Looking at T2 I started to think to myself where is the content for the casual player (using casual as a term of time played for this post). The type of player that logs in a little here and there. Maybe one or two days during the week or maybe they are just a weekend warrior.
While talking to people in guild I keep hearing myself say things like, "You are lucky to have more time to play." There is someone in guild that has 4 alts, ones that never raided, in complete 695 gear already. There are a few people that have all the patterns on all their characters. There are some people that have gathered 100s of felblight. There are people in guild that have been able to kill all the big four rares on multiple characters each day and have a huge collection of the medallion of the legion reputation item and all the mounts already. All these people have one thing in common. A huge amount of free time to play.
It is not like I don't play a lot, I do. In the grand scheme of things I play a hell of a lot. Even on the weeks I say I am not playing much I still probably log between 6 - 8 hours for the week. On the average week when I am playing regular I might put in 20 hours a week, which is basically like a part time job. In terms of game play that is way past casual time wise.
So it is not like I do not play a lot of hours because I do. But this is the first time, ever since I started playing the game, that I don't think I can keep up. Not in the way I want to all because I do not have enough time to play. It seems like T2 was designed with the unemployed in mind. I would have never thought that putting in 6 - 20 hours a week in a game was extremely casual game play, but it sure seems it is now.
If I do not have enough time to do all of the things listed above, or let me rephrase that, any of those things that the people in guild with lots of free time have done, where exactly does that leave the more casual player?
It has me wondering what the other 90%, if not more, of the player base that does not play as often as I do thinks.
How do they have the time to do the unseen influences each day. Hunting 10 rares for drops can take some serious time and most players do not know there are things you can loot on the ground that will give you the items you need, so they do it through killing rares only. In a world where most rares will die in roughly 10 seconds of spawning unless you are standing at its spawn point you could easily miss it. Collecting those 10 fragments is not casual game play, it is time consuming game play, a time sink if you will, sometimes created with the main purpose of taking a long time to complete.
Even the apexis crystal zones can take some time if you are not well geared to begin with, which a more casual player might not be, or if you are on a character you are not very skilled at. Doing those could easily take a half hour or less for someone that knows what they are doing and had some gear but otherwise it could turn into a long time sink quest taking upwards of an hour. What does the casual player do when their free time to play for the night in only an hour. Once they do their garrison chores and head to T2 they have already eaten into their play time for the day some.
Now if they get distracted by people calling out rares and waste their time trying to get to something that is most likely dead shortly after the person called it out that starts to eat away at their time even more. Maybe, just maybe, they might be able to complete the apexis zone and grab a few fragments in their hour of play time. They did not get to do everything, or even half of the dailies. They did not get to spend time gathering so they could get felblight, they did not get to do some fishing for the same reason, they did not get to spend time rare hunting, they did not get to wait for groups for the four big rares.
All that can get added to the fact now they might not have time to do LFR, they might not have time to find a pug for normal or heroic, they might not have time to do a challenge mode or a mythic dungeon even if they might have wanted to. It puts them in the position of needing to choose what they will do with their time today and when looking at T2 and the time sink it is, doing anything other than T2 is usually a good option.
In the end it seems like T2 offered absolutely no casual content, at least in my opinion. It was created for people that have a lot of free time. A lot more than even I do because all I have time to do is keep up on my main and even at that I am already hating it. I do not have time to bring my alts in, I do not have time to do some pugs to get some practice, gear or maybe kill some bosses the guild is not up to yet. I rarely have time to do a mythic dungeon, unless I do like I did the other day and say, screw the dailies today, I am going to do a dungeon instead.
If I can not find the time to do stuff because of T2 I really wonder what the more casual players are feeling like. Do they feel like they can't get anything done? Time sinks are fine, grinds are fine, but I wonder were is the content for the casual player, something they can do in short time on T2. I personally do not see it. Seems like blizzard us pushing the casual player further and further away and I am not sure this is the right design. Some bite sized content needs to be there, something that people who play for a limited amount of time can feel like they are actually getting things done and I don't see enough of that on T2 personally. I think the time sink design was over used to try to make the content last longer than it.
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You seem to be saying that someone with limited playtime can't complete all the content every day.
ReplyDeleteWhy is that a bad thing?
Anyone with limited time has always had to choose how to spend that time, T2 has just added a few more options.
On that note, I like how progress on dailies/bonus areas etc is saved so you can just go back and do a bit more at another time.
I'm only dipping in and out of the jungle at the moment and find that it really makes a difference to the 'feeling' of progress being made.
" I think the time sink design was over used to try to make the content last longer "
This might be true, let's hope they aren't expecting it to last 14 months ;-)
I am not saying it is a bad thing necessarily. Content should last. I am saying it is a bad things because when someone like myself who plays a lot can not get enough done to feel as if they are getting somewhere, how would someone that plays less feel?
DeleteIt would have to be worse for them. Taking three days to complete unseen influence is not exactly "fun" and there are many people that are saying it takes them that long. It should not take days to complete a quest that is intended to be a daily and done every day. That is what I am getting at.
Sorry to be the one to break it too you, but we will be sitting in this content for 14 months, or damn close to it. Think of it this way, never have they announced and expansion and it taken fewer than 9 months to arrive. That means, even if they announce today, it will still be 9 months from now. Being they are not going to do that, I see at least a 1 year HFC raid in our future.
I do like the "saved" feature of the bonus objectives. That is huge. They actually have been using that tech all expansion. Go do one of the zone objectives and do not finish it. You can go back months later and your progress will be just as it was left. That is a nice design.
In short, yes.
ReplyDeleteI have reached a point of annoyance quite some time ago, when I realized WoW is actually 'not for me'. Meaning, I work on a 9-18 schedule. I wake up around 6:45 and come home at about 7. Eat, wash all that. Meaning I'm online 7:30-8:00 if I log immediately. And I should go to sleep at 12 pm tops, though 6,75hrs of sleep is actually not that much and would prefer more. Which doesn't leave much time to do anything if you raid, only on non raiding days and then, isn't that like spending your whole time on WoW, leaving no room for family / friends / hobbies / house chores / shopping... and WoW also gives that crappy feeling of being 'behind' your WoW friends if you skip days doing dailies
So... Looking at my guild, I don't really see people who work. There's the students. There's the many many unemplyed. There's the few who have a flexible work from home schedule or part times. Hardly anyone like me, with only 4 hours a day of free time for any activity in all.
The end result being... T2 cured me of logging on my Alts. I can hardly keep up with my main. Yesterday, I simply logged off in disgust at how long everything took. My server being overpopulated means you actually don't ever get to kill any rares ever, epic hunting crystal fails on every use since there are simply no rares that survive, you can't reach any of the special 4 rares because they die in less than 15 seconds (no joke). It's an exercise in frustration and I'm rapidly coming to the realization that WoW is simply not for me anymore.
I work a lot of hours myself. 11 hours a day. So like yourself my play time is limited but I usually do quite well in getting a lot done in a short time. I just don't feel as if I am capable of doing that any longer.
DeleteLike you this expansion as killed the desire to have alts for me. Sure I would still love to have a few to play but I do not have the time to gear them all. There is just not enough time in the day. The only time they get some love is on weekends when I pick one or two of them and can invest some time in them.
Sadly for me, I have to keep my tank geared now as we have one tank that went a little off and on and I do not know when he will show and another that leaves for college where he will not be able to play in a few months. So I "have to" gear up two character and I am really not enjoying it.
The major league screwed up on the rares in T2. Even on my medium server they never last long. The big 4 might last longer than they do on yours, but not much longer, maybe 30 seconds. Anything else is dead the second it spawns and you have no time to get a hit in unless you are standing right on it. Now add that to no one is super geared yet, imagine what it is going to be like in a few weeks... months?
My work position (well, pretending to work while I comment on Grumpy's blog) is very similar to yours but I don't measure my progress against that of other people, I set my own goals that are achievable in the time I have available.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you try to keep up with people who can play all day long? I'm not surprised you are frustrated.
It is only fair, I am very hard at work (supposedly) as I write these things. So it makes sense people read them at work.
DeleteBut being it is written at work and read at work couldn't we say it is work related. ;)
I can not answer for James, but for me, why do I try to keep up? I am the raid leader, I should keep up. I need to lead by example. If I can not keep my character(s) that I raid with in tip top shape what right do I have to ask my raiders to do so?
It is not a matter of I want to keep up with them, it is a matter of I have to keep up with them.
I'm one of those casuals, on weekdays I have maximum two hours (but that's rare) to play, weekends a bit more if I decide to focus on WoW.
ReplyDeleteAnd seriously - I don't really feel the problem. Probably being casual since a few years changed my views. I can't be bothered to do every daily every day, I simly don't care. I do those I feel up for it. It doesn't matter if it's days to complete one, it will happen. My reputation will be maxed out someday. If I like something, I will do that more and get my rewards. I couldn't care less about the 100th mount out there, if I fancy it I'll have it - tomorrow or in a year, doesn't matter.
Yesterday I didn't feel up for Tanaan so I've gone to finish up a garrion campaign quest (yeah, not finished with those either, see, casual ;) ). I have no feeling of missing out on something. The content is there waiting for me. I'll get there when I get there, no hurry. :)
While I am a lot like you Serelyen, I do think there are still problems.
DeleteThe content is likely to be there in the future, but not necessarily. Blizzard is not afraid to remove content and so if you don't get something when it is current it may disappear. Obviously, that is something that we risk playing slowly but not everyone wants to have that problem.
Also, the content might not be removed, but a person might not be capable of soloing it. For example, I never got the dragon mount to drop from Timeless Isle. Can my 100 go back and solo it? Maybe. I'm sure other 100s can, but can I? If I didn't do it when current and I can't solo it, I don't get to do that content until it is 1 or 2 expansions late. While that might not be a problem for you or I, it might be to others.
@Serelyen
DeleteThanks for commenting, it helps to hear what the people that have less time to play think. As I can only "think" what might be going through their heads it is nice to actually hear it from someone.
As you said it really helps because you don't care if you do them right away. I probably was aiming more from the angle of people that did want to do it and cared more about it. But you have the perfect casual attitude which is awesome. I"'ll do it when I get to the time to do it." That is why I classify myself as a casual raider, 'I'll down the bosses when I down them" I am in now rush. That is the true casual mentality in my opinion.
@Casually Odd
You mention something I worry about myself. Blizzard has recently been removing content for no real reason and I worry that if I do not do it now it might not be there later. I hate that blizzard has started to do that in their new design philosophy.
A 100 can solo houlan easy. I was able to solo him the day timeless island came out at 90 on my hunter before it ever even had one piece of new gear. So at 100, it is a joke. But the problem is blizzard made that CRZ, so good luck finding it alive. When it does spawn it is always dead in less than 3 seconds. So that is why getting it now could be a problem. Trust me, I still go back there trying to get the things I never got and it is rare I ever see anything alive.
Tbh none of this surprises me. Blizz seem to putting in cheap grind content to drag things out for as long as possible as cheaply as possible.
ReplyDeleteTheir main concern seems to be "Are the leetest of the basement kiddies gonna like this?" regarding all other players as "Meh, just scrubs. They'll stfu and give us their cash for WoW-crack anyway".
As you posted the other day, T2 is really hard for people that are not already raid ready (unless a skilled hunter). This is no surprise. Blizz listen to feedback from hardcore raiders. Nobody else. Not now, not ever again, unless a massive exodus of subs breaks the nerve of their bean counters.
Sometimes I think you are a bit harsh, Seedy J, but I pretty much agree with you.
DeleteLike Fiannor says below, Blizzard has one proper way to play in mind and they are designing based on that.
Look to James above starting to realize that "WoW is actually 'not for me'." That's of course going to happen over time, but it seems like Blizzard is moving even faster in one direction that is leaving a lot of us out.
@Seedy J
DeleteOddly enough the reputations which we all believed would be a huge grind seem to not be so much so. They are moving along so quick I should be exalted soon and I have not even used any of the reputation tokens. I'd guess another 5 days maxed until all 3 are exalted and what has the patch been out for? 3 weeks?
I agree they designed T2 wrong, said so myself, they listen to the wrong people. They should have never designed the system to get 695 gear based on the opinions of the people that did not need any 695 gear. Huge mistake.
@Casually Odd
Also think that James is one of the better players that is doing mythic already. He is the one that are listening too and even he does not seem to like it. So I think their current design is kind of failing everyone.
I think that Blizz have made the same mistake that many other companies have made. They are focusing on a niche group. CCP make the same mistake.
DeleteBlizz focus their design around hardcore raiders atm. CCP focus EVE's design around nullsec and the grand pimp masters who rule the alliances there.
Catering to a minority of your client base is a bad idea for any business. It alienates the rest of the customers. This will see WoW go down the toilet.
If you go to the website "eve offline" and check the login stats you'll see that they are losing players too. Nullsec players are leaving thru boredom but hisec players are leaving because they are neglected, viewed as nothing more than content for the gankers to consume and sh*t on.
Just like "scrubs" are viewed as nothing more than an audience for the basement kiddies to wave an epeen at while dancing on the Orgrimmar mailbox in WoW.
It's a bad route to take. Things were very hardcore in the early MMO days and Blizz, hearing the vanilla nostalgia, are attempting the wrong way to resurrect that nostalgia.
It's gone. They might bring some back by bringing in old AV, the best of the old PVP. But sneering at the majority of the player base while sucking up to the leet kiddies is a really dumb move.
CCP are doing the same in EVE. Sucking up to the Nullsec pimp masters while expressing contempt for the hisec carebears.
Any company which neglects the majority of it's clients in favour of a niche of elitists will eventually lead to failure and an end to the system
Focusing on a niche group is the worst thing you can do. Even more so when the niche you are focusing are is a small portion of the player base.
DeleteYou would think they could have looked at what happened with wildstar to see what happens when you cater to the wrong crowd. It was a very good game, one I enjoyed, but I just did not have the time that would be needed to be put into it and it seems like many did not. You can not design games of this type like you used to 10 years ago. Times have changed and the games, if they want to succeed, need to change with them.
Spot on there. The market evolves. Some gamers do too, but the hardcore gamers and many devs do not evolve.
DeleteThe devs are themselves hardcore gamers (or were) and they have their own vision tied in with their ideals from 'the good old days', when gaming conjured up images like Warlock in Die Hard in his "Command Center", or a guy sitting playing games in his "Byte Cave" surrounded by electronics and a 20 meg HD hacked into his Amiga or Atari ST.
Things have changed, the market always evolves and has now become big business. The business itself evolved to service increasing numbers of customers but the product and the devs have not evolved fast enough and are still trying to cater to the old ways. This is how games die and why I believe that many MMOs are domed to die even before take-off. This wil take down WoW, EVE and others in due course.
The only times that vision and market were truly in harmony for WoW were vanilla, TBC and Wrath. The devs, however, have never accepted that the most vocal voices in the forums and the most active in testing are not a representative cross section of the client base.
Blizz and CCP both made this mistake and are going to struggle in the next eighteen months.
I would love to have the time to play a game like the "good old days". I would love to have something that took a lot of work and effort and time to get it done. I would love to do that with a bunch of like minded players that are willing to grind all day long for a goal.
DeleteThe thing is, I can't do that. Time will not allow it. And as it seems for a great many people that is a huge factor. They seem to forget that there is also a lot more competition out there and many people play multiple games. They can not put so much time in one that they have time for nothing else any more. They want something they can enjoy while still being able to fit other things in as well now. That is what the gaming world is today.
Indeed. I remember "the good old days" but that was when I was at school and at university. I had time to waste ages playing Dungeon Master and Eye Of The Beholder.
DeleteNowadays time is at a premium and the new crews in gaming have different tastes to what the old crews have/had.
This is a change that Blizz and CCP have both failed to accept and failed to adapt to.
Sure, there's plenty of the fanatical raid crew out there but way outnumbered now by people who have neither the time nor the patience.
I fear that the devs will never adapt to the change as they are rooted in their "old crew" ways and see any other way as being "not playing properly".
Having worked in IT and Sales I'm well aware that you tailor your product to the market. If you try to bend the market to force them into "your way" then the product is broken and is heading for fail street.
It's interesting from a cynical point of view to watch a big product like this go down in flames, if that indeed happens. If Blizzards devs are overruled by bean counters or actually adapt to the changing market (they won't) then WoW will survive. If not it'll splutter out and degenerate into a worthless has-been mmo while FF14 takes the top spot.
As for EVE, with the community there as toxic as it is I'd love to see it crash and burn and it's looking good for that to happen with CCPs obsessive focus on nullsec and the grand pimp masters that control the nullsec cartels and alliances.
Indeed. I remember "the good old days" but that was when I was at school and at university. I had time to waste ages playing Dungeon Master and Eye Of The Beholder.
DeleteNowadays time is at a premium and the new crews in gaming have different tastes to what the old crews have/had.
This is a change that Blizz and CCP have both failed to accept and failed to adapt to.
Sure, there's plenty of the fanatical raid crew out there but way outnumbered now by people who have neither the time nor the patience.
I fear that the devs will never adapt to the change as they are rooted in their "old crew" ways and see any other way as being "not playing properly".
Having worked in IT and Sales I'm well aware that you tailor your product to the market. If you try to bend the market to force them into "your way" then the product is broken and is heading for fail street.
It's interesting from a cynical point of view to watch a big product like this go down in flames, if that indeed happens. If Blizzards devs are overruled by bean counters or actually adapt to the changing market (they won't) then WoW will survive. If not it'll splutter out and degenerate into a worthless has-been mmo while FF14 takes the top spot.
As for EVE, with the community there as toxic as it is I'd love to see it crash and burn and it's looking good for that to happen with CCPs obsessive focus on nullsec and the grand pimp masters that control the nullsec cartels and alliances.
Maybe we are just looking at it wrong. Maybe it is just the fact that we have changed so much and out time is allocated differently. Perhaps the game requires just as much time as it always has but as we get older we want to do all we did before but we can't. So maybe it has not changed as much as we thought it has really. At least that is what I am thinking a little lately.
DeleteNo flying, trying to manage 4-5 Garrisons some are always running out of oil due to big fleets. So tired of running around mine, need mine overseer option.
ReplyDeleteT2, meh in a year or two gear will be ilvl 750-800 and all my gear vendor trash or dust again. Beats watching TV...just gotta not let it take over me like during LK days and I missed out on real life opportunities.
But LK was so much fun. Do not think of it in terms of what you missed but what you did get to enjoy.
DeleteWow, and I thought it was just me, that I can't organize my time well enough to feel like I am keeping up. It is great to know I am not alone.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I play 20-30 hours a week. I am lucky enough to work mostly from home, and even the hours I need to go in to the studio are extremely flexible. In fact, I have always considered the time I spend on this game to border on excessive. But now I absolutely feel like it is not enough, even to do what I consider to be the minimum.
I think what is happening is that Blizz is now making every game activity dependent on rep, raiding, and garrisons, all of which require a huge amount of time, and this time is now baseline for anything else you want to do in the game.
Want to gear up your alts? Get a level 3 garrison so you can get access to T2. Want the legendary? Get a level 3 garrison and a level 3 shipyard, and spend a lot of time collecting tokens in raids. Want to craft some new gems? Get two faction reps, complete Mythic Skyreach, run LFR, spend hours in T2 grubbing for Felblight. Oh, and by the way, be prepared to wait over an hour each time you want to get into LFR, and hope it is a full run and not just the last boss.
This is Blizz continuing to force a single play style on everyone. Yes, you are free to experience the game in your own way, but only after you have done everything the prescribed and "correct" way.
I am not exactly sure who they are designing it for but I agree that they are designing the game so it is intended to be played in one way and one way only and that is not good for the health of the game over all. Options are needed, choice is important.
DeleteIt is sad that you (me) can spend over 20 hours in a game and still feel like we are accomplishing nothing. Says something about the reward vs effort of it all when that considerable amount of time is not feeling rewarding.
It is amazing that the garrison is needed for everything when at the beginning they said that they would be completely optional. I believe the people at blizzard need to check out that word in the dictionary because they throw it around a lot and have no clue what it really means.
One of the things that they could do to help is make the rares and champions respawn much more quickly. I'm thinking every five minutes for rares and no more than every 10 or 15 for champions.
ReplyDeleteI'm actually enjoying T2, but I'm only going on my main. That makes things much quicker for me, especially being on a medium-population server. I'll probably send my hunter alt there as well, but not until my main is completely finished with the place. I have neither the time nor the will to play two characters there every day.
CRZ is the worst thing Blizzard has ever added to the game IMO. I hate it. If I want to quest through old content with folks, that is easily done in today's game. I don't need folks randomly picking my herbs and killing my mobs.
I can think of two things that would really help.
Delete1) Have them be like T1 rares where each person that attacks adds health, this might keep them alive a little bit longer even if not much.
2) Have them be like the new rare pets you can capture for pet battles where one is always up somewhere. It spawns shortly after one dies. Make it so there are three rares up at any given time. If there are none up one random one spawns. That way there is always a selection of rares to kill.
I do not mind it on my main either but it is very time intensive. If I just did the dailies it would be much faster but I do some rare hunting and some gathering / fishing each day as well. The problem is I have no time to go with other characters even if I wanted to.
I agree that CRZ is the worst thing blizzard ever added. Not sure what they were thinking but it was wrong whatever it was. CRZ solved nothing and only created more problems. If people wanted other people to do things with they have their own server or group finder. They should never have been forced together.
CRZ is the response to dead-zones. Go back to wrath and try to complete some of the quests there that require 3+ people. There are zones, at level, that were impossible solo and you couldn't even complete the quest chain or move on until it so.
DeleteI _had_ thought they were only going to implement CRZ on selected, "low-pop" areas, but possibly that was too complicated, so they made the world CR.
But what about us people who would rather quest alone? Why were we not given a choice. CRZ should have been an option to enable it or not if they wanted to add it. So I could quest in peace while others that wanted to be around other people could quest with others.
DeleteSince cataclysm they removed nearly all those quests that require multiple people. So all it has become is a place where it is harder to gather things, harder to get mobs you need to kill, and annoying to wait for respawns of big quests most, mostly in BC more than the other areas. CRZ was nothing but bad for the questing experience in my opinion.
As a self described 'casual' player since ~BC, I am resigned to never seeing the top-end content. I know that. I have accepted that compromise so that I have a happy family life (otherwise my wife would have killed
ReplyDeleteme literally a long time ago). To survive in this game, it's about having priorities.
My typical game time runs from 10PM local, to somewhere around 1AM, on average 2 nights a week. LFG and LFR are my best friend, because not many of my guild or RL friends are up and awake at that time.
With regards to places like T2, of my 3 toons (warlock, druid and priest), my priest will probably never see the place. Heck, she's still level 92 because of the annoyance of leveling yet another soft clothy via questing (she will get all my locks dropped baleful tokens though). I do miss the healer queue for dungeons... My druid may get to see T2, so that she can queue for HFC, but it depends on time permitting.
At this time, it's all about those priorities. For me, my priority is 1) flying 2) legendary quest chain on warlock. To complete these, I've spent the last week finishing off my exalted rep, so that I can level my trading post. It's now level 3, and get the 20% rep bonus, so I'll re-visit my t2 reputations.
I see it now, 6.2.1 my druid and priest will have flying due to my warlock and everything will be a ton easier. Then maybe they'll do something more than professions.. :)
Those seem to be pretty late hours for most people. Have to love the addition of things like LFG and LFR because without them finding groups must have really been hard back in the day. Heck I play at prime time and I often would spend hours trying to find a group.
DeleteI like that flying is account wide but what makes it even better is that it is for all characters. Might make leveling your priest easier on you once you can fly and just get to the quest objectives and not need to fight every step of the way. I still way blizzard went well beyond what anyone asked for when they decided to make flying at 90. That was a pretty awesome thing. I might even level a few more alts when that comes.
yeah, those 10% who seem to have all the time in the world, those are the ones who bitched about game play and Blizzard listen. Me, lucky these days to even remember that I play WOW. and to come here and read a little bit. like a few of the folks who left comments, yes, I will get there some day. I have 4 lvl 100's a couple lvl 90's and a couple of 92s. I will never get them to 100. Yes, I could, but why? the same content over and over again.
ReplyDeleteThe new area opened up is bugged beyond belief. The lack of dailies to gather rep with the 3 factions are there, but so slow. And to be honest, doesn't make sense. You get 3 or 4 quests, go do them and as you do them up pops something called "bonus quest - kill so many. blah, blah. blah", so you do those and when you go back to Lion's Watch, you find out it was for naught as a bule ! pops up and says go do 2 bonus quests for this rep. What the fuck?!? Why doesn't the stupid game remember you just did them or not pop up unless you got that quest.
your guild mates are lucky to have 100s of that blightfel - I only have 13 that has come from mining ore. I don't know how these folks get that crap. Prob the same ones that has it on the AH for 700+ gold.
speaking of that fookin' CRZ. How come blizz still doesn't have it where people can trade with each other from the different servers. Pretty stupid not to be able to do that. Or bring about that AH for all factions being one.
ok, enough yapping about the said state of affairs in the game. The 10% still rule the game and they are what and who Blizzard listens too, not the other 90%. Take care.
-roo
I've been squeezing in all the dailies each day and rep is moving along nicely. It is actually a lot faster than I had been expecting. But that is only because I have gone out of my way to make sure I have time to do them every day. If you do not have that time, it will be a much much longer grind.
DeleteI have not been having luck with felblight either. I played all last weekend, a 3 hour weekend, and I was on a herbalist, a skinner, and two miners, all gathering their hearts out. Also I fished from every poll I saw as you can get felblight from pools and that fish is really strong stat food too while questing. I got a total of 7 felblight. So it is a luck thing, which is something I do not have.
I still say they should have never even considered adding CRZ until it was a true CRZ where you could trade people. As it stands not only does it suck, but it is useless even for the people that do like it because you can not have real true interaction with them unless you could trade them, mail them, invite them to guild, etc.
I took 2 months out of the game earlier this year so I was already playing catch-up, T2 could have made it worse.
ReplyDeleteThankfully I do very little solo there, even with my Hunter, we get 3-5 guildies together and blast through it.
Having the huge, delicious carrot of flying in front of me helps my motivation somewhat too.
The only things I'm doing to gear alts is getting BoA drops from Galleonville, and sneaking them into Kazzak kills each week. (Great source of Felblight there too btw).
I spend between 1.5 and 2 hours each day doing Garrisonville on 5 toons, and Galleonville on two of them.
I then spend 1 to 1.5 hours doing T2 rep grinding on nights when we're not raiding. Raiding is such a nice relaxing break, I look forward to it (but I don't have the added pressure of being RL).
At weekends I make sure I run old content just for a change of scenery otherwise what should be a game feels too much like a second job.
I try for pets, or mounts, or get rep with old content factions. Sometimes we'll get a bunch of guildies together and no achievement runs.
Without the incentive of gearing for raiding I just couldn't do all the boring daily stuff for its own sake. That's why I quit for 2 months earlier when HM came out, and the "meh" levels hit 11 for me.
I have had horrible luck with felblight off Kaz. My priest got 3 this week, my hunter, 6, my druid, 6, and rogue, 4. Everyone else seems to get 15 or around that. I get 3. :( But yes, it is a great source of blight.
DeleteI used to look forward to raid night. Not any more. I dread raid night most of the time. Just not having fun this tier. And even less fun when we do a normal run and try to bring some of the lesser geared or experience players because it seems normal is most definitely NOT for friends and family like it was advertised to be. Sad having to kick people all the time because they are not heroic raiders in a normal. Raiding this expansion has been entirely unejoyible from the at least this casual raid leaders perspective.
Having read a lot of the above replies a conspiracy theory has popped into my head:
ReplyDeleteDon't we hear how a great deal of the drop in subscriber numbers occurs in Asia?
And isn't the subscription model different over there? Isn't it a case of pay for the hours in game rather than pay per month?
Well, wouldn't it make sense for blizzard to design these relentless time sinks to keep Asian subscribers logged in and paying.
And if the rest of us are paying a monthly amount, what difference is it to them if we log in for an hour a month or 100 hours?
I mean, if I was a shareholder or exec trying to maximize profits for the game, its probably what I would do.
I believe they pay by the hour there. So of course creating content that takes a long time means more money from them.
DeletePeople like us on a monthly fee, as you mentioned, mean nothing to them. As long as we pay it they do not care if we log on for 10 minutes to 100 hours.
You do make a valid point when looking at it that way. It is quite possible they could be trying to milk the asian market for as much as they can.
and don't forget, most Asian players enjoy an advantage over us here - they get and enjoy gold sellers and equipment sellers - maybe not for WOW, but for any other game. They particular like, as my Korean brother-in-law was telling me about his grandson, that they can buy pretty much anything to help their toon in any MMORPG online. Blizz is trying that here with their gold coupon for $20, but I am not sure how it is going.
DeleteBuying and selling in game stuff is common place in some areas. It is still frowned upon here however. Funny how blizzard will indirectly sell you gear by selling you gold so you can buy the BoE gear but they will ban you if you just go to one of those sites to buy the BoE gear from there.
DeleteApologies: one last word on T1 and T2 rares.
ReplyDeleteI used to have to run the Rarecoordinator add-on for T1 because the rares were killed so quickly. Unless you were stood there waiting for Houlon to pop you had no chance or getting there in time. I don't see any difference with T2 there.
I understand they've built the rare seeker in which you can buy when you have enough rep? Not high enough rep to buy it myself, but other guildies say it helps (especially now it skips Vyrax).
I have it, it is great and I am so glad it now skips vyrax. You have to buy the lesser version that only has a limited range, which means it fails a hell of a lot. Then you buy the larger versions that needs some gold and the lesser version and it works wonders. But be quick on your toes when you port because if the rare was already in battle you end up missing it still. It does not place you right on top of the rare either. So you will need to get to it. Which in some cases is kind of fun. I've had it drop me in some weird places, including up in a tree.
DeleteOh, BTW, there is also another rare you can only get to with that. Once you have all the rares killed and order of the awakened exalted, the first time you hit it, it will take you to that new rare.
DeleteIt is a harder fights than the other rares, so be prepared. If you get blown off the platform there is no going back there unless you get lucky enough to get ported up there again with the crystal.
Maybe once flying comes people will just be able to fly there. Which would really suck, as you get a title for killing it. It should require you to do the achievement and get them to exalted to be able to fight it.