I was desperately searching for something worthwhile other then raid more cause its fun.

 

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It isn't a bad blog for what it is. Not very insightful or anything, but nothing really false in it either.

 

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I dunno Sprawl, all I see when reading that is a lot of "Woohoo! Stupid mechanics to fudge people with high ping up and make them spend even more time on encounters! CHA-CHING!".

I'd pay good money for an MMO that actually played like an MMO and not a twitch based game. I can only take twitch games for so long, maybe an hour at a time, yet MMOs were traditionally games where it was more about knowledge and not about "zomg 200 ping? /gkick", all while having a significant amount of play time, more than an hour at a time definitely.

 

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Ping will always have an impact on an online game like this. I doubt a MMORPG that plays like chess, where everybody has to wait that the others have made their move before being able to continue (aka "turn based", would have any success. If that's what you like, may I suggest playing online RTS games? But complaining about ping having impact on a MMORPG is like complaining a car needs some kind of energy source to work.

 

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You can't really get away from ping/lag issues when playing an online game. That said, WoW does focus a lot on being fast and DPS than being inventive or dynamic.


The post is kinda interesting because it seems like they know that progression is way down from WotLK... and yet they ask why even though they say they already have the numbers. The questions seem patronizing - Why don't they simply ask 'tell us why you fail?'

They also seem to be unconcerned with the amount of people that completely dropped out of raiding or interest in it.

They will never ask that question.

They would not like the answer.

The answer being: the Devs are the problem. They introduce clunky changes that either dumbs down every class or makes all the classes into a combination of autoattacking while waiting for a proc, 1 button wonders or priority based dps classes. Couple this with hot fixes every 3 days, completely redesigning existing mechanics and their refusal to listen to anyone but their own egos....the problem is the Dev team. Not to mention the fact that their QA department is atrocious and continues to make the same mistakes over and over (read, the QA supervisory dpet suffers from the same problem as the Dev team: ego).

 

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WotLK's underlying design philosophy was "retention through inclusion". They designed a tiered difficulty system that allowed people to get involved in the endgame and storyline at a level that fit their level of skill and commitment. Everything about WotLK from quests that involved the LK to the dungeon finder, was designed to get people engaged.

In Cataclysm the underlying design philosophy seems to be "making WoW hard again". It seems like this expansion is the result of the egos of the developers and the "hardcore raiders" being too fragile to allow the unwashed masses to have access to content and purple pixels. It's like GC needs to prove to the word that he's talented by making content that "casuals" can't clear. The hardcore raiders are happy about it too since they get to think that having the best dressed dollies standing by the mailbox makes them superior again.

I don't think the new approach is good for business but it's good for all the insecure little boys that are making, and playing, this game.

The game is tired and old,would you play it for free? I don't think I could,maybe arenas...Blehhh

Perfect summary.

 

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I don't think interest went anywhere, they just bumped the curve significantly. There is no entry level raiding in cata (except BH which isn't even really a raid, just like VoA never really was a real raid). Casual raiding went from being very accessible to utterly crushed in cata.

 

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