Aion : a possible competitive threat to WoW's future according to ActivisionBlizzard

[Ulquiorra]

Originally Posted by Shanni

It wasn't always this way, however!

Back when I started playing WoW in 2006, I was new to the whole MMO thing, I didn't know anything about the game - nor about addons or internet databases. I reached lvl14 (or was it16?) and got stuck on my sea lion pendant quest - I was pretty desperate and for the love of god couldn't figure out what to do. But then I discovered the General chat! Not one, but several fellow druids offered to helped me out. They walked me through the whole quest chain (and it required quite a lot of traveling back then), gave me advice on professions, talents, armor, weapons... If it wasn't for this experience I'm pretty sure I would have left the game there and then and never looked back.

The best part of this story is that after a while our paths separated, they did their raids and I leveled at my own casual pace. And then - months later - when I hit level 60 I got whispers from all those guys congratulating me!

WoW community used to be one wonderful place to be...

Well that is the vanilla WoW or original version WoW. When TBC came with arena's and BG ranks were removed allot of things changed. Good player succeeded in the Arenas and in season 3 and 4 elitism started on the forums. Anybody who was lower than 2K rating in arena was trash talked and ignored by the "pro" players and sometimes it was justified because there were allot of clueless ****s around. But on the other hand some players that were saying useful stuff and stating their opinion also got trash talked just for their arena rating.

This started another chain reaction. Players started trashtalking the "pro" players and said they were OP, FotM and No-Skill class. It was true that allot of classes had it easier than others and how clueless players could get high rating just because of their class, but if you were a good player 2K+ wasn't that hard.

Allot of bad players started whining about nerfs and buffs and here is were blizzard totally messed up classes, they hit rogues and mages with the nerf bat within 2 weeks of release of WotlK, but allow DK and Palas to dominate for 2+ months.... both blizzard and the majority of community were clueless when it came to balancing.

I always owned at PvP and was respected by some for being a good player although some hated me for my ego lol. Always been 2K+ rated on a hunter and in wotlk on a rogue. The most important is knowing how other classes work so you can counter them but, bad players went on the forums and whined for nerfs and blizzard gave in every now and then. Ofc i have reported some balance issues myself, but i always constructive instead of "zomfg rogue just killz me in BG whenz i was 20%hp amfgg?! how tis is fair? nerfz stelth kkthaxbai!"

The forums of WoW are immature and rotten (majority of it), but the actual server you play on is affected by how you are as a player

[Bullkat]

Originally Posted by Chob

I'd say they are not very confident in WoW anymore



Gamasutra - News - Analyst: Hardware Pricing, Possible Starcraft II Delay Could 'Compromise' Activision's Holiday

LOL

And here is more WoW FAIL as they are really trying to hold on to those big paychecks maybe?

World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Faction-Change Service in the Works- 7/1

[Ulquiorra]

Also 2 bigass mistake WoW made and continues to do so, is killing world PvP and only focusing on Arena (although i like arena, allot of players hate it). The second mistake is adding Instanced Battlegrounds where you can use siege engines. People hop on a siege engine and have 4 attacks and deal tons of damage. I really hope Aion doesn't use siege engines, i want epic man to man battles and the aerial system really has my attention because it truly is epic imo.

[Dafydd]

Originally Posted by Ulquiorra

The forums of WoW are immature and rotten (majority of it), but the actual server you play on is affected by how you are as a player

Same goes for WAR and AoC, Darkfall forums didn't even make it to release before becoming a sewer. Sadly the same will almost certainly happen to Aion forums. PvE raiding MMORPGs tend to attract a lot of elitists, PvP MMORPGs tend to attract a lot of asshats, one way or the other everyone's screwed :/

-------------------------

Originally Posted by Ulquiorra

The second mistake is adding Instanced Battlegrounds where you can use siege engines. People hop on a siege engine and have 4 attacks and deal tons of damage. I really hope Aion doesn't use siege engines, i want epic man to man battles and the aerial system really has my attention because it truly is epic imo.

There is no possible way to reasonably spin that as a mistake, siege engines are HUGELY popular with the majority of the playerbase. The PvP elite hate them, almost everyone else loves them.

[Ulquiorra]

There is no possible way to reasonably spin that as a mistake, siege engines are HUGELY popular with the majority of the playerbase. The PvP elite hate them, almost everyone else loves them.

I am talking about WoWs siege engines, they might be fun in other games but in WoW they aren't. 1 side has access to Siege Engines while the other side has to use their normal attacks on them. Siege engines look cool in other games, but in WoW they are a big piece of ****.

[Senshi]

Originally Posted by Ulquiorra

I am talking about WoWs siege engines, they might be fun in other games but in WoW they aren't. 1 side has access to Siege Engines while the other side has to use their normal attacks on them. Siege engines look cool in other games, but in WoW they are a big piece of ****.

I saw you on aion

[Raivyn]

Originally Posted by Bullkat

LOL

And here is more WoW FAIL as they are really trying to hold on to those big paychecks maybe?

World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Faction-Change Service in the Works- 7/1

Hahahahaha

Hahaha

Ha.

Thats pretty funny, they're also doing the Emblems of Conquest for heroics too. I think this may well be the death throes of WoW.

[Senshi]

this topic needs to DIE

[Raivyn]

Originally Posted by Senshi

this topic needs to DIE

This topic needs to be moved to chitchat.

[Dafydd]

Originally Posted by Raivyn

Hahahahaha
Thats pretty funny, they're also doing the Emblems of Conquest for heroics too. I think this may well be the death throes of WoW.

Most guilds doing T9 will have trouble fitting T8 and T7 into their schedules too, when T10 arrives in a few more months that problem will be even bigger as there will be 3 entire raiding tiers that don't fit into the raiding calendar of a guild progressing through T10. Alts will be screwed, anyone trying to catch up because they started late will be screwed, high end guild recruitment will be screwed, there will be all sorts of problems.

Blizzard know this, that's why they introduce the solution early. In 3.2 T7 raids will be the primary emblem grinding grounds, PuGs will faceroll T7 for emblems of conquest to buy T8 level gear with, they'll also do the daily 5 man dungeon quests for emblems of triumph to get a few pieces of T9 level gear. What does this mean for the content?

5 man heroics will see a surge in popularity, people who haven't set foot in one for months will be doing them again and the quality of the average PuG will go up as more experienced players join groups.

T7 will see a surge in popularity, more PuGs will succeed because more competent raiders will be going back for emblems just as with the 5 man dailies.

T8 will pretty much die. I believe Blizzard think everyone who had am serious interest in Ulduar and was in a position to reslistically go there has already done it in normal mode (or is just finishing it off). They're not expecting anyone to realistically start working on Ulduar now so allowing people to bypass it in the future doesn't affect anyone's progression noticeably.

WoW has it's flaws, but Blizzard are NOT stupid and this patch is as far from being WoW's death throes as you can possibly imagine. 3.2 will rejuvenate the places most of the playerbase plays in (and are all they'll ever see) and the minority running Ulduar will be running the Argent Coliseum instead. Everybody wins except the tiny minority who think they're special and unique snowflakes because of their gear, neither Blizzard nor the rest of the playerbase cares about them much.

On the subject of Aion I have to say the 1.5 patch notes re-ignited my interest somewhat, the battleground dungeons sound like a whole load of fun.

[Skyrider]

Originally Posted by Lilja

A good point.

I also suspect that having achieved a status (at least in their own head) some players are daunted by the idea of beginning from the beginning and that makes them very defensive towards any new game that they perceive as possibly forcing them to do that. Which might explain some of the hatred directed towards Aion.

Oh, God yes! It's built into the playing model as an incentive to keep people playing. You've build up this character over so much time and when you stop playing you have "nothing" to show for it. Materially anyways.

Really with MMO's I think you have to measure your time spent by the experiences you've had with people rather than the Pavlovian measurement of how much gear you've attained.

Originally Posted by Dafydd

Same goes for WAR and AoC, Darkfall forums didn't even make it to release before becoming a sewer. Sadly the same will almost certainly happen to Aion forums.

The only thing that will stop this from happening is if we, as the playerbase, do not stand for it. What ruins these communities is a mob mentality that's immature. By making it clear the community won't accept it and deriding the people who take part in such idiocy, the playerbase can influence itself positively.

[buglepong]

Originally Posted by Skyrider

the Pavlovian measurement of how much gear you've attained.

I think people who stay a long time (~3 years) in an MMO tend to have this trait. By that time, gameplay has reached an end and it's only friends and gears keeping you playing.

[d0minus]

Originally Posted by Xentaph

EZ mode time sink.

I'm confused, is that not aion? Indeed, is that not... almost every mmo?

[Zamox]

I can return to 'old' games in small bursts, usually months apart. Like I can play old Sega Genesis games now and then, the ones I adored growing up, and have an awesome time. It's not so much the inherent problem of a game's age (some games are timeless); it's the frequency with which you play the game. When you play a single MMO for 3, 4, 5 years of your life, I think you're hurting your potential enjoyment of other games. When you're that hardcore into one, single narrowly-focused game experience, you lose sight of the rest of the game industry evolving. MMOs often trap players in treadmills of strange social obligation and micro-advancement addiction, deadly powerful. You have to recognize when your skill as a gamer has capped out in a MMO, and you're simply going through the motions to chase carrots of minuscule upgrades. That's when it's time to move on.

That's when you need to try a new game for a while. And make sure you feed the other needs as well, like RTS, FPS, and interesting indie titles. So many people are horribly consumed by a single MMO, it robs their gamer soul. They begin to forget about the the joys of other genres and platforms and cease to be 'general gamers,' instead they're 'X MMO Gamers'. Lifers, consumed. You have to diversify your diet of games, try new stuff. For sanity.

[Terpsichore]

Vanilla wow pre nerf scholo or even dire maul, cthun, naxx and most of pre tbc pve was thousand times harder than the faceroll material wotlk is right now.

I had tons of fun during vanilla (started with 1.0), even tho the game has thousands of bugs and broken mechanics it was challenging and fun and the world actually felt alive, but even since activision bought blizzard (late vanilla patches (pvp purples for free) and tbc, the game started to decay, i guess they went the easy way: making something appealing to dumb masses and advertising the game roughly everywhere, ****ing off the original player base in process.

So they managed to kill ALL the core aspects that make a mmo what it is, the pvp, the hard pvm, the sense of archievement, the uniqueness of gear and a living world. Converting the game into some hellspawn of absolute nonsense, so now everyone can faceroll their way to 80, then faceroll their way into either "pvp" or "pve" and get the gears thats everyone else have, so they can uh... jump in capitol towns or afk on flying mounts, cause there is absolutely nothing to do.