Forum Settings
       
Reply To Thread

So what's going on with WoWFollow

#27 Aug 30 2013 at 9:26 AM Rating: Good
***
2,188 posts
Horsemouth wrote:

-- i almost ended my sentence with a preposition --

THE HORROR !!!!
Oh pish. One time, I almost wrongly made an infinitive a perfect infinitive when I put it after a past-tense verb!

As you might imagine, I was pretty shaken as I would not have thought you could have done that.

____________________________
"the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
Hermann Goering, April 1946.
#28 Aug 30 2013 at 8:29 PM Rating: Good
****
7,861 posts
teacake wrote:
Mazra wrote:

Anyway, the only American English thing that bugs me is that you're allowed to spell 'through' as 'thru'. Smiley: mad


YOU ARE NOT.

Anyone who texts me with this kind of crap gets no reply. Seriously, it's not that much harder to type "to" than "2."

I understand it with texting, but when you're sitting in front of a computer, typing things on the interwebs, there is NO @#%^ING EXCUSE FOR it!

Edited, Aug 30th 2013 10:29pm by Kastigir
____________________________
People don't like to be meddled with. We tell them what to do, what to think, don't run, don't walk. We're in their homes and in their heads and we haven't the right. We're meddlesome. ~River Tam

Sedao
#29 Aug 31 2013 at 4:09 AM Rating: Good
****
7,732 posts
Kastigir wrote:
teacake wrote:
Mazra wrote:

Anyway, the only American English thing that bugs me is that you're allowed to spell 'through' as 'thru'. Smiley: mad


YOU ARE NOT.

Anyone who texts me with this kind of crap gets no reply. Seriously, it's not that much harder to type "to" than "2."

I understand it with texting, but when you're sitting in front of a computer, typing things on the interwebs, there is NO @#%^ING EXCUSE FOR USING 2 instead of the actual word!

____________________________
Hellbanned

idiggory wrote:
Drinking at home. But I could probably stand to get laid.
#30 Sep 01 2013 at 4:03 AM Rating: Good
Ghost in the Machine
Avatar
******
36,443 posts
It's not an excuse on most phones, either. Since the introduction of touch screen phones, accessing numerals requires additional taps. I can write "to"/"too"/"two" faster than "2", because accessing "2" requires me to change from letters to symbols/numbers and then back again.

And since auto-correct and auto-complete is there, you can basically faceroll on the phone and still write a somewhat coherent sentence. "Txtspeak" is a thing of the past, where your phone had actual buttons, and accessing letters required additional presses of said buttons. Now, it's the other way around.
____________________________
Please "talk up" if your comprehension white-shifts. I will use simple-happy language-words to help you understand.
#31 Sep 01 2013 at 9:58 AM Rating: Good
****
7,861 posts
Mazra wrote:
It's not an excuse on most phones, either. Since the introduction of touch screen phones, accessing numerals requires additional taps. I can write "to"/"too"/"two" faster than "2", because accessing "2" requires me to change from letters to symbols/numbers and then back again.

And since auto-correct and auto-complete is there, you can basically faceroll on the phone and still write a somewhat coherent sentence. "Txtspeak" is a thing of the past, where your phone had actual buttons, and accessing letters required additional presses of said buttons. Now, it's the other way around.

I can and do too. I'm a pedant and use correct spelling and grammar even when texting. However, I can understand those who do use textspeak while texting. I cannot understand people who use it while typing on the forums. Obviously, there are some lazy ******* people in the world.
____________________________
People don't like to be meddled with. We tell them what to do, what to think, don't run, don't walk. We're in their homes and in their heads and we haven't the right. We're meddlesome. ~River Tam

Sedao
#32 Sep 01 2013 at 4:05 PM Rating: Excellent
****
7,732 posts
Kastigir wrote:
Mazra wrote:
It's not an excuse on most phones, either. Since the introduction of touch screen phones, accessing numerals requires additional taps. I can write "to"/"too"/"two" faster than "2", because accessing "2" requires me to change from letters to symbols/numbers and then back again.

And since auto-correct and auto-complete is there, you can basically faceroll on the phone and still write a somewhat coherent sentence. "Txtspeak" is a thing of the past, where your phone had actual buttons, and accessing letters required additional presses of said buttons. Now, it's the other way around.

I can and do too. I'm a pedant and use correct spelling and grammar even when texting. However, I can understand those who do use textspeak while texting. I cannot understand people who use it while typing on the forums. Obviously, there are some lazy @#%^ing people in the world.


i will often let to vs too type of errors slide when using my phone to communicate. same thing with random periods and capitalization.

duck you is an unacceptable error though and always gets fix'd. my phone has been misspelling that word less often as it adjusts better to my normal word selection.
____________________________
Hellbanned

idiggory wrote:
Drinking at home. But I could probably stand to get laid.
#33 Sep 02 2013 at 9:01 AM Rating: Good
Muggle@#%^er
******
20,024 posts
That was such a sudden and total derail of this thread that it actually left me a little lost for a moment...

Anyway, re:MoP.

I did the trial thing a while back, to see if I could get into it. And I just couldn't, at all. But it would probably be unfair to unload too much of that on MoP. For me, the issue was Cataclysm. I hated Cataclysm. That's not to say that there's not stuff I don't like about MoP, but a lot of what I don't like is directly traced back to stuff introduced in Cata.

A massive part of my enjoyment in games comes from the story and lore. I can't get lost in game play like a lot of people do - I need it to have a real context in a story to enjoy it. And WoW's story crashed in a really, really bad way with Cataclysm.

Part of that was because they recast the world in the worst way possible - all conflict, all the time. And on top of that, any shared zone was essentially a full-on stalemate, forever. That's BORING. Sometimes you want to win. And to make winning sweet, that means you also need to lose.

Back in WC3 and the early days of WoW, Blizzard remembered that losing made stories better. You got your heroes through new waves of undead, unable to save anyone, and then discovered that things were worse than you thought and the plague was spreading. That wasn't a fine hour for the heroes, it was a dismal one. Then you make it to the safety of a village, but too late to save them. So you need to slaughter your former-allies and hold out until someone comes to save you. And Uther's charge in was such palpable relief - you were saved! But his comments hit home right away. Saved or not, alive or not, you had still failed. Your job was to protect your people, and you failed.

The entire human story line in WC3 is really about failing, but moving forward to fight another battle. But you didn't have a choice. It was keep moving forward, or fail. And it was good. And then it ends on a bittersweet note - you had completed your task; the demon was dead. But you were still lost. It's a lot like the ending of Wrath; There must always be a Lich King.

Now think about Cataclysm. How often do you fail? How often are there setbacks? How often do your actions trigger horrible consequences, or you find out your fight was all for naught?

Essentially, never.

And because of that, you don't really ever give a crap about victory outside of the actual tying-up of the entire plot arc. Why the hell should I care if Ragnaros is dead? Ragnaros never really mattered to me. Not because he didn't matter, period. But because Blizzard failed to ever give me an emotional reason to care about Ragnaros.

They never gave me a quest to gather some elemental essences of fire to infuse into bandages to save some burn victims, only to watch them die before we could actually apply the tincture. They never gave me a quest where they pushed our forces back up the mountain and made me feel like it was possible for us to lose. They never made me feel like it mattered.


Here's the thing. People want to feel like heroes, yes. People want to feel grand and important in the world. People want to win, and feel like the winner.

But feel is the operative word there. At some point, Blizz became too obsessed with giving players nothing but nonstop "heroic" experiences, without pausing to remember that all the great stories of heroism ultimately contain a lot of pain, too.

Sure, taking up the super-awesome-greatsword-of-destiny and putting it in a dragon's head is heroic. But what makes it FEEL heroic is when you see battle-hardened soldiers fall to their knees and weep in relief, when you understand just why they're weeping, when you remember the villages full of civilians that had been burned to a crisp, when another good-but-imperfect hero lies dead at the dragon's feet. Blizzard used to give you that.

Now, it's essentially all upwards climax, and they end with a "sacrifice" by a bunch of characters they never bothered to flesh out or make you care about in a way that would make the sacrifice real.

Sorry for putting the thread back on the rails, but I can't log in to FFXIV because the damn lobby server is down and I'm surly.
____________________________
IDrownFish wrote:
Anyways, you all are horrible, @#%^ed up people

lolgaxe wrote:
Never underestimate the healing power of a massive dong.
#34 Sep 02 2013 at 10:58 AM Rating: Decent
***
1,080 posts
idiggory, King of Bards wrote:

Sorry for putting the thread back on the rails, but I can't log in to FFXIV because the damn lobby server is down and I'm surly.


I'm reading this thread because of the overwhelming QQ crap on the FFXIV forum, and I can't get on the game either. (QQ)
And yea, I un-subbed from WoW. I have a couple weeks left in it but I don't even bother, despite the fact I can't play FFXIV.
Just FF jonesing here, got no fingernails left.
I'll miss WoW, but since I hadn't seriously raided since LK and my time lately consisted of leveling alts and battle pets...I think it's time to go. /sad

#35 Sep 02 2013 at 11:12 AM Rating: Decent
Muggle@#%^er
******
20,024 posts
I've been having some hardcore WoW nostalgia the past two days, though that's not terribly uncommon with new MMOs. Never been like this, though.

Thing is, it's nostalgia for a game that doesn't exist anymore, so it's not like there's much reason for me to really try getting into it.

For now, I intend to play FFXIV. If I get bored of that, I'll probably lapse back into TOR. Plenty of story left to check out there. Other than that, there's Wildstar and EQN on the horizon, which both look interesting.
____________________________
IDrownFish wrote:
Anyways, you all are horrible, @#%^ed up people

lolgaxe wrote:
Never underestimate the healing power of a massive dong.
#36 Sep 02 2013 at 11:48 AM Rating: Good
Ghost in the Machine
Avatar
******
36,443 posts
I miss the time when you would take on gnolls and Defias bandits for the local militia.

I also miss when you would not push buttons every 1.5 seconds. Remember when Paladins would just activate a Seal, throw out a Judgment and then let the RNG do its thing? Now you have to let RNG do its thing WHILE you're mashing buttons like a freak. Enhancement Shaman is even worse. Feral Druids may have a messed up rotation, but Shaman and Paladins are just crazy button mashers now.

And the playstyle is all the same.

Paladin: Mash buttons until 3 Holy Power, then use finisher.
Shaman: Mash buttons until 5 Maelstrom Weapon, then use finisher.
Druid: Mash buttons until 5 Combo Points, then use finisher.

Being a hybrid is damn boring. Yes, I'm saying the Unleash Elements, Fire Shock, Lava Lash, Stormstrike, Earth Shock, Lightning Bolt rotation of the Shaman is boring. It's a button mashing frenzy. The old Enhancement Shaman wasn't exactly fun, either, but it did feel more epic. If Windfury proc'd, you'd basically one-shot stuff, which felt epic. Same when Seal of Command would proc on the Paladin. Now, there's no epic feeling, it's just mashing buttons and then more buttons when they activate. All for mediocre damage (percentage wise). Druids were always more of a ramp-up class, but you had shapeshifting to balance it out. Now, well, you don't.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Blizzard turned combat in the game into a console fighting game where you mash buttons and activate special abilities when they light up. I guess it hits home with the kids and all that jazz, but sometimes I just miss the slow-paced action of years ago. There are too many variables and too many similarities now.
____________________________
Please "talk up" if your comprehension white-shifts. I will use simple-happy language-words to help you understand.
#37 Sep 02 2013 at 12:49 PM Rating: Good
Muggle@#%^er
******
20,024 posts
I'm liking how FFXIV is handling combat, but there's definitely room for improvement.

In general, everything is using an ability when the GCD is up. But that means every 2-2.5 seconds, depending on if you are physical or caster. And there's some variation in combat styles with how they approach rotations, and priority lists need to be evaluated with regards to your upcoming needs, not necessarily current needs.

It's definitely not perfect. I think they need to move a little further in that priority direction (maybe add some different combo options in). But it's refreshing enough I don't feel like I'm playing every other game, as of right now.
____________________________
IDrownFish wrote:
Anyways, you all are horrible, @#%^ed up people

lolgaxe wrote:
Never underestimate the healing power of a massive dong.
#38 Sep 02 2013 at 1:20 PM Rating: Excellent
****
5,599 posts
Jesus Christ, am I the only one who still plays this game and actually enjoys it?

Every other post on these forums is about how great WoW used to be (especially in this thread), when I think it's actually at a high point, if not its highest point right now.

Don't get me wrong, if people don't like the direction the game has gone, that's awesome. Good for you. But this thread is almost nothing but one-sided argument and circle jerking about how great things used to be.

Edited, Sep 2nd 2013 3:22pm by IDrownFish
____________________________
idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
I have a racist ****.

Steam: TuxedoFish
battle.net: Fishy #1649
GW2: Fishy.4129
#39 Sep 02 2013 at 1:47 PM Rating: Decent
Muggle@#%^er
******
20,024 posts
Then... add stuff to the contrary?
____________________________
IDrownFish wrote:
Anyways, you all are horrible, @#%^ed up people

lolgaxe wrote:
Never underestimate the healing power of a massive dong.
#40 Sep 02 2013 at 3:22 PM Rating: Excellent
****
5,599 posts
Sounds good.

Quote:
(re: talent choices or the lack of) Having played Rift a lot now, I could never go back to something as simplified and boring as the "choices" in WoW.


Rift vs WoW talents is apples to oranges, I think. Rift can keep the talent point system because there's only four classes, and the game was designed around using talents and various builds to achieve desired results. Support and hybrids are a thing there, not so in WoW. WoW's talent system was much more solvable than Rift's - when everyone is using the same talents, then what the hell is the point of them? At least now my talents change on a regular basis, depending on what I'm in the mood for or how I like to play a certain boss fight. Currently working on heroic Lei Shen, the hardest boss currently in WoW and I have two separate, completely different ways to spec my Priest, both of which have their pros and cons. Something liek that wouldn't be possible in the old system.

Quote:
I'm also willing to bet that a lot of people interested in starting up WoW are disheartened by the prospect of having to grind 90 levels while paying $15 a month for it, when other games let you do it for free. Said games also feature modern graphics, even physics, and give you something every level, whether just a talent/skill point or a new ability rank.


90 levels is a lot, yes, but there are also a huge amount of ways to speed up the process. It's really not as much as it seems, even for newcomers. I'll grant that there's not that much to look forward to every single new level - the devs acknowledge that and have it on a list of things to address. That said, you still gain abilities pretty quickly; even if it's just a passive effect it's still going to change up how you play more likely than not.

Quote:
Pandaria is pretty... pretty. It's also completely not my type of content. Never been much of an Asiaphile (not meant as a derogatory term). I've watched my share of Jet Li epics, don't get me wrong, but this is just too much. The Brewmaster was a cute gimmick in WC3, but to devote an entire expansion to it was just a terrible move, in my opinion.


That's your own opinion, and that's cool. Personally, I love Pandaria. I think it's ******* gorgeous, and I enjoy the Asian artstyle as a break from your standard Medieval Euro-fantasy style. Even then, it's still very distinctly WoW.

Quote:
In Pandaria, completely silly villains are brought in, and we have to care about them because of "blahblah quest text blahblah" that no one reads, because you have to do a million of them to gain a level-up. Take the first dungeon you come across - the Brewery. One boss is a giant ape, and the entire fight is obviously an homage to Donkey Kong. Another boss is a giant rabbit. The final boss is a floating mask conjured up from beer...

Yeah, can I go back to fighting Defias Bandits, please?


Holy hell no. Let's see, the major villains of 5.0 Pandaria were a race of intelligent hive-mind preying mantis creatures who were the Pandaria analogues of the Qiraji and the Nerubians and who also rampage across the continent every century or so. Then we have the pieces of a dead Old God who also feed of off negative emotions, basically making them the physical embodiments of fear, doubt, anger, hatred, pride, despair, and violence and who are trying to corrupt one of the last pure places of healing and life left on this shattered world. And let's not forget the psychotic and sadistic race that had enslaved all of Pandaria under their heel until the Pandaren were able to rise up and revolt, who are only now emerging from hiding.

5.1 is when the factions finally bring their war to Pandaria, which only feeds the Sha. Dalaran finally chooses a side, and all out war breaks out.

5.2 happens when the Zandalari resurrect the Thunder King, Lei Shen, who is the one who united the Mogu into the impossibly strong empire that enslaved the Pandaren. Did I mention that he also took the powers of a Titan watcher similar to Algalon? This guy is pretty much a threat to everything.

5.3 is the lead up to taking down Garrosh, who is also managing to use the beating heart of an Old God while still keeping his head.

The villains in this expansion are fine. That first dungeon is a single silly dungeon they did for fun - every other dungeon is serious and involves taking on an army, or cleansing a monastery of highly trained ninjas from the Sha. The first dungeon most people even see is the Temple of the Jade Serpent, which is a dungeon where you fight possession of the Sha of Doubt for one of the most sacred sites in Pandaria.

Quote:
The bosses in this expansion just seem so intangible. We're fighting anger made manifest. Okay, cool, except it all looks like black smokey goo. And the Horde vs. Alliance plot was never really explored until four content patches into the expansion. The expansion opens up with a pretty nice battle between the two factions, but then it's all "Well, we're in Pandaria now, and this panda dude said we shouldn't be angry, so let's kill some of the local monkeys/fishmen instead".

Three levels into the content and I'm still killing local monkeys/fishmen, cutting trees, picking flowers and meditating on whatever. I've had it up to @#%^ing here with the hippie bullsh*t, honestly. Can I please get some enemies that aren't small monkeys, bees and smokey black goo? Please?


Everything you are doing in Pandaria is for your faction. Killing the local monkeys/fishmen is trying to get you allies for your faction in a new valuable land. Fighting the black goo is so that they don't end up destroying your encampments and taking over your faction in Pandaria (Old Gods, remember?). Hell, Wrathion, the Black Prince, isn't even trying for peace - he actively supports your character because he believes that an even bigger threat than a petty war is coming, and he just wants it over ASAP. He is actively seeking for a way to grant you his power just so that you can finally crush the other side in the war and be ******* done with it already - there's bigger fish to fry. I really don't see the hippy stuff you're complainign about. Everything you do is for your faction's war effort.

Re: digg's criticism on Cata's storytelling.

Agreed, wholeheartedly. But there's a reason why Cataclysm was pretty much horrible, and Pandaria isn't. The Jade Forest, the first zone you quest in, ends with the war unleashing the sha and destroying something extremely sacred to the locals. You fail to stop the resurrection of the Thunder King. Jaina can't stop the Sunreavers abusing Dalaran's portal network, and goes on a slaughtering spree against them. 5.4 features Garrosh permanently and horribly corrupting the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, a place that is of purity and healing. Did I mention that the only reason Garrosh has access tot he Vale and the Heart of Y'shaarj is because your character went and petitioned the Celestials to open it up? Anduin believed the factions could conduct themselves there, that the gifts of the Vale were worth giving the factions a second chance. Now Garrosh has destroyed it and corrupted one of the few truly good places.

Garrosh has been very well done - people want him dead because of the stuff he's done and because of the stuff that they couldn't stop him from doing. All in all, Blizzard has done a great job in creating the first real purely WoW main villain that people care about.

Quote:
I also miss when you would not push buttons every 1.5 seconds. Remember when Paladins would just activate a Seal, throw out a Judgment and then let the RNG do its thing? Now you have to let RNG do its thing WHILE you're mashing buttons like a freak. Enhancement Shaman is even worse. Feral Druids may have a messed up rotation, but Shaman and Paladins are just crazy button mashers now.


So what, you would rather just throw up a seal, autoattack, and do the exact same dps as that idiot standing in the fire? Now, someone who knows what they're doing is actively rewarded with more success than someone who is just a warm body. And crazy button mashers? I disagree. I don't play an enhancement shaman myself, but I do play a Priest, a Monk, a Warlock, a Rogue, a Mage, and a Death Knight. All of them have significant differences in the rate of play, and with all of them I benefit from knowing how the **** to play my class, not just standing there attacking and letting the RNG do its work. Which brings me to my next point.

Quote:
And the playstyle is all the same.

Paladin: Mash buttons until 3 Holy Power, then use finisher.
Shaman: Mash buttons until 5 Maelstrom Weapon, then use finisher.
Druid: Mash buttons until 5 Combo Points, then use finisher.


No. No no no, I can't disagree more. With my Priest, I keep up DoTs on as many as I can while building Shadow Orbs which can be randomly generated or built up at a specific rate, depending on how I decide to spec my talents. I unleash them for burst or when I'm full for a hard hitting DoT, and if so specced I can then follow up with a buffed up Mind Flay. On my Mage with Arcane I have to actively manage my mana, trying to keep it above a certain percentage until I decide it's time to go balls to the wall and spend it all. With Fire I wait for the RNG to do its thing and then blast it as hard as I can as fast as I can - but I can also force a good RNG streak with certain abilities if I need the burst. With my Monk I DPS by being steady - it's very rotational, very sustained, which is pretty much the opposite of my Priest or Mage. Balance druids are always working towards one eclipse or the other, back and forth, with no "combo point / spender" analogue.

My point is that each spec plays very differently, with its own feel. You may have handpicked some specs that you think play similar, but I can just as easily counter with specs that I think play completely differently, each with their own unique feel. As far as spec variety goes, I think that everything is extremely unique.

Quote:
Being a hybrid is damn boring. Yes, I'm saying the Unleash Elements, Fire Shock, Lava Lash, Stormstrike, Earth Shock, Lightning Bolt rotation of the Shaman is boring. It's a button mashing frenzy. The old Enhancement Shaman wasn't exactly fun, either, but it did feel more epic. If Windfury proc'd, you'd basically one-shot stuff, which felt epic. Same when Seal of Command would proc on the Paladin. Now, there's no epic feeling, it's just mashing buttons and then more buttons when they activate. All for mediocre damage (percentage wise). Druids were always more of a ramp-up class, but you had shapeshifting to balance it out. Now, well, you don't.


I'm a little confused with this statement. Are you feeling that hybrids are weaker than pure classes? You miss being able to one shot **** all the time? I don't think the Shaman rotation is boring at all, and on all of my characters I can one shot things (or close to one shot) pretty easily, but only when the stars aline and things proc or my resources are all full or whatever.

And I actually would rather play a hybrid over a pure class. The amount of stuff I bring to a raid with my Priest is insane. I've been brought not because of my damage, which is on par with everyone else, but because of the extra healing I can provide if I needed to drop out of Shadowform. Vampiric Embrace is stilla thing, and the level 90 talents all have a damage and healing component in them which is super useful for progression. Our Shaman is amazing too, with Healing Tide totem, Healing Rain, etc. These days it's not just "the healer's job" to keep everyone up - there are times everyone needs to pitch in if they can.

I'm really not trying to criticize your opinions, guys. I'm just a little fed up with how much baseless bashing and circle jerking I see on this forum and others. Believe it or not, there are people who still enjoy the game, and people who like the direction it has gone. I really don't want to start a debate over this or that. "Don't like what we're saying, then go somewhere else" I bet you're thinking. Which I agree with, actually! In fact, this is really all that I will say on the matter, and if you guys want to keep on filling these forums with WoW bashing and "the game used to be so much better in WotLK and before" then more power too you. I just won't be reading it, and any new blood to the forums probably won't either.
____________________________
idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
I have a racist ****.

Steam: TuxedoFish
battle.net: Fishy #1649
GW2: Fishy.4129
#41 Sep 02 2013 at 3:53 PM Rating: Good
Muggle@#%^er
******
20,024 posts
Quote:
Garrosh has been very well done - people want him dead because of the stuff he's done and because of the stuff that they couldn't stop him from doing. All in all, Blizzard has done a great job in creating the first real purely WoW main villain that people care about.


I'm happy to hear they've bothered to make him something of an actual character, but I still have a lot of trouble forgiving his beginning. There is absolutely no justification for him ever gaining that kind of power in the first place (meaning, power in the Horde).

I can't reconcile Thrall into a character that absurdly foolish. Because it's not like they every played down Garrosh... at all. He was never a character that was conniving; the kind of character you could imagine was just that good at sucking up to Thrall.

He entered as a warmonger, he remained a warmonger, and he'll be leaving as a warmonger.

Spoilered the rest of this rant. Smiley: lolSmiley: lolSmiley: lol
I can totally reconcile Thrall keeping him close and wanting to guide him, of course. But there's absolutely no good reason to pair that with making him one of the Horde's generals. No reason why Thrall would continually allow a petulant child to endanger the lives of millions, particularly when you think of how often Garrosh was brought into contact with Alliance leaders and never once failed to antagonize them.

By the time Cata came around, they shoe-horned him into Warchief by combining factional support with Thrall's own faith he would change. There's no reason Thrall would have had SO MUCH faith as to put him in a position of power without ever once having proven himself. That's not how this works.

And Garrosh only gained factional support because Thrall put him in the limelight. And it makes utterly no sense. Particularly not when you remember that Garrosh had literally no support from any other Horde leaders. Thrall had to personally vouch for Garrosh to Vol'Jin and Cairne. And I can't imagine the Blood Elves were pleased about Garrosh' presence complicating their readmittance to Dalaran.


That's not to say I was ever pleased with Varian's character, either. But he was at least given enough story to make his anger sort of justifiable. Garrosh, at first, had daddy issues. Then he didn't, and he was just angry...

I dunno, to be honest, nothing you've written makes me interested in Garrosh as a villain. At all. I want him dead purely because I'm tired of seeing his face and listening to him whine. That's really it.

Arthas was a fantastic villain, though I don't think his WoW version lived up to the WC3 version. But he went from being tragic hero to tragic monster. A part of you always felt for Arthas, to the very end. The resonance between the cinematic, the ICC trailer, and the ending were super poignant.

Garrosh doesn't feel like a real character to me. Not like the WC3 cast used to. He feels like a caricature of what the Horde used to be made into a person. And that wouldn't be so bad, if they actually made him a symbol of the whole picture. The aggression with the loss, the Frostwolf clan with the Shadowmoon clan. Etc.

The weirdest part is that, at the end of the day, Garrosh is one of the most bloodthirsty Orc characters in the series. With is problematic, because all the other comparable Orcs were driven by demon blood.
____________________________
IDrownFish wrote:
Anyways, you all are horrible, @#%^ed up people

lolgaxe wrote:
Never underestimate the healing power of a massive dong.
#42 Sep 02 2013 at 6:14 PM Rating: Good
****
7,732 posts
i also very much enjoyed the story of pandas while i was still playing.

dread wastes was my favorite.
____________________________
Hellbanned

idiggory wrote:
Drinking at home. But I could probably stand to get laid.
#43 Sep 02 2013 at 6:52 PM Rating: Excellent
***
2,188 posts
IDrownFish of the Seven Seas wrote:
Sounds good.

*******************************************

I'm really not trying to criticize your opinions, guys. I'm just a little fed up with how much baseless bashing and circle jerking I see on this forum and others. Believe it or not, there are people who still enjoy the game, and people who like the direction it has gone. I really don't want to start a debate over this or that. "Don't like what we're saying, then go somewhere else" I bet you're thinking. Which I agree with, actually! In fact, this is really all that I will say on the matter, and if you guys want to keep on filling these forums with WoW bashing and "the game used to be so much better in WotLK and before" then more power too you. I just won't be reading it, and any new blood to the forums probably won't either.

You did a great job of arguing your point, and that's what forums are for. Don't think of it as a circle jerk, it's just that most of the people who are tired of WoW have been playing a while and suffer from that human frailty known as "the good old days"-itis. WoW can never be as good as it was in BC, yet toward the end of BC the hatred for BC was palpable.

*shrug* We humans are weird that way. We want the good old days because we can't have them. You can never go back.

____________________________
"the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
Hermann Goering, April 1946.
#44 Sep 03 2013 at 9:19 AM Rating: Good
Ghost in the Machine
Avatar
******
36,443 posts
I actually preferred WoW back in Vanilla, not BC. BC brought space pirates and tentacled Russian goatmen in interdimensional spaceships made out of crayon. Oh, and wind chimes...

IDrownFish, I considered responding to each of your points, but I lost track of it all, because the quick reply text field is tiny. Let me just address a few points, though:

Quote:
Rift vs WoW talents is apples to oranges, I think. Rift can keep the talent point system because there's only four classes, and the game was designed around using talents and various builds to achieve desired results. Support and hybrids are a thing there, not so in WoW. WoW's talent system was much more solvable than Rift's - when everyone is using the same talents, then what the hell is the point of them? At least now my talents change on a regular basis, depending on what I'm in the mood for or how I like to play a certain boss fight. Currently working on heroic Lei Shen, the hardest boss currently in WoW and I have two separate, completely different ways to spec my Priest, both of which have their pros and cons. Something liek that wouldn't be possible in the old system.


First off, WoW was originally designed around talents and builds. Don't forget that WoW has had "classic" talent trees longer than the new system.

Second, the new system did NOT remove the curse of cookie cutter builds. Go look up any WoW class guide online and you'll find min/max builds. The ONLY difference between the old system and the new is that you can mix across specs. The issue, however, is that you now have to choose between abilities that were core abilities beforehand. Very little is gained, and it's not real choice.

I also take it you haven't played Rift, because your comparison is off by a fair amount. My characters in Rift each have six different specs, and I alternate between them regularly, because each spec completely changes the character's playstyle.

Quote:
And I actually would rather play a hybrid over a pure class. The amount of stuff I bring to a raid with my Priest is insane.


Let me just stop you there for a moment. Priests are not hybrids. The TRUE hybrids of WoW are (were) the Paladin, Druid and Shaman classes. They were hybrids, because they could adapt to the situation and tank, heal or deal damage, depending on what was needed. Yes, Shaman could tank - which is why Rockbiter still increases threat and why Shaman can wield shields and wear mail armor. They just never finished the tanking aspect of the Shaman before release.

I realize that Discipline Priests and Demonology Warlocks (with Dark Apotheosis) are sort of blurring the lines a little, but when I refer to hybrids, I'm referring to the Shaman, Druid and Paladin, which brings me to the last point:

Quote:
My point is that each spec plays very differently, with its own feel. You may have handpicked some specs that you think play similar, but I can just as easily counter with specs that I think play completely differently, each with their own unique feel. As far as spec variety goes, I think that everything is extremely unique.


You're comparing casting classes to melee classes. That's not what I was doing. And I didn't handpick a couple of classes that looked alike. I just used the three hybrids as an example. I could add the Monk, Rogue and Death Knight to the list as well. Those three classes also feature a secondary resource system that needs to be built up in order for you to use certain other abilities.

The only melee class that does not follow this "build up, finish" mechanic is the Warrior, basically because the Warrior's primary resource system functions like every other class' secondary resource system. Just to give you an impression:

Shaman: Build up Maelstrom Weapon to activate* abilities.
Paladin: Build up Holy Power to activate abilities.
Druid: Build up Combo Points to activate abilities.
Rogue: Build up Combo Points to activate abilities.
Monk: Build up Chi to activate abilities.
Death Knight: Build up Runic Power to activate abilities.

* Of the six melee classes, the Shaman is the only one who does not unlock abilities with its secondary resource. The secondary resource merely allows the Shaman to weave abilities with cast-times into the rotation.

Oh, and...

Quote:
I'm really not trying to criticize your opinions, guys. I'm just a little fed up with how much baseless bashing and circle jerking I see on this forum and others.


One of those sentences is untrue.
____________________________
Please "talk up" if your comprehension white-shifts. I will use simple-happy language-words to help you understand.
#45 Sep 03 2013 at 10:03 AM Rating: Good
Muggle@#%^er
******
20,024 posts
I really, really hate the new talents system. Putting that out there.

As in I loathe it. For one, it's obviously a PVP system. And while this could have changed since I last looked at it closer to MoP's launch, it was definitely a cookie cutter style system.

It seemed like everything fell into one of two categories.

1. PVP abilities. Meaning, abilities that did the exact same thing, but did it in different ways. Generally CC or survivability. Which, while relevant to PVE, having any one of them was really the sum of the value for all. The different particulars of the mechanism rarely really mattered (and would be on a per-fight basis if they did).

2. "Clear winners." Meaning, abilities that could have an impact in the numbers game that is PVE, but are either so skewed in that favor (typically, those tiers seem to be 1 PVE talent and 2 PVP talents), or they have 3 options that all closely map to one of the specs. Sure, you COULD be a <insert spec> with <off-spec-ish talent>, but that's not really choice, and it doesn't really negate the cookie cutter option.

There was a time in WoW where you could go hybrid and be successful, where you balanced group benefit against personal benefit, where your final talent was usually more situationally powerful, so you didn't necessarily want to give up something else for it, and where you didn't switch your build at the drop of a hat just because so you actually cared about what you were choosing.

Plus, getting a point to spend every level was exciting. And hybrid builds for leveling were very popular. And play style was definitely a BIG factor there for a lot of classes.

At some point, though, Blizzard decided they weren't happy with players not taking the final talent in the trees, and they destroyed hybrids. Then they went all the way and locked out hybrids altogether. Then they went ALL the way and just reduced the talent system to a simple specialization system and just doled out the abilities.

Of course, the irony there is that it was worst for PVP, for whom this new talent system primarily exists.
____________________________
IDrownFish wrote:
Anyways, you all are horrible, @#%^ed up people

lolgaxe wrote:
Never underestimate the healing power of a massive dong.
#46 Sep 04 2013 at 12:37 AM Rating: Good
Ghost in the Machine
Avatar
******
36,443 posts
Whenever I think of the hybrids-that-were, I get a little misty-eyed, because it reminds me of a run through Scholomance back in the day. I ran as Feral (old Feral, before the Guardian crap), and while my damage output was clearly lower than that of the pure damage dealers in the group (this was before Recount became a must-have), I helped the group by doing support stuff. I would taunt some enemies off the tank as a Bear and help prevent him from getting overwhelmed. I'd jump into Cat and help burn down an elite. I threw CC everywhere and helped off-heal so the healer could catch a mana break (5-second rule, go!).

Rose-tinted glasses aside, the game was just more fun when people didn't care about numbers. I know some hardcore players will disagree, but go play SWTOR and you'll see all kinds of crazy stuff, because no one (or very few) run parses while playing. Being a Juggernaut/Guardian in SWTOR really reminds me of the old days in WoW. Similarly, Rift provides the hybrid aspect of the old WoW.

Like Digg said, these latest changes to the talent and spec system were put there for PvP reasons. When the serious business PvP thing happened (Arena eSports), the fun parts of the game took a nose-dive. Things that were gimmicky, but fun, were removed for balancing reasons. It hurt PvE just as much, because the development team didn't know how to make PvP and PvE modifiers.

WoW was released as a PvE game and is now being balanced like a PvP game. The core of the game was never meant to be balanced around PvP.

Yes, Rift has "ultimate specs" for PvP and PvE as well, but the difference is that they're not trying to change the core of the game to appease the min/max'ers. Hardcore players will roll with cookie cutter builds, but casual gamers can roll with whatever the hell they want. Blizzard dropped the ball in their attempt to appease everyone, and we ended up with a so tightly-balanced system that you get to choose maybe one or two talents based on your character's purpose.

Edited, Sep 4th 2013 8:41am by Mazra
____________________________
Please "talk up" if your comprehension white-shifts. I will use simple-happy language-words to help you understand.
#47 Sep 04 2013 at 1:40 AM Rating: Good
****
7,732 posts
idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
I really, really hate the new talents system. Putting that out there.

As in I loathe it. For one, it's obviously a PVP system. And while this could have changed since I last looked at it closer to MoP's launch, it was definitely a cookie cutter style system.


it was just as cookie cutter when we had trees. yes, sometimes that cookie cutter spec was hybrid, tri-spec dk in early wrath, VARP rogue in bc(?), frostfire bolt in wrath(?), feral charge PvP resto in bc, etc etc

maybe there was 3-4 choices per class but still you had a few different styles of play if you failed to figure it out or google it you were failing hard. the actual meaningful choices where minimal.

now you pick a spec, the spec picks your talents for you. yes, much of the new talents are PvP types, survival and CC with a few damage tiers. but those are things that can vary without crippling a specs ability to do its job. do you really want to meet the tank that thinks the 6% crit reduction talent isn't as good as 5% crit he can grab in the second tier of the fury tree?

granted the damage tiers do end being if x take y unless plenty adds then take z but still for many cases the difference for the average player, ie you, is non-existent.

tl;dr - talents have always been cookie cutter, you are wearing rose colored glasses

side note - i do miss getting a new talent point every level to some degree but getting 1% crit from a talent isn't as cool as getting a new ability. which are far better spaced and paced these days. of course getting to level 50 and getting mangle was awesome but getting at level 6 and not having to suffer for 44 levels is far better
____________________________
Hellbanned

idiggory wrote:
Drinking at home. But I could probably stand to get laid.
#48 Sep 04 2013 at 6:36 AM Rating: Good
Muggle@#%^er
******
20,024 posts
Horsemouth wrote:
idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
I really, really hate the new talents system. Putting that out there.

As in I loathe it. For one, it's obviously a PVP system. And while this could have changed since I last looked at it closer to MoP's launch, it was definitely a cookie cutter style system.


it was just as cookie cutter when we had trees. yes, sometimes that cookie cutter spec was hybrid, tri-spec dk in early wrath, VARP rogue in bc(?), frostfire bolt in wrath(?), feral charge PvP resto in bc, etc etc

maybe there was 3-4 choices per class but still you had a few different styles of play if you failed to figure it out or google it you were failing hard. the actual meaningful choices where minimal.

now you pick a spec, the spec picks your talents for you. yes, much of the new talents are PvP types, survival and CC with a few damage tiers. but those are things that can vary without crippling a specs ability to do its job. do you really want to meet the tank that thinks the 6% crit reduction talent isn't as good as 5% crit he can grab in the second tier of the fury tree?

granted the damage tiers do end being if x take y unless plenty adds then take z but still for many cases the difference for the average player, ie you, is non-existent.

tl;dr - talents have always been cookie cutter, you are wearing rose colored glasses

side note - i do miss getting a new talent point every level to some degree but getting 1% crit from a talent isn't as cool as getting a new ability. which are far better spaced and paced these days. of course getting to level 50 and getting mangle was awesome but getting at level 6 and not having to suffer for 44 levels is far better


It's not that simple.

For one, changes to content are pretty important here. In Vanilla, and even into BC, dungeon-running was the main source of content for most players. Raiding wasn't even remotely as common as it was in Wrath (and vastly less common than in MoP). On top of that, you weren't dual-speccing, you weren't respeccing at the drop of the hat.

You had to make actual decisions about AoE/CC vs. single target and support vs. personal performance. That first part survived into Wrath.

Sure, there were talents every single player was going to take, because they were signature talents of that spec. But at the dungeon-and-below and PVP levels of content, which is where the vast majority of players were actually playing, there was a lot you did to customize your build.

Yes, if we limit this to raiding, it hasn't changed a ton. But limiting it to raiding isn't telling of the actual player experience of content through those versions.
____________________________
IDrownFish wrote:
Anyways, you all are horrible, @#%^ed up people

lolgaxe wrote:
Never underestimate the healing power of a massive dong.
#49 Sep 04 2013 at 9:29 AM Rating: Excellent
Meat Popsicle
*****
13,666 posts
Mazra wrote:
Rose-tinted glasses aside, the game was just more fun when people didn't care about numbers. I know some hardcore players will disagree, but go play SWTOR and you'll see all kinds of crazy stuff, because no one (or very few) run parses while playing. Being a Juggernaut/Guardian in SWTOR really reminds me of the old days in WoW.
This.

There's something more satisfying about controlling and manipulating the environment and the things in it. Standing in one place, watching timers, and trying to mash buttons as efficiently as possible isn't entertaining to me. Probably why I moved to PvP for a good portion of later WoW days, CCing in a BG with a Warlock was super fun. Smiley: nod

Choke them, interrupt, knockdown, throw them across the room, jump on them, slow them and kite, use defensive CDs when you can't get away. Do you stall these adds or mow them down quickly? Which one do I kill first? Yes it matters. Can I take that group before the patrol gets here? Yes there's a couple of DPS procs to watch and you have to manage your rage or whatever, but it all means nothing if you can't keep the fight under control.
____________________________
That monster in the mirror, he just might be you. -Grover
#50 Sep 04 2013 at 12:35 PM Rating: Excellent
***
1,148 posts
idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
Sure, there were talents every single player was going to take, because they were signature talents of that spec. But at the dungeon-and-below and PVP levels of content, which is where the vast majority of players were actually playing, there was a lot you did to customize your build.


And most of the people who actually did this and chose not the talents that were optimal were made fun of by elitist a*holes.
Furthermore if the old system breaks down to "either google the best spec and copy it or play suboptimally but hey! at least YOU decide to do so" that's not as great as you paint it.

While much of the critic in this thread is valid, I think most it can be attributed to playing the same game for too long and finally having enough of it. The game I played the most in my life (aside from WoW) is Diablo 2. There are literally dozens of things about that game that drive me crazy now. But when I played it when it was new and fresh (even without the refinements Lord of Destruction brought) they did not faze me in the slightest.
#51 Sep 04 2013 at 1:45 PM Rating: Good
Muggle@#%^er
******
20,024 posts
TherealLogros wrote:
idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
Sure, there were talents every single player was going to take, because they were signature talents of that spec. But at the dungeon-and-below and PVP levels of content, which is where the vast majority of players were actually playing, there was a lot you did to customize your build.


And most of the people who actually did this and chose not the talents that were optimal were made fun of by elitist a*holes.
Furthermore if the old system breaks down to "either google the best spec and copy it or play suboptimally but hey! at least YOU decide to do so" that's not as great as you paint it.

While much of the critic in this thread is valid, I think most it can be attributed to playing the same game for too long and finally having enough of it. The game I played the most in my life (aside from WoW) is Diablo 2. There are literally dozens of things about that game that drive me crazy now. But when I played it when it was new and fresh (even without the refinements Lord of Destruction brought) they did not faze me in the slightest.


Yes, there were definitely cases of being blatantly sub-optimal. Aside from gear options, of course. Someone who didn't take the strongest talents in their tree, for some crazy desire to be unique, were mocked.

But the point is that the nature of the game at the time allowed for quite a bit of customization. Was there a point where you were just an idiot? Sure. And if you raided, your choices were largely made for you, and your guild probably made the decisions about what talents you were bringing to the table. But most people weren't raiding.

Most people were running dungeons or doing PVP. And in those arenas, you had a fair number of decisions to make.

I remember days when dungeon Mages were making actual decisions about how far they were willing to go into hybridization to boost their AoE vs. their ST vs. their mana efficiency. In dungeons, there was no right answer there. There were some wrong answers, sure. But there were plenty of right ones. I remember Mages having to decide if they wanted Ice Block or Combustion, if they wanted to spread their 20-21 extra points between trees to balance their support, or go all the way for abilities.

And all these options had actual pros/cons in a dungeon-running context. There was no right answer there. Because you had 51 points to spend, but talent trees only had 31 point tiers, the sheer extent to which you could spread points around was huge.

I'm not interested in comparing raid experience against raid experience, because that's not indicative of overall player experience at the time.
____________________________
IDrownFish wrote:
Anyways, you all are horrible, @#%^ed up people

lolgaxe wrote:
Never underestimate the healing power of a massive dong.
Reply To Thread

Colors Smileys Quote OriginalQuote Checked Help

 

Recent Visitors: 66 All times are in CST
Anonymous Guests (66)