Wow has lost its touch. Is cata responsible?

[deertos]

What do you guys do to get you playing wow?

[MiRai]

What do you guys do to get you playing wow?
1. Log in my choice of female Night Elf, Draenei, or Blood Elf teams
2. Remove their clothing
3. /dance
4. ???
5. Profit

[Oatboat]

I actually just resubbed to play some goblin enhance shamans.

I dont know that it lost its appeal.. but it sure is fun after 6 months away from it.

[Emo?]

Soloplaying some aswell on my rogue. But will prob swapto BF3 when it comes.

[zenga]

I blame all the people who hyped cataclysm ever since the day I started playing (november 2009) like there is no fucking tomorrow. Cata this, cata that, ... cata here, cata there, cata everywhere. Without thinking for a couple of seconds that 'all new zones' is only content for a couple of days. In the end dungeons are the same, arena is the same, raiding is the same, professions are the same and bg's are the same. The only thing that is different is the package.

Thinking that cata would solve your problems with the game after playing for years is basically the same like those couples who take a baby to fix their relationship. In ever game I've played people say the same after x years, that has little to do with cataclysm or the state of the game.

[Ualaa]

I find you just need to get excited about something.
This generally happens, by choosing a new composition or a different aspect of the game.

If you've never cleared heroics, making a team for heroics and watching their progress through content... and seeing some content become farmable that used to be automatic wipes every attempt.... that could be exciting.
There were posts of teams that were essentially two healers + one tank + two DPS, clearing most of the content fairly early into the expansion.
And these kind of teams are definitely very different.
There was the two shaman team, which Riptide x2 and Earth Shield on the tank, as absolutely mindless healing, combine that with two of each totem type for covering all the desired caster buffs... and you only need to concentrate on movement or whatever the trick is, in a given fight.
Or the two Paladin healer teams, where each will Beacon a DPS and then either alternate (for lasting longer) or both heal (for raw healing power) the tank; same idea as above -- with Protector of the Innocent and Beacon, the group is essentially immune to AoE.

If you've never done a lot of competitive PvP, then blowing people up can be fun.
Either with a caster team or an all melee team, whatever you've not played as much with.

The accumulation of gold, and pushing myself towards a million gold, was exciting for a while.
And that is just doing alchemy cooldowns, and buying/selling things on the auction house.

My Ferals were exciting for a while.
And then they announced two major nerfs (removal of Powershifting breaking Root & removal of Berserk breaking/making immune to Fear) and a minor nerf (DoT damage reduced, Direct Damage increased), and again Warcraft lost its luster.
But I did have three plus months of prepaid time... so moped about the forums for a bit, and did alchemy cooldowns sporadically.

Then I started 5x Horde Paladins, and leveled them up as Exorcism/Shockadin casters to 57th in Cloth BoA gear.
The intention was, and I suppose is, to get them to 72nd for play in the immensely popular 70-74 bracket.
A single weekend of pvp, will get a full set of honor gear which will be close to best-in-slot (with the odd Sunwell piece being superior), and that gear will never become obsolete or need to be replaced.
One school of magic will suck as far as lockouts go, but no one has Holy resistance... and with five of them, they'll be close to immune to dying in BG's.
I'll likely go back to them, at some point and given they're 57th, 72nd is fairly close.

The arena videos and assorted threads for the DK teams got me excited too.
And I actually switched from a fun composition to a different composition, and so far it is fun/new/interesting.
The team is by far the strongest I've personally played in PvP, and even running AV as my PvP for 90% of my pvp time (ran 150+ games, the AV weekend prior to this one), it is still fun.

You just need to find something that is different to what you've done before.
Decide what you want, and think how it will rock when you get there.



It isn't so much that Cataclysm sucks, while Burning Crusade was an absolutely amazing expansion through and through.
Even though the BC era is my favorite, and the Cataclysm era is my least favorite.

I think it is more the amount of consecutive or mostly consecutive time you spend with the same game.
When things are new, and you are exploring or discovering something, it is naturally more exciting; I was pretty close to quitting warcraft towards the end of Classic Warcraft, then got interested with Burning Crusade... and almost quit again, but saw Ellay videos and got into boxing.
So BC for me, was exciting at the start and at the end, and looking back it is my favorite period of warcraft; but I almost quit during that favorite era.

Taking breaks from the game, makes it fresh when you come back to the game.

There is the long thread of people who quit the game, in the Cataclysm era.
Some of the reasons are boring questing that is incredibly linear.
But the questing process is relatively quick, compared to say 10 levels of WotLK... and people complained of the collection quests there, then the very next expansion complain of the rail-roading of Cataclysm.
Once the leveling is done, and that is a very small percentage of the game, Cata is essentially the exact same as BC or WotLK or whatever the next one will be.
There are dungeons, heroics, raids, battlegrounds, arena, world pvp or farming.
Tradeskills use a different cloth or dust, but the basic formulas are the same, and likely will be the same into the future -- it is a winning formula.

Despite games like Rift coming along (which had just over a million pre-orders), with the passage of time the player base grows.
Warcraft, including Cataclysm, is massively successful.

[Gamb1e]

I just started two new 5 man teams for the Cata Expansion ( I only used to dual box).

Since I'm not able to create new topics yet, any advice for the boxing 5 different class changes with the healing changes in the cata expansion?

My first team on alliance is a Feral Druid, Hunter, Balance Druid, Shadow Priest, and Mage. For dungeons, I am thinking of going dual healer with the priest and druid to help with the Cata triage healing system. If having 2 healers is overboard, which healer is better for boxing, druid or priest?

My second team on horde is a Warrior, Death Knight, Paladin, Warlock, and Shaman. I don't want to tank with the pally, so that leaves the warrior or DK. Any tips on which tank/dps combo would be better for 5 mans? I'm thinking prot warrior/unholy death knight for the utilities the DK would bring against casters in dungeons. I guess that leaves a dual healing setup with a holy pally and resto shaman until I get geared up and can handle heroics with just 1 healer?

My rogue is on a pvp server in case all this doesn't work out =D

[Sam DeathWalker]

Ya its all relative, when I got the somewhat rare staff drop off a skelly that sold to a vendor for one gold on my level 1 or whatever when I started EQ that made my whole day or two, I had a WHOLE GOLD to spend. And when some high level gave me a super robe for my level I was really excited also.

Now with 6 million plat in the bank in EQ one gold dosnt really excite me much ....

There is just so much to do though, I mean the game never ends. Do the insane title quest if you are bored lol ...

Look WoW just has more income than any other game and can spend more for more artists, more designers, more servers and whatever. Its a commanding lead that is going to be very hard to overcome.

No matter what complaint you can level against WoW you can basically say the same and more for any other game (I still don't like that some of my guys are cows and the goofy kid style graphics compared to the "real world" look of EQ but whatever it is what it is).

[Apps]

It isn't so much that Cataclysm sucks, while Burning Crusade was an absolutely amazing expansion through and through.
Even though the BC era is my favorite, and the Cataclysm era is my least favorite.

This.




There is the long thread of people who quit the game, in the Cataclysm era.
Some of the reasons are boring questing that is incredibly linear.
But the questing process is relatively quick, compared to say 10 levels of WotLK... and people complained of the collection quests there, then the very next expansion complain of the rail-roading of Cataclysm.
Once the leveling is done, and that is a very small percentage of the game, Cata is essentially the exact same as BC or WotLK or whatever the next one will be.
There are dungeons, heroics, raids, battlegrounds, arena, world pvp or farming.
Tradeskills use a different cloth or dust, but the basic formulas are the same, and likely will be the same into the future -- it is a winning formula.

Despite games like Rift coming along (which had just over a million pre-orders), with the passage of time the player base grows.
Warcraft, including Cataclysm, is massively successful.

God help me I read that wall of eye bleed. But in total agreement.




Taking breaks from the game, makes it fresh when you come back to the game.

This is what I do. Playing WoW through Classic for so long was indeed fun. It was a different game. No one argues that... ever. We can pick out the things that where key for us individually, but the point is.. it was different.

For most original wow players who still play, I think itll be hard to find a significant % of them that didnt like it, when BC came out. Hence, just heightening the already likable game expierence.

Wrath and Cata (IMO), seemed to cater to the "instant gratification" crowd, and the "im not willing to learn, or cant learn skill for this game... not fair... lemme be OP too." crowd. Those people tend to accept and love Cata more so than what I call old school WoW players.

[Kalros]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ualaa http://www.dual-boxing.com/images/IPBPRO/buttons_IPBPRO/viewpost.gif (http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?p=334023#post334023)
Taking breaks from the game, makes it fresh when you come back to the game.

This is what I do. Playing WoW through Classic for so long was indeed fun. It was a different game. No one argues that... ever. We can pick out the things that where key for us individually, but the point is.. it was different.

I thoroughly agree with this as well. I just came back from a 3 month break, and it has been great. I've been leveling a new team starting at 1, and also making teams to level from 80 to 85.

[Tonuss]

I agree that taking a break from the game can be a very big help.

I think that persistent-world MMOs change the way we approach gaming, and are designed (not deliberately, IMO) to induce burnout. I cannot recall any other video game that I would play almost every day for at least an hour a day for months, even YEARS, at a time. There were periods during my EQ and early WOW days where I was playing every day, two-to-four hours a day, for weeks on end.

Even games like the Civilization series, which I would play an absurd amount of over a short time, didn't keep me coming back every day for hours at a time over a course of months. Or even weeks. I played a shitload of Civ2, and more than a few of my Civ2 sessions were almost certainly much longer than my longest ever WOW/EQ session. But since each game finishes at some point, I'd go for days or weeks before I picked it up again. Not my MMORPGs, though. Day in, day out, grind grind grind. It was fun, don't get me wrong. But burnout is inescapable, IMO.

So now I take breaks whenever I feel I need one. Or I do as I am doing now, where I play 30-60 minutes at a time with the occasional day off and the rare 2+ hour play session. I don't think I've logged into WOW in three days or so as of today, and I'm not worried about it. And these days when I play, I don't feel as if I'm falling behind and need to make up the slack, either. So the threat of burnout is pretty much gone now and I can enjoy it more when I play.

[AgentSnipps]

Like just about everyone said above me takeing breaks can help a ton. I've played off and on since release and evertime I go to take a break I just watch MMO champion every now and then for something intresting to pull me back in. This is the longest break I've been on (over 8 months) but reading these forums and such has goten me excited to try multiboxing again.

Since I have a tendency to wander and get side tracked I've deicded to forgo RAF this time and either lv my 71 hunter,shaman and warlock to meet up with my 80 priest and pally and 5 box cata or just dual box my priest and pally. This way if I get distracted by oh say SC II again I wont be wasteing my RAF time.

Also considering faction swaping to Alliance, not a fan of ditching the Horde but I think a fresh viewpoint of the game might hold more for awhile longer and I can always go back.

P.S. Why does everyone love BC so much? I had just enough time to hit 70 and clear kara before going to bootcamp and afterwards could never get into it.

[Oatboat]

Actually its going pretty fast with no RAF. My gobby enhance shamans are climbing pretty fast. Was suprising how much more exp they added to low level quests. Of course if you had RAF with the new quests... it would be nuts.

One thing that i've really enjoyed are the guild perks. Joined a level 25 guild and got tons of perks... i didnt even know what some did until i needed them lol.

[lightstriker]

I have taken so many little breaks. it helps a lot.

Re-spec old teams and composing new teams or levleling alts get me going. There are so many teams to try. Exorcism and Holy Wrath(round robin) was a huge advantage in Wrath. Now I i got 3 tankadins and 2 Holy/dps assist. So I don't CC like Blizz wants us to. I rarely bother to dispell. Tanks have cheap AoE. Because of all the CC, I am currently pushing my pet teams (and Druids.) for off tanking(mainly Beast spec).

Faux AoE healing with 2 Holy. Take the talent Protector of the Innocent. Cast 2 Beacon of Light on one tank. Heal the others and almost everyone gets some healing.

Cata is good for all the revamp classic maps and other refinements. People seem to forget that and focus on the 85 maps and end game. We have been leveling the old maps for SIX years. This is a great expansion pack.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

WARNING!
http://www.feministe.us/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/WALL_OF_TEXT.jpg

I don't think Cataclysm was responsible for all of the ills of late as there are a lot of folks still enjoying parts of the game. I do think that Cataclysm went downhill in a few ways:

Instance mechanics adopted a lot more "one mistake and you get one-shot" mechanics and TONS of gratuitous AoE damage.
Instance trash became a pain in the ass with no particular rhyme or reason.
All of a sudden, CC became a requirement unless you outgeared the content.
Healing drastically changed from a sliding scale of capability to a "you must be THIS HIGH to heal THIS INSTANCE" setup.
4.0 over-homogenized talent trees and, thus, the options classes had to play variable roles. Sub-specs/hybrid specs were effectively gutted by this.
Stamina and mob damage scaled like mad, while healing output stayed largely constant.
Fewer items seemed to be available per faction to outfit folks for heroic entry, meaning you had to grind more factions for gear.
Mana regen was dramatically nerfed, or rather, was moved into an "active regen" scheme and away from passive regen talents/gear/stats.
Many rotations were turned into WHACK-A-MOLE instead of logical ability progressions.


I also think Cataclysm screwed up playing with friends as I'll describe as part of my reply to the next comment.


Some of the reasons are boring questing that is incredibly linear.
But the questing process is relatively quick, compared to say 10 levels of WotLK... and people complained of the collection quests there, then the very next expansion complain of the rail-roading of Cataclysm.
Once the leveling is done, and that is a very small percentage of the game, Cata is essentially the exact same as BC or WotLK or whatever the next one will be.

Assuming I am reading that right, I'm going to take exception to what you insinuate is an inconsistent position vis-a-vis questing/leveling. Lemme break down the way things differed with regards to quest chains in the various expansions from my experience (I almost exclusively leveled all my boxing teams through questing):

Classic WoW:

Most quest hubs were not chained. You could start at Crossroads, Taurajo or any of the others as soon as you met the minimum level was met.
Zones were completely separate with no breadcrumb quests required.
Everyone could play together, including your high-level friend who had done the quest several times and could speed you through quickly.
There were lots of "chains" but the only really linear ones were those that led into "lore" or "story-line" quests, many in instances.
Breadcrumb quests were extra XP but they absolutely were not required.


BC:

Zones did not require breadcrumbs from previous zones.
Some quest hubs (maybe 30%?) needed breadcrumb quests from previous hubs but this varied wildly by zone. (see: Nesingwary & the faction hubs in Nagrand for examples)
Your friends could bring their high-level alts to play with you and help you through quests.
Instance quests usually did not require breadcrumb quests and many were from NPCs right outside of the instance.
Most quest chains outside of lore/storyline quests were only limited by meeting minimum level requirements.


WotLK:

Zones were 50/50 on whether you needed breadcrumb quests to start them.
Most of the hubs in a "sub-zone" were all part of the same chain of quests, which required a drop quest or breadcrumb quest from an NPC. Some quest hubs could be partially started without breadcrumb quests but others required lots of them, even multiple breadcrumb questlines AT THE SAME HUB.
Friends could play with you in about 80% of areas, though some of the most fun quest chains (see: Icecrown Ebon Blade series) were phased, so your high-level friends that were on different parts or had completed them could not help you with them.
With the exception of the Dropship Crash Site in Hellfire, WotLK had a lot more onerous collection quests than BC.


Cata:

90% of quest hubs in a zone _required_ breadcrumbs from previous hubs or you could not even SEE the NPCs, let alone interact with them.
Friends on different quest lines could not help you as phasing was heavily prevalent, preventing them from seeing you or the mobs you were tasked with killing..
Many entire zones or sub-zones required breadcrumbs to start them, though some of the lower-level zones weren't quite as railroaded.
Phasing in the lower-level areas was absolutely nuts, especially for multiboxers where some collection quests would kick each character into a completely different phase just from picking up the last item! Meant you could have all guys help with the first one, 4 guys with the second, 3 guys with the third, two guys with the 4th and your last poor schlub was left to solo the last drop by himself.


So, as you can see, questing got consistently more linear and railroaded, taking a giant leap into WTF-dom in Cata with the overuse (IMO) of phasing on an almost per-quest and even sub-quest level, especially in the lowbie zones (goblins was my only experience).

So those of thus that bitched about WotLK linearity of questing and the even more linear Cata quest lines are entirely consistent and justified in that position.

Or did you have a non-obvious point you were making?


In the end, all of the above killed Cataclysm for me, though the changes to questing were probably my biggest gripe as that was where I spent most of my time multiboxing.

Congrats to those who still find it an exciting game. It doesn't suck completely and is still probably the best option in the MMO market for folks who aren't experiencing burn-out on WoW in general.

[Shodokan]

Cata is a blast. Yes questing sucked ass but overall its a great expansion. After december I was 12/12 and felt that raiding was pointless. Though i did like wotlk more mostly because rets were a blast for me.

4.2 looks amazing.

[zenga]

Cata is a blast. Yes questing sucked ass but overall its a great expansion

Agreed.


After december I was 12/12 and felt that raiding was pointless. Though i did like wotlk more mostly because rets were a blast for me.

There is a huge difference between the normal modes and the hard modes. It depends of course on the guild you raid with and on your personal skill, but we had no real problems with any bosses on normal mode, but it can take use quite some time to knock out a new heroic boss. The difference is immense on at least half of the fights, so I don't really understand why progressing through hard modes would be pointless? Even the very top guilds needed several days to get a kill on a new hc boss.

According to wow progress about 400 guilds killed nefarian before 2011. Iirc you were on illidan us, so you must 've been in one of the the top 3/4 guilds on your realm, which are basically all world top 150 guilds. Looks pretty weird to say that it's pointless to continue after clearing normal modes when raiding in such a pro environment.

[Shodokan]

Agreed.



There is a huge difference between the normal modes and the hard modes. It depends of course on the guild you raid with and on your personal skill, but we had no real problems with any bosses on normal mode, but it can take use quite some time to knock out a new heroic boss. The difference is immense on at least half of the fights, so I don't really understand why progressing through hard modes would be pointless? Even the very top guilds needed several days to get a kill on a new hc boss.

According to wow progress about 400 guilds killed nefarian before 2011. Iirc you were on illidan us, so you must 've been in one of the the top 3/4 guilds on your realm, which are basically all world top 150 guilds. Looks pretty weird to say that it's pointless to continue after clearing normal modes when raiding in such a pro environment.

I raided 9 toons a week in ICC... when you have shit on farm it gets boring. And i moved off illidan and didn't like the guild i was with anyway. If i liked the people i was raiding with i'd love to just push hardmodes but when you loathe some people you were playing with the environment isn't the greatest to push for that sort of thing. I ended up taking a break last semester anyway so in the end i wouldn't have been able to really put effort into raiding.

[Ualaa]

I didn't say Cataclysm wasn't rail-roading linear quests, I specifically said it was.
I also said people were complaining of the endless collections in Northrend last expansion.
People in general, myself included, like to complain... it is human nature.

I was essentially comparing WotLK questing to Cataclysm questing, saying that both had aspects which were not fun as a boxer.
But that Cataclysm was less painful then WotLK, 80-85 certainly felt a lot faster than 70-80 did.

1st to 85th is only a small portion of the overall game; compare the entire leveling process vs the time you spend in dungeons, raids, pvp, crafting items or playing the auction house.
Even if the leveling is painful or boring or whatever, it is a very small portion of the game, and the game is essentially the same elements in each expansion as the previous.

[Khatovar]

STUFF and THINGS

I agree with all of this. I've been through every expansion and Cata simply wasn't fun. It was frustrating and lackluster. Everything follows one narrow line. All the classes are the same, all the quests are the same, even dungeon "progression" seemed to follow a very set line with very little choice on where to go. It's like the whole game got cookie-cutter instead of just talents. Like an assembly line or something, not a game.

That's not to say there weren't suck things in the other expansions and in Vanilla, but at least I had enough to keep me entertained while those things were fixed or grew on me. For me, Cata was played out within a month.

And believe me, I want to get back to my team and play, but I keep coming back to the 2 months where I logged in, sighed, did a JC daily and logged out again. And my husband refuses to come back at all, so I just can't justify 5 subscriptions, 1 Cata upgrade and leveling a replacement to 85 for a game that's going to make me feel like I'm going to the dentist. Maybe after another content patch or two, but the game's not there yet {though my boredom level is!}.

[Kekkerer]

Cata is much better than vanilla and wotlk ever were, think back to how things were then and don't just linger on the good things but think how horrible some aspects of gameplay were especially in vanilla and early wotlk... wotlk got pretty good with ICC in the end though (sunwell era being my all time favorite).

If you're tired with the game take a break, it's hardly reasonable to assume that one game can keep you interested for years and years, we already have one whine thread why make another?

[Ughmahedhurtz]

If you're tired with the game take a break, it's hardly reasonable to assume that one game can keep you interested for years and years, we already have one whine thread why make another?
It's a discussion forum. It's what we do here. We already have people posting in threads they don't like complaining about people forcing them to read things they don't agree with, why read and post in another one? ;)

[Andreauk]

I quit multiboxing when Cata came out to level my solo toons.. I got bored quite quickly then went to other games, one was Rift.

I then started to miss WoW.. something was missing. I went back and decided to roll 5 new accounts to box again, but after doing a few 5 man teams for instancing came here and read the threads for ideas for a new team. I came across the pvp post about how good would 5 hunters be in arena.. I don't arena but decided to roll x4 hunters with a holy priest leading. I'm lvl 57 after a couple of days on ref a friend and instancing has been so much fun.. prob best fun in ages :)

I send the pets in for normal packs but on difficult pulls I shield myself and pull with swp then send pets in. It's so easy to heal it's funny.

Cleared a number of instances now.. guess the real challenge will be when I get to Cata.

My advice is take a break if you're fed up with WoW but most likely you'll be back.

[AgentSnipps]

Actually its going pretty fast with no RAF. My gobby enhance shamans are climbing pretty fast. Was suprising how much more exp they added to low level quests. Of course if you had RAF with the new quests... it would be nuts.

One thing that i've really enjoyed are the guild perks. Joined a level 25 guild and got tons of perks... i didnt even know what some did until i needed them lol.

Insted of reasuring me that no RAF is the way to go you may ahve tempted me to get RAF after all but I do sometimes fear they lv to fast and you miss out on a lot.
Now that I think about if I did RAF anyway and didn't have as much time to play as I though I suppose I woulnd't be to heart broken, I could lv the teams I just want to power through and leave the teams I want to lv more slowly for after and the cost would be offset by the fact that I don't care.

[drarkan]

Well I started playing when wrath premiered, and from discussions within my guild and on the server, people were saying that WOW lost its touch back when BC came out. Then again in Wrath. I think what happens is the old-school crowd that played vanilla don't like where Blizzard took wow, not all i'm sure, but hey, they can't please everyone.

But I do admit, Cata has a different feel to it, they did rip the world apart literally, then threw it back down and said to us "Play" LOL all well, I'm still paying my monthly bills, and so are a lot of other people, lol can't be that bad I guess.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I'm still paying my monthly bills, and so are a lot of other people, lol can't be that bad I guess.Oh, it surely isn't all that bad. There are specific aspects of wow that some of us don't like but it is still such a polished and well-integrated set of features (the WoW UI and LUA addon setup has set the bar for a looooong time to come, IMO) that it is worth playing even if you only enjoy 30% of the game.

[thefunk]

redoing the 0-60 zones was a bit...meh... however I'm really enjoying Cata; quests are linear which means no more planning or thinking of best route, haven't tried instances but expect them to be the same, the interface now is great for boxing; wouldn't want to go back to pre IWT with a melee team and Jamba without all the great stuff Jafula has added.

The past is dead, look to the future!

[-silencer-]

Really, it's the community that has progressively gone downward over the years.

Vanilla WoW was by far the best for community. You spent days in each zone going through quests and levels, and frequently grouped with others because every zone had *group quests* to complete. You formed groups for instances through communication, and common courtesy was helpful in making friends - especially if you wanted future people to group with.

Again, it's the community that's the problem.

First, it was the freebie epics handed out through BGs. Why communicate and work with people in the PvE world if you can solo berserk some BGs for purples?

Next, it was the freebie epics handed out through badges. Why bother trying to get that elusive drop when you can just grind the easiest instance for X number of badges to buy your freebie epic?

Finally, it was the dungeon finder tool. Why bother communicating at all with people on your own server when you can join a random cross-realm group, act like a total ass, and take your loot and run when you're done because you know you won't ever talk to those people again?

Blizzard killed the community of WoW with one instant gratification implementation after another.

[Oatboat]

Insted of reasuring me that no RAF is the way to go you may ahve tempted me to get RAF after all but I do sometimes fear they lv to fast and you miss out on a lot.
Now that I think about if I did RAF anyway and didn't have as much time to play as I though I suppose I woulnd't be to heart broken, I could lv the teams I just want to power through and leave the teams I want to lv more slowly for after and the cost would be offset by the fact that I don't care.


Yeah if you can do RAF do it. If you already have accounts... there is no sense in wasting money to get more accounts.
The new quests in instances are making it fun/interesting. Just make sure you buy a faction tabard from one of the major cities... you can get some 16 slot bags along with cloaks and then buy mounts when available.

[Apps]

Blizzard killed the community of WoW with one instant gratification implementation after another.

I totally agree with silencer, but I thought this particular sentence was worth the quote... may even make it my signature

[tekac]

I totally agree with silencer, but I thought this particular sentence was worth the quote... may even make it my signature

I completely agree with this statement. Vanilla WOW was where it was it in regards to community. Mainly because of the huge influx from Everquest IMO. There was a wait period in between EQ and WoW/EQ2 coming out.

The community on Everquest still is amazing, it is such a HUGE difference its not even funny. I have been playing EQ for a few weeks and its astounding. I just got back into multiboxing and now have 5 WoW accounts and I don't feel like talking to anyone because its all hatred. Crap like "WTF U NOOB"

[Yahtzee]

I completely agree with this statement. Vanilla WOW was where it was it in regards to community. Mainly because of the huge influx from Everquest IMO. There was a wait period in between EQ and WoW/EQ2 coming out.

The community on Everquest still is amazing, it is such a HUGE difference its not even funny. I have been playing EQ for a few weeks and its astounding. I just got back into multiboxing and now have 5 WoW accounts and I don't feel like talking to anyone because its all hatred. Crap like "WTF U NOOB"


Not only that, people actually go out of their way to attack you (Verbally, not referring to PvP). I've had people just sit in a battleground and do nothing other than insult and call me down to the dirt. I used to get it here-and-there back in Wrath, but it has gotten so much worse in Cataclysm.

It really ruins the experience at times. For example, last week I was doing 5v5's (I quad-box with a separate person healing me) and knocked out 3 of the opposing teams members while still having everyone alive. The last two people alive were two rogues, and they would stealth around the map and grab the shadow sights and instantly restealth. Even if I got to knock them out of stealth, they would just cloak and vanish, so it was a cat and mouse game the entire time. Other members of their team would create characters on my server with offensive names and whisper obscenities to me, all the while saying they weren't going to let me win because I was boxing.

It was clear that what they were doing was harassment, so we opened a GM ticket and explained the situation. The GM watched the rest of the match (20-25 minutes worth) and seen the vulgar whispers I was getting but did nothing to intervene in the match, I was actually in awe. This team had successfully wasted 45 minutes of my night because they were vehemently opposed to my multi-boxing.

What really bothers me is.. the next day we opened another GM ticket for clarification of the situation and we were told they are in fact allowed to intervene in arena matches under those circumstances.

[Khatovar]

I find it kinda amusing seeing complaints about the community coming from people who pride themselves on being a one man army. I'll agree that the WoW community as a whole blows, but it's the very least of my concerns considering that ignoring and avoiding "the community" is one of the perks of multiboxing to me.

They're Just there for me to sell my phat lewtz overflow to, to make me cool addons and to do all the hard math stuff involved in theorycrafting, lol!

[Tonuss]

Blizzard built WOW, at least in part, on lessons learned from prior MMOs, particularly Everquest (IMO). It's possible that one lesson that they applied mistakenly was the rigid "our way or the highway" approach to rules and content that EQ had in its earlier days, where "the vision" was king and trumped everything. EQ had a great community, and part of the sense of community was from the feeling that it was us against the sadistic development team.

It does seem as if Blizzard took things too far in the other direction. They became allergic to the idea that they might not be responsive to every part of the player base. And with the incredible popularity of the game came the feeling that WOW had crossed into the mainstream, and that more and more of their players simply wouldn't tolerate not being allowed to have all of the available toys. So they gave it to us, and before long we were sleepwalking our way through heroic AOE-fests for dime-store epics.

I think what they realized (too late, I believe) is that if you simply give players everything that they want, they won't ever be satisfied.

[Mickthathick]

I think what they realized (too late, I believe) is that if you simply give players everything that they want, they won't ever be satisfied.

Actually, Blizzard know exactly what they are doing, and it all boils down to converting trail accounts into paying subs, by ensuring new players get everything that vetern players have.

I remember reading last year that less then 10% of trail accounts become paying subscripers. That is the market they are after, they care about the mature player base to a limited extent but their focus really is on getting new players hooked and hooking their friends using social networking.

[AgentSnipps]

Sure WoW has shit for a community but then again what MMO's have you guys played that didn't have a few turds in the punch bowl? (Wow is just a bigger bowl) I played for a good five years off and on and rolled three diffrent servers and for the most part the people where the exact same all I had to do is find a guild I got a long with and stick with them or just multibox and avoid the social part of the game all together.

The only game I found with a decen community was CoH but it wasn't a big community ethier and I mostly had to play by myself.

I love MMO's so I give everyone a go round when the release and I'm really looking forward to play the old republic and guild wars 2 but I have no hope taht the community will be any better/worse then WoW or any of the others games I've played but hey thats just me.

-AgentSnipps

[Ualaa]

Not only that, people actually go out of their way to attack you (Verbally, not referring to PvP). I've had people just sit in a battleground and do nothing other than insult and call me down to the dirt. I used to get it here-and-there back in Wrath, but it has gotten so much worse in Cataclysm.

It really ruins the experience at times. For example, last week I was doing 5v5's (I quad-box with a separate person healing me) and knocked out 3 of the opposing teams members while still having everyone alive. The last two people alive were two rogues, and they would stealth around the map and grab the shadow sights and instantly restealth. Even if I got to knock them out of stealth, they would just cloak and vanish, so it was a cat and mouse game the entire time. Other members of their team would create characters on my server with offensive names and whisper obscenities to me, all the while saying they weren't going to let me win because I was boxing.

It was clear that what they were doing was harassment, so we opened a GM ticket and explained the situation. The GM watched the rest of the match (20-25 minutes worth) and seen the vulgar whispers I was getting but did nothing to intervene in the match, I was actually in awe. This team had successfully wasted 45 minutes of my night because they were vehemently opposed to my multi-boxing.

What really bothers me is.. the next day we opened another GM ticket for clarification of the situation and we were told they are in fact allowed to intervene in arena matches under those circumstances.

I'd be very inclined to post their comments (screen shots) along with the GM responses that this is a valid tactic in World of Warcraft.
Make a post on a few sites, like MMO-Champion... to the effect, does Blizzard really want this in their game?

While a GM might think nothing is wrong with it, I can pretty much guarantee the higher ups in Blizzard don't want this kind of negative publicity associated with their game.

If it's okay now, it probably won't be okay in the future if you post it a bit, so potential customers don't want to play in an environment where this is explicitly allowed.

If it is okay for five players to do this to a boxer, it's also okay for five players to do this to another five players... so post this as a valid tactic on arena junkies.

[Yahtzee]

I'd be very inclined to post their comments (screen shots) along with the GM responses that this is a valid tactic in World of Warcraft.
Make a post on a few sites, like MMO-Champion... to the effect, does Blizzard really want this in their game?

While a GM might think nothing is wrong with it, I can pretty much guarantee the higher ups in Blizzard don't want this kind of negative publicity associated with their game.

If it's okay now, it probably won't be okay in the future if you post it a bit, so potential customers don't want to play in an environment where this is explicitly allowed.

If it is okay for five players to do this to a boxer, it's also okay for five players to do this to another five players... so post this as a valid tactic on arena junkies.


I'll try to put together a cohesive packet of screen shots and GM responses, I'm almost positive that I captured most of everything. I'll see if MMO champ is interested in posting it, too. It was definitely a frustrating situation that the GM was okay with just sitting there and watching it happen.

What's worse, the week after a different team 'tried' to do the same thing. They weren't quite as graceful though, and didn't waste too much time. I'm worried that this is going to become a problem week after week without a chance of recourse. ;\

[Anthrox]

Normally I'd be taking a break from WoW about this time, but the one thing that those sneaky bastards put in Cata that keeps me logging back in is the Guild Level. Leveling up a guild takes a while for a normal guild, but it's an insane timesink for a multiboxer. I just want to have the same benefits others get with a max guild level, so I grind every day.

I'm also thinking about doing a 70-74 arena bracket team -- leveling up team 4 now and that guild level 20 heirloom item is on my want list.

I'm making progress (will ding guild level 20 in a week), so I keep logging in. Once I hit 25 though, I think I'm taking a break.

[zenga]

It really ruins the experience at times. For example, last week I was doing 5v5's (I quad-box with a separate person healing me) and knocked out 3 of the opposing teams members while still having everyone alive. The last two people alive were two rogues, and they would stealth around the map and grab the shadow sights and instantly restealth. Even if I got to knock them out of stealth, they would just cloak and vanish, so it was a cat and mouse game the entire time. Other members of their team would create characters on my server with offensive names and whisper obscenities to me, all the while saying they weren't going to let me win because I was boxing.

It was clear that what they were doing was harassment, so we opened a GM ticket and explained the situation. The GM watched the rest of the match (20-25 minutes worth) and seen the vulgar whispers I was getting but did nothing to intervene in the match, I was actually in awe. This team had successfully wasted 45 minutes of my night because they were vehemently opposed to my multi-boxing.

What really bothers me is.. the next day we opened another GM ticket for clarification of the situation and we were told they are in fact allowed to intervene in arena matches under those circumstances.

The obscenities shouldn't determine the outcome of the match. Yet I agree obscenities should be punished, though people tend to have a different sensitivity meter.

Either way, let's say that the killed guys did not log on to your realm and whisper you. But the rogues would sitll play hide and seek, yet their motivation is still the same: you are a boxer and they don't let you win. Would you still consider that a 45m waist of your time?

In the end you are the boxer, you are the one who can't deal with 2 hiding rogues. Stealth, cloack of shadows, vanish are class abilities. You should know that the moment you step into arena. And if you disagree you could always forfeit the game.

[Yahtzee]

The obscenities shouldn't determine the outcome of the match. Yet I agree obscenities should be punished, though people tend to have a different sensitivity meter.

Either way, let's say that the killed guys did not log on to your realm and whisper you. But the rogues would sitll play hide and seek, yet their motivation is still the same: you are a boxer and they don't let you win. Would you still consider that a 45m waist of your time?

In the end you are the boxer, you are the one who can't deal with 2 hiding rogues. Stealth, cloack of shadows, vanish are class abilities. You should know that the moment you step into arena. And if you disagree you could always forfeit the game.

The obscenities were nothing but a minor annoyance during the match, however they did outline pretty clearly, for the GM to see, what their goal was. Mainly when they said that they weren't going to let us win because I was boxing. A team of similar composition would've had the same problem with these rogues, it has nothing to do with the fact that I was boxing.

It was obvious, even before the whispers, what they were trying to do to us. There's no other explanation for their actions. The whispers and obscenities just pushed it even further into the realm of harassment.

I'm not sure why you think that I figure the outcome of the match should be determined from people spouting obscenities at me, but clearly their intention was harassment. A GM response the day after confirmed that they are indeed allowed to interfere with a match under such circumstances. I'm baffled why the GM we had the night before didn't think so. That's more where I'm concerned.

Just because a class has the abilities doesn't mean that anything they do with them is okay, they can still be abused. Just because they can do it, doesn't make it okay.

[Ualaa]

Personally it sucks when stealth classes try to keep the match going on... for the sake of denying you your win, when they have zero chance (aside from you disconnecting) at winning.
But that is their choice, and they are actually wasting five people's time on their end and only one person's time on your end.

In that situation, I'd put a movie on, on the other computer.
Something not too distracting; probably something I've seen before a couple of times... a bit of a distraction to pass the time, more sound in the background.



The verbal harassment and obscenities probably wouldn't bother me at all.
But the lack of GM response to harassment would.

That's what I would let the world know.
The Warcraft GM's are okay with this behavior.
This is what you can expect if you come to this game.

Not so much to drive away potential customers.
But more for a higher up in the chain to change that policy.

It should not be okay for idiots to verbally harass you with obscenities... with GM's observing the behavior and saying good work.

[Yahtzee]

It'd be fine if they couldn't abuse the shadow sight. I miss back when it used to deal damage to the person who picked it up.

[AgentSnipps]

Why do people have to be like that? They act like just becuase your multiboxing you have some god mode buff on. And stealthies prolonging the match why not just eat the loss and pick it up next match?

[smalltanker]

Did you just stand on one of the stones that lets you see stealth. Get it wait for them to show and smoke them. I know it sounds easier said than done but still 4 or 5 vs two should have enabled you to find them at some point and bring a match to its inevitable end. But I have dealt with rogues and I really think they are OP with the ability to outheal a healer in arena while doing obscene amounts of damage. I just wish my healer could do as much damage as a DPSer can. Then it would be even with rogues, warrior, blood DK, feral druids and retadins... but no... wont happen. I have stopped PVPing with a healer because they don't add any value in the 2s category.

[Tonuss]

Actually, Blizzard know exactly what they are doing, and it all boils down to converting trail accounts into paying subs, by ensuring new players get everything that vetern players have.

I remember reading last year that less then 10% of trail accounts become paying subscripers. That is the market they are after, they care about the mature player base to a limited extent but their focus really is on getting new players hooked and hooking their friends using social networking.
They used that as the basis of justifying the re-working of the level 1-60 content and simplification of ability ranks and talent trees. For the most part I think they did a great job on that.

[Starbuck_Jones]

I loved lich king. For me it was 'the end' of warcraft. Finally getting to Arthas and killing him from warcraft 3 was awesome. Cata is ok, its just more of the same, but the lore right now is full of meh. Fighting ragnoros again.. meh. Fighting Deathwing/Neltharian double meh.

Let me know when we go up against Sargeras.

[riffraff]

I've stopped playing WoW in February. For a couple months I did not play any MMO but then activated my EVE accounts, added a few and am now 15-boxing eve.

Right now I'm trying to figure out why I'd want to come back to WoW.

--- When I left:
5 "viable" 5-man teams at 85, although I really really suck at the Cata dungeons.
Almost all of my chars have their professions in order. A miner, herbalist, tailor, enchanter, and engineer on each 5-man team. Plus 8 Alchys for the cooldowns.
Guild Level 10
Good amount of gold.

--- Things that make me want to come back:
Guild Level needs to get to 25 =)
Want to level goblin and worgen teams.
Want to team up with my friend who also 5-boxes to farm TK and OS zerg every week.

--- Things that may stop me from coming back:
$75 a month subscription fees. (Eve Online allows you to pay for subscriptions with in-game currency)
Time Sink.
I suck at 5-boxing the new dungeons and haven't even stepped into a Cata raid.
Most of the people I used to play with have moved on.
Lack of good Cata dalies (although is this changing in 4.2?) I used to run the icecrown dalies with my teams to make Bank.

I've patched the client just not sure if I want to pull the trigger. The posts in this thread have been helpful.

Edit: In response to the OP, cata did kind of ruin things for me as a multiboxer. The dungeon difficulty increased quite a lot so I didn't get the hang of Cata dungeons. The dailies were nowhere as good as Icecrown dalies, so that was another thing. Not a pvp'er so I don't know if that was affected by cata.

[thefunk]

I'm actually loving Cata now that I'm 2-boxing again. But the problem is.... it's too easy. My pally has died once in 30 hours, and that was because we were taking on 15 mobs and I couldn't heal with the shammy properly (2 step macro included a /stopcasting, so I couldn't tank and heal as it would interrupt.....D'OH!)

I'm still not over the "max 3 quests at a time" bullshit. Also why have talent trees which are so restrictive? If I was blizz I would scrap the allocation of points and you just select "prot" or "ret" and be done with this pretending to customise your character.

Still, I am also levelling a few toons in TBC which is still great fun.

[zenga]

I'm still not over the "max 3 quests at a time" bullshit. Also why have talent trees which are so restrictive? If I was blizz I would scrap the allocation of points and you just select "prot" or "ret" and be done with this pretending to customise your character.


I actually like the talent trees a lot. Putting a few points in another tree or talent can make a massive difference.

For example on the frost dk. You can spec into a 1 minute strangulate combined with easier runic power generation, or you can spec into improved diseases with desecration, with or without rime. The way you play the spec is quite different.

Same goes for elemental shamans. You spec into instant ghostwolf or you skip it and take some resto talents which give you very decent defensive abilities? Those are quite important choices the current talent tree offers.

[lightstriker]

Wrath and Cata is really about Climate Change. Northrend is an analogy for the arctics. Deathwing is about the massive earthquake of the last few years. The Barrens are California and Arizona forest fires that happens every other year.

Less political subtext and more pew pew plz Bizz.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I actually like the talent trees a lot. Putting a few points in another tree or talent can make a massive difference.

For example on the frost dk. You can spec into a 1 minute strangulate combined with easier runic power generation, or you can spec into improved diseases with desecration, with or without rime. The way you play the spec is quite different.

Same goes for elemental shamans. You spec into instant ghostwolf or you skip it and take some resto talents which give you very decent defensive abilities? Those are quite important choices the current talent tree offers.

Funny, we had those exact same talent tree options as you mention in 3.x but with a lot more options for unique spec choices. I fail to see how the 4.0 talents actually improved anything for the players aside from making it harder for tards to pick specs that do nothing well without understanding why.

[thefunk]

Funny, we had those exact same talent tree options as you mention in 3.x but with a lot more options for unique spec choices. I fail to see how the 4.0 talents actually improved anything for the players aside from making it harder for tards to pick specs that do nothing well without understanding why.

A good example of which was the warlock PvP SL/SL spec which didn't require the top talent in either demon or afflic. That kind of experimentation is all gone. The other idea would be to choose your spec (Fury), which would automatically allocate new talents as you level for the 1st 31 points, and then have 10 points you can allocate elsewhere and save everyone time.

Or instead introduce magicite and allocate those to your armor and then learn spells which form part of that magicite. (5 internet points to anyone who gets the analogy)

I reckon they are designing WoW to cater for people that wear boxing gloves permanently. Or play with their faces.

[zenga]

Funny, we had those exact same talent tree options as you mention in 3.x but with a lot more options for unique spec choices. I fail to see how the 4.0 talents actually improved anything for the players aside from making it harder for tards to pick specs that do nothing well without understanding why.

My response was to thefunk his statement about *restrictive* and not being able to customize your char through talents. I just gave an example of why I think we still have meaningful choices, but I didn't say anything about it being better/worse than in the past.

[Mercbeast]

Really, it's the community that has progressively gone downward over the years.

Vanilla WoW was by far the best for community. You spent days in each zone going through quests and levels, and frequently grouped with others because every zone had *group quests* to complete. You formed groups for instances through communication, and common courtesy was helpful in making friends - especially if you wanted future people to group with.

Again, it's the community that's the problem.

First, it was the freebie epics handed out through BGs. Why communicate and work with people in the PvE world if you can solo berserk some BGs for purples?

Next, it was the freebie epics handed out through badges. Why bother trying to get that elusive drop when you can just grind the easiest instance for X number of badges to buy your freebie epic?

Finally, it was the dungeon finder tool. Why bother communicating at all with people on your own server when you can join a random cross-realm group, act like a total ass, and take your loot and run when you're done because you know you won't ever talk to those people again?

Blizzard killed the community of WoW with one instant gratification implementation after another.

The loss of community isn't related to gear. It is related to battle groups and that stuff. WoW has become essentially a single player game you just happen to play with other people. Who or what is on your server doesn't matter anymore because you don't play with them in BG's you don't group with them in dungeons. With server transfers there is no accountability. If you did something dickish, you got black listed from all the top guilds. Only recourse was to reroll.

It is a double edged sword unfortunately. For a game like WoW, a thriving server doesn't need the battle groups and what not and the experience is going to be fantastic. For a server that is not thriving, the experience is dramatically impacted by lack of population and then battlegroups actually help that server.

You're right about the instant gratification bit. This is a symptom of that instant gratification momentum and in WoW style MMO's it is firmly entrenching itself.

This is all an evolution really. Going back to the very first diku style MMO with EQ, the progression has been away from depth and difficulty to gratification and ease of use. I personally can't wait for a big company to buck the trend and make a solid, well supported Sand-boxy FFA PvP game.

[Akoko]

Funny, we had those exact same talent tree options as you mention in 3.x but with a lot more options for unique spec choices. I fail to see how the 4.0 talents actually improved anything for the players aside from making it harder for tards to pick specs that do nothing well without understanding why.

I have to disagree with you there. The new talent trees are probably the best thing to ever happen to WoW, if you discount the fact that true hybrid specs don't exist anymore. That was a loss in some ways for really unique specs like SL/SL, Restokin, arcane-frost shatter (makes PoM+Pyro look like a tame little rabbit), elementalist mage (widest array of stuns & instant cast spells), and dual-wielding spellpower weapons ele shaman (was nerfed pretty quickly). Blizzard argues that these hybrid specs are very difficult to balance and keep in check without affecting the two trees that they draw talents from.

But the bottom line is, every talent point counts for so much more than it did in Wrath. And you can't deny that the levelling process is so much more streamlined and fun now that you actually adopt the playstyle of your spec right at level 10, instead of needing to wait until level 40 to dual wield as an enhancement shaman, for example. And every time I respec I don't want to have to click 70 or 80 individual talent points in.

I raid hardmodes with my guild single-box during 3 weekdays and I respec multiple times per night. As a RESTO druid. And resto druids are one of those specs considered to have the smallest amount of choice. But if I want to play to my best and rank in the top 100 for World of Logs for each fight, every single talent point makes a massive difference and I often respec between fights. The trade-off is very often between utility and throughput, which is definitely a sign of excellent game design. This coolness is compounded even further for multiboxers, as we can sometimes discount utility talents depending on how our characters work together. For example, do I really need Fungal Growth on every one of my 5 boomkins? Perhaps I'll take Owlkin Frenzy and Perserverance on my main Boomkin so he can soak more hits and keep aggro. When have I really needed 5 Solar Beams? Perhaps I can use these points to min/max the damage of my slaves. Granted, my Boomkin team is only level 45 right now but the talent trees are already keeping things exciting.

I raided throughout BC and WotLK as several different classes and I can't remember a single time where I had to choose between utility and throughput.

Blizzard got many things wrong with Cataclysm. But the updated talent trees definitely isn't one of them.

[Tonuss]

I have mixed feelings about the talent tree changes. On the one hand, it cleaned them up a bit; selecting 1/1 in a talent for a 5% buff versus having to select 5/5 for the same buff is pretty reasonable. Especially since a lot of builds made it a no-brainer to take those five points. It also has the benefit of keeping less-informed players from making truly bad builds by restricting their options. I think it's a lot harder to make a really awful build now, maybe impossible.

On the other hand, it really took away a fun part of the game, where you had more freedom to try out a pretty insane spec or to otherwise experiment. By drastically reducing our choices, you wind up with a cookie-cutter spec whether you want to or not. There's just not much room for improvisation anymore. You can make some good/bad choices with the last ten points, but laying out your main tree is pretty obvious.

I think that overall it's a net positive. Combined with gear simplification and limitations, it reduces the number of ways that a random player can screw up. But for players who know the game well, and bother to research their class or just like to experiment, it can take away a lot of the fun. A game that makes it harder to fail can also make it harder to excel.