The obsession with raids over content is killing World of Warcraft. The storyline is out of synch, the old world is forgotten, and achievements are supposed to keep us busy, but somehow getting a Ragefire Chasm achievment at 80 doesn't fill you with wonder and anticipation like the first time you wander uneasily into a new zone while following the story to the next chapter.
As for raiding, if I wanted to play the same setpiece battle over and over again, I'd get a console game. WoW's strength is that it's dynamic, and based on a compelling storyline, and yes, raids and dungeons are important, but only if they are part of the adventure and storyline, not just a monotonous gear grind.
If you had a 70 when Wrath was launched (remember that talk of "changing the face of Azeroth forever" at last year's Blizzcon?) you could have easily gotten to 80 within a month and been raiding soon after. In between 70 and 80 we had little real storyline to follow, sans some interesting Vykul lore. Instead we have a city somehow floating in the skies over Northrend, full of Horde who are at the same time killing Dalaran mages in Hillsbrad? Where two factions mix despite the fact that they can't trade, talk, or mix with any real reason? Where the only thing they have in common is that they fly a few minutes away several times a day to kill each other before returning with no hard feelings? The city itself is beautiful, but often unusable due to overcrowding and excess load on even beefy video cards. Had someone been thinking of keeping the story in synch with the old world, the Alliance and Horde would be seperated in different cities and both the lore and technical issues would be solved.
After launching Wrath and discovering that the focal point and main trading centre was often unusable, what did they do to fix it? They added a raid dungeon.
Did they fix the inconsistancies that has one character simultaneously existing in two spaces? No, they launched The Argent Tournament because in the midst of a life and death battle for the fate of Azeroth, we need a repetitious sporting competition. They sped up levelling in hopes that you wouldn't notice the inconsistancies, but what happened is that new players and old alike were given the idea that levels 1-60 is something boring to be skipped, but 11 million people do not play this game because levels one to sixty suck.
Had the tournament been held in the old world as a test you needed to pass to fight in Northrend it would have been cool. Instead it has been put in as a distraction to make you overlook the lack of new content.
So is raiding what brings in the big money? No, society is too focused on instant gratification for anyone to take up a game so that they can play endgame six or so weeks later. If the story wasn't compelling hardly anyone would make it past the ten day trial.
In order to plan the game out, devs need to be at an advanced level to understand what they are creating. After all this time they would be experienced, advanced players with all the best gear (I suspect?). If this were you, what would you focus on?
They need fresh blood among the devs. people with little experience who have the same sense of wonder we all had when first leaving Northshire Abbey, or Sunstrider Isle.
I'm not saying there's no place for raiding, just that it's time to stop being obsessed with it and get back on track and develop the story.
Edit: I would have LMAO if in RotK Frodo and Sam had gotten to Mount Doom and were denied entrance with the pop up "You need to be in a raid to enter this dungeon".
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Last edited by AngryBeaver; 06-30-2009 at 09:54 PM.
if it wasn't for Raids there would be nothing to keep me playing WoW
Solo content/quests I could care less for.. I enjoy the Massive part of an MMO.. and Raiding is where its at
coming from an old EQ player.. I think the thing I like least about WoW is leveling.. not because I am in a rush to get to level 80 and raid.. but because I don't enjoy playing solo.. if I wanted that I would goto Obilivion on a similar game
the team work, strategy, and challenge that comes with raiding surpases anything solo content has to offer.. for me atleast
I know some will disagree but that is my stance on the issue
as far as story goes the idea of Horde and Alliance fighting together against the Scourge is true to Warcraft lore.. the final battle in WC3 you could control Night Elfs, Orcs, and Humans in 1 large fight agaisnt the Scourge
need to remeber WoW is following for the most part an already established story WC3 and Frozen Throne Expansion
I like both sides of the game, but keeping both factions seperate would make much much more sense.
I take this back to my idea I had many many moons ago (I think I even put something about it ont his form) and that is "Key Levels" Reach Lvl 20 do a dungeon, reach lvl 40 do a dungeon....
This would get people raid smarts and solve the issues of taking the dungeon out of the game in old world (which is basicly what they did)
And while they are at it make it so a guild can set their OWN lock out time for a raid. Not a Day not a Week... we get to pick. So if we can only raid once a week as a guild then we can pick a 2 week lock out for our guilds style. We dont need shorter raid we need to be able to set our own pace.
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coming from an old EQ player.. I think the thing I like least about WoW is leveling.. not because I am in a rush to get to level 80 and raid.. but because I don't enjoy playing solo.. if I wanted that I would goto Obilivion on a similar game
the team work, strategy, and challenge that comes with raiding surpases anything solo content has to offer.. for me atleast
You have to keep in mind though, that back before TBC was released, there were numerous quests that needed groups of 3 or more to complete, as well as raids, and the regular 5 mans need no strategy at all anymore. Crowd Control..what's that? Now it seems that the only thing that needs a group is a raid, or an instance. It has basically become be a solo player or a raider, which leaves alot of middle of the road people out. For someone who doesn't have the time to raid (even casually, have small children that I need to be able to stop what I am doing at the drop of a hat) it makes the game easy, without even the challenge when I had the time to spare that it used to have.
I was disappointed when my little family guild wanted to start raiding a month after Wrath came out, everyone rushing to level. I'm pretty burned out on it now and have been playing alts or getting offline to exercise more and read more for weeks.
Raiding is ridiculously repetitive. Now that you mention it, it reminds me of conquering PacMan and Ms. PacMan a quarter century ago. Every quarter, you had to start over again and spend 20 minutes going through screens you could do in your sleep. WoW, same thing - every week it's back to Moroes or Maexxna or Flame Leviathan before you can try somthing new, and the hours pass. It's boring. PacMan, the maze changed slightly ever round. Now, the kinds of adds that spawn in boss fights vary, or the void zones might be different colors or light bombs or gravity bombs or lava waves or eyebeams - but it's all the same.
If there were a coherent story, you'd never have to learn it. You can level to 80 without visiting half the zones. You could do it in the old world. You could miss a lot of Outland in TBC. I've never had to do a quest beyond Zul'drak in Wrath. There are some cute snippets of storylines, but little that's compelling.
I'm finding myself, and my wife, asking each other what's fun. It might be a festival. It might be killing that elite 6 levels higher than us. But for me, after a year or so of regular raiding - it isn't the raiding keeping me going.
And now that they've made raiding easy for the masses, it seems to be what people are most focused on.
Blizzard has had to adapt the lore to the game - in a MMO there is only so much "change" you can effect. If you did phasing showing your work (a la the DK starting area) it would become almost impossible for many people to work together because they would be on different parts of the game - oh I have not killed Lord Shalzaru on the Isle of Dread in Feralas so I cannot see you even though your dot is right beside me.
The other issue is while you love the lore and to immerse yourself in it you are probably in the minority - people want to get to endgame as soon as possible with their friends. If you put artifical barriers in place (like to go to Outland you must first do x, y and z dungeons) people are going to be turned off by the game. Again I understand where you are coming from but the majority of people a) don't like to level b) want to get to endgame ASAP and c) don't give two cents about the lore. I've leveled all the classes to at least 70 one time and with my Horde TTH toons doing it again, even as Horde, is not all that enticing. However with 3.2 and the mount and movement spell changes (i.e. Aspect of the Cheetah) I have more motivation to level my Tauren Hunter that has been at 13 for over a year then I have had in a long time.
I don't think that's the fault of raiding - either you raid or you don't. There's a lot you can do without raiding, however whether you like it or not is completely up to you. Blizzard has done all it can to make raiding as accessible as possible any type of player but it does require time. However the time required is not the same as it was in Vanilla WoW or even in TBC. My guild raids only about 3-4 nights a week for 3 hours each night. We've cleared regularly up to Yogg-Saron and are working on him. In all honesty that is not too bad. It's not as severe as it was back in Vanilla with 40-man raids and specific roles for classes and so forth.
Some of the things - like Dalaran being friendly to the Horde when you are killing Dalaran mages and people existing in two places. I can see somewhat of a problem but is it really that big of a deal? My guess is that Blizzard feels the threat of the Lich King is more then a feud between Dalaran mages and the Horde. As to the whole being "nice" to each other in Dalaran and then going to kill each other in BGs and Wintergrasp does seem a little silly but that's up to Blizzard. I have never been a big fan of battlegrounds and the "war" between the two factions so it really doesn't matter much to me.
Lastly - I like the questing - always have - and felt the storylines were really good in Wrath, much better then in TBC and especially better then Vanilla. I think Storm Peaks for that very reason is one of my favorite zones. The issue becomes getting people to quest - people don't like it and are enamored with purples. It's human nature you're fighting here. As for Azerothian dungeons 1-60 - there's only so much Blizzard will do with them - the fact is people don't run them because they, not Blizzard, want to get to Outland and on to Northrend. Blizzard has facilitated this by making it easier to quest in Azeroth without being slowed down by elite quests or the need to go into dungeons in the mid-40s due to the lack of quests Alliance side - this led to some of the changes in patch 2.3 making leveling quicker and easier since 60 was no longer the cap.
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Excellent post, Storm. I agree wholeheartedly. It's high time time the devs got their heads out of their collective butts and started to look at the game past raiding. They could start by having duel wielding be a way to seperate PvE and PvP. They could then stop sitting around theorycrafting and messing up the classes and, dare I say it, start working on adding some meaningful content to the game and not just in Northrend. Two thirds of Azeroth and all of the Outland is a deserted. Why they put the tournament in Icecrown when it could have been put somehwere in the Eastern Kingdoms or Kalimdor is beyond me.
The next thing they could do is make raiding.... raiding. Enough of twenty-five mans being pugged and world firsts happening ten minutes after the content is released. The paint is hardly dry on Ulduar and another instance is on the horizon. If they'd made Ulduar competetive and challenging there'd be no need for another instance so quck. They have a chance to do this with the new instance. Make the twenty-five man content such that you have to do regular before even thinking of attempting heroic. Same for ten man but not as demanding. This would give those that crave more challenging game play the content they desire while providing similiar content for those of a more casual bent. It would also, in theory, free up man power to provide non-raid content as there shouldn't be a need for so many raid instances.
Some of the things - like Dalaran being friendly to the Horde when you are killing Dalaran mages and people existing in two places. I can see somewhat of a problem but is it really that big of a deal?
Because it doesn't make any sense. I know you don't like criticism of Blizzard, but this is a pretty glaring oversight that shows they either don't pay attention, or don't care.
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Originally Posted by Miralyn
Lastly - I like the questing - always have - and felt the storylines were really good in Wrath, much better then in TBC and especially better then Vanilla
Granted the Draenei arriving on a trans-dimensional spaceship was a bit.... odd considering they fight with swords and clubs, but the storylines in the original game told us how the world we play in came to being, and laid the foundation for what's to follow. I find it the most intriging part of the game. In fact it made me a fan of fantasy where, as an old scifi guru I had previously looked rather derisively upon it.
Raiding is Ruining World of Warcraft
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