Blizzard: More "Broad Appeal" In Next MMOG

[duolc]

I played WoW from about 2 months after release in US till 2 weeks ago. I quit because there was nothing worth doing anymore.

I wont go into how things have gotten easier and easier and there was NO challenge left in it for me. but I will go on to say this.

Any game that thinks a content patch that allows you to get 25man raid gear from heroic 5 man badge instances is a good idea is not worth playing.

I canceled my WoW subscription and reactivated my FFXI subscription. When I quit FFXI I was sad and missed it alot. When I left WoW I felt nothing.

 

[Guest]

I'm just sore at Blizzard because:
1. Starcraft 3 could have been out by now.
2. Diablo 3, been in development how long (same situation with starcraft), and so far this year what's been revealed? One new character, a few monsters and the settlement of an argument on if a shaman (monster) should have hair and a knife or not.
3. Everything that's been in development has been retarded (slowed) by the predication of the new Battle.net system. The purpose of the system? Of course it's to expand the social aspect of the games and give players more meaningful matches for strategy games and 'achievements' for RPG games... which of course could be have been added and tweaked via patches and updates... but the main focus is on moving player-created content, and how to earn money from its distribution. Who plays the WC3 maps blizzard made, even the single player campaigns? No one does, most people got the game to play DOTA and other custom maps with their friends (I did at least) and blizzard knows that. DOTA even got its own patch when a vulnerability was found which pulled the legacy team from other projects they were working on (aka the much needed 1.13 patch for D2, which fans were told would be out by the end of April. It's September and still no patch). Anyways, my point is blizzard saw how popular custom content is and now wants to capitalize and they are planning to use a model not unlike Apple and its APP store. You make custom games and your games are popular? How would you like to make $1 per download of YOUR custom map?! Just upload it to our custom-content store, and you will receive a percentage of every purchase of the content you created!
4. The popularity of WOW made blizzard rethink their priorities. Should we develop more games or funnel talents into our cash cow for easy monies? They went for the cash cow and that is evident in the 'suspension' of Starcraft Ghost, the FPS (see 'dropped' title. Development ceased as WOW took off and even though the last comments made regarding the title is that it's still in development, internally it has been canceled. Of course there is no outrage because the PR for blizzard just states that the game is 'coming at some point in the future').
5-10. I think you might get my point.

I am tired of getting teased by specifically Blizzard. When they say a game/patch is coming soon and nearing completion and the projected launch is in two weeks, don't be silent for 2 months and be like: "Oh yeah there was an issue. Rest assured though that the patch is coming out 'soon'. Yet again 2 more months and not a word. (I'm talking about the D2 1.13 patch here.)

/End

 

[RADIO_ACTIVE]

I think they posted this article to watch everyone bicker... lol

 

[balister]

[citation][nom]rcpratt[/nom]The Naxx fights are not even close to the same as they were at 60. Oh, you stood in Faerlina's fire for 10 seconds, and now you're at 50%? Oh no, you would have been dead after 2 seconds when it was hard.Oh noes, you took 4 hits of Heigan's eruption and almost died? You didn't have a chance of living through two before. The fight mechanics are generally the same, yes, but both the damage avoidance required, healing required, and damage done required was tuned much, much, much tighter in real naxx.[/citation]

That's because Blizzard expected you to go through and farm MC and Ony, then farm BWL, then do a good bit of farming in AQ40 before you set foot in Naxx. You needed the gear to get by the encounters in Naxx in Vanilla, you even needed to go nuts and get every buff known to man for some fights until you had farmed Naxx for a while (remember needing the head turn ins from Ony, the buffs from DM:N, every flask you could think off for your class, every elixir buff you could think of for your class so that you could get past Loatheb yet the mechanics of the Loatheb fight were the same once you learned them). WotLK Naxx was meant for people that had farmed the level 80 instances and heroics to get Emblems of Heroism to buy the epics off the EoH vendor, Naxx was the first tier raid in WotLK much as MC was the first tier raid for Vanilla. Naxx hasn't changed *that* much from Vanilla to WotLK, what's changed is the gear and talents (you didn't have haste until late in tBC, hit and crit were percentages back in Vanilla instead of ratings like they went to in tBC, the talents trees are radically different in most cases to what they were in Vanilla, and you had more debuff slots when tBC came out than the original 8 you had to work with back at the start of Vanilla). The reason the game seems easy is because Blizzard has built on fights that were seen in prior expansions and only the raid encounters brought in some freshness on some fights (while others are combinations of prior encounters).

[citation][nom]wavebossa[/nom]I have to agree. I have played WoW for many years and I love the game, but anyone who wants to honest with themselves knows that there is absolutely no comparison.WoW gets easier, and easier and easier (with the exception of Yogg). There are players now in WoTLK who would have had no chance in vanilla. Not that this is a bad thing or a good thing, but it is the truth. You cannot deny that Naxx was harder than anything in BC (even SWP) and that SWP was harder than anything in Wotlk (except Yogg) to date.[/citation]


No, I disagree, Naxx was not harder than SWP. Mu'ru and Kil'Jaedan put everything in Vanilla Naxx to shame on difficulty. The amount of doing everything right on Mu'ru and Kil'Jaedan changed things. Even on a fight like Heigen was forgiving in Naxx, you lose a group or two there and still defeat him, you lost one or two people on Mu'ru or Kil'Jaedan and for get it. As to Yogg, once you learn the fight and have the gear, only no keepers, Alone in the Dark, is difficult.

Raiding in WoW is having the know how, reflexes, and connection to do something when you need to do it, it's always been that way from Vanilla forward to WotLK.

 

[terr281]

With the following MMO history: EQ (beta - GoD), DAoC (classic servers, hated ToA expansion), MO (beta & initial launch), SWG (post mess-up), DDO (launch era), EVE (launch era), WoW (pre level 50 in vanilla and BC), free EQ emu (max level for the emu, 65, initial raiding)...

And, with my mate having a very similar background...

We recently returned to WoW on a new server. Why? Because of real life time required to "get anywhere." As a college student, I had the time to sit behind the computer 4-6 hours per day (8 hours on some raids) for ~60-72 people to have the potential to get a single item upgrade from a raid in EQ. (And, those 72 people could not communicate effectively either... pre- "GUI raid built-in".) The bugs of the old content (when you aren't in the latest expansion, which SoE would fix) forced me to move to a better game.

DAoC cared about their game, but once your max level... the only thing level was PVP. (Including the speed hackers.)

I could continue, but the point is this...

WoW allows people, in small groups (whether that be friends, family, etc.) to all play the game, together, and generally have fun at a cost lower than going to a movie, buying that new console and console game, etc.

The Nintendo Wii's effect to the console market has shown that families are wanting something "modern" to do together. (And, modern means involving electronics.)

Those with computers for gaming, from 5 year old "high end" machines to new mainstream ones, can generally play WoW. If you avoid major cities and keep the profanity filter on, WoW is even playable by young children with little help from their parents.

Is it the same game of "skill" that others are? No. Is it available for play for more overall people for lower overall cost with less available time? Yes. That is the point of broad appeal, and that is the current computer gaming market.

The computer gamer is starting to get a real job, get married to a woman that also was on the internet on a computer, have a family, etc.

The generation immediately younger than us is currently in our former "EQ, skilled game only, etc" mindset. The generation below that is into console gaming and broad market MMOs. (Due to our influence. Time = precious.)

There will always be a market for "skill/twitch" MMOs & games. There will also be a market for "easier going/less time required" MMOs and games.

 

[datawrecker]

Hope this MMO has a good PVP element. WoW's was horrible. I played for WoW for years and it just kept getting worse and worse. PVP in WoW was nothing more than rock, paper, scissors. No skill involved at all, no tactics. They really should abandon all hope for PVP and stick with PVE content. At least they are good at that.

I hope they decide on using IP that was their own this time. I like warcraft for PVP and all, but it just irritates me how much of warcraft IP was stolen from warhammer IP.

 

[datawrecker]

[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom]The only real difference between wow and all the others is the dedication from the developers. You can argue that blizzard support is a pile of guano, and everybody will agree. But you can't claim they're not maintaining the game. They keep adding content, updating and changing the gameplay. So while the game is what 4½ years old now? it's still 'new' as the 3.2 patch is only a month or two old - and the next content patch is on the horizon. So in wow the people never feel like they're done, which is why people come back to it. It's not like people love playing in stranglethorn over and over - they like new stuff, and even if it feels a bit recycled, it's still better than no new stuff at all.[/citation]

WAR's strength could have been PVP. However they failed to release it as it was in Beta. I play WoW, WAR, Guild Wars, and DDO (dont ask...i dont know why). I like WoW and WAR. Even with WAR's PVP failings it surpasses WoW (now that the server have been consolidated).

I see the appeal of WoW. It is a casual gamers MMO. It is extremely simple when compared to EQ and Dark Age of Camelot. Even 40 man raids are a joke when it comes to difficulty. That's what makes it so popular...anyone can do it.

 

[dxwarlock]

[citation][nom]montezuma[/nom]Give it a rest, son. I have played far more MMOs than you have, many that you probably never heard of. You know, I am not going to waste an intelligent response on your stupid ass. You are not worth my time.grail: [/citation]


way to assume my play history, age, and intelligence based on one post of mine.
fair for me to in turn assume your cocky, arrogant, and assume everyone is under your technical skills, MMO knowledge, and that your WoW opinion if disagreed with results in being called a "stupid ass"?

and I was trying have a debate...
anyone that reverts to insults in a debate isn't one worth debating with.

typical wow player response "you don't agree with me? your a stupid ass, L2P mmo's n00b"

 

[yobigd20]

[citation][nom]DXWarlock[/nom] Ive been around a while, played WAR, LOTRO, EVE, GW, CoVTR, VG, FFXI, UO, EQ, EQ2, AC, AC2, L2, AOWoW, HG, DDO, AoC, NC, SWG, MxO, TcoSand wow DOES have the depth of a paper plate.[/citation]

somebody likes MMORPGs, lol.

 

[jecht]

So, no World of Starcraft then? 🙁

 

[Ethereal_Dragon]

I am really interested to see what this new game is. Sure people hate on Blizzard all the time for Wow, and nothing new in a very long time, but even Diablo 2 and Star Craft are GREAT games, and they are pretty old. Personally, I LOVE all of the Blizzard games, but Wow I like the least of the 4 (being Star Craft, Diablo, Warcraft, and Wow). WoW was the 2nd MMORPG I started playing, after Final Fantasy XI. I got FFXI back in 2004 shortly after it came out, and it was a BLAST to play. The graphics (at the time) were terrific, and the world was HUUUUUUUUUUGE!! My problem was that all my friends jumped ship from FFXI to WoW, and I followed them a few months later. FFXI got really difficult as you leveled up, because you couldn't solo past a certain level, it was pretty much limited to parties. My limited time to play games didn't work so well with the game, and I would look for a group for 20 minutes, then play for 10, and it was frustrating. Wow was nice because you could solo the whole time, or play with a party. The one thing I couldn't ever get over with Wow was the cartoonish nature of the game. FFXI had a realish look and feel to the game, but Wow was just strange looking. I liked the story lines, but found it just be the same thing over and over again. But, I never did any end-game stuff, or big raids, so I didn't see the whole game...

 

[Ethereal_Dragon]

...Also, I don't play Wow anymore, because it just got to be too expensive, and I just didn't have time. The last block of 6 months that I had the game, I literally played for a total of about 2 hours in 6 months, so I just pulled the plug on it. If this is a pay to play MMO, I would like to see a price in the range of $2-$3 a month, especially since they are still charging a regular game price for purchase of the title. $13-$16 (or whatever it is these days) is just TOOO much for subscription fees. If the Wiki page for Wow is correct, (11.5 million subs), and the 6 month fee is still $13 then, 11,000,000 x $12.99 = $142,890,000.00 a month, or $1,714,680,000.00 a year in income. I couldn't imagine that maintaining WoW servers is over 1 billion a year, let alone $1.7 billion, but I could be wrong... Just my .02

 

[terr281]

World of Starcraft...

1. 3 different "races" (human, protoss, zerg)
2. Class progression (I'll use Protoss as an example) with a Base class (Protoss), 2nd tier (Zealot), 3rd tier (Dragoon)
3. Factions based upon continued storyline from the Starcraft games (if leaving Starcraft 2 out of the picture...)
4. "Epic" 4th tier classes based upon faction

(Will use WoW & SWG references for this one.) Combine with a PVP system based upon Arathi Basin: WoW and SWG. (Factions seek to control certain resource rich planets.) However, some planets would firmly be in control of particular factions, thus enabling themed PVE oriented content.

Only in dreams...

 

[Guest]

[citation][nom]datawrecker[/nom]Hope this MMO has a good PVP element. WoW's was horrible. I played for WoW for years and it just kept getting worse and worse. PVP in WoW was nothing more than rock, paper, scissors. [/citation]

You hit the nail on the head but you may not realize it.

The rock/paper/scissors game design has become popular with Blizzard in recent years. You also see this game design in the BattleField franchise from EA.

The reason is that a game of skill with a high threshold of skill prior to players reaching the plateau and not getting any better makes scrub casuals feel bad because:

1. Most people aren't good at anything
2. Most people aren't competitive
3. Most people aren't willing to do the things necessary to get good at anything

Video games these days appeal to the masses. That means that Scrubby McScrubface with the bad frames per second, wireless mouse with acceleration on, and other hardware handicaps needs to be capable of killing the "pro gamer" that knows what hardware and software is optimized for gaming performance. That means that the rock/paper/scissors game design must be implemented. When the scrub kills the pro it won't be because he is better, it will be because the game is designed in such a way that if the scrub is the rock and the pro is the scissors then the scrub should win 90% of the time even if he sucks at playing the actual game.

Blizzard jumped on board with warcraft 3 and its "armor types" (normal attacks crush light armor so on and so forth).

Prior to that Blizzard didn't do this. This tells me that most likely Starcraft 2 will be an epic failure among competitive gamers. The South Koreans will never accept a scrubbed down Starcraft. We'll see how it turns out.

 

[Guest]

[citation][nom]datawrecker[/nom]That's what makes it so popular...anyone can do it.[/citation]

In vanilla WoW running a 40 man raiding guild was incredibly difficult. It was amazingly hard to attract, recruit, and retain 40 skilled and geared players in a guild.

That's why 98% of guilds never saw Naxx. That's why 99.9% of guilds never cleared Naxx.

Later on the game became a joke. It was easy to get gear and the encounters were very forgiving of failure.

 

[Guest]

[citation][nom]balister[/nom]The original Naxx was not hard either, it required gear. The fights in WotLK Naxx are the same as they were in Vanilla Naxx, the difference is the gear you got changed radically between what was available in Vanilla compared to what is available in WotLK. And yes, I also played in Vanilla Naxx cleared several wings, there are only minor differences. Patchwerk going from hitting the highest two in health after the MT with hateful strikes in Vanilla to hitting the highest two players in threat after the MT in WotLK. Raz going from a shout that does you mana in damage to you if you're in LoS to a shout that does damage to everyone throughout the instance. The only encounter that saw a real change was how Four Horseman worked, no longer the shield wall effects that went up at 50% and 20% like in vanilla, but still the main push of the fight was the same, switching between the four without the marks stacking too high and not allowing the marks to reach 100 cast.The fact of the matter is this, every raid instance Blizzard has produced from vanilla to tBC to WotLK, isn't really hard and never really was, it was and is about learning the mechnics of the fight so you can repeat it. As it stands right now, I would say that Yogg-Saron with no keepers or Kil'Jaeden from tBC are probably the hardest fights to date, easily beating C'Thun, aka the Raid/Guild Destroyer, and Vanilla Kel'Thuzad.[/citation]

Lol. I hope you really believe that. I don't believe you ever saw Naxx at level 60 because your ignorance is astounding.

Original 4 horsemen lady blameaux's void zones would 1 shot you if you didn't move instantly. They had a 2 second timer, if that. Latency alone could get you killed.

That's just one example. The only easy fights were grobbulous and razuvious.

You're right about them giving out epics to scrubs for nothing these days though. The "gearing process" is basically show up and win.

Kind of how everyone wants real life to be in America - show up and get rewarded for zero effort even if you suck.

Competitive gamers abandoned WoW when Blizzard abandoned competitive gamers. WoW is a game for failures to hang out with other failures feeling good about their failure.

 

[Guest]

[citation][nom]andessdfbddfb[/nom]I'm just sore at Blizzard because:1. Starcraft 3 could have been out by now.2. Diablo 3, been in development how long (same situation with starcraft), and so far this year what's been revealed? One new character, a few monsters and the settlement of an argument on if a shaman (monster) should have hair and a knife or not.3. Everything that's been in development has been retarded (slowed) by the predication of the new Battle.net system. The purpose of the system? Of course it's to expand the social aspect of the games and give players more meaningful matches for strategy games and 'achievements' for RPG games... which of course could be have been added and tweaked via patches and updates... but the main focus is on moving player-created content, and how to earn money from its distribution. Who plays the WC3 maps blizzard made, even the single player campaigns? No one does, most people got the game to play DOTA and other custom maps with their friends (I did at least) and blizzard knows that. DOTA even got its own patch when a vulnerability was found which pulled the legacy team from other projects they were working on (aka the much needed 1.13 patch for D2, which fans were told would be out by the end of April. It's September and still no patch). Anyways, my point is blizzard saw how popular custom content is and now wants to capitalize and they are planning to use a model not unlike Apple and its APP store. You make custom games and your games are popular? How would you like to make $1 per download of YOUR custom map?! Just upload it to our custom-content store, and you will receive a percentage of every purchase of the content you created!4. The popularity of WOW made blizzard rethink their priorities. Should we develop more games or funnel talents into our cash cow for easy monies? They went for the cash cow and that is evident in the 'suspension' of Starcraft Ghost, the FPS (see 'dropped' title. Development ceased as WOW took off and even though the last comments made regarding the title is that it's still in development, internally it has been canceled. Of course there is no outrage because the PR for blizzard just states that the game is 'coming at some point in the future').5-10. I think you might get my point.I am tired of getting teased by specifically Blizzard. When they say a game/patch is coming soon and nearing completion and the projected launch is in two weeks, don't be silent for 2 months and be like: "Oh yeah there was an issue. Rest assured though that the patch is coming out 'soon'. Yet again 2 more months and not a word. (I'm talking about the D2 1.13 patch here.)/End[/citation]

Blizzard's success with WoW took the company away from the developers and put it into the hands of MBAs from Harvard that only care about profits and pleasing investors to drive the stock prices higher to fund their cushy millionaire retirement after 5 years with the company.

Their greed is infinite and they have already announced the destruction of the company.

$150 for SC2? No thanks.
No LAN play? No thanks.
Battlenet turned into some kind of profit generating program? No thanks.

Blizzard has lost me. Someone will come along and do the things Blizzard used to do for gamers. Valve is really a superior company. Steam may include a bunch of DRM bull but at least they aren't profiteering to the maximum extent they could.

I think Valve is the new Blizzard, in the sense that they are now the spiritual leaders of the PC Gaming industry. I know they've been big for years and years, but I always looked at Blizzard as the #1 company in terms of making games gamers wanted to play, but now it's valve.

 

[datawrecker]

[citation][nom]bobbobbob12345[/nom]In vanilla WoW running a 40 man raiding guild was incredibly difficult. It was amazingly hard to attract, recruit, and retain 40 skilled and geared players in a guild.That's why 98% of guilds never saw Naxx. That's why 99.9% of guilds never cleared Naxx.Later on the game became a joke. It was easy to get gear and the encounters were very forgiving of failure.[/citation]

Strategically it raids were simple and you are right, what made it difficult was that most of the players wanting in on it were tards. Says alot about your players when it take superpowered gear to advance them through something that can be done with regular gear, good strategy, and good players.

[citation][nom]bobbobbob12345[/nom]Competitive gamers abandoned WoW when Blizzard abandoned competitive gamers. WoW is a game for failures to hang out with other failures feeling good about their failure.[/citation]

Exactly, have you noticed that WoW is more of a social network than a game. It's all about "look at me and look at what I got!!"

[citation][nom]bobbobbob12345[/nom]You hit the nail on the head but you may not realize it.The rock/paper/scissors game design has become popular with Blizzard in recent years. You also see this game design in the BattleField franchise from EA.The reason is that a game of skill with a high threshold of skill prior to players reaching the plateau and not getting any better makes scrub casuals feel bad because:1. Most people aren't good at anything2. Most people aren't competitive3. Most people aren't willing to do the things necessary to get good at anythingVideo games these days appeal to the masses. That means that Scrubby McScrubface with the bad frames per second, wireless mouse with acceleration on, and other hardware handicaps needs to be capable of killing the "pro gamer" that knows what hardware and software is optimized for gaming performance. That means that the rock/paper/scissors game design must be implemented. When the scrub kills the pro it won't be because he is better, it will be because the game is designed in such a way that if the scrub is the rock and the pro is the scissors then the scrub should win 90% of the time even if he sucks at playing the actual game.Blizzard jumped on board with warcraft 3 and its "armor types" (normal attacks crush light armor so on and so forth).Prior to that Blizzard didn't do this. This tells me that most likely Starcraft 2 will be an epic failure among competitive gamers. The South Koreans will never accept a scrubbed down Starcraft. We'll see how it turns out.[/citation]

Yea, a lot of WoW players still do not notice this. (How many freakin years has it been?)Most of the WoW players don't bother to understand the class they have selected and fail to know their place in a group and fulfill that role.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

bobbobbob12345 I think you're sick! You might want to see a psychiatrist

 

[balister]

[citation][nom]bobbobbob12345[/nom]Lol. I hope you really believe that. I don't believe you ever saw Naxx at level 60 because your ignorance is astounding.Original 4 horsemen lady blameaux's void zones would 1 shot you if you didn't move instantly. They had a 2 second timer, if that. Latency alone could get you killed.That's just one example. The only easy fights were grobbulous and razuvious.You're right about them giving out epics to scrubs for nothing these days though. The "gearing process" is basically show up and win.Kind of how everyone wants real life to be in America - show up and get rewarded for zero effort even if you suck.Competitive gamers abandoned WoW when Blizzard abandoned competitive gamers. WoW is a game for failures to hang out with other failures feeling good about their failure.[/citation]

I guess you really didn't play Naxx did you if you think Raz and Grob were the only easy fights. Heigen was stupidly easy if you could do the dance and that dance wasn't that hard (the thing holding people back would be their latency).

Anub'rekan was simply the tank running at the right time to keep ahead of the swarm that Anub'rekan and off tanking the adds and killing them then killing the swarms when Anub'rekan popped a corpse.

Noth was a yawn fest so long as your Druids and Mages were getting rid of the curse.

Faerlina was easy too so long as your Priests we're ready to grab the add before Faerlina enraged.

Maexxna was a joke if people were on the ball and got people out of the web wraps quickly.

Gothik, please, 6 tanks total and a non-issue as well.

Thaddius was and still is a test to see if you can jump.

No change in Gluth either.

Patchwerk you just stood there with three tanks and you had the melee stand in the slime to keep them from having higher health than the tanks and then the healers spammed healing at the three tanks while the DPS brought him down, very straight up fight and the only change from then to now is that the hatefuls are now based on threat and not health of the potential targets.

Loatheb, minor changes here, but fight is basically the same.

Four Horsemen, again, pretty much the same fight, removed a couple things, but overall the strategy is the same. The void zones were only ever an issue due to not seeing them since they weren't drawn properly and it wasn't instant death standing in them either, if you were at full health, you had about 4 seconds to move, what killed most people is they didn't see it and weren't watching their health closely enough to move in time.

Sapphiron, the only difference here is the health of the players where as back in Vanilla you had maybe 7k or 8k health on non-tanks, you now have twice to three times that now.

Kel'Thuzad is the same overall fight, just need less tanks and healers because you have about half as many people in the raid.

In essence, all of the fights in Naxx were/are tank and spanks with little things put in. It was until tBC that fights really got creative and tank and spank was no longer the rule for boss encounters (sure there are still some, but the encounters now are far more interesting). Another aspect that you do not touch on either was that only game changer that Naxx Vanilla brought in from the prior raid instances, and C'Thun to some extent, is that success didn't rest completely on the shoulders of the Tanks and Healers anymore, DPS had to perform, but with tBC and onward, Blizzard decided that more of the onus should be on the DPS and less on the tanks and healers by instituting enrages and the like.

You're not remembering Naxx as it was. You think it was harder than it actually was because you didn't have the same level of health then as you do now in the game, you didn't have the same effective percentages of DPS then as you do now (people were happy to break 700 DPS back during Naxx, now people aren't happy unless they break 3.5k DPS, a 5 fold increase).

So face it, Vanilla Naxx was easy too, it just required gear, knowing the fights, and a better than average connection.

 

[terr281]

I must agree with the "social aspect" and "look at me" components that many people are expressing concerning the "new" WoW we returned to.

Further, many players don't know how to play their classes. (We have run into countless instances of this problem already, and we have only gotten to level 30 on the new server thus far.)

But, again, if you are looking for a game that you and a "small" group can play and enjoy in short playtimes (2 hours or less per play session for pve content), WoW is just about the only option at present. (Good example of this: My mate and I have, thus far, duo'ed Deadmines, SFK, and BFD as our pair of then level 28s. BFD was the only one that required any skill due to the required stunning of casters that attempted to charmed. Past that, proper pullin was the only thing required.)

Should we be able to duo dungeons? Probably not. Can we, since we are skilled players, yes. Have we met anyone thus far in our level range that we would choose to guild/group with? One or two only.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

[citation][nom]terr281[/nom]Further, many players don't know how to play their classes. [/citation]
You may be right, but I think blizzard is to blame for that really! I've clocked 72 days on my hunter, and I still don't really know how to play it best. I usually beat the other hunters in dps simply because I've found a rotation that works, but every time I start learning about the best mix of talents blizzard changes it! When I started my hunter nobody would even consider using anything from the survival spec - but now that's the only viable option. They keep tinkering with the game to make it more balanced (although persistently ignoring the pala bubble), but in that effort they keep resetting 'experience' as they fuck up routines. I dare say I play my hunter well, but honestly I could play it a lot better if it was the same hunter I played 2 years ago - but it isn't. It keeps changing.
On my shammy I don't even know where to begin! I was 80 when I noticed I had the lava burst spell I think, and one day I noticed that earth shock didn't spell interrupt anymore ... sure I could read all the release notes, but there are so many chances I simply can't remember them all. And perhaps I don't even want to. I just want my lock's crit bolt spec back and everything else to stay as it is now for the classes I play (everything that isn't melee)

 

[crystal_tech]

hmm i wonders. if its a new ip then it must have a reserved ip address/domain name. wonder if theres a way to do a whois of all blizzards domains. might give a clue to the next mmo

 

[terr281]

You may be right, but I think blizzard is to blame for that really! (Personal example of Blizzard changing spec trees and spell features on the Hunter and Shaman classes, along with a desire for a change to be reverted on Warlocks.)

Your example, as well:

1. Our desire to leave our "Everyone is level 80 now with all tradeskills available to them & heirlooms, thus ruining the low end TS market."
2. Our desire to leave our previous server to avoid some former RL friends.

Is why we went to a new server and new classes. Our mains (Alliance) were a feral druid and hybrid rogue (NEs) in the high 40s on our old server. I logged in to realize they had completely changed the feral spec tree, and my mate found the same on the rogue. The same was true of a duo of a 40 holy priest and ret paladin. (It also didn't help that all of our characters had completed quests prior to the massive increase to the amount of reputation you gained from quests.) We had finished almost all of the quests (including all newbie areas for rep farming) available on our mains into the 40s and low 50s, and still weren't revered with any of the home cities except our starting one.

Thus, we went to a new server and began again. In 2 weeks of casual play, with memory of most of the locations and "how to" for the (old) quests thus far, we've already reached level 30, TSs are going well, money can be made from the AH, etc. We expect the rate to continue as far as our memories still remember the information, which will be around level 40. Then, and only then, will something "new" truly be experienced.

Moving allowed us to "reset" our class knowledge, not have to play the "what if" game of "did we do that already?," etc.

Again, the time vs. reward & "who can play it" factors are the selling points for the broader market. Further, when the new expansion comes out and changes all of Kalimdor, it will be time to play a new duo... basically in a completely new setting.

In the end, everyone has their own reasons for playing a particular game.