What would it be?
There are two ways to answer a question like this. One would be the most outrageous change you know would never happen, not even in a million years, and one would be a reasonable change. I would say, for the sake of making it simple, that the changes you can make must me single changes. Not complete redesigns.
One Outrageous Change:
The one outrageous change I would like to see, something that will never happen, is for blizzard to adopt an active role in moderating their game. Actively have GMs banning people, actually enforcing the rules that are already in place and making new rules that are meant to make the game a better place for everyone in it, and enforcing them, not pussyfooting around.
It will never happen because blizzard flat out does not give a crap. They ban bots in waves to make their lives easier not to build an anti bot system. Do not buy into the "we need to monitor them so we can stop them" line of bull shit they feed you. If you ban them they are stopped. Isn't that simple enough? They can monitor them for 24 hours and then ban them, that would give them the same data as monitoring them for 2 months, which is roughly how long I have been seeing this same 85 flying around panda land mining and he is still not banned. What information do they get 2 months later after a bot has mined 24/7 for those 2 months that they would not have in the first 24 hours? Once you see what it does, you know what it does, ban them.
I would love to see blizzard actively give a shit about their game and ban the bots, ban the trouble makers, ban anyone that makes the game look bad basically. The quality of game play would increase tenfold if we did not have to deal with all this crap and blizzard turning a blind eye to it. Too bad it will never happen because active moderation means they might lose money because they banned people and money is more important that we, the players, are.
One Easy Change:
For my one easy change I would like to see leveling become a task again. Not meaning hard or anything but I believe it should take a fair deal of time. People should not be capable of getting to max level in 30 hours played if they rush it, it should take 30 days played if they rush it. Maybe 20.
Either way, at the very least change it to the point where even with heirlooms you will not out level a zone 6 quests into it. Make it that even a fully heirloomed player might be able to leave a zone a tiny bit earlier but they would still need to do 70 of the 80 quests in that area to even come close to out leveling it.
People, new people mostly, are missing a fair part of the game. Leveling should be made to be a part of the game again instead of what it is now, a means to an end. If they really want to keep leveling as a means to an end they should just remove the need for leveling all together.
The added side effect is that longer leveling will make the end game of random content so much better. I would hazard a guess that 75% of the players at end game that people might classify as bad players would not be there if it were not for the fact leveling was so fast and easy. It would make the player pool better which in turn would allow for a better end game experience, especially in random content.
There are many things to be gained by making the easy adjustment to leveling speed. There is nothing to be lost. Except subscriber that want everything easy, so I guess even this easy change will never happen.
If you could change one thing, one outrageous and one easy, what would they be?
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
The Woe of the Single Character
I am in no way a single character player. I had 17 max level characters last expansion and while I only have 6 now because the reputation grind on alts ruined my desire to level more any time soon while there is still so much for the others to do I am sure I will end the expansion with over 20 90s. I would even bet on it.
So I might not be the best person to look at the single character issue but I think I can look at some of the issues they deal with as I do tend to play the game a lot of different ways, because that is how I enjoy myself.
I've leveled alts on PvP servers, alts on alliance dominated servers as horde, alts on horde dominated servers as alliance, alts with no guild, alts with high guilds, alts with no professions, two gathering professions, two crafting professions, or a mix of one each. I have leveled so many different alts in so many different ways, just to experience the game in every way possible, to get the most out of it one might say.
As such, I can say I have a few servers with only one character on them and at max (was, will be again) level to boot. So I know a little about having a single character. Perhaps it is my experience with having multiple characters with multiple professions that makes me look at things a little differently but I can say without a doubt that it is hard, very hard, to play end game if you only have one character.
Now, I have the added experience of someone that has all professions and knows the ropes and how to use the auction house but I wonder about the woes a single character would have if they did not have the experiences I have.
The one character I will use in my example is a hunter (of course) that has two gathering professions that were not just chosen without thought. I took herbalism and skinning. There is a reason behind that too, something only someone with experience in the game would even consider.
While mining is a good money maker it is also the gathering profession with the most people doing it. Not to mention on a full server, as this hunter is on, there are also a lot of bots, which all seem to love mining as well. So with all that added competition I decided that I could get more done for my time investment using the other two gathering professions than I would using the, seemingly, more profitable profession or mining.
Not to mention that skinning means killing things. Killing things means getting drops. Even gray items sell nicely and lets not forget that anything you can skin can also drop meat and food always sells good, even more so this expansion it seems when turtle meat is still going over 300 gold a stack. So what some might think I lose to not having mining I pick up with skinning in other ways.
All this comes from experience, the same experience that lets me work the auction house to my advantage meaning I always have my satchel filled with gold from my adventures.
Again, I will point out that I have a lot of experience that someone that only has a single character might not, so I am making it easier on myself.
Now lets get to that end game. The constant gearing treadmill and need for enchants, and gems and flasks and potions and scope. About the only thing I can take care of myself is food but that is about it. Even with my minimal efforts I am capable of making a few thousand a week on that character and as such it is enough to keep me with the best of everything I need. Barely.
It is not easy keeping up with everything you need. If it were my main and only character I am sure it would be easier however, I understand that. But as it is, sometimes it puts you in the position of making decisions I would never be forced to make on a server with multiple characters on it.
I just got a chest piece from a heroic for example. Should I spend the 3K the enchant is selling for or should I wait to see if one drops in LFR, or I get into a pug and one drops there, or maybe save up valor to buy one. That 3K can be pretty daunting for most people. I can make it back no problem as I know how to work things to my advantage but the question is still there, do I want to spend 2 hours making gold to make back that 3K or should I just wait for another chest?
On a server with my own enchanter it is never a question. I get a new piece, I pop on my enchanter and I make the enchant, no questions asked. I do not even think about it.
How about running dungeons or the LFR or even a pug. Is it worth using a flask? Food? All that stuff costs gold and is it worth it? If I do not need it to finish the content why use it, it would be like throwing away gold for nothing.
I never make these types of decisions on servers where I have everything going. I can make everything myself and usually do, so I have everything I would ever need in mass quantities. I've never needed to make the decision or putting in a green gem because the blue ones cost way to much. I got spoiled. On a single character server I make the decision every single piece of gear I get with a gem slot.
It comes down to how long I think I will have that piece. If it is something that will last me a while, maybe even until the next raid patch, I will surely spend the gold but if it is something I can replace easy, like with valor or a LFR drop, green it is baby. Why waste the gold.
Talking about gold, to make gold I use my gathering professions and do quite well with it for my once or twice a month I would play it. I don't think I have seen under 30K all that often and when I do it is not long before I get over it again. That 30K I call my buffer, the least amount I want to keep on me. If I go under it then I try to make some more. If I am above it, I really do not give a crap. Some time ago I figured that was the number you needed to keep yourself rolling in anything you would ever need, in cataclysm that is. Might up it now I guess.
For making gold, or not making it the times I am too lazy to spend all that time listing stuff, I need bag space. As a single character this is the biggest problem in the world. Bigger than the hardest boss on heroic ever. It is a boss you can not beat, will not beat, ever. It won't happen, at least not until you abandon your single character concept. If you want to hold on to stuff you will need an alt. This is non-negotiable.
Nope, can't do it, not on this server. This server is all about being solo. No alts allowed. So like it or not, sell stuff or waste the only time I am going to be playing that week on that character sitting at the auction house instead of doing things like dailies or dungeons or raids or pugging or gathering or dancing around naked, whatever floats your boat. All because it comes down to having no bag space.
It becomes a decision of what to keep and what to sell. Some wrath food still sells quite nicely. 60 gold a stack is not bad, but it sells slow. So the options you now have are three. Keep listing it to sell it at the top price and use your mailbox as a catch all, which does work. List it for a super low price. Enough that you will still make a fair deal on it but at the same time cheap enough that if someone sees it they will think, it is never this cheap I have to buy it now. And last but not least, vendor it. Yeap, vendor it. I have had to do that so often it is scary. I could sell it for 3 gold but it vendors for 1. Vendor it now instead of waiting forever to sell it to make a 2 gold profit, that will probably only be 1 gold by the time it actually sells with the listing costs and the auction house cut.
Every piece of junk you get becomes a decision, is it worth the bag space. I did not even do the holiday thing on that character because I did not want the two footballs. I would have felt compelled to keep them but I do not want to waste what precious little space I had on junk. So I did not even tempt myself and never did the quest to get the achievement. It is shared anyway so who cares.
Perhaps it is the fact I have it all on other servers that makes me feel so helpless on the single character server. Perhaps this is how those people that are really casual and only have one character really feel all the time. Perhaps that is why they are not gemmed and not enchanted, because they can not afford it.
Maybe they are not bad players or people that do not care. Maybe they are just a single character and being a single character is really hard. Maybe that little bit of gold they have is to enchant and gem the better chest they know is coming and that is why they have not bothered with this one.
Playing on a single character has made me look at some players in a different light. It might not be they are bad, it might just be that things are not easy for a person that only has one character and it is even harder if they did not choose double gathering and do not know how to work the auction house.
Oh, the woe of the single character, I feel your pain.
So I might not be the best person to look at the single character issue but I think I can look at some of the issues they deal with as I do tend to play the game a lot of different ways, because that is how I enjoy myself.
I've leveled alts on PvP servers, alts on alliance dominated servers as horde, alts on horde dominated servers as alliance, alts with no guild, alts with high guilds, alts with no professions, two gathering professions, two crafting professions, or a mix of one each. I have leveled so many different alts in so many different ways, just to experience the game in every way possible, to get the most out of it one might say.
As such, I can say I have a few servers with only one character on them and at max (was, will be again) level to boot. So I know a little about having a single character. Perhaps it is my experience with having multiple characters with multiple professions that makes me look at things a little differently but I can say without a doubt that it is hard, very hard, to play end game if you only have one character.
Now, I have the added experience of someone that has all professions and knows the ropes and how to use the auction house but I wonder about the woes a single character would have if they did not have the experiences I have.
The one character I will use in my example is a hunter (of course) that has two gathering professions that were not just chosen without thought. I took herbalism and skinning. There is a reason behind that too, something only someone with experience in the game would even consider.
While mining is a good money maker it is also the gathering profession with the most people doing it. Not to mention on a full server, as this hunter is on, there are also a lot of bots, which all seem to love mining as well. So with all that added competition I decided that I could get more done for my time investment using the other two gathering professions than I would using the, seemingly, more profitable profession or mining.
Not to mention that skinning means killing things. Killing things means getting drops. Even gray items sell nicely and lets not forget that anything you can skin can also drop meat and food always sells good, even more so this expansion it seems when turtle meat is still going over 300 gold a stack. So what some might think I lose to not having mining I pick up with skinning in other ways.
All this comes from experience, the same experience that lets me work the auction house to my advantage meaning I always have my satchel filled with gold from my adventures.
Again, I will point out that I have a lot of experience that someone that only has a single character might not, so I am making it easier on myself.
Now lets get to that end game. The constant gearing treadmill and need for enchants, and gems and flasks and potions and scope. About the only thing I can take care of myself is food but that is about it. Even with my minimal efforts I am capable of making a few thousand a week on that character and as such it is enough to keep me with the best of everything I need. Barely.
It is not easy keeping up with everything you need. If it were my main and only character I am sure it would be easier however, I understand that. But as it is, sometimes it puts you in the position of making decisions I would never be forced to make on a server with multiple characters on it.
I just got a chest piece from a heroic for example. Should I spend the 3K the enchant is selling for or should I wait to see if one drops in LFR, or I get into a pug and one drops there, or maybe save up valor to buy one. That 3K can be pretty daunting for most people. I can make it back no problem as I know how to work things to my advantage but the question is still there, do I want to spend 2 hours making gold to make back that 3K or should I just wait for another chest?
On a server with my own enchanter it is never a question. I get a new piece, I pop on my enchanter and I make the enchant, no questions asked. I do not even think about it.
How about running dungeons or the LFR or even a pug. Is it worth using a flask? Food? All that stuff costs gold and is it worth it? If I do not need it to finish the content why use it, it would be like throwing away gold for nothing.
I never make these types of decisions on servers where I have everything going. I can make everything myself and usually do, so I have everything I would ever need in mass quantities. I've never needed to make the decision or putting in a green gem because the blue ones cost way to much. I got spoiled. On a single character server I make the decision every single piece of gear I get with a gem slot.
It comes down to how long I think I will have that piece. If it is something that will last me a while, maybe even until the next raid patch, I will surely spend the gold but if it is something I can replace easy, like with valor or a LFR drop, green it is baby. Why waste the gold.
Talking about gold, to make gold I use my gathering professions and do quite well with it for my once or twice a month I would play it. I don't think I have seen under 30K all that often and when I do it is not long before I get over it again. That 30K I call my buffer, the least amount I want to keep on me. If I go under it then I try to make some more. If I am above it, I really do not give a crap. Some time ago I figured that was the number you needed to keep yourself rolling in anything you would ever need, in cataclysm that is. Might up it now I guess.
For making gold, or not making it the times I am too lazy to spend all that time listing stuff, I need bag space. As a single character this is the biggest problem in the world. Bigger than the hardest boss on heroic ever. It is a boss you can not beat, will not beat, ever. It won't happen, at least not until you abandon your single character concept. If you want to hold on to stuff you will need an alt. This is non-negotiable.
Nope, can't do it, not on this server. This server is all about being solo. No alts allowed. So like it or not, sell stuff or waste the only time I am going to be playing that week on that character sitting at the auction house instead of doing things like dailies or dungeons or raids or pugging or gathering or dancing around naked, whatever floats your boat. All because it comes down to having no bag space.
It becomes a decision of what to keep and what to sell. Some wrath food still sells quite nicely. 60 gold a stack is not bad, but it sells slow. So the options you now have are three. Keep listing it to sell it at the top price and use your mailbox as a catch all, which does work. List it for a super low price. Enough that you will still make a fair deal on it but at the same time cheap enough that if someone sees it they will think, it is never this cheap I have to buy it now. And last but not least, vendor it. Yeap, vendor it. I have had to do that so often it is scary. I could sell it for 3 gold but it vendors for 1. Vendor it now instead of waiting forever to sell it to make a 2 gold profit, that will probably only be 1 gold by the time it actually sells with the listing costs and the auction house cut.
Every piece of junk you get becomes a decision, is it worth the bag space. I did not even do the holiday thing on that character because I did not want the two footballs. I would have felt compelled to keep them but I do not want to waste what precious little space I had on junk. So I did not even tempt myself and never did the quest to get the achievement. It is shared anyway so who cares.
Perhaps it is the fact I have it all on other servers that makes me feel so helpless on the single character server. Perhaps this is how those people that are really casual and only have one character really feel all the time. Perhaps that is why they are not gemmed and not enchanted, because they can not afford it.
Maybe they are not bad players or people that do not care. Maybe they are just a single character and being a single character is really hard. Maybe that little bit of gold they have is to enchant and gem the better chest they know is coming and that is why they have not bothered with this one.
Playing on a single character has made me look at some players in a different light. It might not be they are bad, it might just be that things are not easy for a person that only has one character and it is even harder if they did not choose double gathering and do not know how to work the auction house.
Oh, the woe of the single character, I feel your pain.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Level 86 Hunter vs. Level 90 Hunter
I had a somewhat fun moment on my horde hunter the other day. I decided it was time to start leveling it so I can see the other side of the story from horde side, and I plan a post about how things are different when I am done, I love seeing the whole story. However this is not about that, this is about farm PvP.
As I am a level 86 hunter on a server where that is my only character, I had no great gear, so needless to say it is not like I was over powered or anything so I try to stay out of trouble when I can. Most of the time that is.
I entered the valley and was just going to pick up the quest to head to the farm and start that up and call it a day. There was a level 90 human hunter there and it seemed he took a liking to me. He flagged himself and started following me around. He was jumping in front of things as I was trying to click them. As I am a double gatherer on that character, when I stopped to gather, he stopped to jump on what I was clicking, so I would accidentally flag myself.
I've been playing far to long to make a mistake like that, even more so when I know someone is trying to bait me. Sure we all make mistakes clicking on the wrong person and starting some unexpected PvP but not when you know someone is attempting to bait you.
I figure sooner or later someone else would see him and come to gank him while he was following me, or by the time we get to the farm he would give up because the farm is always packed and he would surely lose a fight if there were more horde around and that was my hope, that there would be.
No such luck, I made it to the farm, did all my quests, he waited for me. Even when I went into my farm and was phased, he hung outside and waited for me to come out. I finally was done with the quests and ready to log out. I stopped by my mailbox and picked up my first baggie from yoon and some gold from stuff that sold at the auction house and he was right there with me, on top of the mailbox.
I went into the inn and started to work on moving some of my skills around and fixing a few macros. He stood outside at the mailbox, not moving. After I was done a few minutes later he was still there. I figured I am logging off, maybe I should have some fun. I ran out and he did not move. Maybe he was AFK? Maybe he was just looking and being I did not move as there was no need for him to move. Either way, I decided it was time for me to make the first move, except not by accident.
I went back into the inn and laid a trap on the ground and waited for my cooldown for the trap to be ready again. I put my pet on passive and shot him causing his pet to come at me. I turned around the corner and it trapped the pet, I then sent my pet at him and went hog wild.
He was AFK it seemed. For the first few seconds at least, long enough for me to get a good jump on him. I relaid my trap the second the other one broke to retrap his pet again and he started to fight back, fight me back that is, ignoring my pet. I used the area to LoS him every chance I got. Kited his pet when the second trap ran out, and let my pet slowly work him down. If you play a hunter you will know the funny pathing the pets take around the inn and the farm in general. You can, with just a few steps, make it impossible for a pet to ever get to you. I knew that, as such I controlled his pet. He paid absolutely no attention to my pet, even when I finally got him in kill shot range he was still ignoring it.
Long story short, too late I know, I left his dead body on the floor. A level 86 hunter beating a level 90 one with some very simple use of LoS and CC and a target that did not realize that if he killed or CCed my pet he could have destroyed me.
Either way, for this day at least, hunter skill and knowledge of the area we were fighting in won out over gear and level. PvP can be fun sometimes but the lesson this guy learned was to be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. He wanted to me flag myself, so I did. On my terms.
As I am a level 86 hunter on a server where that is my only character, I had no great gear, so needless to say it is not like I was over powered or anything so I try to stay out of trouble when I can. Most of the time that is.
I entered the valley and was just going to pick up the quest to head to the farm and start that up and call it a day. There was a level 90 human hunter there and it seemed he took a liking to me. He flagged himself and started following me around. He was jumping in front of things as I was trying to click them. As I am a double gatherer on that character, when I stopped to gather, he stopped to jump on what I was clicking, so I would accidentally flag myself.
I've been playing far to long to make a mistake like that, even more so when I know someone is trying to bait me. Sure we all make mistakes clicking on the wrong person and starting some unexpected PvP but not when you know someone is attempting to bait you.
I figure sooner or later someone else would see him and come to gank him while he was following me, or by the time we get to the farm he would give up because the farm is always packed and he would surely lose a fight if there were more horde around and that was my hope, that there would be.
No such luck, I made it to the farm, did all my quests, he waited for me. Even when I went into my farm and was phased, he hung outside and waited for me to come out. I finally was done with the quests and ready to log out. I stopped by my mailbox and picked up my first baggie from yoon and some gold from stuff that sold at the auction house and he was right there with me, on top of the mailbox.
I went into the inn and started to work on moving some of my skills around and fixing a few macros. He stood outside at the mailbox, not moving. After I was done a few minutes later he was still there. I figured I am logging off, maybe I should have some fun. I ran out and he did not move. Maybe he was AFK? Maybe he was just looking and being I did not move as there was no need for him to move. Either way, I decided it was time for me to make the first move, except not by accident.
I went back into the inn and laid a trap on the ground and waited for my cooldown for the trap to be ready again. I put my pet on passive and shot him causing his pet to come at me. I turned around the corner and it trapped the pet, I then sent my pet at him and went hog wild.
He was AFK it seemed. For the first few seconds at least, long enough for me to get a good jump on him. I relaid my trap the second the other one broke to retrap his pet again and he started to fight back, fight me back that is, ignoring my pet. I used the area to LoS him every chance I got. Kited his pet when the second trap ran out, and let my pet slowly work him down. If you play a hunter you will know the funny pathing the pets take around the inn and the farm in general. You can, with just a few steps, make it impossible for a pet to ever get to you. I knew that, as such I controlled his pet. He paid absolutely no attention to my pet, even when I finally got him in kill shot range he was still ignoring it.
Long story short, too late I know, I left his dead body on the floor. A level 86 hunter beating a level 90 one with some very simple use of LoS and CC and a target that did not realize that if he killed or CCed my pet he could have destroyed me.
Either way, for this day at least, hunter skill and knowledge of the area we were fighting in won out over gear and level. PvP can be fun sometimes but the lesson this guy learned was to be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. He wanted to me flag myself, so I did. On my terms.
Monday, January 7, 2013
Monday Random Thoughts
- Have you ever wished that the game had a pause button?
- Like when you step into a random and the tank is already off on his way pulling.
- Pause, give me a second to finish zoning in please.
- Not so bad as a damage dealer, sucks as a healer.
- I can think of many moments I would like a pause button.
- Ever notice that you could be playing for 2 hours and no one wants to talk with you, the phone is not ringing and there are no whispers or guild chat happening and then the second you are doing something, everyone else wants your attention?
- It is like it is a given.
- If you are expecting a phone call and it doesn't seem to be coming, join a random, the phone will ring within 2 minutes of zoning in.
- I guarantee it.
- I noticed that I do not have any gnome female characters.
- I have male and females of almost everything, never noticed I had no gnome females before.
- They are short, maybe I over looked them.
- Okay, bad joke.
- I found out how to get the pet battle stones you want.
- At least I think I have.
- The stone you get is always the class of the first pet on the team.
- I got an aquatic off of a group with 2 critters and one aquatic, but the aquatic was the first one.
- I have not gotten enough to prove if my theory is true of course, but I believe that is how it works.
- I've gotten an aquatic when it had 2 critters, I've gotten a critter when it had 2 aquatics, both times the first pet was the deciding factor, not the total group make up.
- Finished my raiding with leashes by getting my last pet.
- Got 6 new pets this weekend, I did not even think there were that many more I needed.
- Actually there are still a few, just odd to get that many in one weekend without even trying much.
- Finally got a stone from a daily baggie.
- Everyone else gets at least one a day, I should have gotten 10 in mine, just to catch up.
- When you see the percentages are low, me never getting them is the reason.
- For every person that has luck there is some poor fool like me that has none.
- I was thinking of trying something different with my game play, just to see if I could do it.
- A friend, who quit last expansion like just about everyone else, used to play without ever using the mouse.
- Unless he needed to loot something and even in that case he just never looted.
- I wonder if I could do that.
- I've become spoiled with my mouse however, and how would I target effects like trap launcher?
- I guess I would still need to use it for something.
- He was really good with it too, even managed to get to 2400 in 3s.
- Not super but definitely better than I could ever manage.
- Then again I suck at PvP because I've never put in the effort to get good at it.
- He was so good he and someone else carried me so I could get a weapon.
- It makes me laugh every time I see someone make fun of keyboard turners.
- My friend did quite well doing it, he did not even use a mouse.
- It is a case of they can't do it, so they think anyone that does it sucks because they suck if they try it.
- Just because you can't do it, doesn't mean it can't be done.
- I would love to see all those people on the forums under 2400 get laughed at because they were beat by a keyboard turner.
- I use my keyboard from time to time but I have gotten so used to using my mouse the majority of the time that it would take some getting used to.
- Like anything else, it is a skill, and practice makes perfect.
- Speaking of practicing, I need to practice on some other damage dealing character.
- I just can not get what I consider good numbers out of any damage dealing class that is not a hunter.
- Either I have set my expectations too high, or I just have not found that grove with any other damage dealer.
- Put me behind the controls of any tank or any healer and I will do fine.
- Put me behind the controls of even a stupid easy class like a rogue or a mage and I will be lacking compared to others equally geared.
- I guess that is because there are no numbers to hang on tanking or healing so when a battle is done you did well whereas with a damage dealer there is a number to look at.
- I wonder if I put as much time in another damage dealing class if I could get to the level I have with my hunter and do well at it.
- If I see a mage doing 100K in 480 gear then I should be able to do 100K in 480 gear.
- If I do 70K that means I can get at least 30K better.
- I think I've become so spoiled with my hunter that I forgot that it took time and effort to get so good at him and I expect to be good with anything else instantly.
- I've forgotten the need to put work into something, to practice.
- Hey, I can always fall back on the concept that even 70K at 480 is better than 95% of the player base would do.
- Even people that have been playing mages since day one.
- But I do not care about the 95%, I care about the 5%.
- For me, if someone does better, it means I can do better.
- I will never be the best, not even close, but there is no reason not to try to be the best I can be.
- If they best I can be is 80K, then so be it.
- But I won't know if that is the best I can do until I try my hardest to do better.
- If I do not try to do better then I am in no position to say that is the best I can do.
- Have you ever seen stray hozen around the farm?
- There was one hanging out in the inn the other day.
- Not attacking anyone, just chilling.
- Seen him there on many occasions lately.
- There were two on one of the farms yesterday.
- Looked like they were staring at each other.
- Again, not bothering anyone, just chilling.
- I think it is part of some bigger master plan.
- They are doing that from time to time so we get used to seeing them there.
- One day we will let our guard down and completely ignore them being it seems they are always around.
- Then bam, they take over the farm.
- Be careful, those hozen are smarter than they look.
- I actually did some quests on my baby panda.
- Damn the professions, I can always catch up again later.
- I had not done quests in over 20 levels, except for the cooking and fishing dailies.
- You level so fast I out leveled my gathering so I started to gather to catch up to the current area I was supposed to be questing.
- Before I knew it, 20 levels past and I had not done a quest.
- I was replacing item level 11 items with item level 46 items.
- Yeap, it was that long since I had quested.
- So now, after an hour and a half, I gained 8 levels questing, and I am behind on my gathering again.
- Where I am now, I wonder if I can catch up to outland gathering levels before I get to 58 and head there.
- They really need to do something to help keep gathering professions up with leveling.
- At least mining you can make bars to play catch up.
- The other professions need something like that, a catch up method, for when you level faster than your professions.
- Its not that much to ask is it?
- Have a great day all.
- Like when you step into a random and the tank is already off on his way pulling.
- Pause, give me a second to finish zoning in please.
- Not so bad as a damage dealer, sucks as a healer.
- I can think of many moments I would like a pause button.
- Ever notice that you could be playing for 2 hours and no one wants to talk with you, the phone is not ringing and there are no whispers or guild chat happening and then the second you are doing something, everyone else wants your attention?
- It is like it is a given.
- If you are expecting a phone call and it doesn't seem to be coming, join a random, the phone will ring within 2 minutes of zoning in.
- I guarantee it.
- I noticed that I do not have any gnome female characters.
- I have male and females of almost everything, never noticed I had no gnome females before.
- They are short, maybe I over looked them.
- Okay, bad joke.
- I found out how to get the pet battle stones you want.
- At least I think I have.
- The stone you get is always the class of the first pet on the team.
- I got an aquatic off of a group with 2 critters and one aquatic, but the aquatic was the first one.
- I have not gotten enough to prove if my theory is true of course, but I believe that is how it works.
- I've gotten an aquatic when it had 2 critters, I've gotten a critter when it had 2 aquatics, both times the first pet was the deciding factor, not the total group make up.
- Finished my raiding with leashes by getting my last pet.
- Got 6 new pets this weekend, I did not even think there were that many more I needed.
- Actually there are still a few, just odd to get that many in one weekend without even trying much.
- Finally got a stone from a daily baggie.
- Everyone else gets at least one a day, I should have gotten 10 in mine, just to catch up.
- When you see the percentages are low, me never getting them is the reason.
- For every person that has luck there is some poor fool like me that has none.
- I was thinking of trying something different with my game play, just to see if I could do it.
- A friend, who quit last expansion like just about everyone else, used to play without ever using the mouse.
- Unless he needed to loot something and even in that case he just never looted.
- I wonder if I could do that.
- I've become spoiled with my mouse however, and how would I target effects like trap launcher?
- I guess I would still need to use it for something.
- He was really good with it too, even managed to get to 2400 in 3s.
- Not super but definitely better than I could ever manage.
- Then again I suck at PvP because I've never put in the effort to get good at it.
- He was so good he and someone else carried me so I could get a weapon.
- It makes me laugh every time I see someone make fun of keyboard turners.
- My friend did quite well doing it, he did not even use a mouse.
- It is a case of they can't do it, so they think anyone that does it sucks because they suck if they try it.
- Just because you can't do it, doesn't mean it can't be done.
- I would love to see all those people on the forums under 2400 get laughed at because they were beat by a keyboard turner.
- I use my keyboard from time to time but I have gotten so used to using my mouse the majority of the time that it would take some getting used to.
- Like anything else, it is a skill, and practice makes perfect.
- Speaking of practicing, I need to practice on some other damage dealing character.
- I just can not get what I consider good numbers out of any damage dealing class that is not a hunter.
- Either I have set my expectations too high, or I just have not found that grove with any other damage dealer.
- Put me behind the controls of any tank or any healer and I will do fine.
- Put me behind the controls of even a stupid easy class like a rogue or a mage and I will be lacking compared to others equally geared.
- I guess that is because there are no numbers to hang on tanking or healing so when a battle is done you did well whereas with a damage dealer there is a number to look at.
- I wonder if I put as much time in another damage dealing class if I could get to the level I have with my hunter and do well at it.
- If I see a mage doing 100K in 480 gear then I should be able to do 100K in 480 gear.
- If I do 70K that means I can get at least 30K better.
- I think I've become so spoiled with my hunter that I forgot that it took time and effort to get so good at him and I expect to be good with anything else instantly.
- I've forgotten the need to put work into something, to practice.
- Hey, I can always fall back on the concept that even 70K at 480 is better than 95% of the player base would do.
- Even people that have been playing mages since day one.
- But I do not care about the 95%, I care about the 5%.
- For me, if someone does better, it means I can do better.
- I will never be the best, not even close, but there is no reason not to try to be the best I can be.
- If they best I can be is 80K, then so be it.
- But I won't know if that is the best I can do until I try my hardest to do better.
- If I do not try to do better then I am in no position to say that is the best I can do.
- Have you ever seen stray hozen around the farm?
- There was one hanging out in the inn the other day.
- Not attacking anyone, just chilling.
- Seen him there on many occasions lately.
- There were two on one of the farms yesterday.
- Looked like they were staring at each other.
- Again, not bothering anyone, just chilling.
- I think it is part of some bigger master plan.
- They are doing that from time to time so we get used to seeing them there.
- One day we will let our guard down and completely ignore them being it seems they are always around.
- Then bam, they take over the farm.
- Be careful, those hozen are smarter than they look.
- I actually did some quests on my baby panda.
- Damn the professions, I can always catch up again later.
- I had not done quests in over 20 levels, except for the cooking and fishing dailies.
- You level so fast I out leveled my gathering so I started to gather to catch up to the current area I was supposed to be questing.
- Before I knew it, 20 levels past and I had not done a quest.
- I was replacing item level 11 items with item level 46 items.
- Yeap, it was that long since I had quested.
- So now, after an hour and a half, I gained 8 levels questing, and I am behind on my gathering again.
- Where I am now, I wonder if I can catch up to outland gathering levels before I get to 58 and head there.
- They really need to do something to help keep gathering professions up with leveling.
- At least mining you can make bars to play catch up.
- The other professions need something like that, a catch up method, for when you level faster than your professions.
- Its not that much to ask is it?
- Have a great day all.
Friday, January 4, 2013
Is Better Really Easier?
Warcraft has gone through a lot of changes over the years and each change that is made someone is bound to say that the game keeps getting easier. I am not completely sure I am ready to agree with that in most cases.
Is playing a hunter easier because I no longer need to carry ammo? Is playing a hunter easier because I no longer need to feed my pet? Is playing a hunter easier because I no longer need to level my pet? In all these cases the answer is no. Every single one of those changes is a quality of life addition.
Some can argue that playing a hunter is easier because you do not need to tame other pets to teach the pet you want to keep an ability and they would be right. It is easier not having to do that but was that necessary to begin with? Yes, but it was a time sink only. There was no difficulty in it, there was just a time sink. So yes, it is easier without it, but it does not mean the game is easier because it is gone, the game is just more enjoyable without it. It is better without it. More time playing and less time wasting time taming pets you have no intention of keeping.
How about a paladin and their seals? A shaman totem twisting? Was removing those making the game easier? Some might say yes but most would say it just removed an annoying aspect of playing those classes. So it might be easier in the sense people no longer need to do it but what was it there for to begin with? To create artificial difficulty doing something that was not fun at all? Removing those mechanics to the classes made them more fun to play, it did not make them easy to play.
One of the reasons that warcraft is the top game out there and continues to be so is because it learns from its mistakes (most of the time) and gets better. Getting better does not mean getting easier.
Many people on various forums complain that raiding is too easy and keeps getting easier. I counter with it is getting harder but you are just getting better. The more you play the more you get used to mechanics and the easier doing those mechanics becomes for you.
If they released the same exact fight every expansion with the same exact mechanics and the same exact tanking, healing and damage dealing requirements based on upgraded statistics meaning it was the exact same fight, each expansion it would become easier for you because you are getting better at handling those mechanics. That boss was not easier each expansion, you were a better player each expansion.
How about your characters skills? You keep getting more added to them. How is adding more to do easier? Compare a hunter with his 12 working parts that need to be used every single fight to the BC hunter with his steady shot 15 thousand times in a row rotation. Which is easier? Oh, I forgot, in BC you had to watch to make sure you did not clip your auto shot and that is what made it so hard. Nope, made it annoying, not hard, big difference.
The game has gotten better, so much better and continues to do so. It is clearing out all the clutter from the game. Useless mechanics like DoT clipping are being removed as a quality of life thing, not to make life easier. Useless extras like needing materials for buffs were removed, not to make it easier, just to make it less annoying so you do not have to carry a stack of candles around. Was buying them really all that difficult? Is it really dumbing down the game by not needing them?
While I do agree that there are some parts of the game that have really gotten easier such as leveling, that too can be considered a quality of life change. 90 levels are a lot of levels and covering them faster is better for alts and new players to get to max level where the game really begins. I don't like it, I think it makes the learning process a joke, and I believe leveling should be slowed down a great deal but I am one of few that probably think so. Most probably like the idea that they can get into the game and to max level faster and easier which really makes it better doesn't it?
Another one of the things I believe has gotten too easy in threat management. It is not like it was where you had to watch everything you did as a damage dealer and any class that was not a hunter had issues with threat left and right. Those first few seconds of a pull could result in a wipe if only one person did not watch their omen or got one lucky crit at the same moment the tank missed. I liked the threat management game but it is almost completely gone now. If a tank loses threat now that means either the tank did something seriously wrong or the damage dealer did. No more accidental aggro pulls in game. So maybe that too is better and not easier. Threat was never a fun aspect of the game for anyone, except me as a hunter because I never needed to worry about threat to begin with. So removing it as a prominent playing point made the game better as well as easier in that aspect.
How about other additions to the game, did they make it easier? Like reforging. Did it make the game easier? Easier to get the stats you want, easier to get closer to caps you want to reach, but not easier over all. It added another layer to things that need to be done to every single piece of gear you ever get. How is adding additional things you need to do easier? It is a great addition to the game allowing us to get more of the stats we want while getting rid of the stats we don't. It made it better, it did not make it easier.
The game has gotten so much better over the years, even the dreaded cataclysm which I hated made many advances to the game that made it better. Each step making it better might appear to be making it easier, but is it really easier or are we just getting better at playing it which makes it appear that way?
So while I might think some things are easier now than they were before, over all the game is not easier now, not even close. A new player will have a harder time starting now than we did. They might never have to deal with candles, and arrows, and clipping, but those things where never hard, they were just annoying.
From my own experience only I can say playing a hunter was a lot easier when I first learned it than it is now. So I can't exactly say the game is getting easier and if I did say the game was getting easier I'd be lying.
Is playing a hunter easier because I no longer need to carry ammo? Is playing a hunter easier because I no longer need to feed my pet? Is playing a hunter easier because I no longer need to level my pet? In all these cases the answer is no. Every single one of those changes is a quality of life addition.
Some can argue that playing a hunter is easier because you do not need to tame other pets to teach the pet you want to keep an ability and they would be right. It is easier not having to do that but was that necessary to begin with? Yes, but it was a time sink only. There was no difficulty in it, there was just a time sink. So yes, it is easier without it, but it does not mean the game is easier because it is gone, the game is just more enjoyable without it. It is better without it. More time playing and less time wasting time taming pets you have no intention of keeping.
How about a paladin and their seals? A shaman totem twisting? Was removing those making the game easier? Some might say yes but most would say it just removed an annoying aspect of playing those classes. So it might be easier in the sense people no longer need to do it but what was it there for to begin with? To create artificial difficulty doing something that was not fun at all? Removing those mechanics to the classes made them more fun to play, it did not make them easy to play.
One of the reasons that warcraft is the top game out there and continues to be so is because it learns from its mistakes (most of the time) and gets better. Getting better does not mean getting easier.
Many people on various forums complain that raiding is too easy and keeps getting easier. I counter with it is getting harder but you are just getting better. The more you play the more you get used to mechanics and the easier doing those mechanics becomes for you.
If they released the same exact fight every expansion with the same exact mechanics and the same exact tanking, healing and damage dealing requirements based on upgraded statistics meaning it was the exact same fight, each expansion it would become easier for you because you are getting better at handling those mechanics. That boss was not easier each expansion, you were a better player each expansion.
How about your characters skills? You keep getting more added to them. How is adding more to do easier? Compare a hunter with his 12 working parts that need to be used every single fight to the BC hunter with his steady shot 15 thousand times in a row rotation. Which is easier? Oh, I forgot, in BC you had to watch to make sure you did not clip your auto shot and that is what made it so hard. Nope, made it annoying, not hard, big difference.
The game has gotten better, so much better and continues to do so. It is clearing out all the clutter from the game. Useless mechanics like DoT clipping are being removed as a quality of life thing, not to make life easier. Useless extras like needing materials for buffs were removed, not to make it easier, just to make it less annoying so you do not have to carry a stack of candles around. Was buying them really all that difficult? Is it really dumbing down the game by not needing them?
While I do agree that there are some parts of the game that have really gotten easier such as leveling, that too can be considered a quality of life change. 90 levels are a lot of levels and covering them faster is better for alts and new players to get to max level where the game really begins. I don't like it, I think it makes the learning process a joke, and I believe leveling should be slowed down a great deal but I am one of few that probably think so. Most probably like the idea that they can get into the game and to max level faster and easier which really makes it better doesn't it?
Another one of the things I believe has gotten too easy in threat management. It is not like it was where you had to watch everything you did as a damage dealer and any class that was not a hunter had issues with threat left and right. Those first few seconds of a pull could result in a wipe if only one person did not watch their omen or got one lucky crit at the same moment the tank missed. I liked the threat management game but it is almost completely gone now. If a tank loses threat now that means either the tank did something seriously wrong or the damage dealer did. No more accidental aggro pulls in game. So maybe that too is better and not easier. Threat was never a fun aspect of the game for anyone, except me as a hunter because I never needed to worry about threat to begin with. So removing it as a prominent playing point made the game better as well as easier in that aspect.
How about other additions to the game, did they make it easier? Like reforging. Did it make the game easier? Easier to get the stats you want, easier to get closer to caps you want to reach, but not easier over all. It added another layer to things that need to be done to every single piece of gear you ever get. How is adding additional things you need to do easier? It is a great addition to the game allowing us to get more of the stats we want while getting rid of the stats we don't. It made it better, it did not make it easier.
The game has gotten so much better over the years, even the dreaded cataclysm which I hated made many advances to the game that made it better. Each step making it better might appear to be making it easier, but is it really easier or are we just getting better at playing it which makes it appear that way?
So while I might think some things are easier now than they were before, over all the game is not easier now, not even close. A new player will have a harder time starting now than we did. They might never have to deal with candles, and arrows, and clipping, but those things where never hard, they were just annoying.
From my own experience only I can say playing a hunter was a lot easier when I first learned it than it is now. So I can't exactly say the game is getting easier and if I did say the game was getting easier I'd be lying.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Would You Recommend Warcraft?
If someone asked you about the game would you recommend it to them?
If asked about the game I would say that I love it. The game came from a recently horrible expansion that pushed me to the verge of quitting on multiple occasions to probably what might end up being the best expansion ever made. The game is better than it has been in many years.
So that means I would recommend it? Absolutely not.
I would never suggest warcraft to anyone. The game is not the type of game you can join in on now. Too many levels, too many professions needed, too many details to learn, just too much crap to deal with that it is not worth it. While you can, it is not exactly easy or fun to do so. Unless you are going to get someone to hold your hand the entire time you are leveling and getting used to the game I don't see the game as being very new player friendly.
Starting at the beginning where new players start.
The leveling speed is way to fast that it would never allow people to get in touch with the characters, to get a real feel for how they play. The actual challenges there are while leveling are few and far between and the few that are there can push even the most dedicated types off the cliff instantly.
The speed you level at means you do not really learn how to play your character so those few moments you need to use all your abilities you won't know how to. And because you are getting new abilities quicker as you are leveling quicker you might completely miss out on learning the important ones or even noticing you have them.
If you plan to join in on group content the dungeon finder system is not very new player friendly either. You will constantly be paired with people that are probably heirloom geared and while it might be fine with most groups you will surely get many groups that will have someone picking on the new player for not having heirloom gear, if that makes any sense.
You will be out classed, out played and out performed at every turn while leveling as a new player in group content which for some people can be a huge put off thinking that you can't compete. You will never be placed with people that are like yourself and just learning with over powered gear.
God forbid you attempt to PvP as a new player because that would bring the most hard core player vs player type of person to tears because there is no way a new player could ever beat someone with all their uber gear hand me downs. And it is not like you would have the time to build up some gear because by the time you did you would be in a new PvP bracket and your gear would be useless again thanks to that super fast leveling. So group content is unwelcoming to the new player.
And how about that wonderful warcraft community, or the lack of it more specifically. Like I mentioned the people bashing the new player for not having heirloom gear. How could they? Doesn't matter to the warcraft community. Our community thinks that everyone should have the best of everything all the times or they are a scrub. Our community thinks everyone should know all their abilities and how to use them instantly even if they are new.
Our community thinks that people should know the lay out of every dungeon like the back of their hand because they have been out of so many years and there is no excuse for anyone not knowing them. How about this is someones first time there? Nope, not a good enough excuse when talking with our wonderful community. You are just a low life piece of shit scrub because you do not have gear you are incapable of having and do not have knowledge that someone that has been playing 8 years does, and have never done something that has been out for years even though you just started. Yeap, piece of shit, that is you, so says the wonderful world of warcraft community.
Now on to the problems of professions for the new player and what quick leveling does to that. First aid, if they decided to take it and level it, will always be behind. You will be leveling so quickly that you will never be able to gather enough cloth to keep it up. If you happened to be unlucky enough to be questing in an area with no humanoid mobs for a while it is entirely possible that you will have skipped over a type of cloth completely by the time you get to mobs that drop cloth again.
So this means going to the auction house, if you have the gold, which you won't as a new player that had no previous knowledge of the game and you will be stuck looking at 40g stacks of the cloth you need, if you are lucky. When you open your wallet and see the cobwebs and 3 gold sitting there you will realize you only have two options, abandon your quest to level first aid or find mobs that drop the cloth you need and grind them to catch up even if you are getting no experience for them.
Same goes for cooking and the drops because you are leveling so fast. And lets not forget fishing which back in the day would level with your level because you would spend some time fishing here and there and making food to eat for buffs because even those stupid small buffs helped because they were needed. Now all of those are left behind because of speed leveling, even for the new player that does not know better, and the lack of need for any buffs when leveling anyway.
What about those main professions? If you were a smart player you did one of two things as a first timer and that was take two gathering professions or one gathering profession with a crafting profession that went with it. If you took two crafting professions don't ever expect to level them as a new player. You will never be able to afford all the materials needed. It is just completely impossible. Not going to happen for a person with no experience in the game and no gold reserves to pick off of to level up those professions.
Lets go to those gathering ones and the wonderful addition of cross realm zones. Thanks to the new CRZ you will have 5 or 6 or even 7 servers all competing for the materials that are only enough to support one server meaning your pickings will be slim to none.
You can go from level 15 to level 25 without seeing one herb to pick, I know because I have done it, all thanks to the CRZ. And if you are lucky enough to see an herb or a mine one of two things usually happens. You are either too low of a level to pick/mine it because of your speed leveling putting you in an area well past your gathering professions now, or while you are fighting your way there to get it someone lands on it with a flying mount and takes it. Yeap, been there too myself.
So you need to find lesser played areas if you want to have any chance of gathering materials but as a new player you will not know that would you? Unless you were lucky enough to roll a gnome or dwarf, you are basically shit out of luck when it comes to leveling mining or herbalism and lets face it, look at the numbers, not many roll dwarves or gnomes.
So to the auction house again, to offset your lack of being able to gather stuff thanks to the cross realm zones and speed leveling, so you can level your associated profession. Lets say you are doing alchemy and want to get that up some, you look at the herbs on the auction house and see 50g a stack and that same wallet that was filled with cobwebs before is still not any better.
Looks like you are not leveling your main crafting professions either, not right now at least. So your gathering profession has been left behind because of the lack of herbs to keep you leveled with your leveling movement and the cross realm zones making the few herbs that are out there even harder to find leaves you, just like with the cloth, in the position to make the choice to stay behind killing mobs you get no experience for while trying to find a needle in a haystack, or better yet, a herb that you can get to before someone on a flying mount from another server gets to it first.
Lets say you do happen to grin and bear it and deal with all that crap. With the cross realm zones meaning massive amounts of high levels taking all the resources you need to level. Jerks in randoms telling you that you suck because you do not have heirlooms even if it is impossible for you to have them. Speed leveling where you do not get a chance to ever get comfortable with an area or your spells and abilities. All that junk, you dealt with it and now you finally get sent to BC content.
I don't know about you but one of the questions I get the most from new players, and I have helped a ton of them, is the "how do I get to..." question. Usually this is how do I get to BC or Northrend. To me, you and the other people that have played the game it is a no brainer but to a new person they get lost all the time.
Funny side story. I was in my horde guild when someone hit level 68 and asked how to get to northrend. I told him how to get there, simple enough right? He said this was his first horde character and he had only done it on alliance before. I said my standard line, no big deal, we all have to learn some time, and told him where to go once again. A few minutes later he says in guild that the people in stormwind are not all that friendly to him. I laughed and said that is because you are a horde now, why are you there? He said, he was going to take the boat because he knew where that was. I really thought that was funny. He made it to northrend, but he had to fight his way thought the alliance port once he did. He was cursing like a sailor in guild chat because he was dying every 3 seconds but it was fun for me thinking about it.
He is not the only one that gets lost with things like that, most new players and even new to a side players get lost like that. It is more common than you and I think. Just because we know where everything is doesn't mean everyone else knows and it surely means someone brand spanking new to the game won't know.
At least BC content, even if it blows by too fast now, and northrend content, which always blew past way to fast, is a lot better than vanilla content. You will not be finding much in the way of gathering nodes in abundance in BC areas at all, never had, and it is even worse now with the cross realm zones. There are some BC ores that sell on my server for 1000g a stack now thanks to the cross realm zones and blizzard never modifying the repawn rate to ore and herbs. Typical blizzard stupidity of course, but it just means a little more hell for the first timer and it also means with those high prices a lot more 90s farming the herbs and ores you need to level just to make some quick gold making the pickings even slimmer. Now multiply that by 7 realms worth of 90s doing that for gold and you can just feel the nightmare of leveling gathering professions in BC.
Their professions will still be taking a beating in BC but at least the questing does slow down a bit to allow the person to start to get comfortable with their character. Dungeons will be the same, lots of people that will all think that everyone knows everything and if you don't you suck. PvP again is the same, you will continue to be brutalized by people in gear you are not even capable of getting and even if you were by the time you get it, you out grew it.
The saddest part here is that BC has some of the absolute best PvP objective areas in the game and you can not participate in them. Not because of the previously mentioned gear thing but because the fights are for level 90s there, not you, the new player, level 63 in crap gear, and learning how your abilities really work for the first time since you started because this is the first time you stayed at a level long enough to notice, oh shit I have a new ability. Game play for you will start to get a lot better here, but is it too little to late?
When you reach northrend things start to get even better still. If you went through the hell of getting your gathering professions up at least to the point where you can gather stuff in the basin when you get there you will experience your first time ever as a new player were gathering material is all over the place even with the cross realm zones and you will love it.
The leveling speed is still a little faster than it should be but it is not as horrible quick as it was 1-60 at least. You will also, for the first time, really start to experience some great story telling but the sad part is, as a new player, you will probably reach 80 before you get to the best story lines in that expansion and you will miss them completely. At least northrend seems to be a lot better balanced profession wise, flow wise and story wise.
Then you take a step backwards. Think it was bad asking once an expansion "how do I get too..."? Get ready for asking it a million and one times because the 80 to 85 experience will throw you all over the world with no rhyme or reason what so ever. What was a tight game with some problems with speed leveling and profession leveling before becomes unwound and a hell of a lot harder to figure out where you are going thanks to bad expansion design.
The stories are all over the place, the speed of leveling is too slow compared to what you have become used to and there is no real flow to anything you do. The one good thing is that it seems gathering, while not over plentiful, will be enough. So while the speed of leveling and the gathering of resources has gotten better since you left original content the flow of the game will seem to be off, to a new person at least, because the expansions do not really flow from one to another all that well and did not flow to this one well at all. At least the other two were single areas, this one is all over the place and it is really easy for a new person to feel a bit lost and disconnected from the game in a big world because of it.
Also at this point you should have all types of flying but a new player might not. While it is possible they can fly it is nearly sure they do not have fast flying because how does someone that has never played the game before and does not know how to work the auction house come up with all the gold needed for that. Even more so when you did not ever have many extra gathering materials to sell unless you took two gathering professions. In truth, the only way in hell you will have any money as a new player is if you had taken two gathering professions and used the auction house as often as possible to sell them and even at that, you would have still been sort of screwed because you would have been slowed down trying to play catch up on two gathering professions back in original content instead of just one thanks to the cross realm zone.
When moving to the current expansion you will feel, thanks to the blazing speed of leveling before hand, that you are getting absolutely no where leveling wise which will be a shock to the system of any new player who had gotten used to the feeling of personal progression as fast because they were always getting new gear, new levels, new skills and now they are getting levels much slower and skills not at all. At least there will be lots of new gear for them.
While I love the mists leveling model and think it is the best to date, fast enough to get there without much work but slow enough to get to know the zones and where we will be spending the next couple of years, to a new player it would be a nightmare. It will take them longer to do 85-86 than it took them to do 1-40 most likely and this could be a huge turn off for many. At least they will no longer be caught in the worst addition ever made to the game, the cross realm zone. They will finally be playing the game on their own server as they should have been since day one.
Most gamers, even if new, as long as they played any type of leveling system game before will understand that those last levels are the hardest so a great many new players will just grin and bear it and do what they have to do.
Then they ding 90 and are excited to finally made it to end game. They are most likely broke, with just quest gear, extremely limited knowledge of their class but at least will have learned something because mists leveling is harder than anything they had ever experienced up to that point and they will want to play the game as they believe it was intended to be played, at end game.
Then they get hit in the face with more leveling. Leveling reputations to buy gear. Level item level to get into dungeons. Leveling item level to get into the LFR. Finding a guild that does raiding. And even harder, finding a guild that is willing to accept people that are completely and totally new to the game and are willing to teach them while actually getting bosses down.
Usually casual guilds of the lower end go two ways when it comes to new players. They either let them in and let them raid and down nothing, or they let them in and do not let them raid until stuff is on farm and they just need a body to fill a space and down stuff. One means you start right away and get nowhere and the other means you wait until you get lucky enough to get into something but at least get some experience downing things. The choice is yours but either way, you will be lucky to find yourself in either situation as someone that knows nothing being new to the game.
If you finally want to move into something more steady you will need to learn a little about your class and gemming and enchanting and so forth and so on. If you do not have anyone in that lower level casual guild that held your hand and taught you it is off to the internet where you get the shock of your life, learning you need a hell of a lot more than just that character you leveled to play at max level, but you need a ton of other things.
Now when you do start reading and seeing what you need to do and notice that your wallet is still filled with cobwebs you might start thinking you need to level some other characters for profession purposes, just to take care of yourself being you have no gold to buy all those things you need.
So you level an engineer for a scope, a blacksmith for a belt buckle, a jewelcrafter for gems, an enchanter for enchants, a scribe for shoulder enchants, a leatherworker for leg enchants, and an alchemist to make flasks and it starts all over again. Leveling another character having a hard time finding materials, blowing through content too fast to really learn your class, etc. All so you can play with that one class you leveled at the max level the appropriate way.
With all the things you need to do at end game and all the the other things you need to do and dealing with a crappy server economy, a horrible cross realm zone design, a horrible community that will blast you every step you take just because you are new, and the feeling like you need to do 101 things just to catch up to where everyone else is all while having to think about all the crap you now need to do with every single piece of gear and you have no money to do it, it just is not worth the effort for a new player to even attempt to play catch up in this game. Can it be done, yes? Is it worth it? No, not at all. The game is great yes, but it is not wroth starting from the beginning, not at all.
So would I recommend warcraft to someone else? Never in a million years. As much as I love the game, it is not new player friendly at all.
If asked about the game I would say that I love it. The game came from a recently horrible expansion that pushed me to the verge of quitting on multiple occasions to probably what might end up being the best expansion ever made. The game is better than it has been in many years.
So that means I would recommend it? Absolutely not.
I would never suggest warcraft to anyone. The game is not the type of game you can join in on now. Too many levels, too many professions needed, too many details to learn, just too much crap to deal with that it is not worth it. While you can, it is not exactly easy or fun to do so. Unless you are going to get someone to hold your hand the entire time you are leveling and getting used to the game I don't see the game as being very new player friendly.
Starting at the beginning where new players start.
The leveling speed is way to fast that it would never allow people to get in touch with the characters, to get a real feel for how they play. The actual challenges there are while leveling are few and far between and the few that are there can push even the most dedicated types off the cliff instantly.
The speed you level at means you do not really learn how to play your character so those few moments you need to use all your abilities you won't know how to. And because you are getting new abilities quicker as you are leveling quicker you might completely miss out on learning the important ones or even noticing you have them.
If you plan to join in on group content the dungeon finder system is not very new player friendly either. You will constantly be paired with people that are probably heirloom geared and while it might be fine with most groups you will surely get many groups that will have someone picking on the new player for not having heirloom gear, if that makes any sense.
You will be out classed, out played and out performed at every turn while leveling as a new player in group content which for some people can be a huge put off thinking that you can't compete. You will never be placed with people that are like yourself and just learning with over powered gear.
God forbid you attempt to PvP as a new player because that would bring the most hard core player vs player type of person to tears because there is no way a new player could ever beat someone with all their uber gear hand me downs. And it is not like you would have the time to build up some gear because by the time you did you would be in a new PvP bracket and your gear would be useless again thanks to that super fast leveling. So group content is unwelcoming to the new player.
And how about that wonderful warcraft community, or the lack of it more specifically. Like I mentioned the people bashing the new player for not having heirloom gear. How could they? Doesn't matter to the warcraft community. Our community thinks that everyone should have the best of everything all the times or they are a scrub. Our community thinks everyone should know all their abilities and how to use them instantly even if they are new.
Our community thinks that people should know the lay out of every dungeon like the back of their hand because they have been out of so many years and there is no excuse for anyone not knowing them. How about this is someones first time there? Nope, not a good enough excuse when talking with our wonderful community. You are just a low life piece of shit scrub because you do not have gear you are incapable of having and do not have knowledge that someone that has been playing 8 years does, and have never done something that has been out for years even though you just started. Yeap, piece of shit, that is you, so says the wonderful world of warcraft community.
Now on to the problems of professions for the new player and what quick leveling does to that. First aid, if they decided to take it and level it, will always be behind. You will be leveling so quickly that you will never be able to gather enough cloth to keep it up. If you happened to be unlucky enough to be questing in an area with no humanoid mobs for a while it is entirely possible that you will have skipped over a type of cloth completely by the time you get to mobs that drop cloth again.
So this means going to the auction house, if you have the gold, which you won't as a new player that had no previous knowledge of the game and you will be stuck looking at 40g stacks of the cloth you need, if you are lucky. When you open your wallet and see the cobwebs and 3 gold sitting there you will realize you only have two options, abandon your quest to level first aid or find mobs that drop the cloth you need and grind them to catch up even if you are getting no experience for them.
Same goes for cooking and the drops because you are leveling so fast. And lets not forget fishing which back in the day would level with your level because you would spend some time fishing here and there and making food to eat for buffs because even those stupid small buffs helped because they were needed. Now all of those are left behind because of speed leveling, even for the new player that does not know better, and the lack of need for any buffs when leveling anyway.
What about those main professions? If you were a smart player you did one of two things as a first timer and that was take two gathering professions or one gathering profession with a crafting profession that went with it. If you took two crafting professions don't ever expect to level them as a new player. You will never be able to afford all the materials needed. It is just completely impossible. Not going to happen for a person with no experience in the game and no gold reserves to pick off of to level up those professions.
Lets go to those gathering ones and the wonderful addition of cross realm zones. Thanks to the new CRZ you will have 5 or 6 or even 7 servers all competing for the materials that are only enough to support one server meaning your pickings will be slim to none.
You can go from level 15 to level 25 without seeing one herb to pick, I know because I have done it, all thanks to the CRZ. And if you are lucky enough to see an herb or a mine one of two things usually happens. You are either too low of a level to pick/mine it because of your speed leveling putting you in an area well past your gathering professions now, or while you are fighting your way there to get it someone lands on it with a flying mount and takes it. Yeap, been there too myself.
So you need to find lesser played areas if you want to have any chance of gathering materials but as a new player you will not know that would you? Unless you were lucky enough to roll a gnome or dwarf, you are basically shit out of luck when it comes to leveling mining or herbalism and lets face it, look at the numbers, not many roll dwarves or gnomes.
So to the auction house again, to offset your lack of being able to gather stuff thanks to the cross realm zones and speed leveling, so you can level your associated profession. Lets say you are doing alchemy and want to get that up some, you look at the herbs on the auction house and see 50g a stack and that same wallet that was filled with cobwebs before is still not any better.
Looks like you are not leveling your main crafting professions either, not right now at least. So your gathering profession has been left behind because of the lack of herbs to keep you leveled with your leveling movement and the cross realm zones making the few herbs that are out there even harder to find leaves you, just like with the cloth, in the position to make the choice to stay behind killing mobs you get no experience for while trying to find a needle in a haystack, or better yet, a herb that you can get to before someone on a flying mount from another server gets to it first.
Lets say you do happen to grin and bear it and deal with all that crap. With the cross realm zones meaning massive amounts of high levels taking all the resources you need to level. Jerks in randoms telling you that you suck because you do not have heirlooms even if it is impossible for you to have them. Speed leveling where you do not get a chance to ever get comfortable with an area or your spells and abilities. All that junk, you dealt with it and now you finally get sent to BC content.
I don't know about you but one of the questions I get the most from new players, and I have helped a ton of them, is the "how do I get to..." question. Usually this is how do I get to BC or Northrend. To me, you and the other people that have played the game it is a no brainer but to a new person they get lost all the time.
Funny side story. I was in my horde guild when someone hit level 68 and asked how to get to northrend. I told him how to get there, simple enough right? He said this was his first horde character and he had only done it on alliance before. I said my standard line, no big deal, we all have to learn some time, and told him where to go once again. A few minutes later he says in guild that the people in stormwind are not all that friendly to him. I laughed and said that is because you are a horde now, why are you there? He said, he was going to take the boat because he knew where that was. I really thought that was funny. He made it to northrend, but he had to fight his way thought the alliance port once he did. He was cursing like a sailor in guild chat because he was dying every 3 seconds but it was fun for me thinking about it.
He is not the only one that gets lost with things like that, most new players and even new to a side players get lost like that. It is more common than you and I think. Just because we know where everything is doesn't mean everyone else knows and it surely means someone brand spanking new to the game won't know.
At least BC content, even if it blows by too fast now, and northrend content, which always blew past way to fast, is a lot better than vanilla content. You will not be finding much in the way of gathering nodes in abundance in BC areas at all, never had, and it is even worse now with the cross realm zones. There are some BC ores that sell on my server for 1000g a stack now thanks to the cross realm zones and blizzard never modifying the repawn rate to ore and herbs. Typical blizzard stupidity of course, but it just means a little more hell for the first timer and it also means with those high prices a lot more 90s farming the herbs and ores you need to level just to make some quick gold making the pickings even slimmer. Now multiply that by 7 realms worth of 90s doing that for gold and you can just feel the nightmare of leveling gathering professions in BC.
Their professions will still be taking a beating in BC but at least the questing does slow down a bit to allow the person to start to get comfortable with their character. Dungeons will be the same, lots of people that will all think that everyone knows everything and if you don't you suck. PvP again is the same, you will continue to be brutalized by people in gear you are not even capable of getting and even if you were by the time you get it, you out grew it.
The saddest part here is that BC has some of the absolute best PvP objective areas in the game and you can not participate in them. Not because of the previously mentioned gear thing but because the fights are for level 90s there, not you, the new player, level 63 in crap gear, and learning how your abilities really work for the first time since you started because this is the first time you stayed at a level long enough to notice, oh shit I have a new ability. Game play for you will start to get a lot better here, but is it too little to late?
When you reach northrend things start to get even better still. If you went through the hell of getting your gathering professions up at least to the point where you can gather stuff in the basin when you get there you will experience your first time ever as a new player were gathering material is all over the place even with the cross realm zones and you will love it.
The leveling speed is still a little faster than it should be but it is not as horrible quick as it was 1-60 at least. You will also, for the first time, really start to experience some great story telling but the sad part is, as a new player, you will probably reach 80 before you get to the best story lines in that expansion and you will miss them completely. At least northrend seems to be a lot better balanced profession wise, flow wise and story wise.
Then you take a step backwards. Think it was bad asking once an expansion "how do I get too..."? Get ready for asking it a million and one times because the 80 to 85 experience will throw you all over the world with no rhyme or reason what so ever. What was a tight game with some problems with speed leveling and profession leveling before becomes unwound and a hell of a lot harder to figure out where you are going thanks to bad expansion design.
The stories are all over the place, the speed of leveling is too slow compared to what you have become used to and there is no real flow to anything you do. The one good thing is that it seems gathering, while not over plentiful, will be enough. So while the speed of leveling and the gathering of resources has gotten better since you left original content the flow of the game will seem to be off, to a new person at least, because the expansions do not really flow from one to another all that well and did not flow to this one well at all. At least the other two were single areas, this one is all over the place and it is really easy for a new person to feel a bit lost and disconnected from the game in a big world because of it.
Also at this point you should have all types of flying but a new player might not. While it is possible they can fly it is nearly sure they do not have fast flying because how does someone that has never played the game before and does not know how to work the auction house come up with all the gold needed for that. Even more so when you did not ever have many extra gathering materials to sell unless you took two gathering professions. In truth, the only way in hell you will have any money as a new player is if you had taken two gathering professions and used the auction house as often as possible to sell them and even at that, you would have still been sort of screwed because you would have been slowed down trying to play catch up on two gathering professions back in original content instead of just one thanks to the cross realm zone.
When moving to the current expansion you will feel, thanks to the blazing speed of leveling before hand, that you are getting absolutely no where leveling wise which will be a shock to the system of any new player who had gotten used to the feeling of personal progression as fast because they were always getting new gear, new levels, new skills and now they are getting levels much slower and skills not at all. At least there will be lots of new gear for them.
While I love the mists leveling model and think it is the best to date, fast enough to get there without much work but slow enough to get to know the zones and where we will be spending the next couple of years, to a new player it would be a nightmare. It will take them longer to do 85-86 than it took them to do 1-40 most likely and this could be a huge turn off for many. At least they will no longer be caught in the worst addition ever made to the game, the cross realm zone. They will finally be playing the game on their own server as they should have been since day one.
Most gamers, even if new, as long as they played any type of leveling system game before will understand that those last levels are the hardest so a great many new players will just grin and bear it and do what they have to do.
Then they ding 90 and are excited to finally made it to end game. They are most likely broke, with just quest gear, extremely limited knowledge of their class but at least will have learned something because mists leveling is harder than anything they had ever experienced up to that point and they will want to play the game as they believe it was intended to be played, at end game.
Then they get hit in the face with more leveling. Leveling reputations to buy gear. Level item level to get into dungeons. Leveling item level to get into the LFR. Finding a guild that does raiding. And even harder, finding a guild that is willing to accept people that are completely and totally new to the game and are willing to teach them while actually getting bosses down.
Usually casual guilds of the lower end go two ways when it comes to new players. They either let them in and let them raid and down nothing, or they let them in and do not let them raid until stuff is on farm and they just need a body to fill a space and down stuff. One means you start right away and get nowhere and the other means you wait until you get lucky enough to get into something but at least get some experience downing things. The choice is yours but either way, you will be lucky to find yourself in either situation as someone that knows nothing being new to the game.
If you finally want to move into something more steady you will need to learn a little about your class and gemming and enchanting and so forth and so on. If you do not have anyone in that lower level casual guild that held your hand and taught you it is off to the internet where you get the shock of your life, learning you need a hell of a lot more than just that character you leveled to play at max level, but you need a ton of other things.
Now when you do start reading and seeing what you need to do and notice that your wallet is still filled with cobwebs you might start thinking you need to level some other characters for profession purposes, just to take care of yourself being you have no gold to buy all those things you need.
So you level an engineer for a scope, a blacksmith for a belt buckle, a jewelcrafter for gems, an enchanter for enchants, a scribe for shoulder enchants, a leatherworker for leg enchants, and an alchemist to make flasks and it starts all over again. Leveling another character having a hard time finding materials, blowing through content too fast to really learn your class, etc. All so you can play with that one class you leveled at the max level the appropriate way.
With all the things you need to do at end game and all the the other things you need to do and dealing with a crappy server economy, a horrible cross realm zone design, a horrible community that will blast you every step you take just because you are new, and the feeling like you need to do 101 things just to catch up to where everyone else is all while having to think about all the crap you now need to do with every single piece of gear and you have no money to do it, it just is not worth the effort for a new player to even attempt to play catch up in this game. Can it be done, yes? Is it worth it? No, not at all. The game is great yes, but it is not wroth starting from the beginning, not at all.
So would I recommend warcraft to someone else? Never in a million years. As much as I love the game, it is not new player friendly at all.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Define Required
I've touched on the topic of required content before such as reputation being required or valor grinding being required or running the LFR being required. There are always going to be people that say if you do not want to do it then don't. There will always be people that say I don't want to do it but I fell required to do it to keep up. What it really comes down to is how do you, as a gamer, define required.
I think when we, the players of warcraft, argue about it we are all wrong. We view required from our own little world. Even someone like myself who can argue both sides (and I will in a moment), my view is tainted because I am a player. We need a view from the outside looking in and I got a taste of that the other day while talking about warcraft with a friend at a new years party. But first, a small taste of one persons tainted view, arguing required from both sides.
The Required Argument:
My hunter is my main and as such I treat him as the character that needs to have everything and have them as soon as possible so I can be capable of doing the best I can as soon as I can. The sad part is my hunter has still not stepped into a raid this expansion yet but from my point of view it was required of me to be raid ready to the best of my ability even if I am not raiding on that character as it is my main.
As such, it was required of me to get to 90 as soon as I could so I would be capable of raiding. It was required of me to get all my reputations to max as soon as I could so I could buy valor pieces to fill the spaces if I did not get drops when I raided. I was required of me to max valor every week and buy any piece that was an upgrade, itemizing which would be the biggest upgrade each week of course.
It was required of me to spam heroics once I got to 90 so I would have at least a level 463 in every slot. I then was required to run the LFRs when they later came out if there were any that had any chance to drop anything that might be an upgrade as well as join any world boss groups I was capable of getting into even if I were in the middle of something else. But that was not all, it was not just limited to what I did on the character I raided with, or intended to raid with in this case.
It was required of me to level my blacksmith so I could make my own belts, an engineer so I could make my own scopes, a jewelcrafter to make my own gems, an enchanter to make my own enchants, a leatherworker to make my own leg enchants, a scribe to make my own shoulder enchants, an alchemist to make my own flasks and of course a cook to make my own food all because I have always believed and will always believe a really serious gamer, even in the sense of casual raiding, should be capable of taking care of their own needs even when in a guild of helpful people that could make all those things for you.
So while anyone can say none of that was required and be right, in their mind, for me all those things were completely required. Not one thing there was optional. If I wanted to raid on my main and I wanted to be the best I could be I needed to do all those things. It was not optional, it was required. Even more so being a raid leader. How could I ever expect someone else to put in the effort to be the best they can be on their main when I don't?
With all that said and done my hunter sits at a quite impressive (for someone that has not stepped into a raid) 491 item level and is ready to raid should I ever get the opportunity to do so and there are still upgrades to be had that I can get outside of raiding all because I did everything that was required of any serious gamer that wants to be the best he is capable of being with the tools available to him.
The Not Required Argument:
One of the characters that got leveled (and was intended to get the bracer enchants they decided to lock behind rep and I have done no rep on her) for my hunter to use their skills was my priest, a healer and more importantly an enchanter. I made no special efforts with her as an alt when I leveled her, she was just a character I played to pass the time when I needed a break from the required grind on my main. Not to mention all those quest rewards just waiting to be disenchanted.
I leveled her and did a few dungeons at max level as shadow. After that I was capable of making a make shift healing set, with a few shadow type pieces here and there. With a few LFRs here and there when I was bored and a sha group twice with some amazing luck as too win both tier pieces in the only two runs I did, without any coins of course because my priest has not done enough dailies at 90 to get any tokens, I was sitting at 473 item level and ready to roll into in any raid on the normal side.
I have not done any dailies for the gear factions and the few I have done are for the tillers to open the farm fully and she has not done even one since opening the farm. This leaves me no valor to buy valor gear, no open gear faction to buy gear even if I had valor, and only a few runs here and there to work with that offered nearly no luck with exception of the two sha runs.
My priest is living proof that you can get raid geared without the need of doing any of those things I mentioned about with my hunter. However, this is an alt, so I am more willing to hang the not required tag on her. My played time on her is less than 12 hours at 90 and remember, a lot of that time was spent getting tillers to exalted for the farm space. I would guess her gearing up time would have to be in the 4 hour range, at most. So you can get raid geared to start raiding in only 4 hours with no reputations and no valor. So no, none of that other stuff is even remotely required.
See, I can argue both sides.
Required: A View from the Outside:
So there I was talking to a friend about the game on new years. He does not play but he knows the game well. He had even watched me play a few times but he said the game is just not for him because he does not have the time for it.
I explained that he could play once a week and do just fine. Even once a month. The game is very casual friendly. I went into explaining those two examples, in lesser detail for him of course, about how doing both things leads to the same result a raid ready character and if both raided they would both end up in the same gear either way, raid gear. One character I barely played and it could raid just the same as one I put a ton of effort into.
It was not exactly that which had put him off however. It was the massive amount of required content I mentioned when we talked. I never used the word required. I said I used valor gear to buy the gear on one character and did not get valor gear on another and he had asked me a few questions about valor from that point.
I explained that you can earn a max of 1000 valor per week and have 3000 total on you at any time. I explained some daily quests give you 5 each and that dungeons, raids, scenarios, could all get you valor as well. Then he asked how much he gets and how long they take. I thought I was about to reel him in, get us a new virgin sacrifice to the warcraft universe. He had seen me play many times, had asked me questions on more than a few occasions and watched with nearly as much excitement as I have on a few occasions.
Then he said the required word. The outsiders view, he said the required word. I will share what he said as best I can recall, paraphrasing of course.
I would love to play but you know my work schedule. I do not have the time required to play a game like that even if you say I can just play once in a while. I would be limited on the times I can play so I would be limited on how much I can do. Limited by the amount of reputation I can gain on any given day, limited by the amount of valor I can get in a week, even the dungeon runs you mention give you less when you run them a second time. I would feel like I had to log in every day to as much reputation as I could, to do the one run each day that gives me more valor, to get to my valor cap each week.
I would want to do everything and not play half assed. If the game has some catch up mechanic where I could grind all the reputation I wanted on the one day I was on or all the valor I wanted on the one day I was on, I might consider it. But as long as they put limits on what I am capable of doing then doing them becomes something that is required and quite frankly I do not want another job. If they ditched all the limitations I would join you but not like that, nope, I will never play that game like it is.
Definition of Required:
So now looking at his words I think I can define required content when it refers to warcraft.
Required: Anything that is limited as a total number, a daily or a weekly basis is required if you want to keep up.
Examples:
If you miss a week valor capping, you will never be able to catch up on that 1000 valor lost.
If you miss a day doing your dungeon run for 80 valor, you will never be able to do 2 the next day and get 80 each.
If you miss raiding one week, you will not get to down that boss twice the next week for two chances to get the piece of loot you needed and two chances to use coins.
If you miss doing some dailies, that is one days worth of dailies later you will be to getting to exalted.
If they wanted to remove the required stigma from the game you need to remove the caps. At least, that is how the outsider explained it to me.
As a side note, I know why the caps are there and agree with them to a degree. If everyone could run each raid 100 times a week to get the drops they wanted and get as much valor as they wanted to upgrade that gear then many people would have all the best gear all maxed out super fast and they could lose subscriptions of some people who feel there is nothing left for them to do or people that got burnt out.
That brings a question I have to ask, would they lose more subscriptions by giving people no limits as they would by making people feel as if things were required? Like my friend that said he would never play a game that he could not play on his terms with his time schedule.
My personal opinion on the matter is that I believe they should keep the limits as they are but I will freely admit I believe that for purely selfish reasons. I know if there were no limits I would be the idiot that would run each raid 100 times a week if I could just to get the drops I wanted. With no limits I would get as much valor as needed to upgrade every piece of gear I got as soon as I got a new piece. It would create a lot more work for me and I think there is already way to much to do in the game as is. So for selfish reason I like the caps. But I do agree 100% with my friends assessment. Anything that, by capping total or limiting, by daily, or by weekly, makes it required.
Either way, if you think they are required or you do not think they are required, I think the outsider gave us a solid definition of required when it comes to gaming so I will end this post with repeating it. No matter what we think, we play it, our view is tainted. The view of an outsider says it best.
Required: Anything that is limited as a total number, a daily or a weekly basis is required if you want to keep up.
I think when we, the players of warcraft, argue about it we are all wrong. We view required from our own little world. Even someone like myself who can argue both sides (and I will in a moment), my view is tainted because I am a player. We need a view from the outside looking in and I got a taste of that the other day while talking about warcraft with a friend at a new years party. But first, a small taste of one persons tainted view, arguing required from both sides.
The Required Argument:
My hunter is my main and as such I treat him as the character that needs to have everything and have them as soon as possible so I can be capable of doing the best I can as soon as I can. The sad part is my hunter has still not stepped into a raid this expansion yet but from my point of view it was required of me to be raid ready to the best of my ability even if I am not raiding on that character as it is my main.
As such, it was required of me to get to 90 as soon as I could so I would be capable of raiding. It was required of me to get all my reputations to max as soon as I could so I could buy valor pieces to fill the spaces if I did not get drops when I raided. I was required of me to max valor every week and buy any piece that was an upgrade, itemizing which would be the biggest upgrade each week of course.
It was required of me to spam heroics once I got to 90 so I would have at least a level 463 in every slot. I then was required to run the LFRs when they later came out if there were any that had any chance to drop anything that might be an upgrade as well as join any world boss groups I was capable of getting into even if I were in the middle of something else. But that was not all, it was not just limited to what I did on the character I raided with, or intended to raid with in this case.
It was required of me to level my blacksmith so I could make my own belts, an engineer so I could make my own scopes, a jewelcrafter to make my own gems, an enchanter to make my own enchants, a leatherworker to make my own leg enchants, a scribe to make my own shoulder enchants, an alchemist to make my own flasks and of course a cook to make my own food all because I have always believed and will always believe a really serious gamer, even in the sense of casual raiding, should be capable of taking care of their own needs even when in a guild of helpful people that could make all those things for you.
So while anyone can say none of that was required and be right, in their mind, for me all those things were completely required. Not one thing there was optional. If I wanted to raid on my main and I wanted to be the best I could be I needed to do all those things. It was not optional, it was required. Even more so being a raid leader. How could I ever expect someone else to put in the effort to be the best they can be on their main when I don't?
With all that said and done my hunter sits at a quite impressive (for someone that has not stepped into a raid) 491 item level and is ready to raid should I ever get the opportunity to do so and there are still upgrades to be had that I can get outside of raiding all because I did everything that was required of any serious gamer that wants to be the best he is capable of being with the tools available to him.
The Not Required Argument:
One of the characters that got leveled (and was intended to get the bracer enchants they decided to lock behind rep and I have done no rep on her) for my hunter to use their skills was my priest, a healer and more importantly an enchanter. I made no special efforts with her as an alt when I leveled her, she was just a character I played to pass the time when I needed a break from the required grind on my main. Not to mention all those quest rewards just waiting to be disenchanted.
I leveled her and did a few dungeons at max level as shadow. After that I was capable of making a make shift healing set, with a few shadow type pieces here and there. With a few LFRs here and there when I was bored and a sha group twice with some amazing luck as too win both tier pieces in the only two runs I did, without any coins of course because my priest has not done enough dailies at 90 to get any tokens, I was sitting at 473 item level and ready to roll into in any raid on the normal side.
I have not done any dailies for the gear factions and the few I have done are for the tillers to open the farm fully and she has not done even one since opening the farm. This leaves me no valor to buy valor gear, no open gear faction to buy gear even if I had valor, and only a few runs here and there to work with that offered nearly no luck with exception of the two sha runs.
My priest is living proof that you can get raid geared without the need of doing any of those things I mentioned about with my hunter. However, this is an alt, so I am more willing to hang the not required tag on her. My played time on her is less than 12 hours at 90 and remember, a lot of that time was spent getting tillers to exalted for the farm space. I would guess her gearing up time would have to be in the 4 hour range, at most. So you can get raid geared to start raiding in only 4 hours with no reputations and no valor. So no, none of that other stuff is even remotely required.
See, I can argue both sides.
Required: A View from the Outside:
So there I was talking to a friend about the game on new years. He does not play but he knows the game well. He had even watched me play a few times but he said the game is just not for him because he does not have the time for it.
I explained that he could play once a week and do just fine. Even once a month. The game is very casual friendly. I went into explaining those two examples, in lesser detail for him of course, about how doing both things leads to the same result a raid ready character and if both raided they would both end up in the same gear either way, raid gear. One character I barely played and it could raid just the same as one I put a ton of effort into.
It was not exactly that which had put him off however. It was the massive amount of required content I mentioned when we talked. I never used the word required. I said I used valor gear to buy the gear on one character and did not get valor gear on another and he had asked me a few questions about valor from that point.
I explained that you can earn a max of 1000 valor per week and have 3000 total on you at any time. I explained some daily quests give you 5 each and that dungeons, raids, scenarios, could all get you valor as well. Then he asked how much he gets and how long they take. I thought I was about to reel him in, get us a new virgin sacrifice to the warcraft universe. He had seen me play many times, had asked me questions on more than a few occasions and watched with nearly as much excitement as I have on a few occasions.
Then he said the required word. The outsiders view, he said the required word. I will share what he said as best I can recall, paraphrasing of course.
I would love to play but you know my work schedule. I do not have the time required to play a game like that even if you say I can just play once in a while. I would be limited on the times I can play so I would be limited on how much I can do. Limited by the amount of reputation I can gain on any given day, limited by the amount of valor I can get in a week, even the dungeon runs you mention give you less when you run them a second time. I would feel like I had to log in every day to as much reputation as I could, to do the one run each day that gives me more valor, to get to my valor cap each week.
I would want to do everything and not play half assed. If the game has some catch up mechanic where I could grind all the reputation I wanted on the one day I was on or all the valor I wanted on the one day I was on, I might consider it. But as long as they put limits on what I am capable of doing then doing them becomes something that is required and quite frankly I do not want another job. If they ditched all the limitations I would join you but not like that, nope, I will never play that game like it is.
Definition of Required:
So now looking at his words I think I can define required content when it refers to warcraft.
Required: Anything that is limited as a total number, a daily or a weekly basis is required if you want to keep up.
Examples:
If you miss a week valor capping, you will never be able to catch up on that 1000 valor lost.
If you miss a day doing your dungeon run for 80 valor, you will never be able to do 2 the next day and get 80 each.
If you miss raiding one week, you will not get to down that boss twice the next week for two chances to get the piece of loot you needed and two chances to use coins.
If you miss doing some dailies, that is one days worth of dailies later you will be to getting to exalted.
If they wanted to remove the required stigma from the game you need to remove the caps. At least, that is how the outsider explained it to me.
As a side note, I know why the caps are there and agree with them to a degree. If everyone could run each raid 100 times a week to get the drops they wanted and get as much valor as they wanted to upgrade that gear then many people would have all the best gear all maxed out super fast and they could lose subscriptions of some people who feel there is nothing left for them to do or people that got burnt out.
That brings a question I have to ask, would they lose more subscriptions by giving people no limits as they would by making people feel as if things were required? Like my friend that said he would never play a game that he could not play on his terms with his time schedule.
My personal opinion on the matter is that I believe they should keep the limits as they are but I will freely admit I believe that for purely selfish reasons. I know if there were no limits I would be the idiot that would run each raid 100 times a week if I could just to get the drops I wanted. With no limits I would get as much valor as needed to upgrade every piece of gear I got as soon as I got a new piece. It would create a lot more work for me and I think there is already way to much to do in the game as is. So for selfish reason I like the caps. But I do agree 100% with my friends assessment. Anything that, by capping total or limiting, by daily, or by weekly, makes it required.
Either way, if you think they are required or you do not think they are required, I think the outsider gave us a solid definition of required when it comes to gaming so I will end this post with repeating it. No matter what we think, we play it, our view is tainted. The view of an outsider says it best.
Required: Anything that is limited as a total number, a daily or a weekly basis is required if you want to keep up.
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