What's the point of a fansite these days?Follow

There have always been breadcrumb quests, you're right. But I distinctly remember a few times in the leveling process where I would finish up a zone, then have no idea where the hell to go. Happened more than once in a character's lifetime.

I remember at the end of Stonetalon Mountain you don't get a breadcrumb quest, but Garrosh does tell you to go to either Desolace or Southern Barrens if you want to help the Horde. You just have to actually listen to what he says.

The other one I remember from after the Sundering is the Breadcrumb to Uldum from Deepholm. You actually get the hint to check out Uldum after you're only about half-way through the zone, so if you finish the quest (I think you finish it in Org) before you finish Deepholm, you'll have to check the Warchief's Command board to know where to go next.

Pre-Sundering, I remember one quest from STV that would send you to Arathi. It didn't actually link up with any other quests, though. If you just went to the zone and did your thing and came back, you missed the trail completely.

I think this is over-stated way too much. There's always a story floating around about how someone got named and shamed into having to server transfer to escape their bad rep. More often than not, no one cares. Back in BC, if you ended up with a couple people from a raiding guild in your instance daily PuG, they could be just as bad as anything I've seen since the dungeon finder. Worse in some cases, because BC heroics could be pretty rough early on.

My first toon was a NE Rogue. And then I got bored and made a Human Pally. That was back when Ret was ludicrously powerful, because they made a coding mistake for seals. :P But it lasted a decent while. Was fun killing everything my level in 1 hit. Was less fun after the nerf when they had no dps abilities and only moderate damage...

I promptly abandoned him, lol.

I liked when Retribution's rotation consisted of auto-attacking with Seal of Command.

I miss Seal of Command.

I agree that this part is overstated. The problem I have with the dungeon finder is you don't really make any friends. Part of grouping on the same server in MMOs was meeting people and adding them to your friend list and grouping more often with the same familiar faces. Now it's just wham bam thank you, mam.

Yeah, frost isn't a great dps spec for PvE, but it is still viable. I think it does about as well as either ele or enhancement shamans.

But that's what guilds are for. I realize not everyone is as lucky as me and Therion are, but honestly I am perfectly content with the social aspects of the game because of my guild. I admit, it was nice putting groups together on your server and making new friends that way. I do miss that, but my social needs are already met.

This. There's nothing stopping anyone from spamming trade like we did in TBC and WotLK pre-dungeon finder. Especially if you're a tank or healer, there will always be DPS looking to bypass their 30-min queue. And if you're DPS, it doesn't hurt to ask while you're waiting in queue. Some days you might find a tank, some days you might even find a good one. The only thing you could say that's really gone is the forced-grouping from the random heroic daily.

Forums are for me a way of wasting time at work, but that's what they've mostly been for in the past for me too.

Quests - the in game helper has pretty much eliminated the 'where do I go for this' searches, but I still find sites useful occasionally. Recent example is when I did the arena quest in Gadgetzan, handed a quest in for gold and got no follow up, pretty sure it should end with an item reward and that I wasn't too low level (no grey exclamation mark and it was easy to solo). Searching online confirmed that there were more steps and the comments from other players explained what other quests I needed to do to continue the chain (and explained some potential ways the encounter could bug out).

Simplified stat system - forums are still good for specifics, I don't want to work out how much hit rating I need to cap, or if a talent increasing spell damage for one spell is better than a competing one for a different spell (or if something is going to proc enough or mitigate enough damage to be worthwhile). Forums are useful for finding out what the people who have the time/desire to do the maths think about different scenarios. Also I like fansites for working out potential upgrades, I know there is the armoury upgrade feature and I think the raid guide has loot lists but I don't find those as easy to use as going to a website, picking the slot and stats I want and seeing a list of all the available items.

Dungeon Journal - explains the 'what' of the fights but the 'how' is still nice to look up elsewhere. I still like looking at external boss guides and using the journal as a reminder of abilities.

Forums are also useful for getting other peoples perspectives on things, e.g. you may be the only person in your guild who plays a particular spec so not have anyone you can talk to about specific issues with play style or particular encounters. With forums you can read what other people are having trouble with or finding useful or ask fellow players for advice.

I guess for me fansites have mostly been about upping my ability. On the route from 1-60 I never visited forums, it wasn't until I started raiding regularly that I began looking for more detailed information about my class and boss encounters. As much as they are making information more accessible in game I can't see Blizzard listing priorities for ability use or breaking down boss fights in the way that a strategy guide would, so there will always be a gap for fansites to fill in providing that sort of specific information.

On the dungeon finder, I agree that something is lacking from not playing with people from your own server (though you have to be really bad to have any lasting impact on reputation) though I would probably be happy with some sort of 'would like to play with this person again' option in the LFD tool. Then again I'm not much of a social person so can't say I made much use of the social aspects of the old group forming methods anyway.

This kind of lamenting just really irks me. Nothing is stopping you from building a group through chat channels on your server. Just because it isn't forced upon you doesn't mean the interaction is completely gone. I've built leveling dungeon groups at various level ranges, as well as quest groups while in leveling zones, and I've only been playing since after Cataclysm.

And what other MMOs have you played?

I think his point that "nothing's stopping you" is a really misleading statement.

It's true that you are perfectly able to try and put together groups this way. But the fact remains that it is vastly less likely to succeed in doing so.

I mean, nothing's stopping me from going to med school. Except that no med school wants me to attend.

Naturally you will be able to put together SOME groups. If you are trying to put together a group for chain-dungeons, you'll have some success across levels. But just trying to put together a group for a single run? Good luck with that one. Yeah, it's possible. But it's going to take a hell of a lot longer than the LFG tool will, in all likelihood, and you'll have to actively recruit people (which means sitting in town doing nothing).

Part of the problem is something that has always irked me about WoW--leveling is essentially filler content. It's something you rush through solo so you can get to the real game. This, realistically, wasn't the case for many (if not most) MMOs before WoW. At least the ones I played. Grouping to level up was common in all of them, and the game was set up so that it added to the fun. And leveling wasn't something you did to get to cap, it was something you did for the fun of it.

This was WAY more true in Vanilla than it is today (though it was still filler-ish in Vanilla).

Back then, you at least interacted with the community on a regular basis (even if you didn't frequently group up). Now? "Community" is pretty much limited to **** spam in trade chat, and your guild.

Think about it. The game model of WoW nowadays looks more like a console multiplayer system. Wait for matchups, play a game, repeat. While you are waiting you can chat with your friends. It's impersonal and you don't care about the people on your team.

That definitely wasn't how it used to be. And I find that sad.

Looking back, I honestly think I had more fun in Valkurm Sands leveling groups (as god awful as some could be) than I have in instance groups nowadays in WoW. The combat is infinitely better, the mobs do interesting things, I hit way more buttons. But there's no real sense of playing with people anymore.

You know what it reminds me of? When you'd get a rare invite into a Japanese leveling party, where it would go super fast and you'd get great exp, but they weren't even talking to each other (and couldn't with you). Those were way less fun, even if they were usually more efficient.