP action was pretty non-stop, with detailed objectives and some pretty epic battles. Then the reward system came out and ruined all of that. I hear the new BG in 3.2 is supposed to be like the old Alterac and I know I'm looking forward to it.

I'd say Warhammer is more along your lines, though it has some fundamental flaws that prevent it from being the wide-open world-war that the ideal PvP game would become.

[TheWombat]

The activation of the honor system applied to both PVP and PVE servers, and did not alter the PVP ruleset.

...but in conjunction with BGs and ultimately Arenas, it rendered world PvP meaningless in terms of rewards, and it made city/town raids worthless and counterproductive. All effective anti-griefing measures, but the cure killed world PvP as well.

[Soapyfrog]

Warhammer is pathetic when it comes to open PvP unfortunately. There's even less non-RvR lake PvP, even on open RvR servers, than in WoW, sadly enough.
Non-RvR pvp? Whats the point? Go play WoW ;)

[RickH]

. . . they even went back and modified instances like Uldaman so they can be completed with two people (originally you needed three or more to get through to the end).

I just soloed Uldaman a couple of weeks ago. Blizz seems resigned to old world instances used for farming & runs.

[Ryslin]

Anyone can be a member of Twilight Hammer, it is a matter of belief. Just because they are a enemy organization doesn't mean noone would join them, it would just be unlikely.

Course in difference to the lore, that is why I suggested those classes not in tune with the fundamentals of the race could start where they would be taught. My example was a nelven warlock taught by the dwarves or humans. I see no reason any race capable of shamans cannot have druids. They would just be unlikely unless they took the effort.
Animation and art wise, there really isn't anything to it. All the races have all the animations. There is nothing really different between a rogue human swinging a one hand sword and a paladin human doing the same thing. Least , visually.

Heck I would even be ok if you had to redo a already leveled character to get to the alternate faction classes. Say a night elf priest could have the option to take shadow to a new level .. and be a warlock. (Just to stay in my explaining theme)

[TheWombat]

Non-RvR pvp? Whats the point? Go play WoW ;)

No, I said non-RvR LAKE PvP. I play on an open RvR server in the hopes of getting the enemy invading my questing areas, and being able to reciprocate. There's just not much of that. RvR in the lakes is too often too formulaic; it becomes PvD (Player vs. Door) in the endless round of undefended keep and BO takes, or it becomes zerg vs. six as one side (like Destro on Praag) fields a full Warband for every group Order puts into a zone. The only hope for group on group PvP or any non-zerg fighting is outside the lakes, and it doesn't happen much.

Not that zerg on zerg can't be fun, but it also gets old pretty fast. What you do doesn't matter as much, and half of any population involved is simply leeching. Admittedly, my main is a tank, and I'm bitter about healers (a little) and DPS (a lot) getting most of the free renown. Yeah, I have DPS classes too, but we really need tanks, so someone's gotta do it.

[Skipper]

I'm going to take the flip side here. Bluebaby, carebear, whatever you want to call it. For a long time I've desparately wished that Blizz would somehow tear the skills/spells of PvE away from needing to be identical to the skills/spells of PvP.

Frankly, I'm really tired of balance in the name of PvP that ends up fucking shit up for questing and raiding. Now I know a lot of people like that, it's a big part of the game. However, constantly balancing the ENTIRE skill and spell system for PvP should not be their primary focus. I really don't see any way they can please both sides long term unless they fork the two rulesets.

I know they won't do it though, that's way too much programming and design time. So what ends up happening is that the folks in one group get held to the whims and whines of the other. Has there ever been an MMO game that balanced this well?

[TheWombat]

This is a reasonable gripe, I think. The game is primarily a PvE game, so having that aspect of the game impacted adversely by the PvP stuff is something I think you can reasonably complain about.

I think the problem though stems not from mixing PvP and PvE, but from how it's mixed. A game that started from ground up with the assumption that all activities would take place in a PvP environment, from questing to full-on raiding, wouldn't have this problem. It'd have other and perhaps more serious challenges of course, but this sort of zero-sum balance would be take care of by the constant and pervasive mixed environment (which would perforce be the default environment).

But that ain't how it is, so I can understand how you'd be ticked. I particularly agree in that the PvP in WoW blows trouser trout anyhow, so gimping PvE to make it work seems a bit silly.


I'm going to take the flip side here. Bluebaby, carebear, whatever you want to call it. For a long time I've desparately wished that Blizz would somehow tear the skills/spells of PvE away from needing to be identical to the skills/spells of PvP.

Frankly, I'm really tired of balance in the name of PvP that ends up fucking shit up for questing and raiding. Now I know a lot of people like that, it's a big part of the game. However, constantly balancing the ENTIRE skill and spell system for PvP should not be their primary focus. I really don't see any way they can please both sides long term unless they fork the two rulesets.

I know they won't do it though, that's way too much programming and design time. So what ends up happening is that the folks in one group get held to the whims and whines of the other. Has there ever been an MMO game that balanced this well?

[Drastic]

Most of mine are minor things:

I'd like them to revamp the collecting professions in a similar way to what they did to fishing at some point between pre-Burning Crusade (the last time I played) and now (when I've got sucked back in). Namely, that each mineral vein/herbalism spot/skinning opportunity can be done at any level of skill, and count towards skill-ups; it's simply that if you're underleveled for the spot you'll get junk instead of useful bits. Mainly because you can outlevel your gathering level very very easily now.

I still want to be able to pay a premium to flightmasters to get faster transit times; past a certain point, the bat/gryphon ticket prices are so much pocket change, and I'd happily bump up to first class flights to spend less time in air.

I also want to be able to rent a parachute, and then be able to dive off said transit flight beasties at any point along their route.

Also, Santa, I would like to be able to use flying mounts in Oldworld. That's on top of making each capital city portal-link to every other one both ways, so Dalaran's not such a giant mob and the others aren't such ghost towns.

Finally, I want to be able to send electric shocks to players on /trade.

I understand it may be too late in the build-development process to get all that in 3.2, but by 3.3 would be good. Kthxbye.

[ahoythematey]

I agree with Skipper and Wombat. Since I personally think WoW's pvp is absolute garbage, I mostly play it as a PvE game, and everytime I see balance changes made in the almighty name of Arena balance, I feel like breaking things.

[Athryn]

Also, Santa, I would like to be able to use flying mounts in Oldworld. That's on top of making each capital city portal-link to every other one both ways, so Dalaran's not such a giant mob and the others aren't such ghost towns.

You said these are minor things, but it would require an enormous revamp of Azeroth in order to accomodate flying mounts. It just really isn't designed that way. This (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX93WpOrnEg) is just one of many videos depicting why they can't do it, yet.

They'd basically have to do something along the lines of a whole other expansion to be able to get it fixed. I can think of 2 specific places in Eastern Kingdoms (Silverpine > Greymane and EPL > Ghostlands) that would be particularly problematic currently.

[Drastic]

Both of the items after invoking Santa are minor. Because they are minor things for Santa, ye of little faith and less wonder.

I understand that Santa may decide to prioritize the wishes of other boys and girls over mine, and even admit that I am perhaps poorly situated on the naughty versus nice list, but these are side factors, not affecting that for Santa, all content revamps are minor, as are remote disciplinary shock mechanisms.

[Tankero]

All I want is to be able to influence the Groundhog Day existence of this world. For the love of God, why can't Vaelsztraz and Nefarion stay dead?

(Also: Force-shift me into catform now, you haughty bitch, and see what happens next!)

[WildElf]

You know, I think it'd be better if alts weren't necessary. I've held this weird theory for the longest time that no MMO should have more than 1 choice that you cannot take back with a minimal amount of effort (hence my enthusiasm for free respec). So, you know, you should be able to respect your character, maybe into any class you want?

A bit off topic, but an MMO in development, Heroes of Telaraa is planning to do just that. Classes (or subclasses, but more than class abilities, I'm not clear on the specifics) are collectable things you can win from quests or certain other accomplishments. You can mix and match them, and even retool your character to fufill a completely different role.

[Athryn]

A bit off topic, but an MMO in development, Heroes of Telaraa is planning to do just that. Classes (or subclasses, but more than class abilities, I'm not clear on the specifics) are collectable things you can win from quests or certain other accomplishments. You can mix and match them, and even retool your character to fufill a completely different role.

I know, how about a set of points you gain as you level that can allow you to change your character so that it can either do damage or heal!

:p

[Joe M.]

I would like it if they removed the class requirements on T1 and T2 gear, so my DK could run around in a Might set or something. It'd be fun anyway.

[Jakub]

Sweet mother of Satan, rogues can use axes now?

Too bad this is now, rather than back in the pre-BC days when weapon speeds got normalized.

[Lorini]

Alts are a necessity for me. I'd never play without them. I'd like an endgame that didn't require so much jumping up and down and around. I'd also like an elimination of the stupid vehicles. I also realize I'm solidly in the minority on both of these wishes.

[Skipper]

Alts are a necessity for me. I'd never play without them. I'd like an endgame that didn't require so much jumping up and down and around. I'd also like an elimination of the stupid vehicles. I also realize I'm solidly in the minority on both of these wishes.

I'm with you on the vehicles. Choppers, helo's, driving vehicles in raids, hell lets even throw in the huge mounts that literally obstruct viewing of NPC's constantly in Dalaran.

[Lorini]

Hmm, meant the non player owned vehicle, as I'm an owner of large Traveling Tundra Mammoth myself:) It reminds me of driving around in a max size Chevy Tahoe, and just as embarrassing.

If I recall, 3.2 will allow flying mounts in Dalaran, which means I'll be riding around on my more transparent flying carpet.

[Gedd]

If I recall, 3.2 will allow flying mounts in Dalaran, which means I'll be riding around on my more transparent flying carpet.

Don't think so unless I've completely missed something in the notes. You supposedly will be able to use flying mounts in Wintergrasp though since it's being changed to only allow so many players on the ground. That's a huge welcome change for me as flying around Wintergrasp so I could get from, say Icecrown to Borean Tundra, has always been a pain.

[LesJarvis]

Here's the quote from the patch notes:


Flying over Dalaran and Wintergrasp is now possible so long as players keep a healthy distance above the ground.

[Acoustic Rob]

The only vehicles that irritate me (besides the assholes who park their mammoths in the Dalaran fountain when I'm trying to fish) is the final dragon bit in Eye of Eternity. Primarily there's really no way to practice for it besides *running* EoE, and wiping on the third phase after cruising through the first two gets old fast.

[Griddle]

I'm thinking WoW needs more silly things in it. For example, some of the coolest things I have seen in the game are the snowman suit, orb of deception, deviate delights, nogginfogger, winterfall firewater, the ogre suit, furbolg staff thinger, etc. We need more silliness. I think they just added some crap that you can srink people and NPC's with as well.

[Ryslin]

Single character mmo's are good on paper, even if you setup a system for turning things around completely you have to invest new time in leveling the new skills in whatever way is provided.

(I seem to be on a star wars galaxies kick today)
This was provided in the original Star Wars Galaxies. I could be a scout to get the goods I needed to then delevel and relevel as an armorsmith to make the armor from the things I farmed to delevel and relevel as a merchant to sell the items...

It is defiantly time consuming. In some ways I miss it, but a single character per account is just annoying to those of us who see the game as more than one single life we could live there.

Note I exaggerated to some extent, you could be a reasonable level armorsmith and still sell goods, just to have a decent means of vending your goods you had to be higher in the merchant side thus loosing some armor. Usually you kept a whole tree of something else so you didn't get laid out by random critters as you went to and from your house/vendor spot.

[Joe M.]

The only vehicles that irritate me (besides the assholes who park their mammoths in the Dalaran fountain when I'm trying to fish) is the final dragon bit in Eye of Eternity. Primarily there's really no way to practice for it besides *running* EoE, and wiping on the third phase after cruising through the first two gets old fast.

You mean besides doing the "Aces High" daily quest outside of EoE? You can practice using the various hotkeys but it's really pretty simple. If you are DPSing, hit 1 1 2, rinse repeat. Literally, that's all you need to do. If Malygos targets you, hit the shield (presuming you're sitting on 2 combo points waiting for 2 to light up) and then quickly 1 2 to keep your DoT up, then you can resume your 1 1 2 rotation.

If you're healing then just spam hots and use a big heal as necessary -- I use an /assist malygos macro to find his current target because I'm lazy, plus it seems to work fairly well. Note that if people aren't grouped up for the burst aoe heals or they are bathing in electricity then those particular drake deaths aren't your fault.


Alts are a necessity for me. I'd never play without them. I'd like an endgame that didn't require so much jumping up and down and around. I'd also like an elimination of the stupid vehicles. I also realize I'm solidly in the minority on both of these wishes.

At least let the vehicles strafe for the love of god. I don't care if it makes no sense, or somehow violates vehicle-steering lore. I don't have turn keybound!

[Brian Seiler]

It is defiantly time consuming. In some ways I miss it, but a single character per account is just annoying to those of us who see the game as more than one single life we could live there.

I think that this might be the biggest part of the division. I can intellectually understand how a person might want his healer to be a completely separate entity from his tank to be a completely separate entity from his DPS to be a completely separate entity from his guy who makes armor and so on. I was brought up on Guild Wars - a game where your character is sort of more a bundle of skills and not so much an independent entity - so my relationship with my character is sort of like my relationship with my favorite PC - I built it and I know what's going on in there and I know all his personality quirks, but I'll rip out his guts and replace them without getting too teary-eyed.

The compromise proposal I would make is something like this for WoW.

Professions: Let me have as many professions as I want, but every [[appropriate time period - whatever day/week/month/hour/fortnight balances right]] all of my professions degrade a number of ranks equal to the number of professions I have minus two. So I can do everything if I want to, but it's a slippery slope to climb up. That leaves me feeling satisfied because I really only want to do, like, three or four things and I can, but there's still a personal cost to trying to overreach, so there's still a legitimate reason to bring up alts from a mechanical standpoint.

Classes: Let me train up as many classes as I want on a guy and swap between them. Obviously it's not like AD&D Dual Classing where I get all access to everything at all times, but maybe when I'm in a safe zone I can punch a couple of buttons and my Mage transforms into a Paladin. The levels I earn on a class stay in that class and new classes start at 1 and have to be leveled up. However, for every class I add beyond the first, penalize my experience and make it hard for me to level up. Say....5-10% cumulative for each new class I add (the biggest number I can come up with would be EXP = .5^(n-1) * BaseEXP where n=the number of classes you have). That way it's easy for lazy folks like me to jump from function to function on a single character, but we're giving up a lot of efficiency and beyond the first class or two we get ourselves in a big hole. You can still roll alts and they're more efficient.

Of course, the question then becomes how much pain I'm really saving versus logging out and logging back in. For the professions, I'd say it's a lot. It still honks me off a little that I can't mill with Herbalism and I'm basically missing a big percentage of the value on my collected herbs that I don't need for Alchemy, and it would be nice to stack up Inscription, Herbalism, Alchemy, Tailoring, and Enchanting and become my own little manufacturing engine on account of I'm kind of an antisocial gamer at heart, and it would certainly be nice for things you have to build with inputs from more than one profession (belts, for instance). For the classes....maybe not so much and maybe that's a terrible idea. The biggest advantage I can think of is that it lets you basically squish all your alts together for social (friend list, guild membership, etc.) purposes, and I'm not sure that's enough to justify a massive change.

[Acoustic Rob]

You mean besides doing the "Aces High" daily quest outside of EoE?

Doing "Aces High" is necessary but not sufficient, as there's also his damage shield and, particularly, the lightning ball, which requires the entire raid to rotate around the boss without getting all strung out and ending up outside healing range.

I wouldn't mind if the entire encounter were on dragonback, but switching mechanisms 2/3 of the way through a boss fight is dirty pool.

[Joe M.]

So I PUG this weekly for the chance at the best armor pen boots in the game. What I do is say "MOVE LEFT in phase 3", while also marking myself. That's the extent of my instructions. We stack in front of Malygos to start, and we stay in a cluster the entire phase. This really isn't rocket science and if people are failing given these simple instructions then they aren't trying.

Do you guys use DBM? It makes a loud noise when he targets you, at which point you hit 5 then resume what you were doing.

[zabuni]

The absolute brain dead method for Malygos requires only one intelligent person. Everyone else does a /follow during the end of phase 2. When phase three hits, he moves out of the way. Everyone else just uses spams heals/spams dps. It made the entire fight trivial, but it worked.

[Skipper]

The absolute brain dead method for Malygos requires only one intelligent person. Everyone else does a /follow during the end of phase 2. When phase three hits, he moves out of the way. Everyone else just uses spams heals/spams dps. It made the entire fight trivial, but it worked.

We did this as well. If you want to make it even easier, assign an appropriate number of healers (2 for 10 man, 3-4 for 25) and they will do nothing but the healing buttons during the fight, since the heals are AOE. The leader has to heal himself since he's out of range, but the rest of the "follow-ball" can be healed by the AOE healers. Your other people can then concentrate on nothing but DPS on Maly. This is how we got the speed achievement. 15 stacks of the damage debuff on Maly per dps'er was not uncommon at the end of the fight.

[Blackadar]

The compromise proposal I would make...

I don't think I'd classify those as "compromises". As someone who grew up with rigid class roles in MUDs, I think Warcraft already gives you a great deal of character customization. What you wrote is that you want the ability to be any race, all classes, fill any role or make any item at any time with just one character. You can definitely tell we grew up in different gaming eras...while you grew up on Guild Wars, I found the game to be a poor single player/multiplayer hybrid clone of Warcraft that was lacking in complexity, story and social interactions.

The whole idea on putting limitations on players is to foster a co-dependence with other players that ultimately makes a MMO tick. It sounds like what you want is the ability to have a single-player MMO and just join up with a few friends for some instances or PvP. That is the Guild Wars model, but it's not really the MMO model.

Some of your suggestions just aren't pragmatic if put in play. People just don't easily accept (and there have been some examples in WoW already, like with arena gear) limitations on using gear/skills they've earned. By that I mean if you maxed out a profession, people don't react well when they see their profession (and therefore recipes they knew can't be used) slipped because they couldn't log in for a week or two. You may be able to accept that, but the vast majority of the player base is going to reject it, much like they rejected XP loss for dying.

Another example is that if you start increasing XP needs for levels, you could find yourself leveling a character that's run out of quests. So now either players are forced to grind - and if they are forced to grind, they will complain LOUDLY - or Blizzard has to put in more quests just to help you level. Now considering that Blizz has reduced the XP needed to level, that wouldn't be a problem now, but it would have been a major problem on release. And if you allow that now, then everyone who has taken the time to level their alts will (rightfully) complain, especially since the reputation system is very important in getting gear/recipes and you're effectively bypassing that since you don't need alts anymore.

So your ideas aren't compromises in the least, but pretty dramatic and radical transformations of the existing dynamic in WoW. Perhaps a new MMO will adopt those ideas and put them in play at the start. I'm not sure I'd want to play it, but that's fine.

Frankly, I want just the opposite. Longer leveling times. Harder professions. Less flexibility with alternate roles from your main class responsibility. I still hate the fact that Paladins can go from tank to DPS to healer. I like the old Paladin - healer/tank and that was it. All of these limitations lend themselves to fostering that co-dependence with other players into a tight-knit group. You all need each other to succeed and that's when an MMO really shines for me. Allowing my character to become everyone and everything? Nah, I'll play a single player game for that.

[Creole Ned]

Another thing I'd like to see in WoW that is present in EQ2 and LOTRO (and probably others) are appearance slots. Put the gear with the best stats in the regular slots, put the gear that you think looks best in your appearance slots. Also the ability to hide shoulder pieces.

[Adam B]

Another thing I'd like to see in WoW that is present in EQ2 and LOTRO (and probably others) are appearance slots. Put the gear with the best stats in the regular slots, put the gear that you think looks best in your appearance slots. Also the ability to hide shoulder pieces.

Urgh. I play a Druid. Don't even start with me about cosmetic gear.

[Anaxagoras]

Another thing I'd like to see in WoW that is present in EQ2 and LOTRO (and probably others) are appearance slots. Put the gear with the best stats in the regular slots, put the gear that you think looks best in your appearance slots. Also the ability to hide shoulder pieces.

I really like this suggestion. I have an around town outfit that makes my dranei look like a Mexican death, and then I have real outfits for questing & raiding. The add-on Outfitter lets me switch between my outfits instantly, but it's still kind of a pain to have very little mana & health when I switch from my Mexican outfit to a real outfit.

[Blackadar]

Another thing I'd like to see in WoW that is present in EQ2 and LOTRO (and probably others) are appearance slots. Put the gear with the best stats in the regular slots, put the gear that you think looks best in your appearance slots. Also the ability to hide shoulder pieces.

I also like this one. It's easy to do and Blizz could put in some additional crafting recipes for better-looking, but functionally crappy, gear.

Of course, I'd love to see Blizz give us the ability to dye outfits, but i think there's some problems with the way they do the art.

[malkav11]

I think the problem though stems not from mixing PvP and PvE, but from how it's mixed. A game that started from ground up with the assumption that all activities would take place in a PvP environment, from questing to full-on raiding, wouldn't have this problem. It'd have other and perhaps more serious challenges of course, but this sort of zero-sum balance would be take care of by the constant and pervasive mixed environment (which would perforce be the default environment).

But that ain't how it is, so I can understand how you'd be ticked. I particularly agree in that the PvP in WoW blows trouser trout anyhow, so gimping PvE to make it work seems a bit silly.

Well, also, while that game might fix things for people who are annoyed by PvE balance changes not taking into account PvP realities, it would be utterly unplayable for the people who don't want to PvP.

[malkav11]

Classes: Let me train up as many classes as I want on a guy and swap between them. Obviously it's not like AD&D Dual Classing where I get all access to everything at all times, but maybe when I'm in a safe zone I can punch a couple of buttons and my Mage transforms into a Paladin. The levels I earn on a class stay in that class and new classes start at 1 and have to be leveled up.

As far as I can tell, you want FFXI.

[TheWombat]

Well, also, while that game might fix things for people who are annoyed by PvE balance changes not taking into account PvP realities, it would be utterly unplayable for the people who don't want to PvP.

Well, DUH! :)

I'm not describing a game for people who don't want to PvP. I'm describing a game that I WANT TO PLAY, without regard for commercial realities, etc. I fully respect everyone's choice of play style and type of MMO, but really, why is it so hard for people to grasp that whether or not it's commercially feasible, I want to play a game where when you choose a PvP server you get what you sign up for, and where for people who make that chose there is no consideration at all for those who might not like the ruleset they explicitly chose to embrace? Yes, the game I want would be intolerable for people who didn't want to PvP. They don't belong on this server or in this game. It's intended, hypothetically again, for a narrow subset of people somewhere between FFA gankfests and static orchestrated sports PvP. So in my little fantasy, yeah, people who don't want PvP, or who want to strictly control their PvP exposure, can go suck it.

[malkav11]

And I'm saying that that when someone wishes that PvP could be separated so that it doesn't fuck with their PvE game, your suggestion doesn't exactly address their concern.

[TheWombat]

And I'm saying that that when someone wishes that PvP could be separated so that it doesn't fuck with their PvE game, your suggestion doesn't exactly address their concern.

That's fair enough, though I don't think I was specifically suggesting something to address that, more like musing on an alternative approach that would avoid the problem altogether from my perspective. If you're into PvE and don't care about PvP, yeah, having any PvP in a game other than as a hermetically sealed optional game-within-a-game (a la Monster Play in LOTRO) is going to cause you problems.

But given the way most MMOs balance out the resources and attention given to PvP vice PvE, I think the PvP fans have a lot more to bitch about--there are precious few if any games that really view themselves as PvP first, compared to the other way around. Which is probably, from a business point of view, logical.

[Ryslin]

referencing the bit about longer leveling times and so on

I can appreciate what you desire, but I have to tell you that time is a factor. If you require time limitations, and extended leveling curves are time limitations, you are going to loose folk because there are easier ways to get a fulfilled feeling without beating oneself on the head.

The reasons why the original games were so much fun has a significant rose colored glasses effect. They were different, they provided an atmosphere that couldn't be found elsewhere, you were dealing with different communities.

I think there may still be a market out there for that level of dedication to a MMO, but I don't think anyone wants to tap into them at this point. Seems the almighty NOW DANGIT gamer is the one they are after.


I would applaud the game if done right, then never play it. I don't have the heart to sit there again. Call it burn out, perhaps I gave too much to other games in the past..but I won't walk into such a world knowingly again.

[Blackadar]

I can appreciate what you desire, but I have to tell you that time is a factor. If you require time limitations, and extended leveling curves are time limitations, you are going to loose folk because there are easier ways to get a fulfilled feeling without beating oneself on the head.

The reasons why the original games were so much fun has a significant rose colored glasses effect. They were different, they provided an atmosphere that couldn't be found elsewhere, you were dealing with different communities.

I think there may still be a market out there for that level of dedication to a MMO, but I don't think anyone wants to tap into them at this point. Seems the almighty NOW DANGIT gamer is the one they are after.


I would applaud the game if done right, then never play it. I don't have the heart to sit there again. Call it burn out, perhaps I gave too much to other games in the past..but I won't walk into such a world knowingly again.

I understand and I know that they probably won't try making another game that does take longer to level after the disaster that was Vanguard. But I'd join a well-made one because I think longer leveling contributes to a number of things that help the overall experience in MMOs.

For example, a longer leveling time means that people have a much higher investment in their characters. Therefore, you don't see people act nearly as much like asshats, nor do guilds come and go like the wind. Because you don't have alts - or nearly as many of them - the co-dependence on other characters is increased which tends to tighten up a MMO community. Also, I think people learn to play their class better because they spend more time with that class.

The old EQ took too long, even for me. The original WoW leveling (average 12-15 days played to 60) was pretty darn good - I'd increase that to 15-18 days. The new leveling curves of 5-7 days to 80 is just too fast for my tastes. Of course, it's not stopping me from playing... :D

[Brian Seiler]

For example, a longer leveling time means that people have a much higher investment in their characters. Therefore, you don't see people act nearly as much like asshats, nor do guilds come and go like the wind. Because you don't have alts - or nearly as many of them - the co-dependence on other characters is increased which tends to tighten up a MMO community. Also, I think people learn to play their class better because they spend more time with that class.

You don't know griefers very well, do you? Generally speaking, nothing you do at all can stop people from acting like asshats. It just....happens. You can give your players tools to minimize the influence they have on the game, but you'll have pretty much the same proportion of asshat to regular hat in any MMO. I think what you might be noticing is that games that take longer to play tend to have smaller communities, and smaller communities tend to be tighter knit, which is true. Unfortunately, most games don't want to shrink their community to make a better product.

[Griddle]

Urgh. I play a Druid. Don't even start with me about cosmetic gear.

All I can say is imagine a bear in the wedding dress tanking stuff, that's an instant raid wipe in my bood, too funny.

[Anaxagoras]

It just....happens. You can give your players tools to minimize the influence they have on the game, but you'll have pretty much the same proportion of asshat to regular hat in any MMO.

Link?

[Brian Seiler]

Link?

Not really - it's all anecdotal. I'm not sure how you'd measure that sort of thing - has anybody conducted such a study?

[Blackadar]

You don't know griefers very well, do you? Generally speaking, nothing you do at all can stop people from acting like asshats. It just....happens. You can give your players tools to minimize the influence they have on the game, but you'll have pretty much the same proportion of asshat to regular hat in any MMO.

I've been playing some form of a MMO since the mid-80s and that's not been my experience at all. In my experience, when you have a lot of time/effort invested in your character, you tend to put more thought into your actions and relationships are maintained longer. I just didn't see many people ninja loot in EQ, nor rage quit a guild in MUDs, nor mouth off in UO. If you did, you could be ostracized by the community and if that happened you'd be locked out of anything and everything.

[malkav11]

That's fair enough, though I don't think I was specifically suggesting something to address that, more like musing on an alternative approach that would avoid the problem altogether from my perspective. If you're into PvE and don't care about PvP, yeah, having any PvP in a game other than as a hermetically sealed optional game-within-a-game (a la Monster Play in LOTRO) is going to cause you problems.

But given the way most MMOs balance out the resources and attention given to PvP vice PvE, I think the PvP fans have a lot more to bitch about--there are precious few if any games that really view themselves as PvP first, compared to the other way around. Which is probably, from a business point of view, logical.

I would guess that, given the relative content balances, etc, of WoW, most people playing it are PvE focused first if not solely. So it'd be really nice if they quit fucking that end of the game in the name of PvP balance.

But for what it's worth, I hope you get that game you're wanting, someday. (And I hope it's not based on an IP that I wanted for a nice relaxing PvE experience. ;))

[TheWombat]

Heh, fair enough. And I do agree that with WoW's demographic, borking PvE for the sake of their joke PvP is bad news.

I'm not wedded to any particular IP at least--I'm pretty open to whatever storylines, races, setting, etc., other than, say, FullerBrushSalesman World.


I would guess that, given the relative content balances, etc, of WoW, most people playing it are PvE focused first if not solely. So it'd be really nice if they quit fucking that end of the game in the name of PvP balance.

But for what it's worth, I hope you get that game you're wanting, someday. (And I hope it's not based on an IP that I wanted for a nice relaxing PvE experience. ;))

[Tankero]

Butbutbut... eSports is the avenue through which videogaming can drive itself into the mainstream! If gamers become eAthletes, game companies can then start trying to get ad revenue from clients! Just imagine the possibilities for cash-flow; we could sell gamers an advertising channel for $60, and then make even more on the other end, as this Arena Season will be brought to you by... Doritos! Now with ePerformance Cheese Flavor! Get Fragz! Get Pointz! Get Cheezy!

This is the only way the industry can survive. Why do you hate videogames so much?

[Wolff]

i think you incorrectly downplay the importance to pvp to alot of players. Most of the people you may interact with may have a distaste for pvp but alot of people i know only pvp once reaching maxing level

[ahoythematey]

I've been playing some form of a MMO since the mid-80s and that's not been my experience at all. In my experience, when you have a lot of time/effort invested in your character, you tend to put more thought into your actions and relationships are maintained longer. I just didn't see many people ninja loot in EQ, nor rage quit a guild in MUDs, nor mouth off in UO. If you did, you could be ostracized by the community and if that happened you'd be locked out of anything and everything.

I'm sorry, but that's a very narrow and naive perspective. Griefing was common in EQ and UO both, with a potential for enormously aggravating consequences to both the griefed and griefer. The difference is always that griefers don't give a shit about the repercussions if their actions are upsetting the other player. I should know this: I grief all the time in games that allow it.

You are welcome to your incorrect assumption on this, but if you want some illumination you can look at various spots on the internet, such as Fansy the Famous Bard, a lot of Goonswarm, bon3d00d and platedewd, "TRAIN!", Flowers of Happiness, and so forth.

[Blackadar]

I'm sorry, but that's a very narrow and naive perspective. Griefing was common in EQ and UO both, with a potential for enormously aggravating consequences to both the griefed and griefer. The difference is always that griefers don't give a shit about the repercussions if their actions are upsetting the other player. I should know this: I grief all the time in games that allow it.

You are welcome to your incorrect assumption on this, but if you want some illumination you can look at various spots on the internet, such as Fansy the Famous Bard, a lot of Goonswarm, bon3d00d and platedewd, "TRAIN!", Flowers of Happiness, and so forth.

The point is that at least EQ and UO had repercussions against the griefer as well as the victim. I know...I played both of them extensively. I never said there was no griefing...just that there wasn't nearly as much asshattery as there is in games that make it easy as hell to level. In WoW and other "level instantly" games, it's so easy to level (and change the name of your toon now), you can pretty much act like an asshat at will. Kind of like you're doing...but it sounds like that's your nature anyway.

[Tankero]

The point is that at least EQ and UO had repercussions against the griefer as well as the victim. I know...I played both of them extensively. I never said there was no griefing...just that there wasn't nearly as much asshattery as there is in games that make it easy as hell to level. In WoW and other "level instantly" games, it's so easy to level (and change the name of your toon now), you can pretty much act like an asshat at will. Kind of like you're doing...but it sounds like that's your nature anyway.

What sort of asshattery are you thinking about? In regards to WoW, specifically.

[ahoythematey]

I might be an asshole by nature, but you are wearing some seriously strong rose-colored glasses, and it shows.

The only difference is in magnitude in player population. Trammel wasn't just some sudden whim of a rogue developer, and Sullon Zek's pvp-immunity rule wasn't altered on a lark. Maybe you, personally, somehow in all your very impressive MMO experience, managed to miss a lot of notably-documented tomfoolery and shenanigans during the "glory days" of MMO-dom, but many others did not, including the WoW devs who made a lot of design decisions to deliberately curb the kind of activity that was rampant before they had hit the scene. I'm going to suggest that the likely scenario is that you are noticing more of this behavior now because the market has expanded greatly thanks to WoW being played by every person on the planet. Twice.

[WildElf]

I know, how about a set of points you gain as you level that can allow you to change your character so that it can either do damage or heal!

Well, if those points lock you into a path that require you to either a) pay an increasing in-game cost to change, or b) a huge in-game cost to let you plug in two paths, and also c) still limit those paths to the class you selected at level 1 (such as, you can choose to have a priest be better at DPS or utility instead of healing, but you are always a healer; or you can choose to have a mage that's better at control or sustained damage, or burst damage, but you are always DPS), then yes, you're implication that it's like WoW would be true.

But the system I'm talking about is one where you can decide to have your priest abandon healing abilities for stealth attacks and lock picking, or heavy armor and aggro management, or maybe even someone who can do stealth attacks with ranged magic. I'm not sure of the extent of the flexibility of the system, but the changes go down to the root, and are much more than added flavor and focus like talent points. It addresses Brian's point of being able to change classes instead of levelling alts. At least, that's the design plan that I've read.

[Athryn]

I'm not sure of the extent of the flexibility of the system, but the changes go down to the root, and are much more than added flavor and focus like talent points. It addresses Brian's point of being able to change classes instead of levelling alts.

See, the thing is, each talent tree in wow makes the class markedly different, best example of this is the Paladin class, which can be a tank, a healer, or a DPS all in the same class, depending on how you spend your talent points (and the cost to respec is pretty negligible, being at it's maximum the cost of doing 2-3 daily quests.) It's like having 3 different classes rolled into one character. Talent points are definitely not flavor.

I remember coming to Wow from DAoC and thinking how odd it was at first that Wow had much fewer classes, until I realized the difference talents made to a character. My Cleric in DAoC could only ever heal. The fact that I would play a Priest and be able to have a DPS spec was a huge deal at the time. It doesn't seem all that groundbreaking now, but it definitely was at release.

[AndrewM]

See, the thing is, each talent tree in wow makes the class markedly different, best example of this is the Paladin class, which can be a tank, a healer, or a DPS all in the same class, depending on how you spend your talent points (and the cost to respec is pretty negligible, being at it's maximum the cost of doing 2-3 daily quests.) It's like having 3 different classes rolled into one character. Talent points are definitely not flavor.

WoW's talent points do provide a remarkable amount of flexibility, especially relative to the traditional D&D style "one class, one role", but not so much that rolling an alt is pointless. What if I have a Paladin, but I don't like the Paladin style of healing, or want to do ranged DPS? I have to make a new character.

[Thoro]

I remember coming to Wow from DAoC and thinking how odd it was at first that Wow had much fewer classes, until I realized the difference talents made to a character. My Cleric in DAoC could only ever heal. The fact that I would play a Priest and be able to have a DPS spec was a huge deal at the time. It doesn't seem all that groundbreaking now, but it definitely was at release.

Yeah, I had pretty much the same experience; I played a Healer, one of Midgard's classes, in DAoC, and the class had... healing, buffing and CC. No damaging spells whatsoever, and no combat styles. Soloing -anything- was impossible. WoW's priest class, with its DPS talents, was a revelation.

[Ranulf]

Yay they just released part of the 3.2 patch for pre-release download and its as crappy as usual. So for the past two days, every time I start the game up via the launcher it also starts the background downloader. Damn thing caused one WoW crash. The only saving grace is with the pre-patch download they actually release a real torrent file. Wonder of wonders I can get the files much faster using a real client.

[Anaxagoras]

Not really - it's all anecdotal.
That was my point. It's all anecdotal, but rather than justifying your opinion with examples or analysis, you just come out with multiple declaratives about THE WAY THINGS ARE. (tm). When you have research to back up those kinds of claims, that style of discussion makes sense. When you don't, it's just you being a blowhard.

In the interest of both demonstrating what I'm talking about & contributing to this thread: I think your idea that griefing behavior can in no way be modified or lessened is completely absurd. From a high level perspective, griefing behavior is like any other non-chemically addictive human behavior: it can be modified by changing incentives & the environment.

From a more practical perspective, having sizeable leveling times limits the number of identities that a griefer can assume. That makes it easier to identify them, and take protective actions to exclude them. In addition, this ability to exclude them from parties (because you know who they are) gives griefers an incentive to be somewhat polite. Some people don't care, and behave like assholes anyways, but that's fine by me. They just go on my friends list with the note "don't ever run with this guy again".

[idrisz]

Or just not play any mmo ever again, that will reduce the chance of you getting grief by 100%.