WOW: other hero classes were considered News

I love Necro skills in GW, so Necromancer would've been cool. I can live without though, I think Death Knight is cooler.

Death Knights were a better choice lore wise and helps pad out the tank classes some more

I agree, however Blizzard still have some shit to sort out.

Solo content. I enjoy my questing so imagine how utterly pissed I was to find the actually rather fun Icecrown chain cut short abruptly. I thought I missed something, maybe it was bugged. Nope, they hadn't finished the chain. That would be completed when the Citadel opens. I'm sorry Blizzard, if you're going to have people START a chain of quests with a reasonably nice bit of plot behind it make sure you finish it.

The end-game content has already been burned through by the majority of guilds as well. Malygos is a nice meaty boss but Naxx, especially 25-man, is far too easy. We still gotta wait however another two or three months for new content. Now Blizzard, I was one of the first to actually say spreading the content out a bit was a good idea but maybe speed up getting it to us? Current content is too easy and getting real old real fast!

PvP is also getting in the way of PvE too much, so much so I know a lot of priests have rerolled because the proposed changes to their class are just going to sting them too much in PvE. People like to PvP, I'm glad of that and I enjoy a bit myself, but it really must never step on the toes of the PvE. That's how Blizzard sell the game.

Finally, it's a shame Blizzard have been so hasty with WotLK. Sloppy patches that need hotfixing within 24 hours, some very questionable gear on the horizon (I'm a rogue and I'm already thinking I may reroll to NOT wear the new tier set! Damn it's ugly! No really, IT'S UGLY! And will be worse on the guys I am sure!), incomplete and/or bugged professions (Inscription is getting better but it's still not a "complete" profession with new glyphs due regularly) and a huge emphasis on achievements over new and interesting content is setting up WotLK to be a bit of a pudding.

I'm starting to be really disappointed and looking forward to Aion and whatever Square-Enix will be showing at E3. WoW will always have a place in my heart but Blizzard are getting cocky, complacent and lazy with the littered remains of those who failed to topple it. And paart of me wants a game to really kick it in the nuts and wake Blizzard up and remind them that when you're on top, you've got a much longer way to fall.

11 million people seem to refute that 'fact'

I got to 77 then unsubbed again, can't see myself going back to WoW again with KOTR and other mmos on the way. They can't change the formula as its too successful, but without the change something new will inevitably come along and topple them.

Instances being easy is not a mistake. It's a deliberate policy and a huge success. Before, most people never even saw that content. Designers were making stuff that was hardly used. Now, it's so popular it's straining the servers. Working as intended.

They still have 28 more hero classes to release? That should be fun :)

I am glad we now have another tanking class even though I am not much of a fan of death knights personally

@Orange
30-Jan-09 17:19:28

I got to 77 then unsubbed again, can't see myself going back to WoW again with KOTR and other mmos on the way. They can't change the formula as its too successful, but without the change something new will inevitably come along and topple them.

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I said the same things before AoC and WAR came out.
although i still have fondness in my heart for WAR, AoC was a farce.
I hope KOTOR MMO is awesome... but I'd not put all my faith in an unproven product (yes the single player games are ace but MMOs are a different beast).
Cautious optimism is what i'd recommend.
never underestimate a games company's ability to snatch defeat away from the jaws of victory.
many try to be so different from wow that they forget why it's so successful in the first place. the rest copy it so closely that - really what's the point of switching when the games are so similar and all your mates are still in wow?... :/

@ sonicgoo;

And we see where that's heading, most of the super-hardcore guilds that were world leaders have already stated their intention to check out Aion and maybe move their guilds over. It's like the PvP vs PVE argument, doing over one part of your auidence for another is a very poor strategy...

Eliminate the grind, focus on end game content and treat the leveling up system as a short but sweet tutorial method. By all means let people grind for better weapons, items, but making me grind mobs for a week just so I can enjoy battlegrounds is lame.

I really don't see how anyone plays this after three or so years (unless the subscriber turnover is big, since there is good fun to be had for a while).

Maybe if they had put in more classes (since they apparently are sitting on a pile of those) there would have been some incentive to fool around for a bit longer since the content is the same as before and it got old a long time ago.

@kami:

If Blizzard can do something that annoys the 100K or so uberleet players but pleases the 11,4M others, the answer is simple.

I agree much of WoW content does feel old and yet no other developer seems to be able to take what Blizzard have created in terms of MMO design and build upon it. Warhammer is a prime example tipped as the PVP WoW killer it was so badly implemented and executed that it never really stood a chance. Blizzard now have such a huge fan base and established IP that they could crap in a box and 11 mil people would prob still buy it.

I got to 77 then unsubbed again, can't see myself going back to WoW again with KOTR and other mmos on the way. They can't change the formula as its too successful, but without the change something new will inevitably come along and topple them.

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I played until 70 and then cancelled my account when I found I hadn't logged in for six months. I didn't pick up Lich King as at that point I'd lost all interest in WoW. It's a well-crafted game and very slick, but it's also just too narrow for my tastes and when I saw Lick King's feature set nothing there made me want to come back, as it was just more of the same for me...

I'm playing LOTRO now and having much more fun with that than I'd had for a long time in WOW.

Is it really a good tradeoff when you've been good to a particular audience to cut them off and say, "Thanks but we're aiming for the casual players now goodbye don't let the door hit your ass on the way out"?

WoW has been good up to now catering for all. TBC, as long as it was, showed us that Blizzard could cater for all their customers. Telling their hardcore audience now that they're no longer interested in them is a recipe doomed to fail in a big way - that audience has been with them for years. I have, though in that time I've spent a year away from it as well.

It's not that then casual audience do not matter, but saying the populous of hardcore raiders (100k is pathetic really, likely much more than that - 1/5th of recorded guilds cleared BT and that to me is bordering hardcore) doesn't matter is equally absurd. Blizzard have been able to cater to all. Okay, so there may end up content some won't see - it never bothered the casual market up to now.

The main reason why it bothers them now is achievements, and this is a system that just isn't going to work. And when big name guilds are starting to tire and look to the horizon, you really need to take note. This is an audience that has endured the most of the shit - from the early days of uberlag and failed patches and general technical buggery through the pretty abysmal launch of TBC and how servers couldn't cope, through the pretty hefty web of things Blizzard weaved to get to the end content in TBC and through all of this now, with smaller guilds clearing the content just as quick as them.

This is a patient, understanding audience that for the most has put up with Blizzard's crap for years. Maybe they don't matter to the majority of players or to Blizzard, but it'll be a pretty hefty blow to see these people walk away. Like it or not, these are the people who made the game what it is today. Some of them even managed to make a living from the game, either being paid to blitz the content or report on the game itself, the mechanics and fundamentals and relate it to all players.

Is it really worth the risk? Blizzard are playing a risky hand here for the sake of an audience that may not stick around half as long as those it is now shunning.