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.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

WARNING!


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.