I Feel Like I Was A Little Harsh

I feel like I was a little harsh yesterday, and I don’t want to be this negative.  Let me start by telling you about my experiences with WoW and then you might see where I’m coming from.  I haven’t been playing since vanilla, I started when Burning Crusade came out.  I was instantly hooked.  In fact, I tried it on a friends computer and went out and bought the game the same day.  That was only the beginning.  After I started playing, I got all of my other friends to play it (If they weren’t already playing).  We ended up playing all the time.  The game was extremely fun and became even more enjoyable at level 70 when the game became more challenging.  At level 70 I focused on PVP.  I remember rocking a full merciless set on my bloodelf warlock.  I worked extremely hard on getting that gear.  I was proud of it too, because back then when you was a player with a full set of gear you knew that they were skilled and knew what they were doing.  The same was true with PVP, if you was an opposing player with the Warglaives of Azzinoth you ran.  Now with PVE, you had to have friends or work hard to get a pickup group to raid.  With the game being challenging, the people who focused on PVE were a more focused player who understood the game type.  For example I was entirely possible to log on, find a group, raid, wipe between seven and thirteen times, to then finally down a boss (not always the case).  after all of that you might not even win a roll for gear, but after all of that you would call that a good raid because there was progress made.  Any progress for you and your guild was a big step. In the early days of wow being a hardcore player was the only way to see end game content.  Blizzard realized this and wanted to include the casual player.  In vanilla and BC there was no pug queue system, so it took longer to get gear because you had to go out and find people who wanted to do that instance on your server.  It was a similar problem with PVP.  If you wanted to win an Alterac Valley, and not have it take three hours, you were going to have to join as a group.  Now because there was no place for casuals , Blizzard changed some mechanics around and added features to be more accommodating in the later expansions.  Unfortunately for Blizzard, once they started making these changes, the started the downfall of their community.

In each expansion following Burning Crusade, Blizzard created features to make end game more accessible to the masses.  On of the major features, that at low levels is helpful but later in the game gets extremely annoying, was their PUG (pick up group) System.  This feature would queue you based on your group roll, to then create a group the the proper composition.  With this feature Blizzard made it possible to be grouped with players from different servers.  This system on papers sounded good, everyone was happy at first because there would be shorter queue times and you would get geared faster.  In reality, this system caused more problems by creating a new type of player, the loot ninja.  Because you were grouped with players from other servers it was entirely possible to down a boss and have someone need roll of a piece of gear just for the gold and instantly leave group.  Now because they are from another server there is no way you can stop this person.  Even if a player didn’t steal a piece of gear, there is still the problem of players leaving for no reason.  Because a player no longer needs actively search for a group they feel no consequence for dropping group if they don’t receive the gear they wanted.  As the game progressed ninja looting became more prevalent.  It continued to get worse when Blizzard set gear restrictions to enter some of the instances.

Now these are just some of the reasons why the community has taken a turn for the worse.  Don’t get me wrong there are a lot of good and decent players who play WoW.  Unfortunately the bad egocentric players over shadow the team players.  I can tell you I will not be buying the newest expansion because, I cancelled my account over a year ago.  Like I said, I loved playing WoW, but after Blizzard turned on “easy mode”, and unintentionally ruined their community, I can’t justify making that $15 payment every month.

Blizzard, I’m not sure what you are doing

Blizzcon happened last week, and Blizzard has announced a lot of videos and info regarding their IPs.  Now I wasn’t there, and I don’t know everything they are planning, but from what I have seen it seems that Blizzard is changing.  They don’t feel like the same company that I loved years ago.  I used to get excited when they would release new videos on WoW.  Now with the most recent expansion video “Mists of Pandaria” I feel like they aren’t trying anymore.  Back in the day when Blizzard released a trailer for a new expansion, you watched the video and leaned where you were going to go, and the evils you were going to face.  For example in this tailer for” Burning Crusade”, the new area looks incomplete and not  rendered yet, but Blizz was still was able to show you what you were going to be fighting and and where.

Even more recently, when the patch for “Wrath of the Lich King” came out you knew what was up (even if the expansion title game it away).  I remember when this trailer came out, and how excited my friends and I were.  We would be able to down Arthas.

But now Blizzard puts out this trailer…..

This shows me nothing.  This looks like World of Warcraft ” Kung Fu Panda”.  From what I gathered in this trailer is the level cap is now 90, but there is no way to get there because there is nothing to fight in this new panda infested area.  What am I going to be killing, what is my ultimate goal, and who is the final boss standing in my way.  It’s funny really, they showed all of the other endgame bosses to then show you NOTHING.  I looked even further and I found another trailer on Blizzards youtube channel about one of the instances that you can take on.  Everyone is commenting on how the music is really pretty, but no one seems to notice that the dungeon is EMPTY.  There is no boss preview, not even trash mobs roaming around.

But enough with the new expansions, let’s talk about how it seems like this once confident company is scared of other MMOs.  Blizzard announced a deal.   If you sign up for 12-months of World of Warcraft via the WoW “season pass” you will get Diablo 3 for free….really?  You can still be billed monthly too. so you don’t need to shell out all the money all at once.  Not only will you get instant, free access to Diablo 3, but you’ll also be guaranteed access to the next World of Warcraft expansion’s beta.  Blizzard will also be giving an exclusive mount, Tyrael’s Charger.  Now is Blizz hurting that bad that they are going to give you a brand new game, a mount, and a beta key for “panda paradise” to continuing to play their MMO that you were planning on doing anyways.

What happened to you Blizzard?

Oh and I’m not done here, there is more to come on Wednesday.