So if that's how you feel, have you left the game yet?

ME SEE WHAT YOU DID THAR!

Q: Various posts about the job applications on Blizzard's website concerning a MMO, and how it could possibly be additional manpower for WotLK
A: No, it is an unannounced Next-Gen MMO. And that doesn't mean an expansion for World of Warcraft either.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...geNo=2&sid=1#38

Can it be World of Starcraft? Finally?

Personally, WoW has past its prime. It is going down a fairly slow downhill as PvP is horribly unbalanced, arenas just aren't working for the majority of players, raids are overly time consuming despite efforts to reduce the size/number of bosses, etc. Will it die? Probably not.

The big problem is WoW despite all its hype is still a fairly heavy grindfest game. When I am not raiding, I am farming consumables for Kael. When I'm not farming consumables, I am doing 5s or 2s with my arena teams. It is a vicious cycle that never ends and Blizzard is doing nothing to fix existing problems with the mechanics. Granted it is a fairly old game by now in terms of MMORPG standards thus does not warrant a huge revamp at least until WoLK but still the problems that persist are driving away alot of players.

While I do hope Blizz is learning from their mistakes in WoW for the next gen MMO, I am honestly not pinning much hope on their next project to be any different. Jeff Kaplan (Tigole) has pretty much repeated the mistakes he did in EQ when he joined the WoW team awhile ago and there is no indication that this will change. Instead, what I will do is subscribe to Warhammer Online which in earnest looks like a 'fun' game and not a grinding one. Emphasis on the quotes on 'fun', all MMOs have their share of grinds but the good ones do it without penalising players. WoW had a fair bit of fun grind but TBC took it to the extremes and killed my interest in the game.

like i said, they need competition, if they are gonna further dominate the mmo market with yet another mmo title, lolgg.

---

Added on December 4, 2007, 2:03 pmfirst off, pvp is not balanced around 1v1, and in 5v5 formats, or even arguebly 3v3, its almost perfectly balanced. granted, theres 9 classes and to strike a balance between maintaining the 9 classes to be unique yet not having any of them being overpowered over another, is not a simple task. even the supposedly overpowered and godlike warlocks arent so op'ed now since they arent getting buffs at all in recent patches where the other classes are, imho now they are almost the same as any classes and are very killable just like any other class.

raids are much more casual despite your claim. and theres always even more casual raids like kara/ZA. if hardcore raids arent for you, dont do it then, stick to the casual raids such as kara/za. i wont argue about the grindfest that still exist in pve as it still exist be it for mats for consumables or reputation grinds/attunement/heroic badges etc. But to claim pvp or arenas being a grind is really absurd. 10 games per week is really too much to ask? and hell, you pvp for the sake of pvp, and have fun, if having fun and playing the game is a grindfest to you, might as well dont even bother about it.

again your claim of the changes to tbc changes for the worse and the current mechanics/flaws driving away a lot of a players are still far from the truth, as a matter of fact, the playerbase is ONLY increasing. and a further hard solid fact is that TBC is far more casual friendly than ever and could also be claimed to be the most casual friendly mmorpg ever in the market. if WoW is not your liking still despite all that then by all means, just rollover warhammer, i can guarantee you, 60-80% of WoW players rollin over warhammer, in the end returned to WoW very promptly, especially since 20-30+ of my WoW friends that went over warhammer before, all of them came back to WoW and never looking back.

This post has been edited by Quazacolt: Dec 4 2007, 02:03 PM

Lost Vikings Online

being one of the newbies..i partially dont understand this discussion..all i know is im enjoying my WoW right now n...i let myself enjoy my wow life b4 (mybe) i realized how bad it is.. haha...but all i can say is it's better that Knight Online.... =D

Lost Vikings!! OMFG

Thats one of the best SNES games ever!!

then you need not bother about this discussion if your enjoying the game.

the TS is stating his worries about how long WoW will last, and the main discussion is between the naysayers claiming wow is on its way to its doom and the opposition which is mainly me in disagreement.

I highly doubt ZA can be considered 'casual' considering it is fairly hard even for a SSC/TK guild to clear it in a few goes unless you have BT'esque SR gear for Shaz. It's harder than Kara, probably about as difficult as SSC in terms of 10 mans.

While its debatable, I do think the TBC changes are for the worse. The regular push for new dungeons which arguably are no different from previous ones, balancing issues (who are we kidding? BG9 is littered with war/druid teams even the blues and pros admit its a tad bit broken), the snail pace of patches, it is not the same game as most enjoyed previously in the old WoW.

Do I still enjoy it? Hell yeah! I have a druid in a BT guild (just healing when needed on offnights), SSC/TK guild for my main hunter, 1900s arenas on my hunter... the list goes on. But do I think it's on a decline? Probably yes. It isn't exactly Blizzard's fault but its just the cycle that MMO games go through if you have played older MMOs like EQ, DAoC and UO. WoW just feels bloated at the moment with lots of tacked on components which make the feel of the game less smooth per se.

WoW will still continue to thrive just like what UO and EQ1 are doing but certainly Blizzard is looking forward to their next gen MMO considering many of the old school WoWers have moved on to other games like CoH and the upcoming AoC, WAR and TR. Most MMOs last around 5 years anyway in their heyday and with WoW going past 3 years, it is really hard to say WoW is still at its peak not just in terms of subscriber base.

So where does WoW place itself currently in terms of the MMO evolution timeline? I'd say it is around the state when DAoC got the Trial of Atlantis expac. A tad bit bloated, past its prime, a tad bit heavy on tacked on features with slower pace of evolution. Will people still play it? Definately! Will I get WoLK? Of course. But the question I think many old school players like me who have been in the closed/open WoW beta will ask is... will the game be worth paying when AoC/WAR releases? The answer to that, I will have to wait and see. From my WAR beta experiences before the revamp, albeit it pretty short, was a good one pvp wise. I'm going to give it a shot with an open mind thus if it is good, that will be my main MMO for the next few years.

ZA is pretty much casual considering thats what:
- blizzard announced
- its just a notch above karazhan, which is already non-factor
- most fights are simple tank n spank, the only hard part about it is the gear sink, but if your fully kara/heroic geared, its not an issue
- the only hardcore portion about ZA is the timed quest.

and now you bring in BG9, 2v2, wtf? you wanna start looking at the 5v5 or even 3v3 brackets now? no, warrior/druid dont dominate those brackets. Blizzard already claimed and admitted what pvp will not be balanced around 1v1/2v2, they also even claiming the reluctance of even making 2v2 arena format but its due to player's demands it got out in the first place, get over it. Hell, your also a hunter, and despite their past history of being arguebly the weakest class in arenas, they are now heavily buffed and is a contender for top spots on the class rankings for high end arenas.
here: http://www.geekboys.org/arena/index/5/all/hunter/all/all/
and lets not even forget the hunter legend that defied all naysayins about hunter being bad even way before the hunter buffs - Hamchook.

Snail pace of patches? if you've checked the timeline of WoW patches and expansion releases, and the length of patch notes/changes, then compared it to ANY OTHER mmorpg in the market. tell me who wins.

No doubt just like every mmorpg, WoW will eventually come to an end be it the outdated graphics due to technological advancement, better programming or even game structure itself. But with what the current market is offering, like the ones you listed - City of Heroes, Warhammer online, Tabula Rasa, Age of Conan (lolwtf?) just does NOT offer any advantage over WoW. and despite your claims of people migrating over, i can also claim people that even migrated over in the first place returned to WoW. Hard fact is that WoW playerbase subscriptions are increasing, while the games you listed are either having an awfully slow increment in playerbase, being stagnant completely, or even worse, declining in playerbase.

Ive been an old school WoW'er playing since closed beta, ive come across many old school player burning out from WoW, leaving it, or even migrating to various other mmorpgs even the ones you listed. but hard fact is that, most if not all of them, returned to WoW eventually in the end. Why is that? nothing else matches up to what WoW offers, simple as that.

I think if you did ZA, you'll know that its not as casual as Blizzard said it is. Considering Blizz said ZG was the next UBRS which it didn't turn out to be.

Actually, other MMOs do have faster patch rates. But I wasn't comparing them with WoW. If you look at the past patches of WoW vs the ones coming out now, it is fairly slower (and buggier). Like I said, it is not due to the game being bad but the fact that Blizz is slowly diverting attention away from TBC, be it to the next gen MMO or WoLK.

As for balancing, well even 5s aren't exactly balanced if you look at it. The standard 2345 team still wins, you can't really slot in other classes without losing a counter and the list goes on. It is balanced to a certain point but at the end, it is not as balanced as one would hope for due to the fact that WoW was originally designed as a PvE game and not a PvP one. Don't forget, PvP was added far later and was never in the original game. Just like the 2345 teams for 5s, 3s are dominated by R/M/P teams so I highly doubt one can say it is balanced.

As for hunters, you really have to look at the way class mechanics work. Hamchook was strong because of one reason (I'll let you guys guess it ) and for the same reason too did Crimsonlocks aka Megatf succeed in 2s. No one's going to cry about 2s not being balanced especially since Blizz admitted that it can never be balanced but the bottomline is still that WoW isn't balanced on the PvP front. Blizz may give excuses that 2s aren't balanced, classes are not designed to go 1v1 but in the end, those are all excuses for PR. WoW wasn't designed for pvp, they slapped on the pvp component and end up having the whole arena balancing nightmare.

If you look at how WAR is being designed with its Archtype system together with Dogs of Wars and other pvp mechanics, THAT is a game designed from the ground up for pvp balancing. WoW just sadly is still a PvE game at heart and is nowhere even close to what DAoC was for player vs player action.

Now don't get me wrong, I think you misintepreted me a tad bit. I'm saying that:

-WoW is definately on a decline, not in terms of popularity/subscriber which you claim it is not (and definately it is not), but in terms of the lifecycle of an MMO. It's just aging and that is normal.
-Evolution of the game is definately slower, not because of the game is going bad but Blizz has shifted attention to newer stuff, WoLK included.
-PvP is hardly balanced. You may not agree with this but a quick scane of the stats and you can see certain classes being grossly under represented compared to others. Arenas work but it is still not what I would call balanced.
-People coming back to WoW? It depends. I've been on 3 servers so far, 2 of them I still play now. Most of the old school WoW heads that levelled with me pre-TBC are gone but in their place, new ones joined. Many I know left for CoH and other games including DAoC. Some did eventually come back but others didn't. Your experience may vary.
-Is WoW dying? Hardly. Will it still be the most popular game 5 years from now? I'm willing to put my 10g on that.

So to the original poster, no the game is not dying in any way. If you enjoy it like me and many others still do, by all means play it. But for me, I have pretty much lost the fanboi'ism that I had a year ago and if a good game comes by, I am more than happy to ditch WoW for another.

As i said, i havent done ZA myself so i will refrain from further commenting, however, ZG was pretty much the next UBRS despite how hard it may be to some raiders/players. ive pretty much done a huge majority of my ZG in semi guild/semi PUG due to the lack of players. while no doubt it isnt as effecient or successful as the majority of guild runs out there, but we've been full clearing zg on many occassions and its being done very casually.

Unless you consider the initial releases of mmo where almost everything is bugged and crappy that immediate hotfixes are needed to keep the players intact, or the minor patches that lists no more than a few lines of changes, no, other mmo's arent doing all that much better at all, if not, as i claimed, a lot slower than blizz's WoW.

5's are very balanced as the game changes progressed. season1 wasnt much the case, but season 2 especially this season (S3), 5v5 is pretty much as balanced out as it can be. every 9 class with ALMOST every different build (such as feral druids or ret paladins) are viable for 5v5. And despite your claim, its actually the opposite. If you find yourself being hardcountered due to "class balancing" issues, the best way to counter that is swapping in another class, and my team's been doing that since our major establishment on the 1.7k ratings and we're shooting past 2k ratings even the 2.1k ratings mark time to time. Today its been even better with a now FULL 10 man roster with all sorts of classes available at our disposal with the exclusion of a warrior and so long we have at least 6-7 people logged on for rotations, we've been able to come up with solid counters against almost any kind of compositions being thrown at us. That imo is balance, since nothing is particularly overpowered over another and everything can be countered. True, WoW wasnt originally designed to pvp, but yet another fact is that, since the closed beta theres pvp servers already, and patches are constantly being rolled out to address pvp balancing issues.

True, 2345 is the most popular and perhaps the most dominant composition in 5's, but do you know that 4dps are one of the best hard counter to a 2345 team? and that 2345 can be varied to different compositions to produce different results? the only definitive 2345 setup is that the team must have a warrior and holy paladin, and that 2 class alone can be easily countered by caster heavy teams especially if you have a warlock COT'ing the paladin and felpuppy constantly on him. Hell, the term 2345 in the first place is from team pandemic with the buttons that the shaman pushes to win. imho that doesnt mean much jack as team pandemic isnt a exactly the top 3 team in BG9. they are however damn popular and rather successful in profession WoW tournaments and just recently won their dreamhack tournament too at sweden.

As for 3v3 RMP, i run RMP myself, and i admit that it is fairly overpowered, especially with the recent changes to the bandwagon rogue AR Prep spec, mage co-effecient cast changes, the upcoming trainable iceblock change, and the major Disc priest changes. But do you know that Warrior/Warlock/Paladin is the hardcounter to RMP? or the infamous drain team that usually comprises Warlock/Priest/Hunter? Hell, team pandemic lost to hamchook's drain team badly and if it werent for their team's stubbornness in not switching out classes to counter pandemic's anti-drain team counter comprising rogue/rogue/druid (yes, messed up i know, one should never allow stacked classes in tournaments) pandemic would never even win the tournament at all. And if you havent checked the the majority of top 3v3 teams, no, its not really dominated by RMP entirely. theres a vast lot of 1 warrior + 2 healer or warr/warl/pala setups or even the infamous drain teams.

With the new hunter changes, if you still can claim wow pvp is not balanced at all (well, in entirely it isnt 100% balanced, or would it ever be as this is a very subjective matter) then you may want to have a step back and have a look at perhaps yourself being the hunter, or your teammates. As far as hunter goes, even our hunter that was with us as a clicker/keyboard turner was able to do fine even in the 2k rating bracket, and thats prior to the hunter buff. (if you've been following my minor pvp blog) Of course now things changed a lot for him as he is using macros and keybindings, and with the hunter buffs, hes pretty much a beast now able to take out people single handedly in arenas. At a lot of occassion we even assign him to solo dps 1 guy while main dps on another, causing intense preasure on the healers and they will have to choose who to keep alive and who to let go, either choice is obviously not good for them. And as fight drags out, viper stings and our priest mana burns or even warlock mana drain will kick in and we will emerge victorious eventually as oom casters cant do shit.

Yes the archtype system maybe good on paper, but will it be as good on release? while its hard to judge a game that isnt fully released many beta testers that supposedly migrated from WoW claim that it isnt as good as it claims. Also, if you havent noticed, WoW is the only mmorpg thats being played as a true professional e-sport, will warhammer bear the same ammount of quality of not more to be able to achieve that status? again, its still not on full release and its hard to make judgements based on the state of the game, but it is one good point to think about and it sets a VERY HIGH benchmark for warhammter to reach.

And you've got me wrong in the sense that:
- Im also claiming that WoW is not in a decline at all even in the lifecycle itself, at least not yet, seeing how it is doing now in the e-sport level, and the upcoming release of WOTLK.
- this i may agree, but you've mentioned that they are working on WOTLK, which would only mean good for the game in the long run.
- PVP is definitely balanced, given the options you can have to counter any forms of imbalance you may be faced with. What you claim is true though, for example the rogue/hunter class prior to 2.3, but since 2.3, they have recieved a huge number of buffs and as season3 hits, the statistics are showing that those said classes are definitely improving a lot and previously dominant classes such as warlocks and/or warriors are declining with the rising of hunter/rogues.
- difference in experience perhaps, but i could also claim that it may be the focus of one server from my part compared to you playing on 3 servers. as i am able to establish more presence and contact with players as opposed to a person playing 2 or even 3 sevrers as you mentioned.
- that would be too hard to answer, but i personally hope it wont reign as the most popular and dominant mmorpg as stated in previous posts. monopolization in anything never works, same would go for WoW

well i think post-TBC instances improved the weapons greatly. +70 stamina and so on. Insane!

Less ppl will raid the pre-TBC instances, prefer leveling then straight go raid postTBC

If not mistake I heard that WOW will have another expansion soon and this time will be level until 80

WAH Quaz can write so long like essay....see also lazy read ...to TS, wow is fun provided u can put a little commitment in it if u r a bz man then u consider urself to play ornot ..

i quitted WoW myself as i cant put commitment in it though..hehe

TLDR would be a better summarization of your post.

one thing though, WoW being so casual friendly, so long you dont mind being ownt by hardcore players be it pve or pvp, its perfectly fine to play at your own pace. My pace from Sunset Swish. its an ending theme music from Bleach anime in case you didnt know, just google or wiki it for more info.

DONT MAKE WARCRAFT MAKE LOVE!!!
(incase you dont know the above is from south park wow edition lol)
i think you all should go out and buy an orange box and install the tf2 and play when you are bored in wow!!! it really helps!!!!!

This post has been edited by Jas2davir: Dec 6 2007, 11:55 AM

well this i agree. players have to stop getting so pissed up when getting owned in WoW.

if you don't wanna get owned, go play sims 2