World of Warcraft

[Dave.]

Tried getting into turtle wow, but I quit because the tranny jannies who run that server are fucking insufferable.

 

[GenociderSyo]

Season of Mastery realms are being shut down. They may return at a future time. Blizzard gave a ONE DAY warning on this.

 

[Retink Retunk]

Comically enough, I did a 2 months return to BC Classic, and the content was indeed piss-easy and all the former community and merit-simulation was over, and neckbeards were running the same raid with gold bidding for items, essentially ruining the game completely.

I wonder how much of it is because we haven't seen much innovation in the past decade on that system in most games, so people are just very well conditioned to playing it. Going from Counterstrike to WoW is a completely different game set, as keyboard movement was something you had to work to break free of. Diablo was a very different game, same with RTS games but they were probably a lot closer to the key motions and mouse movement.

Now most games seem to use very similar inputs, such as MOBAs which also use mouse movement and keyboard action bars. It's a hard problem to solve, but I think some of the issue with gaming lately is it all uses the same inputs and systems. Maybe one day we'll see that new type of game that doesn't make sense to any of us, and feels like that exciting challenge again, despite being easy once you figure out the tricks.

 

[AgendaPoster]

I wonder how much of it is because we haven't seen much innovation in the past decade on that system in most games, so people are just very well conditioned to playing it. Going from Counterstrike to WoW is a completely different game set, as keyboard movement was something you had to work to break free of. Diablo was a very different game, same with RTS games but they were probably a lot closer to the key motions and mouse movement.

Now most games seem to use very similar inputs, such as MOBAs which also use mouse movement and keyboard action bars. It's a hard problem to solve, but I think some of the issue with gaming lately is it all uses the same inputs and systems. Maybe one day we'll see that new type of game that doesn't make sense to any of us, and feels like that exciting challenge again, despite being easy once you figure out the tricks.

Kinda have my doubts it will happen, at least not soon.
The success of early WoW was quite a complex phenomenon. First, it was inside a universe most of us already appreciated from Warcraft I-III, that had a rather well done story. It promised the continuation of that tale. Second, it required your time investment for anything of worth, so it filtered out a lot of complaining-type of people. It required a lot of social interactions to achieve success, in an era that was far more free and without strict rules, people were shitposting all over the place, the Barrens chat was like 4chan basically.
And people were different too back then. They tolerated bugs and all sorts of imperfections, Blizzard was incredibly well liked.
Very hard to replicate mix of conditions.
As for new controllers to replace M+K, you'll likely need to wait for some VR stuff that's accessible to nearly everyone, and I don't see that happening soon.
That's not even touching on the corporatization of gaming and the shareholder expectations, things used to be different, people would get together out of passion to tell a story, like Bioware did, and grow due to organic success, with near zero corporate shenanigans.
And there's also the audience, it was implicitly male, white/western, and nerdy. In East Europe for example I never got to have dial up net, it was far too expensive. Only in the mid 2000s when some corporation started cable Internet I got to have it in my home, before that it was at school, university, or gaming club. So not even parts of Europe could participate in large numbers in the first MMOs before WoW, it was largely an American thing. It was expected that the product was to please a heterosexual white American geeky male.
Nowadays we all know what we have to deal with and how things changed.
Very pessimistic about gaming.

 

[Well Intentioned]

Now most games seem to use very similar inputs, such as MOBAs which also use mouse movement and keyboard action bars. It's a hard problem to solve, but I think some of the issue with gaming lately is it all uses the same inputs and systems. Maybe one day we'll see that new type of game that doesn't make sense to any of us, and feels like that exciting challenge again, despite being easy once you figure out the tricks.

Asking because I honestly don't know (and maybe someone reading this does) but was UX really a thing back then?

It seems like we've come towards a standardization for UI and the such whereas before it was very slapdash, and I assume that's trickled down into other facets.

 

[Thiletonomics]

Blizzard will be raising the prices of Hearthstone in-game items, in several non-US countries:



And it's only funny now that they refer to Taiwan, since the contract with NetEase to run Blizzard games in China ended. Also, their financials must be REALLY hurting now, with the loss of China, or Bobby Kotick wanted to challenge Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks to see who can charge the most for their games.

 

[toallyreel]

While this is really funny, since norf probably played about only a week of any sort of gameplay before dropping it, it highlights a much bigger problem in the current MMO genre that I think is really cucked.

Yer paying ~$15 a month for your game of choice. Said game should be worth that money, each month, month after month. This game and others have an up-front price tag of $60 or whatever, plus $50 expansions, then you gotta pay $15 a month. To have access after the first month that's $115, assuming you bought shadowlands then had to buy DF. So is the game worth the price? Probably not, DF doesn't do a whole lot and is just a nonoffensive (npcs not-included lol gay frogs) expansion. But if you think it is, it should be worth that money, each month, month after month. There's this whole wave of streamers now playing 2, 3, 4 mmos. They don't have a real job or life and can just hop on, have their simps give them infinite money/gear and carry them through everything, experience a slice of the game then move on to the next youtube-worthy clipbait mmo game. They get to say how great that last game was even though they only experienced a small, choice selection of it with their simps trying hard as they can to make sure they only experience the good. I'm not saying they can't enjoy the games that way, but what's retarded is when they try to tell people shelling out all this cash for one of these grandiose games that they should be happy for a game that will last less than most other retail games these days. Asmongold, Preach others have been pushing this narrative recently that one should be happy to just finish an mmo's content in a few days and twiddle your thumbs for the months afterwards, because you got reacts and other mmos to do.

If an mmo is going to have that kind of price tag, it better be worth it. Gamers have been absolutely fine with paying these premiums if the game is worth it and there's nothing inherently wrong with monthly sub prices, but this whole movement of mazed players rolling over and letting these games have nothing to do in them is just wrong. Consumers should stand up and demand more from these companies, and pull their sub when they can't deliver instead of just being mazed consoomers. The 100 people pushing mythic raids, or +25 keys, or high pvp ratings might have their game, but the game should offer more than that. MMOs used to be about logging into another world and having a fresh adventure every day, and are now boiled down to mathematical time sinks. And everyone saying it's fine to not demand more and be happy there's nothing to do is the most cucked of all.

 

[Tanner Glass]

Blizzard will be raising the prices of Hearthstone in-game items, in several non-US countries:

View attachment 4535057

And it's only funny now that they refer to Taiwan, since the contract with NetEase to run Blizzard games in China ended. Also, their financials must be REALLY hurting now, with the loss of China, or Bobby Kotick wanted to challenge Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks to see who can charge the most for their games.

It's more likely to stop people from the US from buying them for insanely cheap by changing their region.

It's pretty common in most games - to buy shop items from a different country for way cheaper. WoW gametime used to be like $4/month if you had an account in a shithole country.

 

[John Furrman]

I’ve come back to WoW after unsubbing in early Cataclysm. From what I’ve gathered it sounds like there were several rough expansions since i left, but I’m seeing a lot things I like. The first thing I notice is how much quest design has improved since Wrath, notably how each quest hub’s quests are all localized, and when complete another quest moves you onto the next hub. Following these quest chains gave me a good tour of every zone. Overall I enjoyed going through the new zones a lot. Dragonriding is fun and cuts out a lot of the downtime experienced by just travelling when compared to Wrath. In fact, while going through wrath questing with a friend, it was interesting to lose the rose tinted glasses and seeing how much blizz has improved the questing experience. Wrath quest hubs are not localized as well, making it easy to miss quests and having to backtrack.

For DF, I chose to play preservation evoker. I love the design for the dragon people. A cool class, coming from being a resto druid in the past. All the abilities feel good to use. Especially discovering the combinations when used with echo. The bronze magic mechanics are fun, and when paired with the burst healing from the green magic, the close calls of bringing players back from almost dying reminds me of why I liked WoW. Bringing back talent trees was a good call. I copied some builds to get myself started in raid healing and M+, and since then I’ve been able to experiment with changing those builds, another good feeling. I will continue to work my way up the M+ ranking until I get bored. I don’t mind the research needed to pull off the higher keys.

Coming back after 11 years, there was a lot to do and learn. M+ is new to me and a good experience as i learned to build competent teams. The reputation system rework for the DF factions feels more substantial with its rewards than just grinding to exalted to get the best faction rewards. Weekly quests and world quests are interesting, but now i mostly do the dragonriding ones for the gold.

Some other miscellaneous things:
Almost all the players I’ve pugged with have been affable. The weekly affixes keep things interesting. Despite being a very old game, the style for the game has aged gracefully.
Server merging helped with the low population server i was on feel more lively. Cross faction groups are a change I like. The gold inflation since wrath is a lot, but quests seem to give enough gold. I like the default UI. Baking in some of the popular addons I used to use is pleasing. Probably some more quality of life changes that I’m not recalling at this moment.

Final thoughts, I’m enjoying the new expansion, but I wish it was launched with more raiding content. It’s easier to get gear through a more casual experience, unlike what use to be almost a full-time job when doing progression raiding in Wrath. I can log on for an hour or two and feel like i made some progress without having to be in a raiding guild. I hope the roadmap blizz has planned meets all its deadlines.

 

[AgendaPoster]

I’ve come back to WoW after unsubbing in early Cataclysm. From what I’ve gathered it sounds like there were several rough expansions since i left, but I’m seeing a lot things I like. The first thing I notice is how much quest design has improved since Wrath, notably how each quest hub’s quests are all localized, and when complete another quest moves you onto the next hub. Following these quest chains gave me a good tour of every zone. Overall I enjoyed going through the new zones a lot. Dragonriding is fun and cuts out a lot of the downtime experienced by just travelling when compared to Wrath. In fact, while going through wrath questing with a friend, it was interesting to lose the rose tinted glasses and seeing how much blizz has improved the questing experience. Wrath quest hubs are not localized as well, making it easy to miss quests and having to backtrack.

For DF, I chose to play preservation evoker. I love the design for the dragon people. A cool class, coming from being a resto druid in the past. All the abilities feel good to use. Especially discovering the combinations when used with echo. The bronze magic mechanics are fun, and when paired with the burst healing from the green magic, the close calls of bringing players back from almost dying reminds me of why I liked WoW. Bringing back talent trees was a good call. I copied some builds to get myself started in raid healing and M+, and since then I’ve been able to experiment with changing those builds, another good feeling. I will continue to work my way up the M+ ranking until I get bored. I don’t mind the research needed to pull off the higher keys.

Coming back after 11 years, there was a lot to do and learn. M+ is new to me and a good experience as i learned to build competent teams. The reputation system rework for the DF factions feels more substantial with its rewards than just grinding to exalted to get the best faction rewards. Weekly quests and world quests are interesting, but now i mostly do the dragonriding ones for the gold.

Some other miscellaneous things:
Almost all the players I’ve pugged with have been affable. The weekly affixes keep things interesting. Despite being a very old game, the style for the game has aged gracefully.
Server merging helped with the low population server i was on feel more lively. Cross faction groups are a change I like. The gold inflation since wrath is a lot, but quests seem to give enough gold. I like the default UI. Baking in some of the popular addons I used to use is pleasing. Probably some more quality of life changes that I’m not recalling at this moment.

Final thoughts, I’m enjoying the new expansion, but I wish it was launched with more raiding content. It’s easier to get gear through a more casual experience, unlike what use to be almost a full-time job when doing progression raiding in Wrath. I can log on for an hour or two and feel like i made some progress without having to be in a raiding guild. I hope the roadmap blizz has planned meets all its deadlines.

I've been through a similar honeymoon after I returned to WoD after quitting in Cata, lmao. I was wondering why some many people were unhappy, I just wanted to kill more big ogres and orcs in the raids. By the time WoD hit its last patch and I was literally running the raid only to score fast kill records cause my mage was completely broken, I was bored out of my mind, but it was fun till that point.
The graphics are not the same as from the "very old" era, there were multiple make ups applied, including getting to DX11 and then DX12, making the game a bit more friendly to multicore CPUs, adding RT, new models, new textures and a lot, lot more. This is why if you log to a "WoW killer" game (for example GW2 from 2012) that was praised at the time to have vastly superior graphics, you'll find out that since then WoW became the better looking game by a significant margin.

 

[John Furrman]

I've been through a similar honeymoon after I returned to WoD after quitting in Cata, lmao. I was wondering why some many people were unhappy, I just wanted to kill more big ogres and orcs in the raids. By the time WoD hit its last patch and I was literally running the raid only to score fast kill records cause my mage was completely broken, I was bored out of my mind, but it was fun till that point.
The graphics are not the same as from the "very old" era, there were multiple make ups applied, including getting to DX11 and then DX12, making the game a bit more friendly to multicore CPUs, adding RT, new models, new textures and a lot, lot more. This is why if you log to a "WoW killer" game (for example GW2 from 2012) that was praised at the time to have vastly superior graphics, you'll find out that since then WoW became the better looking game by a significant margin.

I waited two months before I drew too many conclusions so I could be more impartial with them. I feel like my expectations, while tempered due to hearing the woes of Shadowlands, were met.

That explains why it looks better than I remember. I was wondering why, but I also have a machine that can run it at higher settings than my shitty laptop in 2010.

 

[ZMOT]

If an mmo is going to have that kind of price tag, it better be worth it. Gamers have been absolutely fine with paying these premiums if the game is worth it and there's nothing inherently wrong with monthly sub prices, but this whole movement of mazed players rolling over and letting these games have nothing to do in them is just wrong. Consumers should stand up and demand more from these companies, and pull their sub when they can't deliver instead of just being mazed consoomers. The 100 people pushing mythic raids, or +25 keys, or high pvp ratings might have their game, but the game should offer more than that. MMOs used to be about logging into another world and having a fresh adventure every day, and are now boiled down to mathematical time sinks. And everyone saying it's fine to not demand more and be happy there's nothing to do is the most cucked of all.

again that's mostly a WoW problem. how many MMOs even have subs at this point where it could be an issue? FF14 has always been open about their patch cycle and that you should play something else (and unsub, although it will fuck with stuff like housing), ESO gives you currency to spend where you get more PLUS sub than buying it directly (which zenimax has then to drain in some way, but it's mostly cosmetic) - and it's still playable without sub. the vast majority of the industry is using a different monetization from the start or switched years ago. that's not necessarily better, but at least most people feel they get something for their money.

 

[spacko]

Tried getting into turtle wow, but I quit because the tranny jannies who run that server are fucking insufferable.

i got permabanned for telling someone that every copy of hogwarts legacy people buy, a tranny dies

edit: in gchat. the message didnt even go through to gchat, then about 10 seconds later i got a 180 minute ban, then i got booted back to login with a "your account got restricted" message

i tried to log in to the forums but got an error saying my username is banned

i emailed support but havent heard back yet. fingers crossed!!!!!!!!

 

[Dave.]

i got permabanned for telling someone that every copy of hogwarts legacy people buy, a tranny dies

edit: in gchat. the message didnt even go through to gchat, then about 10 seconds later i got a 180 minute ban, then i got booted back to login with a "your account got restricted" message

i tried to log in to the forums but got an error saying my username is banned

i emailed support but havent heard back yet. fingers crossed!!!!!!!!

All I did was quote this TV show while people were spamming random quotes in world chat:

Then I got a in game tell from one of the GMs, and I got a message via GM messaging, AND I got an in game mail giving me a warning, AND I got an E-MAIL, AND I got contacted via discord saying that I shouldn't make sexual remarks in chat and that something like that could offend someone. It was that one infraction that pushed me over the edge to never touch this server ever again. It also suffers from a playerbase who are complete sociopaths for reasons that need not be reiterated.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

i got permabanned for telling someone that every copy of hogwarts legacy people buy, a tranny dies

But according to their own rhetoric, that's literally true. I mean, the body wasn't even fucking cold of that murder in the UK before they started wagging it around to claim that this is what happens when you buy the best-selling game on steam that's outsold Elden Ring by magnitudes and what still afaik remains the #1 streamed game on twitch. You were silenced for trying to warn people!

But really, this isn't surprising. Retard no-hopers ruined the retail game's community, the classic game's community - why wouldn't they ruin pservers' communities? The return to MMO communities of old, that great big grill in the sky, is in reality just a great big pie in the sky. It's cluster B disorders, NEETs, and discord groomers all the way down anymore.

 

[spacko]

But according to their own rhetoric, that's literally true. I mean, the body wasn't even fucking cold of that murder in the UK before they started wagging it around to claim that this is what happens when you buy the best-selling game on steam that's outsold Elden Ring by magnitudes and what still afaik remains the #1 streamed game on twitch. You were silenced for trying to warn people!

But really, this isn't surprising. Retard no-hopers ruined the retail game's community, the classic game's community - why wouldn't they ruin pservers' communities? The return to MMO communities of old, that great big grill in the sky, is in reality just a great big pie in the sky. It's cluster B disorders, NEETs, and discord groomers all the way down anymore.

trannies larping as stalin

theyve set it up so that anyone expressing a naughty thought is instantly identified, their crime recorded and reported so within seconds they can punish someone temporarily or permanently. meanwhile nobody ever saw what was said, custom notification scripts make sure nobody gets a message saying someone has gone offline or left the guild. they have been disappeared in-game and cant post about it on the forum and if theyre stupid enough to donate real money for tokens to their fully functioning in game shop, theyve lost that too and theres nothing they can do about it

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

The return to MMO communities of old, that great big grill in the sky, is in reality just a great big pie in the sky. It's cluster B disorders, NEETs, and discord groomers all the way down anymore.

Seems like real Chads just make their own little pserver a call it a day.

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

Got a question for you guys; out of all of the playable races in WoW, which one do you guys think got fucked the hardest in terms of characterization? Which race is the biggest example of Blizzard's shitty writing? Personally, I feel like it's a toss-up between either the Pandaren or the Tauren these days; the pandas just don't seem to have much in general from what I can see, while the minotaur leader is willing to let his own people get slaughtered because of some weird Alliance fetish he's got. Granted, I've been out of the loop for quite a while, so things might've changed, but...

Anyway, which WoW race best represents the nadir of Blizzard's shitty writing?

 

[GenociderSyo]

Anyway, which WoW race best represents the nadir of Blizzard's shitty writing?

I'd say the Forsaken kinda got fucked and retconned in Shadowlands.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

I don't know that it's the worst but darkspear got done dirty. Voljin had some really cool moments in Pandaria and then they gave him warchief and then ignored him for an expansion and then killed him off because they killed off Varian and they couldn't possibly kill off an alliance character without killing off a horde character, never mind that they kill off horde characters all the time. Now there's almost no named darkspear characters, Rokkan is a nothing burger and Zappyboi is basically irrelevant but if they gave him screen time he'd just be a troll version of Baine.