burnout, grind, end game, seen it all. A question I have to aks you Tobold: How did you feel before BC was even anounced? didnt we grind for weeks in MC, BWL, Naxx and never felt bored?

What has changed in BC that we suddenly all complain?

Think about it. What changed is the social infrastructure. The social base from 40 players (where you need a base guild of 60-100 accounts) was tuned down to 10 with occasional 25 content.

I bet when most players have access to the large 25 instances that changes to the better, but not as good as it was with the 40 raid content.

I play because of the people on my server. And Bliz cut my social interactions every night from 40 to 10. Thats pretty drastic.
 

ok, weird. the middle-people complained the old dungeons were too long, now you have small instances for 5 people (out of my head there are about 16 dungeons for 5mans)
these are not for raid-people.

now with the next content-patch again the middle-people complain "Black Temple is just for the hardcore raiding people whine whine whine"
while most of them neglect the fact that:

we have again 2 new dungeons
Skettis and Ogri'la again for 5man.

new quests for The Consortium, Netherwing.

i admit, the word Black Temple and Illidian might overshadow the rest for a bit, but c'mon...
 

Really nice post of you, Tobold.

And i can completely understand it.

I myself had a 4 months "Pause" from End of 2005 to 2006.

Not that the game wasn't good anymore, but there was no direct goal, i was looking forward ,so other things kept me busy instead.

I normaly play 10-20 hours a week, and with that "Pace" ,it's still enjoyable.

I don't even have finished doing all the solo quests in BC with my main char (currently starting in Netherstorm), while other people already complain.

Looking at the Patch Notes of 2.1, tells me that Blizzard does take their customer serious, and will deliver more content, as good as they can.

I for myself, prefer "quality" ,instead of "quantity".

I mean, hey i could create a new Char tomorrow, and play for Month until he is 70 ,and still had more fun ,than in any other game i know.
 

It seems content doesn't matter for a lot of people. What matters is getting to Lv 70 asap, doing your attunements asap, getting your epic flying mount asap, getting through Kara asap.
The rest of us are happy to explore the content, and eventually I will get to do all those other things.
*Vlad*
 

The reason most people complain is that they changed too much all at once, and forgot some lessons along the way.

One of the more ironic changes that I've seen hit the guilds I have ties with is that they all scaled down from having a guild size to handle 40 man raids, to 25. Most did this just through usual attrition, some guilds forced it by removing the "dead weight". Ironically since the current end game for your average guild is heroics and Karazhan which is a 10 man raid. Finding groups that are balanced and with enough skilled players for 5man and 10man dungeons is a lot harder when you have a guild size of 30-40 compared to the old 50-60 players.

Another problematic design choice is to have a 7 day locked 10 man raid being a gate keeper to the 25 man raid content. At TBC launch none of the open 25 man content was really accessible. Gruul's Lair is now more where it should be difficulty wise, but its still only two encounters. To reach the rest of it you need to either do some pretty difficult 5man heroic trials, or clear Karazhan until your whole raid is attuned to SCC or TK. Most guilds have tried to run two or more Karazhan raids depending on their guild size, but unless 90% of the people can attend every single raid guilds end up with very unbalanced raids, or problems with people getting locked to ids. Its a management nightmare. The easy way out is to just run one Kara raid, but then you end up with over half the guild unhappy. The more serious raiding guilds can probably clear all of Karazhan in 4-5 hours, thats one evening for them. For more casual or less skilled raiding guilds you can end up only clearing half of it after 3 days of raids.

The difficulty of the raid zones post Karazhan is currently tuned for very well coordinated raid groups, and assuming consumables that requires hours of farming herbs and other mats. Well beyond what even Naxxramas required at the end of pre-TBC raiding.

For the more casual players I know there is actually too much content If you can only play 3 evenings a week, and your guild expects you to attend Karazhan or other raids, there is no time to run the 5mans for rep or heroics for badge rewards.

There are also some player social issues of not really remembering the past in play. People seem to think that Molten Core was easy, but the truth is that initially MC was pretty difficult. It just took time for more of the casual guilds to get organized enough to run MC and BWL. By the time they were able to join in on the raiding a lot of the 5man gear had been buffed, Dire Maul with its gear was released, there was PVP gear to fill in the gaps, and craftable gear was more out there. There were also 20 man raids with nice rewards, but overall not too hard to progress in. Blizzards mistake is to not anticipate this and make a forgiving 25man zone that would keep the specter of raiding guilds busy playing instead of whining on forums. If TBC were a new game, I would say the progression would work nicely after the 2.1 patch. Guilds would pretty naturally grow from the 5man stuff, to the 10man, then slowly build in size and experience to the 25 mans. However, TBC isn't a new game, its a continuation of a game where most end game guilds were doing 20 and 40 man raids on a regular basis. Going from that to only 10 man on a regular basis hurts a lot.

Blizzard also seems to have chosen a new route when it comes to releasing content. From the looks of it after 2.1 pretty much all the raid content will be in the game until the next expansion. This means they really have to make things hard to prevent the hard core guilds to finish all the content in 3 months, as it has to last until the next expansion. They clearly want a linear progression as well, so its a tough act to balance properly. Personally I thin kthe old method of regularly releasing new raid instances worked better, as the hardcore usually didn't stop playing they just kept farming to pick up the loot they still lacked, and it gave others a chance to catch up. It also didn't matter if the first few encounters in the next zone where easy so all guilds could make some progress, followed by some harder encounters so only the more skilled teams could progress, with a very difficult end boss. I really think this whole getting all the raid content out there is a mistake, as either they end up tuning it too hard so progress is far to slow, or its too easy so all the content is used up in 6 months.

Another design choice seems to be to really make the gear progress from raiding virtually flat. The major problem pre-TBC wasn't that raid gear scaled too well, it was that none of the other gear scaled at all. Sure the raid stuff didn't have to scale as well, but it was fun to be in a new zone and even if you didn't clear it all you knew every item you did get would make next weeks raid a little bit better. Raiding isn't all about loot, but after killing the same boss 5 times you need something more than just a fun fight to make people come back, and the loot overall did that. People would still show up to kill Ragnaros for the 50th time hoping to get their tier2 leggings. I still do not understand Blizzard choice on this, its like they have no faith that they will be able to add new gear to arenas or heroics, and that their their battleground gear matching system will fail. Its like all the different developer teams got different memos. It isn't just item scaling thats weird, but the fact that there are plenty of items that clearly have lacking or too many stat points allocated. It is well known that Blizzard uses a formula to design items, it really isn't that hard to make a small program to scan over the items and find the ones that are over or under budget. The fact that there isn't a basic item verification process in the Quality Assurance boggles the mind.

The power of consumables in TBC also astounds me. It was painfully clear to every raider that consumables were getting out of hand at the end of Naxx. Instead of evening that out they made it worse! To the stage that even the most hardcore guilds got fed up with it. The adjustments to consumables should have been done before launch, not something that they had to fit in to 2.1.

Things will probably even out in time, those who truly are bored of WoW will move on to other games coming out. Those are are just temporarily frustrated by the game will probably be happy enough to keep playing after 2.1 is out, at least until the next problem reaches its climax (seems to be something every 6 months).

Back on the original topic though, WoW as a hole has a lot of content. TBC alone does not have as much. I've seen all of the non raid content on 2 characters already. On a certain level I feel the progress in TBC is just too quick. Sure its nice to not have to grind to get to 70, but between instances and quests you can hit 70 halfway through Terrokar if you do too many instances, and by the end of Nagrand with a more normal amount. I think I have yet to set foot in Blade's Edge, Shadowmoon Valley or Netherstorm before being level 70.

Personally, I don't stress about the game like I used to so I enjoy the content it offers when I have time for it. Too many in my guild keep pushing for more progress, gotta move quicker... its like the treadmill of the endgame has been speed up... or people feel like they should be going faster!
 

"Even Friends doesn't offer that much content."

Huge understatement.

All 10 seasons of Friends offer a grand total of approximately 120 hours' watching.

WoW offers 2,000 hours playing. More than an order of magnitude more.

That's a darn good deal.
 

It is totally possible to consume all that lot of content in the two-and-a-half years of WoW's existence, if you play more than 15 hours per week, which a lot of players do.

Ok stop right here. You assume 15 hours a week a casual WoW player? With 15 hours a week you can easily participate in BCs entry endgame: Karazhan/Heroics. The really casual majority of WoW probably just finishes their lvl 70s, exploring the 1st 70s dungeons and stuff. Seriously 15 hours a week is enough if you are focused to participate in todays WoW semi-endgame.

I have the feeling that everyone burned out now, had unrealistic expectations for the 1st addon of the most successfull MMO ever created. BCs major problem was to handle out the new level limit too fast and too easy, so players rushed through to farm the new UBRS just to find out that it's challenging. BC failed to teach its players everything they need to enjoy the past-70 content. That's the flaw, rather the missing content.

BC's tagline was "You are not prepared." So true.
 

I respect you position Tobold, however; if you do read on with my post regarding Pardo's comment, I do say that there is indeed a lot of content. I then go on to say that that my wife is actually running out of levels before running out of content.

I also did not say that what Pardo said was not true, I said it was "...an odd thing to say", due to the end game grind that most players are encountering.

But...you were close I guess. Thanks
 

Ooops..forgot to link my clarification Tobold:

http://tcsgamer.blogspot.com/2007/04/im-still-not-dead-yet.html

...no drama or "smack down" intended there buddy :)
 

Ok stop right here. You assume 15 hours a week a casual WoW player? With 15 hours a week you can easily participate in BCs entry endgame: Karazhan/Heroics.

That is silly. Whether you are casual or hardcore is not a function of hours played. Who gives you the right to tell somebody that he crossed a magic threshold of hours per week and now has to be a hardcore raider?

What do these hour per week help you in a raid if you don't necessarily have them in large blocks, uninterrupted? Somebody who is babysitting his child, having to leave his computer for 15 minutes every time the baby cries would be totally unsuitable for Karazhan, no matter how many hours he plays per week. Somebody who can't predict when he will play, but plays the odd hour here and there is unsuitable for Karazhan. And somebody who comes home at 6 from a hard day at work and just wants to play to relax, and not turn WoW into a second job, is unsuitable for Karazhan as well. I know, because I'm in that latter category. And I play 30 hours per week.

Casual is an attitude, not something you can measure in hours played per week. There are people that could play 100 hours per week and still not be able to beat Karazhan.
 

Good post Alienated. I wonder when reading yours if Blizzard screwed up WoW from the beginning: Their End Game content was THE primary reason that people continued playing. Very good stuff they designed as it worked.

But it wasn't designed for Expansions. They had to throw away years of work as noone goes BWL/Naxx/AQ anymore with BC.

I also wonder where the design change cames from and must say it can only be one reason: the original designers moved on, thats the secondary team working there. I guess the primary team works on a new project and the secondary team now needs to learn the ropes. Its very hard to design a MMOG.

Casual vs. Hardcore: from the Information I have you can simply divide them: If you run Instances regularly you are hardcore already. Casual players rarely see them. And there is a good amount of people playing WoW like this. They have seen the Death mines as many Quests lead there, might see BRT maybe, but all the others ... rarely. There are many people out there who play WoW just a couple of hours liek we would play a single player RPG
 

Actually, we've been under BC functionality and framework for almost five months already, since the 2.0.1 compatibility patch. And many people consumed a lot of BC content before it was ever released by playing the BC beta.

Doeg
 

There was a 40 level gap, in TBC, with no new content, and yet the expansion took over two years to deliver. That's inexcusable. Why introduce new races, and then expect players to slog through old familiar zones in order to level them up.

And as I already pointed out, in a previous thread, the talent system makes it impossible to casually tack on extra levels, so this problem isn't going away.

Am I the only one that thinks talents have caused more problems than they're worth?
 

All of wow is a grind. Pre-70 'the grind' is just covered up with fancy quests. Also pre-70 you get more for your time vested. One quest may yield a new weapon, and you also leveled up during that quest so you got new skills. The quest inolved a quick 1-2 hour run through a dungeon as well. You got two armor drops.

Time vested: Three hours.
Rewards: Earned a new level, new skills, three items.

Lets explore end game...infact to be more specific lets explore my end game last night. I log on, knowing I'm needed to fill a slot in group 3 for Karazan. I log on at 6 server time, raid is supposed to start at 6 server time. I know it will run a little late so I start mining. I mine for three hours, 9 server time the raid finally starts. My group spends an hour clearing the first boss in Karazan because we had to clear twice because adds respawned due to a healer going afk for 15 minutes right when we got to the boss. We called it after that because I, and two other had to leave.

Time vested: 4 hours.
Rewards: 30 Fel iron, equivilant to about 25gold. Downing the first boss in Karazan but no loot for me.

Now everyone can get a good or a bad night loot wise. Raiding or just in a 5-man, even solo, so the examples I used arn't ment to be 100% true. I could of started my raid at 6. Down 4 Karazan boss and won epics from all of them...highly unlikely tho. I just wanted to illutrate the point that pre-70, time vested yields much better rewards. You are still grinding. Killing 40 chub toads is no different then killing mobs in Karazan. The difference lies in the risk, time vested, and the reward. Pre-70 will seem like less of a grind only because you are being compensated better for your risk and time.
 

WoW is missing player customized content to compensate the lack of (reachable) designer created content.

Non-grind and Fun! PvP for (semi)-casuals, player housing, more roleplay possibilities
 

Excellent post Tobold - it has got me thinking. Even if were posible would we really want a game to have infinite content? Speaking personally I think not. I don't want to keep playing the same game for the rest of my life. I want to be able to move on and experience fresh games and fresh ideas.

Wouldn't it be great if an MMORPG actually had an end? Imagine if in another 2000 playing hours or so you could stand atop Mount Doom and be greeted with the message:

"Congratulations you have defeated Sauron and saved Middle Earth.
What would you like to do now:
i) Continue playing in Role Play mode
ii) Restart as a new Character
iii) End the Game
Please enter your choice"

Surely a game developer could design their billing structure so that they can still recover their costs and make a healthy profit if players only play for one to two years or so and then move on.

I realise of course that in the real world a game publisher is not going to happily wave goodbye to paying customers but perhaps they could offer an easy transition to a brand new game.
 

I think many of us have lost the magical feeling that WOW provided when we first logged in oh so long ago. When I look back on my first month in WOW, I was awestruck. Stormwind seemed like the biggest city on earth, the world itself seemed enormous (because it was) and I never had a problem logging on for a couple of hours of pure jubilation. The content was certainly there for me when I first started.

Now, a boat load of MOD/UI addons later, the game doesn't seem as big as it once did. Reason being, I know the game now. I know the areas, many of the dungeons, and if someone asks me where to find something, I can usually point them in the right direction. The content is still there, I just know more, thus its easy to feel like there wasn't much content to begin with. Anyone who has ever lived in a big city in RL goes through the same situation: the city seems huge, but after a year, the same guy/girl who couldn't believe how much there was to do in city X, is now driving to city Y for a night out as "there is nothing to do" in city X anymore.



(If you run Instances regularly you are hardcore already)

I'm not sure I agree with that statement, but I guess that means I am Hardcore since my priest hasn't completed a quest in 5 levels. Personally, I think it is all about choice: I choose to spend 2 hours a night in an instance as the XP is good, the loot is top-knotch, and I enjoy playing with others. I don't think that is any different than the guy who quests 2 hours per night except maybe that players gear sucks :P.
 

Familiarity breeds contempt.

That's certainly how I feel. I used to be happy spending an hour or two camping one particular type of mob farming drops. Nowadays I can't bear to be logged on for more than 30 minutes with out being in a group, and then I don't wish to be doing the same instance over and over again - I want that WOW factor that you get from seeing things and doing things for the first time.

The novelty has more than worn off for me now. The next expansion would have to do something radically different than simply be a new landmass with the same old kill quests in it for me to be tempted back.
 

Well, they are planning to patch in new quests and rep and a couple small areas in 2.1... perhaps to compete with Turbine's patch model around the launch of lotro? Competition is a good thing for the consumer.

Still, it's amazing how long it takes them to get even basic things. The famous Blizzard polish is becoming a downside as more and more players reach the end of the content pipeline built up in the several years before the launch of WoW. LOTRO feels a tad rougher in some ways, and there are parts of the world that don't feel nearly as handcrafted, but the upside is that it looks like they'll be able to generate and addon content much more quickly.
 

Wolfgangdoom, I feel likewise.

After 2+ years of WoW, the curiosity about places is gone. There is no more incentive to explore, no "What is in there?" anymore.

In the pre-expansion, there were a lot of places with a lot of interesting stuff even though there were no quests, and this fact may even have made them more interesting due to the "mistery".
 

I will be quite curious to see the crowd that consumed the WoW-BC expansion and bailed to LOTRO give their impression of LOTRO in mid-July.

Will blogs be saying that the "base" LOTRO is all used up just three months after release?
Will expansions to LOTRO be able to stay ahead of players who are playing 30 hours a week?
Will LOTRO be able to maintain overall polish and quality and balance in a rapidly growing and changing environment?
Will LOTRO originate an endgame alternative to a "leet" raid grind, or PvP, or bumping the level cap up by 10 and opening up a new area?
 

I really wish that all players could see the raid instances. Just the zones themselves and the atmosphere is quite awesome.

The zones themselves would be crushingly painful for the guilds that dont operate like a business. I really really wish there was an 'easy mode' for raid dungeons with nearly no upgrades. You could just tune the bosses to drop 2-3 blue set pieces or something, massively reduce hit points and damage done.

Itd be awesome.