4 ms·

Moved on how? I haven't really played except for the original beta, so I haven't been following WoW news much.

Tloewald 12y ago
They've remodeled Azeroth (the world has changed). Part of the reason was to allow flying mounts, but they also had historical transformations.
chiph 12y ago
There's lots of debate around this topic - but some of the opinions are that the new expansions have made leveling far too easy. And that some items that you had to grind for days/weeks/months to get (like the Green Proto-Drake) are now available for enough gold. The advantage is that the game is a lot more approachable for the novice (free to play up to level 20), but OTOH, it moved a lot of the challenge to raiding and end-game, which a fair number of people have no interest in doing.
Alupis 12y ago
There's nothing special about this blade, it's a standard "off the shelf" HP blade that anyone can purchase.
crusso 12y ago
Regarding the social aspects, they've made the game so accessible to casual players that they've eliminated the need to form strong social bonds for 99% of the content that people play. You can level pretty quickly just by soloing, so you don't need to find a buddy to help. With the Dungeon and Raid Finders, you don't even need to join a guild or have a set of regular friends for tackling harder content. With the battleground queues, you don't need friends to participate in PVP. Unless you want to attempt the harder versions of the same Raid content or try to compete more rigorously at PVP, all of the classic reasons to meet and keep friends in WoW are gone.
- moogleii 12y ago
  Very interesting. There's "raging" debate over in some Destiny threads (which shares some MMO traits) regarding the lack of matchmaking for certain raids (the designers require you to form up your own band of friends, because it's intended to be a difficult challenge that a random lot could probably not take on) and whether or not things should be accessible to all or tailored for a more dedicated few. I saw several comparisons to how WoW had watered the experience down, and now I know more. Thanks!
ChuckMcM 12y ago
Well when I use that phrase there are two aspects to it, to my taste they over simplified the game mechanics, even in things that were silly (like cooking recipes) in order to be more accessible. Second in the Cataclysm expansion they blew up Azeroth to create more content and deal with some of the aging older content. (For example it was fun to go in and solo Molten Core with my Paladin, I remembered doing it with 39 other people once a week trying to get Tier 1 raid gear.) To facilitate that leveling happened much faster they condensed the starting zones, destroying old content and leaving some stuff that no longer made sense in the new world. But the killer for me was the pandas and the even more watered down mechanics. I played for 10 years, making it the most money I had ever spent on any video game ever. (over $1500). The economist in me finds it interesting that I would probably still be a subscriber if I had a way to play on the pre-panda world, preferably WotLK but Cata would be acceptable. No doubt though there are 5 more people that do subscribe for the same reasons I don't. So Blizzard makes it up in the end. It has made me wonder what it would take to build a replacement, and it has been interesting looking at the alternatives that have popped out since.

They've remodeled Azeroth (the world has changed). Part of the reason was to allow flying mounts, but they also had historical transformations.

chiph 12y ago

There's lots of debate around this topic - but some of the opinions are that the new expansions have made leveling far too easy. And that some items that you had to grind for days/weeks/months to get (like the Green Proto-Drake) are now available for enough gold. The advantage is that the game is a lot more approachable for the novice (free to play up to level 20), but OTOH, it moved a lot of the challenge to raiding and end-game, which a fair number of people have no interest in doing.

Alupis 12y ago

There's nothing special about this blade, it's a standard "off the shelf" HP blade that anyone can purchase.

crusso 12y ago

Regarding the social aspects, they've made the game so accessible to casual players that they've eliminated the need to form strong social bonds for 99% of the content that people play. You can level pretty quickly just by soloing, so you don't need to find a buddy to help. With the Dungeon and Raid Finders, you don't even need to join a guild or have a set of regular friends for tackling harder content. With the battleground queues, you don't need friends to participate in PVP. Unless you want to attempt the harder versions of the same Raid content or try to compete more rigorously at PVP, all of the classic reasons to meet and keep friends in WoW are gone.

moogleii 12y ago
Very interesting. There's "raging" debate over in some Destiny threads (which shares some MMO traits) regarding the lack of matchmaking for certain raids (the designers require you to form up your own band of friends, because it's intended to be a difficult challenge that a random lot could probably not take on) and whether or not things should be accessible to all or tailored for a more dedicated few. I saw several comparisons to how WoW had watered the experience down, and now I know more. Thanks!

ChuckMcM 12y ago

Well when I use that phrase there are two aspects to it, to my taste they over simplified the game mechanics, even in things that were silly (like cooking recipes) in order to be more accessible. Second in the Cataclysm expansion they blew up Azeroth to create more content and deal with some of the aging older content. (For example it was fun to go in and solo Molten Core with my Paladin, I remembered doing it with 39 other people once a week trying to get Tier 1 raid gear.) To facilitate that leveling happened much faster they condensed the starting zones, destroying old content and leaving some stuff that no longer made sense in the new world. But the killer for me was the pandas and the even more watered down mechanics. I played for 10 years, making it the most money I had ever spent on any video game ever. (over $1500). The economist in me finds it interesting that I would probably still be a subscriber if I had a way to play on the pre-panda world, preferably WotLK but Cata would be acceptable. No doubt though there are 5 more people that do subscribe for the same reasons I don't. So Blizzard makes it up in the end. It has made me wonder what it would take to build a replacement, and it has been interesting looking at the alternatives that have popped out since.